Chapter 35: Casual Cottage Occasional Writings (I)

  Nan State is located at the intersection of Fujian and Guangdong, it is a famous hometown of fish, rice, flowers and fruits. The mountains and rivers in the territory are beautiful, surrounded by green trees, with pleasant climate and rich products.

  According to the excavated Paleolithic relics, there were ancestors living on this fertile land as early as 10,000 years ago. However, it was still in a barbarous period until the 25th year of Qin Shi Huang, when it was incorporated into the Qin Central Territory and belonged to Minzhong County. In the Han Dynasty, with Liangshan as the boundary, it was divided between Nanyue and Minyue, and by the 12th year of Sui Kaihuang, it was unified again.

  The local customs are simple and honest, historically talented people gathered here, and outstanding talents emerged in large numbers.

  Song Wen's memory of his hometown is most deeply impressed by the fact that no matter which season, there are always fresh fruits, and they are all in season. Like spring, there are loquats, waxberries; summer, peaches, plums, lychees, longans, watermelons, mangoes, pineapples, papayas; autumn, pomelos, olives, pears, persimmons, tangerines, pomegranates; winter, there are sugarcane, oranges, etc. Among them, bananas are the most impressive, available all year round, no matter what time of year.

  Walking on the stone road of the old street, looking at the well-preserved ancient streets, Song Wen couldn't help but sigh at the ruthlessness of time.

  This is the only well-preserved old street in Nanzhou. Song Wen likes to walk around here every time he comes to the city. In the past, there was a large area of old streets here, but with the renovation of the old district, everything was demolished, leaving only these few rows of old streets with the Temple of Confucius and the Shangshu Gate.

  On both sides of the street, the old names on the shops can still be seen vaguely, "De Xin Foreign Firm", "Liu's Pawnshop", "Tongmin Medicine Shop", "Old Lu Barber Shop"...

  Looking at those old brand names, I felt as if time had passed by in a daze and returned to that era. But suddenly waking up, hearing the cries of vendors around me, I realized it was just an occasional dream.

  As I walked, I arrived at the end of the old street, where a new antique street was built. On both sides of the wide road, there were shops and vendors selling antiques.

  Today may not be a day off, there are few people, only a few people squatting on the ground stalls looking at things.

  Song Wen walked while looking around, touching this and that, curious about everything. The boss of the stall looked at him and let it go, anyway there was no one else, just to amuse himself.

  After a while, he came to a stall selling old books and squatted down, flipping through the books on the bookstall.

  The books on the bookstall are said to be old, but most of them are new and not very old. Some are pirated editions that have just been published for a short time, some are from the 80s, and there are also some books written in traditional Chinese characters with brush pens, which are unknown what era they belong to.

  Song Wen likes to read books, especially those on Taoist classics, traditional Chinese medicine or strange and unusual events, so every time he goes shopping, he will go to places with books to take a look.

  I picked up two books from the bookstall and flipped through them, feeling that they were okay. One was "Yang He Lu" and the other was "Lue An Ou Shu", without any indication of who wrote them.

  He thought what was written in the book was quite interesting and worth reading, so he asked the stall owner: "Boss, how much for these two books?"

  The stall owner saw Song Wen flipping through the books for half a day without showing any intention of buying, and he was getting a bit impatient, wanting to shoo him away. However, with the saying "the sky is big, the earth is big, but customers are bigger", it's not good to chase him away, especially when there were no other customers around, so he let Song Wen stay, just to add some atmosphere.

  At this time, hearing him wanting to buy books, he glanced at them and smiled: "These two, will be a bit more expensive."

  "How much?"

  "Two hundred." The vendor held up two fingers.

  "Boss, do you think I'm a fool?" Song Wen said, pointing at himself.

  The stall owner didn't know why he asked this, but still honestly said: "Not very much like."

  "Since it's not like that, how dare you open for 200? Don't you see what this is?" Song Wen pointed to the book cover and said: "This is cowhide paper, and these characters are written with a ballpoint pen, and they're even bound with staples. Boss, you won't tell me that these two broken books are also antiques, will you?"

  The stall owner was a bit embarrassed by his words and thought that if they were antiques, he would have sold them long ago. Why would he still keep them here for people to pick?

