Chapter 3 Chapter 1 The East Is Unknown, My Heart Is Heavy

The night is as cool as water, and the sky is dark and starless. The night is like the color of splashed ink, covering the capital of Yang State "Huaidu" in a muddy manner.On the deserted street, click, click, click... The sound of footsteps from far to near.As if a shady layer had been torn apart, the person on duty came to the end of the long street. Coir raincoat, bamboo hat, old sheepskin boots on the feet, linen gloves on the hands, and the whole body is tightly wrapped.Holding a lamp in his hand, he drew a circle of warm yellow light in the dark night. Although it was already spring, the sky still showed no signs of warming up, the man was still breathing white air, and a thin layer of hoarfrost had already formed on the edges of his coir raincoat and bamboo hat.

Huaidu is a regular well-shaped structure, with two gates on each of the four walls, and four long streets connecting eight gates, dividing the capital into nine grids of the same size. The middle grid is the inner city where King Yang lived, and it is also an important place for the country. where. Night shift starts from Anping Gate on the east side of the city south, walks along the long street to the southeast corner of the inner city, turns east, walks to Yongxi Gate on the southeast side of the city, walks northward along the city wall, and arrives at Anping Gate on the northeast side of the city. Huimen, and then turned back to the northeast corner of the inner city, and walked through the eight gates in turn, just outlining a hollow cross.Walk around slowly for two hours, walk around twice, and the night will be over.

This is the last circle, the last turning point of the inner city turret. As long as you walk back to the Qingfeng Gate in the southwest of the city and turn to the Anping Gate, you can go home and sleep even if you have handed over your errands.Looking north from this intersection, along the outer wall of the inner city, is the world-famous "Yangguo Ghost City". The so-called ghost market means that the market opens at night and leaves at dawn. The things traded in the ghost market are not visible.There are secrets from other countries, bells and tripods, jewels and secret medicines, salt and iron boats and carts, and you can even buy murderers here.It is said that all the rangers and assassins in the world have traded here, no matter the princes, dignitaries, or high-ranking officials and celebrities, the head on the neck is valuable and can be bought here.

The trading method of the ghost market is very unique: on the flat rammed earth, words are sprinkled with white sand to explain the goods to be traded, and a lamp is lit next to it, so that the seller can hide in the darkness aside.If a buyer takes a fancy to this product, just pick up the lamp, and the seller will show up. Then the two held hands, covered them with sleeves, and negotiated with sign language in the sleeves. If the two hit it off, they could find another place to trade.Before leaving, wipe off the words written in the sand with your feet, and then blow out the lamp, without leaving a trace.

The watchman looked towards the direction of the ghost market. There were still three or five lights in the shadows. It must have been dawn soon. Some people had already dispersed, and some were still waiting for buyers worrying about gains and losses. Those lamps are also ingenious, quite thought-provoking.The oil used for lighting lamps is particular. Vegetable oil and sesame oil are not new. Bear fat and dog fat are also very common. You can even see shark fat and candle dragon fat.The lamps themselves also have their own craftsmanship. Some are inlaid with precious stones such as fluorite, pearls, and luminous pearls.Or the lampshade is ingeniously designed, hollowed out and carved, so that the light reflects patterns on the ground, making it more gorgeous.Most of the things sold in the ghost market are priceless. If there is no extraordinary lamp, how can you win people's trust?

People who come here to trade, regardless of buyers and sellers, are not idle people.The amount of money and goods traded is huge, and there are always conflicts. There are always several incidents of blood spattering in Wubu every year.It is reasonable to say that the watchman is also responsible for maintaining law and order at night, but this is an exception. Whether it is screaming for help or killing blood, it doesn't matter.At dawn, the servants in black from the inner city came out to clean up the body, dragged the body outside the city and buried it casually, washed away the blood with several basins of clean water, leaving no trace.Those who killed and those who were killed will not be held accountable.

