Tang Shan did not leave the old rascal. Because his curiosity prevailed. After all, curiosity has become the biggest driving force for his behavior. The point is that he thinks he can control his own goings and stays, so there is not much difference between leaving early and leaving late; In that case, it is better to see what kind of reputation this old rascal is doing.

The old rascal didn't even look at Tang Shan, took out his long pipe, stuffed the tobacco, lit the fire, took a deep breath, slowly sprayed the last trace of smoke, and said:

"Now, you don't know me."

Tang Shan didn't understand for a moment: "I didn't know you in the first place." ”

The old rascal then ordered: "Go to the other end of the bridge from the opposite side, preferably a little farther, and disappear into the crowd of the street for a while, then turn back, pretend to be careless, and finally crouch down in front of the stall." Remember, you don't know me in this process. ”

Tang Shan is not stupid, this time he understood: "Oh, it turns out that I am your trust." The Legendary Medical Trust? ”

The old rascal nodded, and seemed to be quite appreciative of Tang Shan's cleverness, and suddenly took out a hundred yuan, quickly stuffed it into Tang Shan's hand, and ordered: "This is the money you will buy medicine from me later." ”

Before Tang Shan pulled his legs and left, the old man said thoughtlessly: "When walking, rub your waist back and forth with the edge of your right palm." ”

Tang Shan didn't understand this time: "What does this mean?" ”

The old rascal doesn't explain: "You just do it." ”

When Tang Shan walked to the other end of the bridge, he kept laughing in his heart, but he didn't expect that he had just entered the rivers and lakes and became a trust for others to cheat, not an actor but better than an actor. He thought again, what if I didn't look back with the hundred yuan in my hand and disappeared directly in the flow of people? The old guy won't be able to find me. Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if you find it, you can't do anything about me.

Of course, in the end, Tangshan did not disappear. There are two reasons: one is that he feels that it is too unrighteous to run away with a hundred yuan from others like this, even if the other party is an old liar, he has invested enough trust in him Tangshan, betraying the trust of others, no matter what, it is a personal character problem, not to mention that people invited him to eat two bowls of rice noodles before; The second is that he thought that as soon as he ran away, he only had 100 yuan in his hand, and taking this 100 yuan back and finishing the scene might create benefits of hundreds of yuan.

Tang Shan wandered through the crowd on the street for a while, then turned back and walked towards the bridge. As he walked, he rubbed the palm of his right hand around his waist as he was instructed.

Back at the end of the bridge, there were already a few idlers standing in front of the stalls. The old rascal smoked as if no one was around, and he looked like a fairy bone. The idlers pointed and didn't know what to say. Tang Shan squeezed into the circle, but he didn't know what to say for a while. Because the old rascal gave him the script for the performance just now, there are no lines. Temporary play, he has no experience.

Tang Shan had no choice but to squat down and stare intently at the strange-shaped roots on the ground. The old rascal spat out a puff of cigarette and spoke in his usual nonchalant tone:

"Young man, your hair is unkempt and your hall is pale, this is a sign of inner weakness."

Tang Shan glanced left and right blankly, and then pointed his index finger at his nose: "You talk to me?" ”

The old man hooked his two fingers: "Come closer." Let me see. ”

Tang Shan stood a little closer, and the old man suddenly lifted the placket on his right, turned on the flashlight, shook his head and sighed:

"Did you see that? A large patch of redness, severe kidney deficiency. ”

Tang Shan scolded in his heart, you are only fucking losing kidneys, my waist was rubbed red just now according to your instructions, and it has a fart relationship with kidney loss? Besides, can kidney deficiency still be diagnosed from the skin color on the surface? It's just nonsense.

After the old man finished speaking, he sighed and fell into deep thought. The idlers next to him began to discuss:

"This kid doesn't look very old, he shouldn't be less than twenty, how can he lose money like this?"

