Ding Qi and the others walked along the ravine, and after walking a short distance, they heard the sound of water, which was a stream naturally formed between the two mountains. The stream meandered wider and wider, and gradually became feasible for boats, and the slopes on both sides of the river were steep, and everyone tried to walk in the relatively gentle area of the high places.

After walking for more than two miles, Ding Qi suddenly stopped and stomped his feet: "There is obviously a foundation underneath here, and there is a ruin around it that is covered by vegetation, was there once a village here?"

Yang Chengong explained: "I can't see clearly at night, but I should still find traces during the day, this is indeed an ancient village ruins, I don't know how many years ago left, no one has lived in it for a long time." In fact, there were many villages in the Wuling Mountains in the past, and they have all moved out one after another, especially in recent decades, all of which have been relocated by the government. ”

Ding Qi: "This is obviously not a site of recent decades, I am afraid that it has been for hundreds of years. ”

Yang Chengong: "Although the scenery here is beautiful, in ancient times, it was poor mountains and bad waters, and the living conditions were very bad. During the war years, some people may have moved to the mountains to avoid disasters, but during the Taiping years, there were better places outside, and basically they all moved out again, which should be an abandoned ancient village. ”

Tian Zhongluo said with a smile: "This is not far from the No. 5 valley, and the straight-line distance is only one kilometer, but it is obviously more suitable for living, at least the terrain is much more gentle, and more terraces can be opened to grow grain." I guess there was a village here in ancient times, and then it moved to the No. 5 valley, and now, it has been transformed into a homestay resort by Boss Chen. ”

Yang Chengong also smiled: "It's very possible!"

Walk almost two kilometers in the direction of the stream, this is not a flat road outside, two kilometers in this kind of mountainous area is already very long and deep. The road was difficult to navigate in the dark, and Ding Qi deliberately slowed down his pace to take care of the others, and it took him about an hour and a half to reach the end of the stream.

Mountain streams often don't come from anywhere, and their source may just be a spring, or when it rains, it flows from a rock crevice to a pool. Ding Qi stopped again and said, "Take a flashlight and shine around, are these peach trees?"

As the bright flashlight swept around, everyone found that they were in a wild peach forest, and Ma Xiao exclaimed: "Wow, there is fruit!" She picked a peach. Ding Qi reminded: "The one you picked has worms on it!"

Looking closely through the bright flashlight, the peach was indeed wormed, and there was mucus hanging near the pedicle. Ma Xiao threw the peach away, and Yang Chengong looked at Ding Qi with some surprise and said, "Chairman Ding has such strong senses!"

Tian Zhongluo snorted and said, "How else is Chairman Ding!"

Ding Qi bent down and picked up a peach pit from the ground. This is a peach pit, not big, oval, the shell is very thick, you can see this kind of thing in the cultural market, some people like to use this peach pit skewers to play. Everyone found some well-ripe peaches and tasted them, and the taste was sweet and sour.

Tian Zhongluo: "This is a pure natural green and pollution-free wild variety, and it is quite delicious." ”

Ma Xiao said honestly: "Why do I think it's not as delicious as the peaches sold in the fruit store outside?"

"Who says wild varieties have to taste better? The varieties in the orchard have been artificially cultivated for thousands of years, that is, the plants that are more in line with human taste are selected and bred," Tinzi explained. This wild peach juice is not enough, it is very astringent, but the peach itself has more game. ”

Ma Xiao: "This piece can't be a thousand-year-old peach forest, right?"

Ding Qi shook his head and said, "You don't look at these trees, at most ten to a few decades." ”

Ma Xiao: "Since it is a wild peach forest, why are there no thousand-year-old trees left?"

