At the third quarter of the rabbit hour, the West Market was adrift with the fragrance of new wheat, and the cypress-wood bushel measures in the grain market were piled into small mounds. Huwa squatted on the blue stone slabs, carving "Seedling-Guarding Ghost Faces" onto the measures. His blade carved twisted, smiling creases along the rims, and he deliberately darted his tongue toward the abacus-bead-shaped eyes: "Brother Fan! Grain Merchant Wang's bushel measures are three-tenths deeper than ours; they must be meant to cheat the poor!"
Zhang Yifan emerged from the grain shop, clicking his abacus, with wheat bran from Huwa's prank stuck to the beads: "You little rascal, carve a 'Conscience-Measuring Ghost Face' and stick it on his rim—" He suddenly pointed toward the grain merchant opposite, who was clutching an agate abacus. "Make the ghost face's abacus-bead eyes stare right at the bottom of the bushel, and see if he dares to mix sand in the millet." Huwa immediately sprang up, his carving knife gouging a ghost face with a protruding tongue onto Grain Merchant Wang's bushel measure, its abacus-bead eyes fixing squarely on the gold bracelet at Wang's cuff.
Moli's azure-feathered carriage pulled up at the entrance of the grain market, the hem of her moon-white skirt dusted with morning dew, as her wolf-hair brush flew across the plain silk: "Of all the evils on the merchant way, none surpasses hoarding grain for profiteering!" She raised her hand and unfurled a banner: "Du…
Chapter 74