Night Lights

Chapter 75 Thirty Clay Figures

Yin and Yang are too empty, and there are five gods in them, who come and go invisible, invisible and intelligent, keep the spirit and soul, and transform the five supernatural powers; those with five powers: they are the eyes of the sky, the ears of the sky, the heart, the feet of the gods, the destiny, and the leaks; It can control the spiritual power of ghosts and pass through the mind power of ghosts; this name is: it has a psychic heart. ——Excerpted from Tongyin Eight Volumes of "Wordless Book of Heaven".

……

Tianjin Wei is a place for business, and anyone who has the ability will not starve to death.All walks of life also rely on craftsmanship to make a living, and they must have unique skills in their hands, so that they can catch their talents!
'Clay Figurine Zhang''s craftsmanship of making clay figurines is not something that a scheming person can understand, and there is his unique way in it.When he had nothing to do, he sat on the second floor of the "Xingshunlou" teahouse in the city, watching and pinching all kinds of people.

Bai Shibao, Yan Zifei and Ma Wuye went to the 'Xingshun Tower' to find the clay figurine Zhang. As soon as they went up to the second floor, they saw the clay figurine Zhang sitting in a corner, drinking tea with cucumbers.

Bai Shibao looked at the clay figurine Zhang, and saw that he was wearing black clothes and black trousers, a pair of black cloth shoes on his feet, hemp rope was tied tightly on his trouser legs, he was drinking tea with a teacup in his left hand, and he was reaching under the table with his right hand to dig into the soles of his shoes. A piece of mud came out, and a few fingers pinched it quickly...

Seeing this, Master Wu smiled and said, "This is called 'kneading mud'! He put mud in his shoes and rubbed the mud with his feet wherever he went! Let's go, maybe he saw us upstairs just now!"

The three of them walked over and greeted each other hand in hand.

Ma Wuye introduced Bai Shibao and Yan Zifei to clay figurine Zhang.

After everyone was seated, Bai Shibao took a closer look at this clay figurine Zhang. He was about 60 years old, with white hair and beard; he was neither fat nor thin, but his eyes were deeply sunken in their sockets, but he looked very agile. .

Snapped!
Clay figurine Zhang stood the clay figurine on the table, and the three of them stretched their necks to have a look. In such an instant, Clay figurine Zhang made a clay figurine the size of a walnut. The arms and fingers are pinched so vividly, it is the statue of Qianma Wuye who blames it!

Ma Wuye took a look at the little clay figurine.

Hey!I feel more like Fifth Master Ma than Master Ma. This walnut-sized clay figurine seems to be alive, exuding his domineering spirit.

Ma Wuye said with a smile: "I just love this clever and rare thing!"

Clay figurine Zhang said: "Just keep it if you like it!"

Bai Shibao also kept applauding!

Then, I heard the clay figurine Zhang sigh: "This craft is about to be lost, and the apprentices are impatient to learn it. In addition, the streets are full of foreign goods now. Some people put name cards, calligraphy and paintings and don't want them. They only collect women's small colored shoes. They don't want precious graphite jade, but they want bongs and foreign guns. They are fascinated by foreign things, and their favorites are also biased..."

Ma Wuye looked at the little clay figurine for a while again, and couldn't put it down.

The clay figurine Zhang said: "A few of you came to me, but asked me to help make the clay figurine?"

Yan Zifei was taken aback for a moment, then turned to look at Bai Shibao and Fifth Master Ma, and exclaimed: "The old man's guess is very accurate!"

"I don't know anything else other than the craft of making clay figurines!"

Fifth Master Ma looked around and whispered, "I'm afraid it's hard to talk here, how about we change places?"

The clay figurine Zhang nodded, and the four of them turned around and went downstairs, walked around a few streets and walked into a dilapidated house.The clay figurine opened the door, and there were seven or eight people standing in the yard, men, women, children, housekeepers and servants, all of whom bowed to greet each other.

"Yo! What's the matter? You made a fortune out of making clay figurines and hired maids and nanny?" Before Ma Wuye could finish speaking, he approached and took a closer look. Those seven or eight people were all clay figurines, their bodies painted with colored glaze. , The clay figurines are pinched vividly, as if they were real.

The clay figurine Zhang smiled and said, "Who would still make clay figurines here if they have money? I can't afford a watchdog, so I made these few figures to 'town house'!"

Bai Shibao also walked over and touched the clay figurine's face with his hands. It felt like a real person, and it was still a little warm. He was muttering in his heart, but he saw the clay figurine's eyes 'grunt' and moved!

Bai Shibao was surprised: "This... the eyes of this clay figurine can move?"

Clay figurine Zhang said: "Those are the eyes of fish..."

"fish?"

Bai Shibao took a closer look, as expected, the eyes in the sockets of the clay figurines were oblate, with a part protruding out, they were really fake eyes, you can tell the difference if you don't look carefully!
At this time, the clay figurine Zhang led the three of them into the room to sit down, took out a pipe and smoked it. After a puff of cigarettes, he turned to Ma Wuye and asked, "Who is Ma Wuye making a portrait for?" ?”

"Yuan Shikai!"

Ma Wuye said without hesitation.

"Make a portrait for Yuan Shikai?"

The clay figurine Zhang was taken aback, and the pipe and pot in his hand shook.

"That's right! I heard that Yuan Shikai will come to Tianjin to offer sacrifices during the Hungry Ghost Festival. Our brothers are going to make some statues for him to worship. By the way..." Ma Wuye waved his hand, and a big ocean With a 'pop' sound, it shot out from the fingertips, like a shooting star, nailed to a stone outside the house, smashing the stone to pieces, and the fire burst out.

