"What now?"

On the tomb hill, the four of them looked around, looking at the tombs filled with pits and valleys.

"Gather it together and cover it. Leave a note explaining the situation."

After thinking for a moment, Li Ang said: "It gets dark very quickly here. After closing the coffin, we will go to the back of the mountain."

According to Zhuo Wenbai, everything in Qishui Village originated from the lake in the back mountain that produces black fish. It was the place where the celebration was held, and it was also the last place that Li Ang and his party had not explored.

Everyone worked together to dispose of the coffin and walked down the tomb.

At this time, the villagers in Qishui Village had finished their farm work early and gathered in the village. They changed out of their brown clothes and put on ragged old clothes. Silently, they arranged candles, drums, lanterns and other celebration props in an orderly manner.

.

"Those clothes are deliberately distressed."

Ji Xing looked into the distance and said: "It was originally a new dress, but it was cut into a tattered look and patched."

Guan Anyan asked: "Is it to imitate previous legends?"

"Well, it should be."

Ji Xingwang said: "They dressed up as their ancestors who were fleeing at that time.

Just like folk dances in some places, collective performances are used to restore the deeds in ancient legends."

Following Ji Xingwang's words, a group of villagers walked slowly over carrying fishing nets tied into long strips. The entire village seemed to have gathered here, including the villagers in the ancestral hall that Li Ang and others had seen during the day.

Except Zhuo Wenbai's family.

"They are packing up and getting ready to go up the mountain."

Ji Xingwang saw this and said quickly: "They will change when the sun sets. We have to get to the mountain before them."

"..."

Li Ang looked at Qishui Village, counting the number of people present, and was silent for a long time. Then he suddenly took out a pen and paper, drew a woman's face on the paper, and showed it to others, "Do you recognize this face?"

"Huh?"

The three of them were confused. Yu Yong took a look and said doubtfully: "This is a bit like... Empress Qihuai?"

Brothers Yu Yong and Yu Yuan visited the Qihuai Empress Temple in Bingzhou City, which was rumored to be very efficacious, and even obtained a lottery, so they were particularly impressed.

"Empress Qihuai..."

Li Ang realized something and said: "You go to the mountain to investigate, and I will explore elsewhere. If there is danger, I will launch communication fireworks."

"What?! Are you going to split up at this time?"

Ji Xingwang, who had always been steady and steady, couldn't help but question at this moment: "And where did you get this painting?"

"To make a long story short, it's a long story, so I'd better not say it."

Li Ang said quickly: "It's just a guess now. By the way, if you meet Yu Scholar and the others, you must ask about the origin of the Qihuai Empress Temple near Bingzhou."

After that, he kicked off the ground and quietly jumped into the dense forest.

Ji Xingwang and the others wanted to ask again, but at this time the sun was gradually setting in the west, and thick fog slowly spread out from the mountains and forests, gradually obscuring their sight.

In the distant mountain village, the group of water-dwelling villagers also played drums and headed towards the mountain.

"What is he doing?"

Yu Yong gritted his teeth and said: "I have said that there is a ghost in the fog. Is he going to die? Or does he want to escape alone?"

"Brother Lu is not that kind of person..."

Guan Anyan defended her words and frowned unconsciously. Her intuition was extremely sharp and she "feeled" that Luffy was not a bad person, but she also vaguely felt that he always lacked a bit of popularity, as if he had practiced evil techniques.

.

"Okay, if he wants to leave, we can't stop him."

Ji Xingwang withdrew his gaze and said in a deep voice: "Let's go up the mountain. Get to the lake before the villagers do."

————

Zhuo Wenbo’s home has arrived.

Li Ang quietly opened the door. Zhuo Wenbai, his wife, and their daughter were not here.

"Sure enough."

He opened his mouth and spit out a piece of fish meat - it was black fish meat that was regurgitated from the abdominal cavity and cooked by Zhuo Wenbo's wife.

It is said that it is because of the existence of the Qishui God that people can catch snakeheaded fish in the lake, so Qishui Village must worship the god every year, and those who eat the flesh of the snakehead fish may see the phantom of the Qishui God.
p>

But just now, Li Ang chewed the black fish meat, and what he saw was the face of Empress Qihuai.

"The God of Living Water...Empress Qihuai..."

He murmured to himself, put away the fish, and pushed the door open.

