Yun Xuansu said: "I heard that in February, due to the civil strife in Tibet, Qin, Yuan, Anle and Shimen came to surrender, and the sage took Lu Tan, the servant of Tai, as an envoy, and ordered Jingyuan, Ningwu, Fengxiang, Suining, and Zhenwu to send troops to respond. Is there any news today? ”

Wang Duo said: "I went to Bai Xianggong (Bai Minzhong) yesterday and heard some rumors, Jingyuan Jiedu made Kang Jirong have sent troops, and now the momentum is like a bamboo, and there will be good news in a month at most!" ”

The two talked about the major affairs of the court for a while, and Wang Duo turned to Yizhen to the matter: "What happened to the monk that Yun Niangzi asked me to pay attention to, you know that the sage is very tolerant of Buddhism now......"

Yun Xuansu said: "Yizhen used witchcraft to murder the daughter of Li Yuan, the assassin of Yuezhou, and fled back to Chang'an. ”

"Is it the Li Yuan who was released from the ancestral hall? He is a good friend of Du Muzhi (Du Mu), and this face must be given. ”

Yun Xuansu said: "Du Fanchuan has been having a hard time lately, right? His friend Zhou Ji quit the prime minister, and now that Choi Hyun is on power, he is afraid of a dilemma. ”

"He has already written to Bai Xianggong, and he wants to be released as the assassin of Hangzhou, but it is a fat difference, and he is targeted by Cui Xuan's people, I am afraid it will be difficult to get his wish."

……

Guo Hong was awakened by a knock on the door early the next morning, and it was Yu Chengzhao.

This person loves to paint and is obsessed, seeing that Guo Hong knows a lot of novel techniques, he didn't sleep well all night, and he got up as soon as it was dawn, but he was stopped by Liu Yanniang, otherwise he would have run over and knocked on the door.

"I'm restoring murals in Qinglong Temple, do you want to go and see them together?" Yu Chengzhao asked.

Guo Hong shook his head, his characteristics are so obvious, and he has fought with Yizhen, even if he is disguised, he may be recognized.

"Uncle Yu, what kind of mural are you restoring?" He asked casually.

"Said to be a restoration, in fact, it should be called repainting, Qinglong Temple Huichang five years of abandoned temple, six years of re-establishment, the things inside are destroyed, now even the house is rebuilt, it is equivalent to starting anew, but some of the ruins and wood carvings left before as a reference."

"Wood carving?!" Guo Hong and Lu Zhizhen asked in unison.

Yu Chengzhao was taken aback by them, nodded blankly, and said, "It's some wood carvings......

"What are they all like?"

"It's just the usual King Kong statue, the statue of the Heavenly King or something."

Guo Hong took the pen and paper and quickly drew a white drawing of the mud blue woman.

"But like this?"

Yu Chengzhao's eyes lit up and asked, "You have a few techniques just now, I didn't see them clearly, can you draw another one?" ”

Guo Hong said: "Uncle Yu, you can draw a few more pictures in a while, do you first say whether this is similar to the wood carvings in Qinglong Temple?" ”

"It's pretty much the same, but it's a little different."

Yu Chengzhao also started to paint, and soon a white drawing jumped on the paper.

"This is Vikāva! Another Yaksha at the feet of King Bishamon! Lu Zhizhen said.

Yu Chengzhao hesitated for a moment, and drew another one, this time the portrait has no head, the back of the shoulder is decorated with horn-shaped flames, and there is a round head light behind the top, wearing two crotch chain mail, and the lower body is wearing long legging boots, a small knife is hung flat in the middle of the belt, the left hand is raised, the right hand is placed in front of the chest, and a crowned yaksha is exposed under the crotch.

"This, this is ...... The deity of the king of Bishamen! At his feet is the Yaksha rejoicing in the heavens, also called the earth and the heavens. ”

An hour later, Guo Hong, Lu Zhizhen, and Cao Shouzhen wore the hoods of the big beard eaters, and followed Yu Chengzhao into the Qinglong Temple after changing their appearance.

If you look southwest from here, you can clearly see the pagoda of the Temple of Mercy and Grace.

Qinglong Temple is the ancestral garden of Tantric Buddhism, where Kukai, the patriarch of the Japanese Shingon Sect, studied the Dharma in Tantric Huiguo.

Kukai is the Japanese monk in "The Legend of the Cat Demon".

Qinglong Temple in Huichang five years of abandonment of the temple, six years of the temple, renamed Huguo Temple, now the plaque at the entrance of the temple is "Huguo Temple" four words.

