115, Cai Renjun finds fault

115, Cai Renjun finds fault

“Clang—clang—clang—”

Before he reached the blacksmith shop, Lu Mingfei heard the sound of iron hammering. Following the sound, he found the door of the blacksmith shop and saw a shirtless master holding an iron rod in one hand and hammering the iron rod with the other.

He did not immediately interrupt the master's work, but stood aside and waited.

The old master noticed someone standing nearby from the corner of his eye. At first, he thought the young man was just passing by and watching him forge iron. But after a while, he found that the young man was still standing there. He stopped forging iron, turned around and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I want to pack something, I wonder if you can do it here." Lu Mingfei replied quickly.

"What are you hitting?" asked the old master.

"I have drawn a blueprint here. Would you like to take a look at it first?" Lu Mingfei took out a blueprint from the bag he was carrying and asked.

The old master threw the iron rod in his hand into the bucket, put down the hammer, reached out to take the drawing handed over by the young man and took a look at it.

What surprised him a little was that the drawing was very detailed, with both sides and the size.

But he couldn't quite guess what this thing was used for. The old master glanced at the blueprint, then looked at the young man who gave him the blueprint.

"Do you understand?" Lu Mingfei thought the old master looked at him and didn't understand his drawing. He moved closer and explained the shape and size of the object on his drawing to the old master. He then asked, "Can I print this thing? It's best if the size is exactly as I drew it. The deviation can't be too big."

"Okay." The old master thought for a moment and nodded in response.

Later, Lu Mingfei asked about the price of such a small thing and the delivery time.

After the two parties reached an agreement, he gave the deposit to the master.

He left the drawings to the master and then left.

After leaving the first blacksmith shop, Lu Mingfei went to three more blacksmith shops and ordered different parts from each of them. This way, the blacksmiths didn't know what he was going to make.

In order to make it convenient for him to pick up the goods, he set the pick-up time on the same day.

After leaving the last blacksmith shop, he went to the bookstore he usually liked to go to, intending to buy some pens and ink to take home, and to read a few books.

I didn't expect to meet the shopkeeper right after I walked in. When he saw him coming, he greeted me with a smile and said, "Mr. Lu, you haven't been to our store for a few days."

"Haha, I just came here a few days ago and didn't meet you." Lu Mingfei was not unfamiliar with this shopkeeper Tong.

Tong, the shopkeeper, was the owner of Bowenzhai. He was about fifty years old, plump and fair-looking, always smiling and good-tempered. The first storybook he brought to Bowenzhai was bought by Tong. In the following years, he brought all the storybooks he wrote to Bowenzhai to sell, and Tong bought them all and gave him a fair price.

He sells his storybooks to bookstores at a sell-out price, basically the same as the original price. His royalties weren't high in the early days, but after his pen name became famous and he had readers following his stories, his royalties also increased. So, over the past two or three years, he's saved a little money writing storybooks, enough for him to buy pens, inkstones, and books.

This also means that the money he earned from Bowenzhai was eventually returned to Bowenzhai. If you calculate it this way, it means that he has been working for Bowenzhai for free these past few years...

But there was nothing that could be done about it, because the production technology of that era was in the hands of the nobles, and these people were unwilling to let the children of common people go to school, so the prices of pens, ink, paper and inkstone were set quite high.

He did know about paper production technology, but if a powerless commoner like him set up a workshop to produce paper and sold it at a low price, he would be in trouble within two days. So if this wasn't his only way to make money, he wouldn't dare challenge the powerful clans.

He had been busy preparing for the imperial examinations this year, so he hadn't written any new stories. He didn't know if the shopkeeper, Tong, had treated him so warmly today because he hoped he would write a new story or if he was just saying hello.

"Manager Tong, you still look so happy. Is there any good news today?" Seeing that Manager Tong had a smile on his face, Lu Mingfei also greeted him with a smile.

"I heard the magpies chirping in front of our door today, and I thought someone of note would definitely come to our shop today." Shopkeeper Tong gestured to invite the young man into their shop. "We received a new batch of books yesterday. Would you like to come in and take a look, Mr. Lu?"

This is the subtlety of Shopkeeper Tong's words. He only said that a distinguished person would come, but he did not say who the distinguished person was. This means that all the people who come to his store are distinguished people. Anyone who hears this will feel very comfortable.

Lu Mingfei couldn't help but sigh in his heart that this shopkeeper Tong was really a wonderful person.

Hearing Shopkeeper Tong say that a new book had arrived, and realizing that he wasn't here to rush for manuscripts, Lu Mingfei felt relieved and said, "Okay, I'll go in and take a look."

