Chapter 31

It felt like he had been waiting for a long time, and Kiyo felt drowsy, leaning on the sofa to doze off, in a daze, as if he heard a crackling sound, the sound of tearing paper.

It seems that Luo Ren asked: “What’s wrong?”

Ten thousand three replied: “The painting is useless.”

As she fell asleep in her dream, she never forgot to bury 13,000 in her heart: she was drawing blindly, as if it was 2,580,000.

And then, all of a sudden, the surrounding area was brightened.

Muyo sat up suddenly, his mind was buzzing, and he felt in a trance of not knowing when and where he was. Cao Yanhua, who was diagonally opposite, also raised his head blankly, his eyes were so blinded by the light that he couldn’t open them.

Kiyo felt ashamed to himself, he was still keeping watch at night, it was really embarrassing and he lost his family.

She took out her phone to check the time: four in the morning.

The sound of the paper being scratched, Wan San didn’t know when he sat up, leaning on the sofa to massage his neck, Luo Ren stood beside him, staring intently at a piece of paper that had just been torn from the drawing book.

Hey, have you drawn it yet? The memory of Kiyo’s bedtime finally came back, so he hurried over to watch it together.

If you can only use four words to describe the painting that 13,000 worked hard for half a night…

Dog gnawing is average.

After drawing for about four or five hours, did you draw something like this?

Wansan yawned, and said in a cool voice, “Little proprietress, it’s ok, let’s do it, I’m blind, I’m not a magic pen, Ma Liang, I’ve ruined a few of my drawings.”

The subtext is: bb.

Luo Ren explained to her: “One thousand three times, every time a long period of time, the water shadows that come out are repeated, that is to say, it goes round and round, and countless strokes make up just one picture.”

A picture, is it the one in front of you? It also…

Kiyo doesn’t know how to describe it. On the picture frame, there are only a few strokes in the distance. Anyone who knows how to read freehand landscape paintings will know that it represents the outline of the distant mountains, and the nearby ones are painted horizontally. They also understand that the painting is a rushing river. Bar.

Between the mountains and rivers, it is divided into two parts, the left and the right, and the left one is a…

Kiyo wondered: “Is this a wolf?”

Luo Ren glanced at her: “Maybe, I thought it was a dog at first.”

During the conversation, Cao Yanhua’s big head also came in, and he made a concluding speech: “Wolf dog.”

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a wolf or a dog, the same clan is right.

Looking at the right side again, there is a scroll of bamboo slips, like the scrolls where ministers wrote letters to the emperor in ancient times. The strange thing is that there is a bird squatting in each of the upper, middle and lower positions of the bamboo slips.

The first two birds look alike, although the 10,000 paintings are horrible, but they can barely be recognized with long trailing tails. They say they are peacocks but they don’t look like heads. Finally, they agree that it should be a phoenix.

But the bottom one looks like a chicken.

Luo Ren looked at Mudai and Cao Yanhua: “It’s over? How do you feel? Let’s hear it.”

Kidai said: “I don’t know if it’s a dog or a wolf. It’s squatting on the riverside, as if it’s about to jump into the river to commit suicide. Here are two phoenixes and a chicken, squatting on bamboo slips. It’s gone.”

This is how she feels? The veins on Luo Ren’s forehead twitched without realizing it: “You are really… straightforward.”

Turning to look at Cao Yanhua again: “What about you?”

Cao Yanhua is a typical person who has no ink in his belly, and prefers to tinker with a few elegant words. At the moment, he is showing off his deepness: “I think, you can’t just look at the surface, you have to look at the deep meaning.”

“How to say?”

“Look at this wolf… dog, I think it represents a kind of evil force. Didn’t the ancient curses say that they are wolf-hearted, or ‘you beast’, so this is a kind of evil force. As for the right side, there are two phoenixes and one Chicken, this chicken is at the bottom, and this tube of bamboo slips is like a wooden frame, reminding us of a saying, the so-called phoenix is ​​not as good as a chicken when it falls off the frame.”

Well, one is talented than the other, and Cao Yanhua’s side is simply talking from a picture: it means that someone was framed by evil forces, and in the end, he was not as good as a phoenix?

