During the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, the Yangzhou area of Jiangnan played a novel way of entertainment: when the guests came, they simply lay down on a wooden bed, and a baby less than a foot tall stroked the guest's head with his tender hands at the head of the bed, while telling some world anecdotes and official insiders.
These babies are called bedside babies. Although they are small in stature and have fingers that resemble babies, their eyes and faces are full of vicissitudes. The dignitaries and dignitaries on the street, the three religions and nine streams of the people, all like to come to this bedside baby massage building, and the name of this bedside baby is even louder.
This incident alarmed the imperial court. Kangxi secretly ordered the chancellor Li Sanjiang to go down to investigate, asking Li Sanjiang to find a way to find out the origin of these bedside babies and report to him, and he could only patrol in secret and not alarm local officials.
Li Sanjiang was having trouble sleeping over someone reporting his corruption, and when he saw that the emperor had entrusted him with a heavy responsibility, he was naturally happy: "The emperor still trusts me, and I must handle this matter well." Therefore, Li Sanjiang quietly came to the Wind City, dressed as a fortune teller and walked into the bedside baby massage building.
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After handing over the money at the counter, a waiter dressed in a coarse cloth shirt came over and took Li Sanjiang into a small room, where a reddish-brown wooden bed occupied almost the entire room.
Li Sanjiang lay on the wooden bed, and after a while, a small baby jumped on the bed. Li Sanjiang carefully looked at the man and found that although his bare places such as his fingers and feet were tender, his face looked very old.
The bedside baby was obviously a veteran massage hand, and the two baby hands gently caressed the temples of Li Sanjiang's head while murmuring some folk anecdotes. The sound of the warbler song and swallow makes people become extremely lazy.
Li Sanjiang wanted to talk to the bedside baby, but the bedside baby only cared about his own anecdotes and official scenes, and ignored Li Sanjiang. Li Sanjiang had no choice but to close his eyes and enjoy this tender caress. An hour later, the bedside baby jumped out of bed and disappeared into the doorway.
Li Sanjiang got out of bed, stretched out a lazy waist comfortably, and found that the fatigue of running in the past few days was indeed swept away. He was secretly amazed, thinking that if he wanted to do a good job in the things explained by the emperor, he must see the boss, otherwise the origin of this bedside baby was unpredictable.
Li Sanjiang found the waiter just now and explained his intentions to him, and the waiter smiled and said to Li Sanjiang, "This gentleman, our boss does not accept visitors unless you are a special person."
"Special people?" Li Sanjiang was stunned for a moment, and then he smiled and groaned and took out ten pieces of silver and quietly stuffed it to the waiter. The waiter took the silver and said, "Well, I'll give you a briefing."
After a while, the waiter came back, pointed to a small door in front of him and said to Li Sanjiang, "Our boss is waiting for you in that room." Li Sanjiang passed through the small black door and came to a hut, where a man in a black coat stood with his back to him: "You must see me?" A dull sound came from the man's throat.
"Yeah, I want to know how you bedside babies came to be." After all, Li Sanjiang had seen the scene, and he said straight to the point, "Because I also want to open a similar massage parlor, but you can rest assured, the location I opened is definitely not in this place, as long as you tell me the origin of the bedside baby, I will give you a thousand taels of gold as a reward." ”
Li Sanjiang's wishful thinking played very well, as long as the boss said the origin of the bedside baby, he could report to the emperor, and one thousand and two gold, for him, was only a dime.
The man turned around and smiled coldly, "Then you will follow me!" Li Sanjiang followed Li Tailizi into a large cave. In the cave, from time to time, one or two bed-head babies passed, and they laughed and giggled with one or two steamed buns, and told stories happily as they ate.
Just when Li Sanjiang was scratching his head, the man in black spoke: "I'm sorry, sir, we have a rule here, if someone must know the origin of the bedside baby, they must tell some anecdotes or official scenes, otherwise, those bedside babies will treat you as an outlier and throw you into the pool and make you feel bad."
