Tang riddles

At the third moment of Shenzheng, a group of people came quickly in Jinchangfang.Shen Sui, who was the leader, reined in his horse at the west gate of Ci'en Temple.Reining in a hurry, the horse raised its front hooves and neighed continuously, but before it could stabilize, Shen Sui flew off the horse, stepped on the wall in three steps and jumped, unexpectedly did not go through the door, and jumped into the Temple of Mercy with a flick of his clothes among the courtyard walls.

Hu Tuo and Cui Qian who were following her had no choice but to wait outside, but Li Qing and Yang Ye, the two Hall Masters of Qingluan who had light kung fu, also jumped into the temple and chased Shen Sui away.

It was New Year's Eve, and the monks gathered in the dormitory to sing scriptures, and there was no guard at the gate of the courtyard. Shen Sui quickly passed through the houses and halls, and arrived in front of the abbot's courtyard in the blink of an eye.The door was locked, and he couldn't get in for the time being, so Shen Sui went directly to the back kitchen from the side, and saw the salt bags piled up at the kitchen door.

There were still four bags of salt that were useless, so Shen Sui opened all four bags and checked the salt in it. As she expected, it was not pure coarse salt, but some foreign matter was mixed in it.She took off a pouch hanging from her waist, and took some coarse salt into it.Then came to the door of the back kitchen, pushed the door open and entered.

Almost no one came to the back kitchen, so it was not locked.After Shen Sui entered, he took out the fire pocket from the leather treasure bag on his waist, lit the fire and lit the lamp.Then, holding the lamp, he came to visit the stove.There was unburned firewood piled in the stove, Shen Sui poked it with tongs and pulled out all the firewood.

Then she held up the lamp again and looked carefully at the firewood that had fallen to the ground.The firewood was turned into charcoal, but it was not burnt out, and it was scattered in lumps.But around these lumps, there are some very fine powders, which don't look like the debris left after burning firewood, but the powder of finer things after burning. Shen Sui knew this It is the remnant of burning paper.Moreover, these powders faintly reflect golden light under the light.

"Haha!" Shen Sui laughed, "But let me find you."

At this time, Li Qing and Yang Ye also rushed over. As soon as they stepped into the back kitchen, they saw Shen Sui squatting on the ground "picking ashes", and the two hall masters were immediately at a loss.

"Master? You are..." Yang Ye asked Shen Sui suspiciously.

"Xiaoye, go and help me find a shovel, there should be one in the woodshed. Ah Qing, come with me."

Although Yang Ye was puzzled, he still took orders.Shen Sui took some of the black powder and took Li Qing into the front yard of the abbot's courtyard.Standing in the center of the courtyard, she raised her head and carefully looked at the two ginkgo trees on the left and right, and finally settled on the tree on the right facing the south window of the meditation room.

She took a closer look at the roots of the tree, and found that the nearby bark had shrunk and turned white, and there were some ugly spots. She smiled again.Li Qing, who was at the side, saw the sly smile on the face of the door master, and couldn't help but shudder in his heart. Every time the door master smiles like this, it means that someone is going to be unlucky.

"Ah Qing, guess what's wrong with this tree?" Shen Sui turned to ask her.

"My subordinates don't know." Li Qing shook his head.

Shen Sui raised his hand to support the trunk, and said: "Trees are actually very sensitive, especially to the soil where the roots are buried under their feet. If there is any abnormality, it will show on the surface. You see, the bark at the root has shrunk so much If it is so severe, it means that water has been lost, and spots appear, which means that the soil has been charred."

Li Qing nodded, but still didn't understand what this meant.

Just as Shen Sui was about to explain, Yang Ye had already brought a shovel.Shen Sui simply took the shovel and began to loosen the soil under the tree roots.After a few shovels, I saw a lot of white powder turning up in the soil.

"What is this?" Li Qing and Yang Ye were both taken aback.

"This is the batch of stolen scriptures." Shen Sui said.

The two hall masters already knew the details of the case, and they were surprised when they heard this: "But why?"

Shen Sui took out the storage bag, unwrapped it and showed it to the two hall masters, and then explained: "The scriptures were stolen, it was deliberately done by someone in the temple. The purpose is to lure away Yuanhui, the monk in the abbot's courtyard, so that the abbot will be stolen every night. I can only be alone. But the number of scriptures stolen is not small. Just in case, the scriptures were burned, and the ashes were secretly mixed into the salt bag. This is part of the salt I took out of the salt bag. Do you think it is mixed with white ash powder?"

The two hall masters took out some powder in their palms, ground it, and found something abnormal.

