Noodle Shop (Part 1)

In the northwest corner of Dadaocheng in Taipei, on a street corner that has not yet been renovated, there is a row of dilapidated old houses. The structure of the house has lost its carrying capacity, and it cannot attract young people to make pilgrimages, nor can they continue to live in it. After so many years, no builder has valued this land to come to speculate. There is a legend among the people that this place was once glorious and also once absurd. But because there were too many fights and killings in this land; there were Han people and aborigines, there were people from southern Fujian and Hakka, there were people from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, there were people from the Zheng family and the Chen family. Over the past three hundred years, too much blood has been shed. This blood has solidified in the foundations of these houses, firmly locking this piece of broken bricks and tiles. The old have left, and the young are unwilling to come back. Tourists don’t know Taipei. There is such a surreal space in the city.

But there is a noodle shop here, the only light at night on the dead street. The old cracks on the wall are covered with mold and wall cancer. The ceiling is a Roman-style ceiling style left over from the Japanese occupation era, but it has never been painted. The spider webs are so thick that no spiders can crawl. Even cockroaches, ants, mice, and geckos don't bother to visit here, yet it can still continue to operate. There are only a few people here, and the business is miserable.

This strange noodle shop is always visited by people. No one comes here to eat this bowl of noodles, but they all come here for her. She is the only waiter in the noodle shop, and she works for an hourly wage. She has been working for two years. Except for the one day off for a month, she is in the shop day and night.

She is an absolute beauty, a top-notch woman. She is the most dazzling person on any stage. In ancient times, she would be the beauty who was blamed for losing the country; in modern times, she would be the leader of a warlord, the grandson of a down-and-out prince, and the object of revolutionaries' struggle; in the eyes of the previous generation, she is Teresa Teng, she is Brigitte Lin, She is every heroine in Qiong Yao. In the eyes of this generation of young people, she is a goddess.

Some people say that she is the third generation from other provinces, and her ancestors are from Shanxi. She was once a member of the Dawang clan, and her bloodline maintained the princes and generals. After changing dynasties, they had to rely on their family's daughters to marry back into the royal bloodline. The inheritance of the Zhou Dynasty began to be concealed. A secret passed down to this day.

Some people say that she is the tenth generation of this province, and her ancestor was a retainer of Zheng Chenggong. From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, she has sworn from generation to generation to maintain the orthodoxy of the Ming Dynasty, to assist the Zheng family, and to rectify its origins.

Some people say that she is the daughter of the Miaoli Hakka people. She grew up following crops. The moon is her mother and the four seasons are her father. The breeze, drizzle, bright sun, and typhoon are her brothers and sisters. In addition to ordering dishes, many customers have heard her speak standard Hakka.

Some people say that her facial features are obviously not Han Chinese, but that she is a descendant of the Pingpu ethnic group. She is a seed left in the soil before Seediq Bale retreated to Rainbow Bridge, waiting for the flowers to bloom after the Japanese left.

Some people say that she is not Asian at all. Her ancestors are Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. Her lips are slightly protruding, and the most suitable pronunciation is not "Taiwan" or "Dawan", but "Formosa".

In short, no one knew who she was, but everyone thought it was very unusual for her to work in this noodle shop. Her brilliance has even attracted talent scouts to check her out. Different entertainment companies have heard about such a special potential superstar, and they have sent high-level agents to discuss cooperation, hoping that she would be willing to give it a try, including film auditions, advertising endorsements, and games. Live broadcasts, and even internet celebrity packaging companies have come to negotiate. She treats everyone equally: "Order first, pay later, and take away the trash yourself."

Because of this beautiful working girl, this noodle shop has been highly talked about on the Internet and ranks at the top of the long-term high-profile list of the special edition of the PTT watch. For her, the science and engineering geek from North Central South began to analyze various film shooting angles, and made a 3D stereoscopic image from a large number of netizen uploads. The open source code is free and open to the public, so that various VR devices can be downloaded and used, and you can also cook instant noodles at home. The scene of obscenity in this noodle shop can be said to be the most united Taiwanese men have ever seen since the advent of the Internet. There are no slanderous people or potential husbands. Everyone catches bugs and corrects various fixes in real time, which highly demonstrates Taiwan. The quality of training in higher education has aroused the interest of the Nordic hacker organization "Invisible Hand" group, which explores on the dark web why Taiwan's VR data has surpassed European, American and South Korean countries and entered the top three.

