"Xiangyun Temple? Why are you going to the Taoist temple?" Liu Xiu asked in confusion.
"Have you forgotten what holiday today is?"
"What holiday?" Liu Xiu still looked confused.
"Today is October 15th, Xiayuan Festival! Xiangyun Temple will be a dojo. Don't you want to go and see the excitement, my lord?" Deng Yu asked with a smile.
Liu Xiu showed no interest and was about to shake his head to refuse when Yan Guang said: "It's better to go to the Taoist temple to pray than to stay at home all day long!"
Deng Yu nodded repeatedly, looked at the book in Liu Xiu's hand, and said, "Go out to get some air, relax, and change your mind. Maybe some of the problems that you can't figure out now will be solved."
Liu Xiu pondered for a moment, smiled leisurely, put down the letter in his hand, stood up lazily, and said, "Okay! Let's go to the Taoist temple for a walk!"
Zhu You and Gai Yan were not in the house. They had gone out for a stroll early in the morning. Deng Chen was not here either. He was already busy enough with raising supplies and was almost away from home all day.
Liu Xiu, Deng Yu, and Yan Guang changed their clothes, left Deng's mansion, and went to Xiangyun Temple in the suburbs.
Xiangyun Temple is the largest Taoist temple in Xinye County and is very popular. Today is the Xiayuan Festival, and the Taoist temple is also used as a temple. More people come to pray, worship and watch the excitement.
According to the tradition of Xiayuan Festival, people will grind glutinous rice into powder and make small rice balls stuffed with vegetables, which will be placed at the door of their homes for fasting.
However, there is a famine now, and every household does not have much food. It is not practical to place small rice balls at the door of the house to pray to heaven. It is estimated that if you cannot offer sacrifices to heaven, they will be sacrificed to the belly of the refugees. Many people bring small rice balls with them. Go to the Taoist temple and fast in heaven inside the Taoist temple.
The road was bustling with pedestrians and crowded with small vendors. In Liu Xiu's impression, Xinye hadn't been this lively for a long time.
Even if you have never been to Xiangyun Temple before and don’t know the way, it doesn’t matter. Just follow the flow of people and walk forward.
After walking on the street for a while, Liu Xiu felt a lot more relaxed and a smile gradually appeared on her face.
Deng Yu and Yan Guang looked at each other and smiled. The former nudged Liu Xiu with his elbow and said, "My lord, Zi Ling and I took you out to relax, right?"
Liu Xiu looked at the two friends beside him and said with a smile, "Thank you very much."
Xiangyun Temple is located halfway up Xiangyun Mountain, and the name of the Taoist temple is also derived from the name of the mountain.
When we arrived at the foot of Xiangyun Mountain, there were more tourists here. Looking around, we saw a huge crowd of people, but if we looked carefully, we saw that there were more beggars standing on the roadside than pedestrians on the road.
Most of the beggars are homeless and hungry people, some are men and women, some are old and some are young, all of them are sallow and thin, wearing rags and rags.
Some young people and children simply stuck a piece of grass in their back collars, knelt down on the roadside, and voluntarily sold themselves into slavery. Some older people did not even have the opportunity to sell themselves into slavery, so they could only watch helplessly. He looked at the people on the road, his eyes full of expectation and desire, hoping to get a bite of food from people's hands.
Seeing this scene, Liu Xiu couldn't help but sigh and said quietly: "The new Mang court is very harmful to the people!" Wang Mang launched a series of new policies, each of which seemed to be very good, such as the equal distribution of land, the abolition of slaves, etc. But in actual operation, this is simply not possible. Powerful people annex land on a large scale, leaving a large number of peasants with no land to farm and are displaced. Without selling themselves into slavery, they simply cannot survive.
This situation also deeply touched Deng Yu and Yan Guang. They both sighed, and Yan Guang said: "It is really difficult to go against the will of heaven for a long time!"
They followed the steps and walked all the way to the Taoist temple halfway up the mountain.
There are so many beggars here that it is so crowded that it is almost difficult to move.
It took a lot of effort for Liu Xiu and the others to squeeze into the Taoist temple. When entering the Taoist temple, they naturally had to offer incense, but they could not bring this incense themselves, they had to buy it from the Taoist temple.
Even the cheapest and finest incense was sold for one hundred yuan. Liu Xiu didn't want to buy it. Deng Yu smiled disapprovingly, took out three hundred yuan, bought three incense sticks, and distributed them to Liu Xiu and Yan Guang each.
One stick.
The three officials worshiped during the Xiayuan Festival are the three officials of Taoism: the official of heaven, the official of earth, and the official of water. The official of heaven confers blessings, the official of earth forgives sins, and the official of water relieves misfortune.
The incense burner in front of the Taoist temple has already been filled with incense. It is estimated that if the Taoist temple is built today, Xiangyun Tourism will need hundreds of thousands of dollars to collect incense.
Not long after Liu Xiu and the others arrived at Xiangyun Temple, the Taoist temple officially started. The Taoist priests, dressed in Taoist robes, filed out of the main hall and went to the square outside to perform rituals to worship the three officials.
Liu Xiu only glanced at it twice, then lost interest, withdrew from the crowd, and stood in the shade at the base of the wall to enjoy the coolness. He accepted Taoist ideas, but did not accept the Taoist theory of ghosts and gods.
If offering sacrifices to the three officials was really useful, the most immoral and shameless people would not be allowed to live in temples, while the most helpless and incompetent people would suffer disasters, become homeless, and starve to death everywhere.
