Guan Yin

## The Stove Lord in the Report >The Stove Lord in our village has been under great pressure recently. >Tianting reform, annual work report requires quantitative assessment. >He stayed up late to count the number of fires burned in the village in 365 days, but was deducted points for cooking a New Year's Eve dinner by the Li family. >The angry Kitchen God smashed the pen angrily, and ink splashed all over the heavenly court report. >The Jade Emperor looked at the ink ball full of "protest invalid" instructions: >"Zao Lord, is the mood stabilizing elixir in your pen?" > - It wasn't until the owner of the pen came to the door that we knew it was the "marriage ink" specially made by Yue Lao. >Now it's all right, the marriage threads of all the bachelors in the village are all tied up in the Stove Lord's beard and tied into a tight knot. --- The Kitchen God who is worshiped by our village has been so worried recently that his long, iconic beard is almost bald. On the portrait of him beside the stove that was slightly yellowed by the smoke and fire, the originally round and plump face actually showed a kind of overworked emptiness at this moment. Even the kind smile at the corner of his mouth looked weak, as if it was glued on with paste. The curse comes from heaven. Heavenly Court has launched a vigorous "performance innovation" and requires the gods' work reports to have "detailed data and quantitative assessment." This can cost Lao Zaojun's life. His year-end summary in the past was nothing more than clichés such as "the people of a certain village are old-fashioned, the fireworks are endless, and the stove is clean", but now he has to be accurate to every wisp of smoke. For a whole year, he lay in the clouds with his butt stuck out, his reading glasses slid to the tip of his nose, his fingers poking at the thick merit book, and mumbling in his mouth, as if he was competing with the abacus beads: "Zhang family, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, at the third quarter of the twelfth lunar month, add three handfuls of firewood to the stove. , The fire lasted two sticks of incense... The Li family, on the seventh day of the lunar month, simmered a pot of medicine on a low fire for half an hour..." In 365 days, hundreds of households in the village needed firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, one by one, all of which had to be converted into cold figures. What particularly bothered him was the "missing New Year's Eve dinner" of the Li family. On New Year's Eve, the boy from the Li family brought back a fashionable induction cooker from the city, and the family cooked hot pot around the smooth iron plate! It was cold in the stove, and not a single firewood was moved! The old Zao Lord stared longingly at the cold stove, feeling that his heart had become cold. This absent New Year's Eve dinner left a dazzling red negative score mark on the "Statistical Comparison Chart of Stove Fire Usage Frequency and Duration for Households Throughout the Year" that he carefully produced, dragging down the "standard line" he had finally built up. "That's unreasonable! It's too much to bully someone!" On the eve of the debriefing, the Stove Lord stared at the bright red negative score on the merit book, and a stream of evil fire shot straight into the sky. Heaven's cold assessment standards whipped him like an invisible whip. He suddenly grabbed the treasured old pen on the desk that was said to have been used by Wen Quxing - this was the "artifact" he specially asked for from an old friend in order to write a report. The grievances of the past few days, the anger towards the Li family's "rebellion", and the despair over the rigid numbers in heaven, instantly broke down the dam of reason. "Bang!" With a muffled sound, the tip of the pen stabbed hard on the thick yellow paper work report. The force was so strong that it almost penetrated the back of the paper. How can a fragile glass ink sac withstand the devastation of the wrath of the gods? With a "poof" sound, the ink sac exploded completely. It was as thick as ink that could not be dissolved in the dark night. It carried an indescribable and strange smell that was both like old temple incense and a bit of sweet floral and fruity scent. It was like a flood that burst a dam and sprayed violently! The dark ink, like a flock of out-of-control crows, swooped towards the stack of work reports that condensed his countless efforts. The carefully drawn line chart was instantly covered by dirty ink balls, and the neatly arranged statistics were distorted in the waves of ink. The most critical page, "Explanation of the Li Family Fire Incident and Complaint Opinions," was completely destroyed. The dense handwriting was completely swallowed up by a large pool of freely flowing ink, leaving only a few corners of the stubborn probe, struggling in vain in the sea of ​​ink. The entire desk was in a mess, as if it had just experienced a small ink storm. When the Jade Emperor sat high in the Lingxiao Palace and unfolded this "unparalleled masterpiece", his majestic face couldn't