Afterwards, Zhou Ziruo was exhausted, and Lu Lixiao, who was full of food and drink, leaned on the bedside and fiddled with the bottle of ointment, Zhou Ziruo was horrified by the satisfied expression.
"You...you are dull..." Zhou Ziruo reprimanded Lu Lixiao weakly.
Lu Lixiao looked over and said, "Didn't you just yell happily?"
Zhou Ziruo didn't even have the strength to refute.
Last night, it could be said that it was Lu Lixiao's overlord attacking hard, but this time it was definitely a complete evolution of resisting with all his strength→enduring humiliation→resisting refusal→half push and half reluctance→active obsession. The ointment that the fat shopkeeper stuffed into Lu Lixiao really didn't hurt a few times a night, and the waves got stronger and stronger, the more refreshing it was...
Zhou Ziruo lay on the pillow and sighed.
Lu Lixiao pulled out the map of Yiyang City from nowhere and began to study it. Zhou Ziruo glanced from the side, saw that most of the study rooms above were circled, and asked, "Would you like to inquire about one of them?"
Lu Lixiao said: "No need. Although cedar paper is sold in all shops in Yiyang City, it was not so popular more than 20 years ago. An ordinary family letter uses cedar paper, which must be purchased in large quantities. The price of the paper, the family of the other party must be rich. Just go to the store that sold cedar paper and ask the customers who bought a lot of paper during that time, and the scope should be narrowed down a lot.”
The male protagonist is worthy of being a male protagonist, and his analysis is clear and logical, which reduces the workload a lot.
Zhou Ziruo yawned and nodded, closing his eyes to tell Zhou Gong to go.
The next morning, the two had breakfast and left the inn.
More than 20 years ago, there were only three shops that sold cedar paper, all of which were time-honored brands in the city. However, due to the long time interval, shops generally do not keep books from so long ago. I went to two of the shops and found nothing.
These three shops each occupy different areas of Yiyang City, and they are far apart. It is already lunch time when you come out of the second shop. The two randomly found a restaurant to have something to eat, and then headed to the last destination—the Weiming Residence of the Old Study in Chengbei.
The environment in the study is quiet and quiet, and the fresh fragrance of paper and ink seems to be lingering in the air, which makes people feel refreshed.
There are no customers in the shop yet, and a famous and elegant woman sits behind the desk and rests her jaw. Sensing someone pushing the door and entering, the woman perked up and greeted with a friendly smile.
Lu Lixiao casually admired the stationery displayed in the shop, and the woman came forward to recommend her thoughtfully. Seeing him pick up an old topaz gold fishtail inkstone from the shelf, she said with a smile: "This inkstone is made of warm jade, and it can be used in severe winters." Keep the ink from solidifying for a long time!"
Zhou Ziruo was turning his back to them to study the pictures of beauties going out of bath hanging on the wall with academic spirit, when he heard this, he turned his head and glanced at Lu Lixiao.
What kind of literati are you pretending to be? Why don't you just ask and leave? If there is no clue, I have to go back and discuss what to do next!
Lu Lixiao turned the inkstone over and looked at it carefully for a while. He didn't discuss the magic of this thing, but asked, "This inkstone looks old. Guess, it's probably close to thirty years?"
Zhou Ziruo, who was full of slander, immediately understood that Lu Lixiao had begun to beat around the bush.
The woman said: "Sir, you really have good eyesight! This inkstone was in the shop when my father was in charge of Weiming Residence. When I was young, I came to the shop to help my father receive guests, and I often met people who were interested in this inkstone. But I don't know why. , almost thirty years, but this inkstone has never been sold." At the end, he sighed softly.
"Perhaps it is because of the preciousness of this inkstone that it is hard to find a pen, ink, paper and paper worthy of it, so it has not been sold. For example, the cedar paper sold in your store is a rare and precious treasure, but it must have been thirty years ago. There are still a small number of people who can use Xuesongjian." Lu Lixiao said.
The woman nodded in agreement: "That's true. At the beginning, Yiyang City produced cedar paper, which attracted the attention of scholars all over the country, but the high price of cedar paper turned away many people. In fact, there were more cedar paper in the shop at that time. It only plays the role of supporting the facade, and it is not easy to sell!"
"Oh? Weimingju is the largest calligraphy shop in Yiyang City, how could it be so?" Lu Lixiao looked slightly surprised.
Zhou Ziruo shook his head again and again, despising that Lu Lixiao had learned the essence of his words - flattering.
Sure enough, everyone loves to listen to flattery. The words "Yiyang City No. 1" made the woman's mouth shut from ear to ear, and she spit out all the information as if she had pressed a switch.
"Actually not. Although there are not many people who use cedar paper, there are still a few big deals. A distinguished guest that my father and I received together bought cedar paper with a thousand taels of gold at one time. It is said that they Even the waste paper used by the children to practice calligraphy at home is made of cedar paper!"
"There really are such rich and powerful guests?" Lu Lixiao wondered.
The woman was full of affirmation: "In those days, there were not many people who could buy a large amount of cedar paper at one go. I remember very clearly that family's surname was Fang..."
square!
Lu Lixiao and Zhou Ziruo exchanged glances: I found it!
