On the cloth wall next to the theater, there are many posters painted, there are costume characters, there are magic tricks, there are Chinese, there are also Westerners with high noses and deep eyes, the flowers and greenery are very eye-catching, Shi Suo and Dafeng are full of curiosity, pay for the play, and hurriedly walk inside.

Inside, the curtain was pulled on the stage, it seemed that the play had not started, two guys carrying the gongs were shouting and drinking to maintain order, and a middle-aged man turned out of the backstage and walked up to the guys, with a smile on his face, and whispered something.

This middle-aged man was wearing a long shirt, looking like the head of the class, when he turned out of the backstage, Shi Suo felt familiar, stunned for a moment, and then remembered that this person was in Baoding, and he and Hu Xuan rescued the troupe master Hua Jinxiu.

It turned out that this was Hua Jinxiu's troupe, Shi Suo was happy for a while, and squeezed over from the crowd to say hello, "Hey, Hua Class Master, hello." ”

Hua Jinxiu was stunned for a moment, saw Shi Suo, and said in surprise: "It's you, brother, you also came to see the play." ”

A guy carrying a gong said to Hua Jinxiu a little impatiently: "Hurry up, what nonsense." ”

Shi Suo wondered, how could a guy talk to the class master like this, and when Hua Jinxiu spoke to the guy just now, he had a smile on his face, looking respectful, just like a slave talking to his master, what the hell is going on? I saw Hua Jinxiu nodding at herself, making a look, and while the guy was not paying attention, she pointed to the corner of the backstage with her hand.

Shi Suo understood, nodded, and Hua Jinxiu turned around and hurried away.

The big drama began, sang a flower drum opera, sang a Huangmei opera, and then sang a piece of Huangmei opera, and then went on a puppet opera, miscellaneous, the people in the audience have never seen such a singing, applauding, laughing, but full of excitement. Shi Suo, Dafeng, and Professor Wan bit their ears for a while, then squeezed through the crowd and walked to the backstage, the stage was not high, it was built with wooden planks, and the stage was a place for drum accompaniment.

Hua Jinxiu squatted on the edge of the stage, with a sad face, the stone lock came out from under the wooden platform, Hua Jinxiu saw him, looked around, stretched out his hand to pull him onto the stage, and said to the two accompaniment musicians next to him: "Lao Zhang Lao Li, you look at it." ”

Several musicians nodded, and gathered together, blocking the flower brocade and the stone lock with their figures. Shi Suo asked in a low voice, "What's going on?" ”

"We've kidnapped."

"Huh?"

Hua Jinxiu said: "If you are free, go to the corner outside and wait for me, I will pretend to relieve myself and go and talk to you." ”

"Okay."

The two said a few words, and when they saw a guy with horizontal eyebrows coming over, Hua Jinxiu quickly got up and left, and Shi Suo also stepped down from the stage under the cover of the musician, blended into the crowd, and quietly returned to the front.

At this time, on the stage, Western tricks were being performed, several mirrors were placed on the stage, two actors were sitting on both sides of the stage, the curtain was opened, and the heads of the two actors were suddenly gone, appearing on the table next to them.

The audience was in an uproar, seeing two bodies sitting on chairs, with no heads around their necks, and two heads on the table three feet away, opening their mouths to laugh, the audience was amazed for a while, in fact, this is just a simple optical refraction phenomenon, using a mirror to refract light, making people have the illusion that their heads have moved, but in fact, the heads of the two actors have not moved at all, and they grow well on their necks.

When Shi Suo returned to Professor Wan and Dafeng, he unexpectedly found that Tie Guan Li's daughter Li Mei was laughing with Dafeng, and he greeted happily, "Little Li Mei, you are also here." ”

"Who is small," Li Mei said unconvinced, "You are a big stone lock." ”

"Where's your dad?"

"My dad has something to do, he went to do his own errands, I want to watch a play, so I stayed here, who knew that I met you by coincidence, and I also met a new sister Dafeng." Li Mei said happily.

Shi Suo couldn't talk to Li Mei, and told Professor Wan about Hua Jinxiu, Professor Wan said: "I also see that something is wrong, Dafeng, you and Xiaomei are here to watch the play, Shi Suo and I have to go out." ”

The play on the stage is still singing, but the actors who performed on the stage have a perfunctory feeling, and they don't work hard, and they hurriedly finish the scene, and then they get off the stage, but fortunately, the play has a variety of tricks, which makes people feel novel, and the audience still applauds.

Professor Wan and Shi Suo came out of the theater and waited at the corner of the wall, after a while, Hua Jinxiu hurriedly walked over and glanced at them, and the three of them followed each other and walked to a remote corner, Shi Suo asked anxiously: "What's the matter, who kidnapped you?" ”

"Alas," Hua Jinxiu sighed, "In these years, there is really no way for the poor to live, originally we relied on selling art to make a living, who would have thought that we were bullied everywhere, a few days ago, when I was acting, I met Wang Laoba......"

"Wang Laoba, are you a bandit?" Stone Lock asked.

"Yes, this kid is fierce and domineering, people call him 'Wang Ba' behind his back, I originally thought that spending a few dollars would make him raise his hand, the general bandits only need money, don't want to die, and it's not difficult to be a performer, the same is a Jianghu person, talk about the friendship of a comrade......"

