Chapter 33 (1/2)

When they arrived at East Fence House, there was Acai sitting in the store alone.

Xue asked Acai and was told that Mr. Chen, the owner of the store, was in the backyard.

Xue had been acquainted with Acai, since he had visited the East Fence Store frequently. Acid guided them to the backyard. Talkative as Badou was, he dared not to talk nonsense here.

Mr. Chen lay on a deck chair, taking sun bath and taking a sip of tea. Beside the deck chair, there were several tea tables.

Seeing Xue coming in, Mr. Chen greeted with him with enthusiastic smiles, “It’s a surprise to see you here in such workdays. What’s up?” Mr. Chen observed Chen Jian and Badou when he talked with Xue.

Xue also was like at home, and sit on a seat by himself.

“Uncle Chen, in fact, I want to ask for your favors…” He told Uncle Chen about Chen Jian and Badou, and showed him the calligraphy of Chen Jian.

Mr. Chen took over the copywriter of Chen Jian, and turned over the pages casually. But he could not move his figures anymore when he saw the calligraphy of Chen Jian.

After a long period of the time, he took a long breath, and said to Xue, “I have thought highly of your calligraphy. But this boy, his calligraphy, may not be less good than yours. Even though his calligraphy is not mature enough yet, which differs from yours, his calligraphy has shown strong persistence and great ambitions.”

Xue was listening calmly, while he was upset and disturbed.

He knew Mr. Chen was actually right, but his comments were accurate for Chen in the dream.

Xue recalled what had happened in the dream. Chen was hypocritical, sophisticated, treacherous and changeable after he suffered from the terrible change in his life.

There was some commenting him like this, “A sycophant and hypocrite, pretends to be decent and gentle, while actually is vile and vicious.”

Such comment was not biased. It was natural and accurate.

His tutor had taught him how to integrate mentality, consciousness, principles, and behaviors. However, he was turned out to be a betrayer and evil man. He was just a black sheep, who had no awes for monarchy, no respects for his teachers, and no basic understandings of the moralities.

In the dream, nearly everyone might think highly of him owing to his pretended modesty and praise him, since it was rare for a First Grand Secretary to be so friendly and accessible with gentility and tolerance.

However, all of those were pretended. He was ambitious and tyrannical. Those who followed him would thrive, and those who against him would perish.

Different from Chen Huanzhi, Xue seemed to be unruly and aggressive, while actually was determined to follow the rules and principles.

People like Xue were doomed to suffer a lot in their life, for they had too many weaknesses exposed to the others. The vile could make full use of that. Just like he introduced Chen Jian to Mr. Chen, he had done Chen a favor out of sincere kindness.

Xue was surprised that Mr. Chen’s speech should have arisen his so much concerns. And neither had Mr. Chen ever had thought about that. In fact, Mr. Chen had no clue about what Xue was thinking. Mr. Chen closed the copywriter and asked Xue, “Which one is the introduced classmate?”

Xue brought Chen Jian near, who had no clue about what Xue and Mr. Chen had talked about.

He was a little nervous, and greeted Mr. Chen carefully and respectfully.

“Please do feel at home. Since you are friend you Xue, then you are my friend as well. Your calligraphy is good. You’ll achieve something big in the future. However, you are learning in school now. If you want to attend the imperial examination and succeed in imperial examination, you’d better contain your ambitions and strong longings. Otherwise, your calligraphy may cause you troubles since the teachers may don’t like the calligraphy full with ambitions.”

“Thank you for your lectures, Mr. Chen.”

Mr. Chen said with smile, “Just some advice, far from lectures. You can call me Uncle Chen like Xue. I have many books here, and many books need to be transcribed. If you would like, you can get one tael of silver for per volume of book you have transcribed. As for the paper and inks, I’ll offer you. Acai will tell you the details.”

Chen Jian went out to ask Acai for the detailed instructions, and Xue talked with Mr. Chen for a while. Then, they went out together.

“One tael of silver! That is a large amount of money.” Badou was a little envious of the promising rewards frankly.

“That’s because Chen’s calligraphy is good enough. If you can make it like Chen and Xue, you can earn one tael of silver for one volume.” Li Datian was plain and honest.

“I must had done something bad to you in the last lifetime. You always stick my nerves!”

Li and Badou were playing jokes with each other, while Chen Jian was paying his gratitude to Xue, “Thank you. If it’s not for your sake, Uncle Chen will not offer me such promising price.”

“It has nothing to do with me. As Datian said, your good calligraphy has won you the promising price.”

Chen was somewhat emotional, and clenched his bag tightly in which the papers and inks were packed, “Anyway, I do owe you my sincere thanks. This money is important to me. I will do my best to do this work.”

Xue said nothing, but just clapped on his shoulder, and nodded.

Badou and Li Datian came to Xue and Chen, and said, “Fine, fine. Please do not thank anymore. We still have enough time, why not have some fun?”

The rest of the three were not very interested in this idea.

Li said, “It’s already not early. The rest time may not be enough. Besides, tomorrow is Bathing Day, and we will have enough time tomorrow.”

It occurred to Xue that he had to purchase something, which was not merely an excuse to go out. With some hesitation, he asked Badou, “Do you know where I can buy the stuff that girls may like?”

Xue wanted to do further explanation, while Badou smiled with sly and said, “I know, I know. Are you going to buy some gifts for your fiancée? Let me show you the way!”

Following Badou, they finally arrived at a remote valley. All of them dressed in the student-style shirts, which made them out of place.

Badou guided the way, and said, “You may pay no more glance at such places. But the stuff here is diverse and abundant. My elder sister always visits here to buy the hairpins and stuff like that. My family is not rich. But the stuff sold on stalls are too inferior to use for long, while the Silver Stores are too expensive for us. Therefore, here may be the best choice for us.”

Before Badou finished his words, a little store opened. The door was as big as the stores on the prosperous streets. And inside the store, the room was not big neither.

There was no signboard outside, nor the advertisement sign. However, Xue found the decoration and layout of the little store were intrinsically designed for female customers.

“Ha, Mr. Storekeeper. I come again.” Badou greeted with the elder woman and entered the store.

“Oh, it’s you. Boy, isn’t your sister coming with you?” The storekeeper seemed to be in her 40s. Even though she was not young, but she was tidy and decent, which had made good impressions on others.

“Ha, I come with my friends to buy some stuff.”

The elder storekeeper stared at them, and seemed had understood, “Then, help yourselves. I may offer you favorable prices.”

Xue had come to the front shelf when Badou was talking with the storekeeper. The front shelf had been designed in unique way. On the front shelf, there lay some wooden boxes, in which many intrinsic stuff was put, such as the pouches, sachets, combs, mirrors, hair clasp, earrings, hair binds, etc. Xue had never gotten to know these stuff, and he suddenly got puzzled.

Badou finished his conversation with the storekeeper and came to Xue, “What do you want to buy? And how much you would like to pay? You want to buy one piece of stuff or different pieces? I may provide you some suggestions.”

Under this condition, Xue was not calm anymore. He seemed had lost the mind and was at the mercy of Badou.

“This bead flower is good. Girls like this kind of bead flower in pink. My elder sister really loves such ones…”

“Or this wood hairpin. It is special and unique. Oh, look, this earning…”