At the foot of the mountain, the wine shop was very simple, with only two black thatched stoves, and two pillars of gray and white smoke rose behind the house, which were blown by the mountain wind, and the air was suddenly filled with a dry fire emitted by the burning of wet wheat straw. A few pieces of wood supported the black tents on their heads, and a dozen scorn mats were connected along the two huts, barely able to shelter from the sun and the wind. On the mud floor surrounded by wood and mats, there were four or five wooden tables and a dozen stools. The tables and stools were still white, apparently freshly used; There were two pieces of wood that had not even been stripped of their ochre-brown bark; The sunlight poured in through the hole in the smeak piece, and the small, straight pillars of light could be seen clearly even in this bright daylight.

A young man had already arrived at the foot of the mountain, and when he saw Yuan Lan from a distance, he began to greet him: "Do you want to rest your feet?" The small shop has noodles, rice and meat, and the tea is free to use and does not charge money. There is also a self-brewed mountain fruit wine, which is somewhat famous near and far, do you want to try it? ”

Yuan Lan didn't speak. The chief steward of the pack team had already come over and asked, "There are so many of us and dozens of pack horses, can you have enough forage here?" ”

"Absolutely no problem. We opened a store to do the business of the merchants up and down the mountain, and the big merchants from the south to the north have received I don't know how many times, and it has long been a familiar business that can no longer be cooked. The old Wang's house in Quzhou and the Liu Ji Warehouse in Yanshan are all going back and forth with us for dinner, and even the big merchants in Shangjing Pingyuan Mansion are willing to take a long detour to beat us here! ”

The nonsense that the guy in the wine shop came with his mouth open not only made the chief steward look good, but even a few packers around him covered their mouths and laughed, but Yuan Lan asked with a straight face: "There are also merchants in Beijing who come to you?" Toad yawns so much! Let me ask you, who are the merchants who have passed by you? ”

A few people in front of him laughed strangely, and the pack team behind came again, and the battle of twenty or thirty people and nearly a hundred horses made the wine shop guys both overjoyed and couldn't help but hesitate in their hearts. Seeing that Yuan Lan, who was the best dressed among them, asked, he bowed slightly and said: "Qibaohao, Luoyang Dazhuang, Huiji Warehouse, Yongshengchang and Donglaisheng in Shangjing have all sat in the shop, and even the three elements of Quanzhou have also eaten in the shop......

Yuan Lan was amused by his words, so he touched a small object from his arms and threw it to the sharp-toothed wine shop guy. This series of names are all well-known big businesses in the world, and Yongshengchang is the business of his Yuan family, and this small village wine shop that has just set up its face for less than half a year dares to say that they have taken over these big buyers? Even the deputy steward of the pack team who had just arrived was amused by this young man who was full of nonsense, and was about to open his mouth to reprimand, Yuan Lan waved his hand and said, "He is not wrong, Yongshengchang has indeed sat here." As soon as the two stewards came to their senses. It seems that Yuan Lan has made up his mind to rest in this country shop. If the pack team was still in the mountains, the two stewards would definitely dissuade Yuan Lan from doing so when the surrounding situation was unknown, but now that the most dangerous part of the road had been walked, and the state capital was close at hand, the two of them didn't want to blow the will of the big Yuan Da merchant at this time. The two glanced at each other, and the chief steward hurriedly beckoned the packer to move the goods down from the pannier and gather them together, let the horses chew and drink water and eat grass to rest their horsepower, and arranged things for a few people and told them to take care of them, and the deputy steward and an entourage of Yuan Da merchants went to the stove room to see the materials and order vegetables and fruits.