With the accumulation of big data, her virtual Avatar has become more and more accurate, but some data have also attracted the attention of some people. At first, they thought it was caused by incomplete data. This phenomenon often occurs in the early stages of many game designs. appeared, but as the timeline extended, and enthusiastic netizens continued to take candid photos from various angles during their pilgrimage to eat noodles, everyone discovered some special places.

First: The girl's spine shows an unusual movement performance. If the computer simulation's fake spinal axis is correct, she moves less like a human and more like a feline.

Second: All of her upright movements, ranging from raising her hands to pick up objects from high places to cutting braised eggs and dried beans, etc., all show highly coordinated linear movements, and they are completely perpendicular to the ground at a ninety-degree angle. They have always been Not the least bit biased.

Third: When she walks, her body's center of gravity is always on her back foot.

Various phenomena like this cannot be seen by ordinary people with the naked eye. Instead, after being digitized and calculated, the algorithm notifies an abnormality, and then it is repeatedly confirmed that the input data is correct. These small details did not affect the enthusiastic use of the masses, and gradually led to VR firmware upgrades. Guanghua Shopping Mall sold out at the end of the year, triggering a rise in the stock prices of upstream manufacturers and dividends at the end of the year.

Two years later, this area has not changed. Dadaocheng has become a pilgrimage place for all kinds of real and fake literary youths, and this noodle shop in ruins has become the Jerusalem of the virtual world.

In the deep home world of the Internet, there are two scary times; 23:59 on December 31, 1999, and 12:12 on December 12, 2020. There has always been a rumor that the first date was the time when the Millennium Bug laid its eggs. Many people thought that they had safely overcome the difficulty, but there are always some people who feel that the case is not simple. The revised timeline only operates smoothly on the surface, but In fact, Deep Ocean, an intelligent algorithm, has been launched sadly and started operating at 00:00 on January 1, 2000. Today, everyone blames Zuckerberg’s Facebook or Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which has become evil, for all kinds of mental chaos. In fact, it was Deep Ocean who facilitated all this behind the scenes, but no one has evidence.

As for the second date, no one has a clear statement. It is just that on the night of January 23, 2020, when an abnormal human-to-human pneumonia incident broke out in Wuhan, China, a number with white letters on a blue background immediately appeared on the WHO computer host in Geneva: 20201212. The computer engineer at the time was a Swedish man who had been fascinated by the deep algorithms of the online world in high school. He was also one of the anonymous founders of the famous onion browser Tor project. After he saw this string of numbers activated, he immediately dropped what he was doing, packed his bags, left without saying goodbye, flew back to his hometown in Sweden overnight, and disappeared from the world. This incident caused a small shock within the WHO, which aroused the dissatisfaction of the then chairman Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He once again felt that white people were unreliable in their actions, and secretly prepared for a racial revolution.

On December 11, 2020, Wuming Noodle Shop in Taipei was supposed to have a day off, but the boss said that there was a special person today who would come to eat noodles on this day every leap year. Today is the day that comes every four years. For him, Must be open for business. The girl agreed not to take any rest that day.

That day was Friday, and as usual, a lot of otaku diners would start pouring in after 7 p.m., in the name of ordering food, to admire the goddess. However, a cold wave began to pour in at noon that day, and the temperature in Taipei City dropped rapidly. Coupled with the light rain that began in the evening, the cold and wet weather made the deserted noodle shop look even more embarrassing and mottled. The dark yellow light bulbs were blown back and forth by the wind. Guests, there is no need to turn on the shabby TV. There is only the old refrigerator in the store that roars. From time to time, it starts the refrigeration engine that is about to stop running, maintaining the Coca-Cola, black pine root beer, wheat-flavored black tea and Vitali inside. At a barely refreshing temperature.