The woman was still chattering: "At that time, the Fang family was considered a big family in the city, but after a few years, a prodigal son was born, and all the family property was ruined. After the family moved out of Yiyang City, there was no news. The person who ordered the cedar paper that year It's the master of the Fang family, and their family will have a wedding in a few months, and I heard that they packed two boxes of cedar paper as a dowry!"
"Dowry? So the Fang family still has a daughter who married into a wealthy family? That shouldn't cause them to lose their fortune so quickly, or even move far away?" Lu Lixiao said.
Speaking of this, the woman sighed heavily and expressed deep sympathy: "The Fang family married not a daughter, but a niece or something from afar, so they probably came here. The marriage partner is also a big family in the city, surnamed Wu. The niece of the Fang family originally had a daughter who was a few years old. She was only a concubine when she remarried. She had no choice but to dislike the mistress of the Wu family. The two women live in the slums in the south of the city. Once I went to deliver goods nearby and saw two eyes from a distance. The mother was skinny and sickly, and the daughter was thin and thin like a radish head. It was winter. I'm wearing unlined clothes and helping people with laundry... oh..."
What happened to Fang Peiyin after she came to Yiyang City really echoed the Lingma's saying, "You can be very rich, but it will not last long, and more than that, you will also hurt people around you."
In the end, Lu Lixiao bought some cedar paper and two cute little carp pen holders from the shop, bid farewell to the woman and left Weimingju.
Zhou Ziruo went out and said, "Shall we go to the slums now?"
"Call for a carriage." Lu Lixiao nodded, and casually threw the two gadgets to Zhou Ziruo, "I'll see you off, let's play with it."
Pooh! To send the children away!
Even though he thought so, Zhou Ziruo immediately stuffed the two pen holders tightly into his cuffs.
In any rich city, there must be a shocking gap between the rich and the poor. The carriage was parked at the border of the slums in the south of the city. Zhou Ziruo got off the carriage and looked forward, feeling like he had traveled to another world.
The filthy and dilapidated small houses are precariously crowded together, the stinky gutters that have never been cleaned emit a disgusting stench, and the sewage and some unrecognizable dirt on the uneven ground sneak into the bottom of people's feet If you don't pay attention, you will be shocked.
Although there are many residents in the slums, it is not difficult to find people, because most of them have lived here for a long time and almost all know each other.
Lu Lixiao asked three or four people, and finally found a hunchbacked man who was squatting by the stinky ditch washing vegetables, and used a tael of silver to find out about Fang Peiyin's mother and daughter who had moved to the slums.
Fang Peiyin's mother and daughter lived in the slums for six or seven years, and then moved out when their daughter Liu Mei got married.
When Fang Peiyin came to the slums, Fang Peiyin was already seriously ill. Presumably, the two years when she married into the Wu family were not easy, and the years in the slums were also miserable. In order to heal her mother, Liu Mei married the young master of the wealthy Jiang family in the city as a concubine. Unfortunately, Fang Peiyin still passed away two years later.
This hunchbacked man lived opposite Fang Peiyin's mother and daughter. His surviving wife was very close to Fang Peiyin and heard Fang Peiyin tell many bitter things that were not known in private. For example, she took her daughter to her relatives, but was designed by her relatives to commit herself to outside the Wu family members, and finally had to marry.
After Liu Mei married into Jiang's family, she was raised in the boudoir all day long. Except for the one time she came back thirty years ago, until the news of her death sixteen years ago came back, the hunchbacked man never saw her again.
Lu Lixiao asked about the Jiang family's situation, and was about to leave. The hunchbacked man said, "By the way, are you going to see the house where their mother and daughter used to live?"
"Their things are still there?" Zhou Ziruo was quite surprised. He didn't believe that the people here would be like the villagers in Daohe Village, who would not move any house for decades.
Sure enough, the hunchbacked man smiled awkwardly and said, "I used the house to store sundries. Most of the Fang family's mother and daughter's things are gone...but there are still some left..."
Lu Lixiao said: "Then go and have a look."
Fang Peiyin's room was next to him, and the hunchbacked man opened the door with a key, let them look slowly, and backed out.
The room was piled up in a mess, and it was impossible to tell which items were left by Fang Peiyin's mother and daughter. If Zhou Zi scolded that hunchbacked man several times in his heart, if he got into such a mess, why don't they let them catch him blind?
Zhou Ziruo was about to urge Lu Lixiao to leave, but when he turned around, he saw Lu Lixiao at the dilapidated wooden table in the research corner. He walked over and asked, "What happened to the table?"
"Look here." Lu Lixiao pointed to a small area on the table.
Zhou Ziruo looked carefully for a while, and suddenly said: "Ink stain?"
"Give me a piece of cedar paper." Lu Lixiao looked at the table and reached out to him.
Zhou Ziruo hurriedly took out a piece of paper and handed it to him, hesitantly asked: "Can it be done?"
"It's been too long, not necessarily. Let's see."
Lu Lixiao spread the paper flat on that area, opened the water bag on his waist and poured a small amount of water, and gently soaked the paper. After a while, a little black was stained on the snow-white paper. Lu Lixiao uncovered the paper and turned it over. Most of the writing on the paper was incomplete, but a few words could barely be read.
Among them, the most eye-catching two words are:
Brother Peng.
The author has something to say: I am not pregnant, how can a fox be pregnant if he is a male