Chapter 41, Chapter 41, more and more, more and more, never stopping...
Most of the fire-bringer soldiers were composed of local militia, and the first criterion for selecting people for the local militia was height. Even though Zhang Musheng had grown quite a bit taller recently, he was still half a height short of the threshold required to become a member of the local militia.
Under normal circumstances, Zhang Musheng would need to grow another head to barely be selected.
At this moment, fires were breaking out one after another near the temples of West Lake in Lin'an Prefecture. This was because, starting from the Flower Festival, pilgrims from all over the country would come to temples such as Zhaoqing Temple to burn incense. This was called the Incense Festival, and it would not stop until the Dragon Boat Festival every year.
With so many people offering incense, the incense market sells not only wooden fish drums and scriptures, but also various incense baskets, as well as all kinds of incense and candles. In particular, there are many shops selling candles, which are made by rubbing a piece of pine wood with one end dyed with sulfur and then striking it with a flint to start a fire.
With so many things that could start a fire, it was impossible to prevent it no matter how much precautions were taken. During the month-long incense festival, more than ten boats burned and seven or eight temples caught fire. The Fire Prevention Bureau issued a decree to increase manpower during the incense festival.
Zhaoqing Temple is located on the edge of the Qiantang River, and Sangqing Town is also close to the Qiantang River. It was among the first batch of places to send additional firefighters. Apart from the local troops, other guilds, righteous societies, and unrelated personnel could all come to apply.
After listening to his long explanation, Lin Xiushui became curious and asked, "How do we choose? Who can jump the highest?"
“That’s not entirely true,” Zhang Musheng casually wiped away the tears on his face before excitedly jumping and throwing to show her the scene.
Originally, the fire-fighting soldiers had a special fire-fighting team. In the inner city of Lin'an, there were four teams in front of the tent, a personal guard team, a fire-building team, and a naval force. In Sangqing Town, there were only a fire-building team and a naval force.
Zhang Musheng couldn't get the job, but the hydra was short-handed. They had people who carried buckets, water bags, pumps, etc. to put out fires, and those who used water bags were the most scarce.
The water bag was made by filling a pig's belly with water and tying the opening tightly. The person throwing the water bag needed two skills: throwing it high and throwing it accurately.
Ordinary fires occur in residential homes. When the fire is large, especially on the second floor, the smoke can be so thick that even a ladder cannot be used, and people need to throw water bags.
Zhang Musheng boasted, "At the time, I was just passing by while transporting timber. When I heard the request, I quickly squeezed in. When they saw me, they were amazed at how high I jumped and how accurately I threw the ball, so they immediately kept me on."
For so many days, he had been touching the tall bamboo pole in front of the Silkworm Flower Temple, aiming at the red rope on top. He used to jump for half an hour after getting up at dawn, and later he would get up at dawn and touch the rope for an hour. These two things were easy for him.
He made it sound easy, but in reality, no one thought much of him, complaining that he was still too short. But he was thick-skinned and stubbornly refused to leave, standing there waiting for a long time. After everyone had tried him, they saw that although he was dark-skinned and short, he had stamina, so they reluctantly let him give it a try.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Musheng immediately jumped up. Someone who was packing up said, "What just jumped up like that? It scared me!"
One of the firefighters clicked his tongue twice and said, "Goodness, he's short, but he can jump pretty high. His family must own a shop that sells firecrackers."
Zhang Musheng ignored those words. He took the water bag, placed the fire basin he was going to extinguish behind the window, aimed at the fire basin, jumped up, and threw the water bag out. With a "poof," it hit the fire basin right in front of everyone's incredulous eyes, extinguishing the fire and leaving only a cloud of black smoke.
The leader of the fire-fighting team then had him try several more times, in many different places and at tricky angles. He threw them accurately one by one. Seeing that he wasn't even out of breath, the leader disregarded his height and made an exception to keep him on, telling him to bring his household registration to the fire-fighting team the next day.
