Chereads / The last Taoist priest / Chapter 12 - Chapter 12: The Underground Palace

Chapter 12 - Chapter 12: The Underground Palace

Wenbin looked carefully at the original site of the Temple of Generals that Leader Wang had marked out, and then he read a hexagram on the spot. The hexagram shows that there is indeed an underground palace in this temple, but in this flat land, it is indeed hard to identify. Wenbin and with leader Wang climbed to the mountain opposite the temple, stood on the top of the mountain overlooking, then leader Wang was totally surprised with what he saw.

A small meandering river flows out from the West and forms a meeting point here. This is the Green Dragon water fountain point, which was mentioned in the legendary. A mountain range to the east extends for thousands of miles with its high crest, but here it suddenly lowers its height and plunges straight into the land, just as the head of a dragon suddenly go down, which is where the water fountain point is.

Two Green Dragons were fetching water here, so you can imagine how good at Geomantic Omen this water fountain was. Look again at the original site of the Temple of Generals, which was marked by leader Wang with white lime powder. A huge turtle leaped out from the ground, the Turtle's head was pointed right at the pool.

Not only that leader Wang was shocked, even Wenbin was amazed by the sight. What a good place of geomantic omen, where the tortoise sits atop two dragon heads and absorbs the essence of the Dragon, also the essence of the Sun and the Moon, not to mention a cat to become a goblin, even a mouse stay here for a long time can become a king.

"Three heads, all pointing to the same place, should be there." Wenbin pinched his fingers, said "Wang, do you see the small stone bridge opposite the Temple of Generals? If I am correct, the underground palace should be in the position of the stone bridge. Let's go down and have a look."

When Wenbin and Wang went down the mountain, it was already sunset, they couldn't wait to get to the small bridge of the Bluestone Slab, with just the memory, Wenbin jumped into the river carefully looking for clues.

"Wang, you see, is this piece of stone poured with thin glutinous rice? " Because there was no such modern building material such as cement in ancient times, so influential officials used to boil glutinous rice and make pulp to serve as modern cement, it was as strong as modern cement. During the land reform, some of our ancient tombs were made of this kind of glutinous rice. They can only be blown up by dynamite, which demonstrates how hard it was.

This glutinous rice poured stone, of course, is not difficult for Wang, as an experience archaeologist, what strange he has not seen. After the location was determined, Wenbin and Wang returned to the residence—— The old house in my hometown.

Since then, the archaeological team temporarily stationed in the old house of my hometown, firstly, are convenient to take care of each other, secondly, because of Wenbin.

Early the next morning, Wang and the team went to buy vinegar, which were all poured in large buckets, pulled under the small stone bridge, and poured one ladle after another into the crevices of the stones. Slowly, the stones became loose. Within one morning, the loose stone was opened a big hole by the team, Surely, there were hidden underground palace that no one had ever seen before.

Leader Wang again asked people in the team to carry the blower, pumped air into it for one hour. Then he lowered a duck on a rope into the hole, and after about 10 minutes, the duck was pulled out. After the check that the duck was normal, then he let everyone in, leaded by Wenbin.

The whole picture of the underground palace was revealed when a few floodlights shone in. It was rectangular, an empty space with the size of a basketball court, and everyone stopped breathing as the lamps swept through the walls…

Many murals occupied this small space, and Wang sighed just as there was a treasure: "This is simply a national treasure of divine workmanship." He then carefully raised his feet and moved toward it step by step. Who knows, could there be a trap in this gloomy underground palace.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm. The first picture in the mural depicts an ape in a hole, and then a young man and an ape together. The third picture depicts a young man kowtowing to an ape and kneeling, one after the other, to the penultimate is a white-bearded old man driving crane to the west, the last picture was a coffin placed in the hall.

Wenbin as a Taoist disciple, when he saw those murals, he understood completely. Actually the Billiard Monk did exist for real, it's not just a legend, he cannot hold the excited mood anymore, trembling walked to another wall...

