Three days later, Dong Pai pushed a chicken cart loaded with three loads of dry firewood to Jinse City to sell it. This time on North Street, he saw many people crowding in front of the photo studio to look at a photo, saying it was strange.
Dong Pai was not in the mood to watch. He was pushing the chicken bus that had just sold out of dry firewood to leave. Suddenly I heard others commenting: There is something weird out there in Jinse City. Two days ago, a beautiful girl with long braids and a red skirt came to this photo studio to take pictures. When the photo was developed, it turned out not to be a person, but a red-tailed carp.
Dong Pai was startled, so he parked the empty chicken bus on the side of the road and went to the door of the photo studio to see what was going on. He struggled to squeeze into the business hall of the photo studio. A female boss with wavy hair was retracting a photo she was holding in her hand and pasting it on the wall for everyone to see. See enough.
When Dong Pai looked up, he realized that the red-tailed carp in the photo on the wall was very similar to the carp he bought and released from a strong man for 29 yuan three days ago, so he left. I asked the female boss, did you remember it wrong? You took a picture of a carp.
You ghost said that. Why should I take a picture of a carp? I am in business, will the carp give me money if I take pictures of carp? I'm not crazy! The female boss spoke eloquently, her eyebrows furrowed, and traces of eyebrow pencil marks were still visible.
So, there really is a girl with long braids and a crimson dress who came to your photo studio to take pictures! And what came out was a red-tailed carp. Dong Pai shifted his gaze from the female boss to the photo of the red-tailed carp hanging on the wall, and kept feeling emotional.
Of course yes, would I tell a lie? The female boss took out a slip from the table and said, "Look, this is the deposit receipt for paying for the photo. I'm just waiting for the girl in the crimson skirt to come over and take the photo. Usually the photo can be taken the next day." But no one has come to take photos yet, which is really strange.
Dong Pai smiled half-heartedly, then left the photo studio, pushing an empty chicken bus away by the roadside, and slowly he forgot about it.
A few days later, he encountered another strange thing: Whenever he went up the mountain to cut firewood or go out to sell firewood, he would smell the aroma of food when he approached his house located at the foot of the mountain.
He was very surprised that there were no other houses nearby, so how could the food smell fragrant? Isn't it possible that someone is having a picnic in the woods behind their house? For the first time, when he smelled the aroma of food, he did not unlock the door and enter the house. Instead, he walked around the woods behind the house and inspected. There was nothing but the chirping of birds, the sound of the wind blowing in the mountains, and the smell of food. The incense gradually disappeared; he turned around and returned to the door of the house. The aroma of the food filled his nostrils again. He clearly felt that someone was cooking in his house.
Reason told him that it was impossible. There was a copper ring lock hanging on the door that had not been touched. The wooden lattice windows on the left and right walls of the room had bars. No one could climb in, unless the bars were removed with a saw or something, but there were Is it necessary to do that?
He carefully looked at several windows, but they were all still intact. With doubts, he took out the key and unlocked the door. The door creaked open. He walked in and looked up. There was nothing, everything was intact.
He walked around the main room and followed the smell of the food into the kitchen room. He found that the dining table in the middle of the room was filled with four dishes and one soup, including his favorite fried pork slices with dried bamboo shoots. Of course, what he was thinking about now was not eating. He was thinking about who would come in and prepare a table of food for him before the door of his house was opened.
He looked here and there again, but no one was in sight. Anyway, he was hungry, so he put a bowl of rice in the stove and ate it sullenly.
On the second and third days, Dong Pai went out early in the morning and returned home at noon or evening. There was still a table of his favorite meat and vegetable dishes in the kitchen.
He thought to himself: Who is helping me secretly? I must find this person and thank him. But can it be found? He thought of a way. On the early morning of the fourth day, as usual, he took a hatchet and a pointed pole and pretended to go out to do something. But halfway through, he quietly turned around and crept to the wooden lattice window of his house. .
Suddenly, he heard footsteps in the house. He clearly remembered that the front door of his house was locked, the back door was closed, and the bolt was tightened. So how could there be anyone in the house?
Regardless of that, he slowly raised his head and looked into the room through the gap of the half-closed window sash. He didn't know what he was looking at, but he was quite shocked when he saw it.
He found a beautiful girl with long braids and a crimson skirt holding a ladle, scooping water from a water tank into a wooden basin, and then bent down to wash vegetables.
