There was a burst of aroma, and the young man walked over with his face in his hands, babbling and beckoning them to eat, but he turned out to be a mute. The young proprietress followed behind, looking this way strangely. Chu Qiao was taken aback, and stared at her fixedly. The proprietress seemed to feel that she was looking at her, she smiled lightly, and said, "Miss is right, my eyes are blind, I can't see anything."
As soon as the noodles were on the table, Li Ce began to gorge on eating.
Chu Qiao was suddenly embarrassed, and said embarrassedly: "Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's okay," the proprietress smiled peacefully, and said softly, "I can't see since I was a child, and I don't think much of it. It's just that it's a bit inconvenient to go shopping in the street."
Chu Qiao ate two bites, the noodles were delicious, she suddenly remembered something, raised her head and asked: "You can't see, how do you know I'm a young lady?"
"I smell the fragrance of magnolia on your body. It's still fresh. It must be a freshly picked flower bud."
"Oh," Chu Qiao nodded, and said, "You have a really good nose."
"You can't see it with your eyes, so it's easier to use it." The proprietress smiled.
At this time, there was a burst of drum music, and at the corner ahead, a film troupe set up a stage. As soon as the singer sang his voice, a group of children swarmed up, and in an instant, the troupe was completely surrounded.
The children from the noodle shop heard the noise and ran out quickly. Chu Qiao didn't even see her face clearly, she had already plunged into the crowd. It's a pity that she was young, no more than seven or eight years old, short and thin, she was squeezed out of the crowd a few times, fell to the ground, opened her mouth wide and burst into tears.
The proprietress heard the sound and patted her husband who was busy. When the husband saw it, he immediately ran over a few steps, hugged the child back, wiped her tears with his sleeve, stuffed another fruit in her hand, and put her in the arms. Put it on the stool and go to work.
The child was twitching and crying, with tears dripping from his big black eyes, as if he had been wronged by the sky, it was extremely pitiful. Chu Qiao stared at her for a while and said, "Li Ce, do you have any children?"
"Yes," Li Ce said while eating, "I often walk by the river, how can I not get my shoes wet?"
Chu Qiao didn't seem to hear what he said, and said quietly: "Children are so kind. They laugh when they are happy, and cry when they are unhappy. They are so simple and straightforward."
"You can do it too." Li Ce took a sip of the noodle soup, raised his head, and said, "Hey, Qiao Qiao, eat well when you eat, don't be so emotional, listening to you talk, I'm so stuffed with soup."
Chu Qiao glared at him, lowered her head to eat the noodles, and then heard the troupe get louder, and while the gongs and drums were beating, someone began to sing at the top of their voices. The tune is nice, and the voice is also very good, but it is Bian Tang's dialect, the tone is strange, and most of Chu Qiao can't understand it. Li Ce pricked up his ears and listened carefully, but before he finished listening to a paragraph, he suddenly turned his head and sprayed out a mouthful of tea!
Chu Qiao escaped a catastrophe, but the child sitting behind Li Ce suffered disaster, was sprayed all over his head and face, and was so dazed that he even forgot to cry.
Li Ce hurriedly got up and went over to wipe the child's face. While wiping, he said, "I can tell from your mother's appearance that no matter how young you are, you are still a beauty. You are so abrupt, so abrupt."
Chu Qiao asked in bewilderment, "What's wrong with you?"
Li Ce waved his hands with a smile and said, "Nothing, nothing."
But the child walked over with a kick, sat beside Chu Qiao, stretched out a small white hand, and said, "Give me the money."
Chu Qiao was taken aback for a moment, and asked, "Money?"
The child nodded: "He sprayed my clothes dirty, starched and washed them, two pennies."
Li Ce became interested, and said with a smile, "What do you want money for?"
The child said solemnly, "I'm going to the theater."
"Qian'er, don't mess around!" The proprietress put on a straight face and said, "Come here quickly! Don't disturb the lady for dinner."
"It's okay," Li Ce waved his hand: "Anyway, she's not hungry."
Chu Qiao hadn't eaten properly for a long time, so she was naturally hungry, so she picked up a chopstick and ate a big mouthful of noodles.
The little girl sat on the side with her chin in her hand, she seemed to have a good impression of Chu Qiao, and asked her, "Can you sing?"
Chu Qiao shook her head: "No, will you?"
The child said dejectedly, "Me neither."
"Then do you understand?"
"Of course I can understand," the child looked at Chu Qiao, and said doubtfully, "Don't you understand?"
Chu Qiao nodded.
The child suddenly became interested and said, "Then let me tell you."
After finishing speaking, regardless of whether Chu Qiao liked to listen or not, she began to talk about it with great interest: "This scene is about a prince and a beautiful woman."
Li Ce curled his lips and said, "The prince is real, but not necessarily a beauty."
"You really don't know much!" The little girl said: "Of course the prince is surrounded by beauties, not beauties, how could the prince fall in love with him? Just like the prince in our palace, his palace is full of beauties. When I grow up, I have become a beauty, and I will also live in his palace."
Li Ce laughed immediately when he heard the words, and praised her with a thumbs up: "You still have insight, keep working hard, I am very optimistic about you."
