6. Talent for Achievements

"Yes! Yes! Yes! The two young masters are right. Reading"

"I was wrong."

Liu Mouer nodded and bowed.

After apologizing, he carefully withdrew from the school, not daring to walk out loudly.

Lu Zhaopeng took out a copy of the Thousand Characters with yellowed edges from the hole in the table, put it on Bai Gui's table, and said, "Brother Gui, Zhaohai and I have already started to recite the Analects. This Thousand Characters is for learning to read. We don't need it anymore, so you can use it first."

"Here are paper and ink. If you don't have enough, just tell me. Don't be polite to us."

Lu Zhaohai saw the old pen and inkstone on Bai Gui's table, pushed the pen and inkstone back from the hole in the table, and took out a stack of straw paper and two square-sized inkstones.

Bai Gui took the book, but not the paper and ink. He moved his lips, lowered his eyebrows slightly, and put on a respectful attitude, "Master, Second Master, I have already told the teacher that we should use a wooden board dipped in water to write. We don't need ink and paper first. It's a waste of money."

Books are necessities.

Straw paper and ink are not necessary.

Bai Gui distinguished them very clearly.

The Lu family has a very strict family tradition. When the old man Lu was alive, the family spent a lot of money to hire a teacher to teach Lu Zhaopeng and Lu Zhaohai. When they were older and seven years old, they were sent to Shenhe Village, seven or eight miles away, to go to school.

The old man of the Lu family was born as an apprentice in a restaurant. He carried water and pulled the bellows and learned cooking skills. A senior official who was on a tour to the south passed through Xi'an and ate the gourd chicken cooked by the old man of the Lu family and praised it: "The best spoon in the world."

After having this reputation, the Lu family became rich, built a manor, and built a three-story courtyard.

Everyone in Bailu Village knew the will left by Grandpa Lu before his death: "I have been serving others all my life, which is very useless. You can only honor your ancestors by having others serve you. If a scholar passes the exam, please set off a string of straw cannons at my grave. If a juren passes the exam, please set off thunder cannons. If a jinshi passes the exam, please set off three gunshots."

Some things can be accepted, but some things cannot be accepted.

Being greedy will make people jealous.

Lu Zhaopeng and Lu Zhaohai treat him well, Bai Gui knows it in his heart, but the Lu family is not the two brothers who make the decisions, but Lu Taiheng and Lu Zilin, father and son. It is understandable that he borrowed books to read today, but if he covets ink and straw paper again, he is ignorant of the situation!

Living under someone else's roof, relying on the Lu family for a living.

Bai Gui cannot help but be "sensible"!

It's not that he has a low character and is used to serving others, but he has to do this to survive.

Similarly, if Xu Xiucai saw this scene, he would probably frown. A gentleman has his share of things to accept and his share of things to reject. It is understandable to borrow books, but coveting other people's property is a mean person.

At this time, Bai Gui thought of the hometown written by Mr. Lu Xun. He felt that he was Runtu.

You have to be respectful to the master.

There are differences between superiors and subordinates.

But he is better than Runtu, and "respect" is only temporary.

"You should accept it!"

Lu Zhaohai frowned. He didn't understand Bai Gui's little thoughts. In the past, Bai Gui took them to catch birds, fish, and rabbits, and sometimes brought them fruits from the fields and mountains.

He was loyal, so he had countless paper and ink at home.

As long as he opened his mouth, Lu Zilin, who hoped that his son would become a successful scholar, a juren, and a jinshi, would immediately instruct the long-term workers in his family to buy it in the town. If they didn't have it in the town, they would go to the city to buy it.

As long as it was related to reading, everything was easy to talk about.

"Some paper, brother Gui, just take it..." Lu Zhaopeng also advised.

Bai Gui smiled naively, scratched his smooth forehead, and didn't say anything.

The two also saw that the persuasion was boring, and they were a little angry. Lu Zhaohai childishly wanted to snatch the "Thousand Characters" that he had just given, but the older Lu Zhaopeng was a little more sensible and stopped him.

After a while, some children who were studying for elementary school came to the school one after another.

At the same time, he took this leisure time to open the book.

The "Thousand Characters" article has a thousand words without any repetition. It is said that the author Zhou Xingsi wrote the "Thousand Characters" overnight, and then his hair turned white. The whole article was not added with any punctuation, and it was easy to read.

The reason why this book is used for enlightenment is that if a child learns to complete the entire Thousand Characters, it is equivalent to knowing a thousand words.

However, most elementary schools do not only use the Thousand Characters for enlightenment, but also mix classics such as "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Names", "Thousand Family Poems", and "Disciples' Rules".

The whole poem of Thousand Characters begins with "Heaven and earth are dark yellow, the universe is vast and wild", with four characters in each sentence and one rhyme every other sentence. The article is consistent, advancing layer by layer, and consistent. Every sentence quotes scriptures and every word uses classics. It is very elegant and gorgeous to read.

Bai Gui is not unfamiliar with the first few sentences of Thousand Characters. In his previous life, he would inevitably come across these sentences in the information flow, but when he read the latter part, he felt a little unfamiliar. In addition, because it is traditional Chinese characters, it seems difficult to read from right to left.

The book not only contains the main text, but also simple annotations, and some rare characters are annotated with Qieyun.

"If I remember correctly, punctuation marks should have been officially used since the Beiyang government issued the "General Order to Use New Punctuation Marks" on February 2, 1920. There were no punctuation marks in the late Qing Dynasty..."

"But punctuation marks have existed since ancient times, but there is no standard or unified standard."

Bai Gui took a look at the punctuation marks used in some sentences in the book, which are very different from those in the past. They are not "," and ".", but some other symbols, such as "*" and "^". (Sentences mean to break sentences, which can also be written as punctuation.)

As for knowing the specific time of punctuation marks, it was because his undergraduate degree in his previous life happened to be related to history. At that time, he read some historical materials of the late Qing Dynasty, not much, but some standard major events left some impressions in his head.

He tried to read it several times, and the vague memories in his mind became clearer and clearer, and some unfamiliar "words" seemed to be clear.

Soon, an ancient bronze mirror appeared in his mind.

The ancient mirror was simple and unadorned, with lines of simplified Chinese characters written on the golden mirror surface.

"Name: Bai Gui."

"Talent: None."

"Achievements: 103 points."

"Daoist merit: 0 points."

"Anchor time point: 2014."

"Property: One Dragon Silver Dollar."

"This 'Kunlun Mirror' has finally opened again. Could it be that after I entered the school, my luck changed like the characters in the novels in my previous life, so the bronze mirror can last for such a long time..." Bai Gui looked at the bronze mirror that appeared in his mind and couldn't help but feel happy.

This bronze mirror was a fake he bought from the antique market. He didn't know what it was called or what it was. After awakening to his past half a year ago, he could see the bronze mirror in his mind from time to time. At first, he thought it was a trance, but later, as he observed the bronze mirror for longer and longer periods of time, he realized that this might be his golden finger.

There were no bird seals or bronze characters on the ancient mirror, only some ordinary bird and animal patterns.

He didn't know its name, so he called it "Kunlun".

There are two types of merits and Taoist merits in this Kunlun mirror. Merits are rewards for hard work. Every time you focus on one thing, you will have merits, while Taoist merits are the achievements and accomplishments you have made in a certain way.

He can exchange funds for the time nodes anchored by the mirror body.

For example, the white-feathered chicken and rabbit exchanged previously.

"You read the four lines of the Thousand Characters carefully, merit +1."

"Merits +1."

"100 points of merits can be exchanged for the merit talent of "Diligence can make up for clumsiness". Do you agree to exchange?"