The morning bells of the sixty-four temples in Yuhang City rang for the third time, and the Qingbo Gate in the southwest of the city was delayed in opening.
The crowds of people who had been waiting for a long time poured in noisily, and Li Changan mingled among them. After passing through the long and narrow city gate, the early morning of Yuhang City, known as the "Southeast Xingsheng, the Three Wu Capitals", unfolded before his eyes.
The sky is an endless square of frosted glass.
Below are countless buildings, just like the crowd around Li Changan, standing densely, with scattered high and low pink and white walls and green tile roofs fading into the morning mist.
Deep in the fog, higher than one end of the city, there are some faintly scattered buildings and pavilions, like the towers of a fairy palace looming in the sea of clouds. If you look closely, you will see that the towering golden dome is a Buddhist temple, and the palaces are connected to each other. It's a Taoist temple.
The morning sun rises eastward from the sea, smearing it with colors.
Injecting golden red into the lingering fog in the city, the light mist suddenly gained texture and became as thick as a gorgeous tide that rose and fell along the streets and alleys, immersing the entire city in a sea of lingering golden red.
It also lengthened Li Changan's shadow.
Yes.
shadow.
After getting out of the grass cage this morning, Li Changan was pleasantly surprised to find that he was "alive" again and had a physical body again. However, this physical body was stiffer, colder, and had no pulse or heartbeat.
With a physical body, of course there is a shadow.
And the body is weird, so of course the shadow is also weird.
The new shadow gave Li Changan an inexplicable sense of intimacy, as if it was not a reflection of light, but grew out of his feet, connected with flesh and blood, but not at his own mercy.
Like...a cat's tail?
right.
As everyone knows.
Cats and tails are two living creatures.
Therefore, the Taoist priest felt uncomfortable being squeezed in the crowd, and he couldn't help but want to yell: "Be careful, you are stepping on my tail... my shadow!"
Now that I finally entered the city, I hurriedly got out of the crowd and hid on the street. There was a man next to me who seemed to have the same idea. He followed me out. He stumbled intentionally or unintentionally, bumped lightly against the Taoist priest, and then glared at him for no reason and cursed in a low voice. Finished sentence.
"Poor guy!"
With a look of displeasure, he jumped into the crowd and walked away.
Li Changan wasn't angry at all, he padded the money bag which was so light in his hand and sighed.
"Each other, each other."
…
Yuhang is a city floating on water.
The water network is densely covered and extends in all directions.
The Taoist priest easily found a small dock next to the city gate. There was a small boat moored on the dock, and a young boatman was sitting on the boat.
The transportation fare to Yuhang was unexpectedly expensive. After haggling for a while, the owner of the money bag changed again before I could wrap my hands around it.
The young boatman carefully poured out the coppers from the bag and put them one by one into the large porcelain bowl filled with half a bowl of water in the boat, with a relieved smile on his face.
"Guests, sit still, the ship is sailing."
The morning sun is rising, and the city is still half asleep.
Being bored on the boat, Li Changan simply looked at the scenery on both sides of the waterway.
The houses in Yuhang City are different from other cities. The houses in most cities are courtyard-style, with halls, side rooms and courtyards. They are independent small worlds surrounded by high walls.
But that's not the case in Yuhang. There are few courtyards. Most of them are two-story buildings closely spaced one after another. The houses are narrow and the lanes are even narrower. It seems that every bit of space has been carefully considered.
Take a quick look along the river.
It's like two rows of thin men with their hands and feet entangled and closely arranged.
Li Changan suddenly remembered a joke.
Chang'an in the north and Yuhang in the south are the only two big cities in the world. People in the South and the North often compare them. When there are comparisons, there are disputes; when there are disputes, there are jokes.
This joke was used to arrange Yu Hang.
It is said that a certain Yuhang man went north to serve as an official with his whole family. However, he contracted a serious epidemic after he took office, and he was the only one left in the family to die. He paid to bury his family members on the spot and bought more than a dozen thin wooden coffins, but he only bought a small cemetery.