As a firefighter, one or two days off per month, working in shifts day and night, with meals provided, a monthly wage of one and a half strings of cash, two bolts of silk, and spring and winter clothing: five spring garments, four winter garments, and a fire vest.
Zhang Musheng was actually in a daze the whole time and still couldn't believe it. He had been thinking for several years about joining the army, wanting to grow taller, and wanting to become a successful person, instead of the unfilial son his father talked about, or the shorty others talked about.
But when the road was right in front of him, he became uncertain and a little timid, realizing that the road was not so easy to walk.
“If you’re scared, just pretend you’re still touching the bamboo pole even after throwing away the water bag,” Lin Xiushui told him again. “Besides, you’ve been jumping in front of the Silkworm Goddess Temple for so long, she will protect you.”
Zhang Musheng took a deep breath and suddenly said, "Sister, I, Zhang Musheng, have made many mistakes in my life, but I haven't made a single mistake."
Those were the soft-soled boots he had asked Lin Xiushui to make for him when he came to her stall. He hadn't actually worn them, but they had indeed grown onto his feet, making his short body appear taller and more upright.
Although Lin Xiushui was younger than him, he truly regarded her as an older sister and respected and appreciated her from the bottom of his heart.
"Alright, don't thank me so much. Just don't tell anyone else. Just introduce me to more jobs if you have any," Lin Xiushui waved her hand, telling him not to worry about it. Even when Zhang Musheng offered her silk later, she didn't take it. She believed that while the method was important, if he was too lazy to do anything, even the best method would be useless.
She watched Zhang Musheng walk away, the afternoon sun casting his shadow high on the alley wall.
While others went further afield, he went higher.
Of course, the fact that Zhang Musheng became a firefighter was like a firecracker in the alley of Sangshukou, leaving many families wondering how that short guy could become a firefighter.
Even firefighters are soldiers, and it's more respectable than being a garrison soldier.
Even the Zhang family themselves couldn't understand it. Their son, who used to think he could only make a living by sticking to his old profession and was completely unreliable, suddenly found himself working for the government.
This was more frightening to them than if someone had told them that Zhang Musheng was going to jail, since the likelihood of him going to jail was much higher.
But Zhang Musheng did indeed transfer the property certificate and become a firefighter, wearing a fire vest, a big red flower in his hair, and swaggering around the alley.
After a long time, he returned looking disheveled. Those firefighters were really inhuman. Fortunately, he was no ordinary person; he was even more concerned about saving face than most people.
Wang Yuelan saw him go out early in the morning wearing an orange and black fire-resistant suit, which made him look taller and less like a lazy idler on the street. She brought in some vegetables and said, "You know, people really can change in a day. Zhang the carpenter said he wanted to invite everyone to dinner, but he didn't want to be too ostentatious, afraid that a good thing would turn into a bad thing. So he made some pastries to share and share the joy."
Lin Xiushui had been listening to this for two days, and her ears were practically calloused. She gave a couple of perfunctory replies, when Chen Guihua from next door came scolding Wu Dabing, "Can't you jump a few more steps? Then you can eat the government's food in the future."
Wu Dabing cried, “I can’t jump. If I jump, my stomach will hurt. I want to sell pancakes from now on and have people call me Pancake Seller.”
"Change your name! You absolutely have to change your name!" Chen Guihua shouted. "I'll ask that fortune teller at the street corner to change your name today!"
Wu Dabing readily agreed, "That's called a meat pie. I want to eat meat, and I also want to have a pancake."
"I'm going to teach you what a 'weighted steamed bun' is today," Chen Guihua said angrily. Wu Dabing knew that she was going to beat him up, not actually give him a steamed bun.
Lin Xiushui listened, laughing so hard she almost choked. Wang Yuelan came out and glanced at her, "What are you laughing about? Are you giving up your business? Someone outside is calling you."
Ah, Lin Xiushui stopped laughing. She really hadn't heard it. She put down the basket in her hand, opened the door and went out. She didn't see anyone at first glance, but she saw three little pageboys squatting by the threshold at second glance.
