His mother had a good meal of meat. In the past, she could not smell the meat even during the Chinese New Year. This time, his mother was so happy that she almost forgot the taste of meat. He told her that the meat was rewarded to him by the boss.
It was probably because she hadn't eaten meat for a long time and she was not used to it. My mother also had diarrhea and her face turned pale.
From then on, money often appeared in his pocket for no apparent reason.
【Cloud Sky】
Murderous aura came from the far north, and heavy resentment hung in the air, making the originally uninhabited official roads even more gloomy. Yun Kong couldn't stand the heavy resentment, and couldn't help but speed up his pace.
I heard many rumors along the way, saying that the Jin people had taken Yanjing, the capital of the Liao Kingdom, as early as the first month of the year, and that the Liao Kingdom had perished! The old enemy since the founding of the Song Dynasty, the Khitan tribe that had exhausted the power of the elites of the country for more than a hundred years during the Song Dynasty was destroyed by the rising Jurchen tribe!
The Liao Kingdom was sandwiched between the Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty. After the fall of the Liao Dynasty, the Jin Kingdom had no obstacles to the Song Dynasty. In late autumn and October, two armies of the Jin Kingdom sent troops from Yunzhong Mansion and attacked the Song Dynasty in a mighty manner. The Tatars are really good at choosing a day. To send troops in October, wouldn't they just choose a harsh winter when there is no grass growing? I really don’t know what the idea was.
Didn’t Sun Wu just say that? "Heaven regulates the time of yin and yang, cold and heat." Sima Fa also said: "Don't raise troops in winter and summer." In winter, food and grass consumption was much more, and it was inconvenient to transport food. It seems that the Jin people wanted to conquer the Song Dynasty in a hurry, so they broke the cauldron and sank the boat quickly. It's good to go home after the battle.
Yun Kong complained in his heart, and the white cloth moves in his hands were shaking restlessly in the wind, and the two copper bells on the bamboo poles were making a fuss, as if blaming Yun Kong for not coming to the north in such weather. The Jin soldiers are at the rear, but they may lose their lives at any time.
He followed Chi Chengzi back to Changshan and made sure that the entrance to the cave was opened as scheduled before continuing his journey.
Not wanting to encounter many fleeing groups and groups of hungry people along the way, he avoided these dangerous crowds and disrupted his journey south. By some strange combination of circumstances, he ended up near Taiyuan Prefecture. Yun Kong thought: There should be a ferry here to cross south, right?
He and Chi Chengzi waited for nearly a month at the foot of Changshan Mountain where they first met Yue Fei. Only when they saw a blurry image appear on the mountain wall did they relax. After the cave entrance was fully opened and the two of them were sure that the scene inside was the same as when they came out, it was time to say goodbye.
Before Chi Chengzi stepped into the cave, he turned back to Yunkong and said, "If you are willing, you are welcome to come with me."
"I still have unfinished business." Yun Kong shook his head.
"It doesn't matter!" Chi Chengzi said happily, "I just need to wait inside for a year. If you don't come for one year, you will probably never come again." Because at that time, sixty years had passed.
Yun Kong smiled bitterly.
He suddenly thought of Zhuangzi.
Zhuangzi once said that it is impossible to explain to a summer insect what "ice" is, because it will die before winter... Individual life and death are personal, and Chi Chengzi cannot understand his state of mind. Zhuangzi also said that life is short, just like the sun passing through a gap. The so-called white horse passes through the gap suddenly.
Just suddenly.
After Chi Chengzi entered the cave, the things in the outside world were just one sudden event after another for him.
A city appeared in front of him, interrupting Yun Kong's thoughts. When he saw the big city, he immediately felt relieved and thought: Is that Taiyuan Mansion?
Yun Kong passed through many houses outside the city before arriving at the city gate. He saw the soldiers guarding the gate looking confident. They probably didn't know that the situation was critical! Maybe the theory that the Jin people attacked the Song Dynasty was just groundless, and Yun Kong believed it to be true?
The gatekeeper didn't even look at him, but Yunkong still went up to him: "May I ask, brother, where is the Taoist temple in this city?"
The guard looked him up and down for a while and then asked: "Taoist Master, where did you come from?"
"Coming from Kaifeng." In fact, Yun Kong clearly came from the east and wanted to go south to Kaifeng, the capital city, but he inexplicably made up that he came from the west, probably because he subconsciously didn't want to be asked about the situation in the north.
"Are you a Taoist temple? Under the current rule of the Taoist Emperor, there are Taoist temples everywhere in Taiyuan Mansion. You can ask more." The emperor proclaimed himself the leader of Taoism. Taoism is prosperous, so of course there is no need to worry about the lack of Taoist temples.
