The teacher often said: To be a farmer in the morning and to ascend to the emperor's hall in the evening is the dream of many scholars for thousands of years.
Whenever the teacher said this sentence, his face would show a dreamy expression. The scholars who were still schoolchildren at that time could take this opportunity to look up from the "Book of Sages" and take a look at the flowers and plants outside the school.
When the scholar was seven years old, his parents sent him to school and became a teacher of an old scholar with a colorful beard.
He passed the examination as a scholar at the age of nineteen, and was granted the title of Jinshi at the age of thirty-two. The then minister of the Ministry of Rites was his fellow countryman, so he was recruited into the Ministry of Rites, where he was appointed as the head of the Department of Ceremonies and was promoted to the sixth rank.
With the help of his fellow countrymen who worshiped the Minister of Rites, his official career was much smoother than that of ordinary people. But what he didn't know was that the Minister of Rites had already participated in the party struggle.
The scholar will never forget what his fellow countryman who holds a high position said to him throughout his life: Living in a temple is like being in a fierce wind, and you don't know where it will fall. You should take care of yourself.
Three years later, the party to which the Minister of Rites belonged won the victory and successfully impeached the Privy Council of the enemy leader. As a member of the winning party, the scholar was promoted to the rank of doctor.
Three years later, the Hu people went south, and the emperor went south to take refuge. The scholar, as an official who stayed in the capital, became a prisoner of the Hu people.
Some of his colleagues surrendered, and some would rather die than surrender, but he chose the latter between the butcher's knife and the official rank. In order to win over people's hearts, the Hu people promoted all the officials who surrendered, and he was promoted to the fourth rank.
The territory of the Hu people is getting bigger and bigger, and his official position is getting higher and higher. When the Hu people unified the world and killed the young Han emperor, the scholar had already become the Minister of Rites.
The barbarians relied on the scimitar to conquer the country, and then lost the country because of the scimitar. The tribal leaders who were named vassal kings when they entered the customs rose up to fight for the throne. The world was in chaos again, and the capital was repeatedly captured in chaotic battles.
Every time the capital city fell, the name of the country changed every time, and the patches on the scholars' clothes changed every time.
When he became a high-ranking official, the Han government, which was hiding its capabilities and biding its time in the south, seized the opportunity and regained the lost ground in one fell swoop.
The octogenarian scholar took off his official uniform, put on his prison uniform, and knelt under the executioner's knife as a traitor who had surrendered to the barbarians.
Before he died, he remembered what his fellow countryman said when he first put on his official uniform: Being in a temple is like being caught in a fierce wind, and you don't know where it will fall.
Now, the wind has stopped.
The sword fell, and the scholar suddenly woke up and smelled the smell of rice.
He was sitting in the house where he lived when he was a child. A man had his back to him, tending to the rice on the stove.
The man was wearing a mandarin jacket with a red phoenix pattern on a black background, and the cattail leaf fan in his hand was swinging gently to keep the firewood burning.
Realizing that the scholar had woken up, the man slowly turned around and smiled.
"Sleep well on my pillow?"
"Is this... a dream?"
The man opened the lid of the pot, and the aroma of millet rose up. He took out a bowl, passed the dense steam, and handed it to the scholar.
"Are you asking just now or now?"
There was a smile in the man's eyes, and an old face reflected in his eyes as dark and deep as the lake at night.
At this time, the scholar finally remembered that he had seen this man before...
Zhou Shi was separated from his memory and rested on the bench for a long time before he recovered.
The amount of information in his memory this time was so large that he was both excited and frightened.
"It's that man again!"
At the end of the scholar's memory, the man who cooked rice in the house where he lived when he was a child was the man who appeared in different memories many times, the previous owner of the Iron Abacus.
In the past, I could only see the clothes on his body, but this time I finally saw his appearance clearly.
He has good facial features, but that's all, he's not very handsome...but his eyes are so dark that it makes people feel scared...
