The moonlight in the mountains is sparse and cold.
Far apart.
Looking at the vast and desolate wilderness.
Jin'an was filled with loneliness and homesickness, and felt a little sad, so he sighed softly.
Just see.
He headed towards the basin at the foot of the mountain.
Bend and bow with your fists clasped.
The Taoist frowned: "Why are you worshipping in a temple that eats people for no reason?"
Jin An: "The father and son who were murdered were kind and honest people in life. Even after death, they never thought of killing me or using me as a scapegoat. Instead, they woke me up from my sleep several times, reminding me that there was a ghost in the temple and telling me to run away."
"So, I'm not praying to the ghosts and gods enshrined in the temple, but to Wang Tiegen and his son. I want to thank them for saving my life. You could say they saved me twice."
"If I have the chance, I hope to return here in the future to collect their remains and send them back to the village so that their family can be reunited and no longer be wandering ghosts."
"Good people shouldn't suffer."
Jin An said at the end with a heavy tone.
After the rain, the moon hangs so low that it seems to be very close.
The ancient moon hangs in the sky.
Two figures, one old and one young, stood under the old pine tree.
The older man was wearing a five-colored Taoist robe and a pair of blue and white ten-direction shoes.
He is about forty years old.
Although the five-colored Taoist robe was old and had become a little white due to washing, it was clean and tidy without any wrinkles. It was obvious that its owner must have cherished this robe very much and was reluctant to throw it away even though it was very old.
This is a Taoist priest who cherishes his feathers and keeps himself clean.
The other was an even stranger young man.
She has fair skin, white teeth, and is just in her early twenties.
He has a short haircut.
He looks like a handsome scholar from a merchant or official family, but also like a young monk who has just returned to secular life. It feels a bit out of place.
"Someone is coming." The Taoist priest suddenly said something without any context, breaking the silence of Shanyue.
Jin An looked around blankly. The sky and the earth were vast. In the darkness, he could see nothing except the vague outlines of the rolling mountains.
The Taoist raised his finger and pointed in a direction at the foot of the mountain, like a moonlit immortal pointing the way for someone lost. "In the Guangping Youshuo Tongganlu, there's a technique called 'Qi-Guang Shuo' (Observing the Qi), which claims that the scholar's primordial spirit is the descended star Wenquxing (Wenquxing), and because scholars study to honor their ancestors, the articles they read will sparkle with light, emanating from their orifices like a myriad of colorful clouds or a vast, beautiful landscape. This is why the ancients often described poetry as capable of becoming immortal and writing as capable of becoming a saint."
"For example, people of first-rate talent like the Immortal Poet and the Immortal Literary, their radiance can soar into the sky and rival the stars in brilliance."
“Even a young scholar, no matter how young he is, can emit a faint light like a small oil lamp, illuminating the doors and windows, helping people to think diligently and be quick-witted.”
"A mile away on the official road at the foot of the mountain, the light on that person is nearly ten feet high. That's why I said someone is coming. The person who came must be at least a Jinshi or Tanhua with a good reputation."
Jinan was shocked.
He looked back at the mountains that were still as dark as ink. The darkness gave him black eyes, so he could not see anything in the darkness.
He felt that the longer he stayed in this world.
The physics teacher's coffin lid is getting harder and harder to hold down.
Jin'an's heart moved.
He asked expectantly, "Master, how many feet and inches do you think I am?"
As a person who paddles in the ocean of knowledge explosion and the Internet every day, how can a golden fish stay in a pond? The books I have read must be more than the salt the ancients ate. In any case, I am surrounded by golden light, right?
However, when Jin An turned around to look at the Taoist priest's seat beside him, there was no one there...
Only under the old pine tree behind him was the blood-stained body of a Taoist priest abandoned in the wilderness.
The Taoist's body was incomplete, with his lower body missing. Only his upper body, covered in a five-colored Taoist robe and stained with thick blood, remained. It looked as if he had been torn into two pieces alive by some powerful monster. The Taoist leaned against an old pine tree with his hands in seals. He died peacefully, with no expression of pain on his face.