"Maybe he won't come this year?" - said the white-haired boss.

"Didn't you say he would definitely come?" - said with slightly raised cherry lips.

"Unforeseen circumstances can happen. There will be a big epidemic this year, and nothing good will happen in the Gengzi Year. One year after another, there will be no way for people to survive." - The boss said

"Well, misfortunes and blessings are also destiny. This year is indeed like the ancient saying: 'In the year of Tai Sui and Geng Zi, many people will die violently. Although there are floods in spring and autumn, there will be many hunger and thirst in autumn and winter.'" - The girl replied

"Hey, how do you know this? This kind of country legend is only quoted by low-level Feng Shui masters. How do you, a young girl, know about it?" - The boss asked curiously

"I heard someone say this by chance, and I don't remember where I heard it. I just remembered these few sentences, and there seems to be a second half?" - The girl asked

"Yes, the second half is: 'The high fields are still half full, and the late rice cannot be harvested. The Qinhuai River is wandering, and Wu Yue has plundered it. Although the mulberry leaves are cheap, the silkworm mother is not happy. Seeing the silkworms but no silk, all efforts are in vain." "

After saying that, the white-haired boss talked for a while.

"'See the silkworm but not the thread'... Since ancient times, silkworms have spun silk and people have wrapped it around each other. This is an unchanging truth. I didn't expect that one day I would see silkworms but not the thread. I wonder if the silk threads in the human world will eventually disappear. What?" - the girl sighed to herself.

When the boss heard this, his gloomy eyes suddenly stared at the girl with sparkle, as if he had seen something that he had not figured out for many years. The girl didn't respond. She continued to use her left hand to fiddle with the wrist, elbow, and shoulder of her right hand, twisting it back and forth, as if her joints were loose and needed to be wound up. After switching from left hand to right hand, tighten your own clockwork in the same sequence.

The girl stood up slowly, put her toes on her toes, and relaxed her neck up and down, left and right. The joints in her body did not make any sound. Even when her knees were bent, they were as quiet as a cat. Finally, she began to squeeze her shoulder blades back, The left and right skeletons almost touch each other, causing a depression at the ridge of the back. When viewed from the side, this depression is just opposite to the Tanzhong point between the two chests, squeezing each other and turning into a fist. Concave and convex surfaces of different sizes.

The noodle shop owner watched her changes silently, took off his reading glasses, walked out from the boiling soup pot backstage, and moved step by step. The girl noticed that his pace became even and clear, and his feet were always balanced. This distance is maintained at any time and at any time, and the bending degree of the two knees remains unchanged. The kinetic energy of walking comes entirely from his waist and hips, and the hip joint rotates in a desired shape. If science otakus also help this old gentleman do it For a VR virtual human body, you will find that its pelvis is in the shape of a Möbius strip.

The girl didn't need scientific data. He knew it by seeing the displacement of the noodle shop owner's belly button when he moved. Today is the day they discover each other's true identity.

"I asked you this question when you came to apply for a job two years ago. Today, I want to ask you again, why do you want to work here?"

"My answer remains the same, I want to understand the bite in your noodles."

"After two years of eating, do you understand?"

"I have been secretly observing for a long time in the past two years. Your face is not your face. It should be said that only part of your face is your face. There is also a hidden part that I have never been able to understand. I don't have enough time. I have to find out today."

"Well, there is indeed not enough time. Are you okay, your father?"

"I don't have a father. My mother raised me. She didn't know that I had learned martial arts. She was always kept in the dark."

"Huh? Your body is not inherited from your family? But as far as I know, your family has been passed down from generation to generation and not to outsiders since ancient times! How could it be...?"

Breathing became heavy, both of them.

"Ahem!" - A cough suddenly appeared on the big table in the center of the noodle shop. The girl and the old man turned their heads in surprise and found a man with dark skin, deep features, long eyelashes, round eyes, a turned-up nose, and round shoulders. The man with a strong back sat quietly on the table. His hair was thick, and the thick joints of his wrists and ankles were covered with body hair. His clothes and pants were soaked by the heavy rain, but his hair and beard remained dry and there was no rain at all. He had no umbrella, no hat, no raincoat.

