It’s a pity, if you are with me, with the talent of Sir Zhu, the seal of the Palace Supervisor will be in Sir Zhu’s pocket …….”
Under the willow at the root of the palace wall, Feng Bao, who is dressed as a gorgeous inner eunuch, is highly impressed by Zhu Pingan’s suggestion.
“Cough cough ……”Zhu Pingan almost didn’t choke on his words, the Secretary of the Palace is a eunuch position, he does not have Wei Zhongxian’s interest in self-castration into the palace.
“Oh, the miscellaneous family will not joke, small Zhu adults do not do our line, but my generation of eunuchs of luck, otherwise we can not live.”Feng Bao covered his lips with one hand and laughed, his eyes under his dark eyebrows gleaming with light, like small flames jumping in the dark night.
After listening to Zhu Pingan’s advice, Feng Bao’s burden in his heart was completely put down, and the sword of Damocles above his head was all dusted off, his mood was relaxed, and after this, his relationship with Zhu Pingan was one step closer, and he seemed to have become a bosom friend, and he could not help but joke with Zhu Pingan.
“Your Excellency is joking.”Zhu Pingan shook his head and laughed bitterly, “Pingan is just a fluke.”.
“There’s no need to be modest, if it wasn’t for Lord Xiao Zhu’s guidance today, I wouldn’t have long to live. The grace of saving my life, I will never forget it, the gratitude is hard to say, in short, in the future, but if Sir Zhu has something to do, I will never frown on the mountain of daggers.”After the joke, Feng Bao full of gratitude, once again solemnly salute, from the bottom of his heart made a vow.
Farewell Feng Bao, Zhu Pingan turned back to the Hanlin Academy, in the Hanlin Academy crowd gloating or sympathetic eyes, Zhu Pingan, as usual, and the Hanlin greetings after going to the bookstore.
From the library out, Zhu Pingan brought two books “northern barbarians and foreigners”, “Warat food and goods”, in the library borrowing list are also registered, this is Zhu Pingan before the library book management system, of course, he should set an example.
Out of the Hanlin Academy, Zhu Pingan went to the previous with the Hanlin often go to the restaurant, simply eat a lunch, and asked about the banquet, the shopkeeper gave a discount, Zhu Pingan satisfied with the payment of two silver deposit, booked ten days after the banquet.
No matter how many people from the Hanlin Academy come to the banquet, the process still has to go. If you have a family in Xihe, you have to host a banquet to inform your colleagues.
Zhu Pingan out of the Hanlin Academy, detour purple Xuan Hutong to Zhang Siwei that, ready to give Zhang Siwei and Wang Shizhen briefly said that he went to the Ministry of Justice today. Purple Xuan Hutong is the popularity of Daming at this time very hot hutong, wide streets, shops on both sides of the scale is also large, many officials and eunuchs in this street have property.
Daming no city management, purple Xuan Hutong along the way a lot of hawking vendors, bare shoulders carry goods uncle, hawking old man, the whole hutong set off a lively.
May melons and fruits fragrant, watermelon melon lychee are also listed, than the modern not much later, wild river food in the bucket flooded with waves, farm snails in May is fat, look at Zhu Pingan would like to buy some to bring back to the marquis.
But think of their own borrowed Houfu, and Houfu’s food ingredients procurement have rules, but also just this idea.
“Watermelon le, sweet and big watermelon le ……”Street a simple old man dressed in simple clothes pulling a car watermelon parked not far from Zhu Pingan place, one after another shouting and selling.
Watermelon in the Ming Dynasty has been very common, and now also served in the Imperial Hospital Li Shizhen in the later writing of the Compendium of Materia Medica wrote: “According to the highest peak of Hu in Huihe to get the melon seed, the name is watermelon. The watermelon since the Five Dynasties when it began to enter China; now both north and south.”
