Chapter 4 Ghost Market

As a native of Beijing, I admit that I don't have much of the temperament of old Beijing, for example, I can't drink bean juice, I can't listen to Peking Opera, I can't feed grasshoppers, and I can't come to the mountains. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info but I don't like this myself, it doesn't mean that I don't like to watch others play, especially those connoisseurs play masters, and they are comfortable to watch.

Jiao Chenglu of Lumicang Hutong in Dongcheng, old Beijing, Xing Er, everyone joked that he was Jiao Yulu's younger brother and called him Jiao Er. He just smiled and didn't match. But he is a well-known pigeon player in Beijing, and at most he has more than 150 pigeon at home, including six or seven that have won the national championship. At that time, although there were also the following trading transactions for raising pigeons, but it was far from the sky-high price of pigeons all over the world now, and it was not much money to raise pigeons.

To talk about the technology and achievements of pigeon breeding, Jiao Er Ruo Zhener, no one dares to say the first, but he was born Muna, can not be flattering words, cold and not out of two sentences, but also offended people, so the City Pigeon Association is into two times, but because of this character, others are uncomfortable, he himself is even more uncomfortable, and soon resigned. But the pigeon breeders in Liujiu City are willing to go to his yard, one is that Jiao Er never hides it, and he knows the secret method, as long as you are willing to listen, he will teach him, and the other is that Jiao Er's pigeons do not recognize life, and they have different skills, and everyone is willing to go around without anything.

My acquaintance with Jiao Er is because we are often invited by the Criminal Police Brigade, and we can be regarded as unnamed consultants. Since the beginning of the 80s, China has set off a wave of science and technology fever and scientific research fever. Many young people also have hot heads, carry schoolbags on their backs, and about a few people go to the scientific examination, one has no experience, two has no technology, and three has no equipment. Once there are major cases of casualties or disappearances, the local police force and criminal investigation equipment are limited, and the criminal police brigade has to go down to support.

On the 30th parallel of north latitude in China, there are indeed several geomagnetic anomaly areas, such as Shangri-La, Heizhugou, Shennongjia, Dongting Lake, etc., the compass fails, the radio shield, and the contact during rescue is a big problem. Although Jiao Er's carrier pigeon will also be affected by geomagnetism and lose its direction, it will fly for a while, and when it comes out of the geomagnetic anomaly area, it will be normal immediately, go around in a circle more, and delay a little time. In addition, the carrier pigeon trained by Jiao Er also has an ability, which is not afraid of people. Search and rescue in the barren mountains and mountains, strapped a small radio transmitter to the foot, the carrier pigeon will stop when it finds someone, and the criminal police can probably confirm the location. My first cooperation with Jiao Er was in the old forest of Shennongjia.

It was August 84, six students from Peking University and the National People's Congress took advantage of the summer vacation to go into the old forest of Shennongjia to find wild people. This time, they didn't come out for two days, and the village branch uncle of the village where they borrowed knew that something was wrong and hurriedly reported the case.

At that time, college students were scarce, and they were from Peking University and the National People's Congress, and this trapped case became a major matter of concern to the central government. The criminal police team was led by Team Cao, and Jiao Er, Jiao Er, and two other young criminal policemen were ordered to take the unit's military plane on the fourth day and rushed to Shennongjia. It is said that this matter has nothing to do with me, but the Cao team has a friend in Hubei, telling him that the place in Shennongjia is not only famous for the savages, but also strange things are endless, what ghost palm lamp, ile road, ghost market, once you meet it, there is no return, there are coffin beasts, thousand-legged snakes, shovel wolves or something in the old forest, once you get lost, it is also a lot of luck, and the Cao team must be careful. Team Cao's friend had been in a township security department in Shennongjia for two years, and Team Cao still believed his words. So, I don't know whether I was lucky or sad, I took the last train and set foot on Shennongjia with Jiao Er.

Before I went, I carefully studied the records of Shennongjia in the genealogy, and although it was not very detailed, I still found some clues from some strange events. Shennongjia is located in the center of Kyushu, there are famous mountains in all directions, there are Songshan in the north, Wudang, Lushan in the east, Hengshan in the south, Qingcheng in the west, Emei, these famous mountains, since ancient times, there are countless masters who have cultivated immortals and Zen, countless temples and Taoist temples, only this Shennongjia is also tall and handsome, deep and ethereal, but there has been no dojo since ancient times. This is a fact that cannot be delved into, and the ancestors of my wisdom are just passing it off here, leaving a sentence of "Chiyou Dojo, Chaos Ancient and Modern" and there is no explanation.

And the ghost market that Cao's Hubei friends said has some records. There is a winding salt road in Shennongjia Mountain, and the well salt of Shu land has been going to Huguang along this ancient road since ancient times. Huguang does not produce salt, and salt is all transported from abroad. Because it is the key point of transportation, well salt accounts for ninety percent of the salt used in Huguang, and the Ming Dynasty set up a salt section extraction division transfer warehouse in the area of Pingqian Town, which is responsible for transporting Shu salt to Huguang. However, during the Hongwu period, there were successive cases of collective disappearance of the salt transportation team. Due to the extremely high price difference of Shu salt after entering Huguang, the Extraction Division thought that the salt transportation team had run away from the salt smugglers, and did not dare to make a noise. In just three years, more than 300 officers and soldiers and salt transporters disappeared into the deep mountains of Shennongjia.

