Complaining is risky, and counseling should be cautious.
After leaving school, Zhao Yinglin angrily blocked him in an inconspicuous place outside the school, full of anger and pain after being betrayed, gritted his teeth, grabbed his shirt and said, "How can you do this! I kindly invite you You participated in the poetry party, but you sued my grandma behind your back, and I... I even treated you as a good person! You! You... "
Although Cui Xie was grabbed by the collar of his clothes and swayed in front of him with a small fist with protruding bones, he still maintained the demeanor of a scholar and asked him: "How many words did Brother Zhao Shi write today? Dozens of pages of books by heart? How many circles and how many points did Mr. Lin draw in the article?"
Zhao Yinglin grabbed his clothes and wanted to beat him. Hearing this was like pouring a bucket of cold water on his head, his thin fist shook in the air, but he took it back and said bitterly: "Yesterday my grandma My parents took turns to teach me a lesson, and said they would tell my eldest brother, and let my eldest brother write to me!
Cui Xie calmly waited for him to finish speaking, raised his hand to grab the wrist and pulled it down, pulling the thin hand away.
He looked at Zhao Yinglin and said sincerely, "Brother Zhao, don't be in a hurry to get angry, I have a reason for doing this. Would you like to come and sit at my house?"
Zhao Yinglin turned his head away and snorted coldly. Cui Xie straightened his clothes, said "please", and walked out of the school first.
A few Zhao family members were already blocked outside the door, and when they saw them, they came out and said with a smile: "Cui Gongzi, my father asked us to pick up the second brother and go home, please give us the things that the son has with him, the little brother holding the inkstone is still young. Well, we don't have to struggle to get more."
Cui Xie thanked them, gave them the schoolbag, let Pingyan go home to prepare tea, and said to them, "I need to ask Zhao Shixiong for advice on some things that I don't know how to do, and I also hope that the two elder brothers will help me and Zhao's grandmother and grandmother. My uncle and aunt said, let him go to my house to read a book for a while and teach a few questions."
A young servant said in trouble: "My parents and grandparents have been keeping an eye on the second brother for the past two days, and he is not allowed to be outside..."
Zhao Kui raised his hand and hit him, scolding: "Is Mr. Cui an outsider? The Cui family is just like our Zhao family!" After scolding the servant, he turned around and smiled at Cui Xie: "Young master, take the second brother with you. Well, I'll tell my grandparents when I get home, and make sure they're happy and don't blame the second brother for going outside."
Zhao Yinglin pouted and followed behind, looking at Cui Xie and his family who didn't know his surname at a glance from the corner of his eyes, full of grievances.
But he still went to Cui's house honestly, and Zhao Kui helped them with their bags.
In the main courtyard, there were two children chasing and frolic. It was a pair of sons and daughters from the Huang family, a printer. Cui Xie stopped at the doorway for a while, and when they ran away, he grabbed Zhao Yinglin's wrist and said, "Brother Zhao Shi, Come to my study."
His study is in the wing next to the bedroom. It was first chosen by Zhang's mother for him. There is a door on the west wall that grows out of the bedroom, so that he can enter and exit independently. Later, because two craftsmen lived in and wanted to buy furniture for them, Cui Xie also ordered a large modern-style bookcase with a whole wall for himself, and a long sofa, where you could lie on the sofa and read books comfortably.
Zhao Yinglin had never seen a study arranged like this before, and he was shocked when he saw the cabinet of books when he entered the door.
But he was fuming with Cui Xie and didn't want to praise him. He came back to his senses and immediately put on a disdainful gesture, and said critically, "Why is your bookshelf so ugly. The wood is not good wood in the first place. There is a layer of tung oil, there is no carving, and there is no random change in the frame... Where can there be a bed next to the table!
"This Arhat bed has been deducted from your materials. It's so narrow that you can't even lay it open when you lie down. The bed frame is still a little slanted back. How can you ask for it? The cushions and pillows on it are too thick. It's bloated. This fabric is not good either. Our bed sheets and mattresses are all made of silk, and the throw pillows are all embroidered with flowers. Your bed sheet doesn't even have any embroidery patterns on it... "
He deliberately picked faults, and when he saw what he disliked, he dismissed the house as useless. When he turned his eyes from the side of the bookcase and saw the timetable nailed to the wall, he suddenly became hoarse and could not speak—
On the wall where the wood light is level, a thin fir plank with numbers that can move like a game scoreboard is hung with iron nails. On it is written a line of characters: There are five hundred and twenty-nine before the Jiachen County Examination. sky.
The three numbers are written on a small board that can be turned over. Every time you turn a page, you can watch the day of the exam approaching, until the last day... Just thinking about this feeling makes people feel creepy and restless.