"Head of the house, order!"

Neither the girl nor the old man noticed when he walked in, how he walked in, or why he was sitting on the chair soaked except for his head, but there were no wet footprints from the door to the central table. They spend every day in this high-ceiling space, which is neither big nor small but not crowded. They are very familiar with the surrounding space. They both have a ruler in their hearts, from left to right, from back to front, and from bottom to top. The control of distance is extremely important when making money and moving around. It is impossible for anyone to escape the eyes of the two of them, but it is obvious that they have misjudged the situation, and someone has already occupied the most advantageous position in the middle.

"Where's the menu!? Come on, I'm scared! Come on!" The man yelled rudely, shaking back the water with both hands like a child. He looks like a typical aboriginal of the Huadong tribe, but the Hokkien he speaks has a Northern Hokkien accent that is rarely heard in Taiwan. If it is more delicate, you can hear some tail sounds from Wuyi Mountain. On the contrary, you can still hear a little bit of the Aboriginal accent when he speaks Mandarin.

The noodle shop owner and the girl looked at each other, and in the exchange of glances they could see each other's worries, surprise, excitement and

expect. The days are coming to an end, but unexpectedly there will be a turn for the better. The girl took a breath and came forward to say hello: Do ​​you want soup noodles or dry noodles? Wide noodles or thin noodles? Do you want side dishes?

The thick and dark-skinned man replied: "Noodles, you all like dry noodles, so you can taste the noodles carefully. When you drink soup, you have to sip it, otherwise you will suffer from indigestion. Don't ask me whether it's thick noodles or thin noodles. I want the kind of noodles that I can’t stop chewing after one bite, can’t finish chewing after three bites, and can only be swallowed after seven bites.”

The owner of the noodle shop answered: "No one has ordered Qikouyan's noodles for a long time. I don't know if I can still pronounce them. Are you sure you want to eat this bowl of noodles in the shop? This kind of noodles requires a lot of effort and is also It's fate. It's not easy to make dough in winter, so you have to wait. Can you wait?"

After hearing this, the girl made a hissing sound, frowned and said, "Hey, you've been hiding it so well for two years. I ate more than seven hundred bowls of noodles from you, taking turns to eat thick noodles and thin noodles. I heard that you have a third side."

"You" began to appear in their conversation, but the atmosphere became solid.

The noodle shop owner replied to the girl: "I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I was careless. I didn't expect that you really came here to eat this bowl of noodles. You are young, but your skills are also deep. I didn't expect you." This door can hold Shen Sui Jin so tightly, I didn't realize it at all."

As he said that, the boss took out a ball of old noodles from the kitchen, spread it on a table at the back of the store with a quilt, and then put a layer of dough cloth on it, and started to wake up the noodles. rhythm.

"Looking at it like this, the person waiting for you won't be here today, and I don't know if I will have a chance to finish telling the story of the origin of this bowl of noodles. Why don't I tell you two a story while the noodles are being made?" - Old Man Bian Kneading the dough and talking

"Haha! It's so tight! I've been driving a truck all day, and no one dares to talk to me. It's good to listen to the story! Otherwise, let's have a side dish first! Cut it in black and white, I'll enjoy it." - Rich Northern Fujian The accent came out again.

The girl took out side dishes, two braised eggs, three dried tofu, and four pieces of kelp, and placed them evenly on the cutting board. Pull out the kitchen knife with your right hand. When you pull it out from the knife box, there is no sound. The blade does not touch any part, and the knife trajectory is precisely controlled up, down, left, and right without any loss. The tiger's mouth of the left hand is against the back bottom of the knife handle. The thumb and index finger of the right hand pinch a circle to lock the joint of the knife handle. The last three fingers of the right hand are held empty, and the ring finger is slightly raised. After holding the knife in both hands, the girl lowers her elbows, folds her arms, and holds it in the handle. When the tip of the knife is aligned with the tip of the pen, the girl's toes, knee tips, and navel are also aligned at the same time, and the midline of the body is highly integrated.

