Chapter 37 Nengwu Temple Stele Forest

The street where the Stygian shops gather has a very elegant name, called "Yale Lane". The coachman said that he heard that this was the first famous street in the Chu State, where many Oiran of the Chu State were gathered, and dignitaries from all over the country often came to drink and have fun. Even the suave King Sun of Chu, who robbed Mrs. Zhuangzi, was a frequent visitor here, and Qu Yuan also left ink treasures here. After Bai Qi captured Yingdu, this place became a purgatory, where did Qin Bing see so many Chu beauties, and after looting and killing.

Although it is said to buy white utensils, but it is very lively here, there are many people coming and going, unlike the Ming Shou shop in other places, which closes the door to do business, but the door of every shop, and there is a great tendency to welcome merchants from all over the world. From the first day of the winter month to the fifteenth day of the first month, there are customs of opening ancestral halls, worshipping ancestors, and sweeping tombs in various places, so merchants from all over the country come here in advance to stock up.

The three of them chose a relatively large looking shop and walked in. The shopkeeper looked at the expressions of the three of them and knew that it was not for their own business, so they were very enthusiastic. Huan Yi casually asked the price of a few utensils, pretending to buy them in a big deal, and pretending to say to the two people next to him: "There are all kinds of things here." However, it seems that the words on this banner are either in italics or in line. There's no seal. When the shopkeeper heard that he was not satisfied with the goods, he hurriedly explained: "The son doesn't know, and now it's all in this line, which is imitating Wang Xizhi's words." What a atmosphere. ”

Huan Yi said: "The boss doesn't know, my ancestral family is the old Chu people, conservative, and the ancestral hall is full of Chu seals, so the lord asked us to come to Chu to buy it." Han Yue on the side interjected in time: "Is there a bird and insect seal?" When the shopkeeper heard the bird and insect seal, he shook his head and said: "This is not true, how many people still know this bird and insect seal now, don't say that I don't have it, there is no whole street." Huan Yi pretended to be regretful and said, "That's not easy." I thought that this Chu land could be bought, but I didn't expect it. “

When the three of them saw that they couldn't ask anything, they excused themselves and left the store. I went into a few more stores, and I got a similar answer. It seems that there is no information on this street that they are looking for. The three of them had to take a car and run to the Nengwu Temple, hoping that they would not be disappointed.

Temple, the creation of the word will mean the meaning of inch of land, which means accurate, unsuspicious change, is the place where the Buddha entered the world to educate the world. The temple people, respect the truth, look up to the sages, that is, the place of the wonderful law, the temple is wonderful. The general temple is a combination of courtyard and pagoda building. With the Daxiong Hall as the center, there are Buddha halls, lecture halls, bell towers, scripture halls, monks' rooms, and dining halls in the courtyard, and there are stupas behind the courtyard.

This temple is very grand, there are as many as five or six temples alone, the incense is also vigorous, and the monks and pilgrims come and go in an endless stream. Starting from the outside of the mountain gate, both sides of the road are lined up with stalls for divination, selling magic runes, and seeking medical advice, Zhang Xiao asked: "Why is this temple more lively than the market, and the monks also do business?" Huan Yi said: "Don't underestimate the current temple, Yin Shi is very wealthy." Cultivating gardens, borrowing money and grain, traveling for business, cultivating medical skills, divination, exorcising filth, and collecting donations. The layman does a living, and the sand gate basically does it. This is said: monastic economy. Zhang Xiao sighed again and again: "Build a temple to make money, if you lack money in the future, you just need to shave your hair." ”

Unlike other temples, there is a large forest of steles in addition to the Buddha hall in the front yard and the tower in the backyard. The sons of the Wei and Jin dynasties, most of them cultivated Taoism and practiced Confucianism, and few people worshiped Buddha, but there were many people in the Northwest Fanbang who believed in Buddhism, but Zhang Xiao naturally did not believe in these when he was young. The three of them were not interested in the Buddha hall, and what they wanted was the words on the stele, so the three of them walked quickly through the Buddhist courtyard and went straight to the stele forest in the backyard.

There are really a lot of inscriptions in the stele forest of this temple, and there are thousands of large and small pieces at a glance. Look at the past a little bit, the words on it are big and small, there are many and little, take a cursory look, most of them are scriptures, memorabilia in the temple, famous inscriptions, and the content of the abbot's life, and the font style is also different.