The guy at the wine shop took the small object thrown to him by Yuan Lan and saw that it was a golden bean that was slightly smaller than the tail finger, and he immediately narrowed his eyes into a slit with joy, and handed it over with a basket of clumsy greeting words in his mouth: "No wonder the magpie was calling in the treetops early this morning, it turned out that a distinguished guest came to the door...... I stood here all morning, waiting for you. Just now I complained about the magpie, the morning just dawned to report the good news, why the distinguished guests have not arrived, just said go up the mountain to see, you are here......" He got a piece of gold, and his brain has become a puddle of paste, and his words do not match the words before and after, and the wind is leaking in all directions. Yuan Lan didn't care, dusted off the dirt on the upper of his shoes and stomped his feet, so Shi Shiran went into the tent to find a clean table with ventilation and coolness to sit on, took a sip of tea and rinsed his mouth, while talking to the guy at the wine shop who had been going around beside him to offer courtesy, while watching the entourage wash the tea set he brought with boiling water. After washing the tea set, the entourage took a small package of tea densely wrapped in oil paper from the small purse beside him, poured it into it with the spices of the tea leaves, washed it with boiling water and then poured out the first pot of water, and then added boiling water to make tea, and then poured the fragrant tea into a mutton fat-like glossy white fist eye cup.

"So you haven't seen any of the big merchants in Beijing you just mentioned?"

The guy in the wine shop had already seen the words "Yixian Liu Ji" on the unloaded sack, and knew that his words had long been seen through, but he still accompanied Yuan Lan with a hippie smile, and when he asked, he said: "The big merchants in Beijing have indeed not seen it twice, but the three elements of Quanzhou have seen it a few times, and among them there is a Persian beard with a high nose, blue eyes, and curly hair, so they can be recognized at a glance." ”

"Persian Hu is also common in Shangjing, how do you know that they are the people of the Five Elements?"

"Listen to them. The beards who came from Shangjing and could speak Chinese all wore Shangjing accents, although the words were not round, but the tone of Shangjing would not change. Even if those Quanzhou beards speak our Central Plains dialect, they also have the soft and collapsed energy of Jiangnan people, and there are two turns in three sounds, and if you are not careful, you can't understand what they are saying at all. Last time, a Quanzhou beard wanted to drink water, and my father went to the stove room to clip a piece of coal for him......"

Hearing this, Yuan Lan took a sip of tea and sprayed it all on his straight shirt, laughing so much that he hooked his waist and controlled his back and couldn't breathe, and pointed a finger at the guy in the wine shop, but he couldn't say a word. The attendant was next to him and hammered him on the back, and he was also laughing and shrugging his shoulders.

But the man continued to tell the story as if he were all right: "The beard opened his mouth, pointed to his mouth with one hand, and said, 'Water, water.'" If I hadn't stopped him quickly, my father would have stuffed coal into his mouth......"

Yuan Lan was already laughing so hard that he fell to his feet, and his entourage also squatted on the ground with his stomach covered, and he screamed angrily. Finally stopping laughing, he took a gauze from his side to wipe his tears, rubbed his eyes and asked, "What else is interesting?" Let's listen to it, it's good to listen to and there is a reward. ”

The guy salivated and smiled: "Yes, yes, I'm afraid that the guests have already heard about it." ”

"You say it, come and hear it. If you have heard it, it doesn't hurt to listen to it again......" Yuan Lan waved his chin at the guy, and the entourage immediately took out a string of copper coins from his arms and threw them on the table with a clatter.

The guy looked at the string of money, afraid that there would be a hundred and ten yuan, so he swallowed his spit and said, "The guest is here to beat Yan Shanwei, right?" I don't know if you've heard of Yan Shanwei, that big monk Zhang? As soon as he said this, Yuan Lan became interested, drank all the tea in the jade cup, and said, "Let's hear it." He had only heard of the "Shangda Monk", and the story of the "Zhang Da Monk" had indeed not heard of it. "If you say it well, there will be a reward." As he spoke, he turned his head and glanced at Shang Cheng's busy back in the shade of the tree from a distance, do you want to invite the great monk over to listen together? This thought flashed through his mind, and he immediately subconsciously denied it. No matter what, a packer is not qualified to sit at a table with him, even if the packer was a great monk half a year ago......

