The four masters and apprentices had dinner in a hurry. Jiang Wen, under the puzzled eyes of the three Liuding goddesses, fled out of the house with his apprentice, obviously not daring to say a word.
Jiang Wen made up his mind. When he formally bid farewell to the Red Lotus Virgin tomorrow, they would embark on the road to Guangzhou without looking back, so that the young Ningdie would not be poisoned by the Bagua Spirit again.
After dark, the cold wind is biting, and people are still coming and going at the Zhennan Gate outside Quanzhou City. All ships of all sizes have lit night lights on their bows, braving the raging waves and returning to Fashi Harbor to take shelter from the wind, waiting to continue their fishing life tomorrow.
Fishermen rarely go ashore, so a few boatmen parked their boats and gathered together to chat about the current situation. As the smoke between the imperial court and Zheng Chenggong grew stronger, the prosperity of this important maritime trading town increased instead of decreasing. It was like a fierce fire cooking oil. The price of overseas trade goods increased every day, and all kinds of things were available.
A thing that was not too far away. Just a few months ago, he saw it with his own eyes. Someone brought a dragon that could only be found in Shitan Pond. It was about one foot long and covered in scales. If it hadn't been tied tightly with hemp ropes, If you have enough mouths and feet, you may be able to overturn his small sampan and disembowel him on the boat.
Another boatman curled his lips and said that he was not bad either. The day before yesterday, the ferryman met a strange man who was crazy and refused to get off the boat. He insisted on buying his boat and going out to sea to fish for something important.
Jiang Wen was wandering around the port and overheard these middle-aged boatmen talking in native dialect. He looked back at the gate of the city wall not far away.
The northwest of Quanzhou City is called Linzhang Gate. There is a Tongjin Gate between Linzhang Gate and Zhennan Gate, which leads directly to the moat surrounding the city. Thousands of lights illuminate a city that never sleeps, and the long-awaited human fireworks are dim. They became one piece, shrouded in this drunken city.
The four masters and apprentices turned around and left. After all, it was too dangerous to enter the city in their capacity.
Dragons and snakes were mixed outside the city of Quanzhou. There were many gangs among the boat owners themselves, and officers and soldiers from the Qing court were passing by in a show of force. Along the short walk along the harbor, Jiang Wen and his party saw many people fighting for their lives, and there was also a tall and tall man. The boatman was good at punching with his back, and he was able to beat five or six big men without getting close.
"This is a boxer from the Northern School. His skills were wasted when he was reduced to carrying bags at the dock."
Jiang Wen said to Hong Wending, "Unfortunately in today's world, a skill may not be as effective as a pedicure or a hair shave. At least the craftsmen do their job properly. They won't be stabbed to death when walking on the street, and they don't need to wear helmets when fishing. .”
Hong Wending turned his head and glanced at Jiang Wen, then nodded in agreement.
"Master is right. I have also thought about it, if my father had no kung fu like ordinary people, he wouldn't have to travel around."
Jiang Wen couldn't help but smile when he heard this hypothesis.
This idea is really interesting. His father’s face doesn’t have any martial arts skills? Jiang Wen found it hard to imagine Hong Xiguan farming and supporting his family diligently.
However, when an ordinary person encounters a situation like Hong Xiguan's, they can only put aside their blood feud and live in anonymity. For example, Yan Wing Chun's old father was not that capable of fighting his way out.
The master and disciples stayed away from several bustling docks and looked at the sapphire blue sky with the bright moon hanging high. Their ears were filled with the mighty sound of the rising and falling tides, accompanied by the faint, rising and falling lights of countless ships wanting to return to port. It looks like a sky full of stars falling on the sea.
Rows of bamboo tents were erected further west of the port, and many people dressed in short clothes gathered among them, shouting slogans at high and low levels. From time to time, there would be shouts caused by winning or losing, and the gambling and cursing was extremely noisy.
Life at sea is boring, so gathering together to play games has become their most cohesive activity.
"Those who practice martial arts are just for fame, and those who play games are for profit. I don't know if we are the same vulgar and ridiculous in the eyes of outsiders."
Jiang Wen made a mean joke casually, but found that Hong Wending had a look of caution on his face.
"Do you regret learning martial arts? Or do you feel sorry for the children of Jianghu?"
Jiang Wen joked, "I see that Miss Tian Qingwen has a soft spot for you. Have you considered marrying Tianlongmen and becoming a rich man?"
"No, I want to travel around the world and do justice like Master."
Hong Wending shook his head.
