I never expected that in this place where Lushena Buddha is expected to be enshrined, it is not a temple, not a Buddhist shrine, but a Guandi temple.

It's just that this Guandi Temple looks indescribably weird. Kana Kido grabbed my arm and muttered, "I think I've seen this kind of architectural style somewhere...... After her prompting, I quickly noticed that this mini Guandi temple was different in all the details. For example, its ornamentation and the curvature in front of the eaves niche are very large, and the walls are stuffed with neat sections of mushroom sedges, which appear to be embedded with a brownish-red frieze - which is very close to the style of Tibetan temples.

I took two steps closer and saw the bronze statue of Guan Gong, although the clothes and ornaments were still in the Han style, but the altar seat on which my feet stepped was a mandala flower. When I saw this flower, I was shocked, and I hurriedly asked Kana Kido to wait in place, and then went around to the back of this half-temple half-shrine. Sure enough, behind the temple shrine, I found a collapsed stone carved scripture building, but the three sections of the top, body and base were still clearly distinguished.

This kind of thing appeared in the middle of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, people believed that the sutras contained boundless Dharma, which could ward off evil spirits and ward off evil spirits. This sutra building has an octagonal Sumeru seat, and the body of the building can be decorated with mandala flowers, which is obviously a tantric thing.

In other words, this is a temple with a strong Tantric style, and there is a Guan Gong in it.

I suddenly had the feeling that the TV had changed to the wrong channel, and Huang Rong in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" went to "Shanghai Tang" to fall in love with Xu Wenqiang.

I was stunned, and suddenly thought that there should be the name of the person who stood on the scripture building, so I hurriedly squatted down and looked carefully, and found that the engraving was gone, and I could only vaguely see the word "letter" and the word "respectfully" below, and other information was missing.

It is understandable that there is only Chinese and no Tibetan on it. If this Guandi Temple is a product of the same period as Wu Zetian's Jade Buddha head, at that time, the Tibetan language had just been born for a short time, and it had not yet become popular.

I watched for a long time, and then turned back to the temple. Kana Kido was taking a picture of the statue of Guan Yu when she saw me walking back and asked me what I had found. I shook my head, and Kido Kana pointed at Guan Gong and said, "This should be Guan Yu, the military general of Shu Han, right?" ”

"Yes."

"Why is Guan Gong here? Does it have anything to do with the half-cut stone statue we saw in Katsuganji Temple? ”

I deny this claim. The statue of Guan Gong in Shengyan Temple is at most something from the Qing Dynasty, and it is far from the age of this Guandi Temple. Besides, since Shenxiu promoted Guan Yu to the protector of Buddhism, the statue of Guan Yu in the Middle Earth Temple can be seen everywhere, which does not explain anything.

Kana Kido took out a rubber glove from his pocket and put it on, reached out to touch the statue of Guan Gong, touched it quite carefully from head to toe, and measured it with a small ruler. Ten minutes later, she turned back to me and said, "This bronze statue is almost a thousand years old. ”

"Oh? Can the numbers be so accurate? ”

"Well, I'm guessing from the thickness of the rust on the surface of the bronze statue. You see, the rust surface is layered and divided into several layers, and the erosion sensation is slightly different. There is a formula for estimating. Kana Kido replied, her tone no longer shy when it came to her professional field.

I laughed and said, "I forgot, you have a paper about this." ”

I remember that in Kana Kido's resume, she once published a paper that tried to quantify the pulping of cultural relics, which was very ambitious. Since she can write something with this kind of content, she must be quite confident in the identification of antiques.

Kana Kido says, "It's not all my work. My grandfather, Yuzo Kido, was the first to propose this theory. ”

I saw that she was very proud, and I didn't know what to say for a moment. She didn't know that this Guan Gong statue was not genuine, it should have been born in Qishan in June 1931, and the maker was Zheng Hu.

It suddenly occurred to me that this bronze statue is a product of the Republic of China, but the rust on the body is so thick, it is clearly deliberately old. Xu Yicheng asked Zheng Hu to make such a thing, he must have planned to set up a bureau to deceive Kido Yousan. Those seemingly ancient copper erosions have not only deceived the contemporary Kido Kana, but I am afraid that they have also deceived Kido Arizo decades ago.

