The butcher's shop was open as usual.
The butcher chopped a front hoof into dozens of pieces with a few bangs, then quickly packed them with lotus leaves and tied them with fine hemp ropes, and the money was paid. Occasionally, you can hear him bargaining with customers over a few coins or a few pieces of meat bones in the butcher shop, which is a part of the puzzle of the market.
"Arong!"
Suddenly a call came from outside the butcher's shop.
As soon as he finished speaking, the butcher's chubby son suddenly looked up, dropped his boning knife with a clang, and almost ran towards the person, shouting as he ran: "Teacher, why are you here so late?"
The butcher knew who the man was without even looking at him. He glared at him with his big copper bell eyes and shouted angrily, "Where have you been these days, old man? You didn't even say hello before you left. If you die somewhere, who will collect your body?"
The chubby boy wanted to hug Chu Yao, but he was helping out in the butcher's shop today, and his hands were covered in animal oil and blood. He reached out halfway before realizing that something was wrong. He chuckled, wiped his hands back and forth on his clothes, and got covered in oil.
This scene made the butcher feel both heartbroken and angry.
But his son was very serious and corrected his disrespectful words, telling him to be more polite and respectful to his teachers. The butcher could only curse: "You spendthrift, you're just wasting the clothes your mother gave you? You're tired of living—"
After saying this, he raised the palm-leaf fan-like hand that was not holding the knife.
When the little fat boy saw this gesture, his butt subconsciously felt pain, and he quickly hid behind Chu Yao, wishing he could cover himself up tightly, which made the butcher even angrier. Chu Yao tried to persuade him with a smile, but the butcher got angry and said, "This little bastard has learned a few words from you, and he keeps saying 'Teacher is long' and 'Teacher is short' all day long, just like a child you raised! Who am I working so hard for every day?"
Chu Yao smiled and said, "This shows that Ah Rong is filial and polite. If he treats his teachers like this, how much more so his parents? What's wrong with this?"
The young Chu Yao might not be able to tolerate derogatory terms like “old thing” or “old fellow”, but now he has been in the lower class of Xiaocheng for so many years that some of his edges have been smoothed out.
He was familiar with these neighbors and knew very well what was wrong with their mouths. Their words were vulgar and unpleasant to the ear, and most of the time they had nothing to do with the word "simple and honest", but it was not to be said that they had any bad intentions.
Just hear it and forget it.
The butcher was not used to Chu Yao's flowery words, and only knew that good words were fine, so he softened his attitude and lowered his voice to ask about Chu Yao's whereabouts. During the time when Chu Yao was gone, this little bully in his family almost drove him crazy.
Chu Yao replied: "I moved to a new place with the new owner."
The butcher then began to look at Chu Yao carefully, and suddenly found that the usually quiet old man had changed. Although his clothes were still washed white, they were clean and without patches. The most important thing was his mental outlook. The dead silence and grayness accumulated between his brows in the past were swept away. It seemed that even his body was straighter than before, and he looked several years younger.
As soon as the butcher saw this, he knew that Chu Yao's life in his new master's home was much better than in Yuehua Tower, and he was secretly happy for him.
Butcher: "In that case, then my son..."
He originally wanted to say that he didn't need to teach him. He was greedy for a bargain before, and he also felt sorry for Chu Yao, so he wanted to help him, so he asked Chu Yao to teach his son. Now that Chu Yao has changed his master and moved to another place, he probably doesn't have the extra energy to take care of his son.
He went back and spent more money to send his son to another private school.
When the butcher thought of this, the flesh on his face trembled with pain.
The private school teacher was younger than Chu Yao, but even more pedantic and old-fashioned than him. He talked about all sorts of things all the time and liked to act like a scholar. When families with poorer financial conditions wanted to send their children to study there, he would pull a long face and say "unworthy". The poorer the students, the more ruthless he would be in collecting tuition fees.
As it happens, butchers are the people he despises the most.
I could almost imagine how long that pedantic and lifeless face would be if I came to ask for a place in the school.
Unexpectedly, Chu Yao told his son to continue reading.
The butcher was naturally happy to agree, but he still asked, "Does your master agree?"
Chu Yao said, "I accepted a new student two days ago. I can teach one or two, so I might as well teach them both. But I'm a little busy, so I need to come back once in a while. Ah Rong must work hard and not slack off or lose to your junior sister."
The fat boy’s surname is Tu and his given name is Rong.
This formal name was given by Chu Yao.
His previous nicknames were Dashuan and Tu Dashuan.
(*ΦωΦ*)
The butcher was shocked when he heard it: "It's a girl?"
Chu Yao said: "Although she is a girl, she is indeed talented."
The butcher felt curious, so he raised his palm-leaf fan and slapped his son on the back of the head, glaring at him and threatening him to study hard and not be lazy.
The little fat boy shrank his neck, puffed up his cheeks and snorted, then quickly hid behind Chu Yao again, looking at the teacher with blinking eyes, expecting him to teach new content. Who knew that Chu Yao was not here to teach him this time, but to inquire about some information.
Ask around for news from a few households.
They said they were asking around, but in fact they were just chatting and quietly directing the gossip topic to those families.
This butcher shop is a time-honored brand that has been passed down for three generations. It never sells rotten or smelly meat, and its products are of high quality and low price. Most of the people living nearby buy meat from him, which gives the butcher a huge "circle of contacts" and he can tell gossip about every household.
The butcher was not a careful person, so he naturally had no doubts. In addition, he was a loud speaker who could not hold back his words. Once the gossip and small talk started, he could not stop talking and talked contentedly for a long time. Among them, he found the key information that Chu Yao wanted to know.
Actually, Chu Yao didn't ask anything. He just started with a question: "On the way here, I saw an old man who looked like X's family carrying a few pounds of meat, his face was rosy. Could it be that his youngest son is getting married soon?" The rest was left to the butcher to answer freely.
The old man was also a "celebrity" in the neighborhood. He was stingy, took advantage of others, boasted, and almost beat his wife to death after she gave birth to three daughters in a row. He exploited his three daughters to raise his two precious sons, to the point where even the neighbors couldn't stand it.
The eldest son was a street urchin who was addicted to gambling, while the youngest son was a capable and somewhat lucky man, a low-ranking official, who was now working in the Xiaocheng Silver Treasury. As everyone knows, that was a lucrative job. However, he was too old when he started working, and stealing silver from the treasury required the skills of a boy, so the family's situation did not improve much.
Chu Yao asked this question, firstly to open up a conversation, and secondly to test the current situation of his youngest son through the old father-in-law who kept his mouth shut. It would take more than one or two days to count and load the tax money. In order to make the people below do their best, the superiors would not only warn them, but also reward and appease them, taking a two-pronged approach.
If the family suddenly gains a small amount of wealth and family members prepare dry food and clothes for the youngest son for a long journey, it means that the date is approaching.
Worried that the child was not in the escort team, Chu Yao planned to inquire about a few more families.