Chapter 17 Section 16

I wandered like a lonely soul on the ruins of Daxie Palace, which has become a paradise for the people of Changzhou to collect jewels and collect treasures.Many people pick and choose among the broken eaves and broken tiles from morning to night, hoping to find those gold, silver and jewels that were missed by the Peng people.Some people quarreled endlessly over a silver beaked pot, and finally fought, and more and more people were involved. When the strong man escaped from the ruins with the pot in his arms, many women and children picked up broken bricks and threw them at him. past.I saw a boy squatting away from the crowd among the rubble, digging intently.Later I stood behind the boy and watched him work in silence.The boy looked twelve or thirteen years old, his face was filthy smeared with dust, his black eyes looked at me vigilantly, maybe he was afraid that I would steal his treasure, he quickly took off his cloth shirt to cover his feet that pile of stuff.

I don't want your stuff, nothing.I reached out and touched the top of the boy's head, and showed him my clean hands to prove my innocence. I said, what did you find after digging for so long?Cricket jar.The boy took out a gold-plated clay pot from under his crotch. When he picked it up, I recognized it as my childhood pet in the palace.What else did you find?birdcage.The boy lifted the shirt again and showed me the two birdcages with flower nets under the shirt. The birdcages had been crushed by heavy objects, but I also recognized that they were a pair of birdcages hanging in the Qingxiu Hall. I even remember that on the day I left Qingxiu Hall, there were a pair of red-billed and green-feathered sparrows in the cage.I smiled at the boy, and put the cage back on for him. I said, this is the childhood plaything of the fifth King Xie, and it may be worth a fortune or nothing.You keep them.who are you?The boy looked at me suspiciously and said, why don't you come to dig treasures?I'm the one hiding the treasure.I gently told the boy.Seventeen jugglers are buried in the unmarked tomb in Changzhou.That is the ruins of the old granary.The grain stored in the Daxie grain depot has been looted after the war, leaving many thatched mats and a huge thatched roof.I buried the corpses of Yanlang, Yusuo and a dozen other artists here.I don't know who first used the grain depot as a cemetery.That day, I imitated the funeral methods of some citizens, and loaded the corpses of seventeen wandering artists onto the cart one by one.I pushed the heavy corpse truck to avoid the sentry posts of the Peng people in the dark, and followed them to the grain depot.The open space around the grain storehouse was already filled with new graves, and I had to dig out graves every now and then so that jugglers who had died unexpectedly had a small and scattered burial plot.The widows who were traveling with me had finished their burial early. They were sitting on the grave mound drinking spirits to dispel the coldness of the spring night. Someone ran over and looked at me curiously and asked, why so many dead people were buried?Is it all your family?

No, it was the entertainers of the Suowang juggling class, I pushed them to the knife of Peng Guoren, I must let everyone go to the ground. It's better to bury it shallower.The man was silent for a while and said, anyway, when the rainy season comes, the corpses will rot, anyway, this kind of burial is to deceive the conscience of the living.Burying a dead person requires strength and know-how. If you are willing to give me some wine money, I will help you bury it, and the burial will be finished in less than half an hour. No, let me do it alone.I firmly rejected the widow.I remember that there was no moonlight that night, and the surrounding area of ​​the former grain depot was pitch black. The widows who came to secretly bury the dead in the dark had all left, and I was the only one left.I remember that I didn't feel any fear. I only saw the sky turning blue and shining, the hands holding the shovel were stained with blood, and the pain had turned into numbness.When the rooster crowed three times, I buried Yanlang and Yusuo together in the deepest and largest grave. When the last shovel of wet soil covered Yanlang's blue-gray face and the rolling log in Yusuo's hand, I My body slumped down like a broken wall, and now no one blames me with sad eyes.Now I have really severed the last trace of connection with the old era, Yan Lang is dead, and I am really alone.

I lay on the new graves of Yan Lang and Yu Suo, and slept with the thatch mat as the quilt and the head of the grave as a pillow.I said I would never be one of those sleepy porters and beggars, but I was so tired and sleepy that day, and in the twilight of dawn I slept like never before.The sky was so close to me that it tempted me to dream countless birds.All the birds in my dream are as white as snow, and all the skies in my dream are transparent and boundless.I dreamed that all the birds took to the sky. I dreamed of a new world. Now the rucksack is empty again, only a tattered book and a coil of brown rope left.I think these two irrelevant objects are the most appropriate summary of my life.Years passed and I still had no intention of reading quietly, but I kept this book of sages together with the brown rope.I think as long as I don't use brown rope as a collar for my whole life, I will always have the leisure to finish reading.I think of the long-lost monk Juekong, his indifferent and supernatural motto, his wise and forgiving expression, are flashing to me now*

I met Concubine Hui at the flea market in Changzhou.I couldn't tell if her disheveled babbling was a sign of insanity, but she looked just right sitting on the bustling thrift street full of people.I saw her selling a stack of carefully cut poems in different colors to passers-by.Take a look, this is a good product, she repeated to passers-by in a hoarse and urgent voice, it is the Fengyue paper of the fifth King Xie, it is an authentic work, it is a good product, you will not lose money if you buy it. I watched Concubine Hui from a distance, and didn't disturb her unique and ingenious business.I hope that someone will stop to bargain with Concubine Hui, but the people who come to the flea market seem to be only interested in things like pots and pans, and no one even glances at the poem paper in Concubine Hui's hand, maybe in the presence of passers-by In my mind, the stack of poems and notes is worthless garbage.It was a warm spring afternoon, I watched Concubine Hui on the junk street from a distance, and vaguely smelled a familiar scent of mint, orchid and inkstone, which was faintly present on the junk street in the afternoon. Floating without ground.I know it doesn't come from the stack of poems for sale, or from the body of the prostitute whose fate was lost, it is the last ray of memory of my old life.

That was also my last day of detention in my home country.The next day, the people of Pengguo opened the road traffic that had been closed for many days, and I escaped from this sad city among a group of salt-carrying porters.It is the nineteenth day of the third month in the Yihai year of the lunar calendar. I spent the rest of my life in the Kuzhu Temple in Kuzhu Mountain.It was a place far away from the homeland of Peng and Xie, and it had been a high mountain forest area without any jurisdiction for centuries.It is said that Juekong, my teacher and monk in my youth, first discovered this paradise. He arrived here eight years before me and cultivated grain fields and vegetable gardens. The so-called Kuzhu Temple was slowly built by him in three years.When I arrived at Kuzhu Mountain, the monk felt that the sky had passed away.What he left me was an empty temple in the mountains. Outside the empty temple was a vegetable garden with luxuriant weeds. In the center of the vegetable garden stood the wooden sign that was later praised by the world, with the words "Yiqi Wang" written on it. .In the bushes, I picked up the wolf hair that I used to practice calligraphy in Xie Palace when I was young, which means that the monk Juekong has been waiting for me for eight years.

Later, when Peng Guo fought against Chen Guo and Di Guo, those who escaped military service dragged their sons and daughters to migrate to Kuzhu Mountain, and Kuzhu Mountain gradually became prosperous.Later people all lived at the foot of the mountain. When the weather was fine in the morning, they could clearly see the temple on the mountainside, and saw a strange monk standing between two pine trees, standing on a high suspension cable, walking swiftly. Fly or be as quiet as a white crane. That person is me.I walk the rope during the day, and I read at night.I have spent countless nights reading quietly. Sometimes I feel that this book of sages contains everything in the world, and sometimes I feel that I have gained nothing.