The clay figurine Zhang smiled and said, "Ma Wuye is the master bookkeeper of the bank, and he is really not short of money! If you show more hands, my yard will be full of 'planting' oceans..."

Ma Wuye said with a smile: "You play with soil, I play with gold, we two call it: earth makes gold!"

Clay figurine Zhang laughed for a while, then paused and asked, "I don't know what use Ma Wuye asked me to hold the clay figurine for?"

Yan Zifei glanced at Fifth Master Ma, saw him nodding his head, and told the clay figurine Zhang about their plan.Hearing that the clay figurine Zhang Lu felt embarrassed, he said to himself: "This kind of thing needs to be well arranged to make sure nothing goes wrong, otherwise you will have to swallow a gun."

Ma Wuye said: "For the sake of national justice, what is it to swallow a few guns?"

Clay figurine Zhang thought for a while, then looked up at Bai Shibao and asked, "Need thirty clay figurines?"

Bai Shibao said, "Just a little more!"

The clay figurine Zhang put the cigarette pot on the table, turned around and took out a small boxy package from the cabinet. When he opened it, there was a piece of dry and hard green clay inside.

The clay figurine Zhang pointed with his fingers and said, "It will take three days to knead thirty clay figurines. I don't dare to say whether the clay blanks can be bought. This set of twelve-beat blanks was handed down by my ancestors. For the cause of the nation, I donate it as a contribution, but these blanks are only enough for ten full-body clay figurines..."

Yan Zifei said: "I can buy the blanks!"

The clay figurine Zhang said: "This thing is from Shandong! Ordinary clay blanks will have cracks after being kneaded. You clay figurines have to show it in front of Yuan Datou. The distance of two steps should not be too tight, otherwise it will be false at first glance!"

Yan Zifei opened the bamboo leather case on his body, revealing the white snowflake silver, and said: "There are a hundred taels of silver here, do you know if it is enough to pay for this blank?"

The clay figurine Zhang said: "The blank is a small matter, but there are three more things that are tricky!"

Yan Zifei asked, "Which three things?"

"The first is time! After I knead it, I will go to fire it. After the fire, I will scrape the glaze and paint it, and finally fire it again. It will probably take a month for these thirty clay figurines!"

"One month?"

Yan Zifei said in surprise: "After a month, I'm afraid the cucumber dishes will be cold, and Yuan Datou won't be a vegetarian by then!"

Ma Wuye asked: "Time is a bit tight, we are waiting to use it, is there any other way to get out?"

Clay figurine Zhang said: "Scraping the glaze is the most wasteful work, this thing needs to be finely ground!"

Bai Shibao interjected, "Leaving aside the issue of time, what are the other two things you mentioned?"

"One of them is the glaze! To buy some glazes, the type and color of the glaze are very important. My family's ancestral firing method can produce twelve colors, and the workshop for teapots and colored bottles can produce at most three or five colors. Seven colors are rare! So choose the best glaze powder, master the fire and fire it well, and when the time comes, the color will hang, just like a real person..."

Bai Shibao said, "It's not difficult! Let's go buy it and definitely pick the best one! What's the last tricky thing?"

The clay figurine paused and said, "Human eyes!"

Everyone was surprised: "Eyes?"

"That's right! The eyes of the clay figurines must be human eyes, so that the fake ones can be confused with the real ones! The clay figurines in the courtyard all use fish eyes, and when the weather is humid, they will be covered with hoarfrost. I'm afraid it can't be concealed..."

Bai Shibao sighed, "Thirty pairs of eyes, where are we going to get them? Even if we go digging up graves, I'm afraid we won't be able to find so many dead people's eyes!"

The clay figurine Zhang picked up the pipe and smoked it, and said to the crowd: "Look at the eyes first when looking at a person. The eyes are the eyes, and the face of a person is all in the eyes. If you can't pass this test, you won't succeed!"

Bai Shibao lowered his head in thought, and thought to himself: The eyes of horses and bulls are too big, but the eyes of cats have vertical pupils. The only thing similar to human eyes is the eyes of dogs!

If it doesn't work, try with a pair of dog eyes?
However, even if it is made with dog eyes, it is not known whether the ghost can be attached to the mud?

After thinking for a while, Bai Shibao said, "I don't know if the dog's eyes are successful?"

Clay figurine Zhang thought for a while and said: "Since human eyes can't get it, I have to use dog eyes, but the white of the dog's eyes is too much, it's better to get some black earth dog's eyes, its pupils are bigger, and it's a bit different from people." similar!"

"Success! Let's do the dog eyes and glaze! The problem of time can be solved, and we can count as many as we can burn before July [-]th!" After finishing speaking, Bai Shibao looked at the clay figurines in the yard. Said to Yan Zifei: "Brother, please help me buy some yellow paper cinnabar, incense sticks and paper horses. I will invite ghosts here tonight! Let the ghosts attach to these clay figurines first, and if they do, we will start firing them!"

Yan Zifei nodded and said, "I'll do this right away!"

Clay figurine Zhang became interested when he heard "invite a ghost", and asked Bai Shibao, "What does a ghost look like?"

Bai Shibao was stunned for a moment, not knowing how to explain it, he just laughed and said, "It's not much different from people!"

Clay figurine Zhang sighed: "My clay figurine Zhang has been making portraits all my life, but I have never made a ghost image. Can you let me see ghosts at night?"

Bai Shibao smiled and said: "It's not a problem, you guys go to find some mulberry leaves or willow leaves, chew them up and apply on your eyelids, at night I will perform rituals, you close the doors and windows and watch quietly in the house, just don't make any noise! "

Clay figurine Zhang shook his hands excitedly after hearing this, and said, "This...this is really a ghost!"

(End of this chapter)