Funiu Mountain is fifty or sixty miles away from Jiangcheng County. Although there is an official road, the road is rough, and the city's Yamen recruited many civilians to smooth the road.
The sun had just emerged from the clouds, and the young men who had been recruited were already wielding hoes on the road, leveling the road surface, or lifting large square stones with a few companions and slamming them down to compact the soil.
In the distance, someone saw two figures hurriedly coming from the Funiu Town road. They looked like servants of a wealthy family in the city. At dawn, the city gate opened, and the first wave of people entered.
in the city.
"Uncle Liu, if we go back like this, will the master give us a beating?"
These two people were the old man and the young man who asked the experts in the ruined temple that day. Seeing their companions worried, the man named Uncle Liu shook his head and looked not good. Apparently, he had not yet recovered from what he saw in the ruined temple yesterday.
Come back to your senses.
After all, I had been chatting with the ghosts for so long... Now that I thought about it, I was filled with fear. If I had agreed to go down the mountain with the two ghosts to pick up the goods, my life would have been lost.
But then why did the two ghosts turn into a cloud of smoke, and why did the teacher in the temple disappear?
After entering the city, the people struggling to make ends meet were already busy on the streets. The vendors pinched the dough and carefully put it into the steamer, shouting twice along the way. At the nearby wine shop, the shopkeepers yawned and took off the door panels one by one; in the building opposite,
The woman took the washing water and threw it into the street. It splashed on other people's trouser legs and caused several yells.
The two of them passed two streets in tandem. After approaching the southeast of the city, they slowed down and calmed down their emotions. The man named Uncle Liu lowered his voice.
"Just tell the master the truth."
Immediately, the two of them walked to a mansion in front of them. The tall courtyard gate had the word "Li's House" written on the plaque in red paint. The head of the house made a fortune by running a theater troupe, and later bought two houses.
A wine shop, an inn, and a silk and satin shop, in the eyes of the people, this is a great family business.
Just a few months ago, something sneaky happened suddenly in the theater troupe, which made people uneasy. Suddenly, the sound of gongs and drums singing was heard on the stage where there was no one there, or a puppet show was being performed, and suddenly a black shadow floated across the stage.
, was so frightened that the people watching the show dispersed in a hurry. This is not the end of it. The ghost has recently been involved in the host's inn. The guests staying there saw Youdao's figure sitting in front of the bronze mirror in the middle of the night, holding his head.
I combed my hair, was so scared that I didn’t even wear any clothes, and rushed into the street naked...
After the incident spread, the business plummeted. The two of them were considered clever in the courtyard, so they were sent out to find nearby experts to exorcise evil spirits.
After the two of them knocked on the courtyard door, the old concierge saw that they were coming back and hurriedly welcomed them in.
"Have you found an expert yet?"
The two of them shook their heads and headed back to the front yard. As soon as they stepped down the stone steps, they were stopped by the old man: "The shopkeeper of the silk shop is also here, and he happened to be talking to the owner in the front yard."
"Don't worry, we'll just go."
Uncle Liu responded and quickly walked around the Feng Shui wall with his somewhat frightened companions. He saw the front hall door open, and a silk shopkeeper wearing a felt hat and a blue square hole pattern robe was talking to the head of the household.
"...Master, if you can't find it, I'll contact you here."
"Oh? Where's the master? Did you tell him about the troupe?"
The figure sitting upright in the first place was about fifty, with a gray bun and beard, and sallow and saggy skin. He was leaning on the back of the chair with a big belly, and his energy seemed dispirited. He sighed, "If my fourth child was still here, how could I be helpless?"
The shopkeeper on the side smiled. He knew who the fourth child was in the boss's mouth. He had heard it countless times.
At first I thought he was a real brother of the master, but as time went by, I found out that he was a fellow apprentice. We studied together in the past, and we heard that he was good at magic.
However, he thought about it and found out that it was possible that the owner had said this on purpose, so that people with ulterior motives would be wary and not dare to take notice of his family business. However, in the past ten years, he had never seen the so-called fourth child appear.
This further confirmed my conjecture.
Thinking about it, the shopkeeper smiled and raised his hands: "Master, the expert I found was also found by someone else. He is an expert from outside the world. I heard he is from Canglan Mountain."
"Okay, you can go and invite the master."
As he was talking, Li San waved his hand and sent the people away. He saw the two people waiting outside the door. Seeing their dejected looks, he knew that he had gained nothing in this trip, so he had no intention of asking.
"You have worked hard for several days, so go down and rest."
"Master's house."
The older servant had no intention of leaving. He stood on the spot and cupped his hands: "We did return in vain, but yesterday we met a ghost, and there was an expert present. He saved us."
"Oh" Li San's eyes finally regained some clarity after hearing this, "Tell me about it."
The servant was about to break down the temple yesterday and spend the night, talk to the ghost, and suddenly a teacher and the mage invited from Funiu Town described the scene as completely as possible.
The younger servant beside him nodded in agreement.
"Master, as Uncle Liu said, it turned out that the two people we were talking to were ghosts, but the teacher was also very strange, and then he disappeared in an instant."
"What does Mr. Ke teach look like?"
"The wrinkled robe has wide sleeves and is whitened in some places, but it can be seen that it is originally a blue robe. The bun is clean and neat, the appearance is handsome and upright, and there is a half-foot-long beard on the chin.
He is a person who is well-read."
Hearing the servant's description, Li San subconsciously sat on the chair and stood up.
"Is there a crazy old man and an old cow with hair loss next to him?"
The two servants outside the door didn't understand why the master was so excited. They looked at each other, recalled the details of last night, and then shook their heads together.
"No."
Li San's eyes suddenly showed regret, he sat back on the chair, and weakly raised his hand to wave.
"Go down and rest."
"yes."
The two servants did not dare to disturb him and quickly left from one side.
The room became quiet, and after a while, someone came in from the side hall. An old woman in her fifties came to Li San with her maid Shi Shiran.
She blew a bowl of soup and saw that her husband was concentrating with his eyes closed, so she put the soup on the table and massaged his back and head for a while.
"No matter how important things in the theater and the inn are, you have to fill your stomach first and have the energy to do things. Look at you, you have lost so much weight in just a few months. Husband, what is your expression? You look like you are lost.
, the woman raised outside ran away with someone?"
"It's all nonsense. Shopkeeper Wang of the silk shop has already taken care of the drama troupe, and he is an expert in Canglan Mountain." Li San smiled. After more than 20 years of marriage, they have long been used to his wife's jokes.
He took a sip of the soup and answered dryly and tiredly, "Just now... I thought the fourth child was back."
Looking towards the door, the sky is getting brighter, pushing bright light into the hall...
…
The sun rises above the clouds, a lot of labor is put into smoothing the official road, and the green seedlings in the fields on both sides ripple in the wind and spread into the distance.
At the end of the road, there were two figures, one large and one small, coming towards the city. Two Taoist priests, one large and one small, and an elegant teacher next to them. They were both strange and eye-catching, making the young men working at work look at them from time to time.
go.
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"This is Jiangcheng County...it is much larger than Qingshan County back then."
Chen Yuan clasped his hands, looked at the towering and stretching city wall and sighed, then invited Sun Zhengde, who was chatting with his apprentice beside him, to walk into the city and inquire about the troupe.