If this speculation is true, then the meaning of the expedition between Xu Yicheng and Kido Yuzo has become very different from the public history, and it has become a hoax, Xu Yicheng is the one who set up the game, and Kido Yuzo is the victim.

But why Guan Yu? What is the specific meaning of this symbol in the Buddha's head case?

Kana Kido looked at me stunned, her eyes full of doubts: "Is there anything else I don't know?" She said it very tactfully, but I could feel a faint sadness in her tone. She seemed to sense that I was hiding something from her, and a woman's intuition was terrifying.

I hesitated for a moment, but I still told her the story of Bronze Guan Yu. Now that she's been honest with me, it would be too bad for me to keep it hidden. After I finished speaking, Kana Kido's face changed three times, and it seemed that she also realized that her grandfather had made the mistake of identifying this bronze statue decades ago.

She grabbed my arm lightly and let out a long sigh, "How are you ...... Why didn't you tell me sooner? Didn't we say yes? Between husband and wife, there is no need to hide anything. "Uh...... "I didn't know what to say, and my face was a little embarrassed. Kana Kido had a hurt look on her face, and there was a lingering look of disappointment between her brows, which made me feel sorry. I tried to hold her hand, but she dodged away: "What else did you not tell me?" ”

"It's gone, it's gone." I repeatedly. Unfortunately, this explanation was somewhat weak, and Kido Kana's doubts did not subside because of this. She let go of my arm and whispered, "I'll go and have a look in the back." Then he walked to the back of the temple niche and looked at the collapsed prayer building.

In the face of this silent protest, I did not catch up to explain, and I did not know what to explain myself. After she left, I shook my head and continued to look at the statue of Guan Gong. Zheng's craftsmanship is indeed exquisite, if I didn't know in advance, I would have thought that this Guan Yu bronze statue was a thing of the Tang Dynasty. This kind of forgery level is even stronger than Zheng Guoqu and them, and if they don't use precision instruments to test, they really can't see it.

I reached out to touch it, and suddenly found that the statue of Guan Gong shook slightly, and then broke it again, almost breaking it off the altar pedestal. I took a closer look at the joints, and there were tiny weld marks and tiny gaps that didn't fit. In other words, this Guan Gong statue and this altar seat are not one, but added later. So what was it that was placed on the altar pedestal? Is it the Lushena stone Buddha that is offered to Shengyan Temple, or the jade Buddha of Tianmingtang?

I sat in front of the bronze statue of Guan Gong, closed my eyes, and tried to transform myself into my grandfather Xu Yicheng, imagining what he would see, do, and think here. In the same place, there was a magical meeting of grandparents and grandchildren, and I put myself in the fog of decades ago, trying to clear away the dust particles, trying to see the inner outline, and find out what my grandfather really meant.

And maybe my father's.

I don't know how long it took, but I opened my eyes and stood up and walked around the back of the temple shrine. There, Kana Kido was brushing the surface of the prayer building with a small professional brush, trying to make out more of the text.

"Don't look at it, I just saw it, and it's the verses of the Dharani Sutra engraved on it." I walked over and told her. Kana Kido refused to look up and continued to brush silently. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she wriggled to try to break free. I sighed and said to her, "If you want to hate me, you can wait for a while, please let me dig things out first." ”

Kana Kido raised her head, was stunned for a moment, and then smiled bitterly: "It turns out that you have more things to say." ”

"No, it's not ......" I realized that I had said the wrong thing, and hurriedly looked back, "I just saw the statue of Guan Gong, and I remembered it." If I tell a lie, I won't be able to go down this Conch Mountain! Kana Kido was skeptical, but straightened up and dodged away.

This stone prayer building is not small, but fortunately it has been broken. The base of the prayer building was half buried in the soil, and I took out a small shovel and dug up all the soil around it, until I dug it down to a depth of about 30 centimeters, and finally I saw the root of the base. I pulled out the whole pedestal along with the roots, set it aside, and continued to dig down. However, the way I dug was a bit strange, first scooping the walls of the pit around, then digging deeper, and then shoveling and digging again, and soon a fairly standard cylindrical pit appeared.