Shopkeeper Tong simply gestured to the young man to go inside and read a book, but did not follow him in.

Lu Mingfei walked here by himself. As soon as he came in, he saw many students reading here, and some were sitting inside copying books.

Bowenzhai has always provided poor students with the opportunity to earn money by copying books. Here, you can copy two books and take one away, but you won't get any money. Or you can copy the books and not take them away, but just get the money. Of course, if you want to copy books here, you must pass the test of Tong, the shopkeeper, before you can copy books here.

If they just read the books without buying them, Shopkeeper Tong would not let his staff chase them away.

It is precisely because of the personality of Shopkeeper Tong and the atmosphere of Bowenzhai that Lu Mingfei likes to come to this bookstore very much. He basically buys anything he needs here.

It's just that the books here are too expensive. Unless he really likes them, he rarely buys them. But rather than sitting here copying books, he would rather go back and write storybooks, because he can earn more money from writing storybooks than copying books.

While he was strolling here, he met a person, Cai Renjun, whom he had not seen for a long time.

The two men bumped into each other face to face. Lu Mingfei paused for a moment, nodded slightly to the other party, and turned to walk in another direction. Unexpectedly, he had only taken two steps when Cai Renjun called out to him from behind and asked, "Are you laughing at me in your heart?"

Huh? Lu Mingfei's mind was full of questions. He turned to look at Cai Renjun, who had said this. His eyes fell on Cai Renjun's face full of resentment and anger. He asked him inexplicably, "Is there anything about you that makes others laugh at you?"

"You!" Cai Renjun was very angry when he saw Lu Mingfei's face, or it should be said that he was unhappy to see this person, especially since they went to take the county exam together a few months ago, and everyone else passed, but he was the only one who failed!

After looking at the list that time, he was angry at home for several days.

Ever since he failed the exam, he hadn't been attending private school anymore. His family was looking for a better place for him to study, so he hadn't seen his former classmates for a while. However, just because he hadn't seen them for a long time didn't mean he could forget the person he hated the most.

Lu Mingfei knew that Cai Renjun hated him, and he didn't like him either, but that didn't mean he would spend time hating him. So when Cai Renjun came to pick a fight with him today, he told him bluntly, "I hope you can understand that you're not that important. Others don't need to waste their time and energy on you."

After saying this, he turned around and left without paying any attention to Cai Renjun's murderous look.

He originally wanted to see if there were any good books here and borrow a few to read, but after meeting Cai Renjun, he didn't want to hang out here anymore, so he went out to find Tong the shopkeeper to buy things.

Just as he bought the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, gave them the money, and was about to leave, Cai Renjun chased him out again, pointed at his nose and scolded him: "Why are you so arrogant! It's just that you passed the exam and became a Tongsheng. What's so great about that?"

"Yeah, it's nothing special, that's why I've always been very humble. But you, what are you angry about? Is it because I, a child from a poor family, passed the exam and you didn't? You have to keep bothering me?" Lu Mingfei was not a soft persimmon to be picked on. He had tolerated Cai Renjun in the past because they all studied in the same private school. He didn't want to provoke Cai Renjun, nor did he want to cause trouble for their teacher, so he had always tolerated him without fighting back.

But he rarely went to private school anymore, and I heard that Cai Renjun had also dropped out. Now that others were bullying him, he didn't need to endure it and just let Cai Renjun point his finger at his nose and scold him.

"You!" Cai Renjun was speechless after hearing Lu Mingfei's question.

When the students in the store heard the sound of people arguing outside, they all came out to see what was going on.

At this time, Shopkeeper Tong stepped forward to speak up for Lu Mingfei, who was standing next to him, and persuaded the furious young master, "Young Master, if you have anything to say, please speak nicely. Young Master Lu is not an arrogant person. Perhaps there is some misunderstanding between you two."

"I'm sorry for affecting your business." Lu Mingfei apologized to Shopkeeper Tong.

"It's okay, it's okay. We are all young people. If you have anything to say, just say it nicely and don't hurt the harmony." While speaking, Shopkeeper Tong looked at the furious young man.

One was a stranger visiting their shop for the first time; the other was a regular customer who had been writing storybooks for their study for several years and greeted them with a smile. Shopkeeper Tong knew Lu Mingfei as a modest young man, one who would definitely not become proud of having passed the imperial examination. So when the two young men argued, he was already leaning towards one of them.

Lu Mingfei also heard that Tong was favoring him, but he didn't want to have a conflict with Cai Renjun in someone else's store, so he took the things he bought and went out.