I'm taking the imperial examinations in Liaozhai

On a summer day, the sun is scorching hot.The heat wave swept across the land, and the plants and trees lowered their heads, listless, unable to raise their spirits.Occasionally a gust of wind blows, and it is also a hot wind. It is really tormenting to rush on this kind of day.

Although there are sparse old trees on the side of the road for shade, there is not much use for it.Ji Zihe wiped the sweat from his head, only to feel that the clothes on his back were soaked.The donkey under him hung its head and was not very energetic. It was panting, and it was too hot.

"Bone, where have we been?" Ji Zihe asked.

Although the book "The Story of the Blue Bird" is broken, it is really useful.The map of the Great Chu Kingdom is quite comprehensive on it. Although some places have changed their names, it does not affect the use.Although Ji Zihe is a resident who has never been out of the county, he is not in vain now.Since "The Story of the Blue Bird", Grandpa no longer has to worry about getting lost.

"Come on, at our current speed, we will be able to reach Jingzhou City in another ten days and a half months." Bone took out "The Story of the Blue Bird" to check it out, and then put it away.

Their speed was not too fast, but they did not delay on the road. They had been walking for more than a month, and they had traveled more than half of the distance.

Jingzhou is the capital of Dachu, located in the north of Dachu.In the former dynasty, Jingzhou was just a city close to the northern border. It was not a big city, but it was also a military center.After the founding of Great Chu, the enemies in the north were eyeing them. In order to take care of the war in the north and deal with military affairs immediately, the emperor of Great Chu gave up the rich and beautiful Jiangnan water town and moved his capital to the relatively barren city of Yanjing in the north. Later, Yanjing was renamed Jingzhou.It is also because of the emperor's act of guarding the country that the emperor of Dachu is so popular, and the national power is still strong for hundreds of years.

"Master, it's almost noon. There is a grass market nearby. Would you like to rest there?" Huang Jiulang said.

"Really, but where is the grass market, why didn't I see it?" Ji Zihe was puzzled.

"I smelled it with my nose." Huang Jiulang said with some embarrassment. Foxes are also canids, so it's normal to have a good nose.

Ji Zihe straightened his expression, and accidentally forgot that the book boy is not a human being, how can it be broken?It's really that Xiao Jiu behaves too much like a human being on weekdays. Sometimes Ji Zihe really forgets that he is also a monster with supernatural powers.

The grass market is a place where spontaneous gatherings and transactions are gathered in the countryside. It is not a formal market, the scale is small, and there are not many things traded. They are all very common things.

Of course, Ji Zihe didn't plan to buy anything, he just wanted to find a tea shed, drink a bowl of herbal tea, and eat a bowl of noodles.During the journey, for convenience, he always used steamed buns as dry food, but he forgot to buy pickles at the last market, which caused him to eat several meals of white steamed buns, and now he feels like vomiting when he sees steamed buns.Ji Zihe is now talking about it when it's meal time, and when he gets to the market, he must buy some pickles, otherwise he really can't eat it.

This grass market was not on their way forward, Huang Jiulang led them into a small road, and walked for a long time before seeing the bustling place.

When he arrived at Caoshi, Ji Zihe found a tea shed and ate a bowl of noodles with a strong salty taste as he wished, which saved him from fading out of the bird's mouth.

The sun is still quite high now, and it will be even hotter at noon.Ji Zihe ordered a few bowls of herbal tea and sat in the tea shed, planning to leave when it was cooler.

There is a stall selling pears under the tree next to the tea shed. The stall owner is wearing a big straw hat, some of them have tanned skin, a cloth towel around their neck, and they are sitting on the carriage with pears.Judging by his appearance, he doesn't look like a philistine merchant, but maybe a nearby villager who sells the pears he grows at home.

The stall owner has been shouting hard, but his business is not very good, because his pears are more expensive.Ji Zihe looked at the pears in his house, they were very big and looked very juicy. Those who had eaten pears beside him also said that the pears tasted good, and thought it was worth the price, so he planned to ask Xiao Jiu to buy a few.

Suddenly, a tattered Taoist priest came to the pear stall and asked the stall owner for pears.

The stall owner's business is not good, so he was unhappy at first, "Go, go, you Taoist priest, you don't have money to eat pears. I am not a shanfang, so I have nothing for you!"

"There are hundreds of pears in a cart, and I only ask for one, which is not a big loss to the layman. Why is the layman so angry?" the Taoist said.

"If you don't give it, you won't give it. I planted these pears so hard. Why give it to you? A Taoist like you asks others for alms. First, I don't know you well, and second, I don't owe you anything." , why should I give it to you. Hurry up, don't delay my business." The stall owner said angrily.

They made such a fuss, but they attracted a lot of onlookers. The stall owner next to him probably knew the pear seller, so he yelled, "Lao Li, just pick a small one and send him away. His old pestle Here, it makes people look bad."

The Taoist priest is a monk, and he only begs for a pear. If he doesn't give it to others, it will appear that he is too stingy.

"Why should I give it to him? Could it be that I owe him something?" The pear seller refused, and he was not rich. Not by himself.From then on, he didn't believe in any gods and Buddhas, and he didn't respect these monks so much.