The guy didn't sell it, and immediately told the story he had just heard about it in detail: "...... In this way, Monk Zhang Da strangled two vicious wolves with his bare hands, and then cut open the wolf's stomach to rescue the father and daughter who were eaten by the wolf. He also commented, "These two fathers and daughters are usually good men and women who are devout to the Buddha, otherwise, they would not have met the great monk......" Seeing that Yuan Lan and his entourage were a little distracted, he hurriedly said, "Guest, you must know that this is a real person, a real thing that happened to Yan Shanwei this year." If you dare to have half a sentence in this story, you can tear down my wine shop! My brother-in-law only came back from Yanzhou last month, and he just met Monk Zhang Da at Fuhu Temple in Yanzhou. Boy! Listening to my brother-in-law, Monk Zhang Da is fat and fat, with a white face, and a kind appearance that smiles at any time, like the Maitreya Buddha in the temple. People say that he was originally the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha......"

Fat and chubby white face? Yuan Lan laughed again: "Okay, good story!" You say it better! White-faced obese? Ha ha...... Give him another string of money! …… Hahaha...... After listening to it so many times, you can count it as the best! The attendant also covered his mouth and cooed.

Shang Cheng, who didn't know that he had been reincarnated as Maitreya Buddha, was busy with his companions at this time. More than 80 pack horses carried nearly 300 sacks of all sizes, and when they were unloaded and put together, they could make everyone sweat. Besides, they hadn't eaten a full meal in the past few days, and they all relied on one breath to hold on, looking at the smoke wafting behind the stove of the wine shop, smelling the increasingly rich aroma of steamed wheat cakes, and listening to the clanging and clattering of the spatula in the iron pot, and they all swallowed saliva with hunger. Shang Cheng was even more hungry. He was tall, and the amount of food he ate was naturally larger than that of others, but in the past five days, he had been like others, and he could only get half a piece of wheat cake smaller than his palm to satisfy his hunger, and he had just unloaded a dozen truckloads of goods in a row, and he was already hungry and sweating, and even his steps became frivolous, and his legs were as soft as stepping on a ball of cotton when he walked.

Fortunately, Zhao Shishi looked at his face and sensed that something was wrong, and when the steward sent things to Shang Cheng again, he took over most of the heavy work, and when Shang Cheng didn't want to take a hand, he also deliberately let Shang Cheng rest more.

After a busy time, all kinds of cakes, soups, porridge, meat, vegetables, and drinks in the stove room were moved out one after another by the wine shop guys. There were many packers, and there were a few merchants, all of whom had one or two retinues, and the tables under the tent were immediately insufficient. Fortunately, the packers are all from poor backgrounds, not so poor and exquisite, even Shang Cheng, all the packers are holding a few breads and buns in one hand, and a bowl of hot soup in the other, squatting under the tree by the shed to eat and drink happily. The broth is covered with a layer of hot oil that makes people greedy when they look at it, and a few green onions are sprinkled with green onions, which float on the oily soup noodles, which makes people happy when they look at it; Bai Shengsheng's half-fingered thick fat slices are available as you go, take a bite of hot oil and flow all over your mouth, and then chew a bite of bread, the taste is that even a fairy is unwilling to do it. Wine is also available, and there are three wooden barrels on the wooden table next to the shed, and in the barrels are turbid yellow fruit wine. There are a few empty bowls scattered around the barrel, whoever wants to drink can go over and drink, take the bowl and scoop a bowl into the barrel, keep the bucket to drink, and bring it to the side to take a sip of steamed bun and a sip of soup and a sip of wine. However, except for three or five gluttonous guys who went to the side with a wine bowl to have a drinking addiction, most of the packers just drank a bowl and a half bowl to kill wine insects, and here they just hit a point, and they had to travel a long way in the afternoon, delaying the journey of the pack team, which meant that they would be deducted from the wages of the warehouse! That's something no one wants to do! Besides, everyone has the reward money sent by the merchants in their pockets, and when they get to Quzhou City to pay their jobs, they can't drink as much as they want? At that time, let alone drinking a bowl of wine, even if you went to the liao village to find a woman to sleep with, no one would pay attention to it......

