While the morning dew of Green Ox Valley still clung to the abacus-bead ledger, Old Qian the herb farmer was scratching his head in frustration over the Taiji Ledger. Suddenly, the abacus codes in the "Harvesting Time" column turned into gibberish, and the beads instantly clattered together to form a restoration array, displaying a message within the scrambled characters: "Chewed by rats last night! The beads have already been mended, do not panic!" Old Qian stroked the abacus-bead patch on the ledger and laughed, "These beads fix things even more cleverly than my wife mends socks!" The beads bounced into the character for "clever" and embroidered a tiny image of an abacus bead holding a needle and thread onto his trouser leg.
"Movable type printing upgrade!" Xiao Moli brandished an abacus-bead carving knife as the beads leaped among the type molds to form the character for "fast." The newly crafted bead-type could actually typeset automatically; the moment the three characters for "crop grower" were carved, the beads drove the type molds to stamp the name "Old Qian" onto the ledger, finally revealing a golden-powder pattern in the header that read, "Bead ledgers are firm as iron, let no rats dare trespass." A certain apprentice exclaimed, "These beads are even better at slacking off than the printing houses in Chang'an!" The beads bounced into the character for "lazy" and embroidered a tiny image of an abacus bead lying flat onto his cuff.
Xiaoxiu's abacus storage room dri…
Chapter 284