Just as the Abacus-Bead Lanterns in Chang'an's Night Market finished dancing their "Welcome" routine, the abacus beads suddenly leaped collectively toward Yanshou Ward—Pei Hongxiu's Sogdian dancers made their entrance on abacus-bead stilts, the beads bounding into the character "DRAW" across the stilt-soles and spraying fluorescent powder shaped like abacus beads with every step. A certain scholar got a face full of the powder, and the beads instantly embroidered a hidden watermark on his spectacle lenses that read: "Dance Viewing Fee Waived," startling him into crying out, "The bead immortals have manifested!"
Inside Xiaotao Eatery, the abacus beads were dancing a "Ripening" routine around the steamer baskets, bounding into the character "STAY" amidst the rising steam—a Persian merchant's mutton paomo had just been served when the beads automatically kneaded the bread pieces into abacus-bead shapes. The merchant stared in shock: "How is this supposed to be eaten?" The beads instantly bounded into the character "SHIFT," and the bread pieces rolled into soup dumplings right there in the bowl, prompting a child at the next table to clap in delight: "The abacus beads know magic!"
Before Moli's Calligraphy and Painting Boat, the abacus beads bounded into the character "GROW" on a wolf-hair brush—a peasant woman holding an abacus-bead hoe came begging for a painting, and the beads immediately embroidered the "Abacus-Bead Weeding Picture" onto the silk: abacus-bead figures wearin…
Chapter 231