Tang Shan was anxious and angry, but he didn't know how to refute it, and 10,000 grass and mud horses walked by in his heart, and then viciously cursed the idlers and the whole family to lose their kidneys. The old rascal saw that the time was almost up, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he casually took a piece of knotted tree root from the cloth stall, threw it to Tang Shan, and said:

"Take it back and cut it into slices, boil three bowls of water into one bowl, and eat it with the medicine and soup. In less than a month, you will be in good condition. ”

Tang Shan picked up the strange tree root and was about to drill out of the crowd. The old man hurriedly exhaled the smoke in his mouth, glared at Tang Shan and said:

"Healing the sick and saving people is my ancestral motto. Although I am not a businessman and do not negotiate the price, I cannot give this medicine away for nothing. ”

Tang Shan reacted, according to the originally negotiated script, and finally paid for such a play. And it's also a key play, otherwise it will be wasted. But Tang Shan didn't know how to act such an important scene, mainly because the onlookers looked uncomfortable, as if he not only had a serious kidney deficiency, but also a serious loss. He had no choice but to take out the 100 yuan prop money from his body, throw it at the stall, grab the roots of the tree and hurriedly squeeze out of the crowd.

Later, Tang Shan left the way he came, walked to the other end of the bridge, and threw the tree root that he had been holding in his hand for a long time into the river.

Tang Shan wandered the street until nearly nine o'clock, and then slowly walked back. Back at the end of the bridge, the idlers had dispersed, and the old rascals were cleaning up their stalls. Tang Shan walked to the stall in three steps and two steps, and the old guy turned a blind eye, pretending that he had never seen Tang Shan at all.

Tang Shan didn't help clean up the stall, but just smiled at the river:

"I came back just in time."

The old rascal didn't raise his head: "It's best to turn back as late as possible in the future." Don't let people see that we're colluding. If you come back here and don't see me, go down to the bridge and cave, and if there is no one in the bridge, leave a message. To do this, write a note and stuff it in a crack in the wall. ”

Tang Shan was a little impatient: "Don't talk nonsense, how much money did you pit just now?" I have been severely damaged by a kidney once, how much can I get? ”

The old rascal had now finished packing, picked up the broken bag, and walked to the bridge, saying as he went:

"Young people must not forget their righteousness. Let's talk about it in the bridge below. ”

Tang Shan's heart was galloping by thousands of grass and mud horses, damn, you have made me a serious kidney loss, but in the end you persuaded me not to forget my righteousness? I'm not a living Lei Feng. Besides, you can't sacrifice your own reputation when you do good deeds, and in front of so many people, I have defaulted to kidney loss, do you think it's very comfortable?

Tang Shan forcibly suppressed his anger and did not speak. He followed the old guy into the bridge again. The old rascal turned on the flashlight, and with the other hand, he dug into the side pocket of the broken bag, grabbed a handful of money, and there were one hundred and fifty, and there were many ten or five yuan, all stuffed in Tang Shan's hand, and said nonchalantly:

"All the income tonight is here, you can take it. I just roughly counted it, about two thousand. ”

This made Tangshan a little overwhelmed. He just wanted to take a little commission, and he didn't want one person to monopolize all his income, so his anger instantly turned into nothing, and he turned into a full of shame, and sneered:

"What's so embarrassing about that? You are the protagonist, you should take a large share, I'll run a trick, just give a little bit. ”

The old rascal still said in a nonchalant tone: "Don't think that I treat money as a floating cloud and don't care at all." This money, it stands to reason that you can only get 30%. Today, I will lend you my seventy percent, and I will pay it back slowly in the future. You take the money and go and rent a house tomorrow to live in temporarily. I don't know where you're from, but it looks like you're nowhere to go. Finally, I have to emphasize that you don't have to worry too much: once you rent the house, you don't need to tell me where it is, and at the same time, you don't ask me where I live. It is good for both parties to retain a little privacy on their own. ”

Tang Shan's mouth opened, and he didn't know what to say, but he stuffed all the money into his pocket, and then pointed to the broken bag and laughed again:

"What to do with the unsold roots?"

