Chapter 36 "One Word"

After Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai passed two levels in a row, Xue Tui's attitude towards them was completely different from when they first arrived.

Xue Tui looked at these two people now. Not only did he no longer think that they were country bumpkins who had stumbled in by mistake, but he also felt that they looked a bit like martial arts rookies who came to pretend to be pigs and eat tigers.

In front of such a person, Xue Tui couldn't make the question too "ordinary", otherwise it would appear that he was not up to standard.

Yes, generally speaking, the content of the third level is that Xue Tui personally writes a question and has a "literary battle" with the other party; and the "literary battle" usually involves writing a poem and answering an antithesis. Son, guess a word puzzle or something.

It is precisely because Xue Tui is very good at this that he got the nickname "Little Dezu"; what it means...is that he has a bit of the charm of Yang Xiu and Yang Dezu.

But in fact, from this point, it is not difficult to see that Xue Tui has failed the national examination for many years, so it is not unfair.

The "smartness" in him has never been true wisdom or talent...but the ability of a typical rotten scholar to show off his skills.

To sum it up in one sentence, it is only capable of writing and writing, but has no strategy to stabilize the country.

So, being a guest in the House of No Return is not an injustice to him...because it is indeed more suitable for him to do this than to be an official.

At this moment, after Xue Tui invited Sun and Huang to sit down, he paced back and forth in the study with his hands behind his back.

Just now, he originally wanted to use the second level to catch the opponent off guard. Unexpectedly, Huang Donglai reported the correct answer in an instant, and instead killed him off guard.

Under this situation, Xue Tui could only think in a hurry and quickly think about the things to be tested in the third level...

"What should I do? Use what I am best at A pair?

"No...it's definitely too difficult to come up with a pair that can defeat the dead in such a short period of time. Ordinary pairs will certainly not be able to defeat them."

"How about... assign a theme and let them write a poem?

"No...that's not possible, writing a poem is too easy; even if they just write a limerick, as long as I can answer the questions, and there are no big mistakes in the rhyme and rhythm of the poem, so I can’t say much... because they passed the first two levels too easily. If I find fault with some idealistic things in the third level, It will look like I am deliberately making things difficult for them.

"Well...how can we convince them to lose?"

Xue Tui thought a lot there, but his mind was spinning so fast that it took a long time. Not long either.

After a moment, he suddenly raised his head, a flash of light flashed in his eyes, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth...

Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai knew when they saw this guy's expression - —It’s over. I’m afraid this guy named Xue has come up with some bad idea.

"Ah...You two gentlemen." The next second, Xue Tui came over with a smile on his face, raised his hand and saluted, and asked, "I don't know what the third level is about. ', which one of you will answer?"

Sun and Huang looked at each other, and in the end...it was Huang Donglai who naturally spoke: "I'll do it."

There is no way, you have to choose one of the two evils, so you have to Whichever is the lesser; no matter how bad Huang Donglai is, he is still better than Sun Yixie, who is illiterate.

"Okay." Hearing this, Xue Tui nodded, sat down, shook his head and said, "I wonder if Mr. Huang has ever heard of such a story..." He paused and began to recite it. Said, "When people in Zheng have shoes and put them on their feet, they first measure their feet, and then put them on their feet. When they arrive at the market, they forget to move them. Having already found the shoes, they say: 'I forgot to hold them!' and return to take them." . When the market was over, people said: "Why don't you give it a try?" He said: "It's better to have faith than to have confidence."

Xue Tui just said "Zheng." I recited the original text of the story verbatim.

Huang Donglai... actually didn't understand it completely, but he roughly guessed what story the other party was telling from the few words he could understand, so he nodded somewhat vaguely and said: "Ah... I've heard of it."

Xue Tui smiled and said: "So, so what about this..." Then he recited the original texts of the two allusions "Mending the enemy's strength" and "Carving a boat to seek a sword" respectively. .

Huang Donglai also said he knew.

