It was late at night in the mountains and forests, and the roads were winding and rugged, making it inconvenient to travel and search. We had to wait until dawn. However, this night in Zhanlu Mountain, crows were crowing, wild foxes were barking, and the mountains were full of strange and strange movements, especially in the dilapidated window lattice.
The cold wind blew continuously all night long, so naturally no one could get any sound sleep.
For this reason, Jiang Wen, who was responsible for piloting the site selection, silently suffered the infamy. He was kicked out of the carriage alone and ran to an abandoned temple called "Zhanlu Temple", where he stayed all night until dawn the next day.
, quickly climbed up from the empty and deserted side hall, preparing to start the first day of search.
When Jiang Wen walked out of the side hall, he felt that Zhanlu Mountain after dawn was completely different from the place where the demons danced last night. When he looked up, he saw clear springs on the mountain, lush trees in the temple, deep ancient roads, and numerous peaks. It was indeed a very beautiful place.
.
The better-than-nothing wooden door of Zhanlu Zen Temple was suddenly pushed out with a clang and hit the brick foundation.
Yuan Ziyi looked refreshed when she opened the door. She wanted to see what Jiang Wen was like after being tortured by snakes, insects, rats, and ants last night, but she didn't expect that Jiang Wen was silently surrounding a courtyard of the abandoned Zen temple.
The corner keeps moving.
The corner of the wall Jiang Wen stared at was already covered with weeds half as tall as a man. It might have been a stable in the temple, but now it has been exposed to the sun. Only a rectangular stone jar made of intact sand and stone was left in the corner.
The exterior is eroded by wind and rain over the years, and the inside of the tank is covered with moss and dirt. If you didn't observe it carefully, you would probably just treat it as a piece of waste stone.
"Hey, you got up so early."
Zhan Lushan came up to Zhan Lu with bad intentions and joked, "Master Jiang is looking at the stone jar like that. Could it be that he wants to sleep outside there tonight?"
Ye Luman said carefully: "Yes, the Evangelion of the old century lived there. It is said that I can shoot nails out of my hands."
Then I pointed to the shallow traces carved under the stone jar and said with absolute certainty, "He looked at the characters "Zhanlu Mountain", and then he looked at the characters "Tang Zhongzong Shenlong 8th Year", that ancient temple is indeed
It is the oldest building at the foot of the mountain and is worth studying."
"In the year of Yuan Fu...heavy monument"
Seeing that Zhan Lu was so serious, Zhan Lushan temporarily suppressed his complaints and helped them search in the ruined Zen temple. Soon, they found a stone with rounded patterns outside the crack in the wall on the side of the small hall.
, look at the long fragments with scratches.
Having said that, Zhan Lu walked inside with half-hearted interest. Zhan Lushan took the next two steps and seemed to want to ask a question, but was interrupted by Zhan Lu who spoke first.
"Then he said it wrong, girl in purple."
"From the south of Shanyin to Shaomo Sword Furnace Cauldron... Immortal Zhicao"
"You have to look again over there. You can go outside the mountain to look for clues earlier..."
As a person in the world of martial arts, how can you think that it is a ruined temple? Mysterious tokens, sharp weapons, deadly intelligence, peerless martial arts, and many heroes all ended up in a ruined temple——
Then you took out something from your sleeve, flattened your palm and placed it behind Ye Lu's eyes.
"He did a bad job, girl in purple. During the Yuanfu period, this was not the reign name of Zhezong of the Song Dynasty. Eight hundred years had not passed since it was first built, and it was dilapidated and desolate. But he looked at the handwriting outside.
…”
The handwriting below is blurry and blurry, with few missing parts and less important ones, but it can still be seen that it was written during the Song and Yuanfu years. The county magistrate rebuilt it on the old site in order to commemorate the county man Zhou Cai who prayed for rain at the foot of the mountain.
become.
Zhan Lu and Zhan Lu Shan walked out of Yelu Temple, and soon found the mysterious Red Lotus Virgin, and asked about your search today.
Zhan Lu said with great certainty, "To understand the source of this mountain, we must look for clues from those ancient monuments. After all, no matter how detailed the written records are, they can be tampered with, but those things that were left behind intentionally can best preserve the original information.
.”
Zhan Lu turned into the spokesperson of the ruined temple at this moment. I am sure Zhan Lushan is still suspicious, so I am going to tell the chronicle of the ruined temple.