The three men wore hats, carried book bags, and held something in their hands. One of them was He Xiaolang, who had come to her earlier to have his books repaired.
He Xiaolang stood up, holding onto the door frame. The other two children nudged him in the back. He clutched the torn piece of paper in his hands and whispered, "We'll have to trouble Sister Aqiao to mend it for us, otherwise we won't have anything to play with."
"What's this?"
Lin Xiushui pieced the papers together and saw that they contained many half-body figures, all dressed as scholars, which puzzled her.
He Xiaolang said "oh" twice, then quickly put down the book bag on his back, took two steps up the stairs and told her, "This is called the 'Selection of Officials Chart'."
He thought Lin Xiushui also wanted to play, so he painstakingly told her, "When you first start playing the selection of officials game, everyone is a commoner. We spin the 'Thousand Thousand Carts' (tops), and they will be engraved with virtue, talent, merit, and corruption."
“Those who throw into Cai and De can move forward,” a child said.
Another child quickly added, "If you've done something good, you can't walk. If you stop and there's a 'sinful' character on the wall, you have to back up."
They play a game of selecting officials, and only when they reach the positions of Grand Tutor, Grand Preceptor, or Grand Preceptor can they be considered victorious. Other official positions must be earned through merit, virtue, and talent, and one must gradually rise through the ranks.
Lin Xiushui then realized that in the months leading up to and following the imperial examinations to select the top three scholars, specifically from February to May, the official selection charts were extremely popular at academies and private schools. Not only the students at the academies, but also the literati and scholars played with them.
The one in her hand, after being played with repeatedly by the group every day, finally tore apart at the crease in the middle. The other two were extremely anxious, as buying another one would cost several tens of coins.
Fortunately, He Xiaolang already had experience repairing torn books. Not long after dawn, he led the two of them into the alley. He reassured them, "Don't worry, Sister Aqiao can repair anything. We won't have come all this way for nothing."
"Hey, you noticed that," Lin Xiushui patted He Xiaolang on the shoulder, holding two torn pieces of paper, and said to the two children beside her, "Don't worry, I'll fix it for you."
She had a lot of tools at hand to deal with all sorts of messy problems. She took out her toolbox, a paste, a small brush, two sheets of Xuan paper, a blade, and small scissors.
First, she carefully pieced together the official selection chart, trimmed the frayed edges with small scissors, wiped away the scraps of paper, turned it over, dipped a brush in paste, and applied a layer vertically to the torn areas, then covered it with a strip of paper about the width of a finger.
Then take out the cut paper and mount it on both sides. Use thick paper for the back and thin Xuan paper for the front. The picture of selecting officials, which was originally torn apart, becomes complete, with only a crack in the middle.
The three children carefully held it in their hands, each holding one hand and craning their necks to look.
“Five coins, please,” Lin Xiushui said, rinsing the brush in the small bucket before looking up at them.
"Huh?" He Xiaolang hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.
Lin Xiushui asked, puzzled, "What's wrong?"
He Xiaolang started to do the math, then shook his head and said, "Let's keep it at six coins. Five coins is hard for the three of us to divide, but six coins will allow each of us to pay two coins."
Unfortunately, the other two agreed, and they couldn't buy anything with just one penny left.
"You're such a child," Lin Xiushui said with a smile, reaching out to take the two coins each of them handed over and giving them a piece of candy. "Alright, that settles things."
The three children were a little embarrassed. After discussing it, they took out another picture from their book bags and insisted on playing a game with Lin Xiushui. The picture was called the Immortal Selection Picture. They made her roll the dice and sent her to ascend to heaven, becoming the last immortal of Penglai. Only then did she happily pack her things and go to school at the academy while eating candy.
Lin Xiushui smiled and saw the three of them out. Just then, Chen Guihua opened the door. She peeked at the children through the door and seemed to have an idea. She took a few steps over and asked Lin Xiushui, "Xiushui, what academy are these children from? I wonder if it's expensive. I'm thinking of sending my Xuetian there for his early education."