Seeing that my actions were so strange, Kana Kido couldn't help but ask, "What the hell are you digging?" I stopped and grinned, "If you're not mad at me, I'll tell you." Kana Kido's face turned red: "I'm not angry. I raised my hand and grabbed her arm, and said in a deep voice: "I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you about Bronze Guan Yu, forgive me." Kana Kido snorted, and I asked if it was forgiveness, and she snorted again. I said then you can forgive it if you smile. Kana Kido twitched her lips and smiled helplessly.

When I was done, I told her, "I'm digging for something, something that we're very close to." After saying that, he continued to wave the shovel, and Kana Kido was intrigued by my words and came to the edge of the pit to watch. I dug for a while, shoveling to the end, and suddenly there was a sonorous sound. I pushed the shovel away from the void, revealing the hard granite layer at the bottom of the pit.

"Nothing." Kana Kido said disappointedly.

"I can't see it. This is not the case, in fact, there is. Yes, in fact, there is no. I grinned. Kana Kido was confused. I tapped the edge of the pit with a shovel: "Look what's on this side?" "I've dug up all the dirt in the pit, and when Kana Kido looks down, she sees that the pit wall is surrounded by the same texture as the granite at the bottom, forming a very delicate cylindrical crater.

I stuck a shovel into the hill-like mound next to it and said, "Conch Mountain is a mountain that was formed by the orogeny, and the main body is granite. It is incredible that such a deep amount of earth can be dug up at the top of such a mountain. What's even more incredible is that the size of this soil layer happens to be a cylinder, surrounded by rock formations, what does this mean? ”

“…… This pit was deliberately carved out by man? Kana Kido reacted quickly.

I nodded: "Yes, it is likely that the person who built this Guandi Temple did it, in order to bury and fix the prayer building." But this raises another problem. ”

I picked up Kana Kido's ruler and measured it: "The length of the root of the prayer building buried in the soil is 30 centimeters, but this pit is 80 centimeters high. The granite here is so hard, it takes time and effort to chisel, why did those craftsmen go to such great lengths to dig an extra 50 centimeters deep? ”

"Unless......" Kana Kido hesitated.

"Unless they have something under the prayer tower. The height of this thing is about 50 centimeters. ”

Kana Kido's eyes widened for a moment. It can be deduced from the existing jade Buddha head in the world that the height of the whole body of the jade Buddha in Tianmingtang is exactly fifty centimeters. Her body trembled slightly, this discovery was too significant. It proves that the Jade Buddha of Zetianmingtang, which we have been pursuing, was quietly buried under this sutra building for at least a long time, sleeping in the mountains of the Qinling Mountains.

Kana Kido crouched down and reached into the hole, trying to grab a handful of dirt, as if to feel the little traces left by the jade Buddha across thousands of years. She was silent for a long time, and then asked, "How did you come up with that?" ”

"Quite simply, the prayer is engraved with the Dharani Sutra. Dharani is the Sanskrit word for 'total holding', that is, Dharma, which exactly represents the Buddha Viruja of the Dharmakaya. And Buddhists like to bury ritual vessels under all kinds of towers and structures - such as the underground palace of Famen Temple - so I guess there must be something under the scriptures. ”

"But...... Shouldn't it be the Buddha Lushena who stands against Katsuganji Temple? ”

I pointed to the front: "Originally, there should be, the Buddha Lushena should have sat on the altar pedestal in the temple - but for some reason, the altar was replaced with a statue of Guan Gong, and as for the statue of Lushena Buddha, I am afraid it has been destroyed." ”

We realize that decades ago, on this mountaintop, at that critical intersection of time, there are all the stories and explanations of cause and effect that have been told to this day. Something must have happened between Xu Yicheng, Kido Yuzo and the mysterious "Sister Xiaolu Yongde", which caused them to dig up the jade Buddha under the scripture building, destroy the Lushena Buddha in the temple, and replace it with a statue of Guan Gong - that Guan Gong statue must represent extraordinary significance.