Wan San didn’t comment, but waved his hand weakly: “Don’t ask me, there are still hundreds of strokes in front of me, and to me, they are just strokes, nothing else.”

Mudai and Cao Yanhua’s expectant eyes fell on Luo Ren: Since everyone has spoken, what is your opinion? tell me the story?

Luo Ren spread his hands, and was more straightforward than Muyo: “I don’t understand, I’ll see the time is about the same later, call the magic stick.”

Kiyo felt a strange sense of pride in his heart.

After all, she was the one who took the lead in finding the magic stick in the beginning, and now it is really… honorable.

From four o’clock to five o’clock, and then to six o’clock, ten thousand and three fell asleep, Cao Yanhua strolled around the water basin, and occasionally stretched his head to look.

Kiyo sneered: “Look, look again! It will jump out and stick to your face later!”

Cao Yanhua shrank his head in fright, and couldn’t even see his neck.

When it was almost seven o’clock, Uncle Zheng called and said that he was coming back to help Pin Ting get some household items for the hospital. A whole table was spread out, and a few people set the bowls and divided the chopsticks. It was so strange that they looked like a family.

Muyo hid at the side, and called Shengun first, wanting to make an appointment for a convenient call time, but was afraid that he was still sleeping, so he called him and disturbed him—unexpectedly, Shengun answered it soon, with a pleasant voice , full of energy, said: “I’m doing morning exercises.”

Still doing morning exercises? It’s really an orderly life, a combination of work and rest, healthy and reasonable.

“My friend told me that if you travel alone, you must pay attention to your body and exercise regularly.”

That’s it, Kiyo sighed sincerely: “Your friend cares about you.”

In fact, the original words of the magic stick friend are not like this. The original words of others are: I have a family and a mouth now, so I don’t have time to take care of you. You should keep fit and healthy. If you dare to have a headache again, come and harass me. Believe me Don’t believe me kill you?

Anyway, in the eyes of the **** stick, this is a concern that is ambiguous, and Kiyo said this, which made him even more sympathetic: “Of course, the best friend.”

After the greetings were over, Muyo went straight to the point. Luo Ren guessed that she was calling Shengun, and motioned for her to put the phone away, while telling Cao Yanhua and the others to keep quiet.

That’s why the noisy morning fell silent again. Cao Yanhua ate cakes gracefully, his movements slowed down by two beats.

“Afraid of water? I am afraid of water but not fire… I have never heard of it…”

Having never heard of it, Kiyo was a little disappointed. She cheered up and mentioned the painting again, the mountains in the distance, the river nearby, the wolf dog by the river, and that “”A fallen phoenix is ​​not as good as a chicken”…

Shen stick’s voice suddenly rose an octave, and he couldn’t suppress his surprise and excitement: “Wait a minute, you just said, two phoenixes, one chicken, three ways up, middle and down, bamboo slips?”

Kiyo’s heart was beating wildly, and when he looked at the table, everyone stopped, and Luo Ren nodded to her, signaling to continue.

“That tube of bamboo slips, count them, how many?”

Kiyo hurriedly gestured to Luo Ren: “What about the painting?”

Before Luo Ren could answer, Thirteen rushed to answer: “Seven roots.”

He also said: “I drew it. I remember where the strokes were broken at that time. It was seven strokes.”

The **** stick seemed to take a breath.

Kiyo didn’t dare to urge, after a while, she heard a voice like a magic stick: “Seven…there are really…”

What’s the meaning? Being able to say such a thing means that he at least knows something, right? Kiyo’s nervous heart almost jumped out: “What does that mean?”

The magic stick laughed loudly: “Little Pocket, your head is just an empty pocket. What kind of chicken is that? Luan. Luan is ‘red, colorful, and shaped like a chicken’. Haven’t you heard of it?”

She actually said that her head was an empty pocket! What Luan, where did the teacher talk about this in class? It’s all because it’s bad. She doesn’t paint a picture even if she paints it. If she paints it, can she say it’s a chicken?