Shang Cheng didn't drink either, just drank the broth and ate the cake with his head down. Shan Wazi and Zhao Shishi found a place to connect, and asked the guy for two big bowls, and asked the stove room to get a bowl of pickled pickles and a bowl of fried vegetables with sliced meat. According to Zhao Shishi, this kind of water-like home-brewing, this kind of small bowl without a fist, even if you drink ten bowls or twenty bowls, you may not be able to teach people to shake it. Shang Cheng reserved his own opinion on this set of rhetoric. The wine shop sells homebrew to the packers with a very light taste, but the bowl of wine is a few sizes bigger than the fist of the lean Zhao Shishi, right? Even the fists of the mountain baby can't compare to the bowl of the bowl, his own fists...... Of course, his fist is indeed one size bigger than that bowl.

Just when he squeezed his fist and compared it with the bowl in his hand repeatedly, there were suddenly two drums in his ears, and when he looked up, he didn't know when, a donkey had been tied to the outside of the wine shop, and a woman wearing a blue Luo long skirt and light green muslin trousers had been standing under the contempt seat, holding a thin drumstick with three fingers in one hand, and two yellow and shiny metal pieces between the middle finger and ring finger of the index finger in the other hand, and was fiddling with the wooden frame built by the three wooden sticks of the drum.

Boom Boom Boom ...... Dangdangdang......

After arranging the small drum, the woman first squatted down to greet a few merchants who were sitting at the table drinking and eating, and then asked, "What kind of music do the guests want to hear?" This woman's voice is soft and tactful, with a hint of sonority, like a circle of ripples in a pool of clear water, which makes people feel comfortable to listen to. This group of merchants followed the caravan on the road for more than ten days, even a middle-aged person like Yuan Lan had long been so tired that there was no bone in the whole body that did not hurt or swell, and now listened to the words of the woman, and was glanced at by the woman with a low eyebrow and a smile, all of them were like drinking a bowl of bayberry soup with ice cubes in dog days, which made people cool from the internal organs to the pores of the body.

The most noble status on these tables is naturally Yuan Da Merchant, but in terms of age, the chief steward of the pack team is the oldest, so the two of them pushed a few times, but the chief steward pushed but did not fall, and did not know who was good and who was taboo in this seat, so he said to the woman: "You sing a good song to listen." ”

"The best "Queqiao Club"."

"Just listen to it." The archsteward said. After speaking, he brought a wine bowl and was about to invite everyone to drink together, but he felt that someone was dragging him under the table, so he changed his words quietly, "However, "Queqiao Club" is an old song that has been sung for decades, and I am familiar with it. Are there any new songs? As he spoke, he glanced at everyone at the table, and saw that everyone's original indispensable expressions had improved a little.

"The only new song is "Monk Zhang Fights the Wolf with His Bare Hands". This is a new song that has only recently come from Yanshan, and I don't know if the guests have heard it or not. It is rumored that the master of the slave family song said that the story told in this song is the real story of Yan Shanwei. ”

Before the chief steward could speak, Yuan Lan had already taken the lead in applauding: "Okay!" Good! Just listen to this, just listen to this "Monk Zhang Fights the Wolf with His Bare Hands"! The rest of the merchants have only heard "Shang Monk Fights Evil Wolf with His Bare Hands", and some have heard more than one version, seeing that the prototype of the record book is wrapped in a group of packers outside the wine shop, they even coaxed and laughed, and said: "You should sing this song!" Singing well is rewarded! ”

Yuan Lan didn't let the woman sing it right away, but only asked: "The master who taught you the tune, did he tell you that this monk Zhang is a fat man with a white round face, and he is the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha?" He glanced at the guy at the barn. The man craned his neck and hid in the stove.