Chu Qiao glared at Li Ce.
The little girl continued: "One day, the prince's country was destroyed. His father, mother, brothers and sisters were all killed. The prince was living on the street and met a beautiful beauty. The beauty rescued the prince, and they fell in love."
The little girl stared at Chu Qiao, and said very seriously: "He loves her, and she loves him very much. They swore to be together forever, never betray, never abandon."
The child's eyes were very serious, even a little sacred, Chu Qiao looked into her eyes, and suddenly felt a slight pain in her heart as if she had been lightly pricked by a needle.
The troupe's tone was low and hoarse, like icy water flowing through the palms, which sounded unreasonably depressing.
The little girl went on to say: "But the prince is still unhappy. Before his revenge has been avenged, the beauty decided to help the prince restore the country."
Li Ce said again: "She is a woman, she has no money and no one, why should she help the prince restore the country?"
"It's been said that she is a very beautiful beauty," the little girl said impatiently, "beauty is money, beauty is a weapon, and beauty is a thousand troops. I don't even understand this. She is such a big man."
Li Ce laughed out loud when he heard the words, but the troupe's music suddenly became more exciting, and the voices of the actors became clearer and louder, like a sun breaking through the horizon.
"Then, the beauty met the general. The general is the prince's enemy, but he also fell in love with the beauty. Seeing the beauty sad, he was also very sad. At this time, the little prince from another country met the beauty, and he also fell in love with the beauty. I like the beauty very much, but it's a pity that the beauty doesn't like him."
The little girl spoke earnestly, dipped her finger in some tea, drew four small people on the table, and said: "Later, the prince sent someone to ambush and asked the beauty to ask the general to negotiate. The beauty didn't know, but the general knew, but he still came, and he was killed by the prince."
"Ah!" Chu Qiao's eyes twitched, her heart suddenly turned cold.
The child wiped off a villain on the table, and continued: "So the prince returned to the country and became the great emperor. The beauty was very sad, and left the great emperor, and was taken away by the little prince. The great emperor was very angry, so he sent troops to attack Little prince, the little prince was not very powerful, but he was beaten to death by the big emperor."
The little girl erased another villain to show that he was also dead.
"The beauty was very sad. She walked and walked, and got sick, so she died."
The beauty was also wiped off, leaving only a villain on the table. The novel said: "Therefore, there is only the great emperor left in this world."
Li Ce stared stupidly and asked, "It's over?"
The child nodded and said calmly, "It's over."
"What kind of play is this?"
The child said, "This is a tragic play."
At this time, Chu Qiao didn't care to watch Li Ce argue with the child, she looked at the little man left on the table, a little dazed. The night wind blew, and the troupe finished singing. The boss came out and asked the audience for a reward with a tray. Most of the theatergoers are children. Where there is any money, it will be gone, leaving only an empty stage. On the curtain, a shadow puppet stands there alone. He is holding a small sword, showing his teeth and claws. Yes, it seems to be very powerful, but as far as the eye can see, there is nothing on the table, and no one is even fighting.
After eating, the two continued to wander on the street. The story that the child told just now made Chu Qiao feel a little depressed, and she couldn't grasp her own thoughts. She just felt a little sad, but she didn't know why.
There are many people on this road, and there are many temples. Biantang is an open country, and there are various sects, such as a kind and fat Buddha, a beautiful water god, and a séance with a spell drawn on his forehead. Fortunately, the folk customs here are simple and honest, and you will never fight desperately just because you believe in the Buddha and the Goddess of Luoshui. Along the way, Chu Qiao received many wooden signs from believers, just like modern leaflets.
There was a crabapple on the side of the road that was blooming just right, and the color of the flower was delicate and red. When Chu Qiao and Li Ce passed by, the wind picked up, and the flowers were like rain, and the flowers were scattered on their clothes one by one, as if they had been stained with rouge.
Li Ce happily pointed at the crabapple, and said, "This tree is really nice, let someone move it back."
The passers-by on the side heard them and looked at them carefully. They seemed to think that this man was young and his tone was not small, so they looked at them with a little bit of strangeness in an instant.
"Look, there are jugglers ahead!" Li Ce suddenly yelled with great interest, pulled Chu Qiao and started to run. The surrounding area was crowded with people, and the two standing outside couldn't squeeze in.
Li Ce rolled his eyes, put his hands in his arms, and then held a large handful of silver bills, went to the small stall next to him to exchange for a pile of scattered copper coins, and pocketed them with the hem of his clothes. He awkwardly climbed up a step next to the sideshow, stood on it, and shouted loudly: "Money is given away! Grab it quickly!" Then he threw out the coppers in handfuls.
People were stunned for a while at first, but after a while they saw a fool throwing money, and they all crowded over, pushing each other, it was so lively.
Seeing this scene, Li Ce threw out all the money at the hem of the skirt, pulled Chu Qiao and squeezed in along the seam. But squeezed into the middle, suddenly dumbfounded, it turned out that all the jugglers also robbed the money. Now, it's just the two of them standing there, like fools.
(end of this volume)
Volume 5 Yanbei Battle Song