Just as our train of thought was at an impasse, there was a sudden sound of footsteps outside. We looked back and saw Fang Zhen standing there. I asked him why he came in, and Fang Zhen said quietly, "The plank road is broken." ”

We were shocked and asked him what was going on. Fang Zhen replied that he had just heard a few crackling sounds, and the rope of the plank road began to shake violently. He wanted to go down and have a look, but the plank road swayed too much, and he couldn't stand on it at all. The shaking lasted about five minutes, and almost all of the planks collapsed, leaving only a few pieces of rope behind.

"Could it be a sudden gust of wind?" Kana Kido asked.

"How could it be so coincidental that the plank road has not been broken in the wind and rain for more than 60 years, but when we came, it was blown by the wind?" I don't agree with her speculation, and my gut tells me it's not that simple.

Fang Zhen didn't say a word with a cigarette in his mouth, he rarely expressed his opinion before there was conclusive evidence, and a pair of sharp eyes kept scanning the bottom of the cliff.

Rather than figuring out the cause of the destruction of the plank road, there is a more realistic problem: how do we go down?

This problem is quite serious, Conch Mountain is not high, it is not low, and the surrounding cliffs are almost 90 degrees angle. If there were no plank roads, we wouldn't have been able to go down with just a few ropes we carried.

"Does Xie Laodao know about this below?" It occurred to me, "We can call him." ”

Fang Zhen doesn't like to talk, Kana Kido has a naturally small voice, and this shouting task can only be handed over to me. I tied a rope around my waist, let Fang Zhen drag it at one end, and then rubbed to the side of the cliff step by step, poked my head out, luckily dantian, and yelled loudly. Surrounded by mountains here, there are echoes, and the height of Conch Mountain is not particularly high, if Xie Laodao is still under the mountain, there is no reason not to hear it. But I shouted so loudly that my voice was hoarse, and there was still no movement below, so I had to shrink back.

It was already half past five in the afternoon, and the sun would set in just over an hour. The three of us had neither supplies nor tents, and it would have been dangerous to spend the night at the top of the mountain. Fang Zhen circled around the top of the mountain, looking at his expression, there was nothing he could do. I sat on a rock, with Kana Kido right next to me, and pressed it against my body.

At this time, the distant sun began to sink in the west, this is the first time I have seen the sunset of the Qinling Mountains, the dim red circle slowly dips into the blue-gray mountains, that scene, like a burnt red Han Dynasty bronze mirror quenched into the cold water, even the surrounding clouds and mist have become red.

Kana Kido stared at the sunset in the distance, silent, and for a moment I thought she was asleep. She moved her lips and muttered, "I was very naughty when I was young, and there are a few old wooden buildings from the Meiji and Taisho periods at home, which are my favorite playgrounds to go to." Once, I climbed onto the beams of an old house to play, and I stumbled upon a hidden compartment on the beams of the house, in which a notebook was hidden. I was so happy that I danced and kicked the ladder down. The building was soundproofed and remote, so no matter how loud I screamed for help, no one could hear me. I clutched my notes and curled up on the beams in panic, waiting to be discovered by the adults......"

"Kido Notes, it turns out that you found it?"

Kana Kido nodded and buried her head in the crook of my arm: "At that time, I was standing alone in a high place of isolation, feeling very scared and very lonely, and only that notebook accompanied me and gave me strength until I was rescued. I always thought that it was my grandfather's soul in his notes. He protected me and chose me to fulfill his long-cherished wish......"

It was probably this similar scene that touched the shadow of her childhood, and Kana Kido was a little emotionally unstable. I had to take her in my arms and stroke her hair slowly. She suddenly asked, "If I die, will you be sad?" ”

"Don't talk nonsense, none of us will die. Three big living people, can they still be trapped by a hill? I scolded softly and slapped her on the head.

Kana Kido lifted her head, and she was already in tears. She shook my arm: "Don't you understand? We found the traces left by our ancestors, and then we were in a desperate situation. Exactly the same scene, did you hear that? This is reincarnation, this is fate. Our grandfather, must be watching us around here! ”

Hearing this, all that left my mind was her words kept echoing: "The traces left by my ancestors." Traces left by my ancestors...... "I put my arms around Kana Kido, closed my eyes, and vaguely realized that I had overlooked a very important order.