The singing woman was surprised: "Ah! So the guest has heard this tune? Master Chuanqu said the same thing at the time. The slave family originally didn't believe it, but the cousin of the slave family went to Yanzhou the month before last and saw Monk Zhang Da on the altar to preach in the Fuhu Temple in Yanzhou, he saw it really clearly, Monk Zhang Da was indeed a big fat man with a white face, and a kind smile on his face was exactly the same as the Maitreya Bodhisattva in the temple. ”

Yuan Da merchants had already heard this story, but the "brother-in-law of the wine shop guy" became "the cousin of the singing woman", and the rest of the merchants and their entourage and the packer all opened their mouths to listen to the woman's crisp and crisp story, when they heard that "Zhang Da Monk" was a white-faced fat man, first Qi Shushu turned his gaze to the tall and strong Shang Cheng, and then Qi Shushu looked at the woman, and then laughed. A young merchant laughed and took out a silver cake from his bosom, slapped it on the table and shouted, "Good! I love listening to big fat people's tunes! Sing! No matter how good or bad you sing, this silver is yours! ”

The current price of three taels of silver can be exchanged for more than 7,000 yuan, and in normal times, even if this singing woman sings for three or five months, she may not be able to have such an income, and she is already smiling. Seeing that the guest was so generous, she hurriedly squatted down and bowed to the young guest alone, got up and cleared her throat, and struck the thin drumstick on the edge of the drum, and with a snap, the laughing crowd around her gradually fell silent.

The drumsticks slammed three times in a row, and then hit the drum one by one! Immediately followed by Dangdangdang...... The iron sheet sounded twelve times in a row, and the drum stopped one by one

"Ya Yi Yi"

A sharp voice like tearing brocade suddenly soared into the sky, and in an instant, everyone's breath couldn't help but suffocate, only to feel that the eyes seemed to be dark, and the clouds, waters, green mountains and green trees all turned into distorted dreams in this sound.

This "opening sound" is the prelude to all "singing books" in the world, but the sound is so clear and high, but all the audience are sideways, even Yuan Lan, a self-proclaimed well-informed person, can't help but admire......

Everyone else listened to it as if they were drunk, but Shang Cheng couldn't understand a word, except for the occasional sigh of emotion, the other words were all blackened, except for ignorance, only ignorance. However, this song is still long, the singing woman holds the drum in her hand and holds the iron bell, suddenly stands on the left side of the small drum and twists her eyebrows, suddenly stands on the right side of the small drum and looks panicked, and then stands behind the small drum for a while, her demeanor is serene, the words in her mouth are slow and fast, and the words are tight and relaxed, and occasionally the drum sound is dense like rain hitting the plantain, and suddenly the bell sound is dense and almost indistinguishable. Everyone at the table, together with the packers who crowded under the shed, were all fascinated by the intoxication, and with the speed of the drums, the expressions on everyone's faces were also fierce and nervous......

“…… Yo one by one! ”

finally waited until the woman finished singing a song, but this "tail" was plain and serene, never dragging mud and water.

The young merchant who was the first to take out the money closed his eyes and thought about it for a long time, and then said, "It's just like that. ”

Yuan Lan wiped the sweat on his forehead and nose with a handkerchief, shook his head and said: "In previous years, I also listened to the oil lady's singing in Shangjing, thinking that it was the world's best singing, but today I learned that the oil lady does not suffer from unaccompanied!" …… Your woman's singing book is comparable to that of an oil lady! "Saying that, I touched it a few times in my arms, and it took a long time to take out a jade formula, and I held it in my hand and stroked it twice, and it seemed that I was a little reluctant, and finally put the jade formula on the table and pushed it out." I'll give you this jade trick! ”