"Besides, my father said that if you are in the world, don't even think about quitting. What happened to Miss Tian is just an ordinary thing for people in the world. What she hopes for most is to be born into an ordinary family."
Jiang Wen nodded silently. These were no longer matters of personal choice.
Born in this era where the torrent of history is rolling forward, every step that the feet fall has its own inevitability. Hong Wen must be so calm and easy-going. It is more because he was forced by life to give up his childish imagination early and could only stare closely. As far as you can see.
"Wen Ding, the people you save by fighting and killing are only temporary. The shackles you have broken off will one day fall back on you. If you really want to save people, you must be prepared to bear everything."
Jiang Wen sighed, just like the people in this city today feel happy and safe, maybe tomorrow they will be moved to the sea and their families will be destroyed. Once the next Battle of Xiamen collapses, the Qing government will definitely try to avoid it. The disadvantage of naval warfare is that it sacrifices the interests of coastal people and makes every family cry in exchange for the initiative on the battlefield.
[When a boundary is first established, it is thought to be close. Then it is further away, and then further away. Every time the boundary is moved three times, the boundary is finally established. 】
There is only one sentence in the history book, but one does not know how many people will have to pay a heavy price for the relocation of the Forbidden Sea.
Seeing his master lost in thought again, Hong Wending also fell silent.
He could feel that the number of times his master had been lost in thought had increased significantly recently, and his words were always clouded and mysterious. It seemed that walking in the world was a huge burden. Only on the Dawang Peak of Wuyi Mountain, where the clouds were deep and the cranes were rolling, could he temporarily forget these things. trouble.
Hong Wen walked steadily, but from time to time he looked back to check whether Xiao Shitou and Fu Ningdie were falling behind.
"Does master want me not to take action easily, but to make a decision before taking action?"
Hong Wending suddenly asked.
Jiang Wen suddenly broke away from his thoughts and shook his head vigorously.
"No, I'm saying that next time you plan to heroically save a beauty, you must first find out how difficult your future father-in-law will be."
"Master, I'm hungry."
The little stone suddenly appeared and spoke a call from the heart.
Jiang Wen frowned and stared at him fiercely.
"Didn't you just eat in the afternoon? Why are you hungry so quickly?"
Xiao Shitou lowered his head and touched his belly, thought for a moment and then raised his head.
"I was in such a hurry that I didn't eat enough. I was hungry just after I smelled it..."
Jiang Wen followed his line of sight and found an ancient temple with a solemn atmosphere not far in front of the port. The huge banyan tree blocked the sky and the sun. Only the west wall was lit by fire. The stall owner set up a big pot and ate. , the fragrance floats faintly in the wind.
Cooking snacks at the gambling stalls is a good business, but unfortunately the night is still here, and the gamblers are still obsessed with the excitement of making money, and no one has the intention to leave until their wallets are empty.
Even if some diners come occasionally, they will finish their meal in a hurry and then go back to the gambling house to yell. This stall can only hide alone and stand aside, together with the wrinkled-faced owner, who pops up timidly. .
"Isn't your nose a bit too much?"
Jiang Wen sighed and took his three apprentices to the stall, ready to try these clean and hygienic local delicacies.
Seeing a Taoist priest coming with three boys, the stall owner's wrinkled face instantly relaxed a lot, and he quickly started shouting at him in Mandarin with a weird accent.
"Shopkeeper, you don't have to force yourself. I can understand you if you speak politely."
Jiang Wen first promoted the other party from "stall owner" to "store owner", and then pointed his ears to show that he understood the local dialect.
The food at this stall is as shabby as it looks, with very few varieties. It is cheap and affordable. You can get a big bowl for two cents and eat it warmly until you are full. Jiang Wen just ordered two of them, and then He and his disciples sat around a simple wooden table, broke off a bunch of branches, and split the wood into chopsticks for each of them.
Four bowls of delicate and fragrant meat soup are served first. The aroma of the mellow and beaten meat is contained in the soup, which is fragrant but not greasy. Sprinkled with chopped green onion, the taste is even better. When scooped into the mouth, it is refreshing and chewy.
"Ningdie, girl, you should pay attention to what you eat."
Jiang Wen watched Fu Ningdie take a tentative taste, then hugged the pottery bowl in the wind with both hands, as if he was afraid of being snatched away by a small stone, so he couldn't help but give a warning.
Xiao Ningdie's speed did not slow down at all, and she asked vaguely, "Master, what kind of meat is this that is so delicious!"
Jiang Wen didn't answer.
He had just seen the other party use a knife to carefully remove the remaining meat scraps from the cowhide, and mixed it with the minced pork to increase the taste. He guessed that this might be the other party's exclusive secret recipe.