Zhao Yinglin felt that all his grievances were about to dissipate in front of this sign, and asked in horror, "Why did you get such a sign to hang on the wall!"
Cui Xie said lightly: "Because I'm not like Brother Zhao who has already been admitted to Tongsheng, I have to go to the county exam first. The exact time of the county exam is not yet determined, so I have to calculate the time of Chunwei. Anyway, it's only a few days before and after. Brother Zhao Shi is going to take the Dao test, and he has two months more time to review than me, but two months have passed by in a flash, right?"
"Well, that's still 600 days away..." Zhao Yinglin retorted stiffly, forcibly looking away from the timing board, only to see the timetable that Cui Xie had set for him.
When I got up in the morning to exercise, I went to school at the beginning of the morning. During the interval between the lectures, Mr. recited the Hundred Lines of the Four Books, the ten chapters of the Poetry, the twenty pages of characters, and did twelve problems. ""Spring and Autumn". After returning home from school, I first read the collection of essays to break the topic, memorized three ancient essays, took a two-minute break after dinner, and then began to review the notes during the day, endorsed and practiced painting... until I fell asleep in the second shift.
Obviously it's not the kind of arrangement that wakes up at five shifts and sleeps in the middle of the night, but why does it make one's heart chill when looking at his class schedule
Just at this time, holding the inkstone came in to deliver refreshments and schoolbags, and by the way told them that Zhao Kui was going home first. Zhao Yinglin asked him to interrupt his thoughts, and then he recovered from the atmosphere where the exam was approaching, and he could not stop studying for a moment.
His anger when he first came has long since been forgotten to Javaland, and he forced himself to argue a few words: "I never learned this way, didn't I get admitted to Tongsheng early? Besides, you, you have booked this timetable too. No, why don't you read the "Law" and "Order", why don't you study "Zizhitongjian" and "Famous Officials of Past Dynasties"?"
Because of the high weight of the Four Books and the Five Classics, it is necessary to take a few sutras and meanings when choosing the right ones.
Cui Xie smiled and asked him to sit down for tea.
The sofa cushions are made of duck and goose feathers collected at the market for three cents of silver and a sack, and they are soft and soft as if they are about to sink in. The curvature of the back of the sofa is also just right, and the goose feather cushion is also padded, so you don't need to sit upright as usual, and it will naturally give people the most comfortable feeling.
The moment he sat down, Zhao Yinglin felt a little ashamed of the sofa, feeling that he shouldn't have disliked it just because it was narrow and rough, and the cushions were not covered with satin. Sitting on the Cui family's sofa, holding the Cui family's tea, facing the Cui family's... Shixiong, he couldn't express his anger, he hummed twice and lowered his head.
Cui Xie asked calmly, "Brother Zhao Shi is angry with me?"
Zhao Yinglin bit his lip and said angrily, "Why do you want to sue me if you're going to go by yourself? If I knew you were the one who told the parents behind everything, I-I won't invite you for them. !"
Cui Xie said sternly: "Whether I go or not, and the fact that my brother can't go are two different things. I'm the son of a Beijing official. If I don't study well in the future, I can go to prison with grace and choose a junior official; I can follow my father to take charge of the office; I can also marry a A wife with a rich dowry, a cockfighting lackey spends her life... Would you rather be compared with me?"
How can I not compare with you! You are the son of an official family, and my family also owns a paper shop, not a poor scholar who has never seen the world!
Zhao Yinglin burst out with anger from his chest and wanted to have a good fight with him, but he opened his mouth first and said solemnly, "Brother Zhao Dashi is studying in Fucheng and can't come back easily, only you have the hope of Chenghuan's father and grandfather's knees and the whole family. It's all on you! Your grandparents are looking forward to you being a scholar and supporting the door; your parents point to you to ask for an official letter, and thank your parents-"
Zhao Yinglin was startled, and subconsciously whispered, "Then there is my big brother..."
Cui Xie glanced at him and said solemnly, "It's because of your eldest brother that you have to study hard. Your eldest brother has taught you to read since you were a child and trained you to become a talent. In the future, he will be admitted as a jinshi and become an official, and will want people in the court. When you help, shouldn't you show your ability to repay him? If you don't try to help him as soon as possible, do you want him to be alone in the court?"
Zhao Yinglin opened his mouth, not knowing how to refute. Cui Xie didn't give him a chance to think more and say more, and made a final decision: "You are the support of the whole family, and you have a heavy responsibility on your shoulders, how can you hurt your family's heart just to participate in a poetry party? Okay, Here I have some articles written by the heads of the various prefectures and counties of Shuntian Prefecture, you can go back and read some of them first. No matter how good the poems are in the poetry conference, they are not tested in the academy exam, so these articles are not as useful."