Ding Qi: "There is a saying that there is no ancient tree in peaches. If properly managed, peach trees grow best in their teens, but they rarely grow to more than a few decades, and forty or fifty-year-old peach trees are rare, let alone hundred-year-old peach trees. As for the wild mountain peach, the age of the tree is shorter, and it basically does not grow too much. ”

Ding Qi's hometown is in the mountainous area of Jingyang County, where the mountain village also has peach orchards, and he knows some peach trees. The peach tree has a lot of pulp, and a lot of translucent sap will be overflowed if you make a cut on the branch with a knife, and many insects love to eat it, and it is easy to attract pests and diseases. The life cycle of a peach tree is usually only a few decades, and the plant will age and die for various reasons.

No matter how well the planted peach trees are, it is difficult to grow for more than a few decades, and the highest fruit yield is more than ten years, and then the fruit gradually decreases. Whether it is artificially planted or wild peach trees in the mountains, forty or fifty years is the growth limit, and it is almost impossible to see peach trees more than 100 years old, so there is a saying that there are no ancient peach trees.

There are many ancient trees that have grown for thousands of years, either have strong resistance to pests and diseases, or grow in extreme environments with few pests and diseases, such as pine, cypress, ginkgo, dragon's blood tree, alpine rhododendron, etc., and peach trees are obviously not among them.

Although the age of this peach forest is not long, it may also be that it has existed since ancient times, and trees continue to die, but the fallen peach pits have sprouted and grown again, and they still exist today.

After listening to Ding Qi's introduction, Ma Xiao praised: "Teacher Ding is really knowledgeable!" On this occasion, her title changed from Master Ding to Teacher Ding. Yang Chengong smiled when he heard this, as if he had another opinion but did not speak.

Talking and laughing, he walked out of this peach forest, and a mountain beam and stone wall in front of him blocked the way. Yang Chengong said with a smile: "It's almost there, you need to drill a cave, it's a bit narrow, be careful not to touch your head." ”

How can there be a hole? The strong flashlight swept over and found nothing, but Ding Qi had already "seen" the portal of the outside world. As Yang Chengong stretched out his hand, a hole appeared on the stone wall, because it was night, it was dark and he couldn't see anything clearly, he took a flashlight and walked in first.

The cave was really narrow, barely allowing one person to pass through, and from time to time they had to pay attention to lowering their heads, and after walking about a few dozen steps, the space suddenly opened up, and they came out of the hole at the other end.

In the quiet moonlight was a valley, and in front of it was a very smooth path, which should be made of cooked soil to prevent weeds. In the middle of the valley in the distance is a forest of sparse and tall trees, which seem to have the outline of a village under the trees.

Two young men had already flashed their flashlights and ran forward, and Yang Chengong explained with some embarrassment: "I didn't expect you to come in tonight, and I didn't make any preparations here in advance, just cleaned up briefly." ”

Ding Qi: "Let's just take a look and confirm the existence of the outer world of the Blessed Land, and we don't need to make any preparations for Lord Yang Fu." ”

At this time, Ma Xiao asked with some doubts: "Lord Yang Fu, how do I feel that this way is like the description in "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring"?"

As soon as she said this, Ding Qi suddenly came back to his senses and said in surprise: "Yes, could it be that this blessed land is the legendary Peach Blossom Spring?" The words in "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring" immediately appeared in Ding Qi's mind-

In the Jin Dynasty, the Wuling people fished for their business. Walk around the river, forget the distance of the road. Suddenly, the peach blossom forest, hundreds of steps between the shore, there are no miscellaneous trees in it, the fragrant grass is delicious, and the fallen flowers are colorful. The fisherman is very different, and he goes forward again, wanting to exhaust his forest. When the forest runs out of water, there will be a mountain, and the mountain has a small mouth, as if there is light. Drop off the boat and enter from the mouth. At the beginning, it is extremely narrow, and only then can it be passed. After dozens of steps, it suddenly became clear......

The description of this text is very similar to their experience at this moment, except that they came after dark. As they walked along the high slope beside the river, they also passed the ruins of an ancient village, and it is entirely possible that the Wuling fisherman that Tao Yuanming remembered was a villager there in ancient times.