This matter could not be covered up in the end, and the Criminal Department sent someone to Huguang to investigate thoroughly, and my thirteenth ancestor, Mr. Chang Yanting, also went south with the team. At that time, the traffic was not as good as now, and the group walked for a month to reach Shennongjia, and the Huguangbu Political Envoy also sent a special person to cooperate with the investigation. After this investigation, it was found that because Shennongjia was located in Yunyang Mansion, Jingzhou Mansion and Kuizhou Mansion, and the three prefectures at the junction of the three provinces, within a few years, in addition to the salt transport team of hundreds of people, there were about dozens of caravans that disappeared into the mountains, so that the current caravans talked about the tiger's color, and would rather detour to Yunyang, or take the waterway to Jingzhou, rather than cross the mountains and forests.

Changzu also visited the nearby big households, gentry, only to know that the missing business travel, not only in the Ming Dynasty, since Tang Gaozong, almost every year, literati, medicine farmers, woodcutters, farmers have lost in the mountains, the most sensational is the end of the Tang Dynasty Xue Gang rebellion, Yunzhou more than 2,000 officers and soldiers disappeared here, resulting in Yunzhou defenseless, Xue Gang bigger. In this way, I am afraid that there are tens of thousands of people in this mountain. Strangely, no one ever found a single corpse in the mountains, and it was as if they had disappeared into thin air.

However, many local medicine farmers told Chang Zu that sometimes there will be fog in the mountains, which the local people call Banshan Hui, and the medicine farmers can't avoid it, often get lost in it, and sometimes grope and walk for a while, they will have severe pain all over their bodies, their heads will be dizzy, and they will fall to the ground and faint to death. I don't know how long it will take, people will wake up slowly, and they will go to a lively and prosperous market, but it is always at night, the market is brightly lit, and the flow of people is like weaving, but the people inside are expressionless and wearing the costumes of various dynasties. The things sold in the market are very cheap, as if they were picked up for nothing, and there will be medicine farmers who are greedy for cheap and buy one. As long as you buy it, give money, then this person can no longer go out of the market, you don't buy, no one pays attention to you, at dawn, the fog clears, and the medicine farmer will soon be able to find his way down the mountain, but when he returns home, the medicine farmer will find that he seems to have only been in the fog for one night, but in fact it is two or three days. The locals call this misty market a ghost market.

In Chang Zu's account, after a group of more than 20 people into the mountain, under the guidance of the local medicine farmers, they quickly found the ancient salt road, followed the ancient salt road and walked dozens of miles, the ancient trees towered to the sky, the scenery changed greatly, they saw a lot of strange beasts and trees, for these rare beasts, Chang Zu did not hesitate to write six or seven pages. After walking for a while, Chang Zu's compass failed, and the clouds overhead were overcast, and in the valley opposite, the fog slowly rose. The people were worried that they would be confused by the fog, so they climbed up the mountain, but fortunately they climbed for a while, and the fog was always halfway up the mountain, and it did not come up, but the fog was already very large, and there was nothing to be seen five feet away. When they saw that it was getting late, they set up tents, lit a bonfire, ate some food, and left the vigil to go into the tents and sleep.

Chang Zu sorted out what he had seen and heard that day, but he didn't feel sleepy. When they got out of the tent, they saw that the bonfire was blazing, and the two night watchmen dozed off with their weapons. Halfway up the hill a few hundred paces away, there was a faint lantern hanging in front of it. Chang Zu took a few steps in the direction of the lantern, and it seemed that the lantern had also taken a few steps back. Chang Zu knows that this deep mountain candle flame is the most troublesome, if you follow it, the dark night slope is difficult to distinguish, it is easy to be taken down the cliff by it, buried at the bottom of the valley, if you ignore it, it will get closer and closer to you, and finally confuse its mind, transform into a hundred shapes, and people will still follow it if they are bewitched.

Chang Zu himself is not worried, he has enough concentration, but the other people in the camp are not easy to say, if he keeps a night here, when he loses energy at night the next day, this lantern will still be found, and it will be a hidden danger.

Chang Zu returned to the tent, took a few strands of heavenly silk, washed his eyes with Tianmu water, and made sure that he was not confused by the transfiguration form, tied one end of the heavenly silk to the tent and the other to his wrist to ensure that he would not lose his way, took the soul bell in his hand, and chased the lantern down.

After walking about a few hundred steps, Chang Zu suddenly noticed that the lantern was still and seemed to be hanging on a big tree a hundred steps away. Chang Zu was secretly surprised in his heart, his soul bell had not yet shaken, and the lantern was set? After observing the same place for a while, he didn't see anything unusual, and Chang Zu slowly walked under the tree. It was a large tree with four people hugging each other, and the lantern was planted on a branch about a foot above the ground, and the flame seemed to be about to be extinguished. Suddenly, the flames sparkled violently, igniting the tung oil paper skin of the lantern, and in an instant, the lantern turned into countless sparks, flickering twice in mid-air, and disappeared, and the surroundings were suddenly dark. (To be continued.) )