Yun Kong thanked him and slowly walked into the city gate. As soon as he entered, he was greeted with a peaceful atmosphere, and there was no atmosphere of military tension at all.
But Yun Kong was still very uneasy.
The "Death of the Song Dynasty" predicted by Zhang Tieqiao seems to be getting closer and closer.
As expected, there are many Taoist temples in Taiyuan. Yun Kong saw that most of them had people setting up stalls at the door, so he found one that did not have a stall in front of his home and went in to say hello to the temple owner.
The five characters "Yiyong Wu'an King" written above the temple door were only put up in recent years, because the emperor only granted the title of Guan Gong two years ago. In the past, he was only called "Wu'an King".
The owner of the temple is an old man and wears a new Taoist robe, which shows that the Taoist temple is quite popular.
"Are you going to answer people's questions at the door?" the visitor asked.
"Please allow me, Master, to place orders here."
"Yes, yes." The temple master agreed readily, but his face was covered with worry.
After Yun Kong settled down in the dormitory, the master of the temple came to call him for dinner, so the two of them started eating around the Eight Immortals Table. The Eight Immortals table, which can seat eight people in four directions, was an invention of the Hu people in the north. It was only introduced to the Song Dynasty in recent years. It can be found in this temple, which shows that this Taoist temple has a lot of income.
After chatting for a while, I found out that the temple master's Taoist name is Xu Ling, a native of Sichuan, and he traveled around for decades before settling down here. This Taoist temple used to be guarded by another Taoist, but he has passed away many years ago.
After the two told each other some of their own experiences, Xu Ling pondered for a while and suddenly asked: "You said you came here from the north?"
"Yes."
"Has it been a smooth journey?"
"This..." Yun Kong hesitated, "There are rumors on the road that the Liao Kingdom is dead and the Jin people are coming."
"Are you here? Sure enough." Xu Ling looked sad.
"Could it be that this place has heard about it before?"
"No," Xu Ling said, "There is an ancient cauldron in this temple. It is said to be left over from the Three Kingdoms period. It doesn't do much on weekdays, but it has been ringing every day these days."
"Can the ancient cauldron ring?"
"I guess it's Emperor Guan who appears."
The shadow in Yun Kong's heart suddenly expanded several times.
His financial resources are about to be exhausted, and if he doesn't make some money here, he will soon be unable to take a step forward. But if you stay here for a few days, you may not be able to leave.
He hopes to leave Taiyuan as soon as possible, but the prerequisite is that there will be travel expenses.
He just lied to the guard to prevent the guard from suspecting that he was a spy and asking him endless questions.
Suddenly, he wished he had not entered the city and gone all the way south to Kaifeng Mansion.
Dozens of miles away to the north, the flags of the Jin soldiers had covered the land in darkness.
【Get things】
The dutiful son looked into his pocket and found a piece of gold!
His eyes were wide open.
It turns out that gold has this color and this light!
It turns out gold is so warm to the touch...
His hands were shaking slightly.
He didn't dare to let his mother see him.
At this moment, he became truly panicked.
He sat leaning against a big tree, his mind filled with doubts.
He saw a Taoist priest walking by not far ahead. He was holding a bamboo pole tied with a white cloth and two copper bells. On the white cloth were written the characters "divination and fortune-telling, strange and difficult diseases". The Taoist didn't know what he asked Shou Shu, so he entered the city.
He ignored the man and only thought about how the money had gone into his pocket these days.
After thinking about it, he reached into his waist bag and took out a piece of silver.
He tried again, another piece.
He got it.
Suddenly, he understood.
He spread his palms out and placed them on his bent knees.
Thinking together, there was a piece of silver in the palm of my hand.
I thought again, and there was a piece of gold in my palm.
He looked at the city wall not far away. There were some white flowers growing at the foot of the wall.
He stretched his hand into the air, fished it out gently, and found a flower in his hand, with some soil still attached to the root.
He became afraid.
He stood up unsteadily, worried that the gate guard not far away had seen what he had done.
He lowered his head, scurried into a place with many trees and grass, and walked home quietly.
He didn't tell his mother that he was back, so he hid in the room, huddled under the quilt, and lay down facing the wall.
He became afraid of himself.
【Ancient Ding】
The entire Taoist temple almost collapsed.
The bricks and tiles beat violently, and even the century-old dust on the beams fell down. The lamp could no longer be placed on the table, and lamp oil splashed all over the table.
It's the ancient cauldron, and it's ringing again.