At this point, Xue Tui felt that the groundwork was almost complete, so he spoke in a sinister tone: "Haha... Mr. Huang is indeed well-read, strong in memory, and knowledgeable, so I think... with Mr. Huang's knowledge must be able to tell a fable that even Xue has never heard of?"

"Huh?" Huang Donglai was a little confused when he asked him, and he instinctively said With an embarrassed look on his face, he muttered, "This..."

Xue Tui saw the expression on the other person's face, and immediately showed a look of color on his face, and pressed forward: "If Mr. Huang can say such a thing, This third level is considered passed, but if you can't tell..."

His question was very bad.

From his point of view, from the common sense of a scholar in the early dynasty, it is not difficult to write poems or essays... to them, this is a formulaic thing, just like those in modern times. The cartoonist who draws the "book" is just like the book. As long as you learn a few routines and pass the drawing skills, then the creation will be at your fingertips. Readers don't really care about the plot or spiritual connotation in it anyway. They mainly just look at the paintings. Son.

However, if you want a person who studies eight-legged essay all day long to become an official to write a story, it must be a fable that contains some profound thoughts and can illustrate philosophy. This is It’s not a question of whether it’s difficult or not…it’s simply impossible.

This is one of them.

There is another two: Xue Tui is confident that with his talent and learning, there can be no fables and allusions in the world that he has not read; what about Warring States policy, Mencius and Han Feizi... you can look for it, just look for it, As soon as you say the beginning, he will immediately pick up the topic and memorize it for you.

Therefore, the question he asked, at least in his own opinion... has no solution.

Unexpectedly, HuangDong Lai only hesitated for a moment, and then continued in a very calm tone: "Okay, then I will tell you about the 'tortoise and the hare'."

"Huh?" Xue He was stunned. He never thought that the other party would actually answer.

However, after the initial surprise, he calmed down and told himself secretly: "It's okay... This kid probably wants to make up a... hum, a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy who is still in his infancy. I made it up on the fly, how can I explain it?"

Then Huang Donglai told him the story of the tortoise and the hare in vernacular.

Xue Tui was shocked after hearing this.

After Huang Dong finished speaking, Xue Tui still sat there tasting it for a long time, like a child who had never heard of "The Tortoise and the Hare".

"Mr. Xue Tui came back to his senses and muttered somewhat dullly, "May I ask...where did Mr. Huang get this allusion?"

Huang Donglai couldn't answer that this was "Aesop's Fables" "It's a joke in "", so he curled up his mouth and said nonsense: "I made it up now." He also pretended to be very relaxed and added, "Just this kind of story... I can't do anything about it. If you don’t believe me, how about I tell you about the ‘Three Little Pigs’ later?” Dou, outside the gate, Xue...oh no...student Xue Tui sat in the well and looked at the sky, I am really ashamed! I have offended you many times before, I hope you can forgive me."

"Oh! It's like a tortoise and a hare...what about it?" Sun Yixie was a little surprised when he saw the other party's reaction. He immediately complained, "Then if I give you a long stand-up comedy "One Piece"..."

Sun Yixie smiled: "Hey~ I'm just kidding, don't panic."

Xue Tui didn't understand what they said anyway, he just Thinking it was some kind of black joke between the two, they didn't care.

Huang Donglai also quickly changed the topic and said to Xue Tui: "Mr. Have you eaten?”

“Oh!” Come... I'm invited to sit here."

......

To make a long story short, after about a cup of tea, Sun and Huang were finally in a private room. It was time to eat the first batch of cold cuts served on the table.

At this time, more than half an hour had passed since the moment they entered the gate of the No Return Building.

In fact, it’s not too late, it’s just Haishi...According to the current time, it was less than 10:30 in the evening, but the two of them were already starving.

The plate of fish that Sun Yi joked about before was not large, so he gave more than half of it to Xue Tui, Yuan Fangzhi and other four people. As a result, the two of them did not take a few bites; it can be said that... …Not only did it not play the role of "stomach padding", it also further stimulated the appetite of the two of them.

