The Holy Academy is the center of the Ten Kingdoms and the center of scholars all over the world.
Fang Yun originally thought that this matter was only circulated among semi-saint families, but he did not expect that someone deliberately spread it. The Qing Kingdom, the Wu Kingdom and the Meng Family were all suspects.
"Not only do they want the Ji family to target me, they also want others to snatch my blood-drop hide. As long as I am in Yuhai City, the blood-drop hide is safe. However, once we enter the Holy Ruins, it's hard to say."
Afterwards, Li Wenying sent another letter via carrier pigeon.
"This year's Holy Ruins has been confirmed. Because it appeared two years in advance, the power outside the Holy Ruins is extremely strong, and only people with a rank of Juren or lower can enter. Today you go to Feng Yuanjun and receive a piece of Hanhu Shell. He will explain the matters of this year's Holy Ruins to you. On the tenth day of August, I will take you to Kongcheng at the foot of the Holy Court Mountain."
Fang Yun sent a letter back to thank Li Wenying, then went to the Academy of Literature and met Yuanjun Feng in Yuanjun Hall.
After sitting down, Feng Yuanjun smiled and said, "I heard that your qin skills have not only improved greatly, but have also sparked discussions among qin players all over the city. In the past, people only talked about Fang Yun when discussing poetry, but now some people say 'when you meet people at a qin meeting, you talk about Fang Yun.' Even if you study and play the qin at home, your reputation has spread far and wide. It's really enviable."
"You are too polite, Lord Feng. It was just a coincidence."
"So now, all the people who sing the tune of "Magpie Bridge Fairy" in the world only sing your song "If love lasts forever, why should we be together day and night?" Do you think this is also a coincidence? Have you read the "Wen Bao" on the tenth day of the first lunar month?"
"I've read it and found that the above words are a bit exaggerated." Fang Yun said.
"How can that be called an exaggeration? One man defeated the Dragon King, and a scholar defeated a poet. It's well deserved. However, the more important things are still in the Holy Ruins." Feng Yuanjun said, handing over a white shell the size of an egg on the table.
Fang Yun took it carefully.
Feng Yuanjun said: "There are only three Hanhu shells in the whole Jiangzhou, one in the prefecture government office, the prefecture literary academy and the prefecture army. As for the other Hanhu shells in the prefecture army, they belong to the Holy Academy in name. Lord Li specially lent you the Hanhu shells from the literary academy, you must not let him down."
"I understand." Fang Yun looked at the white shell carefully. It could be held in one hand and was as white as jade. It looked very small, but it was actually the same kind as the Tiandi Shell. It was something that could not be bought with any amount of silver.
Feng Yuanjun said: "When the Hanhu Shell is alive, its shell can contain seawater of a hundred miles in radius when it opens. Once a Hanhu Shell that lives for a thousand years dies, it can be sent to the Dragon Palace to be made into a Hanhu Shell that can be used by the dragons, and then sent to the Holy Court. It can be made into a treasure for the human race by skilled craftsmen of the Mohist and Gongshu families. The Hanhu Shell is one foot square and can store a lot of things. It is very precious. Ordinary wealthy families do not have it. At least a semi-saint family can have it. As for the better Yinjiang Shell, there are only two in Jingguo, not counting the semi-saint family."
Fang Yun nodded and tried to channel his talent into it. He saw a crack in the white shell. There was a white light in the crack, and then he "saw" the scene inside the Hanhu shell. The square area of 10 feet was like a small utility room, which contained some clothes, weapons, writing brushes, inkstones, etc. There were also two cultural treasures of the Juren.
One is a very common Canglang pen in Jingguo, which can be immediately transformed into a war poem "Canglang Xing" to attack others, and the other is a rare Jixing Wenbao, a running horse paperweight. Infused with the power of the ancient poem "Benma Fu".
"Thank you all for your appreciation!" Fang Yun was deeply grateful. He didn't expect them to lend him so many things, especially the lake shells. If they were lost, not only would Li Wenying be punished, but Feng Yuanjun would also be dismissed and investigated. He would never be able to hold a key position again, unless he could become a university scholar.
Feng Yuanjun smiled and said, "This Saint Ruins is unusual. Everyone suspects that there are treasures coming out. Those semi-saint families have invested a lot of money. Scholars from big countries like Qi and Wu are even more eager to try. Our Jing country has always been weak, so it is not easy to lend you these. It's a pity that you are not a juren. If you were a juren, I would help you borrow a few more jinshi treasures no matter what."
Fang Yun said: "Thank you, Master Feng. But since everyone suspects that a treasure has been discovered, then there should be more places to enter the Holy Ruins than usual, right?"
"Yes, not only more, but also five times as many as eight years ago! The ten countries each have fifty Juren and fifty Xiucai, and each Semi-Saint family can send thirty people, the Sub-Saint family can send fifty people, and the Confucius family has a full one hundred places. According to the rules, the Confucius family only reserves fifty places, and the rest are for the children of other Semi-Saint families to compete for. However, there are only forty-nine left now, and one of them is yours."
Fang Yun showed a helpless look and said, "My Jing Kingdom does not lack a single quota, Lord Dong Sheng is really going to cause trouble for me. How many thousands of people will enter the Holy Ruins this time?"
“How is that possible? This is just a quota, not a qualification. Among these four thousand people, only one hundred can finally enter the Holy Ruins.” said Feng Yuanjun.
"Only a hundred people? That's too few." Fang Yun said.
"Eight years ago, only thirty people could enter! Apart from anything else, there are some books in Hanhubei. Have you seen them?"
“Yes.”
"Inside are travel notes written by people from my country Jing. They are all about the Holy Ruins. Because some things are too...special, they cannot be sold." Feng Yuanjun looked a little strange.