Yang Chengong sighed and said, "Don't talk about you, I've always been suspicious, but it's a pity that I can't find anyone to ask." And it's just a piece of literature, and there's no way to verify it. ”

Ding Qi: "What about your master, and what about the previous blessed master of the blessed land?"

Yang Chengong: "Don't hide it from the leader of the Ding League, my master is a retired old cadre in the district, he didn't know why he took a fancy to me, taught me to practice the secret method and brought me here...... He also suspected that this place was the Peach Blossom Source that Tao Yuanming said, but he couldn't find anyone to ask. ”

Ma Xiao: "Has no one lived here for a long time?"

Yang Chengong: "The ruins of the village are still there, but I'm afraid it has been abandoned for eight hundred years, and there is no one, so you can walk over and take a closer look." ”

The mountain is a little farther away on the left and right, and the land on both sides of the road is flat, and there are some traces of ditches, which have obviously been cultivated by man, but are now abandoned and overgrown with weeds and trees. A river bypassed the village in front of them, and there were several lakes in the valley plains formed by inlets, and they crossed a stone bridge into the village.

In the very center of the stone arch bridge deck, a square stone is embedded with two regular script inscriptions on it - Changcheng.

Ding Qi and Shi Buquan have been together for a long time, and they can be regarded as a little appreciative, and they can recognize that this should be a European character. Ouyang Xun is a native of the Tang Dynasty, so the age of this stone carving can only be the Tang Dynasty or after the Tang Dynasty. And Tao Yuanming is from the Jin Dynasty, long before the Tang Dynasty. This shows that for a long time after Tao Yuanming wrote "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring", it was inhabited here.

These two characters are carved into the stone slab in the center of the bridge deck, which is the road for people to walk, and the handwriting will be smoothed out and illegible over time. But now the wear and tear of these two inscriptions is very small, which means that soon after this inscription was left, few people walked on the bridge again.

There is a tall ancient tree at the head of the bridge, the diameter of the main trunk is more than one meter, and the canopy is open to completely cover the bridge deck. The bridge deck has obviously been cleaned, otherwise the fallen leaves would have accumulated so thick that it would not have been possible to see the inscriptions on the stone slabs. There are dozens of big trees like this in the village, scattered in front of and behind the house.

It is an abandoned village with broken tiles and ruined walls, and most of the houses have long since disappeared from their roofs, but the outlines are still clear. At the beginning of the village, there is an intact courtyard, a grass-roofed brick wall, which is obviously built by collecting intact bricks from the ruins of the village, with a courtyard in front and back, and a well in the front yard.

The two guys who ran in front just now had already entered the courtyard and lit a bonfire, Yang Chengong raised his hand and signaled: "The conditions are simple, let's rest here." ”

Before they entered the house, they brought tables and stools in the courtyard to sit down, and Ding Qi asked, "Is this courtyard the residence of the blessed lords of the past generations?"

Yang Chengong: "Yes, I lived here when my master brought me in. ”

The fact that the blessed land can be passed on to Yang Chengong shows that the inheritance has not been broken since ancient times, but the residents of the village in ancient times have long been unknown where to move, and only the outside world is still inherited. Whether it is Yang Chengong's master or Yang Chengong, they rarely come here in normal times, and the blessed masters of the past dynasties just cleaned up and took care of such a courtyard as a temporary place to stay.

Ding Qi asked again: "Although the village has been abandoned, it is basically possible to judge the age of the abandonment by sorting out the debris left behind, right?"

Yang Chengong: "Yes, my master also has a rough judgment, the antiquities left here are from the Northern Song Dynasty at the latest, which means that the residents here probably moved out at that time, but there have always been people outside who have retained the inheritance of the outside world." ”

Tintzi had sketched a rough history in his mind, like the vague outline of this ancient village. In ancient times, some people lived here for generations, and some people held the treasure of the world to inherit the secret realm of heaven and earth, but in the Northern Song Dynasty, the residents here moved out en masse.