"You're wrong," Professor Wan interrupted, "It depends on who you meet, and some of them rise up because of poverty, but they don't lose their integrity." And some people who make a living by robbing homes and houses, have a broken conscience, and do all kinds of evil, what kind of friendship do they talk to you? ”

"Yes," Hua Jinxiu nodded, "I offered the 'filial piety' money, but Wang Laoba still didn't stick around, arrested us, and guarded us with several other team members, forcing us to act, of course, the money from the income belonged to him, and we became his slaves one by one." ”

"There are so many of you, don't you resist?"

"It's difficult, although there are many people, but everyone is not a group, they have not worked together before, it is difficult to work together, some people dare not speak out, some people have their own hearts, everyone is bullied and oppressed by Wang Laoba, but it is like a plate of loose sand, and they can't always work together."

Professor Wan nodded, "This is understandable, we in China, just like your opera troupes, are all oppressed, but they are always disaligned, everyone is counting their own little ninety-nine, retreating in case of trouble, and only caring about immediate interests." This is the greatest sorrow. ”

Shi Suo said, "Hua Class Master, if we help you fight that...... Wang Ba, can you meet the inside and outside? ”

"Yes," Hua Jinxiu said with certainty: "I have been planning a rebellion for a long time, even if other teams don't help, I can't always be slaves like this, these dozen or so people in our team will definitely work hard." ”

"How many bandits are there?"

"There are two dozen of them."

Professor Wan said: "More than 20 is not a few, let's take a good count, if we can outwit, we will not attack." ”

3

Professor Wan and the other three of them, together with Li Mei, found an inn in the city to live in, made some preparations, and the next morning, Shi Suo carried a basket on his back, walked to the street, and shouted: "Sell dates, big sweet dates." ”

The idea of "selling dates" was still out of Shi Suo, and he remembered that when he and Hu Xuan went south, a group of people were poisoned by flying mountain monkeys, and said: "If you want to outwit, poisoning is the most convenient." ”

Li Meile said, "Poisoning, I'm the best." My dad can both heal and poison, and I've been a connoisseur since I was a kid. She took out a few small packets from her rucksack, "Look, this is broken intestines, this is ambergris cream, this is a three-step reversal...... Which one do you think is good? ”

Everyone discussed for a long time, decided on a plan, and the next morning, they acted according to the plan.

The troupe and the bandits did not live in the inn, they set up tents in the open field, and when the stone lock walked over, they saw that the cloth wall was still surrounded, but there was no one guarding the door, and inside the cloth wall, a wisp of white gas rose, which seemed to be the water vapor coming from cooking.

"Big sweet dates, cheap."

Shi Suo went around twice, shouted for a while, and finally a man who looked like a guy came out of the field, "Date seller, come here." ”

Shi Suo was happy for a while, and walked in with the basket on his back, and in the field, two large cauldrons were set up, steaming hot, a pot of porridge, a pot of vegetables, and the smell of rice wafted out far away.

The guy said, "Put the dates down and weigh ten catties." ”

Shi Suo weighed the dates, raised his eyes and looked around, a few sturdy men sat next to him gossiping, but he didn't know which one was Wang Laoba, and several tents next to him were covered with curtains, and he didn't see the shadow of Hua Jinxiu and others.

The guy paid, and Shi Suo said with a grin: "Big brother, you are cooking, and I'm hungry too, give me a bowl of porridge to drink, okay?" ”

"Get out."

Shi Suo was not annoyed, "Big brother, I got up in the morning to pick dates, I was so tired that I died, and I was so hungry that the front cavity was pasted to the back cavity......"

"Go ahead, give you a bowl of porridge, poor ghost."

"Thank you, thank you," Shi Suo nodded and came to the side of the pot stove, there were only two people here adding fire, the smoke of firewood came out, and he couldn't help coughing, Shi Suo took a bowl from the table next to him, and went to the cauldron to serve porridge, at this time, the porridge was not yet cooked, and the firewood under the cauldron was burning vigorously, and the smoke and water vapor were mixed together, like a thick fog.

Shi Suo peeked around, and no one paid attention to himself, he had already deducted a small bag in his hand, when he was holding the porridge, the bowl he was holding was located above the porridge pot, his hand shook, the white powder in the bag, all fell into the pot, he quickly stirred the porridge with a spoon. Then he drank the porridge in two sips, picked up the basket, and walked out of the play.

Outside, Professor Wan and the others were lying in ambush behind the stage, and Shi Suo nodded to them, put down the back basket, and picked up a big wooden stick. After a while, I heard a noise inside: "It's time to eat." "Brothers, it's time to eat."

"Ready." Professor Wan ordered.

Shi Suo took the stick and was ready to rush in, Dafeng also took out the string, Li Mei put the lancet behind his back, holding a wooden crossbow, and at this moment, two people came out of the cloth wall.

These two people, one of them is the guy who bought Shisuo dates just now, maybe he came out to relieve his hands, maybe it was something else, just when Shisuo and the others were about to rush in, they walked out of the theater and saw the man who sold dates just now, holding a big stick, and he became suspicious, opened his eyes wide, and said, "What are you going to do?" ”

Professor Wan shouted in a low voice, "Up." ”

Before the words fell, the stone lock had already pounced, the split head was a stick, the two people exclaimed, turned around and ran, the stone lock did not hit the stick, hit one of the people's shoulders, the person "ahhhh