He took a few books that he had read, carefully wrapped them in oiled paper, and asked Peng Yan to go to the kitchen to pick up some fresh fruits and snacks. He personally took Zhao Yinglin home and said a few words of relief to his parents.
Zhao Yuanwai simply wished he could keep him as his grandson and exchange the uneasy live monkey for the Cui family. Cui Xie comforted them with a smile: "Actually, brother Yinglin doesn't like those entertainments either, he just envy the literati style and is willing to listen to the senior talents talk about poems and essays. When I look back, I will copy the poems from the conference to bring him back, and he will be happy too. "
Uncle Zhao said, "Yeah, go back and copy some poems..."
Uh-huh? You told others not to go, how can you go? !
Cui Xie said very naturally: "I'm not familiar with my classmates. It's rare for them to invite me to go with me once. If they refuse for no reason, I'm afraid others will think that I have a proud family background and will not want to interact with me in the future."
I see. Zhao Yuanwai nodded again and again: "That's what I said, you scholars should do more poetry and literary meetings. If I didn't really worry about Ying Lin, I should let him go out and meet the world."
Zhao Yinglin was so angry that his face was full of anger, Cui Xie was afraid that he would get angry, so he also praised his father and grandfather: "Brother Yinglin is a responsible person, he must know the importance and will not be ostentatious outside. With a twisted mind."
After bidding farewell to the grandparents of the Zhao family and returning home, holding the inkstone asked him a little worriedly: "Big brother is really going to participate in that poetry party? "
In fact, Xie Qianhu sent the wound medicine and invited the imperial doctor. The scars on his buttocks have already flattened, and there are only a little red knife marks on his shoulders. There was a little itching before, but now he has no feeling at all. .
Cui Xie touched the wound through his clothes, and said with a smile, "My wound has healed long ago, but you and your father are too worried, don't you believe me?"
Holding the inkstone shook his head: "What's the use of touching it, I'm not an imperial doctor. Forget it, I'll ask Mrs. Huang to give you a thin cotton jacket to wear inside. I'd rather wear more than let it catch a cold."
Cui Xie smiled and watched him run into the yard. He turned around and went to the studio behind, asking the craftsmen how long it would take to engrave and whether they could catch up with the Chongyang Poetry Festival.
The engravers laughed: "It takes us four or five days to engrave a plate very quickly. The little brother holding the inkstone has counted for us. There are about a hundred plates carved out of this book, and it takes three to engrave a single letter. It has been more than a month. The pictures have to be printed in color, and several more editions have to be engraved for overprinting. Now they are due at the end of August, and Chongyang can catch up with it, and it will be early for the book to be printed in November. "
Cui Xie had guessed that the Taoist book would not be able to catch up, but after measuring the time, he felt that if only a picture was engraved, and an exquisite verse in the text was added under the picture, it seemed that it should be in time. He will practice the lines again in the past two days, and in early September, he can try to imitate those embroidered images and draw a picture. If you really can't catch up with the engraving, you have to hand-paint a few pictures of beautiful women, and go to the poetry fair to sell people.
He asked a few more technical questions, and Zhuang Ruo casually mentioned the solution to the printing color that is too solid. If you want to print the color as soft as a smudge, you can press your finger on that part of the paper. Color; and the places to be printed deeper and more solid, you can use your nails to scratch and trace, which is more flexible than using a brown rake.
In fact, he wanted to write down the contents of the chemistry book directly for these workers to see, but an official son did not know that printing was difficult, and it was normal to want to print color pictures willfully; Color printing technology that surpasses the times is a monster.
Therefore, he only occasionally gave some opinions to guide the craftsmen to break through the limitations of their thinking. After that, the craftsmen could fill in the technical problems that he did not mention by themselves, and even develop better printing techniques than those recorded by later generations. method.
When the craftsmen heard this, they immediately took out the paint and the carved board to try printing - it was still the same ink plum version. Zhao Shi, the most experienced master of the printers, painted the pigments of the plum blossom engraving with his own hands, printed the paper on the black plum, rubbed the paper lightly with his fingers, pressed out the colors one by one, and lifted it up to observe the effect.
The plum blossoms are softly and beautifully printed, and the edges are slightly moistened, as if they were drawn with a pen.
Zhao Shi's eyes turned red with excitement, and he sighed, "I'm really old, how could I have never thought of these simple methods, and I still need to remind you! It's fortunate that the son is a star of Wenqu, a born Qian Ling. Baili, see what you see, otherwise we will delay all major events just by relying on us old and confused craftsmen!"
Cui Xie smiled and said casually: "You are immersed in the engraving plate day and night, and you have gone so far that it is difficult to think about other places. It's more flexible."
When he saw that it was getting dark outside, he instructed: "It's too late to go on the road, so I'm not in a hurry to engrave plates now. You should go back early after you have eaten."