Luo Jiutian raised his head and followed the Taoist priest's line of sight.
He saw a pair of eyes first.
Instantly, a chill rose from his feet.
A huge clay statue stood directly under the remaining roof. The statue nodded slightly, as if looking down at them, and was holding something in its hand.
What made him shudder were the eyes of the statue.
Those eyes seemed to be observing them.
It's like the look of some kind of carnivore aiming at its prey.
The metal shell of the statue has almost peeled off, and the appearance is full of cracks. The ears and chin are all broken and cracked, making the smile on its face become more and more ferocious.
"What kind of god is this?" Luo Jiutian asked with a frown.
The Taoist priest pushed aside the wooden board blocking the two of them and shook his head, "Have you never seen it before?"
"I've never heard of anyone who looks like this..." Luo Jiutian suddenly realized that it was not a good idea to say such things in the temple, "No, I don't know...what is it holding in its hands?"
"In my impression, it should be a baby," the Taoist priest said, "so at that time we all thought it was Guanyin who gave birth to a child."
"Guanyin doesn't look like this," Luo Jiutian said with a hint of disgust, "and it doesn't hold it like a baby..."
The two stood on tiptoe and looked into the arms of the statue.
The Taoist priest was stunned for a moment.
"this……"
"This is obviously just a stone," Luo Jiutian looked at the Taoist priest, "How do you think it belongs to a baby?"
The statue has its hands folded in front of the body, holding a base whose original shape cannot be seen clearly. On the base, there is a blue-white stone tablet lying flat.
The Taoist priest looked at the fragments scattered on the ground and said, "Last time we came here, we only saw the swaddling clothes on the base, and thought the things in the swaddling clothes were for children. Look, the swaddling clothes have fallen off now, and it seems that the statue of the god is holding it.
The thing that has always been there is this stone tablet."
Luo Jiutian jumped onto the cross-legged legs of the statue in two steps, "Do you still remember what this base looked like before?"
"I really didn't pay much attention to this at the time," the Taoist priest said with some chagrin, "it seemed... it seemed to be in the shape of flower petals."
"Is it possible that it's a lotus?" Luo Jiutian stood firm on the statue and leaned forward to look at the stone tablet.
"It's possible, I'm not sure."
"It should be the lotus flower," Luo Jiutian's voice was suddenly full of certainty. He waved to the Taoist priest on the ground, "Quick, Taoist priest, there are words on it."
Luo Jiutian pulled the Taoist priest up to the statue, and they both started reading together.
"Tomb of the Immortal Prophet."
Five straight large characters are clearly engraved on the stone tablet.
The Taoist priest and Luo Jiutian looked at each other and said, "This is the prophet's tombstone."
"So what the villagers really worship is not the statue of the god, but the tombstone of the prophet," Luo Jiutian pointed to the head of the statue, "Let me just say, how can Guanyin look like this? It's almost enough to say that he is a protective arhat."
The Taoist Master nodded heavily, raised his hand and scanned the dusty surface of the stone tablet, "There are also small words below."
Below the large characters, there are two lines of small characters. The scratches on the small characters are relatively shallow, as if they were scratched in randomly. It is difficult to distinguish them without looking carefully.
The moonlight coming from the roof was not strong enough, so the Taoist priest had to use an everlasting talisman. The soft yellow light like fireflies hit the tombstone, and the two lines of scrawled writing gradually appeared.
"Never forget each other."
The first line is four simple words.
The second line also has four words.
The Taoist priest recited it silently.
"My wife, Lian, is here to stay."
The two raised their heads and looked at each other in shock.
"He has a wife?!" Luo Jiutian almost choked himself to death, "Is this mentioned in the book?"
"It's not in the first two books, maybe it's in the third one, which is what was torn out."
"Lian..." Luo Jiutian said in a daze, "His wife's name is Lian... Taoist priest, tell me, can it be..."
It will.
Everything points to a truth.
The wife of the prophet is the fire lotus.
Finally connected the clues.
Luo Jiutian was very excited, "At least now, we know Huolian's identity."
The Taoist priest also nodded.
Yes, they had a little breakthrough.
Then there were more mysteries.
"Are there any other clues here?"
The two searched the statue carefully and found nothing else.
"It's already very good. It seems that this is one of the secrets of Lianshui Village." The Taoist priest jumped off the stone statue, "Jiutian, let's go to the crematorium to have a look."
"Hmm, do we want to take this tombstone with us?"
"...Can I take this away?"
"Let me try...ah, it doesn't seem to work," Luo Jiutian tried to lift the tombstone, but failed. "Okay, it's okay, it can't run away anyway."
Luo Jiutian also jumped down, and the two of them dusted off their bodies, raised the Ever Bright Talisman, and finally looked up at the statue.
These eyes.
It knows everything about Lianshui Village.
"Let's go, the door is behind the statue."
"good."
Luo Jiutian nodded, looked away, followed the Taoist priest's footsteps, and walked towards the back of the statue.
The warm yellow light trembled and gradually dimmed in the broken ancestral hall.
Squeak—bang!
The light disappeared completely.
The ancestral hall returned to silence.
Only the statue of the god was still standing there, looking down at the rosette in his hand and the tombstone on the rosette.
How many years and how many things have happened, just like the dust stirred up by the two people just now, it rises and falls again.
Falling, rising again.
New dust is rising.
Rustling, rustling...
The statue looked down, but the visitor did not look at it.
In the darkness, a pale and thin hand reached out.
The hand rested on the tombstone.
Those eyes fell on the inscription.
***
Xiaolan hugged the tombstone and huddled in the ancestral hall, looking around with a wary expression.
No one?
That movement just now... was it really caused by this cat?
Xiaolan glanced at the civet cat basking in the moonlight on the window frame of the ancestral hall, and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
She looked left and right, made sure it was safe, and then walked around from behind the tombstone.
As expected, the old man's tombstone was hidden in the ancestral hall by the villagers.
Xiaolan stood next to the incense stand at the back of the ancestral hall. The green and white tombstone was erected on the stand. Fresh fruits and vegetables were offered in front of the stand. Xiaolan stole a grape, but she did not blame herself because it was
The tabby cat on the window frame ate more than she did.
The area of the ancestral hall is very small, with messy debris piled everywhere. It seems that it is also used as a warehouse on weekdays. The only thing related to the function of the ancestral hall itself is this low incense stand.
Xiaolan turned around. Behind the incense stand was the back door of the ancestral hall. The simple single-sided door was ajar, and the crematorium was right outside the door.
She moved her steps.
"Meow..."
"Shh!" Xiaolan gestured to the tabby cat that tilted its head to look at her, "Quiet! Don't make any sound!"
Of course the civet cat couldn't understand her gesture, but it still closed its mouth.
Xiaolan exhaled, half-crouched in front of the tombstone, and read the inscription.
The body of the stele is brand new, the inscriptions are also newly engraved, and the chipped stone fragments still remain on the stele.