The middle-aged man left after saying this. Standing on the mountain path, Chen Changsheng was very puzzled, and naturally he was a little annoyed. After a while, he remembered that the man mentioned at the end that someone was looking for him in front of the mausoleum. When I came to the mausoleum, I saw that the stone gate was still closed. I remembered the scene of Xun Mei walking out from here last night. When I was feeling a little sad, I heard someone calling my name.
Following the sound, he walked to the side of the stone door, and saw a small window on the wall, where priest Xin was waving to him. He was a little surprised, bowed to the small window, and asked, "Why are you here?"
Priest Xin handed over something through the stone window and said, "My lord bishop wants me to come and see you."
Chen Changsheng took those things and asked, "The luggage is in the car, we were not allowed to bring it in yesterday."
Missionary Xin said: "This is the rule of Tianshu Mausoleum. It will be sent to you after the inspection. It should not be later than today."
Chen Changsheng thought of those sour and smelly beddings in the hut, and tried to ask, "Could you please send us a few more clean beddings?"
Priest Xin was startled, and said, "It's not difficult."
"Since the luggage will be returned to us, there is no need for it."
Chen Changsheng looked through the things that Priest Xin sent over, and found that there was actually a bag of hard-boiled eggs inside. He couldn't help asking curiously, "You have to take care of the three meals in the Mausoleum of Books by yourself?"
Missionary Xin explained: "All academies and denominations have preparations and send them in every day. As for those folk students, the imperial court will provide daily necessities, but the quality is poor. The Orthodox Academy is now waiting to be rebuilt. You and Tang Thirty-six Definitely not prepared, His Excellency Bishop has already made arrangements, don’t worry.”
Talking through the small stone window, Chen Changsheng felt a little weird, like visiting a prison.
Seeing the expression on his face, Missionary Xin guessed what he was thinking, and said, "Tianshu Mausoleum is a holy place, and it is also a prison."
Chen Changsheng was slightly stunned, remembering what happened to Xun Mei, and said, "It makes sense, thank you for reminding me."
Priest Xin said: "I can't say such reasonable words. These are the words of the previous Pope, and the Bishop asked me to pass them on to you."
Chen Changsheng said, "Understood."
Missionary Xin looked into his eyes through the stone window and said, "Anyway, you have to remember that the Zhou Garden will open in a month, and you must come out before then."
Chen Changsheng didn't reply to this question, but told about the encounter with that domineering stele attendant on the mountain road earlier.
"How can this be?"
Missionary Xin frowned, and said: "Those academy sects may find ways to make friends with these stele attendants for the convenience of their disciples viewing the stele in the Mausoleum of Books. In addition, they have special identities, so they are indeed a bit arrogant, but they all You are supported by the state religion, how dare you offend me?"
Chen Changsheng didn't understand the logic in this sentence, and asked puzzledly, "Don't dare to offend me?"
Seeing his blank expression, Missionary Xin smiled and said, "Now the whole continent knows that you are the person whom the Pope and the bishop are looking for, and to offend you is to offend the state religion."
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When the stele attendant taught him a lesson, no matter how powerful his background was, he still had to be in awe in a holy place like Tianshu Mausoleum. After listening to Priest Xin's words, Chen Changsheng naturally had a new understanding when he thought of these words again, and he secretly guessed whether it was because of his background in the state religion that these stele servants of the Tianshu Mausoleum were innately disgusted.
Thinking about these things, he walked back to the hut. There was no one in the room, and the teenagers should have gone to the Tianshu Mausoleum to view the stele. The big pot of white porridge that was cooked before dawn was all eaten up, the pots and pans were cleaned and arranged, and even the water in the tank was refilled. Although I didn’t see who did it, but for some reason, he It was definitely Gou Hanyi's arrangement.
Although there will be new quilts, Chen Changsheng still broke off the three quilts left by Xun Mei, washed them carefully several times, and did not hang them in the courtyard until he confirmed that all the sour sweat from thirty-seven years had been washed away. Then he walked through the orange orchard and came to the vegetable field in the distance. It's early spring, the time when green and yellow crops are not harvested. There are no fresh vegetables in the vegetable field. The green that can be seen are all green onions, garlic and leeks. He took a few shallots and dug a few pieces of sweet potatoes in the field. Go out to the yard and start preparing lunch.
Boil the water in a large iron pot, cut a piece of bacon sent by Xinjiao in half and threw it in, and then started steaming rice on it. Potatoes cut to the size of fingernails were mixed into the rice, the shallots were washed and cut, and placed on the edge of the stove, and the boiled eggs were also taken out, ready to be placed next to the steamer at any time. After finishing all this, he said with satisfaction He nodded and went to wash his hands.
Salted fish and bacon are delicious, and they go well with meals, but they are not very healthy. Eating too much is bad for your health. Priest Xin said that the bishop has arrangements, and the Lishan Sword Sect will also find a way to send things in. I don’t know what will happen every day in the future. Whether fresh meat and vegetables can be guaranteed, he sat on the threshold thinking about these things. I was a tourist for a day yesterday, so I want to be a cook for a day today? In the Mausoleum of Heavenly Books, instead of looking at the stele or thinking hard, but thinking about these things, if others saw him dazed on the threshold, they would not know how they would react.