Hearing the old man selling watermelon, Zhu Pingan felt twice as kind, in modern times watermelon is one of Zhu Pingan’s favourite fruits. In the hot summer dormitory, buy a watermelon, use a spoon to dig in and finish eating, then soak a bowl of noodles, watermelon absorbs the excess oil in the noodles, noodles absorb the sweetness of the watermelon, coupled with the brewing of time, an excellent watermelon noodles is absolutely delightful.
The watermelon at this time of the year is ten days and half a month earlier than the normal market watermelon, the price is more expensive, it is estimated that it is the early season watermelon planted by diverting the hot spring water.
When Zhu Pingan walked to the old man’s watermelon stall, there were already quite a few people surrounding the old man to ask about the price, at this time of the year normal watermelons are not yet on the market and are a rarity, so the crowd was very interested.
“Hot Spring watermelon, six Wen for a catty, guaranteed sweet, money back if it’s not.”The old man was confident in his own melons and assured the crowd of onlookers that he would not charge if they were not sweet.
“Six Wen?”
“So expensive, it’s enough to buy three catties of peaches.”
“The lychees that come in from the south are only five Wen. This six Wen a catty is almost as much as pork, forget it.”
The onlookers heard the price, have beaten a retreat, feeling that the price is too expensive, this time to buy some uneconomical. If you wait another ten days or so, when the melon farmers in the suburbs of Beijing planted watermelons on the market, the price will be cheaper by more than half.
It would be better to wait a little longer or buy some other fruits, so the people shook their heads and walked away.
The old uncle saw that people were leaving in droves, and hurriedly stretched out his hand to retain them, but it had little effect, and people still shook their heads and walked away.
The eldest uncle looked at the back of the crowd and sighed with disappointment, he was still counting on this batch of watermelons to sell at a good price, and then to get his son a wife.
The old man was overjoyed when he discovered the hot springs from the mountain last year, and when he used to work as a labourer for a noble family in the Eastern District, he learnt about the hot springs’ method of cultivating watermelons from one of the supervisors by chance. So, the old man bought an acre of abandoned sandy land at the foot of the mountain, and took several sons to plough the land and dig ditches for half a winter, without even taking short-term jobs, hoping that he could rely on this batch of watermelons that came on the market early to sell more money, and get a daughter-in-law for his eldest son, and then next year, the second son, and then the youngest son.
Fortunately, the watermelon planting was very successful, ripening half a month earlier than normal watermelons, and the flavour was sweet.
However, there is a problem in selling the watermelons.
Yesterday began to sell watermelon, pulled a whole car watermelon, yesterday day also sold five watermelons only, or expensive people figure a fresh. Today is not as good as yesterday, the place has changed two, but a watermelon has not been sold.
“Old Uncle, is this melon sweet?”
Just when the old uncle was lost, he heard a teenager’s voice.
“Sweet, sweet ……”The old uncle answered repeatedly, and when he looked up, he saw a teenage boy in official clothes, standing in front of the cart smiling and looking at himself.
“Six Wen a catty?”Zhu Pingan picked up a watermelon and knocked on it, looking at the old uncle with a smile as he asked.
“It’s a blessing for the Grand Master to look at the little old man’s watermelon, no charge.”Suddenly seeing Zhu Pingan in official clothes, the old man selling melons had a constrained look on his face, his hands and feet felt a little unsure of how to put them, nervous and scared.
It is the survival instinct of the common people that the people do not fight with the officials.
Any one of the officials are high up, are not their little people to offend.
“Hehe, if the melon is not sweet, old uncle, you just want me to not even give it.”Zhu Pingan pulled the corner of his mouth and laughed, “If it’s sweet, a penny won’t be missing old uncle.”
“Hehehe, guaranteed sweet, guaranteed sweet ……”Looking at Zhu Pingan’s gentle smile, the old uncle also grinned.
“Sir Zhu, my master has an invitation, so please enjoy your presence upstairs.”
Just as Zhu Pingan was picking melons, a boy suddenly came over, walked up to Zhu Pingan and pointed to the restaurant across the street and invited.
Oh?
Zhu Pingan looked up at the words and was seeing that the first floor elegant room of the opposite restaurant had opened a fan, revealing a delicate face.
