Chapter Eleven: The Halo of the Divine Child

  "The spring eye is silent and delicate, the tree shade shines on the water with a gentle love. The small lotus has just revealed its pointed corners, and already there are dragonflies standing on its head."

  A young lady from a wealthy family, sitting in her boudoir, fanning herself with a silk fan, strolling under the shade of trees and reciting poetry.

  The same poem was also recited by many gentlemen at a banquet that night.

  Still the same poem, a certain talented young man who knew a little about music wanted to set it to music.

  The same poem made a certain master repeatedly ponder and decide to cultivate Wu Qing, this divine child.

  On the fourth day, Wu Qing ended his dry and exciting test. With the expectation of Madame Wu, he walked into the county school again.

  As soon as he entered the door, he felt a different gaze, and students nodded and bowed from afar to show respect. Wu Qing felt very strange, what was wrong with these people?

  "Brother Wuqing!" A twenty-year-old student bowed and left the door.

  Along the small path paved with green bricks, walking towards Shuxiang Garden, countless admiring glances followed.

  Wu Qing couldn't help but sigh in his heart, a single poem could make these talented men look at our family with new eyes, if they were to plagiarize a few more elegant articles, wouldn't that be taking their admiration to an outrageous level? It seems that from now on, it's best to minimize this kind of thing where we take credit for the cultural achievements of our predecessors.

  "Wuqing brother, please sit here!"

  This is a fifteen or sixteen year old refined young scholar, from his attire, he absolutely belongs to the type of young master from a noble family.

  Wu Qing bowed his hands in gratitude and sat down beside the scholar, then asked:

  "May I ask if you have any good news today?"

  "Ha! I am Wu Yong," said the scholar with a smile. "Brother Wu Qing, you are too polite."

  In this era, scholars are just too polite. Wu Qing muttered to himself and said, "It's fine."

  "Wu Qing's brother, just the other day, wrote a seven-character poem that made all the talented scholars and beautiful women in Wen Shui County blush with shame. I suppose it won't be long before it spreads throughout Taiyuan Prefecture, and who knows, maybe even to the capital itself." Bai Mian's eyes shone with admiration, filled with envy and reverence.

  Wu Qing is not yet seven years old, but from his eyes, one can see a depth that cannot be denied, and it must be said that this is a very good gift. This depth is a unique characteristic of a wise man.

  Envy, jealousy and hatred? Can't help it, who made you have a thousand years of historical civilization accumulated. Wu Qing's eyes became even more profound, the wisdom light that came out suddenly made this sixteen-year-old white and clean bookworm feel somewhat constrained and uneasy.

  Wu Yong said in a low voice, "Brother Wu Qing, you must be careful of Zhang Wenjing from now on. He's been shouting about dealing with you. I heard that he beat his concubine when he got home that night."

  Unexpectedly, there are such things. It seems that the people of Datang are not all open-minded. Wu Qing thanked Daoyou: "Thank you for reminding me, I will remember it."

  Before long, several young students came, got familiar with Wu Qing and exchanged ideas about the inspiration of that poem. If it weren't for Master Wang coming to give a lecture, Wu Qing felt that they wouldn't finish exchanging ideas even after a whole day.

  As Wang Fuzi looked at her with his own eyes, Wu Qing's chrysanthemum suddenly tightened. This old guy can't have a pedophile habit, right?

  Fortunately, Professor Wang was a relatively competent professor. After testing Wu Qing's basic knowledge of phonetics, he continued to explain the "Classic of Filial Piety" with satisfaction.

  "Filial piety is the principle of Heaven, the righteousness of Earth, and the conduct of Man..."

  After school at noon, Wu Qing hurried to the backyard workshop. This was a temporarily vacated house, anyway there were more houses, no need for a workshop.

  "Mother, today is a big hot day, have you prepared everything that needs to be prepared?" Wu Qing shouted loudly before even entering the door.

  Wu Daigne quickly came out of the workshop, laughing and saying: "Son, I've been waiting for you."

