Chapter 2 Chapter two

Wu Chaqing, a native of Huizhou. Huizhou prefecture governs six counties, and has convenient transportation with Hangzhou, so there are many people who come out to do business, especially the people from the withdrawal county.Gan County is divided into four townships: east, south, west and north.With less land and more people, Nanxiang is the most miserable, so the men run away to Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou to earn money to support their families. Therefore, there are more women and children left in Nanxiang than men.This tradition is also one or two hundred years old. Huizhou people have a jargon for doing business, which is called "Zhou Qi Wu Cha Pan Jiang Yuan".One is that most of the people doing business in Huizhou are surnamed Zhou, Wu and Pan, and the other is that most of them are in the business of lacquer, tea and sauce.There are quite a few people from Hangzhou who are the bosses of teahouses, but almost all the employees who work under the bosses are from Huizhou, especially from the county.In this way, the Huibang tea masters formed their own family in Hangzhou.

These tea people from foreign lands have been working as buddies for a long time, and with some savings, they can become bosses.Some of them became big bosses, such as Fang Guansan, the owner of the Fangzheng tea shop near Wangyou Tea House in Yangbatou. He is from Huizhou. He was an apprentice in Taichang Tea House. .From a small apprentice who came out of the backwaters of Huizhou to a wealthy boss, this family history, speaking of it, does not know how many stories there are. Wu Chaqing.But it is completely different from his fellow countrymen.In Wangyou Tea House, he has been the shopkeeper for decades.He is also the housekeeper of Wangyoulou Mansion.It's strange to never come home.It turns out that ordinary tea houses in Hangzhou have such a rule for Huizhou buddies, which is called "two returns in three years, one return for three months".You can also bring three months' wages with you when you go.Like the Weng Longsheng tea house in Qinghefang, the staff sometimes bring fellow villagers, relatives and friends, and the boss provides free board and lodging, sometimes for several years.The proprietress, Dawang, said: People from Huizhou came out of their hometown without cooking pots, so the food needs to be taken care of, but job hunting is not.

However, Wu Cha's love is all over the place, not only there is no town party gathering, there is no reunion of wives and children.It is kept in the store all year round, back and forth, carefully taken care of, almost impeccable.Hang Jiuzhai once thought about marrying him a wife and continuing the incense, but he was shaken back and forth by his taciturn face, so he didn't dare to mention it again.Before lights out at night.Then he said to his daughter-in-law, Lin Ouchu: "Look at this Wu Chaqing, what's wrong with him, is he sick and can't get close to women?" Lin Ouchu looked into the mirror and took off the jewelry from her head, and said, "You think it's you who mess around all day long, and get sick even when you're not sick? I haven't seen anyone drink tea, don't drink alcohol, let alone opium. The shop is clean and refreshing. The waiters are not allowed to eat green onions or garlic after eating. When customers come in, there is a scent of tea. Our ancestors also knew that tea is easy to be stained. Where is it? He guarded so tightly..."

"He was full, I took a spoonful, and you brought out a big tank of water, so many words! I mean, is there something wrong with him not begging for a wife? Let's see where you got it? Why don't you eat onions and garlic? Eat transcripts..." Lin Ouchu took off the jewelry, and her black hair cascaded down like a waterfall. She went to the edge of the bed and sat down. By candlelight, her pink face was pink, and she said to her livid-faced husband lying on the bed: "I see him every time. Practicing Bagua boxing in the morning, and practicing martial arts with swords in the courtyard at night, it doesn't look like a person with a problem."

"That's right." Hang Jiuzhai was a little resentful, as if he felt that his wife praised outsiders too much, so he said, "Who is he, the one who rebelled under Chang Mao's hands, and the one under Li Xiucheng who was a general..." Lin Ouchu stomped his feet and shouted softly, "Bah! Shut up! How dare you mention the word long hair again!" Hang Jiuzhai also knew that he was talking too much, so he couldn't let it out.Besides, the tea house is all supported by the proprietress and Cha Qing. People under the eaves had to bow their heads, but bowed their heads and felt uncomfortable, so they slanted their eyes and said: "After all, I saved someone's life, and I will protect him from then on." Why don't you protect me a little bit? I don't understand, who is your man?"