Fortunately, they passed the second and third levels very quickly, and it only took more than ten minutes to complete them. So, before eleven o'clock, the two of them had the food served in the Zhixian Pavilion kitchen. Out of the dishes.

The "Southern Chef God" is also in a good mood today - frying, frying, deep-frying, and simmering, the south is sweet, the north is salty, the east is spicy, and the west is sour. Mr. Yuan almost uses all his special skills. It was all on display; anyway, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai made it clear when they sat down that they were not short of money, allowing them to do whatever they wanted and serve the food quickly.

Of course, the dish "The spring tide brings rain in the evening" is not on the menu tonight, because it is a seasonal dish in spring, and it is autumn now, so even if it is made reluctantly, it will taste bad. Not right either.

Tonight, Yuan Fangzhi cooked a dish called "Qianjin Buyingbi"; if "Spring Tide Brings Rain and Comes Late" was his Mahayana work when he was twenty-five, then this "A thousand gold buys a wall" is proof that Yuan Fangzhi's cooking skills have reached a state of perfection after he turned fifty-five.

Just such a piece of tofu, put into your mouth, can allow you to taste the dissoluteness and sadness of a generation, the talent and sadness of a beautiful woman... It seems that you are that Gao Shi, that Du Fu, standing there. There, I watched that wonderful story happen with my own eyes, but at the same time I could vaguely sense the sad ending of the story...

This night, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were both drunk, because that night The food on the table was indeed good...the kind they had never tasted in their lives.

The service provided to private guests in this hotel is also very good. Before the two of them were drunk, Xue Tui had already come in and asked where the inn they were staying was, so that he could help them while they were unconscious. After the personnel were dispatched, someone was sent to send them back.

As for the meal money for this night, Xue Tui did not confiscate it. He just left a note in their inn room, telling them that the meal money had been charged to their account, and when would it be convenient for you two? , you can find someone to send it to you, or you can tie it up when you come back next time.

This is about paying attention to...

If the guest refuses to pay afterward, that is the guest's problem, but the person who does not return to the building... will never take advantage of the guest's ignorance. It is impossible for a waiter who has not returned to the building to do such things as "searching out the meal money from the unconscious guest"; if someone really did this, the boss would definitely not do it. I will let him go, because this is not the problem of the guests, but the problem of not returning to the building.

…………

The next day, when the sun rose three poles high, Huang Donglai woke up first - he had good internal skills.

When he woke up, he found that he was lying in Sun Yixie's room, with Brother Sun's trident lying beside the bed.

Huang Donglai endured a slight headache and recalled what happened last night.How did we get back to the inn? Then he thought to himself: "Oh... It must have been the guy who didn't return to the building. When he carried us up, he got into the wrong room. He threw Brother Sun into my room and threw me here."

While he was thinking about it, he took out the chamber pot from under the bed for convenience. Then, he yawned, stretched, and prepared to go next door to wake up Sun Yixie.

Because he was carried back and thrown directly on the bed, he neither took off his clothes nor covered himself with a quilt that night; of course, in this season, he was a martial arts practitioner, so sleeping like this for one night would not be a problem. cold.

Huang Donglai walked to the door wearing wrinkled clothes that smelled of alcohol and opened the door casually.

Unexpectedly...at this moment, there was someone waiting for him outside the door.

I saw that man, wearing all black in broad daylight. He was tall and strong, with dark skin, eyebrows at the temples, a straight nose and a square mouth. As for the biggest feature on his face, It's just a pair of piercing bull's eyes that seem to be staring at you all the time.

When Huang Donglai opened the door, the man was standing three feet away, staring at the door.

As soon as Huang Donglai appeared, the black-faced man cupped his fists and raised his hands, and said in a loud and stern voice: "Sun Yixie, I want to compete with you!"