In June 1931, Xu Yicheng and Zheng Hu came to Qishan, cast bronze Guan Yu, and Zheng Hu left; Then in July, Xu Yicheng and Kido Yousan, as well as the mysterious "third person", went to Conch Mountain to set up the Kunu plank road and climbed to the top to find the Jade Buddha. It can be seen that Xu Yicheng should have brought the deliberately aged bronze Guan Yu to Conch Mountain between June and July, replaced the Lushena Buddha statue, and then went down the mountain to meet Kido Yousan.

In other words, before the Kunu Plank Road was completed, Xu Yicheng had another passage up and down Conch Mountain—and the road was still very stable, otherwise it would be impossible to get such a heavy bronze Guan Yu statue up.

This path is certainly no longer there, but at least it gives us another possibility. I stood up, comforted Kana Kido, found Fang Zhen, and told him what I thought. Fang Zhen pondered for a moment: "There is indeed such a possibility, but I have carefully surveyed the surrounding cliffs just now, and I have not found any traces other than the plank road. ”

I sighed in disappointment. Fang Zhen suddenly spoke: "Have you watched "Sherlock Holmes"? ”

"I've watched TV."

"I can read novels when I have time, and they are very well written." Fang Zhen's tone was calm, "Sherlock Holmes said in it: When you eliminate all the impossible, even if the rest is bizarre, it is a fact. ”

The two of us turned our necks in unison and looked at the small Guandi Temple. At this time, when night fell, the small temple without the slightest incense looked particularly lonely. We looked at each other and smiled tacitly, walked to the temple of Emperor Guan together, took down the bronze statue of Guan Yu, and moved the altar seat. I took a look at the ground under the altar seat in the afterglow of the setting sun, and made a gesture of confirmation to Fang Zhen.

The floor of the temple is paved with one-foot-square stone slabs, and the gaps between the slabs, like the outer walls, are stuffed with mushroom sedges dyed with red clay, forming a red lattice strip that is quite Tibetan-style. After the mushroom sedge is dyed red, it will not fade for thousands of years, but the color will vary subtly depending on the length of time. I saw that there were a few stone slats with slight differences in color from the rest of the place, which should have been lifted and then paved back.

"Is there a secret passage under the slate?" I muttered to myself. Fang Zhen frowned: "No, if there is a passage underneath, then only two stone slabs are needed to cover it." The discolored stone slabs in front of me are arranged in a long and narrow strip, extending from the small temple to the bottom of the walls on both sides, flat and long. Who would dig a secret passage like this? ”

"No matter how many there are, open them all up and take a look!"

Fang Zhenmao and I bent down and began to lift up the stone slabs one by one. Kana Kido watched us in a daze, and I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't care about explaining it, because it was going to be dark soon.

Beneath the stone slabs is soft soil, the texture of which is exactly the same as the land in the Tibetan Buddha cave under the prayer building. Pushing aside the soil, Fang Zhen and I found that there was a hard granite mountain underneath. But between the hard rock faces, there was a long, large crack that ran horizontally through the entire small temple, which happened to be covered by the stone slabs. Figuratively speaking, the conch mountain made a large opening from the top of the mountain, and then it was sealed with mud and stone slabs as band-aids.

Fang Zhen and I didn't expect that there was such a big crack hidden under the temple, which was beyond imagination. However, although this chasm is long and narrow, it cannot be used as a secret passage.

Fang Zhen observed its depth and length, and told me that it was likely to be a trace of the conch mountain that was cracked apart by an earthquake. However, due to its special geological structure, the crack is a crack in the middle of the mountain, and there is no obvious crack in the outer cliff. Fang Zhen went around to the outside of the small temple wall, leaned over to dig, and sure enough, under a layer of soil, he also found the extension of the crack, and the crack was quite large, barely allowing an adult to go down. When I looked over, it was pitch black and unfathomable.