What’s strange is that such a strong smell of blood did not attract any jackals or wild beasts... Maybe it has something to do with the handprint?
The frosty moonlight shone on the face of a man in Jin'an, who was deep in the mountains and forests, making him look a little pale.
Desolate mountains and wilderness.
Tigers roar and monkeys cry.
There are only lonely ghosts haunting here.
Damn it...Jin'an is in trouble again.
…
Two days later, at dusk.
After a spring thunder, as Qingming Festival gradually approaches, the weather begins to warm up and today is a sunny day.
There is a county on the bank of Yinyi River.
That was a county called Chang.
Chang County was bustling with people, the sounds of children running around and playing, the voices of hawkers shouting, and the cries of vendors.
"I'll sell myself to bury my sister..."
"Tanghulu, crisp and sweet, Tanghulu with a stick..."
"This is a handcrafted craft passed down from generation to generation. I can make sugar figures of any size, thickness, or length."
"Mom, mom, I want to lick the dog! I want to lick the dog!"
"No, mother, I want to lick the dog!"
A naughty child pointed at the candy figurine stall on the roadside and rolled on the ground crying.
On the busy streets, there are ordinary people in plain linen clothes;
There are also rich young men and women wearing spotless jade belts or plum-colored snow fox cotton coats;
Of course, there are also those gangsters who have been living on the edge of a knife for years.
These gangsters have faces full of flesh, vigorous blood, and tendons all over their bodies. Whenever they glance at the tender and delicate young men and women from wealthy families, they look unfriendly, as if they are selecting fat sheep to be slaughtered.
It was almost nightfall, and the roadside restaurants and teahouses were already crowded. One, with a bamboo banner reading "Xu Ji Teahouse" hanging in front, had its first floor mostly occupied. Among them were scholars in long gowns, officials in official uniforms, and merchants with their wives. They savored the tenderest new tea, picked before Qingming Festival, while listening to a storyteller recount the latest happenings in Chang County.
There is a folk saying that tea before the Qingming Festival is as precious as gold.
This refers to tea leaves picked before the Qingming Festival. Their buds and leaves are delicate, emerald green, fragrant, mellow in flavor, and beautiful in appearance, making them the finest of teas. Some of the finest new teas even require the delicate care of young girls to pluck them to preserve their original, pure aroma, making them unattainable for ordinary people.
Bang!
As the storyteller banged the gavel in the book, he began to tell the story slowly.
"The other day, a strange case occurred in Chang County called 'The Thunder God's Corpse Strike Case.' Just when the case seemed to have been settled, a horse-drawn carriage suddenly arrived in the village at night."
"There were three people on a carriage traveling at night: a driver, a scholar, and a young man. They wanted to stay overnight in the village. One of the young men was eight feet tall and eight feet wide, with an imposing figure. After hearing about the death in the village, he actually cursed the villagers for their carelessness and ignorance."
"It looks like a 'thunderbolt corpse case,' but there's actually a case within a case. After that young master solved the case, it unexpectedly led to another major case concerning the court and state affairs! A corpse containing a case within a case within a case is jaw-dropping!"
"If you want to know the details of this case..."
"Now, let me, an old man, slowly tell you all..."
"Speaking of which, there's a secluded village ten miles southwest of Chang County called Shangpan Village. What I want to talk about today is a bizarre case that happened in Shangpan Village the day before yesterday."
"In Shangpan Village there was a woman named Li and her husband, Li Cailiang. Although they were not wealthy, they worked hard and with a common purpose, they had a small fortune, no worries about food and clothing, and they had a son."
"At sunset that day, the busy day of farming ended. Li Cailiang and his wife, as usual, went home first to cook and prepare dinner. Li Cailiang did not go home immediately. Instead, he led the old water buffalo from the fields and hurried to the next family in the village before dark, so that they would not miss the spring plowing and rice planting."
"In villages across the country, it's common for several families or villagers to raise a working ox together."
"But just as Li Cailiang returned the oxen and was about to return home, something strange happened..."