  Wu Qing took the handkerchief handed over by Wu Damao, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and rushed to the operating table in the workshop. After seeing that everything was ready, he didn't even look at the popsicles wrapped in white cloth in the insulated wooden box, preparing to pick it up and put it on the modified two-wheeled pushcart. However, the wooden box didn't budge, Wu Qing's face turned red, thinking he was still thirty years old. Wu Damao walked over with a smile, and soon the two of them lifted the insulated box onto the pushcart together.

  As for this cart, Wú Qīng completely imitated the small vendors' carts of later generations. On a simplified two-wooden-wheel flatbed car, a bracket was added in front, which is convenient for parking and won't worry about tipping over. In fact, it's similar to a unicycle, only more stable.

  Wu Qing was very disappointed with the commerce of the Tang Empire. Such a large empire, to be honest, its commerce is not that great. Of course, this has something to do with the emphasis on agriculture and disdain for commerce in this era, as well as the extreme contempt and admiration for merchants at the same time. Many officials and nobles knew that commerce was important, but they were constrained by their dignity and the high status they had enjoyed for generations, so while they openly rejected merchants, they secretly colluded with them to reap huge profits for themselves and their descendants.

  However, the Tang Empire attaches great importance to agriculture. It is not that there are no restrictions on business, and merchants are subject to heavy taxes. Fortunately, there are also regulations on the objects of taxation, such as mobile vendors like Wu Qing, who are not within the scope of taxation. Only when merchants have a fixed location and a fixed store will they be taxed according to their goods.

  Wu Qing and Wu Daigne pushed the cart out of the house and walked onto the main street. Wu Daigne felt a bit embarrassed, only focusing on pushing the cart. Wu Qing also knew that for Wu Daigne, this was already quite good.

  "Sweet and icy popsicles, two cents each!"

  Two coins is a price that ordinary people can easily accept. This is the result of Wu Qing's investigation in the market during his leisure time in recent days. The goods in the market have different prices, and generally, the street vendors' goods do not exceed one hundred coins, most of them are below fifty coins. There are many small things that cost two coins, such as a steamed bun (called "bing" in this era, basically, many staple foods are called "bing", although the term "mantou" has appeared since the Shu Han period of the Three Kingdoms, anyway, the names are not uniform, and some people even call baozi "mantou", which is actually quite confusing) costs only one coin, a ghost mask costs only five coins, etc. So, the popsicle was finally priced at two coins.

  Wu Qing had already begun shouting in his loud voice, and for a moment, passersby all turned to look at the mother and son.

  "Sweet and refreshing ice lolly, thirst-quenching ice lolly, two cents a stick!"

  As Wu Qing continued to shout, more and more onlookers gathered around, Wu Qing shouted even louder, and Wu Dang's head hung lower.

  "Delicious and cheap popsicles, two cents each."

  Wu Qing sat on the flatbed cart, holding an ice stick with brown sugar water in his hand. At this time, craftsmanship was limited and white sugar had not been invented yet, so the ice sticks with brown sugar water were of this color. Wu Qing looked at the surrounding onlookers, ignoring their discussions, took a bite of the ice stick, then swallowed it down, letting out a satisfied sigh.

  A little friend could no longer bear the stimulation, staring at the popsicle in Wu Qing's hand. Wu Qing smiled and asked: "Little boy, what is your name?"

  "I'm going to get eggs." The little boy said loudly and showed a few big front teeth, then swallowed his saliva.

  "Wu Qing said: 'This is for you!'"

  The little doggy friend took the popsicle without hesitation and licked it with his tongue, revealing a joyful expression in his eyes.

  Wu Qing saw that the little friend didn't react at all, and suddenly thought of the interactive segments between hosts and audiences in product sales promotions in later generations. So he asked: "Dog egg little friend, is it delicious?"

  "Delicious!"

  "Well, since it's delicious, come on up and loudly tell the other kids that ice pops are really tasty!" Wu Qing said shamelessly.

  The dog is very obedient, licking an ice cream stick while loudly shouting "Ice cream is delicious!"

  Just then, a big Han pushed through the crowd, his voice like thunder, and roared: "What's all the fuss about here? Let me take a look!"