During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a wise man named Chen Erlang in Changde Mansion. His family lived in Chen's Village under the embankment of Liuye Lake in the north of the city. His parents had died since childhood, and it was his brother and sister-in-law who supported him to study before he was admitted to the scholar exam. After that, he passed the village exam twice, but failed both, and has been teaching in the village for a living since then. Because of his good handwriting and ability to be a match, he is very famous.

One day, Hou Buren, the rich man in the village known as "Hou Pei Skin", sent his butler to ask Chen Erlang to write a picture of the middle hall.

His precious son was to get married the day after tomorrow. For a family with deep pockets like him, it was very embarrassing to hold a wedding at home without celebrity calligraphy and painting.

Chen Erlang usually didn't like those local tyrants who used to bully the villagers, so he ignored even the rich man who was willing to pay a lot of money to buy his words. But strangely, this time the rich man sent someone to invite him, but he readily agreed. This made the rich man Hou feel very radiant on his face. I thought to myself, it's still silver and that is amazing.

Unexpectedly, as soon as Chen Erlang saw the rich man Hou, he asked the book boy who came with him to return the one hundred taels of silver to him, and said with a smile, "The silver taels given by the members will be returned. The profit that Chen wanted from Zhongtang this time was not silver taels, but two live geese." After saying that, he stretched out two fingers and pointed to the river not far away, which was a large flock of geese raised by the rich man Hou's house.

"Okay, okay!" The rich man Hou was overjoyed and secretly laughed at Chen Erlang for studying! The rest of the Hou family also felt strange. Right now, one hundred taels of silver may buy two or three hundred fat geese!

Chen Erlang did not care about others' whispering. Seeing that the Hou family took out a blank middle hall that had been framed long ago and spread it on the four square tables, he ordered the bookboy to grind ink and sit by himself to taste tea.

After grinding an inkstone, he poured it into a bowl, grinding an inkstone again, pouring it into the bowl, grinding it again, pouring it again... Until there was enough ink in the bowl, he told the bookboy to stop. Then the bookboy took out fire tongs and a lump of cotton from the suitcase, and the rich man Hou stood aside in surprise.

When everything was ready, Chen Erlang used fire tongs to clamp the cotton, dipped it in the ink bowl, and then rolled his sleeves, lifted the "pen", luck, and concentrated on it, and "brush brush brush" with a wave.

The middle hall contains a poem:

You are you come I am me,

Wine is wine and geese are geese.

One plus horizontal becomes two.

The lake water does not flow through the rivers.

The signature is Chen Erlang's book written in small letters and also printed.

After Chen Erlang left, the rich Hou, who was roughly literate, looked at "Zhongtang" for a while, and repeatedly praised Chen Erlang's words written with "cotton pens" as if they were like dragons and stunned, but he just couldn't understand what the poem meant, so he asked his friend Zhang Yuanwai.

Who knew that Zhang Yuanwai didn't understand the poem, but he didn't want to lose face, so he pretended to shake his head for a long time, and then he said nonsense: "The first two sentences of this poem are like the wind, elegance, and praise in the Book of Songs. It has no practical significance; the main theme of the poem is in the last two sentences, 'One plus horizontal becomes two, which means that the groom and bride are matched with talents and women;' The lake water is not rotten and the river is connected. It means that after a pair of newlyweds combine, they will be as fresh as the lake water that opens the river, and the family is prosperous, the children and grandchildren are full, and they have a good relationship for a hundred years."

"Great, great!" The rich man Hou was happy. "It turns out that good poems are all incomprehensible at once, and poems that are enough for people to think about for a while are good poems!"

A few days later, Chen Erlang brought hundreds of porters to Hou's house, saying that he was here to pick up the goose that the rich man promised when the middle hall was written that day. The rich man Hou was taken aback and said, "Mr. Chen, the two live geese I promised you were taken away by your bookboy at that time!"

"That's right," Chen Erlang said calmly. "At that time, I only brought one book boy, so when I left, I only mentioned two geese. Today, I want to take all the geese I deserve, so why not?"

"Mr. Chen, what do you mean?" The rich man Hou was anxious, "I, I don't owe you a goose!"

Chen Erlang pointed to the poem in the middle hall and said, "Look, there are poems as proof! The first word of these four poems is 'You have a lake of wine, and the last four words of the four sentences are 'I have two rivers of geese.'" The black and white characters are clearly written, why don't you say you owe? "

"Mr. "Chen," the rich man was dumbfounded, and he quickly smiled and begged, "you are a civilized person who has read poetry and books, you can't cheat me!"

