portable space

After leaving the seed shop, Zhang Taiping first bought all the things Cai Yazhi listed on the street, and then walked towards the corner of the market - the pet area. In fact, it is called the livestock area in the countryside. From time to time there will be some

Although you don’t have to spend money to buy interesting animals, it’s nice to see them in the past.

Naturally, the smell was overwhelming in the place where animals gathered, and I could smell it before I even walked far. Zhang Taiping was not a rich man, and he was not intolerable to this kind of smell.

The first thing you hear when you walk in is the sound of pigs. The most popular animals sold here are piglets, followed by big dogs and goats.

There are very few big pigs for sale here. The piglets, which are only two months old at most, are completely white and pink, which is not annoying.

But now these guys are being held in someone's hands and watched, and while struggling hard, they are making screams from their mouths, which are so harsh that it is no wonder that there is a saying "worse than killing a pig".

Zhang Taiping had no interest in raising pigs, but there was a pig farm in the village. However, this matter was not something he could decide by himself, so he did not stay in front of these piglets.

Beyond the high-pitched squealing of pigs, the next step is the dull or childish barking of dogs.

Dogs are different from pigs. It is easy for dogs and people to develop feelings for each other. Even if they don’t want to keep them, most people can’t bear to kill them. The most they can do is sell them. Therefore, the dog market is not limited to puppies.

There are also many dogs.

Zhang Taiping walked slowly in the dog market. He already had enough small and large dogs at home. Although he didn't plan to buy any more, he could always think about it. Maybe he would meet some good dogs.

But from beginning to end, he didn't meet a dog that made his heart beat. It was just that those newborn puppies looked cute with watery eyes.

Next came the sheep market and the bull market. Zhang Taiping did not stop and walked quickly to the innermost corner.

This is a big place, and there is no fixed number of animals in it. There may be any strange and weird animals.

I met a rabbit seller at the far end. The domestic white rabbit was in a cage, eating vegetable leaves, and the ears twitching looked very cute. Fan Ming also raised a white rabbit at home.

, and named them "Xiaoyu", but then they ran away to unknown places. Zhang Taiping couldn't help but take a second look at these rabbits.

The stall owner thought he was interested and greeted him enthusiastically: "Look, this rabbit can be raised for meat and eaten, and it can also be played by children."

Zhang Taiping shrugged his shoulders and expressed no interest.

Walking further inside, there were many selling white mice and various birds. Zhang Taiping walked by and looked at them, but had no interest in buying them.

It wasn't until I reached a stall surrounded by a group of people that I stopped and looked inside. It turned out that a charlatan was setting up a stall here, using cupping methods to treat rheumatism.

Cupping is indeed a medical skill, which is recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", but most of it is spread among the people. Only in recent years have some people used it systematically for hospital treatment.

Authentic cupping can dredge meridians, adjust qi and blood, and balance yin and yang. It does have some therapeutic effects on rheumatism.

There are many strange people among the people, and not all people who sell medicines to treat diseases at street stalls are charlatans. Zhang Taiping did not dare to say whether this person's cupping can really cure diseases or is just used to deceive people. So he stood outside the crowd.

Take a look.

The doctor was a Taoist priest who looked to be about fifty years old. He wore a simple Taoist robe, and his long antique hair was tied into a bun with a wooden hairpin. Let’s not talk about whether the medical skills are real or not, just this

The way you dress up makes people more convincing.

He was sitting on a small bench, with a small stall in front of him. There were some plasters and some gold sore medicine on it, all of which were made by himself. There was a flag behind him, with only the words "help the wounded" instead of "rescue" on it.

die".

A middle-aged woman was sitting in front of her, rolling up her trouser legs. The Taoist priest heated the pot with a ceramic pot, then buckled it up, and used many slapping techniques.

After a while, the Taoist priest pulled out the jar from the middle-aged woman's leg, and the sound of air bursting was quite magical.

"Is this good?" the woman asked.

"Okay." The Taoist priest nodded.

"The woman put down her trouser legs, stood up, took two steps, and then shouted in surprise: "It's really lightened up a lot, it's really lightened up a lot!" She looked very excited.

"You don't need to be so excited now that it's lightened up, right?" a person next to him muttered.

Unexpectedly, this woman's ears were very sensitive, so he listened and explained: "I have been suffering from pain in my legs for seven or eight years. I have spent a lot of money on medical treatment and medication, but it has not improved. Now I finally get better."

