Daming Yinghua

Chapter 42

Zheng Haizhu looked away, looked at others, and saw Li Shi, the youngest daughter-in-law of the Gu family, looking here with great interest.

Well, this drama grandma is about to start acting again.Zheng Haizhu thought.

Sure enough, Mrs. Li raised her eyebrows, twitched the corners of her mouth, and said with a smile: "Oh, old master Confucius said that one never tires of food, and it is comfortable to have others prepare it carefully and deliver it directly to the mouth. But there are three things. The most interesting things are eating and peeling by yourself. One is melon seeds, the other is water chestnut, and the other..."

"The other one is the crab," the eldest grandma Shen rubbed her fingers in the chrysanthemum bowl, and smiled lightly, "Every time the third daughter-in-law eats crabs, she will use this to bury me. Everyone has their own My finger is the inconvenience brought by my mother's womb, and I can just accept my fate calmly, do I have to find fault with my mother when I eat and drink my mother's?"

"Well, what the third daughter-in-law said is indeed wrong. Sweet potatoes are also interesting when they are peeled and gnawed." Gu Shouqian's mother, the second grandmother, Lu Shi, said in a soft voice, then turned to the servant and said, "This crab is delicious. , but after eating two, I feel chilly in my stomach, go and see if the sweet potatoes brought by Mrs. Xu are ready?"

The second grandmother, Lu Shi, is gentle and kind, but not foolish. She is used to changing the topic to ease the atmosphere.

The woman who was serving on the side hurriedly said: "The sweet potato has been steamed until the core is completely powdery, and it is just waiting for the old lady and grandma to order it to be served."

"Bring it up." Mrs. Miao said with a smile.

Not long after, the servants brought up a large basin with blue and white lotus petals, inside which were squeezed one by one sweet potatoes like red radishes. The golden flesh like the sun was exposed in the cracked skin. The incense is sent into the noses of all people.

Shen-shi reached out and took one with both ends upturned, and brought it to Miao-shi: "Mom, this looks so fair, like an ingot. Eat it while it's hot."

After Mrs. Miao took it, she picked a long one herself, rubbed the skin and peeled it off, eating with relish.

Mrs. Miao kindly greeted all the grandmas and ladies to take the sweet potatoes, and said to Xu Guangqi's daughter-in-law: "My old lady, when I was a servant in the palace, Long Live God and Your Majesty loved eating pea yellow steamed in a small shop outside. This sweet potato is fragrant and glutinous, and it is a bit sweeter than beans and chestnuts. If you think about it, you can make more delicate desserts. Therefore, this imported thing may not necessarily be laughed at."

Li Shi, the youngest daughter-in-law of the Gu family, is actually not really stupid. She knew that in the subtle rounds just now, she couldn't hold back the harshness that she wanted to release at any time, and instead collapsed her own platform. The female relatives and Mrs. Huang came forward and came back to make up for some face.

So she leaned in on the old lady's words and said: "Mother is right. Western clocks and glazed lamps are very good. Xu's daughter-in-law, if you change the foreign religion you believe in, maybe it will be easier for us to understand." More people believe in it."

As soon as she finished speaking, a crisp voice sounded from the table: "Miss Zheng told me the same way just now. For example, around the cross, you can embroider black birds, phoenixes, and for example, Mater dei (referring to the Holy Mother) can stand on lotus flowers." , like Guanshiyin Bodhisattva. Ms. Zheng’s ideas are wonderful, I thought about it carefully, and many of the teachings that Grandpa and Auntie told me can also be compatible with the Confucian and Buddhist classics I learned from Mrs.

The little girl who spoke was Xu Guangqi's granddaughter, Xu Huizhen.

Since the banquet began, Xiao Huizhen had been eating quietly and politely, but now she suddenly started talking, her words were quite methodical, not like a seven or eight-year-old girl, everyone couldn't help being a little surprised, The atmosphere was suddenly quiet.

It was her mother, Gu Lanjie, who came to her senses first, and turned to Zheng Haizhu, with a tinge of admiration in her amiable face, and said, "Miss Zheng, no wonder I just came all the way here, Ah Zhen is attached to you, you two seem to hit it off. "

Han Ximeng has always had the temperament of a golden horse and a big sword. He listened to others boasting about the maid in his house, and he was not pretending to be modest, and said generously: "Mrs. The younger sister fell in love at first sight because both of her brains are smart."

Zheng Haizhu hurriedly leaned over and said: "Grandma and miss praise, it is Miss Huizhen who is pious and intelligent, just a few words let me understand that Mater dei, like Guanyin Bodhisattva, is a goddess of compassion and rescue, I don't think Take the liberty to say a few words."

In fact, Xiao Huizhen was already tired of the boring conversations between the Gu family aunts at the dinner table, so she seized this opportunity, stood up and said respectfully to Mrs. Miao, "Madam, Huizhen has finished eating, There is no waste. Could Madam please allow Huizhen to leave the table and ask Ms. Zheng for Danqing Kung Fu? My mother and I are going to embroider some hanging paintings for the church."

The old lady Miao laughed happily: "Go, little girl. Madam also gives you a trick. You and Miss Zheng are thinking about how to draw around the cross, and then paint the whole grains. By the way, don't forget, you can also paint it on the cross." There are sweet potatoes introduced to Songjiang by your grandfather. Food is the most important thing for the people, and the people will trust whoever feeds the people."

