bayedsolid Chapter 769 Afternoon
Chapter 769 Afternoon
"From now on, the canteen will be managed by this kid!" In the third week of being the chef, Sha Zhu's leather shoes stepped on the canteen director's desk. "Liu Lan, take the meat ticket for the braised pork." He chewed peanuts, with Daqianmen cigarettes given by his coworkers at his feet. "Where is the Erguotou that Xu Damao gave me?" The female worker who used to help him cut vegetables bit her lip, and her apron was still stained with the vegetable soup he had splashed on her in the morning. The allocation of materials before the Spring Festival became the fuse. Sha Zhu locked all the refined white flour in the safe and sent a whole fan of pork ribs to the leaders' families. A jingle suddenly spread in the factory: "Sha Zhu, black-hearted, workers eat bran but he eats uan (dialect, meaning "good things")." On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, on the day of the Kitchen God Festival, he was delivering rice cakes to Director Zhang's home and ran into a few old workers squatting in the boiler room eating steamed corn bread. "Zhu Zi, give some white flour to the brothers?" Master Wang's pipe was knocking loudly on the door frame. Sha Zhu turned up the collar of his woolen coat and said, "There's no stock in the warehouse. If you have the guts, go ask the factory director for it." The north wind blew coal dust on his face, but he felt it was hotter than the fire in the workshop. Behind him, there was a murmur of discussion: "Bah, a villain is getting ahead!" The turning point came in the selection of model workers in the early spring. Sha Zhu hung his photo in the most conspicuous position on the bulletin board, and asked Xu Damao to take an artistic photo of him flipping the pot. On the day of voting, he crossed his legs and counted the votes, and suddenly found that half of them were abstentions. The catkins that floated in from the window fell on the "Advanced Worker" application form, spreading gray dots. The real crisis came unexpectedly. The city was going to conduct a major industrial inspection, and Director Zhang patted Sha Zhu on the shoulder: "Do a good job, the canteen is the face of our factory." He asked Liu Lan and others to clean the stove until the early morning, while he hid in the office drinking Maotai. On the day the inspection team came, the steamer suddenly leaked, and the steamed buns just out of the pot all turned into dead dough lumps. "Is this your standard canteen?" The director's leather shoes rolled over the dough on the ground, "It doesn't even meet the most basic hygiene standards!" Sha Zhu still had shopping coupons in his white coat pocket that he hadn't given out, and his sweat had soaked the paper. Director Zhang's face was darker than the iron pot, and the meeting record book was thrown at his feet: "You kid, you have embarrassed me!" On the day the layoff notice was posted, Sha Zhu squatted at the back door of the canteen and smoked. The workers who used to surround him walked around, and only Liu Lan quietly stuffed him two cold steamed buns: "Eat sparingly, I heard that the labor market is recruiting small workers." He touched the rough skin of the steamed buns and remembered that when he first entered the factory, the master's hands were also so rough when he taught him to knead dough. The late autumn rain poured on the plastic shed of the labor market. Sha Zhu and several migrant workers squeezed in a corner to eat dry biscuits. The bell of the rolling mill rang in the distance, and he subconsciously reached for his pockets—there were no more meat coupons that he could take out at any time. Mud and water were creeping up his trouser legs, and he suddenly remembered the calligraphy hanging in Director Zhang's house: "Pride brings harm, humility brings benefit." The ink was spreading in his memory, just like the pot of mutton soup he had overturned.