It's good to live in the outside world, so why should they move? Because they have a choice. This is not a place with a good living environment, and the communication with the outside world is too difficult, and it is almost impossible to exchange and exchange property.

Even if it is a self-sufficient agrarian society, there is also socialized production, and it is impossible for one or a few villages to produce all kinds of things they need, and they still have to rely on the exchange of products, and the characteristics of the secret realm of heaven and earth determine that it is difficult for them to exchange with the outside world.

Isn't there such a predicament in the Five Heart Valley now, fortunately, there have been a group of palm flower envoys in the past dynasties, and the Changcheng Blessed Land obviously does not even have this condition. If they moved here to escape the war, over time, the civilization would degrade, and it would be impossible to develop into a platform like the Kotodai, because their ethnic group was not large enough and the area here was limited.

The Wuling Mountains were very remote in ancient times, and if you wanted to escape the troubled times, you didn't have to live here, and the No. 5 Valley outside was a more suitable place to settle. Whenever the population plummeted after the war and a large amount of land was abandoned, the people here went out to find a suitable place to live, and it is estimated that they did not return.

Is the blessed land the peach blossom source that Tao Yuanming said, maybe it is...... Seeing that Ding Qi didn't speak for a long time, as if he was thoughtful, Yang Chengong finally couldn't help but remind: "Master Ding, have you noticed what trees are around?"

Ding Qi came back to his senses and was shocked: "It's actually a peach tree!"

Yang Chengong laughed and said: "There are a total of twenty-eight thousand-year-old peach trees here, and we walked under the trees when we entered the village, and we are also sitting under the trees at this moment. ”

They passed by a peach forest outside, and Ding Qi also specially introduced to Ma Xiao the exquisiteness of "peach no ancient tree". As a result, the truth is very slap in the face, and when I entered the blessed land, there were twenty-eight thousand-year-old peaches in the village. It's not that Ding Qi doesn't know him, but he didn't even think about it, when he entered the village, he was attracted by the stone bridge and the buildings in the village, and he was thinking about the history of this place.

There are many plants whose leaves are very similar to peach leaves, and there are many varieties of peach trees, and peach leaves also have several shapes, and it is normal for Ding Qi not to pay attention to them for a while. After being reminded by Yang Chengong, he found out that there was such a big ancient peach tree in the world, and he was of course shocked, presumably because of the unique environment here.

Ma Xiao also exclaimed: "Oh my God, there are really thousand-year-old peach trees, didn't Teacher Ding say that there are no ancient peach trees?"

At this time, Ding Qi suddenly stretched out his hand, and an object that fell in mid-air flew in an arc to his palm, and in the firelight, it was a peach. The peaches were ripe and fell from the tree, and if Ding Qi didn't catch them, they might have smashed on Tian Zhongluo's head, which was a bit like the apple hitting Newton back then.

Ma Xiao stood up: "Is this a thousand-year-old peach?"

Yang Chengong said with a smile: "It's the peaches that bear this year." ”

Ding Qi was a little puzzled: "Is it still the result so far?"

Yang Chengong: "It blooms every year, but it bears very little fruit anymore. There are twenty-eight ancient peach trees here, and it is not known which of them will bear a few fruits in which year, and the total number of them will not exceed a hundred each year. ”

Ma Xiao: "Can I eat it?"

Yang Chengong: "Of course you can eat it, the season you came to coincide with the ripening of ancient peaches, and there are more than 70 pieces in total this year." I said I wasn't ready here, and I was going to come in early tomorrow to pick peaches for guests, but I didn't have time to pick them tonight. ”

Tintzy: "Can I pick it now?"

Yang Chengong: "The tree is too tall, the peaches are very difficult to pick, and it is not convenient to see clearly at night." ”

Ding Qi: "It's okay, Master Yang Fu just give me a fruit plate." ”