This Xuzhou City is... very lively today.
There is a duel.
Zheng Mukai, the head escort of the Guangxing Escort Agency in Kaifeng Prefecture, is going to compete with Ge Shigong, the fifth leader of the Huai'an Chivalry Sect, in the city's arena.
These two are both well-known figures in the world.
Zheng Mukai is thirty-five this year and is known as the "Kaifeng Three-Armed Sword". Of course, he is not a "Three-Sword Style". He only has one sword, but he has a fast sword. He used it so fast that it seemed like he had three arms.
And Na Geshi is not a fuel-efficient lamp. He is thirty-one years old this year, nicknamed "Scorpion Tail Spear", a seven-foot flower spear that makes it ever-changing and extremely sharp. It can be said to be unparalleled in the Huaihe River area. People don’t know.
Although these two people... had no friendship to begin with, they didn't get into a fight, let alone sign a life-and-death pledge to fight in the ring.
But today they are going to fight, and they must fight.
Why?
This is not difficult to guess - two men fight to the death, mostly for money or women.
They have enough money to spend.
So, the answer is women.
There are many types of women. Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi both have wives at home, and their wives are also women, but they are obviously not fighting for their wives who are far away today.
They...are fighting for a woman they have never even met.
That woman, whose nickname is "Chu Xue", is the number one in the "Qiliu Youlan", the largest brothel in Xuzhou City.
In those days, brothels were also divided into three, six, and nine grades; let’s not mention the second- and third-rate brothels, which usually didn’t have that many rules, but the first-rate brothels… there were a lot of rules when visiting them. .
A brothel that can become famous must have a very powerful backer behind it, so most people will never see the top names in such a brothel.
It doesn’t mean that if you have money, you can walk into the brothel with a loud mouth and ask for a roll call to sleep with the top card. Sorry, there is no such operation.
For those with status, prostitution must be elegant and classy. They cannot just enter the house and lie down to sleep like ordinary people who visit the lower-class brothels. In their eyes, that is livestock.
What real dignitaries, literati and elegant guests want to pursue is not just physical release; before that, they must first be spiritually satisfied.
So, if you want to meet the top brass in such a high-end brothel, you have to "ask for an interview" just like a door-to-door interview.
No matter whether others see you or not in the end, you have to put down the money first and let the madam make sure that you are willing to spend it.
Then, I usually invite you to drink tea in the room first, and let the girl take a look at you in the dark first. If you look impersonal, crooked, rude in words and deeds, etc. ’s... Then basically you can go back after drinking tea.
If you look good and have good temperament, everything looks fine., then the next step is for the girl to come out and chat with you...
Of course, it’s just a chat. If you see someone coming out, do something, or look stupid and impatient. , the man turned and left.
You still have to carry it, hold it, you are obviously here to visit the brothel, but you also have to act like you are sitting calmly, chatting with others about music, chess, calligraphy, painting, romance... and then they will I start to offer you tea and toast, with my flirtatious eyes.
We chatted like this until the third watch of the night shift. The girl took the initiative to say hello to the maid next to her, asked her to pass the message out and close the door, and then "invited" you to go into the back room to rest together, so that you could go in and complete your mission. The real purpose of the kiln.
This series of... operations that seem to us today to be like taking off your pants and farting, were considered by the upper class of that era to be foreplay that was even more essential than foreplay.
In fact, if you taste it carefully, you will find that this thing makes sense.
If you get something too easily, it will reduce your happiness when you enjoy it...
Even if it is pooping, you can solve it when you feel the slightest need. The feeling of pleasure is completely different from the feeling of pleasure when you try to solve it when you hold it in until you feel like you are about to pull it in your pants.
Can Gao Fushuai’s happiness after spending a day sleeping with a goddess compare with the happiness of a licking dog after spending a year sleeping with a goddess?
So, taking the initiative to create difficulties for one's actions and enjoying the feeling of worry about possible failure or rejection is a higher state, and it is a way to subtly induce one's brain to secrete more A tip for endorphins.
Of course, having said that, you must have the strength to operate like this. If you don’t have the strength, you will only lose nothing no matter how you adjust the probability.
That’s a bit of a tangent... Let’s get back to the point.
Then what happened to Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi?
With the foreshadowing I gave above, the explanation is relatively simple: they both went to Qiliu Youlan last night, and both wanted to see the Chuxue girl, so they were invited together by the madam. Went to the house for tea. As a result, Chuxue didn't show up. She just looked at the two people from behind the curtain for a while and said: "One catkin cannot distinguish two Yu (pronounced yu, second tone)." Then he asked the old bustard to see the guests off.
After the two came out, they were a little confused, so they asked the madam to ask Miss Chuxue what she meant. Seeing that everyone had spent money and that they were all well-known figures in the world, the old bustard went to ask. As a result, Miss Chuxue wrote down the six words again and handed over a note.
Then what does she mean?
