Neighbors knew that the Salesian House had made a fortune.
very beginning.
At Mao Shi, everything was quiet, and then smoke rose from the Salesian House, and the unique medicinal fragrance was immersed in the mist.
Until Chen time, when the sky first wakes up, adults and children carry baskets on their backs and carry poles to carry fragrant drinks to the market for sale.
In time for Youshi, before the twilight has faded, I hurried back with the evening bell.
after that.
The smoke from the cooking pots lingering over the Salesian Home for most of the morning.
The children stay at home, and the adults still have to go out early, but they no longer carry poles, but use carts to pull them. There are large pots on the carts, which are heated with charcoal fire and spread the aroma along the way.
They sell more drinks, but they can always come back in time for lunch before the end of the afternoon.
Until now.
The smoke from the chimneys in the Salesian Home is steaming all day long, and the smell of boiled medicinal herbs permeates every corner of the place. Even the fur of a passing wild cat can smell a slightly bitter but sweet smell.
Everyone no longer goes out to hawk, but vendors from various shops come to buy by themselves.
No wonder the medicinal drink business is easy to do.
Buying medicine in Qiantang is expensive, and seeing a doctor is even more expensive. Many people will never be able to enter a medical clinic. When you get sick, you have to deal with it by yourself. If you can't stand it anymore, go to a wizard or a temple to ask for a bowl of talisman water. Whether it works or not is another matter, but it's not cheap anyway.
Although the few drinks carefully selected by He Wumei cannot cure serious illnesses, they can regulate the intestines and stomach, activate qi and blood, and prevent and treat wind evil and colds.
Moreover, it is sold cheaply. It only costs a few pennies. If you can buy a bowl, it will quench your thirst and cure your illness. Why not?
So, most of the neighbors’ houses have thatched roofs, but the Salesian Home has renovated the tiled roofs, which are black and blue in the rain and mist; the neighbors’ doors are mostly made of bamboo pieces or have no door at all, but the Salesian Home has replaced them with tile roofs. Good thick wooden boards, painted with great paint...
But He Wumei is far from satisfied.
The old medical officer suffered from rheumatism. Qiantang was damp and cold in winter. The earthen walls of his room leaked from all directions and were not enough to keep him warm. It was best to rebuild a room with bricks and stones.
As the children grow up, they have vaguely understood the difference between men and women. It is not good for them to continue living together. They have to renovate two rooms in the abandoned house in the backyard and live separately.
Brother Gui's house was originally a woodshed, and it was leaking from all directions. His soul was afraid of cold and wind, so how could he be allowed to live in it again? The house in the backyard needs to be renovated.
The house has been repaired, but the yard cannot be pulled down. The weeds have been sorted and can be opened into a vegetable field. A few cages of chickens and ducks can be raised, and a ewe can be raised to add some female water to the little girl.
The business is getting more and more prosperous, but the space in the courtyard is not enough. It would be best to build a new courtyard in the open space next to it and build it bigger. It can accommodate new children in the backyard, or if the old medical officer is willing to give free clinics, he can also All are useful...
It was a rare sunny afternoon. He Wumei and Li Changan moved the medicinal materials and mountain products to the yard to dry them. Bamboo baskets were placed on the wooden shelves, row by row, filling the entire yard.
The clusters of mountain japonicas exude a slightly spicy fragrance, the newly picked rock cypress exudes a strong smell of grass, and the peonies picked from the roots stretch out in the sun and attract bees and butterflies with their sweet fragrance... He Wumei carefully picked the medicinal materials. He described his "grand plan" to Li Chang'an over and over again.
Li Changan interrupted her chattering.
"And you?"
"I?"
"The house you live in was also a utility room. It was crowded and dilapidated. Everyone got a new house during the renovation of the yard. How come you were the only one left out?"
"Where is the squeeze? It's just smaller and older, which is fine. I can live comfortably, so why waste money?"
"Business has been booming recently, and we don't need those few coppers."
"Is there money that's not bad?"
He Wumei scolded, shook her head with a smile, picked a peony, broke off the stem, and put the branch between her ears. A swallowtail butterfly, greedy for the fragrance, chased the peony and landed on her hair.
He Wumei didn't notice and continued to look through the medicinal materials. Xu Xu said:
"The wood was sent from Feilaishan, and the masons were helped by Dahan and the others, which saved some money, but the rest of the bricks and tiles..."
She already knew all the expenses clearly, and when she talked about them item by item, she felt worried.
Unconsciously, he sighed and the butterflies flew away.
"You work hard all day long to earn some money, and you can put it into the house and get nothing back." It was half a joke and half a complaint, "It's a good thing for you to give the money to the ignorant little kid."
When the medicinal drink business first started, the children helped a lot. The Taoist priest decided to give the children as much money as pocket money for the work they did.
He Wumei has talked about this many times.
Li Changan always smiles.
"You have to break your promise as an adult to do what you promised?"
