"Three sixty-five, eight arts, the emperor's tomb in Jinjiamenli.
Liuzi Road, Actor Road, Orchid Thousand-Hand Gu Gate Crossing.
The red handkerchief, the ghost seeking life, the yin and yang two relatives cry. "
This is a limerick passed down by word of mouth from the older generation. I think most people, like me, didn’t quite understand what the poem said when they first heard it. What means.
But after that incident, I suddenly understood the meaning expressed in it. It was telling people this story, a legend, or even...
A world...
A story about the Lower Eight Gates...
The next eight gates?
What are the lower eight gates?
As the saying goes, the upper eight gates are officials, the lower eight gates are merchants, and the lower eight gates are naturally thieves.
As the name suggests, the Lower Eight Gates are composed of eight professions.
People on the rivers and lakes call them "gold, skin, hanging, treading, flat, strip, hanging and willow".
Translated into words that you can understand, it is, "Stealing Gate, Gu Gate, Organ Gate, Feng Gate, Thousand Gates, Wu Gate, Red Handkerchief, and Life-Suing Gate", a total of eight gates.
As for the story I want to tell you, it starts with the lower eight gates.
… …
2009, autumn.
"Ring ring ring..."
A rapid ringing of the phone woke me up from my dream. I rubbed my eyes and wanted to curse, but I saw the word "Old Man" clearly displayed on the screen of my phone, so I decisively put away my anger and pressed the answer button. .
But the strange thing is that no one spoke on the other end of the phone. There was just a busy tone. After more than ten seconds, there were occasionally a few vague words, which sounded like "two..." Seven...four...seven...seven...six..."
"What the hell is this signal?" I frowned and cursed before dialing back.
But to my surprise, I called four or five times in a row, and the message on the other side of the phone always said: "The number you dialed cannot be connected at the moment. Please try again later."
I glanced at the phone, frowned and said, "What the fuck is going on?"
After saying that, I looked at the time on my phone - 8:45, and murmured to myself: "Shouldn't the old man be in Xinzhou talking to Yinglao Qi in Tangkou? How can I make a good call? Me?"
Just when I was surprised, there was a knock on the door.
"Bang bang bang... bang bang bang..."
The knock on the door was very urgent and hard. If the door hadn't been strong enough, it would have been removed by this person by now.
Hearing the knock on the door, I cursed angrily: "Who is it? Are you going to go crazy this morning?"
After that, I put on a coat and walked out quickly to open the door.
The man who knocked on the door is called Li Ming. He is a new guy in our family. He is a few years younger than me. He is very hard-working and smart. He has a good relationship with me on weekdays. We often smoke and spank together. , in my impression, this guy does things in a measured manner, and is by no means such a reckless person.
When I saw it was Li Ming, I cursed angrily: "Are you crazy today? Or is it so fucking itchy that you need a beating? Are you knocking on the door so hard?"
When Li Ming saw me opening the door, he couldn't hide the anxious look on his face and said loudly: "Little Hu, it's bad, something big has happened!"
I frowned and asked in surprise: "What's wrong? What happened? Why are you so anxious?"
Li Ming said anxiously: "Master, something happened!"
I shouted in surprise: "What? Something happened to my old man? What happened?"
Li Ming nodded and said: "Three months ago, when the Master of Ying Hall was collecting things in the countryside of Xinzhou, he accidentally discovered an ancient tomb. I heard that it was a Tang tomb from the Tang Dynasty, and it was quite large. The master wanted to They went down to the ground with Hall Master Ying to knock down Tang Dou, but who would have thought that the two of them, together with more than a dozen brothers, suddenly lost contact with the brothers outside before they got there. No, the heads of the family asked them to hurry up I’ll ask you to come over and discuss this matter together.”
… …
Yiyuanzhai, the largest antique shop in Beijing, is also an industry inherited by generations of our Hu family.
To put it nicely, we at Yiyuanzhai are in the serious business of antiques, calligraphy and paintings.
But to put it bluntly, our ancestors of Yiyuan Zhai have been disciples of the thieves in the Eight Gates for generations.
Stealing, what is stealing?
Anything taken without money is considered theft.
Among the eight lower sects, the stealing sect has been the leader since ancient times. Why?
Because the stolen door is the largest and there are the most people.
The more people there are, the more natural branches there will be and the most rules.
Our Hu family has a golden word among thieves, which is "asking the sky with a compass to see the universe, asking three questions from one tomb and five evenings".
To put it bluntly, he is a captain who searches for dragons and caves and fights upside down.
However, due to the protective development of the national team's ancient tombs and the continuous improvement of policies after the 1970s, by my generation, the bandits had begun to fade away and slowly withdrew from the stage of history.
Not only that, even the Eight Lower Sects have begun to slowly fade out of people's sight, and many sects can only hear it occasionally from the mouths of storytellers.
As for me, my surname is Hu Mingtian, I am the sole heir of the third generation of the Hu family. I have been extremely aggressive since I was a child, and fights were commonplace. In the end, our old man had no choice, so he asked someone to find a connection and send me to be a pawn. Bing, who just returned home from the army this year, although his temper has calmed down, he still has no interest in inheriting Yiyuanzhai at home.
Yiyuanzhai, main hall.