The creative idea starts with the poor student Shen Yanqiu studying hard to go to Beijing for the imperial examination, and connects the plots of cheating in the imperial examination, the game of power and the counterattack in the palace examination. Through the description of writing eight-part essays, the various aspects of the examination room, and the ups and downs in the court, it shows the various aspects of life and the turning points of fate under the ancient imperial examination system. Ink Scroll In the autumn of the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing, the autumn rain soaked Shen Yanqiu's coarse cloth shirt. He clutched the blood-stained family letter and knelt on the bluestone slab outside the Imperial Examination Hall. In the letter received three days ago, the blood stains on the silk handkerchief coughed by his mother were still brown: "Don't miss home, go to the exam with peace of mind." At this moment, the red lacquer door of the Imperial Examination Hall was wide open, and the whip of the police whipped the candidates who rushed to hand in the visiting card. In the autumn rain like broken jade, he touched the "Four Books and Annotations" wrapped in three layers of oil paper in his arms. The room for the Jiangnan Provincial Examination was as cramped as a cage. Shen Yanqiu curled up on a three-foot-square wooden board, candle tears dripping into the inkstone, mixing with rainwater to become ink. When the test question "Learn and practice it from time to time" jumped out of the paper, he remembered the words of his teacher before his death: "Eight-part essays pay attention to the beginning, development, transition and conclusion, and it is also necessary to show the mountains and valleys in the heart." The moment the pen tip pierced the rice paper, the sound of the night watchman's clapper outside the courtyard wall startled the jackdaws, and the smell of ink and mold entangled in the humid air. On the day of the announcement of the results, Shen Yanqiu's name was listed as the champion. The sound of the gong announcing good news broke the silence of the alley. Under his mother's old quilt, there was an ancestral jade pendant that he secretly pawned. The pawnshop clerk said that the jade was stained with blood, just like his red eyes from staying up all these years. However, before he could celebrate, an anonymous letter landed on the desk, and the word "fraud" in the wet ink made people's temples throb. The carriage to Beijing bumped on the official road. Through the curtains of the carriage, Shen Yanqiu saw the ceremonial procession of the Minister of Rites' family parading through the streets. The candidate in the same carriage lowered his voice: "The examiner of this year's exam is a student of Lord Yan, and we poor people..." Before he finished speaking, the axle suddenly broke, and Shen Yanqiu fell out of the carriage. He glimpsed a few young men in brocade robes playing with ivory cards engraved with "Spring Examination Must Pass" in a roadside tea stall. The dripping sound of the copper kettle in the examination hall was particularly clear. Shen Yanqiu unfolded the plain silk, but saw that the first question was "People are the most important, and the country is second." His hand holding the pen trembled slightly - this question was in line with the dispute over the new policy in the court. There was a rustling sound from the next room, and someone was passing cheat sheets by the flickering candlelight. The footsteps of the invigilator came from far away, and Shen Yanqiu bit his fingertips and drew a bloody red plum at the end of the article. On the eve of the announcement of the results, Shen Yanqiu ran into the Jinyiwei patrolling at the inn. Under the moonlight, his pale face was reflected by the embroidered spring sword. "Shen Jieyuan is in a good mood." The leading thousand households played with his lost jade pendant, "I heard that your policy essay kept Yan Dang awake at night?" The next day, the imperial edict was posted, and his name was not among the top three, while the candidate who copied the notes yesterday was ranked second. In the afternoon of heavy rain, Shen Yanqiu took shelter from the rain in a dilapidated temple on the outskirts of the city. The old monk in the temple knocked on the wooden fish: "The donor's eyebrows are too violent." He took out the ink scroll that was wrinkled by rain and suddenly laughed wildly. At the moment when the thunder exploded, he threw the article into the brazier and watched the words "cultivate oneself, manage the family, govern the country and bring peace to the world" curled up into gray butterflies in the flames. The turning point came on the eve of the palace examination. The new emperor ascended the throne and appointed him to re-examine the Spring Examination case. Shen Yanqiu's ink scroll was turned out from the pile of old papers, and the red commentary read "unique insights and unyielding character". In the Golden Palace, he looked at the dragon pattern on the imperial robe under the steps, and a taste of rust rose in his throat. When the emperor asked about the pros and cons of the new policy, he untied the laces of his robe and spread it out in the palace: "I am willing to measure the granaries of the world for ten years!" On the day of the announcement of the results, the red robe of the top scholar swept across the Imperial Street. Shen Yanqiu touched the newly given jade belt around his waist and suddenly remembered the half jade pendant that his mother clutched before her death. In front of the Ministry of Personnel, people rushed to copy his palace examination essay. The four characters "People's Livelihood is Heaven" with wet ink shone slightly in the willow catkins in late spring. In the dark, the remnants of the Yan Party were staring at his back, with poisoned silver needles hidden in their sleeves.