Standing one step away from him, I stopped, and slowly patted him on the shoulder.
Seeing that the palm of his hand was about to fall on his shoulder, suddenly an elderly woman yelled from her ear: "Water tofu! Fresh water tofu!"
My body trembled suddenly, and the surrounding scenery changed back to the original high-rise buildings again, and I returned to the sunning Huahe Square.
"Girl! Fresh water tofu, do you want a bowl?" An old woman wearing a navy blue cotton shirt and full of silver hair and cranes came to me with two wooden barrels.
The two wooden barrels are very old and are spliced together with wooden blocks. The old man's body is very thin, his body seems to be covered with a layer of skin, and the skin on his face is even more gully, and the facial features are invisible when squeezed together.
I can't guess her age, just thinking that she should be very old, at least 70 or 80 years old.
"Okay, okay!" I nodded, actually I was really thirsty.
I took ten yuan out of the bag and held it in my hand, looked back at Cang Xuan, and hurriedly added to the old woman: "Here are two bowls!"
"Okay!" The old woman removed the pole from her shoulders and squatted down to uncover the lid of the wooden barrel.
She took out two porcelain bowls and a porcelain spoon from one bucket, then opened another wooden bucket, carefully scooping soft white and fragrant water tofu from it.
I was surprised that she still used porcelain bowls, but compared to the vegetarian plastic bowls and chopsticks, she was indeed much healthier and cleaner, but the efficiency was very low.
Because the person who buys her tofu must finish eating before leaving.
"Here!" The old woman first scooped a bowl for me. I took it, turned around and handed it to Xuan Cang.
Xuan Cang looked at the bowl in front of him, a trace of surprise flashed in his eyes. Suddenly, deep eyes fixedly looked at me, but under the cold and pale face, it seemed to cover up all sorts of thoughts and thoughts.
I don't understand the depth and surging in his eyes, but when he looks at it like this, my heart seems to be stabbed hard by something.
Heart—Suddenly it hurts a bit, making it hard to breathe.
I twisted my eyebrows slightly, and subconsciously reached out and stroked my chest.
"What's wrong with me?" I asked myself, why do I feel so strange
"Young man! Try my water tofu! It's freshly ground, it's definitely refined and refreshing." The old woman smiled and served me another bowl. The gully face was pulled a little away, it looked like It's even scary.
I was so startled that my hands shook, and the bowl in my hand was barely grasped.
"Yeah!" Xuan Cang said silently, reaching out to take the bowl in my hand.
I took the white-flowered porcelain bowl with water tofu in the old woman's hand again, took a spoon to scoop it, and stirred the sugar in it, and then took a bite into my mouth.
The feeling is indeed tender and sweet, with a fragrance of beans. It is different from the taste squeezed out by modern machines, but with the most simple feeling.
I can't tell you the specifics. I just think that the old woman's water tofu makes people cry.
After we finished drinking, we returned the bowl and spoon to the old woman, and I handed over the ten dollars in my hand.
The old woman stared at the money for a long while, then rubbed her hands nervously and said: "Tofu is two yuan a bowl, you can give me four yuan! I can't find the cash receipts."
"..." After listening to the old woman's words, I felt an instant petrification.
In this era of soaring prices, I thought that such a large bowl of water tofu would cost at least five yuan a bowl, but she only charged two yuan, which was the price ten years ago!
What made me even more concerned was that she actually referred to the ten-dollar bill as a silver bill. God, is it possible that she is also an ancient person
My heart was broken, but in her tense and cramped expression, she had to put the money back in her handbag and flipped through it for a while before digging out four one-piece coins.
The old woman happily received a coin, and took out an extremely worn, patched purse from her arms.
She threw the coin into her purse, then restored everything, picking the two wooden barrels and yelling and left.
I looked at her back, under the sun, she looked so delicate and inconspicuous.
And at that moment, my whole person was like an ice cellar again. Because... I didn't even see the shadow of the old woman in such a big sunlight.
"Heaven—" I exclaimed, my face pale enough to catch up with Xuan Cang's dead face.
"Hush!" Xuan Cang stretched out his hand to cover my mouth, and the tall figure enveloped me in his shadow.
My eyes widened, I looked at Xuan Cang somewhat inconceivably, and my lips trembled for a long time before trembling a word.
"She... She is not human either!"
"Yeah!" Xuan Cang faintly replied, until he could no longer see the figure of the old woman, he slowly let go of the hand covering my mouth.
"For..." I took a step back and looked up at Xuan Cang, wanting to ask him why he just covered my mouth.
"Yao Yu! Not all ghosts in this world are terrifying and evil!" Xuan Cang interrupted my questioning, staring blankly at the direction the old woman was leaving.
I don't understand, these ghosts exist in the human world, don't most of them reluctant to leave and want to continue to survive as human beings? Perhaps not all of them hold grudges, but this world belongs to living people after all, and they shouldn't exist at all!
"Want to hear a story?" Xuan Cang asked me suddenly.
I looked at him without nodding or rejecting.
So that afternoon, Xuan Cang and I stood by the fountain in Huahe Square. He told me a story, and I listened to him telling a story that was not plain in a plain tone...
The protagonist of the story is a village woman who has never read a book and can't even write her own name.
She is neither beautiful nor smart. She was just a very ordinary girl who had been educated by the three obedience and four virtues from her childhood, and she had never had any delusions of non-discrimination.
Just like all stories, the girl who is not beautiful or smart, selected by the matchmaker and her parents, married a scholar who could only care about others.
At that time, scholars were very respected, even if they were just a barren talent, their status was more noble than a wealthy businessman.
The girl's family was very happy because she said a talented person, so she put her dowry on and married her.
Although talented people are poor, they are not pedantic. After the girl got married, she loved and cherished her. The two people who had no emotions gradually fell in love with each other.
In order to prevent the girl from starving with her, the poor and sour scholar sold her own calligraphy and painting for a stone mill.
He who only knows poems and songs on weekdays has lived a life of getting up early and greedy for dark, grinding tofu and selling bean curd.
At that time, many good people laughed at him because of this. The girl also felt sorry for him, and told him many times not to sell bean curd, so that she could study at home and be a literati.
Xiucai didn't say a word, but insisted on selling bean curd.
Until later in the national imperial examination, the girl could go to Beijing to take the exam in order to let the show, so she could study with peace of mind. So he took the family's livelihood and went out to sell bean curd for that Xiucai.