Zheng Haizhu looked away and looked at others, and saw the Gu family's youngest daughter-in-law, Mrs. Li, looking here with interest.
Well, this drama queen is going to start performing again. Zheng Haizhu thought.
Sure enough, Mrs. Li raised her eyebrows, curled up the corners of her mouth, and said with a smile: "Oh, Master Kong said that you never tire of fine food and never tire of fine food. When you eat, someone else cleans it more carefully and puts it directly into your mouth. It is natural. But there are three things. But the most fun is eating and peeling things by yourself. One is melon seeds, one is water chestnut, and the other one..."
"The other one is crabs," Grandma Shen said with a soft smile as she washed her fingers in the chrysanthemum bowl. "Every time the third daughter-in-law eats crabs, she will kill me with this. Everyone has his own person. My fingers are the inconvenience caused by my mother's womb, so I just have to accept my fate calmly. Do I still want to find fault with my mother while I'm eating and drinking?"
"Well, what the third daughter-in-law said is indeed wrong. Sweet potatoes are also interesting when they are peeled and gnawed at the same time." Gu Shouqian's mother, the second grandma Lu, spoke in a soft voice, then turned to the servant and said, "These crabs are delicious , but after eating two, I feel cold in my stomach. Go and see if the sweet potatoes Mrs. Xu brought are ready to be steamed?"
The second mistress, Mrs. Lu, is kind-hearted but not stupid. She is used to changing the subject to lighten the atmosphere.
The woman who was waiting on the side hurriedly added: "The sweet potatoes have been steamed until the core is completely pink, and they are just waiting for the old ladies and grandmothers to order them to be served."
"Serve it up." Old Mrs. Miao said with a smile.
Not long after, the servants brought up a large pot with blue and white lotus petals, in which were crammed radish-like sweet potatoes. The cracked skin revealed the golden flesh like the rising sun, and the dense heat curled up, filling the sweet potatoes with sweet potatoes. The fragrance is sent to everyone's nose.
Mrs. Shen reached out and took one with both ends turned up, and brought it to Mrs. Miao: "Mom, this looks so white, like a gold ingot. Eat it while it's hot."
After Mrs. Miao took it, she picked a long one herself, rubbed the skin and peeled it open, eating it with relish.
Mrs. Miao kindly greeted all the grandmothers and ladies to take sweet potatoes, and said to Xu Guangqi's daughter-in-law: "Old lady, when I was on duty in the palace, Long live the Lord and the Queen, they loved to eat the steamed pea yellow from the small shop outside. . This sweet potato is fragrant and glutinous, and is a bit sweeter than beans and chestnuts. If you think about it more, you can make more delicate snacks. Therefore, this imported thing may not necessarily be laughed at."
Li, the youngest daughter-in-law of the Gu family, is actually not really stupid. She knew that in the delicate rounds just now, she could not hold back the harshness that was about to be released at any time, which actually ruined her own stage, so she also wanted to win over the Dong family and the Han family. The female family members and Mrs. Huang came forward to make up for their loss.
She then added to the old lady's words and said: "Mom is right, Western clocks and glazed lamps are very good. Wife of the Xu family, the foreign religion your family believes in, if it can be changed to make it easier for us to understand, maybe More people believe.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she heard a clear voice from the table: "Miss Zheng also told me just now, for example, around the cross, you can embroider black birds, Luan and Phoenix, and for example, the Mater dei (referring to the Virgin) can be placed on the lotus. , like Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. Miss Zheng’s ideas are really wonderful. When I think about it carefully, many of the teachings that grandpa and mother-in-law told me are also consistent with the Confucian and Buddhist classics that I learned from my female husband."
The little girl who spoke up was none other than Xu Guangqi’s granddaughter, Xu Huizhen.
Since the beginning of the banquet, Xiao Huizhen had been eating quietly and gracefully. Now she suddenly started chatting, and her words were quite organized like a scholar. She was not at all like a seven or eight-year-old girl. Everyone couldn't help but be a little surprised. The atmosphere suddenly became quiet.
It was her mother Gu Lanjie who woke up first, turned to Zheng Haizhu, and said with a pleasant look mixed with admiration: "Miss Zheng, no wonder Azhen stuck to you all the way here, you two seem to get along very well. "
Han Ximeng has always had the temperament of a golden horse and a sword. When he heard other maids praising his house, he was not unreasonable and said openly and openly: "Young Mistress Xu, Bai Letian said, although they are new acquaintances, there is an old love between Azhu and Zhen." My sister was able to hit it off immediately because both of her brains are so smart."
Zheng Haizhu hurriedly leaned over and said: "Grandma and Miss Hui, it is Miss Huizhen who is pious and intelligent. In just a few words, I understood that Mater Dei, like Guanyin Bodhisattva, is a merciful and rescuing goddess. I don't think so." I’ll take the liberty to say a few words.”
Xiao Huizhen was actually tired of the boring conversations between the Gu family aunts at the dinner table, so she took this opportunity, stood up and faced Mrs. Miao who was sitting at the table, and said respectfully: "Auntie, Huizhen has finished all the food. There is no waste. Could you please allow Huizhen to leave the meeting and ask Miss Zheng for advice on painting skills? My mother and I are going to embroider some paintings for the church."
Old Mrs. Miao laughed happily: "Go, little girl. Madam also gives you a tip. You and Miss Zheng think about it, how can we draw grains and grains around the cross? By the way, don't forget, and also There are sweet potatoes introduced to Songjiang by your grandfather. Food is the most important thing for the people, and the people will trust whoever feeds them."