Dong Pai did not alarm her. He immediately remembered that a few days ago, the fashionable female owner of the photo studio on Jinsecheng North Street said that a beautiful girl with long braids and a crimson skirt came to her studio to take pictures, but what came out was a red photo. Tail carp photo and no one went to get it.
Could it be that she was washing vegetables in the kitchen... Although Dong Pai was a little afraid and suspicious of her, he was still full of gratitude. He thought: Since you are helping me, even if it is a strange red-tailed carp spirit, it will never harm me. He suddenly plucked up the courage to stand up straight and shouted in a loud voice, "Which lady is she? She secretly helps me, Dong Pai, to cook and eat every day. I want to express my gratitude, but I can't find her master." Unexpectedly, before she finished speaking, the beautiful girl suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Dong Pai then turned around and went to the door of the room, unlocked it and went in. When he came to the stove room, he saw that the dried bamboo shoots soaked in the wooden basin had been half washed and were being placed in a porcelain plate.
Dong Pai was not in the mood to take care of it and continued to shout at the top of his lungs, "Who are you, a kind-hearted girl? Why do you want to help me?" And why he ducked away when he saw me, I don’t understand. The sound broke the silence in the room.
After a while, there seemed to be an echo in the air: Brother Dong, you don’t need to understand for the time being. If you want me to show up in front of you, you must do one thing as I told you.
Dong Pai said to the air, you say it! A voice replied, "Didn't you peek at my appearance outside the window just now?" I wear a pair of long braids and a crimson dress. As for my appearance, you haven’t seen it clearly. You can imagine that you went to Jinse City and asked a painter to draw my face, and then you also drew a picture or took a picture. One photo, if I put my photo and your photo together and light them on fire, I will receive two yin photos and give them to the City God in the Jinse City City God's Temple to have a look and let him be our officiant. Apply for a marriage certificate in the Chenghuang Temple, and I will be your daughter-in-law, and you can see me.
Isn't this what you are talking about a secret marriage? How could this be? Dong Pai asked with wide eyes.
Yes, I have been cultivating in the river surrounding Jinse City for a thousand years, and I can appear as a human at any time. Dong Pai felt that this sweet female voice sounded like it was coming from beside him, but there was still no one there.
Could it be that you are the red-tailed carp spirit... Before Dong Pai could finish the word "jing", he heard the female voice stop him: Don't say "jing", it's ugly. I'm in the aquarium, and everyone calls me red-tailed mermaid. , I was originally trained as a red-tailed carp. From now on, please call me sister Li Yu. Li Yu is the homophone of carp.
The sweet female voice in the air lingered in his ears. When Dong Pai got excited, he immediately clenched his fist and said, "Okay, I will call you sister Li Yu." Sister Li Yu, let me ask you something. Have you ever taken a photo at the Jinsecheng North Street Photo Studio?
The same sweet female voice answered, "After looking at it, it couldn't show the phantom body I had cultivated - a human figure, but it showed my original body - a red-tailed carp." How can I have the nerve to take photos?
However, I took that photo from the photo studio last night. Is it this one? As soon as he finished speaking, a photo was thrown from the window of the kitchen house and fell into the palm of Dong Pai's hand. He took a closer look and found that it was exactly the same as what he saw in the photo studio on Jinsecheng North Street a few days ago.
He put this photo in his pocket and thought to himself: Is this true? But she said, Sister Li Yu, I will go to Jinse City to find a painter to draw a picture of you and me. I am willing to marry you as my wife. I am so poor, and there are more yellow flowers in the world. , but who can look down on me? I am determined to live with you.
Li Yu, who was invisible, let out a snort of laughter, and then said calmly, Brother Dong, thank you for saving me. That time my original body, a big carp, was fished out of the river around the city. If it hadn't been for you If you save me, I won't be here today; it will take another 500 years of cultivation before I can return to my original form. So I help you with cooking and housework. You don’t have to say thank you. It’s me who should thank you.
Dong Pai laughed and said that you don't have to thank me. You should go and thank the old monk in the temple in the mountains behind the house. It was he who asked me to do good deeds, give more charity, and save all living beings from suffering. That's why I was willing to use my hard work. The money from selling firewood is used to buy you and put it back into the river. He walked out as he talked, and heard Li Yu who seemed to be seeing him off said, "Don't talk about the old monk in the temple, you go back quickly, I will still cook rice and stir-fry vegetables in the house waiting for you to come back to eat!"
