Mysterious Martial Arts: The Record of the Swordsman

Chapter 153

The four masters and apprentices had a hasty dinner, and Jiang Wen, under the puzzled eyes of the three Liuding goddesses, led his apprentice out of the mansion as if fleeing, obviously not even daring to say a word.

Jiang Wen made up his mind, and when they officially bid farewell to the Holy Mother of the Red Lotus tomorrow, they will set foot on the road to Guangzhou without looking back, so as to prevent the young Ningdie from being poisoned by the gossip spirit again.

After nightfall, it was cold and windy, and people were still coming and going at Zhennanmen outside Quanzhou City. Ships of all sizes lit night lights on their bows, and they were going back to Fashi Harbor to shelter from the wind against the raging waves, and waited for tomorrow to continue their fishing life.

Fishermen seldom went ashore, and several boatmen leaned on their oars to get together and chat about the current situation.As the smell of gunpowder between the imperial court and Zheng Chenggong became stronger, the prosperity of this important maritime town continued to increase instead of diminishing.

A thing that is not too far away, just a few months ago, he saw with his own eyes that someone sent a dragon that can only be found in a stone pond thousands of miles away. It is about ten feet long and covered in scales. I'm afraid he can overturn his small sampan, and he will be disemboweled on his boat.

The other boatman curled his lips, not to be outdone, and said that he was not bad. The day before yesterday, Duren met a strange person, and he frantically 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 in the port, and by the way, he heard these middle-aged boatmen talking in the native language, and turned his head to glance 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. The long-lost human fireworks are in full bloom. Into a 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 as them.

Dragons and snakes were mixed outside Quanzhou City, the boat owners themselves were full of gangs, and officers and soldiers from the Qing court passed by showing off their power. Along the short road along the harbor, Jiang Wen and his party saw many people fighting for their lives, and there was even a tall and powerful one. The boatman made a good back punch with one hand, so that five or six big men couldn't get close easily.

"This is a boxer from the northern sect. His kung fu was reduced to carrying bags on the pier, and it was ruined."

Jiang Wen said to Hong Wending, "It's a pity that in today's world, a body of kung fu may not be as effective as a pedicure and a haircut. At least a craftsman does his duty. He won't be stabbed to death when he walks on the street, and he doesn't need to wear a helmet when fishing." .”

Hong Wending turned his head to look at Jiang Wen, and nodded in agreement.

"What Master said is true. I have also thought about it, if my father has no kung fu like ordinary people, will he not have to travel around?"

Jiang Wen couldn't help but smile when he heard this hypothesis.

This idea is really interesting, but his father's face will not have martial arts?Jiang Wen really couldn't imagine Hong Xiguan honestly farming and working diligently to support his family.

However, when ordinary people encounter Hong Xiguan's situation, they should just let go of their blood and hatred and live incognito.For example, Yan Yongchun's old father didn't have that much ability to fight his way out.

The masters and apprentices stayed away from several crowded wharves, looking at the bright blue sea and sky with the bright moon hanging high, their ears were filled with the mighty sound of the tide undulating, accompanied by the indistinct and ups and downs of countless ship lights wanting to return to the port Fu, like a sky full of stars falling on the sea.

Rows of bamboo sheds were set up on the west side of the port. At this moment, many people dressed in short clothes gathered in it, shouting slogans sometimes high and sometimes low, and there would be shouts caused by winning or losing from time to time.

Life at sea is boring, and gathering people to play games has become their most cohesive activity.

"People who practice martial arts do it for the sake of fame, and those who play games for profit. I don't know if we are also so vulgar and ridiculous in the eyes of outsiders."

Jiang Wen casually made a mean joke, but found that Hong Wending had a forgiving look on his face.

"Do you regret learning martial arts? Or do you feel sorry for the children of the world?"

Jiang Wen joked, "I see that Miss Tian Qingwen has a soft spot for you, have you considered becoming a rich man in Tianlongmen?"

"No, I want to travel all over the world like Master, doing chivalry and fighting for righteousness."

Hong Wending shook his head.

"Besides, my father said, don't even think about quitting if you are in the Jianghu. What happened to Miss Tian is just an ordinary person in the Jianghu. What she hopes more in her heart must be to be born into an ordinary family."

Jiang Wen nodded silently, these are no longer a matter of personal choice.

