After several people found the hotel and booked a room, Xiao Peng took Di Wei to the cricket market to see the market, but Yang Meng was too lazy to move and took a shower and rested in the room.

It is said that the cricket market in Ningyang is really too prosperous, at least a few thousand people buy crickets here, and this is still just autumn. In the future, there will only be more, and the Ningyang Cricket Market can have a maximum of 20,000 or 30,000 cricket lovers a day to buy crickets here.

"This cricket is really hot. Di Wei sighed, he is now in a wheelchair, and Xiao Peng pushes him to look around.

Xiao Peng nodded: "Since ancient times, fighting crickets has been regarded as a favorite of the literati, and the calligrapher Huang Tingjian once summed up the 'five virtues' of crickets, which made more literati and scholars like raising crickets, fighting crickets, and even writing poems and praises for it." There is also a story of "Promoting Weaving" in "Strange Tales from Liaozhai". ”

"Five virtues?" Di Wei was puzzled: "What other virtues can this cricket have that can make the literati and writers of ancient times like crickets?"

Xiao Peng snapped his fingers and said: "Generally speaking, there are five points: when you don't lose time, you will believe in it; if you encounter the enemy, you will fight and be brave; if you are seriously injured, you will be loyal; if you are defeated, you will not be silent, and you will be ashamed; if you are cold, you will return to the universe and know the current affairs." Xiao Peng snapped his fingers and said.

Di Wei frowned: "What kind of mess is this?"

Xiao Peng explained: "'When the song is not lost, the letter is also' means that it will call when it arrives, which is to keep promises and stress integrity; 'When encountering the enemy, fight and be brave', it means that two male crickets will definitely fight when they meet together, and they are very brave; 'If you are seriously injured, you will be loyal', which means that the crickets fought to the end, and one leg was bitten off, and no crickets surrendered; 'If you lose, you don't sing, and you know shame' said that the crickets squeak when they win, and they don't say a word when they lose, they know that they are ashamed, and they know shame; and finally' The cold is returned to the universe, and the knowledge of current affairs is also 'This is a bit of a philosophical flavor. ”

"Philosophy?" Di Wei was puzzled.

"Yes, crickets are also called'whooping insects', generally speaking, the life span is more than three months, when it is cold, regardless of male crickets and female crickets, they all burrow into the soil, female crickets lay eggs and die by themselves, male crickets directly do not eat or drink, hunger strike and die. It means that when my life is up, I know the destiny of heaven, I don't make trouble for heaven and earth, I die in the soil, and the corpse is also used as nourishment for the land, turning into spring mud to protect flowers, isn't this knowing the current affairs?"

Di Wei listened to it for a long time, and clapped his hands: "Damn, in this way, it's no wonder that those literati and scholars love to fight crickets." ”

Xiao Peng said: "The key is that you let those scholars who have no power to do anything else, you let them play wrestling?

Di Wei laughed when he heard this: "You haven't said that this ancient method of fighting crickets is different from today?"

"Do you think that if you use the ancient Xu Ziyu cricket jar and cage, then it can be regarded as an ancient method of fighting crickets?" Xiao Peng said disdainfully: "The equipment used alone is very particular, in addition to the cricket jar and the cage, there is also a sink, a semicircular porcelain sink, a diameter of about three centimeters, a height of 0.7 centimeters, and a depth of 0.3 centimeters in the tank. And not all male crickets can fight, just like boxing matches, they have to be weighed before the game, and they have to be according to the weight class. The tool used in weighing is called 'weighing', in fact, it is a scale, the scale rod is made of ivory, thinner than chopsticks, with a small mahogany frame, put the crickets in it to weigh, can be accurate to one ten-thousandth of a tael! Divided into two, money, centi, centimeter, milli, not a millimeter! Generally speaking, a cricket of about six centimeters is normal, and it is the easiest to find a competition opponent. When it comes to eight centimeters, it is a big cricket, and it can be sold at a high price, but it is enjoyable, but it is difficult to find an opponent with the same weight. Now that science and technology are advancing, electronic weighing is used. ”

Di Wei was dumbfounded after hearing this: "This cricket still has so much attention?"

"This is exquisite? This is just the basics, just take betting, who do you think wins and who gets the money? Not really! For example, in a best-of-three game, you can press the first few games to win, what kind of winning combination. There are all kinds of strange tricks. And before the official fight, your crickets can't be raised by themselves, which is afraid that there will be cricket owners to give their crickets stimulants and feed drugs, so five days before the game, both sides of the game have to take out their crickets and give them to a credible notary to raise for you. It takes five days before the fight can begin. It's not regular!" Xiao Peng lit a cigarette and looked at the crickets sold on the side of the road, a small can, this is all money.

Di Wei patted Xiao Peng: "That, I heard that the crickets that live in the cemetery are the most powerful, because they can gnaw on people's corpses, so they are even more powerful, is this true or false?"

"Fake. Xiao Peng directly interrupted Di Wei's fantasy: "The main food of crickets is animal roots, stems, leaves, fruits and seeds, etc., mainly vegetarian, although sometimes they also eat some small spiders or something, but it is caused by being extremely hungry and have no food." Some people catch crickets and raise them, and only feed them spiders and the like, saying that this makes them more fierce, isn't this nonsense? You eat rice every day, and suddenly one day you start eating steamed buns every day, can you adapt to it?"

