"Mr. Shao, we have already found the New Year pictures." Li Xiaochun followed Shao Ling with a face full of unwillingness.
Shao Ling felt that the new young man was not smart enough, so he patiently said: "Yes, we even found the original woodblock print of that New Year's picture, but that woodblock is also missing a piece."
"I know that, isn't what we're looking for is the missing piece." Li Xiaochun hurriedly said.
"Well." Shao Ling felt that there was no need to explain, so he continued to walk forward.
"Mr. Shao," Li Xiaochun followed closely, "Is the word 'Zhu' that you said missing has something to do with this place?"
Shao Ling stopped: "The place we are now should be Zhuxian Town."
"I know that the Zhuxianzhen New Year's picture is the originator of our Chinese woodblock New Year's picture, maybe we can meet some old woodblock masters here." Li Xiaochun is always optimistic.
Zhuxianzhen New Year's picture is the originator of our Chinese wood-panel New Year pictures - didn't I tell you this sentence just now? Shao Ling looked at Li Xiaochun, and heard a "di-" in his ears.
"Mr. Shao, it's four o'clock!" Li Xiaochun hurriedly looked at his phone, "We've only found half of the clues now!"
"Xiaochun," Shao Ling said earnestly, "We don't even have a clue at the moment."
"We, don't we know that this is Zhuxian Town? And we know that the fragment we are looking for has the word 'Zhu' on it." Li Xiaochun's voice was a little low at first, and then gradually became louder, as if to encourage Shao Ling.
"Okay." Shao Ling looked at the unending road in front of him. On the left side of the road were New Year's picture workshops, which were covered with dusty New Year pictures, but no one could be seen; on the right side of the road, It is a large cemetery, where only the crows on the branches and the foxes lingering among the trees stay here.
Shao Ling suddenly missed Mu Yiran, as well as Qin Ci, Ke Xun, Zhu Haowen, and even Wei Dong and Rui. Even though these old friends couldn't give him clear guidance, they could always come up with some suggestions and ideas. You can make your own way of thinking in a different way, so as to have more discoveries.
The whole New Year picture woodblock found just now is the most common theme of door gods in Zhuxianzhen New Year pictures. The door gods carved on the woodblock are Qin Qiong and Yu Chigong. Zhuxianzhen's New Year picture production has a very long history, starting in the Tang Dynasty.
Shao Ling was thinking about whether he could start from the door god or the Tang Dynasty. It can even be speculated that this ancient New Year picture woodblock might come from the Tang Dynasty, and it may even be the oldest New Year picture work in Zhuxianzhen. .
Li Xiaochun was not affected by Shao Ling's slightly depressed mood, at this moment he kept reciting words: "Two clues, one is Zhu Xianzhen, the other is Zhu; two clues, Zhu Xianzhen, Zhu; Zhu Xianzhen And Zhu; the common point is one word, Zhu…”
Shao Ling: "..."
Li Xiaochun walked side by side with Shao Ling, because of his broad shoulders and long legs, strong body, and full of self-confidence and optimism between his eyebrows, he seemed to have a better momentum than Shao Ling: "Mr. Shao, why is Zhu Xian? Is the town called Zhuxian Town? Is it because the surname 'Zhu' is a common surname in this town?"
Shao Ling said that he could not explain: "The reason why Zhuxian Town got its name is because it used to be Tang Muyi of General Zhu Hai during the Warring States Period."
"What is Tang Muyi?"
"It's almost like a fief."
Li Xiaochun frowned and fell into deep thought, and added a new clue "Tang Muyi" to the only two clues he had just now.
Shao Ling did not expect to be opened by Li Xiaochun's question. He looked at the cemetery on the right side of the road: "Xiaochun, who do you think are buried in this cemetery?"
Li Xiaochun's thoughts were interrupted, and he was stunned: "It's the people in the village."
"The people from which village?"
"Didn't we just watch it for a long time, anyway, it's the people from the various villages in Zhuxian Town." Li Xiaochun said, thinking about it here, "It's weird, why are their cemeteries all gathered together? Our village It's all scattered, and no family is next to any family."
"I thought at first that these people might have something to do with the New Year's picture shop across the road. Maybe all the people buried here are the deceased New Year's picture masters, but..." Shao Ling stopped here.
Li Xiaochun was stunned by Shao Ling's words: "Mr. Shao, you think so far, why didn't I think of it before, all of them are New Year painting masters, so they are buried here!"
"No, no, now I take this idea back." Shao Ling denied this guess, and walked to the cemetery at this time, and Li Xiaochun followed in stride.
Li Xiaochun is not without merit, at least he is bold. As a newcomer who is entering the painting for the first time, it is not easy to maintain such calmness. Even when he walked into the cemetery full of crows and foxes, he did not change his face.
"Aren't you afraid? There may be lonely ghosts here." Shao Ling said.
Li Xiaochun said, "What's there to be afraid of? I haven't done anything wrong. By the way, Mr. Shao, why did you say that these people are all lonely ghosts? If these people are widowed and lonely without relatives, or They are beggars who wandered into the village, how could someone erect a monument for them? These days, our relatives don’t erect monuments when they die, and since cremation was carried out, there are very few monuments in our village’s cemetery.”
Shao Ling's eyes wandered among several tombstones. Unexpectedly, Li Xiaochun, who claimed to have not graduated from junior high school, could still say the words 'widowhood and loneliness' completely. Shao Ling pointed to these tombstones: "These tombstones are not Don't you think the world we live in is a bit old?"