There were several stonemasons on the edge of the stele forest who were chiseling, and the three of them walked over, and saw one of the old men, whose face was almost lying on a stone, was carving little by little, blowing off the peeling stone powder while carving, and accidentally seemed to have the stone powder floating into his eyes, he hurriedly wiped it with his sleeves, but the sleeves were also covered with dust, but the more he wiped his eyes, the more he couldn't open them. Seeing this, Han Yue took out a silk handkerchief, asked Zhang Xiao to take out the water bag he was carrying, moistened it, and handed it to the old man. The old man raised his eyes, and vaguely saw several figures, groping for a silk handkerchief, wiping his eyes. After a while, my eyes were finally wiped clean. Seeing the three richly dressed sons standing in front of him, he was a little embarrassed and wanted to return the silk handkerchief, but the silk handkerchief was already dirty. Huan Yi squatted down and said, "Old man, you can keep it and wash it at home." Where had the old man seen such a fine silk handkerchief, he hurriedly folded it and put it in his arms, and thanked him repeatedly. Huan Yi took the opportunity to talk to the old man.

The old man saw that some people were interested in the inscription, and immediately introduced it like a few treasures: "This inscription is a delicate life, and the stele is divided into the stele head, the stele body, and the stele base." Just by looking at the stele head, you can roughly know the age, for example, the stele head before the early Zhou Dynasty is a round head or a pointed head, which is said to be related to the two kinds of ceremonial jade of Wangui and Yangui, and there is no relief decoration on it. After the Spring and Autumn Period, the head of the stele gradually added relief ornamentation, mostly in the shape of a coiled dragon, and the style also increased, depending on the identity of the stele owner, and the craftsmanship of the stele engraver. He took his kettle, took a sip and wiped his mouth, and then said, "This monument is also divided into yin and yang, the positive is yang, and the back is yin." The words on it are also exquisite, starting from the stele, the title is called the title engraved with the official book, and the seal is called the seal amount engraved with the seal book. ”

As soon as he heard that there was a seal script, Huan Yi immediately asked: "There are many kinds of this seal script, right?"

The old man said, "What this son said is true. This seal is divided into large seals and small seals. The big seal is the golden stone drum text before Qin, and the small seal is the Qin seal. Huan Yi asked again: "Then I don't know if the inscription here is carved with a bird and insect seal?" The old man squinted his eyes and thought about it and said: "Bird and insect seal? Huan Yi then asked, "Have you seen it?" and the old man said, "I seem to remember that there are so many pieces." The three of them looked at each other, meaning that this is the person we are looking for?

"Old man, do you recognize the bird and insect seal?" said the old man, "It is easy to write a seal and difficult to read a seal." I can't even recognize the words, where can I recognize the bird and insect seal. It's just that a few years ago, when the stele was counted, I heard the host mention it. ”

Zhang Xiao took out a piece of pastry that he brought with him at this time, handed it to the old man smartly, and said, "Uncle, you eat." Where has the old man seen such food, he hurriedly wiped his hands, took it, wrapped it in his arms and said to take it back to his grandson to taste, Zhang Xiao simply gave the old man a few pieces of pastry.

Huan Yi took advantage of the old man's happiness, and then asked: "Old man, are you surnamed Xiong?" The old man laughed when he heard this: "I can't afford this noble surname." However, I heard that the ancestor who built this temple was surnamed Xiong. Otherwise, this temple would not be called Nengwu Temple. ”

I see, can no temple, give the four points of nothing, isn't it just a bear? "Can not die", also means that the ancestors of the Xiong family escaped from life and death. I heard the old man continue: "It is said that the ancestors of this Xiong family are some nobles of the Chu State, and after they were destroyed by Qin, they lived in seclusion here and built this temple. ”

"The current abbot is a descendant of the Xiong family?" "It's hard to say, after all, hundreds of years have passed. "Then can you take us to see the stele of the bird and insect seal?" said the old man, who said that it was no problem, so he got up and patted the soil, and led the three of them to the depths of the stele forest.

The more I went inside, it was obvious that as the old man said, I saw the change in the style of the stele, and the words on many inscriptions were also blurred, and the fonts were mostly seal characters, and it seemed that the age had become far away. Suddenly, a very small room appeared in the forest of steles, and the old man pointed to this room and said, "The stele carved by birds and insects is in this house." Seeing the rusty copper lock hanging on the door of the house, Zhang Xiao asked: "This house is locked, how do you look at it?" The old man said, "Then you have to ask the monks in the temple, I won't accompany you, and you have to work."

The three of them thanked each other.