Fu Ningdie came from an official family, and according to Ming Dynasty law, she was not allowed to eat farm cattle. In order to avoid breaking the law, her family probably didn't eat much beef.
But the folks no longer pay attention to this. In fact, by the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the number of cattle was sufficient, and beef became one of the common meats on the market, and it was high quality and cheap. For example, in Nanjing in the fifth year of Zhengde (1510), pork was worth 7-8 Wen per catty, and beef was only worth 4-5 Wen per catty.
"Eat, eat. If you don't have enough, just add more. Do I usually make you hungry?"
Jiang Wen only took one bite, then took out the brocade and sandalwood box from his luggage and looked at it carefully.
Ever since he got the Mani Pearl, it had been lying quietly in this small box. Jiang Wen had never encountered any strange things, let alone had strange dreams or hallucinations like Huang Ji said.
Ding Dian and Zhao Wuji had been imprisoned together for more than ten years, and nothing strange seemed to have happened. Therefore, Jiang Wen always suspected that the brocade box itself had a magical function, and might be able to block the radiation of the Mani Orb to the outside world.
"Master, is there something wrong with this box?"
Seeing that Jiang Wen didn't move his chopsticks, Fu Ningdie gradually turned her attention to the bowl in front of Jiang Wen, so she started talking in a roundabout way.
Jiang Wen stared at the box and said slowly.
"There's more than just a problem. Once this box is opened again, who knows how much trouble will happen. Fortunately, I don't want to know, and I don't dare to know, but I can't just put it in the back like ordinary things. That’s it…”
Fu Ningdie continued to make insinuations.
"Master, you are so smart, you must have thought of a solution, right? If you have something to do, you can leave first, and I can walk back by myself."
Jiang Wen glanced at Ningdie angrily and pushed his bowl in front of her.
"If you want to eat it, just tell me. Where can I go? This thing will cause harm no matter where you put it. And no matter how big the world is, there is no safe place that can hide things forever."
At this point, Jiang Wen suddenly paused, "Wait a minute... Speaking of which, I don't know the place that has existed forever, but there is a place that no one has excavated in two hundred years, but I know that there is a place in the vast northwest. I can't say it. Take a walk..."
Jiang Wen looked quietly to the northwest, vaguely already thinking of a way to deal with this Mani orb.
While Jiang Wen was thinking about it, the storekeeper had been busy inside and outside for a while, bringing out four bowls of slowly boiling soup.
The same method is to use pork to make mince. This time, after beating the meat with a wooden stick, it is mixed with flour and rolled into paper-thin pieces, cut into three-inch square pieces, and then wrapped with meat filling to make wonton stew. It’s just a bowl of flat meat swallow.
The meatballs are cooked in an old soup pot and scooped out. They are served with chopped green onions and minced garlic floating in the clear soup. When you eat them, you will feel smooth, tender and crispy, with a refreshing fragrance.
After solving the problem, Jiang Wen also had a great appetite this time. He ate the whole bowl in a hurry. Only Fu Ningdie, who had eaten two bowls of meat soup, looked at the food without tears and couldn't hold it down. In the end, I could only get a bargain from the little stone that was watching eagerly.
"When you're all full, get up and walk around."
Seeing the two disciples eating too much, Jiang Wen had no choice but to urge them to get up. They planned to go around the dilapidated temple to eat, digested and then return home to rest.
The shopkeeper diligently put away the pottery bowls and even the wooden chopsticks. He planned to wash them and leave them for the next wave of customers. Seeing Jiang Wen walking towards the ancient temple just across the line, he whispered a reminder.
"Master Taoist, it doesn't matter if you wander around, but don't enter this temple or go to the alley behind the temple."
Jiang Wen couldn't help but stop and look at this small temple that didn't even have a plaque.
"Shopkeeper, what do you mean by this? Is there anything special about it?"
The stall owner wrinkled his face, looked around cautiously, and deliberately turned his head away from the ancient temple before carefully explaining.
"I'd like to teach you that this is a water-flowing temple..."
When Jiang Wen heard this, he closed his mouth in sudden realization, bowed his hands in thanks, and walked away slowly.
In just one meal, many gamblers had already lost miserably and left the simple gambling stalls dejectedly. Those who were lucky enough to have a few pennies left came to have supper in dismay. The stall owner immediately As he got busy, he didn't pay attention to the whereabouts of Jiang Wen and his party.
Another group of gamblers lost everything and even had no money left for food. However, they did not disperse suddenly. Instead, they walked together with mysterious expressions and went into the alley behind the ruined temple.
