Chapter 168 Xianiang Temple

While Xu Er was leading the way, he turned back to greet the two of them, pointing to the house that stood out from the crowd and said: "We're here! That's Xianniang Temple!"

According to Liang Baofu's previous description, the temple enshrining the Ghost Mother Statue that the bridge travelers encountered seemed to be a roadside earth temple. The area was no more than twenty square meters in Xiao Ran's imagination. After all, the Ghost Mother Statue was not that big.

But when he walked up to it, Xiao Ran realized that the size of this Xianniang Temple was really unusual. It covered an area of ​​nearly a hundred square meters and was five rooms wide, just like the main hall in a large temple in the capital.

Many of the tiles on the roof have fallen off, exposing the beams and rafters inside the house. The temple gate and several eaves pillars scattered on both sides are all natural logs. They have not been chipped or modified, but show their original curved posture.

, like several wild pythons and evil dragons connected to each other.

Xiao Ran vaguely remembered that he had listened to the explanation when he visited the museum before. This rough style seemed to be a typical Yuan style at first glance.

Xiao Ran wondered how the cultivator who advocated building a temple persuaded the local officials at that time. The building specifications were only for an inexplicable ghost mother, or according to the locals, Empress Xia, and it was obviously beyond the limit.

Could it be said that this ghost mother is really that amazing?

Xiao Ran walked to the door of the temple and saw an obscure stone sculpture of a lying tiger on the left and right sides of the steps. It was just different from most of the tiger sculptures he had seen. These two tigers had bulges on their foreheads and wings on their sides.

Although it was badly worn, it still reminded him of the big wild cat whose scalp had been gnawed by insects.

He felt sick in his heart, and looked up at the temple door. A crooked plaque covered with a lot of dust hung there, and he could vaguely tell that the words on it were "Founding the World to Educate the People."

It's such a big statement. If you don't know better, you might think that the ones inside are Pangu and Nuwa.

Xu Er rushed into the temple early and stood in front of a broken stone platform waiting for Xiao Ran. Xiao Ran took Liu Shengli into the temple and found that the temple was six rafters deep and very open. The six log pillars were also naturally twisted like giant pythons.

It swallows the sky and supports the top of the entire temple.

This temple has no back door, nor any utensils or decorations. It must have been swept away by late comers who came again and again.

There is a stone platform in the middle of the temple, and behind the stone platform is a clay sculpture of a female sitting cross-legged with six hands and four legs. The six hands are equidistantly stretched out at different angles. Although her face looks kind and kind, Xiao Ran feels that she looks more like a

Spider spirit.

On various walls in the temple, there are some faded reliefs, covered with spider webs and dust.

This kind of over-standard building, coupled with this strange god with many hands and many legs, was enough to be called an obscene worship in ancient times. Perhaps it was because the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty enslaved too many ethnic groups, and in order to facilitate their rule, they worshiped all kinds of people.

Turn a blind eye. If a messy temple is built in such a remote and remote area, the rulers would not bother to take care of it even if they knew about it.

Xiao Ran walked around the wall and carefully identified the reliefs on the wall. The more he looked at them, the more strange he felt. The first relief from the right showed the ghost mother Xia Niang descending from the sky. The sun, moon and stars in the sky were obscured by clouds, and the left and right below were

It is water and land, and all kinds of birds, animals, fish, snakes, lizards, etc. are looking at her.

In the second relief, the ghost mother Xia Niang is squatting by the water, stretching out her hands to knead people with the mud. Behind her, far away from the water, some small figures are building houses and lighting fires.

In the third relief, fire is falling from the sky. Several vicious eyes are vaguely exposed in a huge hole, and there are strips of black air like arms and legs entrenched around the hole, as if a huge monster is about to fall from the sky. The little people below may be hugging

They fled with their heads, or lay down on the corpse and cried bitterly, or knelt on the ground with their hands toward the sky. The ghost mother Xia Niang raised her hands and flew into the sky, flying towards the huge hole without hesitation.

The fourth relief shows the ghost mother Xia Niang sitting cross-legged in the air. On the ground below, countless villains are building some large buildings. It looks like a conical building with steps on all sides. There are also many people worshiping under the building.

.

The next few reliefs recorded scenes such as war and water control, division of Kyushu, creation of writing, etc. They all seemed to be familiar myths and legends to Xiao Ran, but the protagonists all became the ghost mother Xia Niang. It seemed that these epoch-making events were all

It became her gift to this land and nation.

Xiao Ran felt disgusted in his heart, and then related to the story about the Ghost Mother and Goddess told by Da Jinya before. He felt that if it was not true, then someone must have deliberately integrated this Xia Niang with the well-known religions and myths. This was true in ancient times.

When new sects are established, this is a common method, aiming to make it easier for the people to accept and worship.

But it was the first time that he had seen such a bold move that these heroic myths related to the birth and development of a nation could be forcibly placed on an unfounded god.

He walked all the way to the last relief, and saw Xia Niang suspended in the air, with all the people below her raising their hands and looking up. In the sky, there were people riding cranes and riding boats, flying beside the sun, moon and stars, above clouds, rain, thunder and lightning; under the earth, there were still people

Hidden in bubbles of different shapes, they swim in the water with various dragons, fish and crabs. And next to Xia Niang, vague humanoid shapes with six arms and four legs like her, large and small, are also flying in the air like gods.

Xiao Ran looked at the painting carefully and couldn't help but be a little surprised. It seemed to predict that people would soar into the sky in cars and dive into the deep sea. He admired the bold imagination of the people who carved these murals, but ascending to the sky and into the sea were different things.

The fantasy that mankind has had since ancient times is also reasonable.

It's just that there are so many people like Xia Niang, who seem to be flying in from afar. Does it mean that the so-called "gods" are coming? Or are some people able to become gods like her? After all, in this relief, there are also

The appearance of ordinary human beings with four limbs shows that these two different existences coexist.

Xiao Ran shook his head, thinking that there was no use in thinking about it. After reading the mural, he had better put the broken statue back first. The moment he turned around, he saw something familiar on the ground.

They were some cigarette butts without filters and a crushed cigarette case. Xiao Ran had seen this brand of cigarettes on the table in front of the bridge guest when he and Da Jinya went to Liang Baofu's house for the first time.

It seems that the three bridge travelers have indeed been here before, and like him, they visited these inexplicable reliefs. I wonder if they found inspiration for making up random stories from these reliefs, and turned Futou Village into

People and things related to Xianniang Temple and Xu Er are grafted and interpreted.

Xiao Ran carried the cloth bag and walked to the stone platform. Xu Er pointed to a circular mark in the center of the stone platform and said that the statue of the Ghost Mother had been placed here before.

Xiao Ran looked at the circular mark and felt a little strange. In the middle of the circle, there seemed to be some vertical and horizontal lines. He picked up the ghost mother statue and looked at the bottom. Although there were no lines, there were some grooves of different depths.

Before, he had only studied the shape of the Ghost Mother Statue, but this was the first time he saw what it looked like below.

Xu Er sniffed at the side and said with a smile: "Xiao Langang... is also quite unseemly. If you look down, you can't see her butt..."

Xiao Ran glared at Xu Er, and Liu Shengli imitated Xiao Ran's usual behavior and slapped Xu Er on the head, and Xu Er quickly shut up.

Xiao Ran placed the bronze statue on the circular mark and took a closer look. There was nothing unusual. He felt a little disappointed, so he turned around and left.

Pei Jiuguo's voice suddenly came: "Old Xiao, that thing in your pocket is interesting."
Chapter completed!