I hurriedly knelt in front of the ancient paintings and shrines, the old man held the eight treasures copper bell in one hand, picked up the ancient sword in the other hand, and began to sing the Tima Song in a hoarse voice, dancing like a dancing god, the ceremony was very cumbersome, the light invited the gods to have the king of the earth, the king of the eight parts, the dragon king of the Son of Heaven, the Wuyi Ga Bai, the family immortal, the god of the four officials, the god of the land, etc., and then it was "crossing the pass" and "solving the white tiger". After completing these ceremonies, the old man bowed and said, "Masters are above, the fifty-second generation descendant of the disciple Kaba Paitima Tian Fengzong accepted one apprentice on Chinese New Year's Eve today, Chen Dongliang. Then read my birthday eight characters, and finally the old man, now should be called my master, Tian Fengzong took out a long strip of yellow paper that had been prepared from the ancestral master's rank, brushed the ink on the tablet, and stretched out a talisman full of tadpole texts, and then asked me to hold the paper talisman high, and began to sing again, and the rhythm became faster and faster, and the voice became more and more rapid, and finally the old man suddenly sat down cross-legged and said, "Baby, three cups of apprenticeship wine." The first cup is dedicated to ghosts and gods, the second cup is dedicated to family immortals, and the third cup is dedicated to ancestors. After I finished saluting as agreed, the master smiled and said, "From today onwards, you will be counted as the fifty-third generation descendant of my Kaba faction." ”

When I came home on Chinese New Year's Eve that day, I told my family about my teacher preparing to learn Tima, and the family was divided into two factions, my father and my brother were intellectuals after all, and they both expressed their opposition, and a college student suddenly learned some feudal superstitions with a god, and they definitely couldn't agree, but my grandparents didn't think so. My grandfather said that Tima is a wise man in the hearts of our Tujia people, and the master has taken a fancy to you, which is a blessing, and besides, for thousands of years, the Tujia people have believed in this way, where is it wrong?

After all, my dad respected my grandfather, and it was a big Chinese New Year, so it was not easy to have a seizure, and seeing that I was so resolute, he had to agree for the time being. My mom was in a dilemma, but since my grandfather had spoken, she didn't say anything.

As soon as the year was over, I went home to get the whole book of "Di Jun Kan Yu Jue" back to my grandmother's house, and the two old people officially invited the neighbors according to the etiquette of the Tujia family, and relatives and friends held a grand apprenticeship banquet at home.

That night, I handed over the whole book to the master, and the old man was at first skeptical, but when I took out the book, the old man had only turned a few chapters, and his body began to tremble with excitement. The old man touched the book and said, "Dog, it's good that you don't know this text, otherwise I'm afraid I'll have to call you Master." ”

I said, "Is it that amazing?" ”

Master said: "You little baby don't know, Master, these dozen pieces of paper in my hand are a fart in front of this book." God is taking care of our Kaba faction, I didn't expect that I would be a person who has been buried in the earth for most of my body, and at this age I can still receive an apprentice like you, and I can still see this divine book in my lifetime. ”

I said, "Is that book the same as this one?" ”

Master said: "My dozen or so divine books are only a small part of this, but they only talk about inviting the gods, sending the gods, serving Situo (playing the Bodhisattva, the Dharma of the Tujia people), Geluo Fang (relieving evil spirits), Song Mutuo (curing funerals and mourning) and a small number of secret methods for looking at feng shui. The five elements of yin and yang, astronomy and geography, mountains and rivers, astrological gossip, divination and hexagram in this book are simply all-inclusive. If Lao Tzu had seen this book in his early years, he would have done more than he does now. ”

I'm not really interested in anything else, just the unique feng shui secrets that this Tujia people have about themselves. So he said, "Master, I'm not interested in anything else, I mainly want to learn Feng Shui." ”

Unexpectedly, the master's face sank and said: "You are a small baby, you pick and choose every day, Lao Tzu is your heir, you have to learn, you have to learn, if you don't learn, you have to learn from Lao Tzu." I can't let this technique be lost here to my Tian Fengzong, otherwise how can I have the face to meet my predecessors in the future? You don't want to learn from your bullshit brother, who is nominally a master and apprentice, but as a result, he doesn't learn anything, and he doesn't know if he flies or falls now, and now he doesn't know whether he is dead or alive. ”