"Master, what is Shui Shui Temple?"
A gust of cold wind blew, and the messy broad leaves on the ground rolled up, as if an invisible person's clothes were flying past her. Fu Ningdie suddenly shivered and asked Jiang Wen in a low voice.
Jiang Wen touched her head and pointed to the ancient temple not far away.
"Do the math, how many stone steps are there at the temple gate?"
Ningdie counted it twice with her fingers and confirmed the number before answering.
"There are six stone steps in total."
Jiang Wen nodded and whispered to her.
"The temple has no patio or beams, no sunlight, and double windows. This is clearly a temple of darkness, filled with miserable people."
Ningdie was startled by the master's gloomy tone, and timidly rushed in front of Xiao Shitou and Hong Wending, fearing that she would fall at the end of the team and be followed by something.
The so-called Yin Temple is a folk temple that worships lonely ghosts. For example, if there are mass graves, ownerless corpses, or people who died in a different place and there is a lot of resentment, someone will collect the corpses on their behalf and build a temple to offer sacrifices to prevent the other party from causing trouble.
Quanzhou City is close to the sea, and shipwrecked people often drift ashore. The shop owner said this is a "water temple", which means that a temple is built for the corpses fished out of the rivers and rivers that floated ashore without anyone claiming them. Place.
Jiang Wen didn't say anything clearly because he was afraid that he would scare Ningdie, a coward, and he might not be able to sleep again that night. How could such a brave man survive in the world?
Jiang Wen deliberately stopped, blocking Fu Ningdie's view of the depths of the alley - because there were many gamblers with red eyes gathered around a skeleton taken out of the Shui Shui Temple. .
The skin and flesh on the skull had not yet been completely removed. They only washed it with incense ash, water and grass, then used fluffy grass to pass through the cheekbones and placed it on the empty ground.
As early as the Song Dynasty, it was recorded in "Mr. Dongpo's Phenomenon of Animals" that if you do this, the skeleton will speak at night and tell you good or bad luck, and the bigger it is, the better it is. Yang Lian Zhenjia used this method at the beginning. , I learned many ulterior secrets from Song Lizong's "mouth".
The hands of a group of gamblers were trembling, and the passion for gambling had not yet cooled down, burning their hearts, livers, spleens and lungs all the time. They prayed and worshiped devoutly, with a twisted and persistent belief, worshiping the brown skull in front of them, putting their ears close to the skull's gums, trying to get the motto of getting rich overnight.
The gamblers passed the skeletons one after another, listening devoutly, but they only heard the sound of whining wind echoing among them, like the painful moans of the skeletons due to the fluffy grass passing through their bodies.
Gamblers are not discouraged.
The night is long, and they still have a long time to listen to the news, or smash the "god" they believe in in front of them to pieces with bricks and stones - just like the countless gray and white debris particles in the corners of this ancient temple.
The way back is a bit long for some reason.
The cold wind in the middle of the night became more and more biting, and the fishing lanterns on the coastline gradually shrunk, as if the stars in the sky fell into the sea and were finally submerged in the dark and deep ocean currents, extinguishing the embers hidden in the meteorite shell and falling into the useless world. In the bottom of the abyss.
The fireworks are getting colder and the cold days are getting longer. Only the cold wind is swirling in the lonely alley, rolling and playing with the fallen leaves in a boring way, flying into the gaps in the streets and alleys and disappearing quietly without a trace.
Fu Ningdie walked in the protection and hesitated in the cold night, feeling a sense of warmth in her heart due to the sense of security.
She suddenly felt that there was no way she could go back to the end of this road, and she didn't want to end it.
She was contentedly enjoying the stars and the moon. She stared at the master in front of her who was holding his head high and with a casual attitude, as if he didn't care about all dangers. Then she looked at the two senior brothers behind her who were walking side by side with courage and calmness.
But suddenly, Ningdie realized that she was a little panicked. She kept looking back and forth, not even daring to blink her eyes, for fear that she was just in a lonely dream, and if she turned her head again, these tiny warmth would disappear. disappear——
Just like her parents and family in her memory, no matter how hard she tried to portray them, their appearance became increasingly blurry and distant...
Master's voice suddenly came.
"What are you looking at? We're home."
Jiang Wen stood at the door and smiled at Ningdie, urging the young apprentice.
Xiao Shitou and Hong Wending were originally following her, but now they ran into the house first. Fu Ningdie hurriedly followed her, stumbling and panicking.
With two gentle steps, I left this desolate and cold night behind me, and I also remembered this night of leisurely travel in my heart.
