Introduction, during the River God Festival, many well-known people will also come to hire boats to play wild platforms. Most of these people hold their own identities, and they will wear a mask to cover their faces for fear of losing face. This habit led many ordinary people who participated in the festival to wear masks.
In today's opera art exhibitions, peddlers also take advantage of this point to make a big publicity, and bring in a lot of masks to shout and sell. Business turned out to be very good.
As Jiang Greed approached, he saw a wide variety of masks on the stalls, including cute cartoon images loved by children, and some weird-looking opera images.
Even the stall owner himself is wearing a "Thunder God" mask. Seeing Jiang Greed coming over, he immediately greeted him warmly: "Handsome guy, do you want to buy a mask? According to the tradition of our Nancheng, you must wear a mask when watching a night show..."
He lowered his voice and pretended to be mysterious and said: "Our elders have a saying that if the night show is too lively, it is easy to invite other things to sneak in to watch the show. They are afraid of being discovered, so they sneak in with masks In the crowd. After the show is over, they will randomly catch a few people to go back for supper. Later, everyone is afraid of being stared at by those things, so whenever they watch a night show, they wear masks to cover their faces, so that those things If you can’t tell which are human and which are of the same kind, you won’t act casually…”
The stall owner’s voice is full, and the story is told in cadence, but the essence is to make up stories for selling masks.
Jiang Greed looked at his furry face under the mask and reminded: "The mask is crooked, I can see the hair."
Stall owner: ...
He straightened his mask in embarrassment, and persevered in selling: "Every tourist wears a mask, you really don't want to come two? There is a discount if you buy two together."
Jiang Greed had no interest at all, so he might as well buy some local specialties instead of spending money on masks.
But Hai'an was obviously fascinated by the stall owner's short story. He picked and picked the stalls for a long time, picked a mask of "Taoist with chicken mouth" and a "Taoist with flying bowl", and paid the bill happily.
These two masks are characters in local dramas, with exaggerated and weird shapes, which seem human but not human. It belongs to the kind that can scare people when taken out at night. Hai'an himself put on the mask of "Jizui Taoist" and gave Jiang Lu the mask of "Feibo Taoist".
Jiang Greed refused in his heart, but thinking that maybe he could get some news out if he had a good relationship with Hai'an, so he didn't reject him on this trivial matter. He took the mask and put it on. @无限好文, all in Jinjiang Literature City
After putting on their masks, the two of them boarded the awning boat together. The boatman waited at the stern of the boat, wearing a mask of "Guan Gong" on his face. When he saw them coming up, he yelled at them and told them to sit down, and then pushed the boat to the middle of the river.
The boatman they were looking for was not a large official ship, but a small boat from a nearby farmer who came to earn extra money.
The awning boat is not big, but its advantage is its flexibility. The boatman punting at the stern can choose a location to adjust the view according to the customer's requirements.
Jiang Lu and Hai'an sat on the bow of the boat one after the other, looking at the distant view of the river.
At this time, the sky had darkened, the neon lights of the buildings on both sides of the Ling River were lit up, and the street lights on the riverside avenue were also brightly lit. Only the wide river surface was a little dark, and only the large and small boats on the river surface could be vaguely seen. amble on.
Jiang Greed saw everyone from the Demon Management Bureau, Long Bing and others boarding the boat one after another.
They all chose flexible and easy-to-manipulate private boats, three or two people in a boat, and they floated onto the river one after another with the boat.
@无限好文, all in Jinjiang Literature City
On the tall and ancient Lingdai, there is a big drum with red silk tied on both sides, and two strong men holding drums stand on one side, ready to go.
At eight o'clock in the evening, it was completely dark.
The riverside boulevard on the side of the Lingtai is already crowded with onlookers, and the river is full of boats and boats, noisy and lively.
The host, wearing a Chinese-style dress, appeared at the Lingtai. After the opening remarks, the first drum beat announced the beginning.
Intense drumbeats staggered and fell, making the atmosphere extremely hot. On the flower boats that attracted the most attention, the opera teachers in costumes appeared one by one, and won the applause of the whole house as soon as they opened their voices. The clear singing tore through the night and swayed far away with the water waves.
Hai'an sat on the bow of the boat, propped his chin and said excitedly: "Although I don't understand what the singing is about, it's really nice to hear."
"It should be a professional opera teacher invited by the organizer."
Jiang Greed had read the process in the brochure and knew that this was a professional official invited to press the stage. The show has just begun, and the junglers probably haven't spoken yet. After this performance is over, the real "wild stage" will follow.