There is also a wooden pagoda in the temple, which has only five floors, which is much smaller than the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Guo Hong and the others came to the wooden tower, and there were many wood carvings piled up in the corner of the wall next to them.

"These are all remnants of previous burning." Yu Chengzhao said as he walked, he said hello to acquaintances from time to time, and when he saw the monk, he clasped his palms together.

Guo Hong and the three of them also saluted, trying to behave no different from other believers.

Soon they saw the wood carving of Vilampa, about the size of Nilampo, and next to it was a wood sculpture more than four meters high, missing a head, and the surface was charred, it was the king of Vishamon.

Lu Zhizhen whispered: "It's already confirmed, then notify Senior Sister Yun?" ”

Guo Hong nodded and said, "You guys go around and look for anything suspicious, I'm tired of walking, take a break here." ”

Guo Hong separated the other three people, turned to the back of the statue of the Heavenly King, and found that there was a pattern in the center of the giant wood carving, which was a lotus flower, and the swastika was engraved in the middle.

The statue of the Heavenly King in the Erguishan Grottoes should also be made according to this.

It's just that this age is very old, and according to Lu Yu, there may be blood beads in it.

He looked at it carefully for a while, and only felt that the armor pattern behind the wood carving was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it for a while.

I smashed the mechanism that day and night, and I didn't have time to look at this kind of detail at all.

After pondering for a while, he still didn't remember, so he turned around and went to find Lu Zhizhen and the others.

Not far away, a middle-aged monk wearing a hat slowly walked out from behind the tree, stood where Guo Hong had just stayed, stared at the wood carving of the King of Bishamen and pondered for a while, and then looked at Yu Chengzhao, Lu Zhizhen and others who were talking in the distance before turning around and leaving.

This monk was Shi Quanyi pretending, he returned to the retreat and sat down and snorted softly, and said to himself: "Chased here, the Buddha's martial arts have made great progress, but he may not be the opponent of that thief, and after absorbing the essence blood in a few days, I will let you see how powerful!" ”

Shi Quanyi also learned the disguise technique, although the time was still short, Guo Hong and they dressed up in a hurry, and they did not change their face shape, and they could still recognize it if they looked closely.

Since the last time Guo Hong was in Qingtan Village, he was too impressed by Shi Quanyi.

After returning to Qinglong Temple, he was suspicious every day, and everyone looked like the other party was pretending.

So he didn't dare to show his righteous face, and often pretended to be a middle-aged monk wandering around the temple, and today he finally found the opponent.

But Guo Hong and the others will not go out of their way to identify it, so naturally they can't find anything.

Shi Quanyi put on a mask, turned into Yizhen, called a disciple and said: "Go and inform that person, the incense money temple has been received, I don't want to ask what to do, Mo Lai quacked and polluted the ears of the old man......"

The disciple took the order and went.

Guo Hong and the three of them visited the place where Yu Chengzhao painted, which was the interior of the wooden tower, and there were shelves to paint murals on the top of each floor!

"It's dangerous enough." Cao Shou Zhendao.

"It's okay, these bamboo shelves won't collapse if you stand a few more people, and you will tie a rope when you go up, and if you fall down, you will only hang in the air, and you won't die."

"It's very dark in the tower, and it hurts your eyes if you paint it for a long time." Guo Hongdao.

"It's okay, it'll be finished in two days, and then I'll invite you to drink and go out of the city together."

Yu Chengzhao kept saying that it was okay, took them on a tour, and after half an hour, they went back to Pingfang for lunch.

In the afternoon, Guo Hong and others were taken by Liu Yanniang and went to visit the East Market with Xiao Xuanji, while Yu Chengzhao returned to Qinglong Temple to continue painting murals.

Lu Zhizhen and Cao Shouzhen have both been to Dongshi, and Liu Yanniang learned that Guo Hong didn't remember what happened when he was a child, so she took the initiative to introduce it: "The main street here is two horizontal and two vertical in the shape of a tic-tac-toe, and large merchants generally open shops in front of the street and workshops in the back, and small businesses are gathered together to buy everything cheaper." There are three or four hundred merchants in a line, two hundred and twenty lines, and there are tens of thousands of stores in total! ”

"It's more than 73,000 households, I heard the master say that there was a fire in the east market in the third year of Huichang, burning more than 4,400 houses in the twenty-four lines west of Caomen, look, that's Caomen!" Lu Zhizhen also said.

Guo Hongzheng looked in the direction of his finger and saw Cao Men, which was the gateway to the East Market.

The East Market is divided into 220 rows according to different kinds of shops, Guo Hong and they pass by pen shops, wine shops, engraving and printing shops, at a glance there are many signboards, there are also donkey rentals, huqin sellers, silk silk brocade sellers, there are acrobatic performances and pipa masters on the roadside, similar to the street performers of later generations.

