The Mule and Horse Market is a place where rules are spoken, and even if you want to disobey the rules, you have to ask the officers of the Five Cities who often patrol the surrounding area if they agree.

No one will question the rules of the auction price of the highest, compared to the teenagers who fell into the small pavilion in the past, today's Hu Ren boy is really very lucky.

The Hu man boy obviously thought the same way, the half-grown child had not yet learned to hide his emotions, and his blue eyes kept looking into the soft sedan chair, with curiosity, excitement, and confusion in his eyes, but he was unwilling and humiliated before being photographed.

I have to say that the pink-topped soft sedan chair, the weak and boneless beauty voice, and the boldness of spending a lot of money will really make people reverie.

There are a lot of people in the capital who can take pictures of a Hu boy with a thousand dollars, but the woman can spend so much money and say a word to the family, except for Miss Xu Shi, who previously took the seal of Zuo Gongyin for her fiancé, I am afraid that there are only golden branches and jade leaves or the daughter of a wealthy family who is favored by her family in every way.

Qiao Ran stood in the crowd and watched with the people as the young lady who spent a lot of money took the young man Hu Ren away, and withdrew his gaze.

After turning around the Luoma Market, buying some spices for cooking and gadgets for Pei Qingqing, Qiao Ran walked out of the Luoma Market, and not far from the Luoma Market was the bell tower and drum tower in the city.

This is the same architecture in her time and space, every time she sees these specious but existing buildings, Qiao Ran always has a feeling of time and space intertwined, as if no matter how many time and space, some people and some things are destined to leave a strong mark on the history books.

In front of the bell and drum tower, there are foreigners from the land of Bashu who are performing face changes and breathing fire, these outsiders who came to Chang'an from afar gather in Chang'an with their crafts, and it is also called that today's Chang'an City can see novelties from all directions without going out of the city.

The juggling is like a family, both men and women, young and old, and the shadows of adults can be vaguely seen on the faces of several half-grown children.

At the end of a juggling performance, the girl with the braided hair held a copper plate and demanded a reward from the onlookers. This kind of juggling performance has always been seen by many people and few people who give money, even if there are only four or five copper plates scattered at all, when it was Qiao Ran's turn, she grabbed a handful of copper plates from her purse and put them in the copper basin.

If the red beans are here, they may feel sorry for the silver. But she really enjoyed watching it just now, and it was approaching the end of the year, and Qiao Ran didn't care about being generous.

Seeing such a handful of copper plates in the copper basin, the eyes of the girl who combed the braids lit up, and a smile suddenly appeared on her little face, which was a little red from the cold, and she thanked her in an unskilled official language.

Qiao Ran smiled at her, turned around and walked out of the crowd, and didn't touch Hongdou and them after turning around, guessing that she had gone to play elsewhere, she might as well go home first.

After only taking two steps, the sleeve robe was torn up, Qiao Ran turned around and looked at the person who pulled her sleeve robe-the girl who was combing braids.

The girl pursed her lips and smiled at her, raised her hand to the man behind her, who was putting on the juggling robe again and preparing to start the performance, and said in a dialect with a thick Bashu accent: "Thank you for this woman, my father said that you changed your face halfway when you came, and I didn't let you finish reading it, so I will change it again for you!" ”

Qiao Ran was stunned, her eyes fell on the girl's frozen red nose and paused, and then smiled and said hello.

Begging for a living is never easy.

The sound of the gong was sounded again, and the passers-by scattered around them again, and the change of face began.

The man with the face mask walked around the audience, and after drinking a few times, his face began to change with the beating of gongs and drums behind him, and the face mask flashed quickly, attracting the onlookers to applaud.

The girl who begged for a reward with a copper basin looked at her nervously, and was ready to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the smile on her face, but the girl who had been smiling faintly on her face before suddenly smiled at this time, and her eyebrows were visibly twisted.

Isn't the female official satisfied? The girl became nervous all of a sudden, and looked at her father who was changing her face uneasily, and then showed a somewhat puzzled look: Daddy didn't make a mistake, don't you like it?

The female official, who looked not much older than her, did not open her mouth to interrupt their performance, but just stood in the crowd with a frown and watched with the onlookers.

When she walked in front of the female official, she was about to skip it, but a dime of silver was suddenly thrown into the copper basin of a pile of copper plates, and the girl who looked at the silver tael was startled, and couldn't help but look up at the person who threw the silver with wide eyes in disbelief - it was still the female official.