…
Heminglou, a high-end restaurant that only caters to the city's officials, gentry and women's families, knows the habits of its guests best, so it also has a pavilion on the east side of the main building.
Outside the Xiaoxuan window, there are banana leaves, hibiscus, rockery and beautiful rocks, while the inside of the house is arranged like a study room, with tables, pens and ink, rice paper, and paints all available for guests to recite poems, write poems, and dance.
Zheng Haizhu spread out the paper on the desk.
Xiao Huizhen, who was very interested, moved the polished inkstone in front of her, then knelt on the round table and stared at the rice paper.
Zheng Haizhu looked sideways at her and felt that the little girl had two round eyes and bulging cheeks. She was cute and smart. He couldn't help but think of the two cats he raised in his previous life in modern times. On those nights when I ran out of ideas, couldn't turn in my manuscript, or couldn't finish the update, the two cats would just stay by my side, looking at the keyboard or the screen, as if cheering me up.
But at this moment, Zheng Haizhu didn't feel the pain of Kawen in his previous life, but wrote as if he was inspired.
The original body that entrusts the soul retains the memory of the finger muscles of Nvhong and Danqing. In the first few days after Zheng Haizhu woke up from Longxi County, Zhangzhou, he discovered that he could draw meticulous line drawings and local velvet weaving drawings. Master, it’s not too bad. And I have a modern accumulation of knowledge about Chinese and foreign art history, as well as a broad and divergent thinking, which greatly blessed this originally simple golden finger.
During the days when Han Ximeng was studying Japanese ukiyo-e, Zheng Haizhu did not hesitate to draw a reduced version of Katsushika Hokusai's "Phoenix" for the hostess.
Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese ukiyo-e painter more than a hundred years later. Naturally, neither the Ming Dynasty people nor the Japanese people today know about it. Han Ximeng has never seen such a unique phoenix. It is both tangible and invisible. It is not a phoenix at all. In the misty chaos, he was pleasantly surprised. Zheng Haizhu only said that he had been looking at a few Japanese paintings during the day and dreamed about it at night. After picking up some outlines and understanding the random stitching that Miss is good at, the Phoenix painting was created.
Once the analogy is made, the thinking will open up, and the same is true for the current conception of Catholic paintings and embroidery.
Even without the encouragement of Mrs. Miao and Gu Lanjie, Zheng Haizhu firmly believed that it was feasible to localize the foreign religion that Xu Guangqi believed in in promotional materials.
Because in real history, many paintings and books unearthed in later generations show that the spread of Catholicism in China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties drew heavily on local religious legends.
The profits from this popular material, posters and embroidery will be one of the sources of funds for her school.
Therefore, today's God-given opportunity to invest in the Xu family cannot be missed.
Zheng Haizhu first drew the outline of Dehua white porcelain Guanyin, which is most familiar to Fujian people, stepping on the lotus.
Then, recalling the various statues of the Virgin and Child she had seen when visiting Western art exhibitions, she drew a peacock blue robe with gold trim for Guanyin Master, and then stuffed a white and fat little doll with slightly curly hair. The bellyband is never drawn, and two golden circles are drawn just like Guanyin. It looks like Guanyin sending her son, and also like the Virgin Mary holding Jesus.
Then, Zheng Haizhu thought of the lines of Mount Fuji in early ukiyo-e paintings that he had obtained from Yan Siqi, and painted them on the back of the portrait. He also added cranes, phoenixes, and golden pheasants. Whatever birds were auspicious, he painted them. The foreground of the portrait is an imitation of Katsushika Hokusai's "Kanagawa Waves", which depicts waves.
Xu Huizhen saw this place attentively and asked curiously: "Sister Azhu, where are these mountains and waters?"
Zheng Haizhu said: "Do you teach a book called the Bible? Is there a story in the Bible called Exodus? It mentions the Red Sea? In Buddhism, is there a mountain called Mount Sumeru? Huizhen Miss, you see, our people in the Ming Dynasty, whether you are preaching Catholicism or Buddhism, or talking about the Red Sea or Mount Sumeru, they may not understand it. But when you talk about the Fairy Mountain of the Queen Mother of the West and the South China Sea of Guanyin, everyone must be familiar with it since they were young. Understood in seconds.”
"What is a second?" Xu Huizhen had a question mark on her face, but she soon realized, "Are you talking about a very short time? My grandfather taught me that in Mr. Tessie's country (referring to Matteo Ricci), there is no need for hours, For moments and breaths, they use hours, minutes, and seconds. So, understanding in seconds means it’s easy to understand?”
Zheng Haizhu grinned and praised that it was correct, thinking, indeed, the best room in the school district is the parents' study room.
Xiao Huizhen did not look proud, but stared at the line drawing layout, carefully thinking about what silk thread and stitching methods to use in each area.
When the two of them were drawing on the drawing with their embroidery cloths, they heard a creaking sound from the window behind them.
Zheng Haizhu and Xu Huizhen looked back and saw a young woman in green clothes and blue skirt climbing into the house from the window sill in a hurry using her hands and feet.
"you……"
"Miss Zheng, it's me! Ru Liier!"
Before Zheng Haizhu could see the confusion in his eyes, the young woman had announced her family status.
Zheng Haizhu heard the words and took a closer look, and recognized that she was a girl from the Fireworks Alley by the Yue River in Fucheng.
