He spread out the painting and pointed at it. In the lower right corner of the painting was "Wu Daozi Seventh Year of Jiaqing". It turned out that this painting was created during the Jiaqing period in the middle of the Qing Dynasty and was painted by a man named Wu Daozi.
He stroked his beard and said silently: "This painting is about a small town called Yancheng in Sichuan and Sichuan. This town is not big, only 240 households, so this sentence is It's called "Two Hundred and Forty Households in Yancheng, Shuzhou". The protagonists of this painting are a pair of miserable men and women. Originally, the couple were childhood sweethearts and were childhood sweethearts. But things didn't go as planned, and the man's father was killed by the woman's brother. The man was so angry that he wanted to kill her brother, but the woman tried her best to stop him but still failed. You don’t have to guess the final result, they both died."
I looked at the ink painting carefully again, and I couldn’t feel the emotion of being obsessed with men and women. Instead, there was a bit of resentment of killing people in vain, so I said: "There is indeed resentment in this painting, but I can feel it. This is not something that two people can do." It definitely contains the resentment of other people who died in vain."
He nodded and gave me a thumbs up, "Sir, you are really sensitive. Yes, the theme of this painting is indeed the tragedy of a man and a woman, but in the end it was not just the two of them who died, but forty people!"
Suddenly my heart trembled and I was shocked. There were as many as forty people who died in vain, so this painting should be a very evil thing, but I couldn't feel the resentful atmosphere of this ancient painting, not even a trace of resentment. I even started to doubt my own abilities.
The man with the goatee saw that I was denying myself, so he said: "Sir, you don't have to doubt your ability. Although this painting is inhabited by the souls of forty dead people, they no longer have any resentment. After Wu Daozi's After salvation, they have put aside their resentment and reincarnated. Look here!"
He pointed at the red stamp with the word 'Wu Daozi' in the lower right corner. I touched it with my hand and then brought it to my nose and smelled it, "Cinnabar."
"Yes, cinnabar! Wu Daozi was both a famous painter at the time and a Taoist priest with a high level of Taoism. He happened to be traveling here at that time and was attracted by the beautiful local mountains and rivers, so he settled down and specially made paintings for this beautiful town. The painting is this one."
"Later, tragedy happened. Yancheng was burned down by an innocent fire. In this way, a beautiful Tianfu town was destroyed by the fire, and it also took forty innocent lives. Forty lives, forty lives ! They were all people who died with deep sorrow. Wu Daozi felt pity for them and was afraid that they would turn into ghosts and cause trouble after death, so he sealed them into paintings and gave them salvation for seventy-seven forty-nine days and recited nine times. Ninety-eighty-one times of the Great Compassion Mantra dispelled their resentment."
After hearing this, I became interested and asked Mr. Goatee to tell me the story of the people in this painting.
He nodded and agreed to tell me the story of the people in the painting.
"At that time, this was the man in the painting." He pointed at the man with shaved hair and braids standing on the left side of the painting.
"He is the kindest and most diligent young man in Yancheng, and he is also the object of pursuit by the girls in the town. But there is only one person in his heart, and that is this woman." He pointed to the woman with her hair in a bun on the right side of the scroll with his finger. .
I listened with rapt attention and was completely immersed in it, and he began to talk tirelessly again.
"Originally, everything was beautiful, the man loved the woman, and the woman wanted to marry the man. However, the man had a bad-tempered father, and the woman had a domineering brother, which doomed their tragedy."
Goatee picked up his coffee cup again, drank it in a big gulp, and continued: "One day, the woman's brother came to the man's house to collect rent. It happened that the man was not there, so he asked his father for rent. The old man didn't like the rent he asked for. It was too high and he refused to pay. The woman's brother, who was used to being overbearing, called on his men and beat the old man violently. The old man was not in good health and had a bad temper. He could not withstand the punches and kicks of the strong young man. God, he passed away. The man's last relative in the world left him, not to mention how sad he was. So, he went to the woman's brother's house to ask for an explanation, but how could he fight against the evil master's family by himself? No accident He was kicked out of the house and threatened not to let the woman's brother see him again, otherwise he would be beaten every time he saw him. Although the man did not take advantage, the seeds of hatred had been planted. After that, the woman went to the man more than once to persuade him Let go of hatred and live a good life with her. She will bear her brother's sins. However, the man refuses to let go of hatred. After all, his father's hatred is a blood feud and must be repaid with blood. Finally, in the dark wind of a month On a high night, the man sneaked into the room while the woman's brother was sleeping, killed him with a knife, and avenged his father. When the woman arrived, it was too late. The woman looked at her body covered in blood with red eyes. The man, with mixed feelings, took the dagger from the man's hand and inserted it into his heart. The man was also despairing and had no desire to live. He hugged the woman's body and set himself on fire. The fire started from the woman's brother's house. It was very late at night, and by the time the people in the town realized they wanted to save me, it was already too late, so they had no choice but to run away. But in the end, forty people did not run away and were cremated along with this beautiful town. "
He told it vividly, and I was fascinated by it, as if I had already been in the story and became a person in the small town.
"This is the story of this painting, how about it? Is it wonderful?" He chuckled, poured me a cup of coffee and invited me to drink it with him.
I didn't want to be polite to him. I raised the cup and clinked it. I drank the strong plain coffee, and the richness of the coffee lingered in my mouth.
"It's so enjoyable. The men and women in this painting obviously love each other, but they can't love each other. It's really a trick of fate." I said a little regretfully, but then I said something that I was more interested in.
"The story of this painting is very poignant, but this painting seems to have a magical power. This power is attracting me, as if it wants to suck me into the painting. The more I look at this painting, the more I feel, and I feel like I am inside the painting. A person!"
Goatee was a little surprised after hearing what I said, "Do you feel that what you are seeing is not just a painting, but more like a world, a real world."
"Yes, that's the feeling. I feel like I'm about to enter this world."
Goatee stroked his beard again and said, "You are destined to this painting, so do you believe in illusions?"
"Believe, any mirror image with aura can enter the illusion."
"Then would you like to enter the illusion of this painting to see what's going on?"
"willing."
After getting the affirmative answer, Goatee pointed to a lower door in the middle of the scroll and said: "Sir, please look here, you are slowly entering..."
