It was about early in the morning, Juan Bei slowly woke up, and I looked at the watch on my wrist, and he was unconscious for forty-five minutes. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoUnlike ordinary ghosts, Juan Bei's reaction after waking up is sober and normal, and I have seen people who have had such an experience before, and after waking up, they will have a state of amnesia for a few minutes, and they can't remember who they are or what they just did.

Hu Anbei sat up straight and said with an apologetic look: "I'm really sorry, I fell asleep while chatting, Mr. Chang's courtyard is too quiet, and the sofa is too comfortable, but unfortunately I haven't finished listening to Mr. Chang's story just now." ”

The first reaction of a person after waking up is often the most real feeling in his heart, the feeling that is not pretended. I used to think that the fatigue tactic of interrogating prisoners was to confess their crimes through mental torture that made them unbearable. Later, Jiang Bureau of the city bureau told me that in fact, what the case-handling personnel captured were the prisoners' casual answers to some questions while half-asleep, which were often covered up by criminals under normal circumstances. So, if you want to hear the truth from a person, you have to do it at the moment when he just woke up.

Thinking of this, I asked Juan Bei reflexively: "Old Hu, when you just fell asleep, you sang a tune in a very low and light voice, is it the singing voice in Peking Opera?"

Hu Anbei looked at me in surprise, "I sang it? It's really strange, it's indeed a Peking Opera tune, but it's long lost, I just watched a play in a dream in a theater garden in old Beijing, and this is what I sang on the stage, I followed the Tsing Yi on the stage and learned two sentences, but I didn't expect to sing it." ”

Juan Bei's answer made me even more puzzled, was he really asleep? Was it really a dream? But the reaction of his body just now was by no means a dream, and he had just woken up, and his answer without thinking about it did not seem to be hiding something. But I noticed that when he answered the question, he spoke very coherently, without the laborious and intermittent situation before, and it was not a ventriloquist as Peng Yushu said, without the feeling of resonating with the abdominal cavity.

At this time, Juan Bei noticed the silver needle in his hand and looked at me in surprise. I hurriedly went over, carefully removed the silver needle, and put it back in the needle box. I knew that in front of a person like Juan Bei, there was no need to go around in circles, but it was better to go straight, so I simply continued to ask him, "Old Hu, did you often appear in your state just now? Do you think that you fell asleep and had a dream, but you yourself may not know your state at that time, your muscles are stiff, your face is very poor, your breath is short, your hands twitch slightly, and even the sound you make is different from now, I don't think this is a normal sleep state." ”

To my surprise, after listening to me, Juan Bei laughed twice: "Mr. Chang, are you treating me as hysteria? If I tell you that I will be in such a state once or twice a day, then am I already very sick?"

I didn't know how to answer Hu Anbei's question at all, and he also saw my embarrassed look, and continued: "I am very grateful to Mr. Chang for treating my illness, but I don't doubt your medical skills, but acupuncture will not have any effect, because this is not a disease at all, nor is it completely a dream, it is a personal learning method for me, right?"

How to learn? This explanation made me completely fall into the fog.

It took about ten minutes for Juan Bei to explain to me the origin of this learning method, but I noticed that his voice was slowly changing, becoming deeper and more hoarse, closer to the way he had spoken when he first entered the door, but he himself was completely unaware of it.

The beginning of his story began with the decentralization of Jiangxi. The first half is basically the same as Peng Yushu's narration, but the back is completely different, I secretly glanced at Peng Yushu, and the second half of the story is obviously the first time he heard it, and he couldn't take his eyes off it, and he was attentive.

After Hu Anbei accidentally ate dumb vegetables in Jiangxi, he found an old Chinese medicine doctor in a nearby town for treatment, although he saved his life, his voice was completely ruined, his voice became hoarse, and it was difficult to speak, which made him depressed for a long time. But he is very grateful to the old Chinese medicine doctor, who prepares some local products for the New Year's holidays and goes to visit.

After going a lot, Juan Bei slowly realized that this old Chinese medicine doctor was very unusual. Jiangxi is the birthplace of Taoism in China, according to legend, Zhang Daoling cultivated into Dan in Longhu Mountain, Jiangxi, and created a school of Taoism, after a thousand years, there are hundreds of Taoist temples here, and the Taoist masters in Taoism have more or less a relationship with Longhu Mountain.

And the old Chinese medicine was a Taoist priest who practiced on Longhu Mountain in the past, surnamed Xue, and was the descendant of Xue Xuanxi, an important figure in Taoism in the Yuan Dynasty. In his later years, he returned to Longhu Mountain to prepare for retreat and cultivation. Where did I think, caught up with the four old, the temple was demolished, the statue was smashed, and the Taoist priests were all driven home, in desperation, Xue Taoist went down the mountain, lived in seclusion in that town, and became an old Chinese medicine doctor to chat to survive.