————

The shadows of the trees on the back hill are longing, cold and inexplicable,

Ji Xingwang and others arrived at the back mountain first and saw that the lake in the back mountain was indeed as Zhuo Wenbai described, with perfectly round shores and clear and clean water.

With the remaining rays of the setting sun, one can see the black fish swimming calmly in the lake.

"There is a stone monument here!"

Yu Yong saw at a glance a stone tablet erected at an angle on the edge of the lake shore.

The stone tablet is in the shape of a column as a whole, with moss and dry vines growing on the back. The front is relatively well preserved because it is tilted downward, and you can barely see many crooked and crooked carvings on it.

"Deed..."

Ji Xingwang took a deep breath, immediately asked Yu Yong to step aside, and moved forward to observe carefully.

"The deed is the writing on the oracle bones of the Yin and Shang Dynasties. It is named after it is carved on tortoise shells and animal bones with a deed knife. It is the content of epigraphy."

Guan Anyan explained to Yu Yong: "Senior Brother Chu studies the inscriptions."

"Oh."

Yu Yong nodded. The study of epigraphy began before the Sui Dynasty. Some sects, such as Taixuan Sect, had collected a large number of bamboo slips, oracle bones, bronzes, and stone tablets. They studied the texts on them and tried to restore the history of ancient times.

Gain the power of ancient monks.

Legend has it that there was no way to practice cultivation in ancient times. Humans and gods co-existed. The closer the bloodline is to the gods, the stronger the power. For example, "Hua Xu followed the footsteps of a great man, and Fuxi was born in Lei Ze."

After the end of the era when humans and gods lived together, the Shang Dynasty still worshiped ghosts and gods. Regardless of fighting, grazing, plowing, or praying for rain, they always prayed for the guidance of gods.

It was not until the Haotian Taoist sect appeared later that the worship of ghosts and gods gradually turned into the worship of Haotian, that is, heaven itself. And the method of worldly cultivation also changed from blood inheritance to cultivation based on spiritual veins.

Because of that ancient history, it involves the secret of the birth of Haotian Dao Sect,

The successive leaders of the Haotian Dao Sect have been sparing no effort to cover up and eliminate, and have always sealed the secrets in Taihao Mountain.

This also caused the Central Plains Dynasty’s understanding of the history before the Shang and Zhou dynasties to stagnate at the stage of legends and myths.

In fact, the reason why Taixuanzong was the first to start studying epigraphy was that they were powerful and secretive.

On the other hand, it was also because during the pre-Sui Dynasty, several headmasters of the Haotian Taoist Sect died prematurely or died unexpectedly, which led to endless internal turmoil in Taihao Mountain. Several priests who were most likely to rise to power criticized each other and fought among themselves to control the dynasty in the world.

The strength is greatly weakened,

This allowed Taixuan Sect and other sects to grow wantonly, which led to the subsequent expansion of the academy, and gradually gained the confidence not to be afraid of the Haotian Dao Sect.

Yu Yong was not interested in this historical secret, but Ji Xingwang, who had been studying epigraphy, was very excited.

He gently brushed the scratches with his palm, rubbed out something like a thin paste from the scratches, and murmured "Bletilla striata water..."

"Senior Brother Chu has been here?"

Guan Anyan said excitedly.

The traditional Chinese medicine Bletilla striata is immersed in water and boiled to obtain a sticky glue, which is one of the tools for epigraphic rubbings.

The traces of Bletilla striata water are still very clear, which means that someone has been here not long ago and made rubbings on the stone tablet - it is obviously Chu Haoman.

"Well. Haoman got here before us and must have gotten some information. Now we just need to figure out the words on the stone tablet."

Ji Xingwang squatted on the ground, struggling to analyze the words on the stone tablet word for word.

Guan Anyan asked: "Teacher, what does the deed above mean?"

"Jiawu divination...Zhenwu...today...use...Yan..."

Ji Xingwang shook his head, stood up and said: "No, these words have been peeled off and eroded a lot by the wind, so I can't fully interpret them, I can only make a guess.

In this sentence, Jiawu is the date of divination.

Zhen was a person who specialized in divination and asking gods in the Shang Dynasty.

And Ying, "Zuo Zhuan: The Second Year of Xuan Gong" says that the butler Ying Xiong is not cooked. It means cooked thoroughly.

It sounds like during the Sino-Japanese War, someone asked the gods for divination and got a certain result and cooked something."
To be continued...