After these days of study, Zhou Shi had a rough understanding of the history of this world. He quickly determined the era in which the scholar lived - the last years of Dahuan, the unified dynasty before Daliang, and the early years of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, about two decades ago.
More than a hundred years.
But it is difficult to determine the era in which that man lived - because he has the same face as the scholar's fellow countryman, who was the Minister of Rites at the time!
How is this possible?
"At the end of his memory, although the scholar felt that his life's experiences were like a dream, his appearance had indeed become older, so his experiences were all real!
"Then he was clearly beheaded! Why... no, this isn't the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing is that he met that man at thirty-two and was beheaded at seventy. More than forty years have passed.
No, that man’s appearance hasn’t changed at all!”
Is he immortal?
I'm afraid it can only be explained this way...
The most terrible thing is, is that man still alive now? If he is really immortal, why did the iron abacus fall into Zhou Shi's hands?
Zhou Shi looked at the iron abacus in front of him and felt more and more that this was a hot potato.
"It's a pity that my old boss has passed away, and he did not clearly explain the origin of this iron abacus. He only said that it was a family heirloom..."
The fog was thick, and Zhou Yongyong couldn't deduce anything from the clues he had, so he had to turn his attention back to the pillow.
This is the pillow that the scholar put under his head when he woke up.
Zhou Shi put his hand on it, and it felt like touching warm skin, sending out a fatal temptation to him who had stayed up all night and stayed up for a long time.
"The appearance is the same as an ordinary pillow, but the feel, I don't know what material it is made of and what is the filling inside."
The scholar's memory reminded people of an idiom, so Zhou Shi named it "Huang Liang Zhen".
The yellow beam pillow can make the person lying on it fall asleep instantly and cannot be woken up. They will only wake up when they smell the aroma of food.
"The function is simple and crude, but the specific usage still needs to be developed."
Zhou Shi yawned and was eager to try.
At this time, the curtain that separated the front hall and the backyard was suddenly lifted, and Zhou Shi was so frightened that he quickly put the yellow beam pillow into the iron abacus.
"Shopkeeper? You got up so early?"
It was Xiaosi. He rubbed his eyes and walked into the front hall. He was very surprised to see Zhou Shi already sitting in the store.
"Ah, I couldn't sleep at night, so I came out to sit for a while and settle the accounts."
"Oh... um? Where's the counter? Where's the counter?"
"Ah, I thought that counter was too worn, so I moved it out and threw it away. It's okay, I still have one in the house, I can just replace it when the time comes."
When Zhou Shi returned to Fengde Building, in order to bring Mr. Mo in quietly, he hid him in the counter that was moved from an inn in the countryside. Now that counter comes in handy.
"You mean the one you brought back from the countryside? That one is much more breakable than ours."
Is this true? The counter in Fengde Building was custom-made by a carpenter. The one in Zhou Shi's house was picked up by Mr. Mo from somewhere. In order to fit it in, he even removed all the frames inside.
.
"Even broken ones can be used. In these extraordinary times, we don't have to worry about so much."
"Then you still want to throw..."
"Ahem! As the saying goes, 'people don't understand the past and present, horses and oxen are like horses'. No matter how luxurious the furnishings in the store are, if the food they make is not delicious, they will still be closed. It's just a counter..."
Zhou Shi fooled Xiaosi into a daze. He scratched his head and said, "What did you mean by saying someone is awesome?"
"That's a poem, which means that if a person doesn't understand the past and present, he's just like an animal wearing clothes... So go out and buy quickly, and don't delay starting the cooking."
He finally tricked Xiaosi away, but Agui came out again.
"Hey, shopkeeper, you got up so early?"
"It should be 'sleeping so late'. I'll go back and take a nap for a while. You can steam two steamed buns and bring them to me in an hour."
"Okay."
Zhou Shi returned to his room with the iron abacus, took out the yellow beam pillow, and put it on the bed.
He wanted to try the efficacy of this yellow beam pillow himself.