Fang Yun glanced at Feng Yuanjun and his heart moved. He saw the shell containing the lake shell open and spurted out a white light. The white light flew to Fang Yun's hand and quickly grew larger. The light dissipated, revealing a book.
Fang Yun quickly flipped through a few pages. The more he read, the more frightened he became. He also became more and more fascinated. After finishing the book quickly, he raised his head, held the book in his hand, and asked, "Are the records inside true?"
"Of course, otherwise I wouldn't show it to you." said Feng Yuanjun.
Fang Yun frowned and said, "So, the power in the Holy Ruins is so strange that even the binding force of the oath does not exist?"
"There is no power restraint of 'ritual' inside, which is one of the characteristics of the ancient land. It is also because of this that once the saints obtain the ancient land, they can transform it. For example, the Book Mountain, why can people gain power and literary mind when they go to the Book Mountain? It is because the Book Mountain has been transformed by the power of Confucius."
"The book says that it doesn't matter even if people from the ten countries kill each other in the Holy Ruins, because it is a rule tacitly agreed upon by all the saints. Once you leave the Holy Ruins, anything that happens inside cannot be used as an excuse to attack others, and the ten countries and the Holy Academy don't care. There seems to be something else going on here, right?"
Feng Yuanjun was silent for a moment, and then said, "There are many different opinions on this matter, and there is no conclusion yet. If the saint does not speak, we cannot make a conclusion at random."
"Oh, it seems that there are many secrets in the Holy Ruins." Fang Yun asked.
"Every ancient place has a big secret!" Feng Yuanjun said solemnly.
"By the way, how do we choose one hundred people from thousands of people?" Fang Yun asked.
"The candidates for Juren are 80, and the candidates for Xiucai are 20. You don't have to think about it. You are a Xiucai. As long as you rank in the top 20 among the Xiucai, you can enter the Holy Ruins."
"That's good."
Feng Yuanjun looked at Fang Yun and said slowly: "There are dangers everywhere in the Saint Ruins. Even geniuses with the potential to be half-saints have died there. But even though it is so dangerous, the disciples of the Saint families are vying to enter. There must be great benefits that we don't know about. Even those families that hide themselves from the world will send out their elite troops every time the Saint Ruins opens, and even the Kong family is no exception. Therefore, you must do your best to obtain the qualification, and then surpass the ten countries in the Mid-Autumn Literary Conference."
"Don't worry, Lord Feng. I will do my best."
"That's good. Go home and get ready."
Fang Yun bid farewell to Feng Yuanjun and read Han Hu Beili's book on the way home. After reading one book, there would be one more book in his world of strange books.
The more Fang Yun read, the more he felt the difficulty of Holy Ruins.
After reading seven travelogues, Fang Yun suddenly took out all the books and then looked through the twenty-four travelogues, only looking at the authors.
Except for four authors who were unknown or died young, the other twenty authors were all great figures in Jingguo. Each of them became at least a university scholar, and eight of them even became great scholars. Li Wenying and Wen Xiang were both among them.
"This holy ruins is probably more special than I imagined." Fang Yun thought.
After returning home, Fang Yun took a short break and then practiced the piano. After practicing for a while, he suddenly stopped, picked up the vibrating piano and looked down. There were many cracks on the surface of the wooden piano stand.
"It is a Wenbaoqin after all. The strings and the sound of the qin contain powerful power. An ordinary qin stand cannot withstand it. I am afraid that even a stone one will not last long. There should be some way."
When Fang Yun entered the world of rare books, he bought hundreds of books related to the art of zither and put them all in there. Except for the music scores and teaching books, he hadn't read any of them.
Reading in the world of strange books was very fast. After only a quarter of an hour, Fang Yun found the method.
"It turns out that using the bones, horns, and furs of various monsters can prevent this from happening. Especially when playing war music, these things must be placed underneath to prevent the piano frame from being smashed and the piano from falling. This is a Jinshi Wenbao, so I can use the items of a monster commander of the same level as a Jinshi, and items of a monster marquis of a higher level are even better."
Fang Yun searched for a long time and found that the only things that could pad the piano in his home were blood-dripping animal skin and the dragon horn of the dragon king.
"The animal skin is too small to be used as a cushion. The Jiao King is a demon king, one level higher than the demon marquis, so it seems a bit wasteful. The book says that dragon horns are very effective in cushioning the zither. They can reduce the amount of sound transmitted downward and concentrate the power of the sound in the front, which is equivalent to enhancing the power of the war song in disguise. When we have a better Wenbaozither in the future, I'm afraid we will really need the Jiao King's dragon horns. Then we can just cut off four sections of the Jiao King's dragon horns and stick them under the zither. In the future, no matter where we play the zither, it won't damage the zither frame."
Fang Yun did what he said. After taking the dragon horn, he found that it was too hard. He had to use a particularly hard saw to slowly saw it off and then polish it. So he took a dragon horn to Yinlong Pavilion and asked the craftsmen there to help him cut four cylindrical sections of the dragon horn.
Some powder fell off when the dragon horns were sawing, and was collected by the craftsman. The total amount of powder was only as much as the nail of the little finger, but the craftsman solemnly packed it up for Fang Yun.
Fang Yun weighed it and found it was small but heavy. He asked casually, "How much does this dragon horn powder cost?"
"If sold at a pharmacy, this would be worth at least one thousand taels of silver."
Fang Yun silently looked at the four one-inch-high dragon-horn piano pads, each of which cost no less than fifty thousand taels of silver.
Afterwards, Fang Yun went to Wenyouxuan again and asked the luthier to help him glue the dragon horn pad under the vibrating drum. After trying it, the sound was indeed slightly different from before. (To be continued...)