……

The Heming Tower, a high-end restaurant that only accepts city officials and women's families, knows the habits of the guests best, so there is an Accord on the east side of the main building.

Outside Xiaoxuan’s window are banana leaves, hibiscus, rockery and beautiful rocks, while the inside of the house is arranged like a study, with long tables, pens and inks, rice paper, and paints, all available for guests to recite poems, write poems, and dance with ink.

Zheng Haizhu spread paper on the table.

The enthusiastic Xiao Huizhen moved the polished inkstone in front of her, then knelt down on the round table and stared at the rice paper.

Zheng Haizhu looked at her sideways, and felt that the little girl was cute and clever with two round eyes staring and bulging cheeks. She couldn't help but think of the two cats she raised in her previous life in modern times.On those nights when I was exhausted, couldn't hand in the manuscript, and couldn't make an update, the two cats just stayed by my side, looking at the keyboard or screen, as if cheering.

But at this moment, Zheng Haizhu didn't feel the pain of Kawen in his previous life, but wrote like a god.

The original body enshrined in the soul has the finger muscle memory of Nuhong and Danqing. In the first few days after Zheng Haizhu woke up from Longxi County, Zhangzhou, he found that he could draw fine-brush line drafts and draw books of local velvet. Master, not too bad.And I have a modern person's accumulation of knowledge about Chinese and foreign art history, as well as a broad and divergent thinking, which greatly blesses this originally simple golden finger.

During the few days when Han Ximeng studied Japanese ukiyo-e, Zheng Haizhu did not hesitate to draw a reduced version of Katsushika Hokusai's "Phoenix" for the hostess.

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese ukiyo-e painter more than 100 years later, so neither the Ming Dynasty nor the Dongying people in this world know about it.Han Ximeng has never seen such a distinctive phoenix, both tangible and intangible. Seeing that the phoenix is ​​not a phoenix, in the misty chaos, he wondered in surprise. Zheng Haizhu only said that he had seen a few Japanese paintings for a long time during the day and dreamed After getting some outlines and adding the understanding of the chaotic stitch embroidery that the lady is good at, the phoenix drawing is completed.

Once you understand by analogy, your thinking will open up the situation, and the same is true for the conception of Catholic paintings and embroidery.

Even without the encouragement of Mrs. Miao and Gu Lanjie, Zheng Haizhu firmly believed that it was feasible to localize the foreign religion that Xu Guangqi believed in in the promotional materials.

Because in real history, many scrolls and books unearthed in later generations show that the spread of Catholicism in China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties borrowed a lot from the legends of local religions.

And the profits from such popular materials, posters and embroidery will be one of the sources of funds for her private school.

Therefore, today's heaven-sent opportunity to invest in the Xu family's favor cannot be missed.

Zheng Haizhu first drew the outline of the Dehua white porcelain Guanyin, which is most familiar to Fujianese, and stepped on the lotus.

Then, she recalled the various statues of the Virgin Mary and Child she had seen when visiting Western art exhibitions. She drew a peacock blue robe inlaid with gold trim for Guanyin, and stuffed it into a white and fat little doll with slightly curly hair. Never draw a bellyband, just draw two gold circles like Avalokitesvara, it looks like the Avalokitesvara delivering the child, and the Virgin Mary holding Jesus.

Then, Zheng Haizhu thought of the early Ukiyo-e Mount Fuji line that he begged from Yan Siqi, and painted it on the back of the portrait, adding cranes, phoenixes, and golden pheasants.The foreground of the portrait is an imitation of Katsushika Hokusai's "The Wave of Kanagawa", drawing a wave.

Xu Huizhen saw this place with concentration, and asked curiously, "Sister Azhu, where are these mountains and waters?"

Zheng Haizhu said: "Is there a book called "Bible" in the classics you teach? Is there a story in the Bible called Exodus? It mentions the Red Sea? In Buddhism, is there a mountain called Mount Sumeru? Huizhen Miss, you see, we Ming people, whether you preach Catholicism or Buddhism, they may not understand you when you talk about the Red Sea and Mount Sumeru. But when you talk about the fairy mountain of the Queen Mother of the West and the South Sea of ​​Guanyin, everyone has been familiar with it since childhood. I understand in seconds."

"What is a second?" Xu Huizhen asked with a question mark on her face, but soon realized, "Are you talking about a very short time? My grandfather taught me that in the country of Mr. Taixi (referring to Matteo Ricci), timekeeping does not use hours, They use hours, minutes, and seconds for quarters and breaths. So, understand in seconds, does it mean that it is easy to understand?"

Zheng Haizhu grinned and praised that the sentence was correct, and said in his heart, as expected, the best school district room is the parents' study room.

Xiao Huizhen didn't look complacent, but stared at the layout of the line draft, carefully pondering each area, which silk thread and stitch method to use.

When the two of them were holding the embroidered stretcher and drawing on the drawing, they only heard the creaking sound of the window behind them.

Zheng Haizhu and Xu Huizhen looked back, only to see a young woman in a green dress and a blue skirt, climbing into the room from the window sill with both hands and feet in a hurry.

"you……"

"Miss Zheng, it's me! Ru Jiuer!"

Not waiting for Zheng Haizhu's eyes to see more confusion, the young woman has already reported her family.

After Zheng Haizhu heard the words and took a closer look, she recognized that she was the girl in the Firework Alley by the Moon River in Fucheng.

(End of this chapter)