Still looking forward to staying

Author: Potato Sweet Potato Pie

Still looking forward to staying

Xia Yuan was quite satisfied with the guest room he was staying in temporarily. It was clean and bright. Except for the price being too expensive and the sound insulation being poor, it was perfect.

Staying in this room, he could faintly hear the sounds in the next room, where Xia Ru lived.

At first, the voice that came faintly along the wall was quite conservative, saying nothing more than treacherous, unscrupulous, and ugly things.

But later on, the scolding went up a few levels, saying that such profiteers harm the country and the people, and they are worthy of being the worms of the country.

It's no wonder that Xia Ru was angry. An ordinary guest room costs only a dozen or even dozens of cents a day, while a better room can cost as much as one or two hundred cents.

But this guest room costs five taels of silver. Of course, it's not five taels a day. Today's capitalists are not as crazy as in later generations.

If you give me these five taels of silver, you can live there until the end of the provincial examination this year, which is about ten days of rent.

Calculated, co-authoring would cost 500 articles a day, which is several times more.

And two rooms are twelve taels.

Naturally, Xia Ru couldn't afford such a large amount of money, and he didn't have the strength to be taken advantage of.

The money was paid by Xia Yuan, but the silver taels also emptied his pocket. This time he came to the capital to take the provincial examination, and he brought a total of ten taels of silver. He thought it would be enough for whatever he wanted, but who would have thought that he would not have any money on the first day he came here.

, now only a handful of copper plates are left to use as change.

He opened the copper plates in a row on the table. Xia Yuan counted them, there were sixty-six in total.

Sixty-six, um, a very auspicious number.

It seems that this provincial examination is a farce.

Xia Yuan turned around and dug out a thick stack of paper in his luggage. This was a novel he had written silently these days, with about 160,000 words.

Holding these papers in his arms, Xia Yuan was going to go to Sui Ya Zhai to earn some money. Unexpectedly, as soon as he opened the door, Xia Ru also came out of the room, holding a small cloth bag in his hand.

Seeing this nephew, Xia Ru was stunned, then walked over and stuffed the cloth bag in his hand, "This is the silver tael that my uncle brought this time. There are more than four taels of broken silver in total. You can take it first.

Let’s talk about the rest when we go back.”

Xia Yuan didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "Uncle, what are you doing? Doesn't it cost the same for each of us?"

"Just take it if you want it."

Xia Ru seemed not to want to pester him anymore, but also seemed to be afraid that Xia Yuan would force him back again. As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and went back to the house.

Xia Yuan looked at the closed door and then at the cloth bag in his hand. He hesitated and put the money into his arms, planning to find a way to return it to him when he came back.

The third time I came to Suiyazhai, the provincial examination was about to take place, and many students from Beizhili gathered in the capital, making the bookstore seem to have more guests than usual.

It's just that the shopkeeper sitting behind the counter is not the old man with a gray beard that he dealt with twice before, but a middle-aged man with a wide body and a fat body.

No matter who it is, Xia Yuan is here to make money.

He walked straight to the counter, and the middle-aged man inside had already noticed him. When he saw a thick stack of paper taken out from Xia Yuan's arms, he couldn't help but lean forward slightly and read the writing on it, and a smile suddenly broke out on his fat face.

He cupped his hands and said, "But Mr. Chuan?"

Like later generations, almost no one used their real names when writing books in this era, and Xia Yuan gave himself the pen name "Traveling is not my intention".

It's very modern, but it sounds a bit awkward. People of this era must not understand what it means.

It’s hard for this fat man to pronounce it so naturally.

After exchanging casual greetings, Xia Yuan followed the middle-aged man to the inner room. The next step was to sit down, serve tea, and wait patiently. However, this middle-aged fat man was obviously reading faster than the old man.

Without waiting for too long, the middle-aged man turned the thick stack of manuscripts to the last page. After a while, he put down the manuscript, smacked his lips and said, "Young master, this is where the manuscript is cut off. It still makes people feel like this

My heart feels so tight."