Kiyo gouged out ten thousand three eyes, just like she could recognize it as a luan after coloring—in fact, even if she had enough “red and five colors” to color it, she would still say it was a colorful bird. big cock.

“The two in front are not phoenixes. They should be phoenix and phoenix. The upper, middle and lower three are phoenix, phoenix, and luan. They are the three auspicious divine birds in ancient China. What you see are phoenix and phoenix. The seven evil slips that have been sealed.”

Seven evil letters?

At the critical moment, the magic stick was able to calm down: “I’m going to go through my notes and tidy them up, just wait a moment.”

He still needs to look through his notes? Kiyo’s heart was scratching like a cat’s paw, and he wished to reach into the phone, grab the sound of the magic stick, and pull him out of the invisible sound waves.

Luo Ren was calmer than her: “I’ve been waiting for so long, I don’t care about waiting another hour or two.”

There was forcibly suppressed excitement in his voice, and Kiyo looked at him and nodded, feeling really happy for him.

Just at this moment, Ten-Wan spoke angrily.

“What is this Phoenix Luan holding seven fierce slips, you two, I drew the picture all night, can you briefly introduce the background of the story?”

So he finished his meal in a hurry, turned to Luo Ren’s room, Cao Yanhua was in charge of carrying the basin, trembling all the way, his arms stretched out desperately, hated that his parents didn’t give him a tall figure with long arms and long legs.

In Luo Ren’s room, that wall is the best demonstration board. The three past events, fishing line puppets, and the eloquent stories made Cao Yanhua dumbfounded, full of doubts: “Then what is this about? What’s the matter with Jane?”

Kiyo charged his mobile phone to ensure that there might be a long call later: “Then I have to ask the magic stick.”

The phone call from the magic stick didn’t come until the afternoon, the sun had already set to the west, and a red light and shadow enveloped the half of the wall, making people feel unreal.

The real and long-awaited calls began to come out, but Kiyo felt that at this moment, even if she was asked to buy a ticket to enter, she would be willing to listen.

There was the sound of flipping the pages on the other end of the phone. Wan Fenghuo seemed to have mentioned that a magic stick is used to write down things with a pen. of? Should be very old, right?

“I did hear about this incident many years ago. It was near Hangu Pass, only in that place. I heard it from an elderly man. He told it as a legend.”

Hangu Pass?

The whole thing was like a huge picture with many jigsaw pieces missing, and Kiyo thought to himself: It matches, and another piece matches.

“Where do we start? Believe it or not, there is always a ‘first’ for everything in this world, for example, the first person to eat an apple, the first person to eat a crab, the first person to swim .”

Yes, it was a long, long time ago, but there must have been, as historians have speculated, primitive people first drank blood, and then one day thunder and lightning ignited the forest, the forest fire burned the beasts to death, and the smell of meat attracted the crowd. The bravest one said, “Let me have a taste.”

Thus began the era of cooked food.

“According to the legend, the first seven crimes in this world with written records are not counted. Those without written records are not counted, and those with knotted knots are not counted, because the knots in each knot are incomprehensible to others and do not have the meaning of conveying information.”

“But there were written records at the beginning. It should be oracle bone inscriptions at that time. Whether it was engraved on tortoise shells, animal bones or other things, the first seven words are said to have the power to deceive people. Later, anyone who comes into contact with them will always She had a sudden change of heart and committed similar crimes, which was called ominous by the people at that time.”

Luo Ren asked, “Why seven?”

The magic stick sighed: “I can’t tell. I looked up the special meaning of the number ‘seven’ later. It is said in the “Han Shu” that ‘seven’ is the beginning of the four seasons of the world and the beginning of human beings. There are seven days in a week. In Buddhism, there are seven treasures and seven sufferings. After a person dies, there is a sacrifice for seven days, such as the first seven…”

“Even in the West, ‘seven’ has a special meaning. In the Bible, it took God seven days to create the world, and there are also ‘seven deadly sins’ in Catholic teaching.”

Kiyo doesn’t care about numbers, she only cares about another question: “Why do people who come into contact with them have sudden changes in their minds, are they possessed by… ghosts?”

After asking, I got goosebumps all over my body first.

