Strange Tales from the Northern Qi Dynasty

Chapter 8 Promising
There is no one outside the door.

A narrow passage leads up to a flight of steps.

As Liu Taozi stepped into the passage, a cough was heard from the side.

A thin, skinny, dark old man sat in the small house on the left, staring at Liu Taozi through the square window.

The old man didn't have much flesh on his body and was very skinny.

"Passing by?"

The old man spoke slowly.

"Nothing."

The old man shook his head, "Then you are not allowed to enter."

"I've come here to do the work. I'll come out and show you when I'm done."

The old man was stunned for a moment. He took out a piece of paper and a pen and handed them to Taozi. "Last name, first name, job, address."

Liu Taozi wrote it skillfully and handed it to the old man. The old man was stunned. Looking at the slightly rough handwriting, he nodded and let it go.

"Turn left after entering the door. It's the first room."

"Thank you."

The passages in the county government office were extremely narrow and interconnected. No one could be seen in any of the passages. It was very quiet, except for the occasional coughing sound coming from the entrance.

Liu Taozi turned left after passing the first door and walked into the first room.

The room was extremely simple, not much better than Taozi's house. There was only a desk with some books placed randomly on both sides, looking very messy.

In front of the case, a young man put his fist to his face, looked distressed, and dozed off with his eyes squinted.

Hearing the footsteps, the young man was suddenly awakened, stood up hurriedly, and prepared to bow.

When he saw who it was, the young man was surprised.

"you are?"

Liu Taozi looked at the young man. He was not as tall as Taozi, but he looked good.

I saw that his skin was snow-white, his face was clean, and there was not a single stain on his body. Even his clothes gave off a faint fragrance. His eyes were black, big, and bright.

Just by looking at his appearance, you can tell that he is not the same kind of person as Taozi, a mud-legged man who rolls in the mud.

"I came here to do some work."

"Oh, yes, you are here to do it."

The young man suddenly became flustered and started rummaging around on the table.

After searching for a while, he stopped again, sweat beginning to form on his forehead.

"There are not many people in the county government office today. Something big happened outside the city, so everyone is out. I'm here. You've been here to do business, right?"

"Passing"

He looked around, at a loss.

Liu Taozi stared at him, and the young man felt very uncomfortable. "Wait a minute, I'll be back soon."

He trotted away from Liu Taozi, who was standing there alone.

The man ran all the way to the entrance.

After a while, the young man returned here very confidently.

He took out a brand new wooden sign from under the table. "Name?"

"Liu Taozi."

"Are there any words?"

"No words."

"Okay, Taozi. That's a good name! Give a peach, and I'll give you a plum in return!"

"Is your mother's last name Li?"

The young man raised his head and saw Liu Taozi with an indifferent face. He quickly smiled and said, "Sorry for being rude. Don't blame me, don't blame me."

"Where are you from?"

"Zhangcun."

"Well, Zhangcun is a great place. I went there once when I first came here. I remember there was a large peach forest there, which seemed like a paradise on earth. It was so fascinating that one would not want to leave. It was quite like the scenery described by Tao Yuanming, and it made one feel intoxicated."

The young man said this and stood up and left again.

Liu Taozi pursed her lips and waited for a moment, and the man finally came back.

He held a yellowed bamboo slip in his hand and said, "Ha, I found it. Liu Da from Zhang Village, a hunter, his wife is Zhang, and his son is Taozi."

According to the description on the bamboo slips, he looked up and down at Liu Taozi in front of him.

"No problem, Brother Taozi, I can get it done."

The young man buried his head in writing.

"Brother Taozi, are you here to sell mountain products this time? I loved hunting when I was a child. When I was in office, I once followed the knights to hunt big tigers. Those big tigers were very fierce."

This man never stopped talking even when he was doing things.

After finishing, for some reason, he looked more excited than Liu Taozi. He handed the work to Liu Taozi very solemnly.

"It's done. Brother Taozi, the pass you asked for, there are two copies of this pass, one is with me. You can't lend it to others. You have to use it yourself. If you want to bring someone in or out, you have to hang this pass."

"If there is a problem with the passage, whether it is you or your followers, we will hold you accountable. If it is lost, it is also a serious crime, so you must report it as soon as possible."

"You've never done this before, so you probably don't know any of this. Have you ever taken a loan from a bank to trade?"

“West City is more suitable.”

Liu Taozi picked up the pass and turned away.

The young man stretched out his hand and wanted to say something, but Liu Taozi had quickly disappeared.

The young man sighed and sat back in his original position, looking even more bitter.

Taozi also breathed a sigh of relief when she walked out of the county government office.

When the three old farmers saw Liu Taozi coming out, they trembled with excitement.

"Brother Tao, are you okay?"

"It's just a matter of going in and going through the formalities. It's nothing serious."

"Then us"

"I'll take you out of town."

A group of people were walking on the road. For some reason, the three people who seemed to have lost their souls just now suddenly regained their energy.

Following Liu Taozi, they chattered incessantly and talked all the way.

"Brother Tao has a promising future. I knew he had a promising future since he was a kid. He can pee far!"