She was still wrinkling her eyebrows at this time, her face was very serious, and she didn't look happy after watching the performance, why did she break the silver for them?

The girl looked at her puzzled.

"I have something I want to ask your daddy." The lady spoke, her voice a little cold, although nice.

Such a cold voice said such a standard official language, coupled with the dark official robe on her body, the girl instinctively gave birth to a little fear, and when she heard this, she took her to Daddy, who was sitting on the wooden box to rest.

"Daddy!" The girl pointed at Qiao Ran, and then pointed to the broken silver in the copper basin, and said, "This female official has something she wants to ask you." ”

As soon as these words came out, the man who had just sat down to rest was stunned for a moment, then became nervous, and quickly got up from the wooden box, stammering and asking: "Big ...... My lord, but what did I do wrong? ”

Qiao Ran shook her head, smiled, and said, "Don't worry, I just want to ask you about something." ”

When the man heard this, he hurriedly responded, and then saw the girl stretching out his hand and pointing to the stack of face masks he had used when he had just changed his face. "Can I see these masks?" ”

The man nodded hurriedly and took the mask.

Qiao Ran stretched out her hand and rummaged through the pile of masks, and quickly took out a mask from it and picked it out, then pointed to the face painted on the mask, and said, "What is painted on this?" ”

This kind of mask is naturally not good-looking and cute, it is usually exaggerated, and some even attract children to cry and frighten, and this female official picked out the most terrifying one among the face masks that made children cry.

The blue-eyed fangs, compared to other masks, can barely tell that the painting is a person, and this blue-eyed fanged one looks like a ghost.

The man picked up the mask suspiciously, looked at it for a moment, and after recalling it, he said to Qiao Ran: "This is a ghost of Aman." ”

Aman? Qiao Ran had never heard the name of this ghost in the limited ghost stories he knew, so he asked the man again: "What is Aman Ghost?" ”

The man didn't immediately explain the ghosts, but lined up the masks of those performances, pointed to the masks one by one and said to Qiao Ran: "My lord, our family is always selling art everywhere, although we were born in Bashu, we have traveled a lot along the way. In order to blend in with the local area, so that more people can come and see, some local heroes and ghost masks are often added to it. For example, this Celestial Master mask was added when he passed through Ludi Jinan......"

Hearing him mention the mask of the Heavenly Master, Qiao Ran looked over, the same exaggerated painting, but it was probably a painting of the Heavenly Master who eliminated evil, so she could still see a bit of naivety from it, which was in stark contrast to the mask in her hand that was only blue-eyed fangs and did not draw superfluous things, but it was a little infiltrating.

"The Aman ghost was added when I passed through the Lingnan border," the man said, pointing to the Aman ghost in Qiao Ran's hand, and said, "It's scary to look at, but the local people worship the Aman ghost every house." ”

Qiao Ran lowered her eyes, looked at the pair of bronze bell-sized ghost eyes on the mask, and said, "Usually there is a custom in one place, and this is nothing special. However, every family worships the Aman ghost, and it is obvious that this Aman ghost is related to some local folklore! ”

The man nodded, looked at the Aman ghost in her hand, and said, "That's where we went many years ago, this Aman ghost looks fierce, but in local legends, he is a hero." I don't remember the specifics, but I heard that a local woman went there a long time ago to avoid youkai......"

Sure enough, legends must be indispensable for youkai. Qiao Ran didn't interrupt the man's words and let him continue.

“…… gave birth to a pair of twins, and the two brothers fought the monster but couldn't beat it, so in order to defeat the monster, he asked the mountain god to help him......"

There are monsters and naturally there are immortals, Qiao Ran listened carefully.

"The mountain god said that only two people can defeat the youkai if they become one, so a brother took the initiative to sacrifice blood, and the two of them merged into one to defeat the youkai." The man who sells his art is not a storyteller in a teahouse, and the legend he tells naturally doesn't have any twists and turns, it sounds dry, and this legend is so full of loopholes that Qiao Ran doesn't know how to correct it for a while.

But the legend is naturally not too serious, but Qiao Ran still keenly refined the key: twins, one sacrifice, the other can become a hero and defeat the monster.

She twisted her eyebrows, I don't know why, at this moment, an inexplicable chill suddenly surged all over her body, she subconsciously touched her face, at this moment, even she didn't know where this chill came from.