She can't let him not start learning; her son is too stubborn. Instead of pursuing land, fame, and money, all he knows is how to eat flatbread!
Chen Guihua became increasingly angry, and decided to send him all the money she had saved, no matter how much it was.
Lin Xiushui actually knew a bit about it. "There's an academy over there, called Qushui Academy. I'm not sure about the tuition, but it's a bit expensive a month."
"I'll save up some more," Chen Guihua said. She didn't want anyone to know that her son couldn't even do basic accounting. Others could buy two pancakes for only two coins. Good heavens, they were losing money hand over fist. How could they possibly do business? She got angry just thinking about it, so she decided to go to work. She could earn money and buy more things to help her simple-minded son improve his brain.
Lin Xiushui knew what was bothering her and was glad that Xiaohe was at least good at managing money, but she had really overestimated Xiaohe.
Xiaohe counted her money every day, fiddling with a few coins, counting: "One coin, two coins, three coins... twenty-nine, twenty-six, twenty-seven..."
"These three coins are for buying catfish for Xiaoye, these three coins are for buying candy, and I'll share with Xiaohua and Zhang Tiesheng. I won't share with the one who always has a runny nose."
Xiaohe can only count from one to ten. She can count beyond that, but she gets completely confused as she counts. Wang Yuelan isn't annoyed. "It's alright. Once she stops spending money and the money keeps decreasing, she'll know to force herself to count the money."
“My money won’t decrease, it will only increase,” Xiaohe retorted. She had been working hard with Xiaohua to earn money lately, and she hadn’t been buying candy every day.
But why is the money really getting less and less? She stared at her empty purse, because it had all been eaten by the cat Xiaoye. It had only been there for less than half a month, but it had already grown as big as an inflated balloon.
Xiaohe was very happy and clapped her hands, saying, "Then it can go catch fish by itself."
Lin Xiushui sighed. "That's a really good idea."
She should just focus on making her own money and stay out of the cat-woman's business.
Now she has many tools for her stall, enough to handle a lot of work. One table is no longer enough, so she needs to put the food in a food box. Yes, she found that making a cabinet was too expensive, so she went to the general store and bought a food box to store all her things.
She laid out various fabric patches, different needles and threads, rulers of all sizes and lengths, and even went to the bead shop to buy beads. The bead shop sold beads of all colors; the quality wasn't great, and they only guaranteed no cracks. You had to buy them in bulk. She spent forty coins to buy a bagful, mostly dyed from miscellaneous woods, all different sizes and shapes, but they were quite pretty nonetheless.
When children come to have their silk flowers repaired, especially when the tears are small and well-repaired, she will pick out a bead and sew it on top, making the repair invisible and adding a unique beauty.
“I like these beads. Why don’t you sew some onto my shoes? I think these shoes are too plain. Their only advantage is that they’re cheap,” said a woman with many wildflowers on her head, as she brought over a pair of shoes. They were a pair of very light blue cloth shoes without any patterns at all.
She wanted to add something herself, but after looking around, she couldn't figure out where to start. Not wanting to spend a lot of money, she had no choice but to ask Lin Xiushui for help.
Lin Xiushui completely agreed with her opinion and said in a gentle voice, "Choose a piece of fabric and I'll sew it on, so it won't look too plain. You can also add beads, just choose some small ones and I'll put them together to make the pattern look nicer. It will only cost fifteen coins."
"Really? I asked around when I first arrived, and I didn't expect the price to be so reasonable," the woman with the hairpin breathed a sigh of relief. Other places would have charged much more, which she couldn't bear to pay.
She bought it because it was cheap. She only liked fancy things, but she didn't have much money, so she bought plain ones. The only thing she bought was the flowers that grew by the roadside. In spring, many small flowers grew, and she picked them up and put them in her hair.