Maybe in the dark, the movement of heaven and earth really has its own rules, which is the way of heaven, but the way of heaven will not come to people for no reason. In the end, we still have to rely on human power to carry out the way of heaven!
Sacrifice to heaven and earth is not as practical as sacrifice to human beings.
The time in the Taoist temple is very long, and it will not end in a short time. Looking at the Taoist priests wearing thick Taoist robes and being exposed to the hot sun, even though they are sweating from the heat, they are still doing the French style meticulously. I am impressed by the dedication of the Taoist priests.
Liu Xiu also admires his spirit.
While Liu Xiu was leisurely enjoying the cool air, a voice suddenly came from beside him: "Every year I worship the three officials, but every year there is famine and people starve to death. I don't know what the use of worshiping the three officials is?!"
Liu Xiu turned around and was happy. He saw Jiu'er standing beside him at some point, tapping his toes, stretching his neck and looking towards the center of the square. He asked with a smile: "You girl, you are so elusive, when will
Coming?"
"Just now." Jiuer curiously looked at the French in the crowd and said without turning her head. No matter how much she despised the French worshiping the three officials, she was only a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl after all, and she was happy to
Watch the fun.
Liu Xiu shook his head and said, "I haven't seen you for several days. What are you busy with?"
"Walking around! Now I don't have to worry about food and drink, just wander around when I have time!" At this point, Jiu'er finally looked away and smiled at Liu Xiu, showing two rows of white teeth.
Liu Xiu was amused by her and asked, "Has all the money I gave you last time been spent?"
Jiuer said: "There are still some left! You don't think I'm here to ask you for money, do you?"
Liu Xiu shrugged and said, "Even if he comes to ask for money, it's natural." Jiu'er works for him and recognizes him as his lord. As a lord, it is only natural and natural for his subordinates to be fed and clothed.
.
Jiuer bared her teeth and said in a brisk tone: "I will come to you after the money is spent." After a moment, she suddenly remembered something and said: "By the way, now the Lord has a good opportunity for a hero to save the beauty.
.”
"Ah?" Liu Xiu looked at her puzzled.
Jiuer smiled and said, "When I came here, I saw the young lady from the Yin family being pestered by many beggars."
Liu Xiu was stunned for a moment and hurriedly asked: "Where is it?"
"It's right at the foot of the mountain!"
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?!" Liu Xiu complained and walked out of the Taoist temple. Jiu'er followed him and said, "You didn't even ask me!"
Liu Xiu glanced at her helplessly and said, "If there is anything important in the future, you must tell me as soon as possible!"
Jiuer asked: "What is the important thing?"
"It's just..." Her words really stopped Liu Xiu from asking. What is important and what is not important? It's really hard to explain this in detail.
He waved his hand to Jiu'er and said: "Forget it, you can figure it out yourself! By the way, don't follow me. Zhonghua and Ziling are both inside. Tell them that I will wait for them at the foot of the mountain!"
"Oh!" Jiu'er looked at Liu Xiu's hurried away figure and stuck out her tongue at him.
Liu Xiu hurriedly ran down the long steps and down the mountain.
When he reached the foot of the mountain, he looked up and sure enough, there was a large group of people gathered nearby, mostly homeless and beggars. There was a lot of noise among the crowd, but he couldn't quite hear what was being said.
He turned sideways, tried his best to separate the crowd, and squeezed in from the outside.
In the center of the crowd was a carriage. Surrounding the carriage were seven or eight burly men. Liu Xiu knew several of these men, and they were all guards of the Yin family. The leader was named Yin Ting, who had been in the family for several generations.
They all work as domestic servants in the underworld.
I saw Yin Ting looking around at the crowd, his face sinking, and he shouted sternly: "I have told you many times, this is the carriage of the Yin family, and the lady in the carriage is the young lady of the Yin family, and she has not eaten at all!"
"Don't listen to him!" A middle-sized refugee in the crowd shouted loudly: "The Yin family has such a big family business, why don't Xiayuan Jie Neng come to worship the three officials? The car must be full of food!"
Hearing his words, the hundreds of refugees and beggars present showed greed in their eyes. With such a cart full of food, as long as I could snatch one pack, it would be enough for me and my whole family to eat for several days!
"The Yin family is so rich and unkind that they would rather sacrifice a cart of food to the three officials than share any of it with us. Stop nagging them and let's all grab it!" Another thin man in the crowd shouted loudly.
Someone took the lead, and the refugees, who were already so hungry that they were almost losing their minds, and the beggars responded one after another. People talked to the big man and said, "Yes! Grab all the food in the car!"
"We were all starving to death, and the Yin family offered a cart full of food as sacrifices to the three officials. It's extremely abominable!"
People were shouting and approaching the carriage step by step. Yinting looked around at the people around him, pulled out the sword from his ribs, and shouted in a deep voice: "Which one of you dares to come forward again?"
As he showed his weapons, the other guards also drew out their swords and glared at the crowd around them. Seeing the Yin family members showing their weapons, people showed fear and stopped moving forward.
Come down.
Just at this moment, a man from the crowd rushed out regardless, holding a stone in his hand, and went straight to the Yin Pavilion.
Yinting realized the danger and hurriedly stepped aside to pass the stone thrown by the opponent. Then, he returned with a sword.
His sword was merciless and not very fast. The main purpose was to force the opponent back.
Unexpectedly, the big man failed to dodge, and his chest was cut open by the sword. He fell on his back, and his chest was bleeding profusely.
Seeing this, everyone present was dumbfounded.
Two big men ran out and dragged the injured man back while screaming: "The Yin family is killing people! The Yin family is killing people! Don't be polite to the Yin family, let's rob him together!"
