(a)

AFTER WE GOT MARRIED, WE FLEW TO EAST ASIA AND VISITED THE LARGEST MARS TEMPLE IN THE CONCIERALI AREA, THE SAME TEMPLE THAT I USED TO PROMOTE FOR AN ALBUM IN NCTRAVELLER MAGAZINE.

In our past life, it was called the Temple of War, dedicated to the invincible general of the Megatron at that time, and it is said that he was the god of heaven who descended to the earth, and came to that era when wars were still frequent, in order to eliminate all wars, unify the world, and also peaceful and prosperous people of all ethnic groups.

He sacrificed his young life to bring about the arrival of peace and support a holy king to ascend to the throne of a unified country.

He maintained a brilliant record of complete victory and defeat in his life, and finally died in a heroic way with the enemy leader.

After many years, the appearance of the Mars Temple has changed a lot. Now, it is no longer a small courtyard with two entrances and shadow walls. It was massively expanded and now has a spacious courtyard with seven entrances. The original two-entry courtyard is in the center of the entire new complex. Around the ancient two-entry courtyard, people have added and repaired the gorgeous gate and the main hall, as well as the side hall with twists and turns of the cloister and the flowers, as well as the small garden where the flowing water is murmuring and the fish are playing, and the stele forest area where the celebrities of the past dynasties inscribe poems and inscriptions, and there is also a huge 3D sand table, on which you can see the war situation map of the countries at that time. I saw the places on the sand table that made my heart flutter: Huangsangyukou, Cuijiaji, Linshui Town, Yantangguan, Huaizhou Mansion, Kano Lake, Niken Fengkou, Sulong..... as well as the Xiyuan Ancient Battlefield and Heishui River (Wuding River).

I stood in front of the sand table and felt my throat being tightly pinched by the hand of fate.

You held my hand tightly, put your arm around my shoulder, and stood firmly behind me.

(b)

In the past, when I was a volunteer to restore the mural as an idealist, it was still an ancient and desolate ruin that almost collapsed, the courtyard was full of cobwebs and dust, the beams and pillars were tilted, the walls collapsed, and the statue of the god of war could only vaguely see the outline of a figure, whose face had long been smoothed by the wind and frost of the years, and the past appearance of the god of war could not be seen.

The 12 murals were also concealed under layers of multiple whitewashes and graffiti from later generations. On that wall, the most superficial smear, is a Chinese Simplified Chinese slogan in big red letters: "Family planning is my country's unswerving national policy!" ”

I remember that at that time, we carefully shoveled away this layer of slogans, and saw a poster underneath that depicted the implementation of land reform and a rally to criticize the grievances of the landlords, and I could vaguely see many people gathered in an ancestral hall-like building, around a small platform for worship. A landlord with a black cross-cut card around his neck, bent over and standing there dejectedly, grabbed by the arms of several militiamen behind him, in front of him several peasant-looking people with white sheep's belly handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads, waving their fists, showing a sad and indignant expression on their faces, accusing the landlord of their crimes, and one of the accusers was holding a shining book of Chairman Mao's books tightly in his hand.

This propaganda poster was painted with oil paint, and the quality of the oil paint was not very good, so it took most of the summer to peel off this layer of painting.

Underneath this oil painting is the surface of a blue-white façade with four large black block letters: Cultivating and Reading Heirlooms.

Presumably, before the land reform, this place was once the public ancestral hall of a large farming family. Perhaps, this is a descendant of Cui Chengzhi, the king of Lingnan.

Judging from the façade of this period, it may also have served as a private school for the family, where the children of the family went to school and received the teachings of the Four Books and the Five Classics.

Underneath the exterior wall of the ancestral hall, an even older coating, is a bright yellow exterior wall, which is exactly the same as the bright yellow used in the imperial palace today. However, due to the small size of the courtyard, it does not look like a royal courtyard or a palace. Archaeologists judge that it was a Buddhist temple at that time. Sure enough, in the infrared exploration on the outer wall, I found that on the bright yellow outer wall, the words "Nan no Amitabha" were vaguely written. It was also once used as a Buddhist temple of the Pure Land sect. Judging by various indications, the incense here was once very prosperous, and around the temple, a bustling regular temple fair was formed, and the street outside the temple also developed into the most prosperous commercial street in the city.

The statue of the god of war has always existed in the same position of the Buddhist temple and the ancestral hall, and has maintained the position of the temple when it was established, and has not been relocated.

During the ancestral hall period, the statue was located in the center of the main hall where the ancestral tablets were enshrined, opposite each other with the layers of ancestral tablets.