Di Wei shook his head when he heard this, Xiao Peng continued: "So, it's all false, don't say anything else, just look at this Ningyang, almost all of them are planted with corn, but if you observe it yourself, you will find that the harvest here is not good, and there is often a shortage of seedlings, the reason is very simple, the corn planted here can be said to be for raising crickets, we all know that Ningyang crickets are good, why do people still come here to buy crickets instead of catching crickets?"

Di Wei found this problem at this time: "You don't say that I really haven't found out, yes, just come here and catch crickets directly, why do you want to buy it?"

"You go and try to catch you in the cornfield, and in a while, someone will take a shovel and shoot you out! Are you robbing people of other people's money! Can they let you go?" Xiao Peng said lightly.

"Uh, how do you know?" Di Wei found the key point: "I found that you know a lot about fighting crickets." ”

Xiao Peng sighed: "A few years ago, we wanted to come here to catch crickets and sell them back, but we ended up with a full headbag. ”

Di Wei was stunned: "Are you and Yang Meng?

Xiao Peng's face turned even greener: "Catching the 'wild prow' here is a people's war! The men of the whole village have arrested the two of us, where are we going? That is really a fat beating." "'Wild skids' are people who come here to steal crickets. Thinking of that time now, Xiao Peng still feels that his hairs stand on end.

Di Wei thought about the picture, but also laughed: "Xiao Peng, I think you are very good at fighting crickets, otherwise we will each buy a few 'handfuls' of crickets, go back to fight and play, let's come early tomorrow morning?"

Every morning, the market has the most good crickets and a lot of choices. Like Xiao Peng, they are all picked up by others in the afternoon. Di Wei was planning to stay here for a few days. Pick it every morning. At the very least, you have to make a 'handful' of crickets.

Di Wei just said that the 'put' is the jargon of playing crickets, a 'hand' is ten small cans, a small jar of one cricket, now there are those who love to play crickets, and in an autumn, they can play hundreds of 'hand'. Buy crickets with good fighting spirit and strong combat effectiveness, it is a delicate job to raise, feed to feed specially configured feed, drink water to drink the drop of dew on the tip of the grass, and even hire people to collect this dew, and even hire special people to raise crickets. Of course, it is not something that can be hired casually, but a professional 'cricket'. It is also an industry that has been handed down from ancient times to the present day.

Xiao Peng hasn't fought crickets for a long time, and when he saw Ningyang seeing so many crickets, he naturally felt itchy in his heart, so he just said that he would do it, Di Wei directly bought a glass bucket, Xiao Peng plucked a few yellow wolf grasses casually, and bought twenty crickets for ten yuan each, gathered two, loaded two handfuls into two hand-held woven baskets, and the two went back to the hotel to fight crickets.

The shape of the glass basin resembles a 400-meter track in a sports field, with round ends. A glass gate in the middle, the crickets to fight are placed on both sides, first use the yellow wolf grass to pick the head whiskers of the cricket, so that it is more aggressive, when the teasing is almost, open the gate, and the two crickets will bite together.

The two of them were fighting and playing, and they didn't pay so much attention to it, and they didn't weigh it before the fight, anyway, there were no big crickets, it looked like they were between six and seven centimeters, and they just played while fighting, but just like that, Xiao Peng also killed Di Wei and lost his armor, this Di Wei is a pure layman.

Like before the cricket fights, Xiao Peng is used to put the cricket in his hand, let it crawl upward, and when he climbs to the head, the other hand is connected to let it continue to crawl, which is called 'swimming cricket', just like a person is going to carry out intense exercise, do a preparatory activity; after the cricket enters the bucket, the technique of teasing the tentacles of the cricket with yellow wolf grass is also very particular, and the touch of the master can make the cricket feel the challenge of the enemy, become very excited, flap its wings and chirp loudly, and rush forward to move, showing the posture of fighting the enemy. But the novice's touch will make the cricket feel that the natural enemy is approaching, and before the fight starts, his momentum has lost more than half!

The result of a layman like Di Wei teasing an insect is likely to be that after the gate is opened, the crickets do not bark and cannot open their teeth. In the game, if you don't open your teeth within the specified time, you will be directly judged to lose.

As the saying goes, 'seven points of insect products, three points of recuperation', and because of the rules of negative judgment, many rich people who play crickets will hire special grass masters to help them tease the crickets to participate in the competition, and the appearance fee of good grass masters is very high! They can make the fighting spirit of crickets high.

Compared with Di Wei twice, in the end, Xiao Peng's result was 19 wins and 1 draw, and the game was still two insects that couldn't open their teeth, and Xiao Peng couldn't help it when he encountered such a coward.

Xiao Peng put the insect jar aside: "Di Wei, are you still playing with people at your level?

Di Wei blinked: "Xiao Peng, Brother Peng, can you teach me how to fight crickets?"

Xiao Peng stretched: "I'm lazy, you go to find Mengzi, he can play cricket better than me." ”