"This man knows that these salts will soon be used to melt snow. When sprinkled on the snow, the salt is white, the snow is white, and the ashes are also white. No one will find out. When the snow melts, someone will clean it Snow, the residual snow is piled up under the trees, and the ashes are slowly melted and mixed with snow water to settle into the soil. The salt mixed in the snow water makes the roots of the trees shrink, and the lumpy spots are the ashes that have infiltrated into the soil The change it caused. It was so clever that it was done without anyone noticing it."

Having said that, when Shen Sui came to the scene for the first time, he found out this trick.After tasting the snow, she already noticed that something was wrong, and she wanted to go around to the back kitchen to have a look, but she couldn't make it halfway, so she gave up.Because at that time she was selfish, suspecting that the background of this case might be unusual, and she didn't want to disclose all the details to Murong Fu and others.

But this detail was seen through by Zhang Ruohan who was present at the time.When Shen Sui was about to leave Ci'en Temple, Shen Sui had a conversation with Zhang Ruohan. At that time, Zhang Ruohan asked her: "Shen Yihui, I don't know the salt in the back kitchen of the abbot's courtyard. Have you seen it?" There is actually a meaning in this sentence. There are two meanings, the first is the literal meaning, she asked Shen Sui if he had seen the salt in the back kitchen, because she also saw that there might be something mixed in the salt, but Shen Sui did not report it.

The second level of meaning is entirely Shen Sui's own guess. She speculates that Zhang Ruohan is comparing himself with salt, and when she asks Shen Sui if he has seen the salt, he is actually asking if seeing Zhang Ruohan is what Shen Sui wanted.In other words, Zhang Ruohan was doubting whether Shen Sui was acquainted with her old friend and entrusted to come to see her.

Shen Sui's answer at that time was: "I see, it's not far from what I guessed." In fact, Shen Sui hadn't seen salt at that time, and the reason why she answered this way was just to give Zhang Ruohan a hint.But whether the meaning between the two people has really been conveyed to each other is a question mark.After all, this is playing charades, and what anyone said is unclear and cannot be counted.

Yang Yedao: "So, is the criminal really a good cause? He stole the scriptures, which made Yuan Hui copy the scriptures every night. In this way, he can spend time alone with the abbot."

Li Qing continued: "Could it be that the abbot has grasped Shanyin's past affairs, so he planned to send Yuan Hui away in order to murder the abbot?"

Shen Sui shook his head and said, "The abbot died of an accident."

"What!" The two hall masters were startled, "Why do you say that?"

Shen Sui took out the black ashes from the stove and said to the two hall masters:

"The ashes in here are the ashes in the charcoal basin that disappeared."

Both Li Qing and Yang Ye stared at her with wide eyes, Shen Sui smiled and explained:

"I have always wondered why the abbot's fingers were stained with Jinzuifang. After being reminded, I realized that it should be paper. The abbot burned some paper in a charcoal basin, and the paper was actually smeared with Jinzuifang. The abbot's The golden drunk house was stained between his fingers because he once picked up the paper. And these papers were burned into the charcoal basin by him and turned into ashes. Later, the ashes were hidden in the stove."

"It was hidden by Shanyin?" Yang Ye asked.

Shen Sui nodded: "It's very possible. In this case, the method of committing the crime involves the word 'hidden'. If Shanyin can think of hiding white ashes in white salt and snow, he can definitely think of hiding black ashes. The ashes lie in the black hearth."

"But why do you say that the abbot died in an accident?" Li Qing asked.

"It's not sure yet, I still need to take it back to the mother for inspection to confirm. However, it can be speculated that the Golden Zuifang here has the effect of sleeping incense. Once it is burned, it will volatilize, prompting people to burn. Immediately fell into a coma. The abbot fell into a coma after burning the Golden Drunken House. In addition, the doors and windows of the room were closed, forming a secret room in the room. The carbon in the brazier continued to burn, and the smoke filled the whole room, causing the abbot to be poisoned by charcoal. and die."

"Since the abbot wants to burn something, he didn't know to open the window?"

"I speculated that he didn't open the window because there was another person in the house, Shanyin. The meeting between the two of them could not be known to outsiders, so the window was closed to hide it. But soon the conversation was not speculative, Shanyin lost his temper and called After looking through the confessions and Buddha statues in the Zen room, he left quickly. The abbot was upset and forgot to open the window, so he continued to burn the papers painted with Jinzuifang, which led to the tragedy. After that, Shanyin left Later, I regretted it. I went back and forth, and begged the abbot for forgiveness in the abbot’s courtyard, and even knelt down. Regarding this, the salt particles and faint debris on the bottom and side of Shanyin’s monk’s shoes can prove that , he once wandered in the front yard for a long time.