Now his family's life has finally improved a bit, so he won't be hungry.A few years ago, he asked someone to plant some early-maturing pear trees from the south. It took several years to bear fruit, and he was waiting to sell some money for his son to go to private school for a few days.He doesn't ask his son to be the number one scholar and become a high official, but he hopes that he can read a few words, and then he can go to the town to work as an accountant.There is a man in their village who works as an accountant. He is not tired of work and gets money every month. He doesn't have to work hard all day like these mud legs, and he has to rely on the sky for food.In the eyes of the stall owner who sells pears, accountant is simply the best job, and it is his pears that can change the fate of his baby.

The stall owner is also an honest person. Every pear on his cart is carefully selected by him.He gave the smaller pears to the villagers to satisfy their hunger. Most of the rotten pears were kept for his own consumption, while the big and sweet pears were sold.The stall owner was reluctant to give it to the Taoist priest. If he gave it to him, and others came to him to ask for it, saying that a pear was worthless, they would not take all his pears.No, absolutely not open this hole.

"Why is this man so stingy? It's just a pear, so what if you give him one."

"That's right, a profiteer, a penny-pinching rooster, deserves that the pears can't be sold."

……

The onlookers began to discuss in a hurry, and the stall owner snorted coldly, "You are not stingy, you give it to him!"

The onlookers listened, but no one moved, but the accusations against him never stopped, and the words became more and more ugly.The Taoist stood still with his eyes downcast, and he didn't move a bit.

"Xiao Jiu, go buy a pear and give it to the Taoist priest." Ji Zihe said.

"Yes." Hearing this, Huang Jiulang went to the pear vendor and picked a pear.

The stall owner didn't dislike him for buying too little, so he readily weighed him.Huang Jiulang bought a pear and handed it to the Taoist priest, "My master gave it to you."

The Taoist took the pear and asked, "Excuse me, Layman, who is your master?"

"That's my master." Huang Jiulang gestured towards the tea shed.

The Taoist looked towards the tea shed in the direction Huang Jiulang pointed, saw Ji Zihe sitting there, and thanked him, "Thank you layman."

Ji Zihe nodded, but did not speak.

The Taoist priest looked at the onlookers again, "Thank you laymen for speaking up for me, since I have a good pear now, let's take it out and invite everyone to eat together."

"You Taoist priest, it's so strange. Just now you have been begging for so long for a pear, and you still don't want to give it to you. Now my master gave you one, but you don't want to eat it yourself. You want to ask others to eat it. What do you think? of?" Huang Jiulang said angrily.

His master bought him a pear because he felt sorry for him, but this man is good, he gave the front foot to him, and he planned to give the back foot to someone else. Isn't this a waste of his master's kindness?

"Ah~, layman's words are wrong. We monks will not be stingy. If we have good things, we must share them with everyone."

"It's really generous of you to take my master's kindness as a favor. If you don't eat it, return the pear to me!"

"Layman, don't be in such a hurry. Naturally, I will not disappoint your master's kindness. I will eat this pear, and I will invite everyone to eat pears together."

"What do you mean?" A small pear, maybe he wants to divide it into dozens of pieces, that's not enough to fit between his teeth.

"I can use the core of this pear as a seed to plant a pear tree. Please come and eat the pears." After the Taoist finished speaking, he ate the pear in his hand and spit out the core in his hand.From the rag bag on his shoulder, he took out a small shovel, dug a hole in the ground, put the pear core into the hole, and covered it with soil.

Seeing this, the people around thought it was very interesting, and gathered around to watch the fun.Even the stall owner who sells pears is attracted by him and mixes with the crowd, intending to see how he can transform the pears into a new life.

The Taoist buried the pear core in the soil, and said to the surrounding people, "Excuse me, Laymen, can you find me some water so that I can use my supernatural powers?"

"I'll do it." The owner of the tea shed also thought it was very interesting, and deliberately carried a pot of boiling hot water over.

The Taoist priest took the water, thanked the owner of the tea shed, and poured hot water into the soil.

Everyone held their breath, looked at the steaming soil, and murmured in their hearts, how could it be possible to grow pear trees, the cores were scalded to death.But this Taoist priest really looks like that, so maybe there will be some miracle.

Not long after, there was a sudden commotion in the crowd, "Sprouts, sprouts."

I saw that in the soil, a piece of bud grew out, and then it grew bigger and bigger, and it grew into a small sapling in a short while.

"That Taoist really has magical powers, he really planted a pear tree!" Ji Zihe said in surprise.

"It's not a supernatural power, it's just a superficial blindfold." Bone said.

"But this tree..." Ji Zihe was puzzled. After a while, the tree had grown very large, with luxuriant branches and leaves, and blossoming pear blossoms.

"He just broke off a handlebar on the pear cart while no one was paying attention. The pear tree you see now is the handlebar of the pear cart." Bone said.

Hearing this, Ji Zihe looked at the pear cart, and saw that it was missing a handlebar, and the cart was empty, not even a single pear.

"Where's the pear?" Ji Zihe asked in surprise, could it be that all of his kung fu has been stolen by someone?

"It's all on the tree."

Ji Zihe looked at the pear tree, and found that the pear blossoms on the tree had fallen, and the fruits were hung on the tree, and the tree was full of fruits.Pears also grow very fast, and they grow big and plump in a short while.

Ji Zihe looked at the crowd and was amazed. He didn't find anything unusual about the pear seller. He sank his face, got up and walked towards the Taoist priest.