"How can they take advantage of the children's money?" He Wumei hurriedly defended, "I'm afraid that they will spend the money they have, and leave it here with me so that they can save it for future betrothal gifts and dowries."
As he spoke, he made a move.
The Taoist priest took a closer look and found a pair of fish bones among the medicinal materials.
As time goes by these days, not only is the business booming, but the Ten Coin God's incense is also extremely strong, and he has hired many cats as messengers. This is probably the "reward" discarded by some "godly messenger".
The Taoist priest smiled and quickly picked it up and threw it away.
He Wumei rolled her eyes and continued to murmur: "It's not because of my overthinking. Loach and the monkey cubs are so cunning and hard to see anyone these days, and I don't know what they are planning."
"Children are all sensible." Li Changan explained, "Furthermore, I heard people say that if you don't learn to spend money when you are a child, and you suddenly make money when you grow up, you are like a beggar suddenly getting rich. You may have some bad habits and become a rich man. Gamblers, drunkards, and prostitutes, aren’t they even worse?”
"Bah! There's a lot of nonsense in chanting sutras."
He Wumei turned away angrily, picked up the prepared medicinal materials, and went to the backyard to cook them.
But when the two of them walked through the corridor and entered the backyard, they saw the "sensible" children gathered in front of the wall on the left side, whispering in a furtive manner.
He Wumei didn't let the Taoist priest make a sound, so she quietly went up and tiptoed to take a peek.
But I saw that the children had obtained some low-quality paint from nowhere, mixed the juice of flowers and trees into the broken tiles, and the wooden wall in front of them had just been renovated and painted a full page of oily black, making it a high-quality drawing board.
"Wu Niang is very precious about this paint surface. A few days ago, she was always looking at Silly Le. Let's paint on it. Wu Niang won't be angry, right?"
"Then...you don't want to draw anymore?"
"Draw, draw a little."
The little devils had a low-spirited argument, and Chun Yi, the most skillful girl among the girls, was recommended to write the novel.
The girl took the only writing brush - it looked familiar to Li Changan, as if it was the one he used to draw talismans - and picked the most inconspicuous corner of the door panel, and carefully applied the color.
Her brushstrokes are young and jerky, but she depicts each character vividly.
The woman holding the baby in her arms is He Wumei, the ink ball with a long tail under her feet is "charcoal ball", the old man with a cane next to her is Medical Officer Lu, the tall man with short hair is Li Changan, and the boy with arms and legs crossed is What loach...
One after another.
She was concentrating on the painting, and the children next to her were also watching attentively.
But after finally finishing the painting, before he could breathe a sigh of relief, the friends next to him started to find faults. One said it was wrong in this point, and the other said that it was wrong in that way. Chunyi was so angry that she spread her hands.
"I'll give you the pen, come on!"
Before anyone else could say anything, Loach had already grabbed the pen and quickly added something to the picture.
"Is this...a chicken?"
Fortunately, my friend can find an image in this mess.
But Loach was furious: "Bah! This is Xiao Qi!"
"Huh? Can Xiaoqi also draw in?"
"Why not?!" Niyi said plausibly, "Xiao Qi has helped us so much. Although others don't live in the courtyard, they can draw pictures in the courtyard."
When everyone heard this, they thought it made sense, but since Xiaoqi can draw, then Dahan, Xiucai, Bronze Tiger, Huangwei... However, there are so many characters, how to draw the differences?
Loach rolled his eyes, added a human figure on the "drawing board", and added a short tail, and it was done. This is the yellow tail.
Before he could be proud.
"Yeah! The loach stole the painting again!"
The little devils all reacted and rushed to paint. They only had one pen, and they used branches, grass stems, and fingers dipped in paint to draw.
You push me and push me, laughing and joking, how can you be cautious just now?
The laughter and laughter spread all over the sun-filled yard, which attracted all the cats snoring the sun on the wall to look around with their tails curled. Soon, every one of them turned into a cat with a colorful face.
"ah!"
one of the dolls exclaimed.
But everyone was having too much fun, and graffiti had been covered in large areas of the wall.
"What's wrong! The wall panels are all ruined!"
"We are going to eat bamboo sticks."
"I'm not afraid of the bamboo sticks, but Wu Niang is stingy. I'm afraid she will confiscate our private money, so how can we raise it..."
That’s it.
"Ahem."
The children were startled and turned around quickly.
I saw Li Changan pretending to clear his throat, and the stingy Wu Niang with a dark face.
…………
The cats who were watching the excitement ran away early and hid in the corners and eaves, watching the children standing in rows like quails in the courtyard.
He Wumei said with a sullen face: "I have told you many times that you are not allowed to call me Huangwei, you must call me Uncle Huang, and you are not allowed to..." She tapped Loach's "masterpiece" hard.
He Niluo whispered: "It's him who wants us to call him Huangwei..."
Halfway through the words, He Wumei's eyes widened, and the little baby immediately shivered and fell silent.
She hummed twice.
"Tell me, why are you scribbling? You don't even say anything. Didn't you say a lot just now?"