Luo Ren pondered for a while: “Like the Japanese… the word spirit?”

“Zi Ling” is a strange story in Japan. It comes from “Onmyoji” by Dream Pillow Tapir. It is about a monk in the Tang Dynasty of China who copied Buddhist scriptures. One day, a woman appeared in the meditation room, but she always covered her with her sleeve Later, the monk couldn’t help pulling down the woman’s sleeve and found that she had no mouth on her face. After the woman disappeared, the monk copied the Buddhist scriptures again and found that there was a word for “Dari Tathagata”.

The moral of the story is that all things have animism, and that character turned into a speechless girl, who came to remind the monk. At first glance, it does have something in common with the seven murder cases engraved on oracle bones.

The magic stick thought for a while: “It’s not like, “Zi Ling” is just a strange story, but the kind I said can’t be seen or touched. In short, it’s an ominous thing, like the curse of the pharaoh, which will be given to you in the dark. People bring bad luck.”

“People at that time were in awe. When offering sacrifices to the gods, they also prayed to the heavens. It is said that the result of divination is that a virtuous person will be born in future generations to end this ominous and hostile atmosphere.”

Speaking of this, the magic stick suddenly became excited: “This person was active in the late Spring and Autumn Period. He is a real person. He is very famous in the history of Chinese culture and can be called a world cultural celebrity. Guess who he is?”

Cao Yanhua’s voice was loud and resounding: “Confucius!”

Luo Ren glanced at him: “It must be me.”

The magic stick let out a “huh”: “One point for the little radish, who was the one who answered the question just now?”

Cao Yanhua was instructed by Mu Daiqian before, to be respectful to the **** stick: “Mr. God, my name is Cao, you can call me Cao Fatty.”

Cao Pangpang is of course not nice, but at least it is his existing nickname, and he doesn’t want to have another one, little carrot? God, I really don’t know how Luo Ren endured it.

The magic stick educated him: “Cao Fatty, Confucius is of course also a cultural celebrity, but you have to guess based on the context. I mentioned Hangu Pass earlier. Laozi and Hangu Pass are greatly related, and Laozi himself, was Respected as the ancestor of Taoism, Taishang Laojun, he is more mysterious than Confucius.”

He turned back to the topic: “The story of the seven evil slips starts when Lao Tzu passes through the Hangu Pass.”

Legend has it that when the Zhou royal family declined, Lao Tzu, a virtuous man, decided to retire and ride a green bull across Hangu Pass.

Commander Yin Xi was quite acquainted with the heavens. He faintly saw the purple air coming from the east and guessed that there would be nobles passing through the pass. , don’t leave something for the world?”

According to historical records, because of Yin Xi’s kindness, Lao Tzu stayed in Hangu Pass for three months and left a “Tao Te Ching” with about 5,000 words.

But the version Shenzhu heard was far more than that.

According to that version, Lao Tzu was determined to eradicate a great evil for the present world. He channeled the seven ominous auras in the tortoise shell and animal bones to the seven wooden slips, sealed them with three bronze slips of phoenix, phoenix, and luan, and told Yin Xi that the five elements create In the world, the whole world is composed of five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, each of which can temporarily overcome the evil, but it is not a cure for the root cause.

The wooden slips belong to wood, wood is born in the soil, draws water and grows, implying “wood, earth, water”, the bronze slip buckles belong to “gold”, “phoenix, phoenix, and luan” are the gods of the world, and their nature belongs to fire. So far, the five elements It is complete, attracts the auspicious spirit of the divine bird, and seals seven ominous slips.

Yin Xi took it with respect and respect, and asked Lao Tzu, why didn’t the master destroy the fierce slip?

Lao Tzu sighed and said that even if it is surly and vicious, it is indeed a crime committed by human beings. It cannot be erased by whitewashing or destroying it. This has long been a part of history.

Yin Xi asked again, if one day, the button of the Phoenix Luan is opened again, wouldn’t the seven evil slips be going to bring disaster to the world again?

Lao Tzu laughed out loud, flung the floating dust, stepped straight away on the green bull, and said, don’t worry, no one in this world can open the Phoenix Luan’s buckle.