Some acid words made Lin Ouchu's eyebrows hang upside down, and his starry eyes widened angrily: "Hang Jiuzhai, are you speaking conscientiously? You are the one who wants me to take over the tea house, and you want to save face by bowing and bowing! You throw away a shopkeeper, ten days I haven't seen anyone for half a month, and it's rare to come back, yawning, how can I be with me..." She wanted to say the word "intimate", but she couldn't get it out of her mouth. "I've been married for seven or eight years, and I'm still not happy. Whose fault is it? If you don't believe me, try to quit opium smoking, lest I be a bad person inside and out, and be charged with breaking the incense. Huh..." He said , and began to cry.

When Hang Jiuzhai saw his powerful wife crying, he knew that he had said too much.He knew what his wife was thinking, and it was useless to blame him if he didn't say it.However, he thought that it wasn't that he was really useless, it was just that he was used in the brothel, and he only regarded Wangyoulou Mansion as a bank and inn.That being the case, why would you be jealous of others? Forget it, let's stop being a villain, and let the woman be happy.Then he blew out the lamp in one breath, pulled his wife into the quilt, and kept it tender all night.Tomorrow morning, I have to reach out to ask for money.

The days when Lin Ouchu and Wu Chaqing joined forces to revive the Hang family business were also the most glorious era in the history of modern Chinese tea industry.After the peak, there is an abyss-like trough. The second half of the 19th century was a time when Chinese tea and British opium fought each other.The tea event in Ming and Qing Dynasties, from its heyday to its ultimate, the ancient, elegant, and happy mountain embroidered grass, was wrapped up by the world in the frenzy of colonization, and moved towards modern times in pain. In order to balance the trade deficit of opium invasion and resist the outflow of silver, the declining Qing court vigorously promoted agriculture and expanded the export of silk tea. Chinese tea trade relationship, export income accounts for about half of the country's total exports of various commodities.

The Opium War also forced the labor trajectory of various industries in China that made a living by handicrafts.Merchants who are engaged in the export of tea business gathered in Guangzhou, put on thick sweaters, or railway, or waterway, meandering northward, meeting at Shanghai Beach in Shiliyangchang. Hangzhou is 198 kilometers away from Shanghai. Tea from the four provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, and Jiangxi flows down the Qiantang River and is collected and distributed in Hangzhou.The commercial port on the sea depends on the right time and place.This extremely beautiful city has also become a place where tea shops, tea houses and tea merchants gather.

In the era when Hang Jiuzhai joined the tea lacquer club in a daze, there were thirty or forty tea shops in Hangzhou.The ones who became famous later on were Wu Yaoting, the eldest son of the owner of Wu Zhentai tea shop in Gonggaoqiao; the three brothers Fang Guan, the owner of the Fangzheng shop in Yangbatou in the downtown area, Fang Zhongao, the dwarf; — Zhu Wenbin with a white face; and Weng Longsheng, the female shopkeeper of Qinghefang — Mrs. Weng, the queen. Thanks to the right time and place, Wangyou Tea House is sandwiched among the heroes, and it has formed a prosperous climate, and is about to make a sprint to the peak.