But the abbot never responded.At first Shan Yin might have thought that the abbot was angry with him, but after kneeling for a while, he gradually realized something was wrong, so he hurried into the meditation room to check.It turned out that the abbot had died, and in a panic, he instinctively wanted to destroy the evidence first.So he took away the charcoal chips in the charcoal basin, hid them in the stove, and then quickly left the abbot's courtyard.But after that, he didn't know what kind of mood changes he experienced, and finally climbed up the wild goose pagoda and hanged himself on it.This requires knowing his past history in order to understand. "

Li Qing and Yang Ye looked at Shen Sui with amazement and admiration, and felt that the sect master was really a god. This was simply the truth of the matter, as if she had witnessed the whole process with her own eyes.

"It's just, where did the paper smeared with Jinzuifang come from, what was written on it, and what kind of mood Shanyin had in the end to commit suicide on the Wild Goose Pagoda, but we can only find out after the background investigation is done." Shen Sui sighed and looked at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda under the setting sun, and said slowly after a long while: "Go back, if it's too late, I'll make Qinnu and Xiongniang wait for a long time."

As night fell, the three of Shen Sui came out of the temple.Hutuo and Cui Qian who were waiting outside were shivering in the cold wind, and they couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when Shen Sui and the others came out safely.A few people didn't say much, they got on their horses and rushed back.Today is New Year's Eve, if I don't go back, I'm afraid I will be scolded by the bride.

Red lanterns were hung on the door, and every family opened the courtyard door, and lit a fire in the center of the courtyard.The naughty children have already started throwing bamboo knots into the courtyard and playing with firecrackers. The sound of "cracking" can be heard endlessly, accompanied by laughter, kicking off the prelude to the New Year's Eve.

On the last day of the 16th year of Kaiyuan, Shen Sui and his family gathered together. Although the house was not spacious enough, they gathered together lively and lively.On this day, the superiors and subordinates in Qianyumen have no identities, they are all a family.The pepper and cypress wine was drunk from the youngest little sisters, Yang Ye and Li Qing, to Shen Jin, Shen Sui, Hutuo, and finally to the elder sisters, Xuan Weizi, Huyan Zhuoma, Cui Qian .Cui Qian's wife also brought their youngest daughter to Shen Sui's house to watch the new year. The couple's family has no elders, so it is very cold, not as lively as here.Having children is different, and there is a lot of innocence and joy in the small courtyard.Everyone sat around the fire, laughed and talked about the past and present, and commented on world affairs.Many people here are people who have traveled all over the mountains and rivers and have rich knowledge. Their witty remarks made everyone laugh.

Xiongniang cooked jiaobai (dumplings) to eat, stuffed with cabbage and mutton, served with scallion vinegar, one bite at a time, and she couldn't stop eating.Shen Sui's appetite was particularly good that day, he ate a lot and drank a lot of wine.Shen Jin advised her to drink less and go to the court meeting later, but she didn't listen.As a result, halfway through keeping the year old, he passed out drunk, lay on Shen Jin's lap, and fell asleep soundly, but his brows were frowned tightly.Shen Jin helplessly caressed her sister's soft earlobes, like soothing a small animal.She could feel that her sister's mood was actually not good, but she kept suppressing it and didn't show it.

Even after midnight, the "cracking" of firecrackers in Chang'an City became louder.The time has come to the first day of the first month of the 17th year of Kaiyuan, and a new year is coming, and Vientiane is waiting for innovation.Shen Jin looked up at the last quarter moon in the night sky, which was as thin as an Emei, and wondered in his heart, whether the white snow lotus in Zhang's mansion and the purple peony in the princess' mansion were also watching this moon, and what were they thinking?

The corners of her lips were bent suddenly, she was looking forward to the new year.

The author has something to say: This is the first update, there are two updates today, and the next chapter is at night.

The dumplings in the Tang Dynasty were actually called "Yanyue-shaped wontons". The name was too tasteless, so it was directly changed to "dumpling bait".Dumplings were invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Originally, they were used to treat ear frostbite and fill the hungry stomachs of refugees. They wrapped mutton and pepper in noodles, pinched them into the shape of ears, boiled them in a pot, and ate them for people.Later, it was directly called dumpling bait.In addition, there is also the title of "Lao Wan", but Lao Wan should refer to glutinous rice balls more.It was called "Jiaozi" in Song Dynasty, "Shui Dim Sum" and "Bianshi" in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The name Bianshi came from Mongolian. The pronunciation of dumplings in Mongolian is very similar to "Bianshi", not because of the flat shape of dumplings.

In addition, the firecrackers of the Tang Dynasty were really firecrackers, honest Tang people. (laugh)