Master Liu said that this person is a new person who has only started to appear in the past two or three years, but his identity is too mysterious. It is said that he has a huge network of relationships. He orders the people below him to do everything he does, but no matter how big or small everything is, There is only one person who ultimately makes the decision. This person used to be a veteran, very young, and he had accumulated a lot of connections because of joining the army. However, this person is very low-key. Generally, it is difficult to find out the details of this person without careful investigation. of. Even the people around him who helped him with things didn't know him well.
What Master Liu said about this is almost the same as what Damao said when he was drinking at my house. But Master Liu admitted that he only knew so much, and it was unconfirmed. These contents were all heard from other masters. In this way, I was more sure of Da Mao's initial thoughts. Since this person can have such a strong connection, he can still control some people to do things for him even after he is discharged from the army. Moreover, the ghost he is looking for is a person who died of gunshots and there are many of them. There are only two possibilities for such a ghost to appear in Sanchuan Ghost Market. Either it is powerful and cannot be sold elsewhere, and the master who collected it may not have enough ability to control it, or it is the mystery behind the scenes. Man, I knew from the beginning that this ghost would appear in Mikawa Ghost Market, so I came to stay early in the morning.
From this point of view, both possibilities are very high. In our time, joining the army was a very glorious thing, because you would get on the enlistment car with a big red knot on your chest amidst the cheers of everyone, and become a hero who protects your home and country. The most important thing is that when you retire from the army, you can get a demobilization payment and a very good job. According to what Master Liu said, the mysterious man behind the scenes was able to have such a large network of relationships precisely because he came into contact with some people in the army that we ordinary people have no contact with, so that after he retired from the army, They even extended their claws into our industry.
I told Master Liu that the situations you mentioned are exactly what we want to investigate. So please take us to find this Mikawa Ghost Market. Master Liu shook his head and said that he would not take us to find it, but he could draw us a schematic diagram for drilling through the bamboo forest. Just follow this diagram.
After saying that, he took out pen and paper, and while drawing, he told us that this place can be seen after walking northwest for more than half an hour. When we arrived at a graveyard, there was an earthen bridge on the edge of the tomb. Standing on the earthen bridge, you could see the bamboo forest from a distance. But when entering, you need to cross the bridge first and then go down to the river. Follow the river to the edge of the bamboo forest. Enter from there. The bamboo forest is very dense and there is no decent road. You need to find a path closest to the entrance. Start walking deeper from that trail, and whenever you reach a branching place, just follow the method I mentioned above and walk down.
While talking, he finished the painting. But when I took the drawing and took a look at it, I actually didn’t quite understand it, because I really can’t compliment Master Liu’s painting skills. I can only say that I roughly understood what he meant, which is where to go at the first fork in the road. Turn, how deep it turns, and what to do when you get there. There are a total of forty-nine moves in this set. If you make one wrong move at any time, you will not be able to reach the ancient town hidden in the bamboo forest. Master Liu said that this place used to be a tea horse inn in the Qing Dynasty. Later, a plague broke out and people died, so it was abandoned. There was no one to manage it, and there were wars every year. The bamboos grew like crazy. Within a few years, the town was completely covered in bamboo forests. So when you go looking for it, it's best to leave some marks to avoid taking a wrong step, going around in circles, and not being able to get out.
I asked him, is there anyone who has not come out before? Master Liu said of course there was, there were quite a lot of people, but no one could find the body of the missing person. It was said that if you want to see a person alive or dead, you would see a corpse. The person got into the bamboo forest and couldn't go to the ghost market. , just disappeared out of thin air.
He emphasized that for more than 20 years, almost two or three people disappeared here every year. However, except for a few people in the industry who know about this place, few local people know about it, or they don't tell them if they know it. As these people grow old and die, even fewer people know the truth.
I'm lucky that I know the truth, and I'm lucky that I won't die so young, so I'll be able to keep this secret for many years. Next time, I asked Master Liu to tell me everything he knew about this ghost market, but Master Liu was very secretive and seemed unwilling to mention more, as if the more he talked, the more he interfered with my own life. Cause and effect are normal. After all, if I unfortunately get lost in the bamboo forest, I might become one of the missing people, and then he will become a reason for me to disappear.