Born in this era when the torrent of history is rolling forward, every step that his feet fall has its own inevitability. Hong Wen must be so calm and peaceful, and it is more because he was forced by life to give up his childish imagination early, and can only stare at it. As far as you can see.

"Wending, beating, killing, and saving people is only for a while, and the shackles that have been broken off will come back one day. If you really want to save people, you have to be ready to bear everything."

Jiang Wen sighed, just like the people in this city feel happy and safe today, maybe tomorrow they will be moved to the forbidden sea and their families will be destroyed. The short rib of naval warfare is to sacrifice the interests of the coastal people and make every family cry, in exchange for the initiative on the battlefield.

[When the boundary was established at the beginning, it was still thought to be close, and no matter how far it was, it was farther away again, and the boundary was determined when it moved three times. 】

The history book is just a sentence, but I don't know how many people will pay a heavy price for the relocation of the Forbidden Sea again and again.

Seeing that Master was lost in thought again, Hong Wending also fell silent.

He could feel that the number of Master's ecstasy has increased significantly recently, and his words are always more mysterious in the cloud, as if walking in the world is a huge burden. Only on the Dawang Peak of Wuyi Mountain, where the clouds are deep and the cranes are trembling, can he temporarily forget these things. trouble.

Hong Wending walked without squinting, but looked back from time to time to check whether Xiao Shitou and Fu Ningdie were left behind.

"Master, is he telling me not to make a move easily, but to make a decision before making a move?"

Hong Wending suddenly asked.

Jiang Wen suddenly broke free from his thoughts and shook his head vigorously.

"No, I mean the next time you plan to be a hero to save the beauty, you must first find out how difficult your future father-in-law is."

"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 so hungry!"

Xiao Shitou lowered his head and touched his stomach, then raised his head after thinking for a moment.

"I was too anxious to eat, I was hungry just now when I smelled it..."

Jiang Wen followed his line of sight and found that there was an ancient temple not far in front of the port, with a huge banyan tree covering the sky and the sun, only the base of the wall to the west was lit with fire, and the stall owner set up a big pot and gurgled to eat. , the fragrance is faintly blowing with the wind.

Making snacks at a gambling stall is a good business, but it’s a pity that the night is not over yet, and gamblers are still obsessed with the excitement of rolling in money, and no one has the intention of withdrawing until their wallets are empty.

Even if some diners came, they would rush back to the gambling hall after eating in a hurry, and the stall could only hide in the sidelines alone, timidly showing up with its wrinkled owner .

"Is your nose a little too much?"

Jiang Wen sighed, and brought the three apprentices to the small stall, ready to try these clean and hygienic local delicacies.

Seeing a Taoist priest bring three boys, the stall owner's wrinkled face instantly relaxed a lot, and he quickly shouted at him in weird Mandarin.

"Shopkeeper, you don't have to force yourself, I can understand you when you speak well."

Jiang Wen first promoted the other party from a "stall owner" to a "store owner", and then compared his ears to show that he could understand the local dialect.

The food in this small stall is as shabby as it looks, and the variety is pitifully small, but it is cheap and affordable. You can buy a big bowl for two pennies, and you can have a warm meal. Sitting around a simple wooden table with his apprentices, he broke off a string of branches and analyzed the wood into a pair of chopsticks for each person.

Four bowls of delicate and fragrant meat soup are served first. The aroma of the mellow meat paste that has been beaten is contained in the soup. It is fragrant but not greasy. It tastes better when sprinkled with green onion.

"Ningdie, girls, please pay attention to your appearance."

Jiang Wen watched Fu Ningdie take a tentative sip first, then hugged the pottery bowl with both hands, as if he was afraid of being snatched away by a small stone, so he couldn't help but remind him.

Xiao Ningdie didn't slow down at all, and asked vaguely, "Master, what kind of meat is so delicious!"

Jiang Wen didn't answer.

He just saw the other party use a knife to carefully remove the remaining meat scraps from the cowhide, and mix it in the minced pork to increase the taste. He guessed that this might be the other party's exclusive secret recipe.

Fu Ningdie was born in a family of officials and eunuchs. According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, cattle are not allowed to be eaten. In order to avoid knowing the law and breaking the law, their family may have never eaten beef.