The noodle shop owner and the truck driver were all attentive, staring at the back of the girl's kitchen knife. Suddenly, the tip of the knife seemed to emit a blue light, and there was a sound of breaking through the air. The girl had put the kitchen knife back into the knife box. The two braised eggs, three dried beans, and four pieces of kelp on the plate were all intact, and nothing had been cut. Mark of. She held it up with both hands respectfully, vaguely like a bow, saluted the side dishes in her hands, and then ceremoniously brought them to the guests' tables.

The guest returns the favor by hooking back the index finger and middle finger of his right hand, and at the same time facing the girl at the second knuckle, he taps the table lightly, making a tapping sound. This practice was introduced to Taiwan from Hong Kong's tea drinking culture, and later spread to the northern provinces of China through Shenzhen. Rumor has it that when Qianlong went on tour incognito, in order to avoid being noticed, a group of old ministers were frightened when he served tea to his ministers during meals. Bloodless, when he was about to kneel down and kowtow, the emperor waved his hand and tapped his fingers on the table instead of kowtow to avoid the death penalty. In recent years, Japanese and Korean culture have been baptized a lot, and young people no longer know the origin of this move.

The owner of the noodle shop saw this and continued to pull the noodles in his hands, while telling a history:

"The Emperor of Zhou originally divided the world into four equal parts and replaced it with the word "tian". He believed that four fields could feed a family, so the upper and lower fields were called "zhou". This established the earliest farming system in China, and the people no longer needed to rely on Gathering and hunting, the basic problems of people's livelihood were solved. After the food problem was solved, the people's wisdom developed rapidly, and various industries were developed soon after. The people have been upgraded from the stage of food and clothing to the cohesion of the spiritual level. Emperor Zhou made another reform and proposed The well-field system divided the world into nine parts using tic-tac-toe, with eight households supporting one household. They also began to invest in the study of art, culture, music, and martial arts. At the same time, agricultural reforms greatly increased the efficiency of agricultural production, making the people rich and the army strong.

But not long after, the Zhou Dynasty discovered something. Under the hereditary system, how to ensure that the successor has pure blood? After a man and a woman have sex, there may not be any results. When there are results, it is impossible to completely determine who the father is. But the mother can be sure, after all, she was delivered from the mother's body. This incident set off unprecedented discussions within the Zhou Dynasty, and finally a secret policy was formulated. The bloodline of the Zhou Dynasty must be passed down through the maternal line, and no matter how future generations change dynasties, they must leave blood in the royal family, so that the Zhou Dynasty can The flesh and blood of the family will be passed down forever. "

At this point, the girl's eyes filled with tears, and her originally straight back became slightly relaxed. She moved a chair casually, sat in the corner, and continued to listen to the noodle shop owner's story.

"After the Zhou Dynasty made this direction clear, it secretly retained a family and continued this tradition from generation to generation in the following days. Children of this family, if they were boys, would be adopted to other surnames, and secret secrets such as assassination skills and dangerous warfare techniques would be taught to them. . If a girl is born, she will be carefully raised and taught the orthodox Zhou Dynasty academics such as boxing, swordsmanship and breathing guidance. As expected, soon after, the world was in chaos, and all the heroes competed. Then the Qin Dynasty unified the world and Qin Shihuang ascended the throne. Jing Ke was not an assassin. , he is a boy from the secret family of the Zhou Dynasty. The publicity to assassinate Ying Zheng is actually to convey the mission of the family. Before the unification of the world, Qin and Chu had a marriage contract for generations, and all this was also the layout of the Zhou Dynasty. Zhao Ji, the mother of Qin Shihuang Ying Zheng, was actually a woman of Zhou Dynasty blood. At that time, it was judged that the world would be reunited after a long period of division, but it was not clear who would have the final say. Therefore, Zhao Ji had been observing the changes in the situation since Handan, and once concluded that Lu Buwei would be the one to turn things around. Later, he gave birth to Ying Zheng and ensured his mission after the unification. Jing Ke came to tell Qin Shihuang his life experience and committed suicide after telling him."