It was noon while we were chatting. I saw that Master Liu and his apprentice had no intention of leaving Damao and I to eat, so I stood up and prepared to leave. I wanted to take advantage of the time and follow what Master Liu said. It’s only about an hour away, so it’s better to check out the terrain first. And my heart was full of expectations, wanting to get a glimpse of what this mysterious ghost market was like.
When we found the earth bridge, it was actually a little different from what I imagined. Because generally speaking, bridges are built over rivers, and Master Liu also said before that the bamboo forest is by the river. So I agreed that it was a river, but when I looked down from the earthen bridge beside the cemetery, I found that it was not a river at all. It was just a small ditch at best, only about ten meters wide, and it didn't look like much. It is so deep that even a child can swim across it. The entire width of this earthen bridge, including the area connecting the earthen boulders at both ends, is only about twenty meters. However, we really saw a large bamboo forest. From where we stood, we visually inspected it. It was probably several miles deep. The feeling of earth.
There are already a lot of bamboos in the south, and the bamboos in Sichuan have various varieties depending on the location. So it is not that unusual to see such a large bamboo forest in the south. Da Mao and I thought it was strange because we knew the secret deep in the bamboo forest. After calculating the time, it was almost two o'clock in the afternoon, so Da Mao and I ate a few steamed buns and crossed the river to the river.
As I walked towards the bamboo forest by the river, I began to make some preparations silently. Since this place is often visited by traders from all over the world, there should be no danger on the road, because these traders include People who know this place are more or less proficient in mystical arts. I don't think any ghost is willing to disturb Tai Sui and ask for trouble. So my preparation was just the fragrance of soldiers and horses. I wanted to say that if we really got lost, we could still let the soldiers and horses lead the way, at least to bring us back to the entrance.
In fact, on the surface, our thinking is still a bit simple, because the terrain in the bamboo forest is too complicated. After getting into it not far, we can't even distinguish the southeast from the northwest. Neither Da Mao nor I are people who use compasses, but it looks like there are bamboos all around. Although there is still light from the sky, the whole air seems to be green. Fortunately, the schematic diagram that Master Liu drew for us only needs to focus on the front, rear, left, and right, not the southeast, northwest, otherwise, we might not be able to find the right path even if we search here for a year and a half.
In just forty-nine steps, we walked around for more than two hours. There are some small flying insects in the bamboo that always stick to our sweaty necks, which makes us feel very uncomfortable. On the 48th step, there was a stone shrine hidden among the bamboos on the side of the trail. I went to check it out, but found that it was a little different from the small shrines we had seen on the roadside before. Usually, our shrines contain things such as Earth God, Mountain God, River God, or Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. However, in this small shrine, there is a hand-held ring weapon with an attacking posture and an appearance. It is a ferocious monster with exposed lower fangs and three horns on its head. Its posture is humanoid, but it looks like a monster. I always felt that I had seen a statue of this thing somewhere, but I could never remember it at that moment.
At step 49, according to what Master Liu wrote, after taking one more step, we continued to follow the only road and we could reach the entrance of the ancient town. And I secretly paid attention to it along the way. At every turn, I secretly made an obscure mark on the pillar with incense ash. So it was only then that I discovered that this was the arrangement of a mandarin duck array, because mandarin ducks are the traditional Chinese characters. It's even, so when it's an even number, it can't be circumvented no matter what. It's a dead formation, and forty-nine is an odd number, which means that the mandarin duck has been broken. Very few people use this formation. It is said that it was created by a man named Qi Jiguang in ancient times. Judging from the state of the shrine and the obvious traces of cut bamboo piles on the trail, these things, including the only road into the ancient town, should have been deliberately designed like this in recent decades. It's very simple, just to avoid being found by outsiders.
Da Mao said that he was blindfolded when he entered and exited this road, but he could smell the smell of bamboo in his nose and felt that he had been twisting and turning for a long time, so this must be the right place. So I said to Da Mao, maybe the person who hired you is still there now. You quickly put on your hat and cover your face with a towel. If you are recognized, we have worked so hard to get here. Falling short of success.
So before walking out of the bamboo forest, Da Mao put on his straw hat and made a handkerchief to cover the part below his nose. We continued walking forward, and after about twenty meters, we reached the edge of the bamboo forest. Suddenly, a long street town hidden deep in the bamboo forest appeared in front of us.
