awkward in speech(slow of speech)

no skill to turn things into gold

decide quickly

eat sparingly because of poverty

poor(live simply on a bamboo dish of rice and a gourd of drink)

retire with ease and decline to accept a government post

with desperate daring

make up for the crime one had committed

stray fragments of text(incomplete parts of ancient books)

be not at all one and the same

great kindness

conceal oneself in the holy door--become a monk or nun

order by imperial decree

leave somebody out in the cold(consign to the back shelf; relegate to limbo)

simile of the insignificant craftsmanship

make compliment

a single isolated house(detached house)

blown-off kite(a person or thing gone beyond recall)

(of lips) twist

look for a needle in a bottle of hay