Ancient Imperial Examination Daily

Chapter 96 Transformation

At this time, the teahouse is still open. People are used to eating two meals at this time. This is not a meal time, but a good time to have snacks and drink tea. There should be many customers, but at this time there are only a few people sitting in the shop. Seven or eight people, two or three sat around the high platform, and the other four or five sat in twos and threes farther away, talking and chatting on their own.A seventeen or eighteen-year-old kid dressed as a waiter also stood lazily aside, waiting for the call from the customer.

There was a storyteller in his 50s on the stage who was telling a story. It was thought that there were few people listening, even the storyteller was talking in a very low voice, anyway, Du Jinning was standing at the door, so he couldn’t hear what he was saying.

"Come on, go in and have a look." Du Jinning wanted to know what book the storyteller here was talking about.

The four of them walked in, randomly found a seat in front of the stage, sat down, and listened carefully to the man's storytelling.Seeing Qi Muyuan, Xiao Er immediately cheered up, came over with teapots and tea bowls, made a bowl of tea for each of them, then turned around and brought a plate of dried peanuts and fried melon seeds, and put them on the table.

Everyone didn't care. They listened to the storyteller, but after a few words, everyone lost interest.

What the storyteller said was an old-fashioned story about a gifted scholar and a beautiful woman, and the plot of the story was not outstanding. No wonder the customers in the store were not interested.

Guan Jiaze grew up in Lishui County since he was a child, and he also likes to read stories, so he is no stranger to these storytelling occasions.

He explained to Du Jinning: "The income of these storytellers is not high. Part of the income comes from the monthly money given by the owner of the teahouse, and part of it comes from the rewards from the guests. If they speak well, they can earn a living; They can only make enough for themselves, and it is difficult to even support their families. So they have no money to go to the bookstore and spend hundreds of pennies to buy scripts. They are all stories made up by themselves. There are too many stories, and there are only a few who come and go. Routine. Of course, there are also some storytelling content such as Romance handed down by the masters, but if there are too many words, the guests can memorize them, and everyone is impatient to listen."

This is why Du Jinning said he wanted to buy a teahouse, and Guan Lehe agreed without saying a word.With the words written by Du Jinning, the business of this teahouse will definitely not be bad.

The Guan family's money didn't come from the wind. If Du Jinning's suggestion was unreliable, he would naturally not let these children fool around.

At this time, the storyteller had finished speaking a paragraph, and stopped, expecting a reward from the guest.But two guests ignored him at all, and sat there drinking tea by themselves.There was only one guest, who threw two pennies on the stage, got up and left.

"Thank you, thank you." Mr. Storyteller picked up the copper coin, sighed softly, turned and went backstage.

Du Jinning was about to get up, when he saw a person come out of the backstage quickly, walked up to Qi Muyuan and saluted: "Master." He then saluted the three of them, "Hello, three young masters."

This person is the forty-something old servant whom I saw at Guan Lehe two days ago.

Qi Muyuan respected this old servant very much, he had already stood up, and introduced to everyone: "This is our housekeeper, Yuan An." He also introduced the names of Du Jinning and the other three.

Yuan An laughed and said, "Young Master Guan and Young Master Du have met before, but it's the first time for Master Zhang. Please greet the three young masters. This teahouse was bought by our young master yesterday. I don't know the three Does the young master think it is appropriate?"

Both Zhang Guan shook their heads.

Needless to say, Zhang Hongwen was originally from a farming family, and he came to the city to study, and he had neither the money nor the time to come to this kind of place.It was the first time in his life that he entered a teahouse.

And even though Guan Jiaze came to the teahouse a lot, he couldn't say anything wrong - isn't it like this in all teahouses?In a big room, several or a dozen tables are set up, and everyone sits and drinks tea.At most, it is the difference between whether there is a storyteller or not.

But Du Jinning stood up, looked at the tables of those guests, and saw that they were all dried peanuts, fried melon seeds, and nothing else.

She turned her head and asked Yuan An: "Uncle Yuan, what refreshments does this shop provide?"

Uncle Yuan was taken aback, pointed to the two items on the table and said, "That's all."

Seeing Du Jinning frown, he said: "I also asked the original boss, and he said that the business is not good, and the cakes that come in can't be sold, and they are easy to spoil. Only these two kinds of dried fruits can be stored, so only these are provided."

Du Jinning was noncommittal.

She went to the high platform to try the sound again, and shook her head.

She discovered when the storyteller was telling the story just now, and the stage was only raised, without any sound amplification treatment.Therefore, when the storyteller is telling a story, his voice cannot be transmitted at all, and he needs to speak loudly.And even if you say it loudly, you can't hear it clearly if you sit far away.

But talking loudly for a long time, the voice of the storyteller couldn't bear it.

Seeing her like this, the three of them followed her up to the stage. Guan Jiaze tried to imitate his voice, but found nothing. He turned to her and asked curiously, "What's the matter? Is there any problem?"

Qi Muyuan also looked at her with black and white eyes.

Du Jinning turned to Yuan An and said, "This teahouse will be closed for ten days first. You can find some plasterers tomorrow to remodel this teahouse."

"How to change it?" Seeing his young master nodding his head, Yuan An asked.

"Here, here, dig deeper. Find four more large water jars, intertwine with each other, and bury them in these two places." Du Jinning pointed to the two places in front of the platform.

"What's the use of this?" Guan Jiaze asked.

"Could it be possible to let the sound travel farther?" Qi Muyuan, who had always been taciturn, thought for a moment and asked.

Du Jinning nodded: "Exactly."

"How do you know?" Zhang Hongwen was curious.Like him, Du Jinning should have never been to a teahouse, right?How did he know how to modify this table?

This is the loudspeaker used in the Ming and Qing Dynasties of the Jinci Water Mirror Platform that I saw in Taiyuan when I was traveling in my previous life.

Du Jinning replied in his heart, and said calmly on the face: "I tried it. If you bury the water urn in the soil like this at home, the sound can travel far."

Everyone: "..."

Well, this reason is very strong, and it cannot be refuted at all.

It's just, who has nothing to do at home to bury the water urn for fun?

Du Jinning turned to look at Yuan An: "Uncle Yuan, do you have the Four Treasures of the Study here?"

"Yes." Yuan An nodded, "Behind."

The group of people entered the back room, there were two rooms inside, one of which was bigger, probably the resting place of the original owner, and was well furnished; the other room was much simpler, with only a table and two tables. A bench and nothing else.

The old gentleman who just told the book was sitting in a small room drinking tea.Seeing everyone coming in, he quickly stood up and bowed his hands in salute.

"These are some young masters." Yuan An introduced to him, and then turned to explain to everyone, "He was not there when we bought the teahouse yesterday, so I haven't seen my young master." He then introduced, "His name is Qian Dongbao."

(End of this chapter)