The cook is very busy

Chapter 10 Teach a Man to Fish
Ziqing weighed the bag of silver money in his hand, pursed his lips and sighed, walked to the corner, found a secluded place and took out all the silver money on his body.

After staring at it for a while, she put the one tael of silver into a money bag, and then wrapped the remaining half of the tael of silver and about twenty copper plates with a handkerchief.

Thinking about it, Ziqing put the money bag in his arms, grabbed the bag of money and went over.

The old man put the food aside, looked at his son beside him, moved his lips twice, but finally said nothing.

"Old man?" The old beggar raised his head and was a little confused when he saw a big girl standing in front of him.

Ziqing smiled, and knelt down, "Old man, I just heard from those two old ladies that you are always literate, and I would like to ask you to write a letter to me."

The old man looked at Ziqing with half-opened eyes, hesitated for a while, finally got up, and said kindly, "Girl, wait a moment, let the old man look for paper and ink."

"I'm sorry, old man." Ziqing responded, and took a step back to let the old man leave.

While waiting here, Ziqing took a look at the man who hadn't moved much from the beginning to the end.

I saw him in his twenties, with dirty white cloth wrapped around his eyes, presumably he had an eye disease.

The bridge of the nose is high and straight, the lips are tightly pressed and the jaw is sharp and narrow. If the dirt on his face is washed away, he should be a handsome man.

Ziqing watched from the side, if she had any objections to this man earlier, now that she has seen him, she has nothing to say.

People who study are all self-proclaimed, and such a person will inevitably be devastated, so she has nothing to complain about.

"Here, you can leave it here and write," an inn clerk helped the old man out with a chair, put it at Ziqing's feet, and went back.

The beggar old man thanked him with a paper inkstone, spread it on the chair, looked at Ziqing, and held a brush to stain the ink, "Who do you want to write to?"

Just now when the old man went to borrow pens and inks, Ziqing had already thought about it, and made nonsense, saying that he was writing a letter to his man, rambling on and on about something.

Halfway through the sentence, the old man picked up the pen and ticked off the last word, read it up and down, and asked Ziqing if there was anything else he wanted to say.

"No, thank you, old man," Ziqing smiled, and took the paper, "Yo, old man, your handwriting is pretty good, one horizontal line is one horizontal line."

The old man laughed lowly when he heard this, "Miss, you are laughing, old people are nothing more than graffiti."

Ziqing spread the paper out so that the ink would dry quickly, and said something casually.

"Well, I can see three or four of what the old man wrote. Some of the words are like noodles falling on the paper, lumps..."

"Miss, can you read?" The old man was a little surprised, seeing that the girl was dressed like a village girl, how could she know how to read?

Ziqing was taken aback. If she wanted to say this word, she knew a few. The signboards and plaques all over the street were in complicated characters. She could still call out four or five of them after careful inspection.

But right now she's just a village girl, she can't even fill her stomach, so how can she have spare money to go to a private school to learn how to read.

She rolled her eyes and said with a smile, "Hey, I recognize it, I can recognize the number counted by ten fingers."

The old man laughed again when he heard this, "I don't know, it's good for a woman to be ignorant."

Ziqing twitched the corners of her mouth, pretending she didn't hear it, she put the letter away, changed her mind, and chatted with the old man.

"Ah, old man, look, I've messed you up here, you haven't had your lunch yet!"

"No problem, no problem..."

"How can this not get in the way? My father said that it doesn't matter if it's a big deal. It's true only if you have a full stomach. What a hurdle you can't get over."

The old man paused suddenly, looked at Gu Ziqing, and saw that she was just smiling, her big black and white eyes were extremely sincere.

He turned his head and looked at his son, "Young lady's words are reasonable."

"It doesn't matter, I'm not talking rough, even the carp in the river know how to go straight up the river to cross the dragon's gate. We are full of energy, and we can't do what we want, right, old man ?”

After Ziqing finished speaking with a smile, he stuffed the old man with the handkerchief in his hand, "Old man, Zhang Xiucai charged fifteen copper coins for writing a letter on behalf of Zhang Xiucai, so you can charge me ten."

The old man held the bundle of copper plates, and felt that there were more than a dozen of them. He looked at Ziqing and was about to speak, when he heard a crisp female voice.

"Sister Qing, Sister Qing... Ouch, Sister Qing, why did you come here, but it's easy for me to find!"

Mrs. Zhang looked for her from the alley, sweating profusely in anxiety, and kept complaining to her.

Seeing Ziqing standing in front of an old beggar again, Mrs. Zhang paused and touched her waist, but found nothing.

"Hey, forget it, give it next time?" She pursed her lips in embarrassment, chatted to the old man and dragged Ziqing back.

Seeing the two leave, the old man weighed the copper plate in his hand and said with a smile, "This little girl is really kind."

"Giving a man... a fish is worse than... giving a man... a fish..."

A hoarse voice came from the man's mouth, the old man turned his head and saw the corners of his lips twitching slightly, it was undoubtedly the man's words.

Thinking about the man's words, the old man thought back to what Ziqing said at the end. Didn't this just tell him, can he make a living by writing letters for others in the same way?

At first, he only thought that the little girl was tricking him into giving him money, but he didn't expect to be such a clever girl.

"This little girl is really kind..."

The old man smiled at the man, he suddenly woke up, his cloudy old eyes lit up, and he said in a trembling voice, "Young master, young master...you finally spoke..."

Unlike the old man's excitement, the man still didn't react too much, but moved his hand hanging on the ground.

The old man wept with joy, wiped away his tears secretly, and put the copper plate in his hand into his arms.

He supported the wall and got up, looked around, and then waved his arms towards the restaurant not far away.

In the private room of the tall building, a family of servants stood by the window, and when they saw this scene, they hurriedly turned around and reported to the master in the house.

"My lord, the housekeeper of the Mu residence..."

Beside the mahogany table, a man was drinking tea leisurely, with black hair and white clothes, he was handsome and elegant.

Hearing this, the man was slightly taken aback, then he smiled and waved his hands, the servant told him to back down.

The man put the tea bowl on the table and played with the jade pendant on the side. The red tassels slipped down and the four fingers were still enchanting, which made the man's hands whiter.

He looked out the window with great interest, "Come up and receive the reward."

The two who had been waiting by the side for a long time were overjoyed and rushed forward. They were the old lady and maid who gave Ziqing a "reward" earlier...

(End of this chapter)