Old rascal: "Bury it in the soil and continue to sell it tomorrow." ”

Then he crouched down again and began to dig the earth. Tang Shan got the money, his anger was smooth, and his enthusiasm was greatly improved, so he hurriedly squatted down to help, and took out the remaining roots from his bag and put them into the soil pit while digging the soil. At this time, Tang Shan really saw the appearance of the tree roots, and the shape was roughly similar to the scattered body parts, some were foot-shaped, some were hand-shaped, some were heart-shaped, and more milk-shaped rooms. There are also parts that look difficult to speak.

Tang Shan laughed in his heart and asked curiously, "Where did you dig up these roots?" How hard does it take to find all the body shapes? ”

The old rascal snorted: "I dug in the woods on the outskirts of the city." As for the shape, I don't need to deliberately look for it, I carved it by hand. After carving, blister, soaked and then buried in the soil, after a while to dig out, it looks not only vivid, but also antique. ”

Tang Shan couldn't help laughing, picked up two knots and tangled them in the roots, and said while fiddling:

"You can imagine it, you're such a talent. Is it an ancestral secret method? However, your carving skills need to be improved, they are too rough, and each root corresponds to the body part, and you have to work hard to guess. Let's take these two as examples, it seems that a man and a woman are doing something, but what kind of reputation is not clearly expressed. ”

The old rascal sneered again: "You know a fart." It has to be carved in a plausible way for people to believe that it is wild. The carving is too similar, and it can only be sold as a toy for a few cents on the stall, how can it be sold as a precious medicinal herb for hundreds of yuan? ”

Tang Shan suddenly realized, and nodded incessantly: "It makes sense, it makes sense." ”

The two of them had disposed of all the roots and smoothed out the dirt, and Tang Shan stood up and stomped on the ground a few times to make it look like it had been shaved off. But the old rascal said that there was no need to be so deliberate, because the bridge cave was originally the foothold of the madman and the caller, and then someone from above wanted to check the city's appearance, and the madman and the caller were all driven to the point where they were driven.

All in all, no normal person would come here. The reason why the roots of the trees are buried again in the soil is to maintain their appearance.

Tang Shan thought to himself, aren't the two of us all abnormal people? After thinking about it, I laughed again, I had only heard that the dishes in the restaurant had a good appearance, and I had never heard that the roots of the deceitful tree also had a good appearance. This old rascal is really an interesting person. Deceive people out of the realm, deceive out of the super high technical content.

Before leaving, the old rascal took out a small amount of money in his bag for a long time, and finally took out a dirty and crumpled piece of paper and stuffed it into Tang Shan's hand.

Tang Shan unfolded it, and saw that the paper was full of words by the light of the flashlight. The first line is:

The cannon is two and four, and the rook is 6 into 1.

Tang Shan didn't have the heart to look at it, and immediately asked, "What is this?" ”

Old rascal: "The complete move of that endgame." ”

Tang Shan was stunned: "What are you doing for me?" ”

Old Rascal: "Don't forget, your main task is to learn how to play that endgame, not to cheat people out of money with me." ”

Tang Shan then remembered the original agreement, which was to be willing to gamble and lose, and let him be an apprentice to learn to get through the endgame. He suddenly felt that this matter seemed strange before and after, but he couldn't say anything wrong.

The old rascal had already walked out of the bridge hole, and his figure disappeared into the darkness, but the voice came in again:

"Young man, today's meeting may be a kind of fate, maybe it is a providence, maybe it is nothing, it is just an accident. I pondered the way this endgame moved for 30 years before it could be considered to be able to penetrate all the changes. Now to teach you, whether to keep or throw, the right to dispose of it is yours. Hello do it yourself. ”

Tang Shan stood in the dark, still clutching the piece of paper in his hand. I was at a loss for a moment.

He was completely unaware that from this moment on, another door opened in his life.