Li Sanjiang thought to himself: I have been familiar with all kinds of books since I was a child, and it is natural to say some strange things, but it is a little difficult for me to say that the official scene is shady, but in order to complete the tasks assigned by the emperor, I can only open up. So, he nodded, "Well, boss, I can do all these requirements of yours."
They entered a hall in the cave. The hall was brightly lit, and a dozen bedside babies were playing around a huge stone bed. The bedside babies were all less than three feet tall, but their hands were as smooth as white jade.
"Tell these bedside babies an anecdote first, and then I'll see you later and tell you about the origin of these bedside babies!" The man in black finished speaking and walked out of the cave.
Li Sanjiang smiled at those bedside babies and told a strange story of a dwarf looking for a wife, who expected the bedside babies to shout angrily: "You bastard, laughing at us are dwarfs!" Tell you, we're not dwarves, we're bedside babies!"
Li Sanjiang hurriedly accompanied the smiling face: "Don't worry, I will tell you a joke again!" Who knew that those bedside babies did not buy his account, one of them stared at Li Sanjiang, pointed to a steaming pool behind him, and said, "Tell us about your shady scene in the official field, or we will throw you into that pool!"
Li Sanjiang quickly shook his head: "You have misunderstood, I am not an official, so I don't know the official scene!" Not an official, so why did you get here, and everyone throw him down. The bedside baby who took the lead shouted. The other bedside babies jumped out of bed and surrounded Li Sanjiang.
The cold sweat on Li Sanjiang's forehead suddenly flowed down. He knew that he would not be able to go out without saying some official shady scenes. Forget it, these bedside babies are also for entertainment, so you might as well make up some stories for them.
But the strange thing is that those bedside babies have insight into Li Sanjiang's nonsense, and they force Li Sanjiang to tell him about his corruption. When Li Sanjiang told him about the black money he had embezzled from a disaster victim, the bedside babies all laughed loudly, and they lifted Li Sanjiang vigorously and threw him into the steaming pool.
Although the water in that pool was hot, it was very comfortable. Li Sanjiang had just thought that the water in this pool was poisonous, but now he felt a pleasant rush straight to his seven gods and six veins, and he was extremely comfortable.
When Li Sanjiang had had enough, the man in black walked in. The man in black handed Li Sanjiang a cup of ginger soup and said to Li Sanjiang, "Drink a cup of ginger soup first, and then I will tell you about the origin of these bedside babies." After Li Sanjiang took the ginger soup and drank it all, he sat down and waited to listen to the man in black talk about the origin of the bedside baby.
When the man in black saw that Li Sanjiang had finished drinking the ginger soup, he smiled and groaned, "Lord Li, don't you need me to tell you the origin of the bedside baby?" Li Sanjiang was taken aback and asked, "How do you know my surname is Li?" What is the origin of the bedside baby?"
"Aren't you just a bedside baby?" The man in black smiled coldly, pointed to the pool and said, "You just soaked in bone shrinkage water, and drank soul water that can lose memory." After half an hour, you will forget all your past. In three days, you will shrink into a three-foot-tall bedside baby..." Li Sanjiang knelt down in front of the man in black with a thud: "The boss spares his life, the boss spares his life, I came by the emperor's order, you can't do this!"
The man in black pointed to a painting on the stone wall and shouted angrily to Li Sanjiang, "You see clearly." I'm not the boss, he's the boss!"
Li Sanjiang looked up with trepidation and understood everything. Suddenly, he felt his whole body begin to ache, screamed, and fainted to the ground.
At this time, the man in black commanded, "Come, hang up this bedside baby waist tag for him." He has coveted the people's money, and in the next life, let him serve the people!"
As for who the person on the portrait is, it doesn't matter anymore. However, according to the eunuchs who served around Kangxi, every year some important officials disappeared, and when some officials told Kangxi about these things, Kangxi always smiled slightly when he listened.