help but twitch slightly. Where is the work report in front of me? It is clearly a wild splash-ink abstract painting! Large areas of ink stains rolled like angry dark clouds, and the few lines of complaint writing that were not completely submerged looked particularly small and helpless surrounded by the ink balls. The most shocking thing is that at the end of the report, in the center of the largest pool of ink, divine power inadvertently outlined a few wild and uninhibited ink characters that penetrated the back of the paper - "Protest is invalid!" The prince, with a strange mixture of absurdity, understanding and a hint of imperceptible teasing in his tone: "Zao Lord," the Jade Emperor's voice echoed in the hall, "what you have in this... Is the specially supplied 'Emotional Stabilizing Fairy Water'?" Before he finished speaking, some of the immortal officials standing on both sides of the throne couldn't help covering their mouths with their sleeves, and their shoulders hunched suspiciously. The Stove Lord was so ashamed that he wished he could get back into the still-warm stove on the spot. His face turned red and white, and the tip of his beard was trembling. He held the remains of the "culprit" pen and felt that the cold metal pen barrel was very hot to his hands. The awkward silence did not last long. Suddenly there was a rapid and clear jingle of rings outside the hall, from far to near, with an undisguised anxiety. Immediately afterwards, a fiery red figure, like a maple leaf blown fiercely by the wind, carrying a rich, sweet fragrance of flowers and fruits, suddenly blew into the solemn Lingxiao Palace. The visitor is none other than Old Man Yuexia! The old man in red, who was always smiling and leisurely, looked like an ant on a hot pot at the moment. His round face, always full of kind folds, flushed red, and his carefully combed silver-white beard had a few messy strands sticking up. He was holding an empty, extremely delicate glass vial in his hand. He didn't care about the court etiquette at all. His little mung bean eyes were wide open, and his gaze was like a hook, locked on the broken pen still dripping with ink in the hand of the Stove Lord. "Old Zaotou! My ink! My 'Qiansi Yin'!" Yue Lao's voice was sharp and sharp, with a cry, almost piercing the auspicious cloud on the top of the hall, "Did you pick up my pen?! What was filled in it was the freshly brewed 'marriage ink'! One drop can tie the fate of three generations. , A thread can last for a hundred years! I... I just put it on the inkstone to dry, and it disappeared in the blink of an eye!" "Boom!" Yue Lao's words struck the Stove Lord's Heavenly Spirit cover with precision. He felt his eyes darken, his ears buzzing, and the heavy broken pen in his hand suddenly became as heavy as a mountain, making it almost impossible to hold it. "Marriage ink?" The Stove Lord's lips trembled, and he looked down at the long-dried and blackened ink spots on his chest and cuffs, as well as the report covered with the words "Protest Invalid"... A chill went straight from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. It's over! It's all over! Where is he writing the report? He was clearly using Yue Lao's magical ink that can affect the emotions of men and women in the mortal world, and splashed ink on official documents from heaven...! Those wild ink balls, those "protests in vain" that penetrated the back of the paper... The Stove Lord didn't dare to think deeply, he just felt a cold air creeping up his spine. Yue Lao couldn't care less about his distraught look, he was so anxious that he stamped his feet on the spot, and his pair of cloud-climbing shoes with golden embroidered phoenixes made a clanking sound on the smooth marble ground: "Quick! Think about it! Where did your ink dots splash? In the mortal world! Especially in your village! Marriage! The book is definitely going to be messed up! My red thread..." As if to confirm Yue Lao's desperate cry, the warm mutton-fat white jade pendant on the Kitchen God's waist, which is used to sense the incense and abnormal conditions in the lower village, suddenly became hot without warning! Immediately afterwards, there was an extremely subtle but scalp-numbing sound from inside the jade pendant - **"Boom... Boom boom... Boom boom..."** That sound was like countless tough threads, being pulled by some irresistible chaotic force, and one by one... Was broken! The Stove Lord's face was pale, and with trembling hands, he subconsciously touched his carefully groomed long beard, which symbolized age and dignity. As soon as the fingertips touched the beard, an indescribable and dense feeling of restraint came instantly! It seemed that there were countless invisible, extremely flexible and scorchingly warm invisible threads that were tightly entangled, tangled, and buckled on his well-maintained beard in an extremely complex and chaotic way! The knot became tighter and tighter, and the more it wound, the more chaotic it became. Countless small and stubborn knots formed out of thin air, causing pain at the roots of his beard and