In response to this, Xia Yuan made a haha ​​and didn't respond. Is he writing a novel? How can he not be a dog out of chapters?

The middle-aged man didn't delve into the issue. He took out an abacus from his pocket and began to type. Obviously, he also knew about Xia Yuan's calculation of money based on the number of words.

When he finished counting the words, Xia Yuan saw that it was the same as what he had calculated at home, so he followed the middle-aged man to the counter to withdraw money.

After collecting the money and more than eighty taels of silver, Xia Yuan said goodbye and was about to leave, but was stopped by a middle-aged man, "Hey, Master, stay here."

"Anything else?"

"Oh, that's right. When the young master first came here, he used a strange algorithm to count words, the kind that was drawn on paper."

Speaking of this, the middle-aged man was a little stuck. He had seen the scratch paper used by Xia Yuan to check calculations, but he really didn't know how to describe what he saw. It was like a ghost drawing amulet, and he had never seen it before.

"That's the formula."

"Oh, it turns out to be a calculation."

The middle-aged man suddenly understood, and then continued: "I heard from shopkeeper Chen that the young master uses this kind of arithmetic to calculate the formula very quickly, much faster than the abacus, so I have a merciless request."

Hearing this, Xia Yuan raised his eyebrows, "You want to learn?"

The middle-aged man seemed a little moved when he heard the words, but he pondered for a moment and shook his head: "No, this strange calculation must be the secret of the young master. I just want to see it, I don't know."

"Okay, then give me a piece of paper."

"Hey, okay, okay." The middle-aged man didn't seem to expect Xia Yuan to agree so happily. He was stunned for a moment and then nodded repeatedly. He hurriedly took out a few pieces of paper, dipped the brush in ink and handed it over.

Taking the paper and pen, Xia Yuan looked at the middle-aged man, who was also looking at him. The two stared at each other for a long time, and Xia Yuan finally couldn't help but said: "You asked me the question.

.”

"Question?"

"Yeah, if you don't give me questions, how can I give you calculations?"

"Uh, how do I solve this problem?"

"It depends on you. For example, you can multiply any number by any number. You can also divide it. Oh, you should know that this multiplication is that nine-nine song. Nine-nine eighty-one, that is, nine times nine equals eighty-one."

"You can save it down here, you can save it down here."

Xia Yuan was afraid that people in the Ming Dynasty wouldn't understand what multiplication meant, so he helped explain it thoughtfully, but he didn't expect that the fat man actually knew it, and he couldn't help being happy, "Okay, then you can go out."

The middle-aged man thought about it for a while, and then thought of something more complicated, "If you multiply four hundred and fifty-seven and six hundred and eighty-two, what is the result?"

"Four hundred and fifty-seven times six hundred and eighty-two. Right?"

Xia Yuan lowered his head and took the brush and began to list the calculation formulas on the paper. In just ten breaths, the answer was already calculated.

Seeing Xia Yuan stop writing, the middle-aged man turned his head and looked back, saying "Sorry to bother you, I don't recognize him."

"Thirty-one thousand one thousand six hundred and seventy-four, I don't know the result, right?"

I don’t know whether middle-aged people think it’s right or not.

"Um, sir, please wait a moment."

As he said that, he took out his abacus and started checking the calculations.

Compared to the old shopkeeper surnamed Chen, this middle-aged man can do abacus much faster. He is simply faster.

His stubby fingers were flying up and down on the abacus with flexibility that they shouldn't have. After a while, the middle-aged man breathed a sigh of relief, raised his head and looked at Xia Yuan with a somewhat complicated look, "Young Master's calculation is accurate.

.”

"That's right. I'm leaving then. You can quickly pay these people."

Seeing that there were already several customers waiting to check out with books, Xia Yuan put down his pen and turned to leave without further delay.

This time he was able to walk farther and reached the door of the study, but once again he couldn't get away because his sleeve was grabbed by someone. Then, a slightly deeper voice sounded in his ear,

"I hope little brother will stay. I would like to ask you for advice on the calculation just now."
Chapter completed!