As snow pellets from Mount Zhongnan brushed against the yellow silk in the Wishing Forest, the sound of abacus beads rose one after another from the Yi School of Yuxu Taoist Temple. Zhang Yifan shook his Gilded Abacus Beads as he walked through the apricot grove, seeing Daoist Master Yuqing standing on the lecture platform teaching children to interpret the Tao Te Ching using abacus beads. The abacus bead patterns on her grey robe were warmed by the glow of the stove, and the abacus bead eyes of the "talisman-guarding figurine" on her wooden hairpin were fixed on his abacus bead pouch.
"Is the benefactor here to steal secrets again?" The tip of her broom lightly tapped his abacus bead pouch, yet as he pulled out a newly carved "Tao scripture abacus bead," the tips of her ears flushed a pale red—carved onto that abacus bead was her profile as she lectured on the scriptures, with the abacus bead eyes gazing at the word "Tao" on the bamboo slips.
Huwa suddenly rushed over holding a carving knife, chiseling a "consummate ghost face" onto a classroom pillar, its abacus bead tongue licking the soon-to-be-completed eaves of the side hall. "Brother Fan! Sister Xiao's 'Painting of Taoist and Merchant Cooperation' was bought by the Magistrate of Chang'an, and he traded it for twenty carts of winter charcoal!" Zhang Yifan raised an eyebrow, the abacus beads bouncing into the word "warmth" across the ledger in Yuqing's sleeve. "I calculated long ago that the magistrate's wife's 'marria…
Chapter 124