even making it difficult to breathe! He lowered his head stiffly, his eyes focused on his proud beard in horror. In a daze, he seemed to see countless strands of "threads" as thin as gossamers, shining with an undetectable pink luster, extending from the void, winding, clinging, and tangled crazily between his beard like living creatures, forming countless small but extremely tough knots in the blink of an eye. The sight was so strange and suffocating. Yue Lao took a closer look and suddenly let out a scream that was so shrill that it was not like a human voice. He pointed at the Stove Lord's beard with trembling fingers: "Damn it! The marriage line! It's all messed up! It's all entangled! And... It's all a deadlock! Your village Those bachelors... Their red threads... Are all tied to your beard! It's tied into a fucking Chinese knot!" Zao Lord felt his eyes darken, and his ears were full of Yue Lao's shrill "Chinese knot". He subconsciously reached out again, and carefully and with extreme fear, his fingertips touched his beautiful, weathered beard again. The touch from my fingertips is no longer the familiar smoothness of the past. Instead, there is a dense, layered, and extremely tough feeling of entanglement! It was as if there were hundreds of millions of invisible invisible threads carrying scalding body temperature, tightly entangled in the fibers of his beard with an extremely wild and chaotic weaving technique. Countless tiny knots suddenly bulged out, biting the pads of his fingers hard. Each knot represented an earthly marriage that had been forcibly twisted and roughly knotted. These tangled threads carry a strange burning sensation, which is transmitted continuously, as if they are connected to countless bachelors in the lower world who are anxious and restless because of being "forgotten by Yue Lao"! This heat, this entanglement, this numbing "boom" sound (I don't know if the red thread is continuing to break, or the new thread is desperately entangled), like countless ants gnawing at his nerves. The Kitchen God seemed to be able to "hear" the collective wailing from Wangjiagou in the lower realm - those Wang Laowu who were still in their thirties and sighing at the girl's back on the field ridge, Li Guangguan who giggled at the female star on the poster at the village entrance, and the Zhao family who all the matchmakers took a detour when they saw her. The three brothers... The illusory but crucial red thread they hit is no longer in Yue Lao's hands, nor on the wrist of the destined person. It's all fucking messy, and in the most stubborn knot form, it's tangled up in his - the dignified Zao Prince's beard! "Yue... Yue Lao!" The Stove Lord's voice was as dry as sandpaper, and trembling on the verge of collapse. He turned sharply to the red-clothed immortal with the same earth-colored face next to him, his eyes filled with desperate pleas for help, "This... How can this be a solution?!" He tried to pull the "knot" on his beard, but as soon as he exerted force with his fingers, a sharp stinging pain immediately came from the root of his beard, making him gasp in pain. It felt like it was directly tugging at the lifeblood of a bachelor. Yue Lao looked at the Stove Lord's "thread beard" that had turned into a huge, chaotic, faintly ominous pink halo, then looked down at the empty glass bottle in his hand, and finally looked up at the Jade Emperor on the throne who had an unpredictable expression and seemed to still have the ridiculous and playful look in his eyes... Yue Lao rolled his eyes, made a grunt in his throat, and swayed softly. "Explanation?" Yue Lao's voice carried a kind of nothingness that could see through the world of mortals. It was as thin as a gossamer, as if it would be dispersed by the wind in the next moment. "Brother, you... You better think about it first. How can you be like those in your village who are waiting to be married?" 'Bachelors... Please explain..." Before he finished speaking, the bright red robe of the old man shook. Unable to bear the huge blow, he stood straight towards the cold and smooth marble ground below - and fainted! The Stove Lord hurriedly tried to help him, but as soon as he raised his hand, the huge and heavy "marriage-related beard" on his chin suddenly fell, causing him to stagger and almost fall down with Yue Lao. He held his chin, grinning in pain. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Jade Emperor seem to raise his hand slightly, and then seemed to just brush the cloud patterns on his sleeves. It's over. Completely finished. The Stove Lord froze on the spot, with one hand covering the heavy, messy beard that affected the fate of all the bachelors in the village, and the other hand stretched in vain in the air, facing the fainting Yue Lao, with a funny and desperate posture. There was deathly silence in the Lingxiao Palace, except for the hot jade pendant around his waist, which continued to make a weak but heart-rending sound: **"Boom... Boom boom... Boom boom boom..."** Like countless strings of fate, one by one, they completely broke in the absurd chaos.