It's a pity that Hang Jiuzhai is also a romantic person, spending all day in the Qinlou doll's house, and his treasurer, Wu Chaqing from Huizhou, is mostly involved in the affairs of the guild hall.Behind Wu Chaqing, Mrs. Hang Lin Ouchu supported him.Sometimes it hurts to fight against the boss Furong, and after the absurdity and money are gone, he also knows to go back to his Wangyoulou mansion to make some money.Mrs. Hang, Lin Ouchu, was counting her silver dollars on the workbench in her boudoir, the pear-carved glass-patterned case, and asked: "Boss Hang, do you know any new regulations in the Chaqi Guild Hall?" ?" After Boss Kang was satisfied physically and mentally, he turned servile and obedient, and walked over on tiptoe, and touched Lin Ouchu's swollen shoulders with two scorched yellow hands. But she smeared honey on her mouth and said flatteringly: "My dear wife, when I saw your man, why do you just count the silver dollars that people touch thousands of people to see what you are worried about?" ? Wait for me to loosen your fragrant muscles and bones..." Before he finished speaking, both hands were brushed away by Lin Ouchu's slap, and he cursed: "You still don't shut up your coquettish old mouth. You are an old lady who runs a brothel here? You have brought your tone of talking to a whore in the house! What kind of good wife? Why ten and a half days? Can't see a shadow in the moonlight?" "Lady, calm down, calm down, Xiaosheng has apologized." Hang Jiuzhai had long been familiar with this set of procedures, so he didn't make any fuss, and the waves were calm. "You are used to throwing your hands away as a shopkeeper. For such a big store, throw it to me, and go out to fool around. I don't count the money that thousands of people touch, who will count it? Do you have the heart to count? You count those thousands of people There are too many whores who touch thousands of people!" Hang Jiuzhai knew it well, just leaned up sweetly again, hugged his wife's neck, kissed on the left and right.Lin Ouchu half-pushed and half-cursed: "Looking for death, it's not enough to be romantic outside, and it's fun to come home?" Even though he cursed like this, his voice became lower and lower. Hang Jiuzhai salivated and asked, "Good sister, tell me, what are the new rules in the guild hall?" "How do I know? Isn't it stipulated that women are not allowed to manage the business of the shop?" "That's not a generalization." Hang Jiuzhai said with a serious and adoring face, "In ancient times, there was Hua Mulan, and Wu Zetian was still the emperor." Hang Jiuzhai understood Lin Ouchu's mind and knew that his wife likes power, likes to intervene in what men do, likes to let her have the final say, and also likes people to worship her.Well, I'll give you whatever you want, as long as you give me money to go to the smokehouse. Sure enough, Lin Ouchu felt somewhat joyful, and her thin lips loosened, revealing a mouthful of white waxy teeth. "Don't you know that to open a new tea shop, you have to separate eight shops?" "I've heard about this from Chaqing. My family doesn't open a new store. Why do you remember this?" Hang Jiuzhai picked up his wife's thin chin, stared at her mouth obsessively, and said, "I haven't seen you for a long time. Open your mouth, White Fang, and let me see." Lin Ouchu blushed, but out of anger, he pushed away her husband's flirtatious hands with resentment, and cursed: "Prodigal son, if my family doesn't open a store, won't others stop opening a store? Everyone's stores open under my signboard." Yes, you still have to spend your time counting your wife's teeth..." Only then did Hang Jiuzhai wake up, and asked in panic, "Where is it, why didn't I see it?" Lin Ou was really scared when she first saw her romantic husband, and he relaxed, saying: "When you see it, our family will be in trouble." Hang Jiuzhai was still panicked, and said, "Have you discussed with Cha Qing what to do? When my ex-mother was alive, she knew what to do." Lin Ouchu became impatient: "Damn it, Wangyou Tea House will continue to do business without your mother, and the market will not be bigger than when she was alive?" "Yes, yes," Hang Jiuzhai just nodded, "It's just that the tea shop is open to the door, it's annoying after all, there must be a good idea." Lin Ouchu just smiled, and glanced at her husband proudly and coquettishly: "Look at how anxious you are! Now go to the door and have a look." Hang Jiuzhai then turned around and was about to go out. After walking a few steps, he was stopped by the woman: "My friend, come back to me!" Hang Jiuzhai turned around