This "yi xi" undoubtedly refers to herself, and xi is snow; "it doesn't matter two yu", literally, it seems to be saying "I, this 'snowflake', can't do anything about it" Fall into your 'two' valleys."
But it’s not...
She is hiding the word here. The word "禺" is actually not 禺, but " even", because there are two of you sitting there. There it is.
Miss Chuxue is smart. When she looked at the clothes, boots, and the details of the cuffs and belts of the two people, she knew that they were both married people, and their wives took good care of them. Okay; the word "even" is to remind them that they still have a wife at home; the intentional lack of a radical is to persuade them to be "human" and have some conscience.
The so-called "one catkin cannot separate two women" does not mean that I will not "divide" myself to you two, but that I, Chuxue, do not want to "break up" you two "couples".
She... thinks so.
But Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi didn’t think so.
These two are suffering from lack of education. What level of education do you think the girls who can be the top stars have? If women could take the exam, they would have become officials long ago. How come you two still want to be on top? Doesn't this bring bad luck?
In this way, Zheng and Ge took that sentence into its literal meaning, and interpreting it according to that meaning, the other party seemed to be implying, "If only one of you two comes, then my snow It just fell there."
So, they fought against each other according to the formula of "two peaches kill three soldiers".
Both of them are from martial arts circles, well-known and decent families. They can't just fight outside a brothel at night, and the winner can go back after the fight? It wouldn't sound good if it was spread out.
So they made an appointment to compete in the East Street Arena in Xuzhou City at noon today.
As for the reason... they naturally did not publicly say that it was for a prostitute. They only said that they wanted to compete in martial arts and compete; but considering that the swords have no eyes, if something goes wrong, it will not end well. So I still said hello to the local land security and signed a life and death certificate.
This is what the scene said.
But in fact, both of them had murderous intentions.
I have signed the life and death certificate, can I still keep it?
This thing is equivalent to a "legal murder contract". As long as both parties sign it voluntarily, life and death will be decided afterwards. No relatives or friends of either party are allowed to seek revenge afterwards. Whoever seeks revenge or changes direction revenge, then it means you were at fault first.
…………
After noon, crowds of spectators began to gather on East Street.
Occasionally encountered vendettas on the road, the common people would stay away because they were afraid of being harmed; but this competition in the arena with rules and regulations, they were very cute, and some even wanted to watch it. Apparently they even climbed onto the roofs of nearby businesses.
It’s not yet time, it’s here in a blink of an eye.
Ge Shi and Zheng Mukai finally made their debut.
Both of them waited until the last minute to show up, which was a sign of their experience in the world - they both knew that if such an occasion came too early, they would be more agitated.
The certificate of life and death had already been signed. The two of them just came to the witness and bowed briefly. After listening to the other party's brief explanation, they each used Qinggong to jump onto the six-foot-high ring. .
"Please."
"Please."
They held weapons, cupped their fists and raised their hands, said a final hello in the center of the stage, and then walked to the two sides of the stage respectively. end.
At this moment...
"Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai, the market is open, buy it and leave! The game will start soon. At the last minute, those who want to place a bet hurry up. What? What is one minute? One minute is the time you count from one to sixty."
I could only hear a voice at the corner of an alley about ten meters away from the ring. A man's slightly shrill voice was shouting loudly without any hesitation.
At the same time, there was another voice, not far from the "opener", speaking to a group of villagers gathered here calmly: "Oh, I am a professional." Commentator, you believe me. I tell you, today’s match is the 64th Open. Ge Shixiaoyou... As the saying goes, they practice swordsmanship for a hundred days, spears for a thousand days, and swordsmanship for ten thousand days. Players of their level... ...Oh no... Masters usually practice guns more fiercely. Of course, this Zheng Mukai is a few years older than Ge Shi. This has to be taken into account. You listen to me, go to Ge Shi. That’s right. "
If the owners of these two voices are not Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai, who are they?
These two guys also just arrived in Xuzhou yesterday. This morning the news of the duel was spreading in the streets and alleys, so they joined in the fun.
Sun Yixie deserves to be a business genius. Almost as soon as he heard the news, he thought of setting up a "handicap" near the ring; you may say that he is short of money, but in fact he is not. , just because he spent two hundred taels of silver in Zhu Xiaowan's black shop a few days ago, he felt uncomfortable, so he wanted to make some extra money to make back - this was due to his character, and it was really not about money.
As for Huang Donglai, he also has a special liking for commentary, so he came to help Brother Sun "keep the edge".
The two of them stood there and chatted like a cross talk at first. When more people came to listen, Huang Donglai turned to tell the story alone, while Sun Yixie took advantage of the situation and took out his own After spending the whole morning preparing the "bets" and starting to open the market, this was the scene in front of me.
Listening to the unscrupulous words and deeds of the two boys, Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi in the ring also had embarrassed expressions and slightly twitching mouth corners. But now that the arrow is on the string, they are unlikely to call a timeout or anything.
The two could only pretend not to hear, and each took a stance, preparing to fight.