The name of this hall is Cup of Plum, which is taken from a poem by Li Shangyin - "Drinking Alone in a Small Garden", "Half a dragon's beard mat, drinking from an agate cup. Spring is uncertain every year, but I believe in plum blossoms before the year ends."
When I arrived at the Bei Mei Hall, there were already seven people sitting there, including men and women. Except for the second boss, Uncle Xu, whom I knew, this was the first time I met the rest of the people.
I strode into Beimei Hall and said to Uncle Xu, "Uncle, what happened to our old man?"
Uncle Xu looked at me and said with a serious face: "You are here! Xiao Hu, please sit down and talk first."
I nodded and found a chair closest to the outside to sit down.
Seeing me sitting down, Uncle Xu said: "Since everyone is here, let's talk about business!"
After saying this, Uncle Xu waved his hand, and a young girl came out from behind a screen at the edge of the cup plum hall, dragging a large plate in her hand. The plate was covered with a piece of red cloth, and there were bulges under the cloth. , I don’t know what was put there.
The little girl dragged the plate to the center of Cup Plum Hall, stood still, saluted everyone around her, and then placed the plate on the table next to Uncle Xu.
Uncle Xu slowly said: "Maybe some of you know why I brought you here today, and maybe some of you don't know why. But whether you know it or not, according to the rules, I still have to explain the reason."
Uncle Xu paused, and after scanning a circle of people present, he said slowly: "I think you have heard that Ying Laoqi, the leader of our Yiyuan Zhai in Xinzhou, Shanxi, fell ill three months ago. When I was receiving the goods in my hometown, I accidentally received this item..."
With that said, Uncle Xu slowly opened the red cloth covering the plate.
As the red cloth was lifted away little by little, a palm-sized blue-white round jade leaked out.
This jade has an odd shape and simple carving. From a distance, it looks like a coiled blue dragon, with the dragon head in the middle and a pair of large eyes with extremely uncoordinated proportions protruding from the outside. But when you look closer, it looks like a dragon. A crouching white toad.
What's even weirder is that as soon as the jade appeared, the temperature in the entire cup plum hall seemed to have dropped by more than ten degrees, and even a light layer of frost appeared on the glass.
"Owl kiss beads!"
After seeing this thing, four of the seven people in Cupei Hall screamed.
A fat woman was the first to lose her temper. She said slowly in a tone that sounded like a hen making a sound after its neck was stepped on: "There are recent rumors in the world that these owl-kissed beads are a pair. One ice and one fire, named Owl Kissing Phoenix, are the left and right eyes of the Buddha's guard Mahakala. In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, they were found in a Tang Dynasty tomb by a gold-touching captain named Monkey King. I found it, but my whereabouts are unknown. I didn’t expect that this owl-kissed pearl would fall into Yiyuan Zhai’s hands today.”
Uncle Xu looked at the woman and said, "Sister Li, you really know everything about ancient and modern times."
A dark-faced middle-aged man next to him looked at the owl-kissed bead, with a faint glint of greed in his eyes, but he still asked calmly: "Second Master Xu, why don't you call us all here today?" What does it mean to take out this owl kiss bead?"
Uncle Xu looked at the swarthy middle-aged man and said slowly: "I want to ask some of you for a favor, and this owl kiss bead is the reward."
"oh?"
Hearing Uncle Xu's words, several people couldn't help but be surprised.
The dark middle-aged man frowned and asked, "What do you need us to do?"
Uncle Xu's eyes swept over each of their faces, and finally said lightly: "Find someone."
The fat Sister Li asked: "Who?"
Uncle Xu said slowly: "Our shopkeeper, Mr. Hu!"
After saying that, Uncle Xu clapped his hands, and the little girl walked out from behind the screen again. This time she was holding a few photos.
There was one photo for each person. I took it in my hand and took a look. What was inside was a piece of tortoise shell. It was small, dark brown, and the adult shape was wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. There were two weird words engraved on the tortoise shell, like tadpoles. , and like strange symbols.
Seeing that everyone had gotten the photo, Uncle Xu asked slowly: "Does any of you know this thing?"
Before Uncle Xu finished speaking, my cell phone rang again.
"Hello? Who is this?" I picked up the phone and asked in a low voice.
"Tian'er, it's me, Monkey!" A familiar voice came from the other side of the phone.
This man's name is Hou Dayong, and he was my boy who grew up wearing a pair of pants. This guy is usually not good at anything. He makes a living by selling fake goods in Panjiayuan and fooling people. Why is he so desperate to call me today?
I asked quietly: "Monkey, what's wrong?"
Hou Dayong said anxiously on the other end of the phone: "Tian'er, something big happened! Do you have time now? I'll go find you. Only you can help me with this!"
I asked in surprise: "What's wrong? What's going on? I have something going on here right now. Why don't I wait until I'm done to find you?"
Hou Dayong heard what I said and said loudly: "Grandma, the day lily will be fucking cold when you come to me!"
I said, "I'm sorry, then hurry up and tell me what to do. If I can help, I'll do it for you right now."
Hou Dayong said loudly on the other end of the phone: "Our old man is missing."
When I heard Hou Dayong's words, I was shocked and asked in surprise: "What? Your old man is also missing?"