Everyone loves to look good, and Lin Xiushui could understand that. Even inexpensive items could look nice if you dressed them up. She took the most colorful piece of fabric that the woman had chosen, cut it up, and slowly sewed it onto the fabric, stitching and threading it, using the needle to pick up the thread bit by bit.
The original plain shoe surface was transformed into a colorful display, and with the addition of a few small beads, it became a brand new pair of shoes. The woman was overjoyed and couldn't bear to part with them.
She realized that what she liked could be had for just a few coins. She immediately put them on and walked into the crowd, wanting everyone to take a good look at her shoes.
Lin Xiushui mended many things today, including shoes for Zhang Da Niang's grandson. The child, who had been crying his eyes out, wiped away his tears and said after the shoes were mended, "Put these on, I'm going home to cry. I have another pair of shoes."
There was a large piece of cloth, originally used to make a bundle. The couple asked her to alter it, patching up the torn parts and mending it extensively, because they needed it to carry a baby and make a swaddle. Lin Xiushui tried her best to sew it neatly and thickly, and used thick thread to sew the frayed edges to make it much stronger.
She even went to other people's homes, carrying her bag to repair their bed curtains. It took her a lot of time and effort; she went several times afterward, paying them eighty-eight coins plus five coins for the trip. She mended the bed curtains so neatly that they were completely patched up, leaving no room for mosquitoes to get in.
There was plenty of work to be done at Sangshukou, and there was also a lot of work to be done at the houses on both sides of the river. There were many jobs to be done, but they weren't really hers to do. Lin Xiushui would take them on first and then pass them on to others.
For example, if someone asked her to mend mats, straw hats, or raincoats, she could mend them, but not very well. She would take them to the bamboo weaver by the river, earning a small fee for the journey, which would give the weaver more business. Similarly, many people who walked mountain paths to plant mulberry trees and needed their shoe soles mended would ask Chen Shuanghua to mend them.
Lin Xiushui could always find someone to repair other small things.
She knows a lot of people now, all sorts of people, and she knows which shops are good at repairing what, which things are good at fixing, and she can answer most of them if you ask her.
As a result, many people in the Sangqiao Ferry area have come to know that if they need mending, they should go to her. Even if she can't mend something well, she will point out where to get it mended. Even if she really can't mend it well, she might even know where to buy a new item at a good price.
So Lin Xiushui was always busy, always busy, and she loved counting money at night. She would thread the coins one by one into a hemp rope, one hundred coins at a time.
Suddenly, when he first came to town, he had emptied his pockets and had only twenty-seven coins left. Now, his savings have increased significantly, and he has more than two or three strings of cash!
She had already been surprised once, and after counting the money, she wanted to praise herself again. The money came from her mending clothes, but the majority came from selling gloves, sachets, and other similar items.
Although he had already earned eight or nine strings of cash, the expenses he spent, from needles and thread to various scissors and other tools, added up to a considerable sum. There was also the money he had saved for rice, flour, cooking oil, and other necessities.
She used to be so worried about not having money that she couldn't sleep well day and night. Now that she has money, she still can't sleep well. She's now reluctant to spend money.
In the tailoring profession, fabric is the most expensive component, so she rarely accepts orders for clothes because she doesn't have the money to buy bolts of fabric.
Don't be fooled by the fact that a few strings of cash seem like a lot. Right now, at most, you can buy a bolt of low-quality silk to make a long jacket. With the leftover fabric, you can make a pair of trousers and a collar. The money will then slip through your fingers.
Think about how hard you work to earn money, only to spend it all and not even hear a sound.
She listened to the sounds of bells and drums outside, heard people talking as they crossed the bridge, heard the watchman striking the drum, and heard the Zhang family's door opening and closing. She also heard the sound of eggs being fried in a stove. She pulled her quilt over herself and vaguely thought that Zhang Musheng was probably coming back and that Chen Niangzi was cooking noodles for him.
Of course, by the second day, all worries about money and troubles were forgotten, and business came knocking on their door.
This business deal came from Chen Jiuchuan, whom we hadn't seen in a long time.
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