Mingzun entrusted Bai Lianliyi with his teaching, and he had collected many strange things earlier. Later that night, he saw the "Dragon Light Shooting Fight" at the foot of Yanpingjin. Naturally, he was also not curious about the things that Zhanlu was interested in.
, so he sneaked into the mountains to search early in the morning.
"The smell in the cave here is foul and unpleasant, and the corpses are not in good shape yet, but for some reason, they don't fall to the ground. Instead, they all sit upright beside the wooden chairs and rattan tables, keeping their posture.
The way we talk, laugh and play is as if we knew ourselves before we died and lived outside the cave for a long time..."
"...That's right. The gray is white and the wood grain is turbid. It is obviously made from wood and bamboo. I am sure this is the place where Yuan Ziyi made weapons for the King of Yue. That kind of charcoal is obviously qualified..."
The traces of civilization are disappearing at a speed that is unimaginable to Ye Lu. For example, Jiangwen Academy, a rising star at the foot of the mountain, trained many young scholars and famous officials in the Song and Ming dynasties, and even received imperial gifts in the Yuan Dynasty.
Well, as a result, the "literary" side of Jiang Wenshan has not quickly overtaken the "martial" side. It seems that except for the seven characters of Jiang Wen, Yamashita has not been completely reborn and has nothing to do with Yuan Ziyi's sword making.
The Holy Mother of Red Lotus nodded with great fear.
"He saw that you found some stone houses and caves close to the rocks at the east, south and west foot of Jiangwen Mountain. There is no trace of rammed earth inside, which looks like the ruins of an ancient sword-making furnace. There is not even a trace of rammed earth on the ground.
Charcoal chips and coke stones, you have retrieved the remains of the charcoal burnt."
"...Girl in purple, since he is here, I will help you look for it. There is no stone in the temple that looks like a stone jar. It doesn't matter whether it is a wall or a floor. I'll find it and point it out to you."
"Jade beads with holes and copper clothing pendants? Those seem to be the remnants of Buddhist beads and cassocks..."
"I'm not suspicious at all. After all, if this is the place where Yuan Ziyi made his sword, it would be weird if there is still charcoal in the furnace, and it would be too weird to have only a trace of charcoal."
On the other hand, the Yelu Temple is located on the top of Jiangwen Mountain, a thousand meters low, and was built as early as the Tang Dynasty. It is considered to be the product closest to the Jin Dynasty, so it is reasonable to leave fewer clues.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Now seeing Zhan Lu coming angrily, Our Lady of the Red Lotus was the first to ask: "Master Jiang, has he gained nothing?"
On the contrary, Zhanlu suspected that there was no white technology before the Qin Dynasty, but after the Qin and Han Dynasties, white charcoal was the only fuel that could melt steel. As the inside of the white charcoal was oxidized, the white ash generated attached to the charcoal got its name. The texture
It's also softer, and it definitely looks like it's white and loose.
Zhan Lu frowned and said, "Contrary to what you expected later, that temple was originally the Ouye Temple during the Shenlong period of the Tang Dynasty. It was clearly not built intentionally by the Tang people after they found clues that Yuan Ziyi forged swords here."
Zhan Lu picked up the white and reddish soil crumbs under your palm, crushed it heavily with his fingertips, and found that there were indeed few charcoal crumbs——
As if to verify Zhanlu's guess, the two of us found a side hall on the right side of the inner wall of the Zen temple. The plaque said it was an ancient hall. However, we also found some more ancient stone components in a secret place. There were shadows underneath.
The eight characters "Ouye Temple" were engraved on it, causing Ye Lu to sigh.
"The harvest is small, but fortunately it hasn't been burned yet."
The Red Lotus Virgin continued to speak, but there was a hint of calmness and fear in her expression.
But the problem is not that the color and texture of charcoal like that are right.
"oh."
According to Zhan Lu's guess, although people in the Wei and Jin Dynasties looked at Yuan Ziyi's sword-making land in Songxi County, no one in the Tang Dynasty looked at it, and it was extremely unlikely that even Fang Xuanling and others who compiled the "Book of Jin" were there.
All of them were insiders of the incident, and they were ordered to compile such a bizarre and vague history book.
I gave an example earlier, "He saw the "Jiangwen Academy" he encountered at the foot of the mountain. Although the layers of pavilions are spectacular, the origin is that it was Zhu Xi's chanting chamber in the Song Dynasty. How can it compare with the one built in the Tang Dynasty?
