Rong Leng is still quite human.
But the more Liu Wei thought about it, the more she felt that this method was feasible, she stood up suddenly, and she was about to go out.
Rong Leng grabbed her and pulled her back.
He was so powerful that Liu Wei was caught off guard, staggered and swayed, and knocked against the table.
There was still half of the tea that Rong Leng drank on the table, the cup shook, and the water poured down, soaking the scripture paper on the table all at once.
"Too bad." Liu Wei frowned, picked up the paper, and wanted to wipe it dry, but suddenly, she was so blessed that she looked at Rong Leng.
Rong Leng was taken aback for a moment, an ominous premonition welled up in his heart.
Sure enough, in the next moment, Liu Wei said: "I haven't tried water and fire yet, maybe it's an invisible character, come here, come and pour all these papers."
Rong Leng held down her eager hand, took a deep breath, and sighed: "It's wet, but I really can't sew it back."
Liu Wei obviously hesitated for a moment when he heard this, but in the end, his rationality was overwhelmed by the pursuit of the truth!
She poured water on all the papers on the table, and then carefully identified each page by comparison.
A quarter of an hour later, she sat down again in disappointment, and whispered: "It's not water."
Then he raised his head again: "Then there is only fire left."
Standing behind her, Rong Leng felt a throbbing pain in his temple.
Liu Wei went all out, lit a candle, put the softened sutra paper close to the candle, and baked it. After burning for a while, the invisible characters did not come out, but a scorched mark was baked, which almost disappeared.
burn up.
Rong Leng blew out the candle, pulled Liu Wei to stand far away, and said: "I'll go to the bookstore to buy a new book, don't worry about it."
Liu Wei nodded with a complicated face, sitting on a chair and thinking.
Rong Leng was worried, afraid that Liu Wei would burn down the house when he left the gate, and before leaving, he took the candles with him.
When Rong Leng came back again, he saw Liu Wei was still sitting where he was before, but his eyes were far away, staring at the pages of books on the table.
He handed her the newly bought "Diamond Sutra". After Liu Wei took it, he casually flipped through two pages, but suddenly paused: "This...isn't it the same."
Rong Leng looked at it, but didn't find any difference.
Liu Wei walked to the table, picked up a half-dried page, compared it with the new book, and said, "One page is printed in ink, and the other is printed in print. Grandfather's book is made of type."
Rong Ling heard the words and compared them. The font on the new book is darker, jet black, and the handwriting is clear. The font on the old book is lighter, grayish, and the handwriting is blurred.
Looking at it this way, the printing materials of the two books are indeed different, but what does this mean
Liu Wei said: "Current books and classics are mostly printed by engraving, that is, first carving out the model, then rubbing on clean paper, and finally binding it into a book.
Printing is easier to shape than printed printing, and it is also more solid and durable. There are very few engraving blocks of printed printing.
It is a printed version, but since ink printing is more commonly used by various bookstores, why is this book printed with a printed version? Could it be that ink printing was more popular than printed printing at that time? But that's not right, cloud
There are also many classic books in the government. I have read a few of them. Some old books are also printed with ink or hand-copied.
More popular than printed printing, the only reason I can think of why this booklet is printed is the cost. "
Rong Leng shook his head, rejecting her statement: "Ink is cheap, while lead is expensive."
Lead is a kind of ore and also a kind of medicinal material. The ancients said that its weight is solid, its nature is slippery, its color is black, and it leads to the kidney.
In the apricot world, lead is often used as medicine, and lead has a great effect and wide range of uses, so the price is much higher than that of ink that can be seen everywhere.
Liu Wei smiled: "Under normal circumstances, the cost of lead is indeed higher than that of ink, but what if it was born near a lead mine?"
Rong Leng was taken aback: "You mean..."
Liu Wei suddenly felt enlightened, and couldn't help laughing: "There is no map in this book, it is just a map, now we only need to know the important locations of the lead mines in Xianyan Country,
It can be judged where this book comes from. "
Rong Leng got up, then walked outside.
Border maps are very important, ordinary bookstores have no right to sell them, and ordinary people dare not draw them privately, but there must be one in Rujiang Palace.
Rong Leng set off for Rujiang Palace, Liu Wei was not idle either, she carefully dried the wet pages, then stacked them into a pile, arranged them in order, and compared them with the new books one by one.
The two editions of the booklet have different fonts and printing colors, but the content described is exactly the same.
Liu Wei couldn't find the difference from the text, but could only work hard on the paper and engraving writers.
It is not a child's play to make a book engraving. First, a large enough engraving is required, and most engraving authors will use their usual fonts for engraving.
For the new book in the ink version, the author of the engraving has indicated on the title page that he is a descendant of a current engraving family, and the block script is used.
However, the author's name marked on the title page of the old lead-type book has only one code name, which is called Qinglan Juke, and he uses italic script.
Qinglan is a branch of orchids, both of which are distributed in the Northwest. Liu Wei boldly assumes that the engraver is from the Northwest
In addition to the author of the engraving, the end page of the printed book is also engraved with a red seal. The writing on the seal is "Knowing its meaning, the Mahayana is the best", which is the summary of the Diamond Sutra.
There is nothing wrong with the red seal, but the red seal uses Xiaozhuan.
When the engraving of the whole article is in italic script, the seal of Xiaozhuan seems a little strange.
When Liu Wei was still pondering the details of the seal, Rong Leng hurried back and brought back a long scroll.
Unfold the long axis, and there is indeed a picture of Xianyan, Jiangshan and mountains inside.
When borrowing the picture, Rong Leng had asked in advance, and when he unfolded it, he pointed directly at Tianshi Prefecture on the upper left, and said, "Anyi County, Laicheng County, and the two counties are all rich in lead mines, and Ting River
There are also some quarry distributions in Jindong County in the state. "
Liu Wei pointed out the name carved on the title page of the old printed book, and said: "Tianshi Prefecture and Tingjiang Prefecture are both located in the northwest, and Qinglan among the Qinglan residents also comes from the northwest."
Rong Leng frowned, with a bad expression: "Tianshi Prefecture covers an area of over a thousand acres, and Anyi County and Laicheng County each occupy half, not to mention Jindong County in Tingjiang Prefecture also covers an area of hundreds of acres.
It used to be looking for a needle in a haystack. "
Liu Wei pointed to the red stamp on the last page again: "If we can find out the person who carved this stamp, then the scope should be narrowed down a lot."
The sea of people is vast, the sky is vast, and the earth is vast, so it is not easy to find a seal engraving craftsman within two states.
Liu Wei also knew that it was not easy to find, so she continued to rule out: "The Diamond Sutra is a famous Buddhist classic, and such books are usually issued by big bookstores, and the engraved seals used by big bookstores must be
It would not be carved by small vendors. If you find out the ranking of the most famous carving experts in the two states in the past fifty years, you should be able to get more clues. "