Fang Zhen rarely sighed in a tone of self-reproach: "Before climbing, I found that the angle of inclination on both sides of Conch Mountain was a little strange, and I should have realized that there was a problem in the middle. ”

"Could it be that they climbed up from here before?" I couldn't help but ask.

"There are innumerable cavities in the interior of the mountain range itself, and if this fissure is cleverly opened and connects with some of them, it may form a passage." After Fang Zhen finished speaking, he struck a match and threw it into the crack. A short time after the match fell, it hit the rock and went out. In this short period of time, we saw that the rocks on both sides of the deep fissure were uneven, and they looked strange, but they were suitable for climbing. We had no choice but to try our luck from here.

I told Kana Kido about the situation, and she said that as long as she followed me, she could go anywhere. Originally, we wanted to move the bronze Guan Yu statue, but considering the risk, we left it for the time being. The most important thing is for people to live, and cultural relics can be picked up at any time in the future.

This crack is easier to climb than imagined, and the uneven stone pillars on the left and right become natural escalators, and the cracks are wide and narrow, always when we are worried that there is no way down, suddenly there is a hole, and suddenly it opens up. The landscape of nature is really wonderful, this conch mountain is like a walnut, has been knocked open a crack, although the shell remains intact, but just pinch the two sides of the walnut, the shell will fall off to both sides, revealing the walnut kernel. The ancients didn't know how to find such a blessed place.

As I crawled down, I recreated in my mind what Xu Yicheng had done at that time.

He first asked Zheng Hu to cast the bronze statue of Guan Yu, and then followed the "third person" to Conch Mountain, climbed up along this big crack, and replaced Lushena Buddha. Then they set up the altar base, laid the stone slabs back to their original state, and climbed down through the cracks outside the wall. When Kido Yusan followed Xu Yicheng to Conch Mountain, Xu Yicheng deliberately concealed the existence of this crack and built the Kunu plank road with him. At the top of the mountain, Kido Yuzo's attention must have been attracted by the small temple first, and Xu Yicheng or the "third person" took the opportunity to cover up the crack outside the wall.

In this way, in Kido Yousan, Conch Mountain has become a closed place that no one has set foot in since the construction of the Tang Dynasty, and the bronze Guan Yu statue on it is naturally recognized as a thing of the Tang Dynasty. Xu Yicheng painstakingly set up such a bureau, why on earth? If all this is a deception to Kido Yousan, then the authenticity of the jade Buddha head they found on the top of Conch Mountain is very interesting.

It took us more than three hours to finally reach the bottom without any danger. The only accident during this period was that Kana Kido accidentally stepped on an empty kick and almost fell straight down, and was quickly grabbed by Fang Zhenyan, but his own right leg was injured. We came out of a very hidden hole. The entrance to the cave is obscured by the roots of a large tree, making it almost impossible to spot. We all let out a long sigh of relief, this rift is a good passage made in heaven.

We turned on the flashlight and went around from the hole to the location of the boardwalk, and we were all surprised.

In front of us, tents and other materials were thrown at the foot of the mountain, and a severed plank road hung down from the air, Xie Laodao lay straight and motionless directly below, his head and body bent at a strange angle. His compass was thrown not far away, torn apart.

Fang Zhen walked over to check on him and said that he was dead, and the cause of death was a broken neck caused by a fall from a height. I punched the ground, and my heart was full of regret. Xie Laodao actually had nothing to do with this matter, he just wanted to make a little money, but he didn't expect to lose his life.

Now it seems that the situation at that time was probably that Xie Laodao didn't know what medicine he had taken wrong, and suddenly wanted to climb the mountain. As a result, he just walked on the plank road dozens of steps away, and caught up with the mountain wind blowing, and the plank road swayed. He panicked and fell down the mountain, pulling the trestle rope loose, which eventually led to the collapse of the entire plank road.

I was sighing, but Fang Zhen quietly walked up to me with a lame leg, his brows furrowed. He looked around and said in an unprecedentedly stern tone: "Xie Laodao's death was not an accident, it was killed by him." ”

Hearing Fang Zhen's words, I gasped, and suddenly felt that the temperature around me had dropped by a few degrees. A living person, who had just been turned into a corpse, and now it was found to be killed. In the dark mountains, this is not good news.