It’s getting better.”

"Is it really that magical?" The man still didn't believe it.

"It's absolutely true. This Taoist priest's medical skills are really miraculous." The woman said to the people beside her.

"What she said is true," someone nearby who knew the woman said.

Zhang Taiping finally understood after hearing this. This woman had not been cured for a long time. She was so tortured that she came to the street doctor to try her luck. Unexpectedly, her pain was relieved. No wonder she was pleasantly surprised.

Although he was encouraged and praised by the middle-aged woman, the old Taoist priest had no expression of complacency on his face.

After the middle-aged woman's excitement cooled down, she said slowly: "This is only treating the symptoms and not the root cause."

She probably knew that the illness that had tortured her for seven or eight years was not easy to treat. The middle-aged woman did not feel disappointed. Instead, she asked hopefully: "I don't know how to cure it?"

The old Taoist priest said: "Cupping can only temporarily remove the superficial disease qi, but cannot treat the root cause of the disease qi. If you want to cure it, you need to do it both internally and externally. While using cupping or cupping outside, you also need to use traditional Chinese medicine to treat the root cause."

"

"Are these medicines?" the middle-aged woman asked, pointing to the medicines on the stall.

The old Taoist priest shook his head and said: "No, I don't have traditional Chinese medicine to treat other diseases here. These are just trauma medicines that activate blood circulation and remove blood stasis or stop bleeding. They cannot treat your disease."

"Then what should we do?" The middle-aged woman was a little anxious. She finally met someone who might be able to cure her disease, and she really didn't want to lose this opportunity.

The old Taoist priest thought for a while and said: "I can't help you if I don't have any medicinal materials here, but I can give you a prescription. You can just go to the drug store and get the medicine yourself." After that, he took it out of his box.

He took out a piece of hemp paper, took out a pen, and wrote a prescription in a rustle.

Zhang Taiping is a head taller than the others. Standing at the back, he can clearly see what the old Taoist priest wrote. Not to mention whether the pharmacy is useful or not, just this vigorous and powerful running script is amazing.

The middle-aged woman took the prescription, looked at it and put it away carefully, and then asked: "I don't know where the Taoist priest lives. If it is cured by then, I might as well go and thank you."

The old Taoist priest shook his head and said: "We are home all over the world, but we have no fixed place to live."

The middle-aged woman was a little disappointed, but she didn't force anything. Maybe in her eyes, the old Taoist priest had really become some kind of worldly master. She asked, "I wonder how much the total is?"

"The cupping is twenty yuan a time and the prescription is fifty yuan, so the total is seventy yuan."

Cupping relieves pain once, and it is indeed worth twenty dollars. As for the prescription, if it can really cure the disease, let alone fifty dollars, even three thousand dollars is worth it. A middle-aged woman would not

He hesitated and took out a hundred yuan, but then said: "I believe in the Taoist priest's medical skills. The medicine here must have miraculous effects. I don't know how to sell it?"

The old Taoist priest said: "The plaster is twenty per piece, and the hemostatic medicine in the bottle is also twenty per bottle."

The middle-aged woman said: "Don't look for it. I'll just get another plaster."

The old Taoist priest nodded, but gave the middle-aged woman a plaster and a bottle of hemostatic medicine.

The middle-aged woman retreated to the back after getting the things, but she did not leave. She still stood by and watched.

At this time, a man in his thirties next to him said: "Is the Taoist priest's prescription sold too cheap?"

"How do you say this?" asked the old Taoist priest.

"If the prescription can really cure the disease, it will be worth more than fifty yuan. Isn't the Taoist afraid that the prescription will be leaked?" The man asked, expressing his doubts.

The old Taoist priest stroked the beard under his jaw with his hand and said: "Actually, some diseases look very similar, but they are different. You must know that the slightest difference can make a huge difference, especially in terms of treating patients and treating patients, they are not the same method.

Just one prescription can cure all diseases. Even if it is the same disease, it is possible that this person can be treated with this prescription, but some people cannot be treated with this prescription."

"Why is this?" The middle-aged man was puzzled.

The old Taoist priest showed no impatient expression and explained carefully: "Treatment depends on the individual, and medicine also depends on the individual."

The middle-aged man seemed to understand and nodded, but the question returned to the original topic: "If it can really cure the disease, why does the Taoist priest only charge fifty yuan?"