People around him were curious about how he wanted to bury him and went to watch the fun. They saw that he ordered the government officials to dig the grave very deep and then put the coffins one by one in the grave.
Others secretly ridiculed him for his unkindness and unrighteousness, saying that his family members were shouting and crowded underground and could not stand up.
But he felt aggrieved and said, "Where can we get crowded? That cemetery is more spacious than the house in my hometown!"
…
certainly.
The southerners are not to be outdone. They are more tactful and make up a legend.
It is said that a certain man was not admitted in the imperial examination, but he was favored by a powerful man. Not only did he want to marry his daughter to him, but he also recommended him to be an official, but there was one condition: he could not take off his daughter's pants during sex. How could a certain student refuse to agree to a pair of crotchless pants?
So they got married on the same day, and the next day his father-in-law recommended him to be an official. He entered the imperial city, paid homage to the emperor, held a court meeting, met the prime minister, generals and other civil and military officials, and appointed him as Zuo Shiyi on the spot.
From then on, he had a good career in officialdom and became a royal official. He had a happy family and gave birth to seven sons and eight daughters.
In this way, until he was dying in his later years, a certain man finally couldn't suppress the doubts in his heart. His wife took off her pants with tears in her eyes, only to see a fluffy tail raised high.
The wife revealed the truth. It turned out that her father-in-law and his entire family were all transformed from apes. The wife was not very spiritual and had a tail that she could not change. And the emperors, officials, and people he saw were all transformed by goblins.
The emperor is a tiger, the prime minister is a fox, the general is a jackal, and the people are all cattle, sheep, pigs and dogs.
But Chang'an is still Chang'an, and the imperial palace is really the imperial palace.
This story about Zhiguai secretly contains a lot of things. But the rest can be ignored. All you need to know is that Chang'an's household registration is scattered, large and useless, and less than half of the 108 squares are empty. Many poor people directly farm and collect firewood in the city. There were even rumors that wild beasts took to the streets to eat people.
The rest of the story ends here.
…
The sun is getting higher and the fog is gradually dispersing.
The leisurely and leisurely Yuhang City was finally willing to get up. Boats of all sizes seemed to emerge from the bottom of the water. In the blink of an eye, the river was crowded with people.
The interesting thing is.
They all fought for the water in the middle of the river, and no one wanted to go to the bank.
This is not peer-to-peer squeezing. In fact, people on both sides of the river are washing themselves and pouring sewage directly from the windows into the river. The "pattering" on the riverside seems to be raining heavily. If you approach rashly, it's okay to be soaked. It's not a lot to endure. What they poured was the toilet!
For a moment, shit and urine were pouring down like rain!
Fortunately, the boatman is not old, but he is an expert. A small boat shuttled back and forth as fast as a swimming fish, never getting close to the shore, but when it came to a narrow place in the waterway, and there was a window above someone's house, he quickly stabbed it with a long pole.
The boat rowed by, leaving a trail of slang and curses in its wake.
He responded one by one without blushing or out of breath, but the work at hand was not delayed at all, and he could still find time to chat with Li Changan.
His ability to do three things at once and his quick thinking are astounding.
…
The boat crossed a stone bridge and sailed into a new river channel. The eyes suddenly opened up, and the smoke and smoke along the way faded, replaced by a beautiful and elegant scene.
There are still many small buildings on both sides of the strait, but the number of courtyards is gradually increasing.
The small building is exquisite in style, mostly decorated with colorful silks and red lanterns; willows and sycamores are planted inside and outside the courtyard, and flower vines creep out of the walls. Both sides of the bank are surrounded by red and green, and the scenery is pleasant.
Occasionally, I would see a pretty woman dressing up by the window, and a young girl would go out together, smiling and giving advice to the Taoist priests on the boat.
Li Changan looked at it for a long time and finally realized that this should be the "Rouge River" in Yuhang City.
The boatman next to him chuckled when he saw Li Changan looking around.