Sure enough, after the show, the lights on the flower boats dimmed, and the gorgeous flower boats gradually disappeared on the river, but those boats floating on the river gradually hung up their lights. At first, they were silent, as if they were Waiting for someone to start, it won't be long before someone hastily opened his voice and sang—
The east side just sang a few lines, "There is no time to keep the cloud house empty, and I don't know what year it is in the world. Looking at the sky and the people, who will pass on the thousands of thoughts?" I put on my iron armor again" and pressed it down, and then someone from somewhere sang "I hope that after saving Zhongliang, I wash my hands and burn incense to reward the gods", with a desolate and simple singing voice, covering all the previous voices in one fell swoop past…
This is the case in the jungle platform. At the beginning, everyone gathered together in a mess and opened their mouths. If you have no ability to overshadow others, you will be buried in it. Only if you sing really well can you sing till the end and win the applause of the whole house.
It was not long before the jungle stage started, and the sound was still noisy, but after realizing the gap, some players who were not as skilled as others had already started to leave the stage gradually, took a break, turned off the lights, and just became ordinary listeners on the boat.
In the later period, there were less than ten ships with lights on.
At this time, more than an hour has passed since the opening, and the voices from the lights-on boats, without exception, are steady and long-lasting. They compete with each other, not only in singing skills, but also in lyrics.
Such tit-for-tat momentum greatly aroused the emotions of the spectators, and the emotions of these tourists who were attracted by the excitement also fluctuated with the tune, and there were endless comments and applause.
Their emotions were all thrown into the opera, and for a while, no one noticed that the river surface was gradually fogging up. The boats floating on the river surface were shrouded in a faint white mist, and even the sounds that came out became ethereal.
"It's getting foggy."
Jiang Greed stood at the bow of the boat, looking in the direction of the fog.
I saw a small boat with lights hanging in the fog coming slowly, and the weeping voice on the boat was singing: "If you can hook the pines and cypresses that invade the sky and grow thousands of feet, half a piece of paper of world-renowned fame will fall! General Guan has a beautiful shape, General Zhang is in such a fierce situation, when will we have to visit? The hero returns to Jiuquan soil, and he will fall on the embankment and soil slope by the river... "
The voice was from far to near, and the tone was not high, but it suppressed all the other voices, and finally only this voice was left on the river, still echoing endlessly.
The mournful singing is mixed with the sound of rippling water, each sound is like a drumstick beating on the heart.
The grief and indignation of the hero's broken halberd seemed to be embedded in the chest along with the mournful song.
Looking back, Jiang Li saw that white mist had enveloped the river, and the street lights on the riverside avenue became dim. The figures of the spectators on the shore melted into the fog and became indistinct. Only the masks on their faces were particularly clear. , with an eerie sense of realism.
"What's in the water?" Hai'an squatted on the bow of the boat, beckoning Jiang Lu to come and see.
Jiang Greed followed his fingers to look at the river, and saw countless shadows swaying under the dark river. These shadows looked like humans but not humans, with human-like limbs entangled and intertwined, twisted and hideous. They rolled under the surface of the water, occasionally revealing faces as white as paper. The fuzzy facial features on their faces were like five black holes, and their expressions were full of misery and hatred.
"It's a water monkey."
It is said that people who die in the water will turn into water ghosts if their resentment persists. The water ghost is also called the water monkey.
There are many stories and legends about water monkeys, but most of them are fabricated by human beings with their rich imagination. There are indeed water monkeys in the river, but they are not "ghosts" or "demons", but monsters formed by the condensed resentment.
Countless lives are buried in the big rivers every year. The bones of those who died in vain sink to the bottom of the river and cannot rest in peace. Some gradually dissipated and dissipated with time, but some, gathered with other grievances, snowballed and grew bigger and bigger, and then gradually alienated, becoming "water monkeys" with only predatory instincts left.
They feed on the rotting corpses in the river, absorbing the resentment from the corpses to strengthen themselves. Affected by the remaining human instincts, it has become the distorted appearance that resembles human beings but is not human.
The conditions for the production of water monkeys are harsh, and it was rare to see one in the past few years.
But now there are at least a hundred water monkeys under the water of the Linghe River. They shuttled across the bottom of the boat, their twisted limbs clinging to the bottom of the boat, as if they were about to break out of the water and climb onto the boat in the next moment.
Jiang Li frowned slightly, took out his phone and looked at it, the signal grid was empty, and the time stayed at 9:44 in the evening, and there was no change.
"Is it an enchantment?" He muttered to himself, looked up and looked around, at this time the river was covered with thick white mist, and it was impossible to see the situation one meter away.
Only the sad and desolate voice continued to sing "Guanli's body is in the Dragon Tower and Phoenix Tower, and his soul goes to Jingzhou and Langzhou, fighting to know that the two brick cities will be replaced by earth mounds! Heavenly Cao is not accepted, hell is hard to take, and there is no one." Just go."
The indistinguishable sound of the play blends into the stirring of the boat pole