The four main roads here are all 30 meters wide and 1,000 meters long.

The road outside Dongshi is wider, generally more than 60 meters, and the most central street in Chang'an, Zhuquemen Street (Jiankang Street) is 155 meters wide!

What is the concept of a 150-meter-wide road?

A standard playground with a football field has a circle of 400 meters, and its inner circle has a longitudinal diameter of about 150 meters!

The 30-meter-wide main road in Higashichi is also more than the width of the eight-lane road, so don't think it's crowded, it's spacious.

There is a large pond in the northeast of the middle of the east city, called the release pond, there is living water leading to the outside of the city, and there is a small pond in the south, called the lying mud pond, and the two are connected by ditches.

Several women are releasing live fish by the pond, and there is a Buddhist shrine that looks like a lampstand, and people offer incense from time to time.

Liu Yanniang was going to go over to worship the Buddha, but suddenly remembered that the three around her were all Taoist priests, so she had to press down and continue to take her daughter shopping.

Guo Hong and the others came to the meat shop, there were dozens of merchants inside, densely packed, one stall per household, there were long queues in front of the stalls with cheap prices and good reputation, and some shops were deserted.

Yan Niang bought some meat, Cao Shouzhen helped her carry it, and then went out to buy vegetables and fruits, there are more merchants here, at least two hundred, people come and go, but the place is quite spacious, and there is no congestion.

After shopping, when Yan Niang prepared a meal, Lu Zhizhen asked her, "Why don't you buy a maidservant?" ”

"When I first came to Chang'an, I was used to it, but now I should buy one."

When Liu Yanniang and Shen Zhao first entered Chang'an, they stayed in Huayangguan, and they couldn't even pay the rent, until a year later, Shen Zhao's uncle got the consent of his parents and passed him over.

After changing his name, Yu Chengzhao also spent money to learn painting because of his uncle's support, and gradually became famous.

After the days were better, because they lived with their parents (uncles and aunts), and the two old men were also thrifty, they never bought slaves.

Speaking of which, the Yu family only has a few properties, living on rent, and is only slightly more comfortable than ordinary people.

At this time, there was a sudden knock on the door, and someone shouted: "Is the fish lady at home?" Something happened to your husband! ”

Liu Yanniang panicked when she heard this, sat down with her ass, and Guo Hong helped her up.

Everyone opened the door and saw that it was Fang Ding, only to hear him shout: "Hurry up, hurry up, Yu Chengzhao has fallen off the shelf!" ”

Liu Yanniang was so frightened that she cried, but she didn't dare to ask her husband how she was, she just ran out like crazy.

Guo Hong picked up Xiao Xuanji and chased him out, followed by Cao Shouzhen.

The four of them ran all the way to Qinglong Temple, and Liu Yanniang in front of her had already spread to the door, and the monk who guarded the door recognized her, so he trotted in front to lead the way.

After a while, when I came to the wooden tower, the inner three floors and the outer three floors were already full of believers, and the monk stepped forward to separate the people and let Yan Niang in.

Guo Hong followed up and saw Yu Chengzhao lying on the ground with his back facing the sky, his head bleeding, and a monk who was seeing a doctor in the temple squatting next to him was packing up the medicine box.

Yan Niang saw that the monk was leaving, so she hurriedly jumped up and grabbed his sleeve, and said, "Master, you can't go, what should my husband do if you leave?!" ”

The monk shook his head helplessly and said, "Amitabha, the little monk is incompetent and can't save this Tan Yue, please take the lady's day by the way, and prepare the Dharma as soon as possible." After saying that, he broke free and walked away.

"Ahh ……”

Yan Niang sat down suddenly, remembering that her cousin gave up her identity as a famous child for herself, and took her to escape thousands of miles to Chang'an, suffering but never complaining, and she always complained about him.

Her voice was hoarse, and it was really sad for those who heard it, and wept for those who heard it.

Xiao Xuanji saw her mother crying, so she also ran over and cried.

Guo Hong took two steps forward and found that Yu Chengzhao had no pulse, and his body began to get cold, so he had to get up gloomily.

He looked around, but found nothing, and walked into the tower.

There was no one in the wooden tower, and when you looked up, you could see a high wooden frame, and below it was a pool of blackened blood, crawling with flies.

Guo Hong remembered that Yu Chengzhao had a rope tied around his waist, so if he wanted to fall, someone must have untied the rope while he was not paying attention.

He walked up the wooden steps to the fifth floor, where Yu Chengzhao fell, and sure enough, half of the rope was found on the railing, and the break should have been cut by a knife.