"The First Empress of Qin came to burn books and humiliate Confucians because she was afraid that her life experience would be known to the world. She wanted to unify language, writing, systems, etc. It seemed that it was for the great cause of unification, but it was actually the genes in his blood that played a role. Historical records record that Ying Zheng There are many theories about the lack of a queen. In fact, the real reasons are all recorded in the secret matrilineal family. Qin Shihuang's favorite man was actually gay. He had a man who truly loved each other. They cherished each other and would stay together until death. The secret of bloodline He was also brought into the coffin by Ying Zheng. After Ying Zheng died, the man found his maternal family. They had spread their branches in today's Shanxi Province and were watching the changes.

In the days to come, no matter how the world goes, the descendants of this maternal line will always have daughters marry into the royal family, leaving behind the responsibilities entrusted to them by their ancestors in all dynasties and generations. Emperors will be replaced, country names will be replaced, and the bloodline will never be interrupted. "

At this point, the dough was squeezed back and forth by the old man's hands, the air was kneaded in and spit out, the yeast in the dough began to change, and the dough began to expand.

"Until the emergence of the Qing Dynasty. The princes and nobles in the early Qing Dynasty did not follow the rules of the Han people. They had their own set of laws. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, there were a large number of anti-Qing and restoration activities because the world felt that the legal system was not pure. Although No one knows the reason. After thousands of years in the Zhou Dynasty family, the people have become accustomed to an indescribable tacit understanding. The Qing ancestry from Changbai Mountain is out of place.

In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the policy of Sinicization finally began, and Han blood returned to the royal family again. The maternal descendants of the Zhou Dynasty patiently waited for this day, which eased the mood of the world.

In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces entered the capital. Empress Dowager Cixi set out for a westward journey. Instead of going anywhere else, she chose to go to Shanxi, passed through Datong, and entered Pingyao. When she stayed at the Qiao Family Courtyard, she secretly met with the family elders and produced her own bloodline certificate. : Jade Cabbage; she is the daughter of the Zhou family.

The family elders have seen all the changes in the world, and their vision is far beyond that of the kings of a single dynasty. They have seen through the nature of the world. The degree of change in the next hundred years will be far greater than that in the past thousand years. The jade cabbage is handed over to the next generation of holders, who are transformed into the daughters of the Song family, who take turns taking charge.

After the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Song sisters carefully kept the jade cabbage and kept communicating with their adopted brothers who had adopted foreign surnames. In the military system in the early years of the Republic of China, there were a large number of spy leaders and assassination troops, all from the same family. In troubled times, everyone subverts the political power for the benefit of the family and creates an extraordinary generation.

Two of the three Soong sisters married revolutionaries: Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek. Each of them has a brother with a foreign surname following them, who combines assassination skills with Zhou Dynasty swordsmanship to protect their sisters personally, but they are publicized as internal bodyguards. In fact, he is carrying out his family mission.

In 1949, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party came to an end, and the sisters were forced to separate. Jade Cabbage still takes turns to take charge. It was supposed to be a cycle of replacement every three years. With this departure, it has been 65 years. In order to ensure that the other sisters in the family knew where the jade cabbage was and to facilitate contact, I made a simulated jade cabbage and presented it to the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It has become a treasure of the store and is on display for many years. There is a cabbage worm on the fake jade cabbage. The shape, size, color and proportion of this cabbage worm are particular. It is the secret contact information of the family members. The daughters of the Zhou family only need to take a look and know where the real jade cabbage is placed and who is keeping it now. "

At this point, the noodle shop owner's noodles were ready, and the boss sprinkled flour on the table. It looked like a handful of flour, just enough to cover the entire table. Holding the dough in your left hand, sprinkle the flour with the flick of your right hand. When it is thrown out, it is like a crane flapping its wings and taking off. The flour is like water droplets fluttering out from the wings. It is free and neat, evenly spread on every inch of the table, and there is not a trace of excess. The flour fell to the ground, and the whole process had an inexhaustible sense of righteousness and spontaneity.

(to be continued)

#a serious nonsense
#Any similarities are purely rumors

原文發表於2020/11/28