On the afternoon of the second day after the old man was stabbed in the shipyard, all the witnesses to the incident thought that the old man was dead. I was stabbed in the heart, and there is no reason not to die. But no one felt that he should be sad, and no one felt that the old man was pitiful, and everyone waited for the further development of things in a lively state of mind.

At this time, Chen Meng, the knife-wielding man, had already run away without a trace; The pot smasher, Xiao Gangcang, followed Brother Biao step by step, not only making tea for Brother Biao wholeheartedly, but also helping Brother Biao find a transparent plastic bottle again in case he needed to go out. This is the most loyal day of Xiao Gangcang's life to Brother Biao.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, Brother Dongcheng Liang and Brother Ximen Biao each received a mysterious phone call and were told to go to the Royal Hotel for dinner to celebrate, drink wine to relieve their grievances, and eliminate all the unhappiness of the previous day on the wine table. Half of the funds needed for the banquet were sent by Brother Biao and Brother Liang. In addition, for the sake of unity between the two sides, the mysterious figure no longer asks who the thing is, emphasizing that no matter whose thing is on whom, after the celebration banquet, it is quietly sent to a certain room in the hotel.

The key point is that things must be kept secret, and you can't use the strength of alcohol to talk nonsense and make everyone know.

The mysterious figure had no idea that all the people involved in the matter, including Brother Biao and Brother Liang, had actually never seen the so-called chess game fragments.

No one thought that the old man was not dead at the moment, and was telling Tang Shan a story about the fragments of the mysterious chess game. Moreover, when Brother Liang and Brother Biao set off for the appointment, the story of the old man was not finished. To be precise, the story is just the beginning.

After listening to the old man's first story, Tang Shan felt that it was a fantasy. Wen Tianxiang's chess game is of great significance in the history of chess, this should be true, and it is easy to verify, but to say that it is a key, or even a code book, and can open a palace door, it can really only be heard as a story.

Tang Shan didn't eat at noon, and after tossing until now, his chest was close to his back, and his spirit was not good, and he began to yawn. If he hadn't been worried about what would happen to the old man, he would have turned around and left.

Although the old man's qi and blood had failed, he was still shrewd, and he saw through Tang Shan's suspicions at a glance. He smiled helplessly:

"Although you are curious, you are not easy to trust others. It's hard to convince you. ”

Tang Shan yawned a long time, and said weakly:

"Your story lacks the necessary details, so it's not convincing. I'm guessing you've never told this story to anyone before, so you don't have the experience of organizing the plot and details to grab someone's attention. Either that, you have a talent for selling fake drugs on the street to deceive people, but you don't have a talent for storytelling. ”

The old man sighed: "More than seven hundred years have passed, don't say that things are vague in the first place, even if I can tell a lot of details, but lack of evidence, you will feel untrustworthy." ”

Tang Shan proposed: "You try to explain it in a reasoning way, at least let me feel that this matter makes logical sense." ”

Old man: "Okay, then let's make a basic reasoning." First of all, Wen Tianxiang loves chess, and his chess skills are superb, which is an objective fact. During the period of his dismissal from office, he took chess and wine as fun every day to relieve his boredom, and of course, there was nothing to blame. However, later he became the prime minister, a very popular minister, and it coincided with the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, an eventful autumn, the country was in danger, no matter what, he did not have more energy to play chess. Not to mention creating a chess game. ”

When the old man was panting, Tang Shan said: "The article is still a small way, but the strong man is not." Chess games, the strong man is not even for. ”

The old man continued: "But the fact is that in addition to the first game of "Jade Silk Golden Ding", which was completed during the home period, the next dozens of games were created and recorded when he raised troops to resist the Yuan Dynasty and Rong Ma Yan, and even, when he was in exile and fled and was in prison, he still seized the time to fiddle with the chess endgame, and it was not until the eve of his righteousness that he really completed all 40 games of "Jade Silk Golden Ding". Is he really obsessed with chess, to the point of ignoring the affairs of his family and country? Judging from his poems, and his later heroic deeds, it is clear that they were not. So, does the production of "Jade Silk Golden Ding" seem a bit unreasonable? ”

Tang Shan nodded: "It's really unreasonable to say this. Even if "Jade Silk Golden Ding" has contributed to chess, it is insignificant compared to his contribution to his family and country. A person like him, who regards the feelings of his family and country as the source of his life, should not be in the face of a national crisis, and he should not be in the mood to contribute to the development of chess. ”

Old man: "So, "Jade Silk Golden Tripod" is not just a chess game. In Wen Tianxiang's eyes, it is as important as the affairs of the family and the country. ”

Tang Shan: "It's a pity that these are all speculations. ”

Old man: "The next thing I said was not speculation. It is known that Wen Tianxiang spent the last years of his life in Dadu (that is, today's Beijing) as a prisoner of Meng Yuan. At that time, the Yuan people admired his integrity and had been persuading him to surrender, but he had a long time, and his response to persuasion was vague, neither saying surrender nor saying no surrender. At that time, there were some ill-intentioned people in the south who maliciously criticized Wen Tianxiang for vacillating, and some even wrote articles asking him to be martyred. In fact, those people are also the heart of a villain. Judging from the facts behind, Wen Tianxiang's ambiguity is just a race for time. ”

Tang Shan: "You mean, Wen Tianxiang is trying to complete his chess game in the middle of nowhere?" ”

