After more than 20 minutes of driving, finally, at the mouth of an old alley, under a towering locust tree, the car stopped.

Older doesn't mean dilapidated or dirty, in fact, it's much more beautiful than the high-rise buildings in the city centre. Red bricks and green tiles, shady ancient trees, and vegetation planted on both sides of the road, which looks neat and clean, full of literary and artistic atmosphere with a sense of age.

Especially now the time is the cold winter wax moon, there is still heavy snow in the sky, although the plants are withered, but the snow instead of red flowers and green leaves, embellished with another foggy beauty.

This should be the only remaining shantytown in the entire Tianjin City, and most of the people living in it are the same people in the opera circle. You sing Peking Opera here, I sing drums here, you talk about cross talk in the morning, I talk about books in the afternoon, everyone in the neighborhood and eats by craftsmanship, no one delays anyone, but they are all happy together......

The old house of the Zhou Shan family is located at the entrance of the alley, and it is the third room from the left. This is a courtyard house, originally Zhou Shan's family only owned one of the rooms, but later, when the special period was over, Liu Chuanyuan, Ma San and others returned to Tianjin, and the entire courtyard was taken down and given to the master's widow to live in.

Zhou Shan has a son and a daughter, and now the son is no longer alive and has no heirs. My daughter's family also lives abroad and hasn't been back for many years.

Therefore, this courtyard house has already passed through the name of Liuyanghe. Either let him live, or let him help manage it, so that if one day the people of the Zhou family return to China, they can still have a place to live......

Supporting the old man, the family of four got out of the car. The people in Zhou's house had been waiting for a long time at this time, and when they saw the old man appear, they hurriedly greeted him.

"Congratulations, brother."

"Old man, congratulations to you."

"Yo, Mr. Liu, you're in a good state today."

"Uncle Liu, you are blessed."

Everyone gathered around Yanagawa Hara, talking and laughing, and walked towards the courtyard together.

As soon as I walked to the gate of the courtyard, another group of peers greeted me. At the head was a lean old man in a black cotton coat, the old man had a short beard, a gray beard, and a somewhat long face with some age spots on it. It is said to be age spots, but in fact, they were present when they were young.

This lean old man is Taishan Beidou in the cross talk circle, half of the country, Liu Chuanyuan's hair child, Ma San. Ma San's age is actually four years older than Yanagawa Hara, but he still looks very strong and walks with the wind.

"Here it is".

"Yes, here we are. Senior brother, you have worked hard! ”

After the two old men met, their hands were clasped together. They didn't say much, and at the same time they were a little speechless and choked.

In retrospect, the two brothers haven't seen each other for more than ten years, and the last time they met was when Liu La was born.

The two of them retired together 20 years ago. After retiring, one lived in Tianjin and the other lived in Beijing, so it was not very convenient to move around with each other, and they relied on phone calls during the New Year's holidays.

The children and grandchildren of the two families often gather, Ma Sanye gave birth to four sons, the youngest of whom is also in his forties this year, all of whom are engaged in the art of quyi.

And Liu Chuan's principle is to be old, he only had Liu Yanghe in his forties, and the baby is like something. It is precisely because of his doting that Liu Yanghe failed to inherit his father's business, because the old man always felt that learning art was too hard and was reluctant to let him be tired.

Liu Yanghe's mother died very early, and Liu Chuanyuan had to take him with him wherever he performed in his early years. Therefore, he grew up in the background since he was a child, and he was basically held and coaxed by Ma San's sons every day, and the relationship was naturally extraordinary......

It took nearly half an hour on the road, and there was a delay at the door, so it was almost 11:50 a.m.

"Dad, Uncle Liu, it's almost here." Ma San's eldest son glanced at his watch, then walked over and whispered to the two old men.

Hearing the reminder that the time was coming, the two brothers knew that the auspicious time could not be delayed, so they hurriedly walked towards the main hall of the courtyard hand in hand. Seeing this, the others also followed closely behind the two.

In the main hall, at this time, all the things that could be used were already equipped. Red duck and white meat, roasted yellow wine, pig's head and oxtail, these sacrificial objects are placed on the table one by one. There is an incense burner at the head, and behind it is the cross talk ancestor "not afraid of poverty" Zhu Shaowen, as well as the tablet of the master Zhou Shan.

Today's presiding over the apprenticeship ceremony is a senior master in the circle, this person is actually incapable, the reason why he can preside, there is no other reason, it is because of the age.

Ma Sanye represented the master today, so as soon as he entered the room, he sat on the chair in the middle of the hall.

There were also several rows of chairs on both sides of the room, and seeing this, the others did not need to arrange them, so they naturally walked over and sat down in order of seniority and status. There were not enough chairs, and a few half-sized children who were brought by the master to watch the excitement had to stand at the back reluctantly.

The older host, while observing the time, whispered to Yanagawa Hara what he would pay attention to later. By the time he said it was almost done, it was just right that the time had finally come.

"Be careful, don't go on a business trip." After instructing the old man again, the host put away his smiling face and began to be serious.