in a daze and looked at the woman.This look is what fascinates many women, and Lin Ouchu is also doomed.The young woman's heart softened like water, and her voice became the voice of another woman, as if she had just been brought from Sanjia Village in the suburbs to be a bride. "Look at the cold sweat on your head." Lin Ouchu wiped off her husband's sweat with her embroidered handkerchief, and then said, "I just scared you! That shop was opened by someone from Lin'an. I just entered the industry and don't know the rules. I sent Chaqing to talk to the president of the guild hall, and the president sent a message, so he moved away the day before yesterday." After hearing this, Jiu Zhai sat on the edge of the bed, touched his heart, and said, "Good sister, why are you scaring me so much? My heart is still beating right now." Lin Ouchu poked his head with a pointed finger and said with a smile: "You are too scared. Such a big tea house has been run for several generations. What kind of wind and rain has never seen it? The ancestors are just like you. This bowl There is no need to eat tea and rice, the boat has turned over in the gutter long ago." Hang Jiuzhai held his wife's hand and said, "You have been in my house for a few years, but you don't know the hardships of this bowl of rice. Look at the three generations of the Hang family, which one didn't return to the west early. Now it's my turn." "What nonsense are you talking about?" Lin Ouchu was so bluffed that he covered her husband's mouth, but the husband said to himself, with tears in his eyes: "I hate myself, I smoked opium, and I want to quit. I can’t quit. I don’t want to live long, and I feel bitter, so I go to the crowd to go crazy. My sisters and sisters surround me, don’t they fancy the money in my pocket? How do people know that this money is My wife got up at five o'clock and stayed up in the middle of the night to save her face and let me spend it!" As he spoke, he hugged Lin Ouchu's shoulders, plunged his head into her arms, sobbed, and then burst into tears. That night, it goes without saying that the long absence was better than the newlyweds, and the two fell in love slowly.Hang Jiuzhai is a useless person, but he has a special liking for women. He works intensively and is full of tenderness.On the pillow, while Lin Ouchu was having a good time, he did not forget to teach. It is nothing more than how many tea houses in Hangzhou have risen; what new tricks are there; what kind of routine should Wangyou Tea House have to deal with; Where to buy, where to sell, etc.Hang Jiuzhai huddled in the gentle township, answering in his mouth, the wind beside the pillow blows in one ear and blows out the other ear, it's all his wife's words.In the end, he became impatient, so he simply blocked the woman's mouth with his tongue.This move was the most effective, and the woman stopped making a sound, and let the ignorant man do whatever he wanted.As for the man, he had shed a lot of tears of repentance just now, and at the moment he was flustered, but at the same time he thought regretfully: After all, it is a woman in a deep boudoir, who has made no sound at all. Will be willing to be lonely at this time.Thinking about it this way, I suddenly thought that I was in the Crystal Pavilion, and my desires were full of urgency.Poor woman Lin Ouchu, how could she know so many subconscious minds, she closed her eyes and endured it, her eyes were darkened, and she thought her husband had really changed his mind. Early in the morning, Lin Ouchu got up quietly, saw that her husband was still soundly asleep, washed up, ate a bowl of lotus seed soup, and went to the front hall.Every day at this time, Wu Chaqing would be waiting here. On that day, after Wu Chaqing explained everything, he hesitated to leave.Lin Ou saw it at first, and asked: "If you have anything to say, tell me quickly, the boss came back yesterday." Hearing Mrs. Hang's opening, Cha Qing said: "I'm about to talk about the boss, will you listen, Madam?" "Come on, there are no outsiders here." Lin Ou's heart trembled at the beginning. "The money received at the counter was missing yesterday. I asked carefully and said that the boss took it secretly, so the clerk saw it." When Lin Ouchu heard it, his face turned pale, and he stood up and sat down again.Wu Chaqing stood for a while and said, "I'm leaving." Lin Ou waved his hand at the beginning, and he also turned back to the back garden, with seven cats and eight mice scurrying around in his heart, rushing into the room - where is the shadow of this enemy! Like his husband, the pile of silver