"First of all, if he falls off the swinging boardwalk, at this height, it is impossible to fall directly below, it should deviate by about two to three meters." Fang Zhen analyzed slowly and methodically, "Secondly, this plank road is so difficult to climb, will someone hold a compass when climbing?" Thirdly, and most importantly, the bodies that fall to death do not bleed like this, and there are differences in the shape of the corpse spots. ”

"What do you mean......"

"I think it was after Xie Laodao was killed, and the murderer set up the scene. If we believe that he fell from a high altitude accidentally, we have fallen for the murderer. ”

He deserves to be an old criminal investigator, and he drew conclusions from the analysis of the scene alone.

"Where is the murderer......" I looked at the darkness around me in horror. Fang Zhen said: "The murderer's purpose should be to trap us on the top of the mountain. Since he didn't know about the existence of the rift, he probably had already left. I was silent. This murderer, like Fang Zhen, followed us all the way, scheming, and his purpose must have something to do with the Buddha's head. I've always felt that someone is watching me in the dark, whether it's in Beijing, Tianjin, Anyang or Qishan, and this feeling of being on my back lingers. The long sense of foreboding was now clear – we were close to the truth, and he had finally decided to do it.

I suddenly became suspicious, could it be that Fang Zhen was aware of it in advance, so he took the initiative to show up to protect us?

But I didn't ask him, and if I did, it was in vain. If he thinks you can know, he will take the initiative to tell you, otherwise he won't be able to pry any news if he is killed.

"What should we do?"

"Set up camp and leave tomorrow." Fang Zhen said.

Kana Kido looked frightened. That night, I accompanied her in a tent and talked a lot. My childhood, her childhood, my family, her family. Fang Zhen didn't sleep all night, and until midnight, I could still hear his footsteps getting up to patrol, and I couldn't help but be full of admiration for this veteran.

Early the next morning, Fang Zhen used the sunlight to carefully examine Xie Laodao's body, record it, and then bury it on the spot. He has no relatives or friends, and I'm afraid no one cares if he lives or dies except us. I didn't even know his name, so I had to write a wooden sign of Xie Laodao's tomb and stand it in front of the grave. Kido Kana recited a mantra for this Taoist priest in front of the grave, and I knew that Xie Lao Dao would not mind.

Under the leadership of Fang Zhen, it only took us more than two days to walk out of the mountains and return to Qishan County again. As soon as he entered the county seat, Fang Zhen left in a hurry. I made a phone call to Ji Yunfu, but the call was answered by a stranger, claiming to be Ji Yunfu's cousin Ji Yunfang. I asked if Ji Yunfu was there, the other party hesitated for a moment and asked me who I was, I said it was a friend of his, and the other party told me that Ji Yunfu suddenly had a heart attack yesterday and died.

A thunderbolt came down on a sunny day, and I could barely hold the microphone.

Ji Yunfu is also dead?

How is this possible?

Ji Yunfang told me that Ji Yunfu had congenital heart disease, so he almost never left Qishan. Someone came to him yesterday and found Ji Yun lying on the desk, his body having become cold. The medical examiner has done an examination, there is no suspicion, and the body has been sent to the funeral home.

I closed my eyes, and the pain in my heart was indescribable. I don't believe he died of a heart attack, and I don't believe that Xie Laodao fell to his death. The deaths of both of them, including the dangers that happened to the three of us, occurred close to the truth. The blow of the mastermind behind the scenes came quickly and ruthlessly, and there was no time left for us to react.

"Did he leave anything behind when he died? Notes, notes, notes, etc. I asked in a trembling voice.

Ji Yunfang said helplessly: "There are too many things he left......

She was right, Ji Yunfu's collection of books is too rich, and there are several large houses of materials alone. But what I want to ask is whether the Kido notebook that he cooperated with Old Man Qi to decipher has already had a result. My gut told me that his death was directly related to the notebook.

But Ji Yunfu's cousin doesn't know these things. I don't want to tell her, I'm afraid she'll be murdered because of it.

I asked if I could go to Ji's Mansion at a convenient time to pay my respects, and Ji Yunfang agreed.