In the Buddhist temple period, the statue is located in the left side hall of the front part of the Buddhist temple, which is worshiped as the guardian god of Garan, just like many Buddhist temples today, the statues of the god of wealth and Guan Gong are enshrined in the side hall.

Between the Buddhist monastic periods, there seems to be evidence that the site was once a local temple of the City God. The three-dimensional sculpture group of the City God and the Hell Disguise Diagram, together with the statue of the God of War, are enshrined in the main hall. The City God Temple is one of the most popular public places in ancient China, and the number is completely equal to that of the Confucian Temple and the Land Temple. The main function of the temple is to educate the people with various pictures and statues: good will be rewarded, and evil will be rewarded. Here, the people can easily see what kind of mistakes they have committed and what kind of terrible suffering they will suffer in hell after death. The temple is also often used by local gentry and clan elders to adjudicate local and intra-clan civil disputes, which is equivalent to a civil mediation and arbitration center.

During the City God Temple, it was also the center of the temple fair, and vendors from all walks of life gathered here on the day of the City God Temple fair. According to the history of Arino Arino, at that time, those who wanted to take the martial arts examination would come here to worship the god of war and pray for the blessing of the god of war before the exam. The soldiers who were conscripted to fight also came here to pay homage before leaving, praying that the god of war would bless them with divine light and protect their bodies, and that they would be invulnerable to swords and guns, so that they could return from the battlefield safely and reunite with their families.

You are the god of war of Gino enshrined in this Mars temple, and you are the outstanding general who broke his bones and never recovered, and brought peace for the people of the world.

Now, together with the woman you love, you are back here hand in hand, standing in front of the statue of yourself back then.

We stood in the crowd of visitors, looking up at the ancient statues and admiring the 12 ancient frescoes that have now been carefully preserved.

Tourists from many countries pass by us, but no one notices us at all.

They could never have imagined that you beside me were the parties to this temple, the one present in the mural scene.

The flow of people, like a surging river, flows through us endlessly.

(c)

In front of the mural, you told me that the name of this battle was the Battle of Girimi. Giri Mi is the site of the battle. You pointed to the scorched-faced Beihu general in the painting and told me that his name was Montina.

You said that you admired this Beji general, but unfortunately, in order to end the battle as soon as possible, you had to kill him.

You show me your neck.

I was surprised to find that there was really a very small red dot on the skin of your throat, and the red dot looked like a tiny bleeding spot, but it was embedded in the skin and did not really bleed.

You say that when you shot Mongina's breath, the tip of his spear pierced the skin of your throat, leaving a small spot of blood on the skin.

This blood spot is still there.

I looked at this red dot on your skin, and I felt indescribable emotion in my heart.

You told me that before the start of the Battle of Girimi, you felt so dizzy that you couldn't eat, so dizzy that you vomited violently, and you had trouble keeping your balance on horseback. You thought you were going to relapse and you might lose the battle if you couldn't finish it. You pray desperately in your heart to God to pity the suffering of the people and give you a chance to hasten the death of the war. It is as if the heavens have heard your voice. When Mongina led the remnants to escape and reached the vicinity of the ambush circle, the dizziness suddenly stopped on its own. So, you have the opportunity to have this life-and-death battle depicted on the mural with this fierce general.

You have always believed that if you did not have a firm desire in your heart to give up everything you have and save the people of the world, you may have died by the first time you relapsed into an old disease. You are convinced that you will live for the salvation of the people in the world.

(iv)

In the Temple of Mars, your intimacy is not as strong as mine.

Because you haven't been to this place in two past lives.

In your life as the god of war of Gino, you never thought that you would be revered as the god of war after death, and it would be widely worshiped in various places, and you never thought that there would be such a thing as the temple of the god of war. You've never seen a Temple of War before.

In your life as a guide, you've never heard of the Temple of War. At that time, I had not grown up, I had not finished college, I had not developed a strong interest in archaeology, I had not yet come here to discover murals, I had not become a volunteer for mural restoration, and I had not met Lu Xiaoguang.

So, in that life, you never heard of the existence of the Temple of War until you died.

When I was a teenager, I read about the Temple of War in the history books you bought for me, but I hadn't really seen it at the time.

In my life as Qin'er, when I was old, I visited this temple of the god of war when I was traveling back to Yantang Pass and Qingchuan Province to find my roots, accompanied by Xie Shuangcheng's son.

I have stood in the middle of this courtyard in two past lives, gazing at these 12 murals with mixed feelings and hearts.

Therefore, I have indescribable vicissitudes and sadness lingering in my heart.

The mixture of sorrow and joy is beyond words.

And you are the only person in the vast sea of people who understands my state of mind.

(5)

What kind of chance encounters are there in the world?

All the encounters are reunions after a long absence, where we have forgotten our roots. 21010