Old man: "That's right. Because Wen Tianxiang's attitude was ambiguous, Meng Yuan mistakenly thought that he might change. Therefore, during the period of waiting for a reply, Yuan Ren neither restricted him from fiddling with chess, nor interfered with his writing of poems and compositions. Even, he secretly wrote to his daughter Wen Liuniang through a family member. It wasn't until three years later that Wen Tianxiang completed the chess game and officially showed off to the Yuan people, refused to surrender, and was generous. ”

Tang Shan: "Wen Tianxiang has been in Dadu for three years, but to say that he has delayed these three years in order to complete the chess game, there is no clear history, it is all your words." ”

The old man ignored Tang Shan's questioning and continued: "After Wen Tianxiang's chess game was completed, together with the inkstone that had accompanied him for many years, he was entrusted to the family who followed him. And explain the aftermath in detail to the family surnamed Wen: take the chess game all the way to the south, go to his hometown of Ji'an, Jiangxi, find Wen Tianxiang's friend back then, and go through the endgame on the chess game, you can enter the Jinding Palace, the secrets inside, if you can be used well, may be able to change the history of the Song and Yuan dynasties. ”

Tang Shan was stunned for a moment, feeling that he was listening to a fantasy story.

The old man said to himself: "It's a pity that the family went through a lot of hardships to sneak back to his hometown, Wen Tianxiang's friends back then, either died or fled, none of them could be found, the key is that Lu Xiufu lost the emperor and jumped into the sea for a long time, the Southern Song Dynasty perished, the Yuan Dynasty has been decided, no matter what is in the so-called 'Jinding Palace', I can't return to the sky." The matter has come to this point, the surname Wen Ding has no choice, he himself is illiterate, let alone understand the chess endgame, if he keeps the whole book of "Jade Silk Golden Ding", if he is discovered by the Yuan people for a long time, not only will it attract the disaster of killing, but more troublesome is that in the court of the Mengyuan Dynasty, it is inevitable that there are chess masters, in case of unlocking the chess game and entering the Jinding Palace, wouldn't it be more like a tiger with wings? But if you want to destroy "Jade Silk Golden Ding", you can't stand Mr. Wenshan's hard work. ”

Tang Shan was still speechless. The old man changed his tone and continued:

So the family thought of a way to open the entire "Jade Silk Golden Ding", sandwiched it in the collection of books left by Wen Tianxiang page by page, and then sold these books half and half gave them away, and scattered them among the people. As a result, "Jade Silk Golden Ding" was broken into pieces and also scattered among the people. However, Jiading left two pages to pass on to his descendants: one page is the first game of 'Jade Silk Golden Ding', and the other page is the last game of 'Riding Alone'. Since then, the endgame created by Wen Tianxiang has only left a name, which has been passed on by word of mouth on the rivers and lakes. ”

The old man's qi and blood are obviously insufficient, and when he speaks a large paragraph and speaks quickly, he will be powerless. So at this point he paused again to catch his breath, and then slowed down and continued:

"Actually, the descendants of that family member think that he did a very unwise thing."

Tang Shan was stunned: "What is unwise?" ”

Old man: "He shouldn't have dismantled Mr. Wenshan's "Jade Silk Golden Tripod", a book like this, once it is broken into pieces, it means that it is lost." Later history also confirmed this, and for more than 700 years, the game has never been seen in its entirety. ”

Tang Shan: "But that family's worries are not unreasonable. Once the chess game is found by the upper echelons of the Yuan Dynasty, how can it be guaranteed that people will not be able to solve the secrets in between? ”

Old man: "From the perspective of the history of the development of chess, it has gone through many stages of changes, its real formation, that is, the number of chess pieces and the way of moving are the same as now, the time is roughly at the intersection of the Northern and Southern Song Dynasty, and the maturity of its skills will not be until the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, with Wen Tianxiang as the leader of the Jiangxi Yi School, representing the highest level of chess art in that era. And Wen Tiantian himself happens to be one of the outstanding figures, so if he wants to infiltrate some secrets into the chess game, he can understand it, and there are only characters from the Jiangxi Yi School in his contemporaries, to be precise, there are only three or five people around him at that time. ”

Tang Shan was not convinced: "Although there were frequent wars at that time, the exchanges between the north and the south were not completely severed, why didn't there be one or two masters in the north occasionally?" ”

The old man smiled: "Don't carry it. It is said that Yelu Chucai, who was a little before Wen Tianxiang, was a genius of the world, who was well versed in politics, poetry and the art of chess, and once instructed the Yuan people to play chess, but did not form an atmosphere, so the overall level of the north was far lower than that of the south. Besides, since Wen Tianxiang dared to compile a chess game with secrets under the nose of the Yuan people, in addition to being more confident in his own skills, it was obvious that he had also investigated and considered the reality of the Yuan people. He knew that it might be easier to find out if he had communicated secrets to his friends in other ways, but few people could solve them with chess games. ”

Tang Shan really doesn't carry it anymore. Of course, even if he wants to carry it, he can't say anything famous. His knowledge in this area is really limited. He looked at the old man in front of him, and he didn't expect this person to be obscene, but in some ways very knowledgeable. In connection with its strange behavior and its hidden identity, Tang Shan suddenly figured out some joints, and said in a trembling voice:

"Your surname is Wen. Are you the descendant of that family? The first and last games of "Jade Silk Golden Ding" are in your hands. What you're talking about is a story that has been passed down by word of mouth in the family for hundreds of years. ”