Unfortunately, no witnesses could be found, and it was impossible to ask what suspicious people were present here at that time.

At this time, the errand officer of Wannian County downstairs had already come, and after the inspection, he also came to the conclusion that someone had murdered, and asked again, but there was no new gain.

Several familiar painters said that they didn't notice who was here at that time.

Wannian Zhixian also rushed over when he heard that it was a murder, and commanded the autopsy to be done, which was busy again.

Guo Hong went down the stairs and came out of the tower, his eyes looked at the wood carvings of King Bishamen and Vilampo, just came to check today, Yu Chengzhao died, if it is impossible to say that there is no connection.

Who could it be? Could the righteous truth of Qinglong Temple be the murderer?

Until the evening, with the help of the monks, everyone put Yu Chengzhao's body into a coffin and temporarily parked it in the Qinglong Temple.

Guo Hong had great strength and carried Liu Yanniang, who was crying, back to Pingfang.

After settling Yan Niang's mother and daughter, it was already time to hold the lamp, and they invited the neighbor's daughter to come over to accompany them for the night and return to their temporary residence by themselves.

"The last time we went to Qinglong Temple, we should have been noticed by Yizhen, but I'm afraid that Uncle Yu will be killed because of this!" Guo Hongdao.

He and Yu Chengzhao had a very good temper, and at this time he blamed himself very much, and secretly gritted his teeth, and had an urge to kill people in his heart, just wanting to pay for his blood debts!

Cao Shouzhen said suspiciously: "After we changed our appearance, we wore a big cannibal hood, and we were wrapped in a single line, how does this old devil know?" And I didn't see him show up at the time! ”

The next day, Yun Xuansu got the news and rushed over.

"So Yi really recognises you?" Yun Xuansu asked after listening to Guo Hong's narration.

They were in that rented house at this time, not worried about being overheard.

"How could it be so coincidental? We only went there in the morning, and it happened in the afternoon! Guo Hongdao.

"Now I can only take one step at a time, I will inform Wang Duo first to see what news he has over there."

Yun Xuansu went to Liu Yan's mother's house to comfort her, but this kind of widowhood pain cannot be solved by a few words of mourning.

Liu Yanniang was already a little stupid, her tears couldn't stop flowing down, and she knelt in the mourning hall all day.

Yun Xuansu experienced the pain of losing his master, felt the same way, remembered his master, and cried for a long time.

Wang Dudu said worriedly: "Master, will Mrs. Liu go crazy?" ”

Yun Xuansu shook his head, glanced at Xiao Xuanji, who was crying and falling asleep on the side, wiped away his tears and said to Lu Zhizhen: "Senior brother, can you help persuade me?" ”

Lu Zhizhen shook his head in embarrassment and said: "This kind of pain is only known to the person concerned, and it is unimaginable if others have not experienced it, so maybe diverting her attention at this time is the best way......

Guo Hong walked to Yan Niang's side, took her hand, and said: "Aunt Liu, although Uncle Yu had an accident, but my Daomen has a way to summon spirits, Emperor Xuanzong asked Qingcheng to send the ancestor Yang Tong to summon the soul of Yang Guifei, and later exchanged news, Bai Juyi's "Song of Long Hatred" has a description ......"

Liu Yanniang's eyes gradually became focused, and she suddenly grabbed Guo Hong's hand and cried: "You help me, help me......"

Guo Hong also had a sour nose, and said: "In the next few days, we will find a way to find Uncle Yu's soul, and we will definitely let you meet!" ”

Liu Yanniang hugged him and cried: "If it weren't for me, my cousin wouldn't have come to Chang'an, I hurt him......"

Guo Hong straightened up and was hugged by her, Liu Yanniang's face was buried in his chest, his clothes were soaked with tears, he was inconvenient to break free and had to say: "Senior Sister Xuanji is still young and needs to be taken care of by her mother, you think more about her, she is now your only relative......"

Liu Yanniang looked back at Xiao Xuanji, who had just woken up, held her in her arms and cried loudly, and Xiao Xuanji also cried, shouting: "Mother, I want a father!" ”。

Guo Hong breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Liu Yanniang was no longer holding him, and turned his head to see Cao Shou looking at him with real admiration.

"It's okay, let her cry as much as she wants, just cry out......" Yun Xuansu saw that Wang Du was worried, so he said on the side.

She sent someone to invite Wang Duo, and when she saw that the time was almost there, she got up and went out to wait.

Sure enough, after a while, I saw Wang Duo coming on horseback, followed by an entourage.

Ps：

Historical figure: Wang Duo