Sitting in the corner of the tea garden table is the blind beggar I met yesterday.

Although he chose a seat that was as unobtrusive as possible, his appearance was eye-catching enough.

It wasn't raining, but I always wore a slightly tattered bamboo hat on my head; I was obviously rich and could treat us to the best seats in the Yuelai Tea Garden to have tea and watch a show, but I was wearing tattered cotton-padded clothes full of patches.

.

He sat in the corner, placed the long bamboo stick across the table, and drank tea as if there was no one else around.

There are always people who have just entered the tea garden who feel strange and look at him with suspicion. But after looking at it, they found that this person did not do anything strange. Soon everyone's attention was attracted by the wonderful performance on the stage.

On the stage is today's finale play "Confronting the Pillars of Heaven", which is a classic Sichuan Opera play with "Five Robes and Four Pillars" and tells the story of Gonggong's angry collision with Buzhou Mountain.

My grandmother is a fan of traditional arts. She doesn’t like to watch operas, but loves to listen to operas. Her favorite is Henan Opera, then Peking Opera and Sichuan Opera.

When I was a child, I also heard her talk about some basic knowledge, such as the classic Sichuan Opera Five Robes, Four Pillars, and Jianghu Eighteen Books.

The so-called five robes, four pillars, eighteen chapters of Jianghu and the often mentioned four major characters are actually recognized as the more exciting plays in Sichuan Opera.

The five robes refer to "The Green Robe", "The Yellow Robe", "The White Robe", "The Red Robe" and "The Green Robe"

The Four Pillars refer to "Pengtian Pillar", "Crystal Pillar", "Nine Dragon Pillars" and "Five Elements Pillars". As for the Eighteen Books of Jianghu and the Four Major Books, there are even more repertoires.

But the names of these plays are not as famous as another part of Sichuan Opera, which is the world-famous face-changing.

Although today's technology is advanced and well-informed, many things that once seemed mysterious have been investigated and become no longer mysterious. Face-changing in Sichuan Opera is an exception. Although its various techniques such as wiping, blowing, pulling, etc. have been made public, but

You understand it and you can learn it are two different things.

Therefore, in the hearts of many Sichuan people, and even Chinese people, changing one's face is very sacred.

By coincidence, when we walked into the tea garden, it was the scene of Gonggong's wonderful face-changing scene in "Touching the Pillar of Heaven".

It was as if everything was arranged, and it was the most exciting moment when we walked in.

So we rushed to the blind beggar and sat down next to him.

We obviously didn't know each other, we didn't even meet by chance, let alone our names, we didn't even exchange a word.

But after we sat down, the blind beggar behaved very familiarly. He waved his hand without even saying a word, and the waiter in the tea garden understood the situation and served us good food and tea.

The tea bowl in front of me was overflowing with the refreshing aroma of tea. As soon as I smelled it, I knew it was a high-quality product that ordinary people could not afford to drink.

Other guest tables need to be attended to at any time, but our table is always served by someone.

The other people didn't know why, and they didn't know why I went straight to the blind beggar as soon as I entered the door, thinking that we knew each other.

But looking at the unfamiliar attitudes between me and the blind beggar, I felt even more confused.

I also wanted to ask who the blind beggar was, but he wouldn't let me talk. Instead, he smiled and said before me: "Such a good tea and such a good show. If you don't watch it carefully, wouldn't you be living up to my good intentions?"

So the five of us had no choice but to drink tea in silence, eat vegetables, and watch a show.

I didn't feel hungry at first, but a sip of tea and the smell of fragrant vegetables whetted my appetite again.

After we had finished drinking and eating, and the play was over, the host on the stage pointed at us and said: "Today there are distinguished guests in the tea garden, so we made a special appearance. Thank you to these guests for their strong support to the tea garden."

There were scorching looks and comments from all around, but the blind beggar remained unmoved and talked to us in a calm tone: "How's the show?"

"Ah, it's pretty good. I don't know much about Sichuan opera, so I thought, well, the face-changing is pretty awesome."

"Where's the food?"

"Uh-huh! It's delicious! I've never tasted such good Mapo tofu!" Ah Hui could no longer think of talking.

I shook my hands to show that I would know it just by looking at my attitude...

"As long as you are satisfied, let's go." The blind beggar stood up.

"Where to go?"

"This is not the place to talk about things."

We followed the blind beggar back to Chunxi Road and booked a private room at the Xiaolongkan hotpot restaurant we had originally booked. We only ordered a few symbolic things. After all, we had just finished eating at Yuelai Tea Garden and had no appetite. The main purpose

We were talking about going to the Black Miao Village.

"Can we talk now?" I said.

"Can."

"Let me introduce myself first, let's..."

"Chen Siyu, right?" The blind beggar recognized us one by one, "Liu Sa, the second young master of the Liu family, Zhang Xinan, the only descendant of Wujiao Road, Fu Hui, the only survivor of Tongyuan's longevity plan, and - well, I

What should I call you?"

"Shang Qingyun." Shang Qingyun said decisively.

"Oh, what's your name now? That's fine. It's a good name."

I was full of doubts when I heard the unclear conversation between the blind beggar and Shang Qingyun at the end, but what surprised me even more was that he not only recognized us, but also knew everything about us.