I put down the phone and told Kana Kido the bad news, and she was so shocked that she couldn't speak, and said in a loud voice. I shook my head, only to feel that all my strength had been drained, and I was short of breath and tight. The knot grew in my chest, and I screamed and slammed my fist against the wall, feeling my powerlessness deeply. Two lines of hot tears flowed out slowly.

Although Ji Yunfu and I have been dating for a short time, they hit it off at first sight, he is a good friend and a good senior. Without his meticulous analysis and data collection, we would not have gotten to where we are today. I trusted him as much as my father trusted him. But he lost his life in vain because of this old thing that had nothing to do with him. It made me both angry and guilty.

I can't change my grandfather's fate; I can't change my father's fate; Now I can't even help the fate of a friend. At this moment, I was really confused, and I didn't know what my efforts could change.

I sat on the ground, dejected. Kana Kido screamed my name desperately, shaking my arm, but I couldn't respond. Kana Kido suddenly shot and gave me a loud and crisp slap that made the left side of my face hot.

"Brace yourself! We have to go to Qi Sang as soon as possible! ”

Her slap rejuvenated my eyes. That's right! And the old relatives! He is the main force to crack the code of Kido Notes!

I stood up and rubbed my face desperately, barely trying to get up. Kana Kido bought two bicycles nearby, and the two of us rode straight to the bungalow area where the old man lived. When we were almost there, I saw darkness in the distance, and my heart was beating wildly. When we got to the neighborhood, we found that the bungalow had burned to the ground.

I asked nearby residents, and they told me that the day before yesterday there was a fire that started in the house of an old relative and affected dozens of families in the vicinity. When the fire brigade arrived, several houses in the center of the fire had been burned to the ground. The old man and the sacks of manuscript paper that could prove Goldbach's conjecture were burned in this way.

Seeing this, my extreme anger calmed me down. I put down my bike and crouched in front of the rubble, scanning the rubble. The old Qi Tou was burned to death the day before yesterday, and Ji Yunfu died of illness only yesterday. This sequence shows that the mastermind behind the scenes first burned the head of the old relative, and then found that Ji Yunfu had already obtained the results of the decipherment, so he had to attack a second time, kill him, and take or destroy the translation of Kido's notes.

However, with Ji Yunfu's wisdom, he would not be aware of the strange cause of the old Qitou's death. The deaths of the two people were almost a day apart, during this period, would Ji Yunfu sit back and wait for death unprepared?

I can't see it.

Thinking of this, I stood up, stepped on the bicycle, and said to Kana Kido, "I'll send you to Fang Zhen, where you will be safer." ”

"What about you?"

"There are some things I have to do." I gritted my teeth.

I sent Kana Kido to Fang Zhen, and after hearing these two news, he said that the local public security bureau had intervened and that he would try to get more information. I settled down Kido Kana and rode my bicycle straight to the Hime's compound.

The Ji family's compound is not in the county seat, but in the suburbs to the north. I rode for more than half an hour from memory and successfully found the door of his house. Ji Yunfu is a celebrity in the local cultural circle, and it has only been a day since he died, and someone has already sent wreaths, and there are several rows at the door.

I knocked on the door, and a middle-aged woman came out, she wore black-rimmed glasses, she looked like a stern elementary school teacher, she should be Ji Yunfu's cousin Ji Yunfang. I explained my intention to her, and wanted to take a look at Ji Yunfu's study, and she glanced at me sarcastically: "There are several groups of people who come to visit today, and they all say so, you all fancy his collection, right?" ”

I said: "I have known Mr. Ji for less than a week, but I met him at first sight, so I am here to remember." I don't have any covetousness for his collection. If I enter the house and tamper with something, you can just drive me away. ”

Seeing that I was speaking sincerely, she softened her attitude a little and opened the door. She led me into the book room, which was still in the same chaotic state, covered with books, slide projectors and radios still in their original positions. She said as she walked: "Yunfu's things, I haven't moved at all, and I still maintain the order of my life. My cousin likes to throw things in a mess, and he doesn't even classify them, so it's troublesome to sort out the relics. ”