"Guest, if you want to come here to have fun, you might as well come to me. I am familiar with the ways here. I know which family's noble husband is about to leave the court, which family's lady is particularly charming, and which family's daughter has the best tongue. I know everything about it. Chu!"
The Taoist priest said nothing, but the boatman suddenly nodded and smiled knowingly.
"I understand, I understand, my guest, you have special tastes. That's okay! Which family has a fair-skinned husband, a certain Hu girl with a flexible waist, and a Silla maid, a Japanese girl, a Kunlun slave..."
Seeing that the more he talked, the more senseless he became, Li Changan interrupted him without laughing or crying:
"Boat Master, I am a monk."
"Look at what you said." The boatman didn't take it seriously. "If you weren't a monk, I wouldn't tell you. Don't worry, there are many people selling 'miraculous abortion pills' around here. I bet you go in empty. When the earth comes out, there will be no one left behind!”
What is the image of local monks? !
Li Changan had no choice but to see a cold alley next to the water bank. The walls on both sides of the alley were filled with incense and candles, and large and small piles of paper and ashes were scattered among them. There were several women in the alley who had just finished worshiping. When they caught Li Changan's searching eyes, they covered their faces with their sleeves and left in a hurry.
The cold wind blew by, lifting up the burned paper money and scattering it all over the alley.
Li Changan took advantage of the alley to change the topic.
"I have often heard that ghost worship is extravagant and extravagant in Yuhang City. I never thought that people would burn paper to pay homage so early in the morning?"
"It never hurts to respect ghosts and gods."
As the boatman said this, he couldn't help but move the boat slowly. He looked at the alley and pursed his lips into a thin line.
The Taoist priest saw something: "Is there a saying in the alley?"
The boatman smiled and didn't answer. It wasn't until the boat was out of the river that he asked:
"Does my guest know why I was the only boat at the pier next to Qingbo Gate this morning?"
"diligent?"
"No, it's courage!"
He laughed heartily, and the boat became brisk again.
"To get to Qingbo Gate, you have to pass through the Chunfang River just now. Who live on both sides of the river? They are all hard-working women. They rely on their bodies to make a living, and there are always times when they are accidentally attacked. Where is the belly of such women? Those who could bear the child were mostly thrown into the river at night."
"A few years ago, an old boatman was in a hurry for money, so he rushed to the city gate to solicit customers before dawn. When he passed that section of the river, the morning bell did not ring and the moon set. The boat swayed unexpectedly and hit something. As soon as the oars were stirred, he saw several babies floating out of the water and crying around the boat. He relented and went to fish them out, but as soon as they were fished out of the boat, they turned into baby corpses that had been mostly eaten by fish and shrimps at the bottom of the river!"
"He was so frightened that he quickly stopped working. When he returned home, he fell seriously ill. The house was also haunted by imps. It wasn't until he spent a lot of money to hire a mage to do some magic that he found peace."
The boatman sighed quietly.
"What they sacrificed was none other than the little ghosts in the river. The reason why they sacrificed it in the morning was because they were afraid that big ghosts would snatch their food at night."
…………
Next, both of them stopped talking.
About half an hour later, when they arrived at Wenshu Fang, the Taoist got off the boat and followed the boatman's instructions to the door of Ruan's house.
The door of Ruan's house is closed.
Li Changan knocked the door knocker for a while, but there was no movement inside the door.
Are hesitating.
"Mage? Mage!"
The Taoist priest turned around.
The door of the small building across the street timidly poked half of its head out, secretly waving to herself.
Li Changan walked over.
He was a well-dressed, half-century old man. As soon as he met him, he couldn't wait to ask: "Is the mage here to exorcise ghosts?"
Li Changan nodded.
"I heard someone said that the Ruan family offered a price of one hundred taels..."
Before he finished speaking, the old man opposite suddenly burst into tears, grabbed Li Changan's sleeve, and choked with sobs.
"Our Ruan family has finally come to expect you!"