"That's right, his peach orchard is so beautiful!" "Liu Da has killed a big tiger before"

A few people followed him all the way to the city gate, saying some irrelevant flattering words.

Standing at the city gate, Liu Taozi earnestly warned: "After leaving the city, go straight to the village. Don't take the small road near the Zhang River. Don't throw away your things."

"When I get home, I'll tell my mother that I've been admitted successfully."

"well."

Several people nodded, and Liu Taozi checked the pass for the soldiers guarding the city and informed them of the situation. After that person carefully recorded the pass and the identities of the three people, he asked the soldiers to make way.

Liu Taozi stood where she was, watching the three men walk out of the city gate in a panic with strange steps.

They wanted to run, but they didn't dare to; they wanted to look back, but they didn't dare to. Their hands and feet, heads and bodies were completely out of coordination, and suddenly they forgot how to walk.

Taozi didn't turn around and leave until the three figures gradually disappeared.

Scorching sun.

A man was sitting on a Hu bed with a high table in front of him, at the door of a large mansion.

There was a person standing next to him, bending his body, waving a fan in his hand with a smile on his face.

The man opened his collar and couldn't help cursing the weather.

At this moment, a shadow suddenly blocked the dazzling light.

The man opened his eyes and saw a tall, rough young man standing in front of him, looking down at him with his head lowered.

The man was so startled that his lackey beside him forgot to fan.

Liu Taozi said: "maγtalrgn."

The man quickly straightened his collar, with a kind smile on his face, and stammered: "r"

He sorted out the words in his mind, "dug"

"I'm here to register for the exam."

The man was stunned, looked at Liu Taozi again, and asked uncertainly: "Han people?"

"Han people."

The man heaved a sigh of relief, and his expression immediately turned ferocious.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? You scared me! Why are Han people still speaking Xianbei language?"

He pulled open his sleeves again, leaned back, and with a look of disdain on his face, he pointed at Liu Taozi and scolded:

"Look at your attire, you don't look like a Han boy at all, your clothes are disheveled!"

The lackey at the side also cursed: "I was shocked too, what a thing! A Han boy, imitating the Hu people!"

Hearing this, the master glared at him and said, "You bastard! Do you want to die?"

The lackey realized his slip of the tongue and quickly lowered his head and kept silent.

The man raised his head and looked at Liu Taozi lazily.

"To take the exam, one must first study law in the county school for 40 days, and then participate."

"I know."

"Six hundred coins."

Liu Taozi said word by word: "I have been to the county government office. Your Majesty has a gift for me. I want three hundred coins."

"Then you should go to the county government office to study!"

Before the man could speak, the lackey beside him shouted again.

Liu Taozi nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go to the county government office and ask."

"Just forget it. Three hundred is three hundred."

The man waved his hand and asked his lackey to take out the bamboo slips and threw them to Liu Taozi, "Name and address must be exactly the same as before."

Liu Taozi filled out the form and put the money aside. The man stamped the bamboo slip and handed it to Taozi.

Taozi took the bamboo slips and was about to go to the county school.

"Where are you going?"

The lackey hurriedly stood in front of him.

He waved his hands as if to shoo away a fly, "Your name hasn't been notified to the county school yet. Come back tomorrow, tomorrow!"

"Just bring the bamboo slips here tomorrow!"

Liu Taozi looked at them deeply, then turned and left.

Even after he left, the two men were still angry and kept cursing:
"What kind of person is this? A country bumpkin. How dare you share the same surname as me?"

Walking on the empty road, there were few passers-by.

The skinny passerby stared blankly into the distance, moving his body bit by bit, undisturbed by the scenery along the way.

Liu Taozi had nowhere else to go, so—

"Bang, bang, bang~~"

The door of the restaurant shook off the dust again.

The master poked his head out from the crack in the door, looking gritting his teeth, his words trembling.

"What do you want?"

Taozi responded with a polite expression.

"I have borrowed the night to stay, and I have done something wrong."

Liu Taozi sat at the table. In front of him were all kinds of food. The host sat politely beside him.

"Look, we have no hatred in the past. Why do you, a hero like you, have to embarrass an old man like me?"

"If you want to stay overnight, I know a good place. It's only 400 steps from here and there's a restaurant. They have a lot more land than us, the food is good, and the people are rich."

"Look, here is the money for your journey, and it's enough for you to have a good meal over there."

Liu Taozi shook her head and rejected the other party's kindness.

"I won't go into the house. I'll just rest in the yard."

"If there are some rogue thieves who are not smart enough to break in and you don't have enough people in your house, I can help you deal with them."

The shopkeeper's lips trembled for a long time.

"Ah"

"A bunch of lunatics."

ps: It’s a new book with a new style. At present, it may be a little difficult to understand, depressing, fragmented, and have many shortcomings.

But this is really what I want to write. Perhaps this is my understanding of the late Northern Dynasties: weird, absurd, fragmented, and inexplicable. But I really hope that everyone can give it a chance. I will explain them to you one by one in the future. The many trivial and fragmented plots will slowly merge together, and all the repression will erupt in anger. This is the first time I have written a story about the lower class people. I hope I can live up to the original intention and the readers who like it.

(End of this chapter)