Xue Daoist has already reached the realm of seeing through mundane things, and he is detached and open-minded, he saw that Hu Anbei was bound to fate and could not extricate himself, and he relieved his depression through tobacco and alcohol, which was by no means a long-term solution, so he often enlightened him, took him up to the mountain to collect medicine, taught him some Chinese medicine theories, and took out some Taoist classics secretly kept in private for him to study.

Hu Anbei originally didn't know anything about religion and had little interest, but he couldn't resist the kindness of Daoist Xue, so he studied with him. Fortunately, when Juan was decentralized, he was not allowed to bring any private books, except for Mao Xuan and a copy of "Red Rock", he had no other books to read, and the place where he was delegated was extremely remote, and there was no place to find other books. Something is better than nothing, Juan Bei patiently began to read Taoist classics of Xue Daoshi.

But after looking at it, Juan Bei found that his previous thinking was too narrow. It can be said that most of the ancient Chinese natural scientists came from Taoism, Yin-Yang family, they may be Taoist priests, onmyoji, Kanyu masters, doctors, scholars, and even politicians. For example, Ge Hong, Zhang Heng, Xu Fu, and Xu Xiake are all like this.

In addition to the content of self-cultivation, refining qi and alchemy, and curing diseases and exorcising evil spirits, Taoist classics also have a large number of explorations of the material world, natural phenomena, and basic science.

Hu Anbei noticed that Taoism is actually a thorough theory of practice, verifying objective phenomena through experiments, but their core idea is to be quiet and inactive, so a strange phenomenon has emerged, that is, to use experimental methods to study nothingness, the study of the unknowable world, the world of ghosts and gods. For thousands of years, alchemists have done just that.

Juan Bei realized that his words might be difficult for us to understand, and deliberately slowed down the already intermittent pace of speech, but every word he uttered was like a silver needle pricking the spine, making my back chill for a while.

But maybe it's because Juan Bei has just finished ten years of unbearable confinement, and he still has lingering palpitations, even if he is a close friend, he doesn't want to go deeper into this sensitive idealistic topic, and he changed his words, and the story returned to Jiangxi.

In the last two years of his stay in Jiangxi, Hu Anbei was almost immersed in Taoist classics, from philosophy to Danshu, from self-cultivation to feng shui.

But whether it is himself or Daoist Xue, in fact, he understands in his heart that Hu Anbei has not let go of everything, at least his love for the drama stage, there is nothing to replace, studying Taoist classics is just a way to relieve depression, and at a deeper level, Hu Anbei is hoping to find a way to find a way to recover his voice from Taoist classics.

Daoist Xue later prepared to accept Hu Anbei as a disciple, hoping that Juan Bei would break off the resentment in his heart through the Taoist cultivation method, and Juan Bei was grateful to Daoist Xue for his frank help and was really ready for mundane things. But at this time, Hu Anbei received a notice to return to Beijing and resume work.

Before Hu Anbei returned to Beijing, he took him to find one of his Taoist friends who lived in seclusion in the mountains, and this Taoist priest hid the secret technique of helping Hu Anbei find the lost voice, which is now what we call ventriloquis.

Hearing this, even in my expectation, there were many doubts beyond my expectations, and I couldn't help interrupting Juan Bei's narration and asked: "Lao Hu, as far as I know, ventriloquism is made by squeezing the diaphragm of the abdominal cavity, but the vocalization method of ventriloquism is completely different from vocal cord vocalization, even if it is a long-term ventriloquist practice, it is impossible to achieve the effect of vocal cord vocalization, but I listen to you, it doesn't look like the ventriloquist used?"

Hu Anbei listened to my question and nodded, "Mr. Chang is right, but Chinese culture is broad and profound, and there are thousands of years of origin, and there are too many secrets in it, too many things that we modern people can't understand and breathtak. For example, we now all think that the ancients took pills for the sake of immortality and to ascend to heaven, while the scholars of the Wei and Jin dynasties took pills, just like our current opium smokers, which was a kind of drug addiction. But if this is the case, why did the ancient alchemists create so many kinds of elixirs and constantly research and improve them? The elixir is actually a medium in the eyes of the alchemists, a medium to connect with the unknown world. Another example is the ventriloquist we talked about, Mr. Chang, do you know what the ancients originally used it for?"

(The husband is good at drowning, and the good rider is falling, each according to his own good, but he is in trouble.) Therefore, those who do good deeds are not unsuccessful, and those who strive for profit are not poor. In the past, the power of the common workers could not touch the mountains of Zhou, so that the land tilted to the southeast. Competing with Gao Xin for the emperor, he lurked in the abyss, the clan was destroyed, and the heirs were extinct. The king of Yue fled from the cave, and the more people smoked out, so he had no choice. From this point of view, the time is not in contention, and the rule is in the Tao, not in the sacred. Under the soil, it is not high, so it is safe but not dangerous, and the water flows, not to compete for the first, so it is not too late. --"Huainanzi")