That ruined temple!”
"You checked the traces of the thieves, and finally found many young men's corpses covered in pus, blood, and scars in a secret cave in the Yan Nest. Many of the young men's belongings in the cave are also related to the temple. They are obviously not this group of thieves."
…………
But Zhanlu still gave up, because according to King Shura's description, at least there was no swordsmanship in the late Song Dynasty, and there was no peerless master of swordsmanship. There should definitely be no news about this.
yes.
Zhan Lushan took it seriously and said: "With just a broken vat and a few ugly words, is that ruined temple worth looking at for so long?"
"There are very few supernatural signs"
Bamboo is abundant in the south, and iron smelters often "burn huge bamboos" to make charcoal, which can be used to fill smelting furnaces instead of charcoal and coal. The famous Northern Song Dynasty prime minister Li Fang's "Taiping Yulan" and Lu You's "Laoxue'an Notes"
, there is no record that people are using bamboo charcoal to "smelt bad iron".
Zhan Lushan ended the topic with one word.
"He took his time and looked at it. There were no words outside it!"
"Unexpectedly, the ancestral hall built by the Tang Dynasty here must be Yuan Ziyi's. The locals probably thought that Yuan Ziyi's sword made too few kills, so they used a kind-faced golden Buddha to neutralize the murderous ones.
The statue of Ouye, with the changes of the world, has taken over the magpie's nest."
"It's strange. The place rebuilt by the Song people looks like this building from the Shenlong period? From the Shenlong period to the Tianyou period, nearly seven hundred years have obviously not passed."
The charcoal used by the ancients was specially fired from wood plants in strips or blocks. Sword making and smelting were naturally separated from these things. They often used local materials to build round straight-walled kilns in the distance as burning materials.
There is a kiln room for making charcoal, so it is very unusual that it was not found.
Zhan Lu suddenly realized that it was wonderful. Two more stages emerged in the middle. It was hard to say that when those people built the temple at the foot of the mountain, they would have discovered Lei Hua's remaining clues and even conveniently removed those people.
Have the traces been erased?
"That's right. I think the monk's body has not been dragged away and no traces have been found, but it is known that those ruthless criminals are still hiding outside the dense forest, ready to attack people, so you turned around again
Head to search for the whereabouts of bandits and bandits..."
But when she said that, Our Lady of the Red Lotus suddenly glanced at Zhan Lushan warily, as if she was considering whether to mention those words to you. It wasn't until Zhan Lu nodded slightly that you spoke in a higher voice.
The Holy Mother of Red Lotus suddenly nodded and said the same: "It is indeed true. When you retreated to the mountains this morning, you only felt that the mountains here are majestic, the trees are lush, there are seven flowing springs, and the clouds are steaming and the clouds are shining all year round. It is indeed a treasure place in the world."
Zhan Lu suddenly noticed some keywords and said warmly.
The so-called "Zhi'an broken stele", Zhi means to climb down, and Zhi means a low mountain with no vegetation. It has nothing to do with it and is not included in the "Book of Songs: Wei Feng". However, tracing back to its original meaning, it should be hidden in the vegetation.
A broken monument in a sparse mountain is very different from finding a needle in a haystack.
"Does the Holy Mother believe that the monks in "Jiangwen Zen Temple" did not escape, but were tortured to death?"
"It's strange to say that after you opened the charcoal kiln room, you found some broken jade beads with holes in the ground, as well as some molten copper pendants."
Zhan Lu looked at the words on the ruined stele carefully, then plundered a pile of rubble from outside the cracks in the wall, and spelled out another piece of text piecemeal.
After hearing the news, Zhan Lu rushed over immediately, pried out the ruined monument of the temple from outside the crack in the wall, wiped it slightly with his palm, and read the words below carefully.
"When you opened the door of the kiln, you found that under the walls of the kiln, which were whitened by the smoke, there were countless traces of scratches made by fingernails. It seemed that no one was suffocating in it and was being tortured to death by the charcoal fire..."
Zhan Lu touched his chin in embarrassment. He was filled with pride that could not be extinguished. I wanted to follow Ye Luyong's traces, but the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period were not too elusive yet, so I could only do the next best thing and prepare to find the clues left by Lei Hua.
, it will definitely work. I may have to do the same as Taoist Yuanlou, and head back into the vast forest to search for the broken monument of Zhi'an where I know where I am.