On the other side of the wall, the picture of a Taoist exorcism, although a little exaggerated, but also enough to let Wenbin get excited. It turns out that these legends are all for real.

Wang's light hit the front, and a wooden box lay quietly on the altar. The whole wall was painted with a picture of the Taoist Sanqing. All eyes were focused on that box -- building such a large underground palace, with only such a small box inside, except for the mural, what's in it? I'm afraid it's worth more than most people can measure.

Wenbin and leader Wang walked almost at the same time toward the box. Leader Wang put on his professional gloves and brushes, everyone gathered around. The exciting moment was coming, just before leader Wang finished cleaning up, Wenbin suggested that they should bow to Taoist Sanqing first.

They feel the recent strange things one after another, also did not dare to neglect. After respectful worship, leader Wang trembled to open the box.

From the outside, this was a red sandalwood box, there was no lock buckle, with Eight Trigrams carved above. Wenbin felt something was not appropriate, but cannot tell, so he closed eyes thinking.

Wang was already can't wait, he has opened the box before Wenbin shouted out "careful". A fire lit from his hand, where he shook his hand subconsciously, the box was on the ground, immediately burned into a pile of charcoal…

In fact, the construction of this underground palace is very stable. This box was filled with niter and sulfur. Thousands of years have passed, and it is still very stable. Leader Wang has triggered the trap and burned it all. What exactly was in this box, only the people painted in murals know. In this deep remorse, Wang looked at Wenbin who was full of melancholy did not dare to speak, as this may be the remains of the Taoist ancestors, how a Taoist would not want to see the true face of Legendary figure.

They went back for an analysis, but the matter was clear. It was close to what Wenbin had guessed before. This place should have been built by the Billiard Monk. After he passed away, there was no cremation, but it was buried in the underground palace. Later "Green Lotus sect" occupied this area, opened the underground palace, took away the box, put a small trap here, and also carried out the coffin. This fine Golden Nanmu, the bodies inside did not decay for thousands of years, only the ancient emperors could lie down there. The bishop of the "Green Lotus sect" directly pulled out the monk's body, do not know what purpose actually to seal the body in the wall. Then after his death waded in, stayed in this hall.

What was inside the box? After listen to Wenbin talk about the legend, people all think it may be the legend of "Ruyi Book of Magic", as for where it about, they would need to decipher the writting on the wall.

According to this interpretation, the good and evil forces in this temple should be the Billiard Monk and the bishop of the Green Lotus Sect. Wenbin has destroyed the evil spirit in that night, and only left with Taoist power in the temple. Wenbin immediately made a decision to recruit all the people who had the strange illness, including me, all of us were rearranged in the Temple of Generals, and did a ritual, pleasing the ancestors to dissolve the evil spirits for us. Strangely, after we, the victims, kowtowed to the wall where the Monk had been buried, the next day, we all cured.

Those murals were dug up by the Department of Cultural Relics. The underground palace was sealed up again and the temple was locked up again. Later, people often came here to burn incense and pray for health and peace.

Though Wenbin with a lot of doubts back home, the matter of Temple of Generals was end temporarily.

By the time I was about ten, one of our relatives passed away. She was my grandfather's cousin, and we called her great aunt.

Great Aunt passed away suddenly when she was taking a nap at home. She didn't even go to the hospital. Her son who came back from the field in the afternoon, as soon as he saw her, had already passed away.

There was no cremation in the countryside at that time, so any elderly person had two priorities. First was to build themselves a coffin, and the other was to choose a treasure cave. The great aunt had already done two things for herself, so soon after her death, she was placed in the coffin with the lid open for condolence.

Because she was our eldership, of course we will go. After Kowtowing and incensing, I went to play with my cousin. The first night my cousin called me to go to bed early, saying that the next night a Taoist priest will come over to sing a big opera. Which opera, of course, the most important thing for a Taoist priest to do is called "Crossing the Fairy Bridge".