The ashes of the Korean Festival were still swirling around the street corners, and a long line suddenly formed in front of the Guangzhao Association. Tang Ren squeezed his head out of the crowd and asked, "Free Chaozhou rat shell rice cakes? Leave a box for me!" I took the green rice cake, and the aroma of glutinous rice was mixed with the faint smell of bitter almonds.
"Don't eat it!" Qin Feng knocked down the rice cake that Tang Ren stuffed into his mouth, stuttering in a rare and rapid voice, "The filling, the filling color is wrong!" The bean paste core was oozing with dark red juice, and a crooked "Cheng" character was condensed on the celadon plate. The grandmother who was distributing rice cakes suddenly convulsed and fell to the ground. Half a piece of oil-soaked "Chaoyin Daily" fell out of her apron pocket. The missing person notice column in 1937 was circled with the character "Lin".
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The yellowed newspapers guided us to the abandoned Yu Yu Ru Music Society. Tang Ren kicked open the red painted wooden door covered with cobwebs. The Guan Gong statue in the center of the stage had a hollow left eye - it was the emerald pupil that was lost in the robbery. Qin Feng touched the faded curtain and suddenly stopped: "There are bloody fingerprints here!"
Following the dark red stains, I reached the backstage wardrobe, where twenty puppets in Chaozhou opera costumes were neatly arranged. I lifted the old opera robes, and the name of the tune "Double Biting Goose" was written in cinnabar on the lining. When Tang Ren fiddled with the puppet's joints, the mechanism was triggered, and the stage floor rumbled and sank, revealing a secret room where the moldy account books were hidden.
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The account book records twenty smuggling transactions, and the column for goods is filled with "red soil". We tracked the abandoned teak dock, and Qin Feng scraped off the green moss on the planks: "This, this is the shipworm unique to Chaoshan!" Tang Ren chopped open the rotten cargo hold with an axe, and bundles of Chaozhou drapery wrapped blackened bones, and the word "Cheng" was engraved on the top of each skull.
In the iron house of the boat keeper, a piece of fish wrapper was stuck to the kerosene lampshade. Tracing back to the fish shop in Chinatown, the chopping board where the boss chopped fish suddenly cracked - a rusted "touch gold" key was hidden in the interlayer, which was the unique door lock style of Chaoshan houses.
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The inlaid porcelain unicorn in the old house was missing a scale, and Tang Ren inserted the copper key to complete it. The moment the door latch slid open, the yin-yang fish tiles in the courtyard suddenly became misplaced. Qin Feng counted the moss in the tile seams: "Left, left seven, right five, the number of yin and yang!"
The pile of overseas Chinese documents in the iron box in the cellar smelled musty, and the red silk wrapped half of the dragon and phoenix deed was on the bottom layer. I looked closely at the sunlight from the skylight, and the seal on the deed was actually the name of Tang Ren's great-grandfather. Tang Ren suddenly screamed, and in the pottery jar he kicked over, twenty Yuan Datou coins with tooth marks rolled out - the tooth marks matched the skull engraving perfectly.
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The rainstorm washed the arcades on the street. We found the old site of the Yongchengxing Bank according to the address of the overseas Chinese. Behind the sealed iron fence, the abacus beads were scattered all over the ground. Qin Feng picked up the bloodstained copper weight: "This, this is the Kuping weight from 1948!"
Tang Ren pried open the floor tiles to find the rusty safe, the combination plate was stained with old opium paste. I entered the value of the goods recorded in the Dragon and Phoenix Deed, and the box was filled with stacks of IOUs - each with a bloody handprint, and the initials of the debtors' names were linked together to form "Chengye Anbang".
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The elders of the Baihu Ancient Village blocked our way: "People with other surnames are not allowed to enter the ancestral hall!" Tang Ren suddenly took out the Dragon and Phoenix Deed, and the copper lock of the ancestral hall opened. There were two tablets on the altar, engraved with the names of Tang Ren's great-grandfather and his two brothers.
"So, so that's how it is!" Qin Feng brushed away the dust on the family tree, "1946, one branch, one lineage keeps the right path, one lineage..." The altar suddenly collapsed, revealing the bronze tripod in the secret room. The ashes inside the tripod buried a complete "Succession Book", and the blood writing on the last page was shocking: "Both sides testify to each other, and both sides inherit each other."
On the ferry on the way back, Tang Ren played with Yuan Datou: "So I have a second uncle?" Qin Feng looked at the twin bridges running parallel to each other on a tributary of the Chao Phraya River and suddenly stuttered: "You, look at the bridge hole!" Amid the shimmering waves, a brand new "Cheng" signboard lit up on the arcade on the opposite bank.
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