But the folks didn't pay much attention to this. In fact, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the number of farm cattle was sufficient, and beef became one of the common meats on the market, and it was of high quality and low price.For example, in Nanjing in the fifth year of Zhengde (1510), pork was worth 7-8 Wen per catty, and beef only cost 4-5 Wen per catty.

"Eat, eat, if you don't have enough to eat, just continue. Am I usually hungry for you?"

Jiang Wen only took one bite, then took out the brocade sandalwood box from his luggage, and looked at it carefully.

Ever since he got the Mani Orb, the beads have been lying quietly in this small box. Jiang Wen has never encountered any strange things, let alone have strange dreams or hallucinations like Huang Ji said.

And Ding Dian and Zao Wou-ki have been imprisoned together for more than ten years, and nothing strange seems to have happened, so Jiang Wen has always suspected that the brocade box itself has a magical effect, and it may be able to block the radiation of the Mani Orb from the outside world.

"Master, is there something wrong with this box?"

Seeing that Jiang Wen didn't move her chopsticks, Fu Ningdie gradually turned her attention to the bowl in front of Jiang Wen, so she spoke obliquely.

Jiang Wen stared at the box and said slowly.

"It's more than just a problem. Once this box is opened again, who knows what big troubles will happen. Fortunately, I don't want to know about these, and I don't dare to know, but I can't just put them in the back of the mountain like ordinary things." That's it..."

Fu Ningdie continued to insinuate.

"Then 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 Ning Die angrily, and pushed his bowl in front of her.

"If you want to eat, just tell me, where can I go? This thing will be harmful wherever you put it, and no matter how big the world is, how can you hide it in a safe place that is indestructible."

Speaking of this, Jiang Wen suddenly paused, "Wait a minute... Speaking of which, I don't know the place that lasted forever, but I know that there is a place in the vast northwest that has not been excavated for 200 years. If you can't say it, you have to go. Last time..."

Jiang Wen quietly looked to the northwest, and vaguely already had a way to deal with this Mani orb.

While Jiang Wen was thinking about it, the store owner had already been busy inside and out for a while, and brought out four bowls of soup that were steaming slowly.

It is also minced pork. This time, after using a wooden stick to mash the meat, it is mixed with flour and rolled into paper-thin pieces, cut into small pieces of three inches square, and then wrapped with meat stuffing to make wonton stew. It is a bowl of flat meat swallow.

The meat swallow is boiled in the old soup pot and then picked up. It is served with chopped green onion and garlic floating in the clear soup. It is smooth, tender and crisp in the mouth, with a refreshing fragrance.

After solving the problem, Jiang Wen also had a big appetite this time, and he ate up the whole bowl, but Fu Ningdie, who even ate two bowls of meat soup, looked at the delicious food without tears, and couldn't eat a single bite. In the end, I could only get rid of the small stones who were watching eagerly.

"Get up and walk when you're full."

Seeing how the two apprentices were overeating, Jiang Wen had no choice but to urge them to get up, and they planned to walk around the dilapidated temple to digest, and then return to the house to rest.

The store owner graciously went forward to pack up the pottery bowls, and quietly took away 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 across the line, he reminded him in a low voice.

"Daoist, it doesn't matter if you walk around, just don't enter this temple, and don't go to the alley behind the temple."

Jiang Wen couldn't help but stop, looking at this small temple that didn't even have a plaque.

"Shopkeeper, what do you mean by that? Is there anything special about it?"

The stall owner wrinkled his face, looked around vigilantly, and deliberately turned his head away from the ancient temple, before carefully explaining.

"I want you to know that this is originally a water temple..."

Hearing these words, Jiang Wen shut his mouth suddenly, and walked away slowly after cupping his hands in thanks.

In the time of a meal, many gamblers have already lost money and left the simple gambling stalls dejectedly. The lucky ones still have a few pennies left, so they all come to eat supper sullenly. When he got busy, he didn't pay attention to the whereabouts of Jiang Wen and his party.

And the other group of gamblers lost everything, not even money left for food, but they didn't disperse suddenly. Instead, they walked together with secretive expressions and sneaked into the alley behind the ruined temple.

"Master, what is Shuiliu Temple?"

A gust of wind blew, and the messy broad leaves rolled up all over the ground, as if an invisible person's clothes fluttered past her, making Fu Ningdie shiver suddenly, and asked Jiang Wen in a low voice.