dollars on the raised-head case with the flower pear carving pattern disappeared without a trace. Lin Ouchu stared blankly at the green clouds and red waves on the bed. After a long while, he howled, and with his hands vigorously, the dowry silk scarlet quilt was torn in half with a bang. When Lin Ouchu threw herself into Wu Chaqing's arms, she hadn't thought it through at all, otherwise she wouldn't have chosen such a big and public place in the backcourt. She and he ran to the warehouse in the back field, originally just to check the tea sieves from the previous year, and how much to buy this year.She didn't expect that she would see the man's back through the fine holes of the tea sieve. They were checking each one on the wooden shelf at that time, hardly speaking.This kind of thing doesn't have to be done by them.But they still have to do everything by themselves. This is God's will, which is fate.Therefore, Lin Ouchu had no premeditation, no shame during the incident, and no regret afterwards.This is the south at dusk, the sky is ambiguous, and the dust floats cleanly in the air; this is another unknown place, a thirty-year-old young woman inadvertently set up the tea sieve, and glimpsed the moon-white tea that was crushed by the sieve. The back, stretched and bent, does not seem to grow on a human body; it exists alone behind the tea sieve, and it is like a sword that stretches freely, making people fantasize and act boldly.The tea sieve fell, and the woman's mind went blank. She rushed over violently from behind and hugged the man's waist.This shows that the woman is an outsider from the Hang family, and no one in the Hang family has her explosive power, which will be passed down through blood in the future, even though she has nothing at the moment.The man's waist became stiff all of a sudden, his hands were still resting on the wooden frame, and his back trembled like a sieve.But men don't look back, they clenched their teeth, closed their eyes, and didn't look back. The woman roared softly: "Give me a son, I just want you to give me a son." The man stopped trembling, and still without looking back, he said, "I have had two sons." The woman's heart turned cold and her body softened, but she didn't let go. "Even their mother was killed by Zeng Guofan's soldiers." Only then did the woman relax completely, and lazily knelt at the man's feet, her hands still holding those legs. The small window was opened at a very high place, and the light floated in vainly, and the moon-white flexible back melted into a blur. The woman's tears fell, she lowered her head, and the hair on the back of her neck was fluffy, revealing thin hairs.The man was stunned, and suddenly stomped his feet and said, "I can't bear you a son!" The woman sat there for a long time, and the air was dim.She jumped up suddenly, bit the man's shoulder hard, turned her head and left, the man shut the door with a sound just as she was about to step over the threshold. They were buried beneath a mass of fallen wooden shelves and tea sifters.The man's thin nostrils were trembling violently and greedily. He smelled the strong fragrance of tea leaves. The moans in the storm rose up.It was an overwhelming prayer.The man closed his eyes and bit the woman's lip, but he also swallowed the desire that came from the woman's throat: son... son... He froze for a moment, cold sweat broke out on his back, and emptiness and fatigue flooded over him. A year later, Lin Ouchu had his only son who had been born for more than ten years. Hang Jiuzhai named him Yi, and the word Tianzui.While eating the full moon wine, Zhao Xiahuang also came, clasped his hands to congratulate Shi Hang Jiuzhai and said: "I should congratulate you, brother Qihuang, didn't you also have a boy two months ago. Why didn't you hear from me? " Zhao Qihuang said: "I'm the fourth child. I'm not as good as you are the eldest. The money is much more precious." The fourth child's surname is Zhao Mingchen, and his style name is Jike. He has been drunk for two months, and the two younger brothers are still lying in the arms of their mother, not yet human. Lin Ouchu got out of bed and sat with the child in the courtyard beside Yulan Village. When she saw Wu Chaqing approaching, she lifted the child up. Wu Chaqing only glanced at the child, then turned her head away. "I have a son." Lin Ouchu was very satisfied and praised himself. "In a few years, let's redeem the Wangyou Tea House." Wu Chaqing turned around and said. Lin Ouchu was taken aback for a moment, his eyes became hot, and he buried his head in the child's package, but the child cried.