Li Xiaochun looked at the New Year's picture shop over there: "I thought it was deliberately decorated like that, and the antique ones are more attractive to tourists."
Shao Ling no longer sells Guanzi: "Judging from the years when those tombstones were erected, the era we are in may be the end of the Ming Dynasty."
"The last years of the Ming Dynasty?" Li Xiaochun's eyes widened, as if the "traveling" between himself and Shao Ling was even more bizarre than "entering the painting", "I don't understand, in your words, we are not entering the painting. Is there a branch world in it? This world is fake, but the Ming Dynasty is real, so is this world real or fake? Is the Ming Dynasty in this world real or fake?"
Shao Ling smiled lightly: "You have no standard answer to this question, it's simply 'Schrödinger's cat'."
Li Xiaochun: "I don't understand what you're talking about, but I know Schrödinger, which means there is no solution to the problem. I have read in books that the ultimate problem that plagues the middle class is Schrödinger's wealth."
Shao Ling didn't expect the other party to quote the words from the book: "What book said that?"
"The Story Club."
"..." Shao Ling nodded, "There must be "Reader" and "Youth Digest"."
"Yes, Mr. Shao, how did you know?" Li Xiaochun was very happy when he talked about his reading, "and "Selected Folk Tales"!"
"All right."
"What kind of books do you read, Mr. Shao? Do you read foreign works like "Yilin"?"
"Now is not the time to talk about books." Shao Ling had to get serious.
"Oh..." Li Xiaochun nodded vigorously, "Then we'll talk when we go out alive."
Shao Ling's thoughts were about to be disrupted: "From now on, don't say anything that has nothing to do with clues, we don't have much time."
"Um!"
The sincere attitude of the other party made Shao Ling lose his temper for a while. Well, what did you want to say just now
"Graveyard?" Li Xiaochun reminded cautiously, "Tang Muyi? General Zhu? Zhuxian Town?"
"Yes," Shao Ling nodded, "I suspect that the people in this cemetery are the people who 'guard' General Zhu."
"That means, General Zhu is also buried here? Is there a big tomb here with General Zhu buried in it?" Li Xiaochun asked.
Shao Ling nodded: "It's very possible, but unfortunately I haven't been to Zhuxian Town in the real world, nor have I visited General Zhu's tomb, and I don't know if my judgment is correct - however, the world itself is a combination of reality and reality. The world, in all likelihood, dramatizes and distorts what is real."
Li Xiaochun said a little ashamed: "What did you say General Zhu's name just now, I forgot."
"Zhu Hai, according to some sayings, Zhu Hai has been sealed as an immortal, so this place is named Zhu Xian Town." Shao Ling looked at the tombs in front of him and thought, if Zhu Hai was sealed with immortals, then the cemetery would be very difficult. Looking for it, "It is recorded in the "Bianjing Relics": Zhuhai's tomb, in Zhuxianbao, commonly known as Tu'er's tomb."
"What is Tu'er's tomb?" Li Xiaochun would ask if he didn't understand.
"It is said that Zhu Hai was a butcher before he went to the court of Lord Xinling."
"Lord Xinling?" Li Xiaochun tried to search for this familiar word in his own cognition.
Shao Ling continued: "Many ancients have written poems about the tomb of Zhuhai, such as Huang Shu, Wang Wei, and Su Shi. I still remember Su Shi's "The Tomb of Zhuhai, commonly known as Tu Eryuan". The poem was written very objectively, and it not only mentioned 'In the past, Mr. Zhu was a heroic man who could not be chased.' Such praise for Zhu Hai was accompanied by an ambiguous comment such as 'Be careful not to complain about the world, but not to suffer from Zhongni'."
"Why is it ambiguous?" Li Xiaochun asked.
"I can't explain a sentence or two of these words. After all, it is a matter of the Warring States Period, but back then, 'Zhu Hai sleeves forty pounds of iron vertebrae, the vertebra killed Jin Bi', this should be a relatively true record."
"Why are you chasing that person?"
"It's hard to say, but it can be understood as the righteousness of the country. At that time, Lord Xinling took the stolen tiger rune to lead the army, and the guard general Jin Bi was a little suspicious and refused to send troops, so Zhu Hai raised it and hid it in his sleeve at that time. The forty catties of iron vertebrae killed him on the spot. Only then did Lord Xinling seize military power and dispatched troops to rescue Zhao State, thus consolidating Wei State's position."
"But I think it's not wrong for the person named Jin Bi who guards the city to express doubts about them. That's how loyal they are." Li Xiaochun expressed his point of view.
"According to what you said, it seems to be right," Shao Ling never thought about this issue carefully. After reading "Seize the Talisman to Save Zhao" since childhood, he only felt that this decision made by Lord Xinling was correct, and everyone should work hard for this decision. That's right. But he never thought that Zhu Hai's move was loyal to his master, Lord Xinling, and Jin Bi doubted him. Isn't it also loyal to his master, King Wei
Thinking of this, Shao Ling said: "I always feel that if we can find the tomb of General Zhu Hai, maybe we can find some answers."
"Then let's find it! Anyway, I didn't see it along the way, maybe it's ahead!"
Who knows, the night is ahead.
Neither of the two dared to think that the world would fall into the night so early.
It was as if someone had suddenly splashed a bucket of black paint from above the sky, and it was dark within seconds.
The cemetery at night is naturally a bit different from the daytime.