"Oh, you said I cheated on you?" Chen Erlang smiled, "Wow! You say I cheated on you, what can I do even if I cheated on you? I learned this from you!"

"Learn from me?" The rich man didn't know what he meant.

"Isn't it?Chen Erlang said, "Someone used your two parts of the wasteland, and you cheated them, 'Liquor and Lake, you asked me to write, why can't I ask you, Goose Erhe? Could it be that my Chen Erlang characters are so cheap that they are only worth two geese?" Speaking of which, Chen Erlang pointed to two small rivers not far away and said, "I think this is the case, Erhe geese are at least 3,000. If it is cheaper, you can give me 1,000 taels of silver."

The rich man Hou was shocked, and then he realized that the other party wrote to him in the middle hall to find trouble. He wanted to change his face and not admit it, but his son had only been married for a few days and had a conflict with him, which was unlucky! Besides, I have long heard that the county mayor also values Chen Erlang very much! The rich man Hou immediately said with a cold face and a warm face: "Hehe, Mr. Chen, how dare I use the two-point wasteland to deceive people into a lake of wine? I promise you that I played a joke with He Laoer in the two-point wasteland, and I will never make fun of him again in the future."

"Really?Chen Erlang sighed helplessly and said, "Well, I have to admit that I am unlucky. I invited the villagers to pick the geese to pay for it, but now that I think I am unlucky, I can't let the villagers go for nothing? You made a joke, so you should give me the foot strength money, right?"

"This? I, I...   I give..."

"Okay!" Chen Erlang said, "If that's the case, then you can write a note to He Lao Er, explaining that you exchanged the two-point wasteland for a pot of wine from him, not'a lake of wine; then, I will also write a note to you, no longer asking you for the'Erhe Goose, indicating that'I have taken the second living goose. What do you think?"

"According to, according to you, according to you..." At this point, the rich man Hou could only be at the mercy of Chen Erlang.

It turned out that a month ago, the mother of He Laoer, a gold digger in the village, died. Although He Laoer was looking for gold, his family was very poor. Now that his mother died and there was no burial place, he went to ask the rich man Hou. When Hou Laoer came to beg him, he said to He Laoer like a good man with a few rolls of his eyes. It was rare that he was filial, and he was willing to sell the wasteland by the mountain to his mother for burial. He Laoer asked how much it would cost. Hou Laoer said generously that he would give a pot of wine to mean it. In this way, He Laoer exchanged a pot of good wine for two parts of the wasteland of the rich man Hou and buried the old woman.

Half a month after He Lao Er's mother was buried, He Lao Er accidentally found a large piece of dog head gold when he was panning for gold, which was equivalent to five hundred taels of silver. After the news spread, the rich man Hou immediately brought his family to ask He Lao Er for the gold, saying that he owed him the money for the wine. He Lao Er said he didn't owe him the money for the wine.

The rich man's face changed and he pointed to a lake not far away and said that when he buried his mother, he promised to exchange "one lake wine" for his two parts of the land, how could he think about it? How can there be such a good thing in the world? That "one lake wine", at least 10,000 loads, can be worth 1,000 taels of silver. If you want to renege, see you in court! After saying that, I ordered the servants to search for He Laoer's piece of gold, but I searched He Laoer's house, but I didn't see any shadow of gold.

The rich man Hou also ordered the servants to search He Laoer's body. When He Laoer saw that something was not good, He fled. The servants of Hou Mansion chased after him for a long time and did not catch up. The rich man Hou reported He Laoer to the government.

The rich man Hou was a bully in the local area, and He Laoer knew he could not fight him. But he was not willing to be cheated of "a lake of wine" and paid a thousand taels of silver in vain, so he hid outside and did not dare to go home.

It was also a pitiful day. He Laoer was bumped into by Chen Erlang while wandering in the county seat.

Chen Erlang recognized this gold digger, and he often went to the gold digger's house to buy all kinds of stones used to engrave the seal. Now, seeing He Erlang sitting on the street in a daze with a frown, he asked him what was on his mind? He Erlang told the story of being defrauded by the rich man Hou. Chen Erlang was very angry when he heard that, but he couldn't help him. It happened that when he returned home, the people sent by the rich man Hou had been waiting for him for a long time. He said that the Hou family was holding a wedding and wanted to ask Mr. Chen to write a middle hall. Chen Erlang had an idea and pretended to refuse, and then agreed, determined why the second child would get justice...