  "One hundred and fifty, can't be any less, look at these characters inside, how beautiful they are, can ordinary people write so beautifully?"

  The stall owner felt that the price was indeed too high after being told by Song Wen, so he voluntarily lowered the price.

  "It's not me saying it, boss, but what era are we in now? Still using brush-written characters? How can you use brush-written characters with cowhide paper and binding nails? I think 80% of the time they're printed by a printing press. Nowadays, the brush-written characters printed by those machines look just like real ones - who knows if it's really written with a brush or not? If the content wasn't okay, I wouldn't even buy it. One hundred yuan at most, one hundred. Will you sell it or not? If not, then forget it."

  "Alright, alright, one hundred is one hundred, I'll consider it a loss for you today. Do you want me to put it in a bag?"

  "Let's get dressed!"

  After finishing speaking, Song Wen took out money from his pocket and gave it to him.

  One hand hands over the money, one hand hands over the goods. After the stall owner put the money in his pocket, he said with emotion: "Little brother, you're really good at bargaining, two hundred was cut in half by you."

  "Don't think I don't know, these books might just be the ones you picked up from the junkyard. At this moment, who knows if you're secretly calling me an idiot?" Song said with a glance at him.

  The stall owner was shocked by what he heard, but wasn't it true that these books were all collected from scraps and cost less than one yuan per kilogram.

  But this matter cannot be said, and hurriedly said: "How is it possible?"

  Song Wen ignored him and continued reading his book, looking away to the side.

  To be honest, the proportion of handicrafts and antiques in the antique market is less than nine to one, but everything really looks good, so Song Wenzai comes here to stroll around.

  He walked back and forth on Antique Street, didn't see anything interesting, so Song Wen left, walking while reading the book he just bought.

  "Sketches from a Scattered Studio..."

  Song Wen whispered the title of the book and slowly opened it.

  The book doesn't even have a title or an author's name. According to the introduction by the owner of the book, he is a doctor and this book was just something he wrote casually.

  The book contains sometimes his experience in treating a patient, sometimes a prescription, and sometimes even records how to cultivate flowers and plants, how to appreciate the scenery, it can be said that it is messy and confusing.

  Inside, it also recorded a method of making tea and wine with bamboo leaves, so Song Wenzai would buy this book.

  At this time, an old man who was dressed in a dignified manner walked past him and heard him softly reciting the four characters "Brief Hut Occasional Writings". He immediately stopped, turned his head around, saw Song Wen holding the book and reading it, and hastily took two quick steps to come to Song Wen's side.

  "Hey there, young man, wait a minute."

  Song Wen heard what sounded like someone calling him and stopped in his tracks. He turned around to see an old man walking towards him.

  The old man had a head of white hair, but he looked robust and his eyes were bright and piercing. His two white eyebrows stood up like knives, pointing straight at the sky, looking very majestic.

  Coming up to Song Wen, the old man smiled and asked: "Young man, I seemed to hear you reciting 'Notes from a Carefree Studio' just now, didn't I?"

  Song Wen saw that although the old man was also speaking Minnan dialect, he had a clear non-local accent, apparently not a local.

  A stranger asked him questions, which seemed a bit abrupt.

  However, seeing the old man speaking kindly to him, a young man couldn't say much. He simply raised the book in his hand and said: "Here it is, its title is 'Notes from a Humble Abode'."

  "May I have a look?" The old man's smile seemed even more amiable.

  Song Wen thought it was neither right nor wrong and wasn't afraid of this old man relying on his book, so he handed it over.

  The old man carefully accepted the book and began to flip through it page by page, his expression seemingly excited, his hands slightly trembling.

  After a long while, the old man closed the book and handed it back to Song Wen.

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  Song Wen took the book and was about to leave.

  The old man hastily pulled him and said: "I don't know if you are willing to give up your love, sell this book to me."

  "Hmm..."

  Song Wen felt strange and asked: "Do you want to buy it?"

  "Yes, if you're willing to give her up, I'll pay 1 million."

  Song Wen's eyes widened instantly as if they were on fire.

  You banana guy, what is a rich man? This is a rich man. A broken book like this actually costs 100,000 yuan. Is their family's money burning with fever or something?