At the foot of the cliff, where the carriage fell, the grass and trees had been cleared away. Judging from the traces around, people should come here every year to pay tribute.
The monks of Tzu Chi Temple arranged the props for the ritual one by one, then lit the candles and incense and distributed them to the people present.
After Master Wuchen led everyone to worship, he asked everyone to sit in a lotus shape. For Buddhists, the lotus has a special meaning, including the legend that the deceased will ride on the lotus.
In the quiet forest, the clear sound of wooden fish and the mantras of rebirth chanted by the masters of Tzu Chi Temple rang out. The scriptures resounded throughout the forest, carrying the smoke and dust of the burning of the sacrificial texts, rushing to the sky with boundless faith, bringing the attachment and grief of the secular people to the people in another world.
"Master, have you ever come here to perform rituals before?"
After finishing, Jiang Miao looked at the monks in the temple and asked a question as they were packing up skillfully. This place is not too close to Tzu Chi Temple, and few people usually set foot on the bottom of this cliff. If they had not been here before, how could they be so familiar with the terrain here
Master Wuchen said: "When I first heard about this incident, I led the monks in the temple to perform a ritual here to pray for the souls of the donors. Later, someone gave the temple some money and asked us to perform a ritual every year on the anniversary of the death and burn more paper money to comfort the souls of the dead."
"So that's how it is. I was wondering why it looked so familiar!" No wonder they were not surprised by the traces of memorial service, because that was what they did.
"What's wrong?" Pei Che came over. He went somewhere after the ritual just ended. He just came back and heard what Jiang Miao said.
"I said that the young masters were very familiar with this place. It turns out that they come here every year to perform a ritual for your parents. This should be your grandmother's order, right?" Jiang Miao guessed casually.
Pei Che frowned after hearing this, feeling that something was wrong. How could his grandmother, who refused to reveal even the location, order the monks of Ciji Temple to perform a ritual every year? You know, his grandmother had always regarded Mu'er, who was begged from this temple, as the incarnation of a mountain spirit or a ghost, so naturally she would not have a good impression of this temple. If possible, she probably hoped that this temple would never appear.
But if it wasn't my grandmother, who else could it be? Could it be my grandfather
"What's wrong with you?" Jiang Miao sighed and waved his hand in front of him. Pei Che was often in a daze recently.
"My grandmother couldn't possibly have ordered the temple to do this." Pei Che said, and looked at Master Wuchen, "Master Wuchen, do you remember who paid for the temple to perform the ritual?"
Master Wuchen thought for a moment and said, "This happened many years ago, and I can't quite remember who originally asked the temple to do this. However, the temple has a record. When I return, I will ask Yuanxin to look for it, and we'll know the answer once we find it."
"Thank you, Master."
Jiang Miao listened to the conversation between the two and felt something was wrong. Pei Che looked like he was a little worried about the man who paid for the temple to perform a ritual. Why? Logically speaking, if they were not close friends, they would not pay for the monks to perform a ritual, right
Not long after returning to the temple, Yuan Xin knocked on the door of the wing room with a book. Jiang Miao opened the door and heard Yuan Xin say, "Amitabha, Donor Jiang, this is what the abbot asked me to bring to you."
"Thank you, young master." Jiang Miao took the booklet that looked old and smelled rotten, and thanked him with a smile.
Yuan Xin also smiled and said, "Donor Jiang, you are welcome. The vegetarian food you taught us to cook is delicious. We haven't thanked you yet."
Jiang Miao said: "What's the big deal? I'll teach you another one tonight."
Yuanxin's eyes lit up and he looked very expectant. He was not very old and was more lively than the other monks in the temple.
Pei Che immediately stopped writing, said yes, and took the booklet to look through it. This booklet looked like a temple account book, where every time a pilgrim added incense or performed a ritual, it would record everything. This booklet had July written on it, so it should be the one where someone added a large sum of money to perform a ritual after Pei Che's parents died.
Pei Che turned the pages of the book and read carefully line by line. After a while, his eyes stayed on a certain place and did not move away for a long time.
Jiang Miao leaned over and found that the book had been damp and the handwriting was blurred because it was too old and not well kept. He tried to identify it for a while and vaguely saw the words "Zhao Wei" written on it. After this name, there were a few more lines of words with a bit of mottled handwriting. Jiang Miao looked at it for a long time before he recognized that it said that on July 16, Zhao Wei added 500 taels of incense money to the temple, and then asked the abbot to go to the place where Pei Che's parents fell to death every year to perform a ritual to pray for the souls of the dead.
"Is this Zhao Wei a relative of yours?" Although Jiang Miao was married to Pei Che, he only knew people from the Pei and Feng families. He seemed to have no impression of anyone with the surname Zhao.
Pei Che said: "There is no one with the surname Zhao among our relatives."
"If he's not a relative, could he be a friend?" Jiang Miao guessed.
"A friend who is so generous must be a close friend, but I have never heard my parents mention this person's name before, let alone seen this person at their funeral."
"Then I'm confused! This person is neither a relative nor a friend, why would he do this?" Jiang Miao was confused.
"There is another type of person who will do the same thing." Pei Che's eyes were stern, "That is, the person who killed them."
Jiang Miao was shocked: "Killed them? Wasn't that an accident?"
Pei Che said, "When my grandmother's attitude towards my second uncle suddenly changed, I suspected that there might be something else going on with my parents. After the ritual today, I went to the top of the cliff to have a look. According to the guards, when they passed by this place, it rained heavily, and the carriage my parents were riding in was knocked off the cliff by a tree that rolled down from the mountain. However, I found knife marks on a nearby tree."
It was a big tree, with lush branches and leaves, and a strong trunk, which looked very full of vitality. The only flaw was that there was an inch-deep knife mark on its trunk. Such a mark made Pei Che think about it. He couldn't help but feel that what happened back then might not be simple. There must be an ulterior motive behind the fallen tree.
"You mean, someone cut down the big tree and pushed it down, so that it rolled down and hit your parents' carriage, pushing them off the cliff? Isn't this too much of a coincidence?" Jiang Miao was a little unbelievable. For this probability to happen, that person must be able to predict the future.
"I think so too, but when all these things are put together, it's clear that they're trying to tell me that there's something else behind my parents' deaths." Pei Che's expression was calm as he spoke, but the veins on his fists revealed his true emotions.
"You just said that your grandmother's attitude towards your second uncle and others suddenly changed. Does this mean that the death of your parents is actually related to them?" Jiang Miao began to make bold guesses.
Pei Che shook his head: "You don't understand grandma. If they were really related to the death of my parents, they would have been locked up in the cell waiting." Pei Che felt that his grandma must know something but had no way to prove it, so she was not happy when she saw people like his second uncle who were taking advantage of him.
"So, for now, the breakthrough point lies with Zhao Wei?"
However, in these ancient times, trying to find someone by just a name was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and was only one step away from fantasy.
(End of this chapter)