There was a cymbal next to the table where the tablets and offerings were placed, and the host walked over slowly, picked up a small hammer and struck it lightly three times.

"Bell, bell." After three crisp sounds, the whole room instantly fell silent, and everyone's eyes turned to the host.

"Worship the ancestors." With the host's words, all the people who had just sat down stood up again, and followed the host to bow and buckle the tablet of "not afraid of poverty". Every time they accept apprentices, there is such a process, and they are used to it.

After worshipping Master Zu, it is time for the highlight of the day, Old Man Liu has apprenticed.

However, before apprenticing, the host still has to say according to the rules left by the ancestors: "The ancestor is above, and now there are three generations of descendants to accept apprentices, whether to reward this bowl of rice or not, please make it clear to the grandfather." If you agree to incense, you will burn, and if you don't, incense will be broken. ”

As his words fell, Ma San picked up three sticks of incense from the table and handed them to Yanagawa Hara.

And after Yanagawa Hara received it, he hurriedly lit the incense and inserted it on the incense burner. In this process, if the incense is successfully lit, it means that the ancestor has agreed to it. But if the incense is broken, it means that Master Zu doesn't want to reward you with this bowl of rice.

To be honest, this is pure deception, can there be a little incense that doesn't burn? If it really doesn't burn, what does Master Zu think of you and say it, anyway, the incense seller will definitely have an enmity with you.

Sure enough, this time, like countless times before, as soon as the incense touched the flames, it immediately lit up, and it was very vigorous, and Old Man Liu hurriedly inserted it on the incense burner.

Once this step is complete, the moderator nods and moves on to the next step. He slowly said to everyone: "Master Zu has appeared, and he has now agreed to enter Yanagawa Hara. Before entering my door, friends and colleagues, can you give advice, can you not be convinced? ”

His words are of the same nature as the one at the wedding, and according to the normal situation, everyone must have no objection after asking, so they can move on to the next item.

However, what is unexpected is that after the host's words were asked this time, there was a difference.

As soon as his words fell, a relatively sharp voice came from the crowd below: "When you say this, I really have some doubts and want to ask, so I'll say a few words for my colleagues." If you can't get there, don't forget your heart, Old Man Liu! ”

As soon as this voice appeared, the host was stunned, and Ma Sanye's face also changed color.

The owner of the voice is called Jiang Bo, who is a representative cross talk actor of the new generation. said that he was a new generation, but in fact, he had to be forty or fifty years old.

This person and Yanagawa have a feud, a few years ago, the old man was a judge of a cross talk competition. Among the contestants at that time were Jiang Bo's apprentices.

Jiang Bo actually has no ability at all, he just relied on a cross talk to go to the Spring Festival Gala, and then began to take this cross talk to stages across the country to perform and fool the audience.

You wonder, how big is China? He plays several towns every year, and he may not be able to complete half the map until he dies......

The master is at this level, and the apprentice can be good. In addition, Old Man Liu is also straightforward, and after watching the performance, he directly gave Jiang Bo's apprentice a bad review, and his words were quite ugly. From that day on, even if this Jiang Bo had a feud with the old man, he was always looking for trouble on various occasions.

But no one really thought that on such an occasion today, he would dare to make trouble. You know, Old Man Liu is already in this situation, and it is his last wish before he dies, and it is too much for you to follow TM to stir up.

For a moment, everyone's eyes looked at Jiang Bo with a little disgust.

This Jiang Bo was in a very good mood, unmoved, and continued: "Accept apprentices on behalf of the teacher? You're all here to play today! What, how to stick to the pillar incense, you are Zhou Shan's apprentice, and you will become our grandfather's, it's a bit too funny. According to your method, then I will be incense, and I can still be an apprentice who is not afraid of poverty, and you will have to kowtow to me? Not quite suitable? Right? ”

After Jiang Bo's words were finished, he spread his hands and sat down again. The faces of several old men were so angry with him, if it weren't for his daughter-in-law to stop him, Liu Yanghe would have wanted to go up and pick people up.

"Not suitable? What's not appropriate? However, at this time, suddenly, someone in the crowd picked up Jiang Bo's words, and it seemed that he was going to complain about Old Man Liu.

This is a relatively young cross talk artist, about thirty years old, not tall, slightly fat, and dark-skinned. He had shaved his hair very short, and the top of his head was deliberately left in the shape of a peach. The man sat in the back row of chairs, and his status didn't look too high.

Liu La has been following Old Man Liu to support him, and from the sound of this little black fat man's voice, Liu La felt that this movement was very familiar. And when I saw this person's face, the sense of familiarity was even stronger, but I just couldn't remember who he was.

And Jiang Bo smiled after hearing the words of this little black fat man's rhetorical question: "What's the matter, Master Guo, do you have a teaching?" He said this with mockery.

However, when Liu La heard the three words of Guo Banzhu, her body couldn't help but feel excited.

"Oh, me" couldn't help it, Liu La scolded in a low voice. He finally recognized who this little black fat man was, wasn't he the Chinese non-famous cross talk actor Guo Gang, who was so popular in later generations......