Children don't dare to speak out.
He Wumei immediately called her name.
I called out a little girl. She was an honest child, and she answered whatever was asked.
Asked why he was painting, if he didn’t like the new house.
But she said that everyone loved the new house very much, but they were afraid that they wouldn't be able to live there for long, so before moving back to the old house, she wanted to paint them on the wall so that they could still live in the new house.
He Wumei was puzzled as to why he could not stay there for a long time.
The little girl replied that someone was saying that the new house was made of blue bricks and tiles, which was rare in the entire Fuguifang. Such a good house would be a waste just for living in. It would be more cost-effective to rent it to merchants!
"Who is talking nonsense!"
He Wumei was furious, thinking that some neighbor was jealous and stirring up trouble in front of her children.
Didn't think about it.
"Yes, yes..." Tears were already welling up in the little girl's eyes. She was suddenly frightened and burst into tears, "It's Uncle Huang."
The two adults cursed in their hearts at the same time: "Damn Huang Tail! You are so unobtrusive!"
He Wumei quickly hugged the little girl who was crying pitifully, took off the peony and inserted it into her hair, comforting her softly.
Li Changan shouted like this:
"Look, Dean He is so anxious that he still doesn't bring some water to wipe the board clean."
There really was an honest boy who was obedient and wanted to fetch water. Li Changan quickly grabbed him.
If He Wumei really cared, she would have stopped the children at the beginning of painting. So when she saw Li Changan's little actions, she just said angrily: "All the paintings have been painted."
"That's right." The Taoist priest immediately changed his face and moved the little heads around him with a smile, "Children have good intentions, why can't they bear to touch each other?"
He Wumei rolled her eyes.
"There is a lot of nonsense in chanting sutras."
…………
He Wumei coaxed the little girl to leave the backyard.
Loach and the others immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
"What a risk, what a risk, I almost let it slip!"
"Keep your voice down." The Taoist priest lowered his voice and spoke like a spy, "Have you found out what happened?"
Loach also lowered his voice cleanly and nodded heavily with a stern face: "We've found out."
He Wumei's guess was correct, the children like Loach were indeed having "dirty ideas", but she didn't expect that Li Changan was also involved.
He Wumei usually wears a sarong and wears a plain face. Except for her taller posture, slender body, and more graceful face, she is no different from the ordinary poor women in the streets.
But those who knew her well knew that hidden in her dowry was a beautiful outfit and a fine guqin, which were the only things she had left after years of selling off her belongings to support the Salesian Home.
She never showed herself to others. Only when she was invited to be a harpist at a banquet (mainly from Xianyi Temple), would she put on her clothes and carry the guqin, regain some of her former charm as He Sunu, and go to the Salesian Home for the children. They earn a ration.
A few days ago, everyone was attracted to Feilai Mountain, which was a great "money destination", but they had no money to pay homage to the mountain, so she secretly pawned her clothes and guqin to collect enough money for everyone.
Although she hid it and never said it, how could the Taoist priest not notice it?
I have been thinking about it all the time, and I happened to find out that the children like Loach have been secretly planning to redeem the things pawned by He Wumei, and the two parties hit it off.
Ni Loach and the others found out that the thing had been pawned and sold to a famous person in the city who was good at playing the guqin. He cherished the guqin so much that it would be impossible for ordinary people to redeem it.
But since the Taoist priest broke into Cave City alone, he has quite a reputation in Qian Tang Fengyue's circle, and he will probably be able to succeed.
After explaining the news in detail, Loach took out a cloth bag, and then took out a few copper coins and a few silver coins. He carefully put them in and handed them to the friend next to him. The friend also put a handful of copper coins in and handed them over to the friend next to him. The next child... In this way, both hands were turned around, and when it was finally returned to Loach's hand, the cloth bag was already bulging to a huge size.
But in fact, it was mostly copper, mixed with a few pieces of silver, and the total was only a few taels of silver. Compared with the amount needed to redeem the piano, it was a drop in the bucket.
But this is just a few taels, but it is all the savings in the hands of the children of the Salesian Home.
"Uncle Gui, we made a deal." Loach held up the money bag solemnly, "We lent you the money that's short of it. We'll make a big deal, and we'll definitely make money and pay it back to you!"
Facing the serious faces of the children, Li Changan took it with a smile.
"It's a deal."
He didn't refuse. As mentioned before, how could he bear to fight with someone with good intentions?
…………
Conversation room.
Suddenly there was a shout.
"Taoist! Taoist!"
The first sound was still outside the door, and the second sound came into the yard.
By the time Li Changan put away his money bag and turned around, Huang Wei was already coming to kill him like crazy.
At first glance, I saw the conspicuous graffiti on the wall.
He said "Hey" and instinctively complimented:
"Is this the house-protecting talisman drawn by the Taoist Master? Wow! The brushstrokes are indeed mysterious!"
Then throw it away hastily.
Ignoring the red faces of the little guys.
said eagerly:
"Something happened to the gang!"