Jiang Wen touched her head, pointed to the ancient temple not far away and said.

"Do the math, how many stone steps are there in the temple gate?"

Ningdie counted twice with her fingers, and answered after confirming the number.

"There are six stone steps in total."

Jiang Wen nodded and whispered to her.

"The temple has no patio, no beams, no sun, and double window steps. This is clearly a Yin temple, and they are all poor people."

Ning Die was taken aback by Master's gloomy tone, and timidly snatched away in front of Xiao Shitou and Hong Wending, fearing that she would fall at the end of the team and be caught up by something.

The so-called yin temples are folk temples dedicated to lonely souls and wild ghosts. For example, mass graves, corpses without owners, and people who die in different places are full of resentment.

However, Quanzhou City is close to the sea, and there are often shipwreck victims drifting ashore. The shop owner said that this place is "Shuiliu Temple", which means that the corpses were fished up from the rivers, lakes, rivers and seas, and floated to the shore by the water, but no one claimed them. A temple was built for them as a place of shelter. Place.

Jiang Wen didn't speak out, because he was afraid that he would scare Ningdie, a coward, and he might not be able to sleep again that night. How could he have the guts to venture into the rivers and lakes?

Jiang Wen deliberately stopped, just blocking Fu Ningdie's view of the depths of the alley - because there were many red-eyed gamblers gathered around a skeleton taken out of the Shuiliu Temple .

The flesh and skin on the skeleton hadn't come off completely, they only washed it with incense ash and water, and then put grass through the cheekbones, and placed it on the empty ground.

As early as the Song Dynasty, there is a record in "Mr. Dongpo's Biological Sensibility" that like this, the skeleton will speak at night and tell good or bad luck, and the bigger the better, the better. Yang Lian Zhenjia used this method at the beginning , from Song Lizong's "mouth" inquired about many ulterior secrets.

A group of gamblers trembled with their hands, the blood of the game just now hadn't cooled down, scalding their hearts, liver, spleen and lungs all the time.They prayed and worshiped devoutly, with a distorted and persistent belief, adored the brown and yellow skull in front of them, put their ears close to the jaws of the skull where the teeth had fallen out, and wanted to ask for the motto of getting rich overnight.

The gamblers passed the skeletons one after another, and listened piously, but only heard the sound of the whining wind echoing in it, just like the painful groans of the skeletons passing through the body.

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 before them with their own hands with bricks and stones—just like the countless gray and white debris particles in the corners of this ancient temple.

The way back was a little long for some reason.

The cold wind in the middle of the night became more and more piercing, and the fishing lights on the coastline gradually shrank, as if the stars in the sky fell into the sea and finally submerged in the dark and deep ocean currents, extinguishing the embers hidden in the meteorite shell, and falling into the invisible in the bottom of the abyss.

The fireworks are getting cooler and the cold weather is longer. In the lonely alley, there is only the cold wind swirling, rolling and playing with the fallen leaves boringly, and disappearing in the gaps between the streets and alleys, without a trace.

Fu Ningdie walked in the protection, followed by hesitating in the cold night, only a little warmth brought by the sense of security in her heart.

She suddenly felt that this road back could never end, and she didn't want to end this road.

She enjoyed the stars and the moon contentedly, for a while she stared at the master in front of her who was striding forward with a casual posture, as if all dangers were ignored, and for a while she looked at the two brave and calm senior brothers who were walking side by side behind her.

But suddenly, Ningdie felt a little flustered in her heart. She kept looking back and forth, not even daring to blink her eyes, for fear that she was just living in a lonely dream, and if she turned her head again, these tiny warmth would disappear. Disappeared in place——

Just like the parents and family in her memory, no matter how hard she tries to describe them every day, their appearance is becoming more and more blurred and unfamiliar...

Master's voice suddenly came.

"What are you looking at, you're home."

Jiang Wen stood at the gate of the mansion prepared for them by Our Lady of the Red Lotus and smiled at Ning Die, urging the little apprentice.

Xiao Shitou and Hong Wending originally followed her, but now they ran into the gate of the mansion first, and Fu Ningdie hurriedly followed, stumbling and flustered, and smashed through the worrying dream just now, once again Into the cold world.

With two light steps, Ningdie left this Xiao Shuhan night, together with the night wandering outside Quanzhou City, all behind her.

(End of this chapter)