Grandpa, that won’t do; we can only borrow the foot-operated ones. The harvester isn’t something you can just lend out; the price is also higher.” The old man insisted, “I’ll borrow it myself! My son has one! No money needed!” The director: “……” Seeing this, the others nudged the director aside, “Hey, this is the old man wanting to borrow from us; you didn’t set any rules! He was conquered by our skills!” After a bit of argument, the director was speechless and could only let them take the keys. Once outside the old man’s house, Zhou Dong voiced the question in everyone’s heart: “How do you know the dialect here? This can’t actually be your hometown, right?” Qi Shejiang smiled and even started imitating Zhou Dong’s dialect; Zhou Dong’s accent wasn’t thick, but it was clear where he was from, and he spoke the authentic dialect of Zhou Dong’s hometown, “I’m from the capital.” Zhou Dong’s eyes widened, “You can speak this too? Sounds quite authentic!” Qi Shejiang calmly replied, “We xiangsheng artists learn four skills—speaking, learning, joking, and singing, and learning includes various regional dialects. This is called ‘daokou,’ using different accents to better shape characters. Not just here, but we also have to learn dialects from Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, and other places.” Everyone: “Say that again, what are you?” Qi Shejiang didn’t think he said anything wrong, looking at him in confusion, “We are xiangsheng artists.”
Chapter Twelve With the farming machines, the autumn harvest became much easier; learning to operate the machines was definitely easier than harvesting by hand.