Chen Changsheng sat on the threshold, looking at the courtyard outside the thatched house, at the fence that had been knocked down halfway, and at the not-so-good-looking green trees in the orange orchard not far away. He was very quiet and did not change his posture for a long time. Naturally, such things as food and drink don't need to be thought about for such a long time. Men and women have never had anything to do with him, so what is he thinking
Looking at the fallen fence and the mist in the woods gradually being dispersed by the sun, his expression was so focused that he didn't even notice that the luggage left outside the Mausoleum of Books yesterday was sent to the courtyard.
A few cooing birdsong woke him up from his contemplation, and only then did he notice the luggage piled up like a hill on the side. He went forward, found his package, took out the pen, ink, paper and inkstone, sat back on the threshold, and continued to look at the fallen fences and green forests, but now there was an extra pen in his hand, and the stone inkstone next to him The ink has melted.
As time goes by and the sun rises, the angle at which the light falls on the courtyard changes.
The fence was sparse and crumbling, but there were still a few thicker stakes in between.
As the light changes, the shadows of the few wooden stakes on the ground also change accordingly, and the branches of the green trees in the orange orchard also change. Wide, some twigs on the top of the green tree branches are about to disappear in the brighter and brighter sunlight, but some branches are becoming more and more clear because of the contrast of light and shadow.
Chen Changsheng watched this scene quietly, watching these changes, and his consciousness returned to the stele in the early morning. At that time, the sun was just rising, and the lines on the surface of the stele were changing with the red and warm rays of light, as if they were about to change. As if coming alive, the edges of the deep lines are illuminated, so they become thinner, but the shallow lines become wider instead.
Those complicated and inexplicable lines on the stone tablet are the inscriptions. Those inscriptions that have endured countless wind and rain for countless years have not changed in any way, but why aren't they changing all the time? If the information hidden in those inscriptions is definite, why did the interpreters decipher completely different meanings? Yes, all because of these changes.
Chen Changsheng dipped the pen in his hand into the inkstone, opened the notebook, and began to write and draw on it. He did not record his thoughts and results in words, but strictly followed what he saw and roughly deduced. , began to draw those lines on the stele of Zhaoqing, and the tip of the pen walked on the paper very heavily.
After an unknown amount of time, he stopped writing and re-drawn the lower right corner of the Zhaoqing Monument in his notebook. Then he took out the rubbings of the Tianshu stele that was sold at the inn, found the page of the Zhaoqing stele, and began to compare it with his new drawing, and found that there was a very big difference between the two. Compared with the inscription on the Zhaoqing Monument, the patterns he drew on the notebook are obviously more vivid, if his writing skills are better, or it can be described like this - those patterns seem to jump off the paper and come to life.
The fog in the woods cleared away, the bamboo on the fence became drier, and the light in the courtyard was extremely bright. Before I knew it, it was already noon.
Chen Changsheng rubbed his sore eyes, closed his eyes and rested for a while, got up to prepare lunch, only then did he realize that no one came back. The surroundings of the thatched cottage were quiet, because the temperature rose, even the birds in the woods were too lazy to sing. He stood alone in front of the threshold, feeling so lonely.
The rice had already been steamed, and it was set aside. The fragrance of ground potatoes mixed with the smell of bacon fat formed a strange but very attractive smell. He took half a piece of bacon out of the pot and wanted to After thinking about it, he cut a small section with a knife, cut it into thin pieces, poured it into the rice bowl, peeled a boiled egg, and finished his lunch hastily with a bowl of weak tea.
After eating, he took a casual walk along the courtyard, went back to the bed and closed his eyes to rest for a while, then sat back on the threshold, holding a notebook in his left hand and a pen in his right, and continued to look at the scenery around the courtyard. In a daze, the light changes with time all the time, so he must observe all the time.
As the sun gradually sinks to the west, the color of the light falling on the courtyard gradually becomes stronger, and the wooden stakes and bamboo slices in the fence, and the thin branches in different directions on the treetops also change accordingly. Chen Changsheng, who watched quietly for a long time, finally started to write again, and put all the changes he observed in the whole afternoon into the pen, turning them into inaccurate lines on paper that only represented some kind of obsession.
In the evening, most of the inscriptions on the Zhaoqing Monument were redrawn on paper by him.
He knew that he was not far away from reading these inscriptions.
At this time, the people staying in the huts also returned to the courtyard one after another.
The first one to come back was Liang Banhu. Chen Changsheng nodded to him. But he didn't seem to notice it at all. He went directly into the stove, filled a large ladle of water and drank it, then walked back to the courtyard, stepped on the fence that Tang Thirty-six had knocked down yesterday evening, and looked at the west. The sun, which was about to set, looked sad and happy.
Qijian also returned to the courtyard afterward. The young man's expression was a little dazed. Although he did not forget to salute Chen Changsheng, when he entered the room, he almost bumped his head against the door. After a while, he came out of the room , I don't know why, I lowered my head and started to walk around the courtyard, muttering something, I don't know what to say.
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