"The two brothers who are combined into one is the Aman." The man said and pushed the mask into her hand, and said enthusiastically, "If you like this mask, take it!" ”

I didn't pay attention to these masks before, but today this adult suddenly picked out the ghost of Aman, stared at the mask for a long time, and suddenly felt strangely uncomfortable. Don't let these masks appear on your face, don't frighten children.

Qiao Ran looked at the ghost mask in his hand for a while, did not refuse, thanked him again, and then put a broken silver in the copper basin, and said to the man: "My surname is Qiao, I am on an errand in Dali Temple, if you remember the matter of Aman ghost or have any help, you can come to Dali Temple to find me." ”

The man was busy thanking excitedly, and when he first came to Chang'an City, he could meet someone who was willing to help, which was the greatest comfort to outsiders.

……

……

Knowing that Qiao Ran had taken two days off to accompany him, a guest who had come from afar, Dr. Feng was extremely satisfied. Others were also very satisfied.

The red beans are satisfied that they can actually taste the food made by the young lady herself, of course, the young lady makes it, no matter how unpalatable, she can boast about it.

Pei Qingqing was satisfied that she remembered to bring her a gift when Miss Qiao went out to play, of course, more importantly, she was the only one who had the gift, not even Zhang Jie. It can be seen that in Miss Qiao's heart, she is much more important than Zhang Jie, which makes her extremely happy. As for the gift that Miss Qiao chose, she liked the sugar gourd that had been hung on her waist, the rattle thing that coaxed the child, she hadn't played since she was three years old. But it just so happens that Xie Chengze likes it, and it will be better to give it to him as a gift when Xie Chengze is sick next time. Oh, no, as if she couldn't think so, as if hoping that he would be sick, the little girl rolled her eyes and quietly hid the rattle.

"Today we went to the Luoma Market in the morning, so we didn't meet Miss," everyone sat at the table after dinner and talked, and Hongdou sighed, "I knew that I wouldn't leave, maybe I could still meet Miss." In the afternoon, we went to Qujiang to play, and when we bought food before, we listened to the hawkers in the mule and horse market, and these days the Furong Garden has opened a few gardens, as long as you pay some money, you can go in and have a walk. We thought that Dr. Feng would finally come back, and if he had the opportunity to go to the Hibiscus Garden, he would be able to talk to people when he returned to Jinling after the New Year. "Of course, as Hongdou and the others, who have never had a chance to enter, also want to take this opportunity to go in and have a look, after all, in places such as Furong Garden, except for the royal family and nobles, ordinary people have no chance to enter.

After hearing this, Qiao Ran asked her with a smile: "Then did you go in?" ”

As soon as these words came out, several people's faces immediately became a little more disappointed, Qiao Ran looked at everyone's depressed faces, and turned his gaze to Pei Qingqing, the only one who was not so depressed.

This girl had been to the Hibiscus Garden before, and she didn't feel it if she didn't go once. Pei Qingqing saw her looking at her, and hurriedly hummed and explained: "The Furong Garden was indeed open in the morning, but when we arrived after noon, we met a lot of people who had paid money to visit the garden and were kicked out. ”

Qiao Ran felt strange: "Generally speaking, if you want to set Furong Garden, you don't look at it, it's all set in advance, how can you suddenly drive people out?" ”

It's not impossible to enter places like Furong Garden, but it is impossible to determine that Furong Garden has no power. If you go back to a place like the garden, if the ordinary rich are willing to spend money, there is still the possibility of chartering, but the Furong Garden is not at all, and the people who can take the Furong Garden are either the royal family or the powerful, without exception.

"I don't know," Pei Qingqing shook her head, as the most "knowledgeable" person in the group, she felt that it was a bit embarrassing to answer Qiao Ran with these words, so the little girl thought about it seriously again, and said to Qiao Ran, "I saw that many of the people who went in were from the clan, Princess Xiu, Princess Huai, and Princess Chao County." ”

Hearing a bunch of "concubines" in her mouth, Qiao Ran was a little surprised: "Could it be that all the women who went in were the ladies of the clan?" ”

As soon as these words came out, before Pei Qingqing could speak, Hongdou spoke first: "Miss, don't you say that I really haven't found out before, it seems that this is really the case, those men who went in were all guards and servants, and I didn't see a man who could call the shots go in." ”