When I saw that Master was angry, I naturally didn't dare to argue anymore. So I had to systematically learn the cumbersome and mysterious skills of Tima, these skills are divided into "thirty-six gods, seventy-two ghosts" according to the skills, each skill has a trick, on the one hand, to prevent others from stealing learning, on the other hand, because often to deal with ghosts, to protect their own lives, of course, these I also feel a bit of feudal superstition, I don't believe in this, but still honestly learn, recite mantras during the day, practice tricks, gods and other yang transmission, and yin transmission is more ethereal magic.

The Tujia people believe that dreams span the two worlds of yin and yang, so that the two time and space are connected as one, and people can communicate with their ancestors, gods, and ghosts without the help of any external force, so those deceased ancestors and immortals will come to teach you knowledge, in fact, this is actually a phenomenon that the brain is still running during sleep at night after high-intensity memory learning, but every time I say this, I will be scolded by the master, saying that I am disrespectful to the gods, and I can't help it.

Slowly I began to have a new understanding of these mysterious tadpole texts, to be able to identify the meaning of these words, everyone probably knows, the Tujia is a people with only language, no writing, in fact, the Tujia family has writing, but only preserved in the only tadpole text, only the wise man in the clan is Tima knows, passed down from generation to generation.

Sometimes the master leads people to do things, and he will explain it to me when he looks at feng shui, I don't know if he really has a talent in this area, and sometimes you don't believe it, sometimes in this life, some people are the food rewarded by the ancestors, and some people are the food rewarded by God, maybe I am more likely to be the latter, I can indeed remember many things after reading them once, and many times I can draw inferences from one another, the master is naturally very happy, and he didn't expect that my comprehension ability is so strong.

Over the course of a year, I have actually studied the entire obscure and esoteric book of "The Secret of the Emperor of the Emperor", although some things are memorized by rote, but the master explained it a few times, and he was able to understand seven or eight layers. On the way, my dad didn't come to see me when he came to the countryside to check on the school work, and I knew he was embarrassed and didn't care.

A year later, I went to see Feng Shui with Master, and now I basically see Feng Shui, the ancient town of Nine Creeks and Eighteen Caves, within a radius of dozens of miles, I have become the rising star of this green black art, but at this time there is a sentence to say, I believe that this has become less and less, I have the impression that our local most neglected traditional culture for a period of time is after the reform and opening up to the beginning of the 21st century, in the past few decades, foreign civilization has invaded the mountains little by little, everyone is talking about reading, factories, earning money and working and so on. It's like everyone asked if they had eaten when they first met, and now it's all about cars and houses. Under the great changes of the times, the whole country is undergoing earth-shaking changes, and the people can live a better life, and the traditional culture is slowly being abandoned.

It wasn't until the material culture was rich that he remembered those things at the level of spiritual life again, especially with the vigorous development of tourism in recent years, outsiders did not come to see the same things as you, but to see the culture he had not seen, so the locals looked for their roots from the history and culture that they threw into the garbage heap, and then they found that their things could not be found. A few years ago, I went back to my hometown, went to a certain scenic spot to travel, and saw that there was a Tima program in the scenic spot, and I couldn't help but be excited, but when I saw it, I was disappointed, an old man wearing a nondescript Tima robe, playing with the spit fire that can be seen in various tourist areas, dancing the dance of the gods, and blinding those curious tourists. I talked to him for a while, and it turned out that he was really from the Tima family, but he was not a faction with me, and he said that in the past few years, the money outside has begun to be difficult to earn, and the tourism industry in his hometown has developed, and he came back to do Tima performances, but he simply forgot what Tima is, I said who taught you this thing, he said director, I scolded in my heart, I don't know how to continue talking.

Without further ado, this time it was off, I went back with Master after reading Feng Shui, Master said that I had a little abdominal pain today, I said that I was too tired these days, he drank and smoked cigarettes and had no moderation, but soon after he came back, Master was ill, I asked him to go to the hospital, he couldn't live or die, seeing his body lose weight day by day, he had to whisper pain every night ** Half a night to sleep.