Especially Ah Hui, even Liu Sa, Er Pang and the others didn't know Ah Hui's origin. I thought that the truth of the shipwreck incident should be known to God and only me, but this blind beggar actually told the truth.

Others also showed wariness: "Who are you? How do you know about us?"

The blind beggar spread his hands: "As you can see, he is just an old blind man begging for food."

"I saw you holding the silver card of the Ninth Family yesterday." I said.

"Is this one?" He turned over his palm, and there was a silver card lying in his hand. However, he just touched it with his finger, and the handwriting and symbols on the silver card were gone. It was just an ordinary silver card.

"The tricks of the rivers and lakes, the cheating of food and drink, are not worth mentioning."

"Then you promised to take us to Hei Miao Village, weren't you also lying to us?" I asked.

"That's not true. I really know the way to find Hei Miao."

"Where's the reward? I don't believe anyone is willing to do it for free. Just tell me what you want. Money is no problem." Liu Sa slapped a bank card on the table.

The blind beggar was unmoved: "Of course, no one in the world would be willing to work for nothing for free. It's just that Hei Miao Village is different from other places, and what you asked is very important, so what I want is

, naturally it cannot be measured by money."

"You're a beggar, you're dressed in rags, you're wearing rags, what do you want if you don't want money?" I pushed the fat man back to his seat, glared at him, and told him to stop talking nonsense.

"I want you to help me find a place."

"Where?"

"Ancient Shu Kingdom."

"Ancient Shu Kingdom? Isn't it already confirmed that it is now Chengdu? If you want to find it, why don't you just dig in Chengdu? Why bother looking for us." Er Pang rolled his eyes at him.

The blind beggar smiled: "Mr. Chen and Mr. Liu are engaged in archeology, so they must know. In the past, King Qin Huiwen induced the King of Shu to send Wu Ding to open the mountain to build a stone cattle road, so Zhang Yi and Sima mistakenly used the road to conquer Shu.

The legend of Ju.”

I nodded.

In Li Bai's "The Road to Shu is Difficult" he once wrote: "There are silkworms and yufu, how confused the founding of the country is. You are forty-eight thousand years old, and you are not connected to Qin Sai. There is a bird road in Taibai in the West, which can cross the top of Emei."

.The earth collapsed and the mountains destroyed the strong men to death, and then the stone stacks of the ladder to heaven were linked together."

Among them, the famous Wuding Kaishan is the one where the collapse of the mountains and the death of the strong men refer to it.

It is said that at that time, King Qin Huiwen was becoming increasingly ambitious and wanted to annex the world for a long time. The ancient Shu Kingdom was a serious concern for him. Not only was the Shu Kingdom occupying the natural dangers of Sichuan, but there were also legends about the miracles in the Shu Mountains. The road to the Shu Kingdom was only accessible to the Shu people.

Go, if people from other countries go there, they will only see an abyss.

So Sima Cuo came up with a plan and asked King Huiwen of Qin to claim that the Qin State had five stone oxen that could shed gold and was willing to use them as a gift to build good relations between the two countries, so as to trick the King of Shu into opening the natural barrier of the sword pavilion.

The king of Shu was indeed fooled and sent five warriors from Shu to Qin to bring back five stone oxen.

However, there is also a theory that the Qin State knew that the King of Shu was a lustful person, so he gave five stunning beauties to each other and brought them back to the five Shu warriors.

In short, the explanations vary, but the ending is without exception. When they boarded the Shu Road, they saw a big python on the road.

The five people wanted to get rid of it, but they did not expect that the giant python was so powerful. During the fight, the giant python broke the mountains of Shushan, and the falling rocks killed the five heroes, and at the same time, the later Stone Ox Road was formed.

In this way, the road to Shu was open, and the Qin State led its troops to march straight in, devour Shu, destroy Ju, and then merge with Ba.

"Since the road to Shu is open, it won't be difficult to find the ancient Shu country, right?" I said.

The blind beggar shook his head: "I say this to tell you that the creation of the Stone Ox Road was actually deliberately done by the King of Shu."

"What do you mean?" I didn't understand.

The blind beggar smiled: "Shu has been in existence for many years, and Shu people respect capable men. They will never appoint a mediocre person as emperor. Stone, cow dung, gold, such a superficial scam, even you and I know it is nonsense, how can the king of Shu

Would you believe it rashly?

Moreover, at that time, the Qin State was very powerful and gradually wanted to annex the world. How could the King of Shu not know this?

How could he be deceived by a mere dung-gold stone cow or a few beauties, and take the risk of sending five people to open the mountain?

In fact, it was just because the King of Shu had already foreseen that Qin would one day be proud and independent of the world, so he gave up his chariot to protect his commander.

The creation of the Stone Ox Road and the destruction of the country were actually just to preserve the true ancient Shu Kingdom."

"These are all speculations without any basis." I shook my head.

"I know you don't believe it, but you just think about it carefully, why did Hei Miao not move far away with the other San Miao people and stay alone in Shushan?" The blind beggar shook his head and sighed, "I'm just telling you what I know, believe it or not.
To be continued...