The people in the city knew that once it was dark, it was impossible to come here.Even during the day, not many people come. The man on duty looked at the tinkling wind chimes on the turrets of the inner city, and sighed slightly: I really don’t know what the king thinks, there is no such ghost market in other countries, only Yang has one, so all kinds of ghosts and snakes gathered in Yang country.Besides, there is only a wall between the ghost market and the inner city, and the servants in black inside the wall must have been worried all night until dawn, for fear that something might happen and disturb the king and his family members.

Sure enough, it was early dawn, and it seemed that after walking a few steps, a bluish-white morning mist appeared in the surrounding darkness, and the outlines of the city walls and gates in the distance gradually became clear. The lights in the ghost market were extinguished one after another, and several people dispersed in a hurry.Looking at the clothes of those people, there is nothing special about them, they are the undyed sackcloth that ordinary people in Yang State often wear.One of them passed by the watchman, turned his head and gave the watchman a hard look, and quickly disappeared into the twilight night.

The watchman shivered involuntarily, and his steps faltered slightly.But he quickly adjusted his footsteps, ta, ta, ta... and continued to walk towards the distant city gate at a leisurely pace.Every hundred steps, knock on the bamboo clapper in your hand, the sound is also Zhongzheng and peaceful, deep and long, penetrating the twilight and dawn, until it reaches the pillow ears of thousands of households sleeping peacefully, reporting peace. When we arrived at the guard room outside Anping Gate, it was already dusk. The watchman put down his clapper and lamp, wrote a stroke on the bamboo slips of several cases, and then he handed over his errand, and hurried out the door.

On the side of the inner city, there is a dilapidated old house with large regulations and well-equipped grounds and halls, but it has been divided in a messy manner. It seems that there are more than one family living in it, and the door is not closed. The watchman went straight in, went straight to the main room, and was about to open the door, but the door was already opened by a pair of slender hands in the room. The owner of the hand leaned out half of her body through the door. She was a girl of fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing a blue skirt and a black sheepskin jacket.Presumably for fear of soiling the fur, a plain white hemp jacket was worn on the outside. The cuffs were turned in to cover the sleeves of the leather jacket. The edge looks like it was rolled up.Her hair was loosely tied into a bun, and the white jade hairpin on her hair shone warmly in the darkness.