The old Taoist priest was quite open-minded: "In the old Taoist opinion, this prescription is only worth this price. Besides, although the old Taoist gave out the prescription, he did not lose anything."

The middle-aged man opened his mouth in surprise, said nothing more, and stepped aside, but did not leave.

Then several more people had cupping performed by the old Taoist priest on the spot, and their conditions were all relieved.

Zhang Taiping had been watching quietly from the side and saw some clues. The old Taoist priest did not just use one technique for all diseases. Instead, he would first check the pulse to check the condition before applying any treatment. The technique looked like

There is no change, but the effect of subtle changes can be completely different.

Until this time, Zhang Taiping believed that this was indeed a strange person among the people.

More and more people were crowding around, and some people came over after hearing the news. Most of them came not to see a doctor, but to see the fun.

"Ahem." A sickly middle-aged man walked in from the crowd, and the crowd surrounding him automatically gave way to a passage. They were all frightened by his heart-wrenching cough.

"Taoist priest, cough...see if my disease can be cured?"

The old Taoist priest first asked him to sit down, then felt his pulse. After looking at him carefully, he shook his head and said, "The Taoist priest is incompetent and has no way to treat her."

The middle-aged man probably didn't hold out the hope of being cured, so he settled for the next best thing and said, "Can...ahem...can't I use a cupping cup to alleviate the pain?"

The old Taoist priest still shook his head and said: "The disease has been accumulating in the lungs for many years. It is really on the verge of breaking out. If there is no hole, it can last for a while. If cupping is used, it may draw out the disease qi and cause an early outbreak.

,as a result..."

Although the old Taoist priest had not finished what he said, the middle-aged man still understood the meaning. Without treatment, he might linger for a while, but with treatment, the likely result would be sudden death on the spot.

He asked with a somewhat gloomy face: "Is there no other way?"

The old Taoist priest shook his head and said nothing.

The middle-aged man stood up, coughed violently and left again. The heart-rending coughs were really frightening to hear.

"Yeah!" A group of people around them exclaimed.

It turned out that the coughing person had coughed up blood on the white silk.

The old Taoist priest behind him could only shake his head and sigh.

Then a few more people came forward to pull out the cupping. When no one came forward, the old Taoist priest was ready to close the stall.

At this moment, three young men squeezed in from the crowd. Their hair was dyed a strange color, and they didn't look good at first glance.

Sure enough, before he said anything when he came in, he kicked the medicine stall on the ground and shouted from the back: "Old man, who asked you to set up a stall here? This place... ah!"

But before he finished speaking, he suddenly fell to the ground.

But when he was kicking the stall, the old Taoist stretched out his hand and lightly patted his knee. He immediately fell to the ground as if he was electrocuted.

"What's wrong with my legs?" The young man on the ground wanted to get up, but found that his whole legs were numb and he couldn't exert any strength at all. He shouted out in fear.

The other two people were smart. Seeing that their companion had fallen down for no apparent reason and could not get up for a long time, they immediately stepped back.

Zhang Taiping could naturally tell the difference. This old Taoist master was really a strange person. Although the force of his attack just now was not very strong, it hit the young man's numb muscle just right. Not only was he good at kung fu, but he must also have a good understanding of the human body.

The people around them began to condemn the three young men one after another. They said something to each other, which immediately made the three of them unable to bear it. You must know that there were nearly a hundred people surrounding them. The two of them helped the young man who was wilting on the ground and tried to escape.

Sent out to the crowd.

At this time, most of the people around him saw that the Taoist stall was unusual, and they came forward one after another. Even if they didn’t come for cupping, they would buy some plasters or hemostatic medicine. Like a gust of wind blowing, the old Taoist priest’s stall

The medicine is sold out.

When no one came forward anymore, the old Taoist priest stood up and cupped his hands around him and said, "Thank you all for your support. That's it for today. It's time for the old Taoist to leave."

"Yes, Taoist priest, please leave quickly. Those three people just now are not good people. I'm sure they will come and cause trouble for the Taoist priest later."

"yes."

People nearby who knew the three young men just now said.

From Zhang Taiping's perspective, the Taoist Priest was naturally not afraid of the three young men with his skills. However, the Taoist Priest didn't say anything, packed up his things, bowed his hands to the onlookers, and left.