The girl's eyes were like a vigilant little animal, she quickly scanned the surroundings, and seeing that there was nothing unusual, she smiled brightly: "Come in and warm up!" The man on duty stepped in, took off his bamboo hat, and straightened his body, as if he had grown taller by a few inches, becoming tall and tall. The morning light coming in from the window and the firelight under the stove reflected his handsome face, with fair skin, a straight nose, and picturesque eyebrows, but there seemed to be many old scars on his face, which had healed for a long time, but there were still some faint traces. This made his face look soft and fuzzy, like a piece of beautiful jade sinking in the bottom of the water. He took off his coir raincoat and handed it to the girl: "You don't have to get up so early, it won't be too late when I come back to cook together." "I have been busy all night. I must be cold and hungry. How can I not eat something quickly? You are a patient and I am a doctor. You have to listen to me." The girl said coquettishly, "Hurry up and wash your hands. Do I serve?" The man on duty shook his head and chuckled, and went to fetch water to wash his hands. But the girl followed him and looked sideways at his expression: "Brother Li, you don't seem very happy?" "No, I'm just thinking, the days are getting longer, and there are more and more people on the street in the early morning. It's not right for me to continue to be on behalf of Uncle Meng. Uncle Meng's illness should be almost healed, or tonight, or tomorrow Night, let him do the work." Brother Li lowered his head and cleaned his hands, and said flatly. The girl asked anxiously, "What? Did something happen last night?" "No, I just feel something is wrong." Brother Li took the cloth towel handed over by the girl and slowly wiped his hands. "Okay! I'll talk about it today. When I delivered medicine to him last time, he was already very neat. I just feel sorry for him because he is old and the weather is cold. Let you take care of him for a few more days. Besides, your leg injury is much worse. Walking is the only way to heal, otherwise it will leave the root of the disease, but you can't show up during the day, and you can't go out at night because of a curfew, so you can only come up with this method." "I'm not saying that your arrangement is inappropriate, it's just that it's spring, the days are long, and the dawn is early. If I continue to watch the night, I'm afraid of being recognized. I'm going to risk it. Anyway, this life is taken, I'm afraid it will hurt you. .” The girl took the towel handed over by Brother Li, bowed her head and said nothing.For a moment, the atmosphere in the room seemed to freeze.Brother Li smiled awkwardly: "What? Did I say something wrong and make you unhappy?" The girl chuckled: "It's nothing, I was just thinking, I saved your life, you have been with me for more than half a year, we get along day and night, in the eyes of outsiders, we are like a family, but we are still like a host and a guest. I'm careful. I'm not talking about you, I'm the same, after all, we're not a family...For example, you still refuse to tell me anything about you. " Brother Li frowned and sighed: "Oh... I don't even know about my affairs, so what can I tell you? You know I'm Li Qichen, aren't these three words enough? This secret, I'm afraid the whole world will Only you know." The girl shook her head and said, "No...and the person who brought you here." For a while, both of them were silent, as if they had guessed this mystery many times, but they still had no clue.After a while, Li Qichen sniffed and said with a smile, "Yan Wei, your porridge is going to be cold." With a word that awakened the dreamer, the girl Yan Wei hurriedly went to the stove to fill a bowl and brought it over: "Try this 'fat stew', make it according to the method you taught me in the palace last time, how does it taste?" ?” In the rough pottery bowl is golden-yellow millet porridge, which is slightly thinner. There is a circle of fat in the center of the porridge surface, and a ball of brown sauce in the middle of the fat, forming three matching circles, the outer circle is golden, and the middle circle is golden. Light bright yellow, brown inner circle, looks very beautiful, light grain aroma mixed with sauce and meat. Li Qichen said with a smile: "Since the 'milk sauce' has been made, then the 'fat stew' is more than half successful." He mixed the three with a wooden spoon, took a sip, and sighed, "Mm... Just add more salt." "It's too soluble, it's hard to dissolve the salt into the oil!" Yan Wei pouted and said angrily. "I forgot. It's not your fault. It's the salt. The common pool salt sold in the market is not easy to dissolve into the oil. You must use shaped salt." Li Qichen said. "What is Xingyan?" Yan Wei asked. Li Qichen said: "It's also a kind of pool salt, the essence that is naturally condensed from the salt in the salt pool. It is as white as jade, as hard as stone, and floats on the surface of the water. Although it is insoluble in water, it is easily soluble in oil. It is often carved into a tiger. , Rhinoceros and other shapes are necessary for Chinese banquets in the palace, but they are rare in the market.” "Is it a big piece? How do I use it? Do you want to break it?" Yan Wei circled the index finger and thumb of both hands and asked puzzled. Li Qichen shook his head and said: "No, you need to drop a drop of oil on it, rub it repeatedly with your fingers or chopsticks, the salt will naturally dissolve into the oil, and a pit will form on the surface of the salt, then continue to drop a drop of oil, and continue rubbing... until The amount of oil is sufficient. This oil must be used in order to show the beauty of this 'fat boiling'." "Alas... It's another palace offering, I can't buy it at all..." Yan Wei was a little frustrated. Li Qichen raised his head and looked out of the window. A corner of roof tiles and eaves was exposed outside the rear window. It was the residence of the prime minister. His thoughts seemed to drift far away: "It's not difficult to want this. I have a brother with a different surname who specializes in private salt sales , as much as you want." "However, in your current situation, even your parents and brothers would..." Yan Wei paused, and did not continue. The meaning in the words was very clear - you are a person who can't see the light, why bother to involve your parents and brothers, who would to contact you. Li Qichen shook his head slowly: "He's different, even if I'm in the 18th floor of hell, he's still the one who will travel far and wide to be with me!"