Chapter 84 Chapter 84 Good Mirror Bad Mirror About Eternal Life is...
Aunt Duan was so anxious that she kept saying, "This is bad news. I'm afraid he was captured by human traffickers."
She quickly took the veil and went to Chang'an County to report the case. Duan Zhiwei drove a donkey cart to go to Jinwuwei and Dali Temple. Everyone in the restaurant was busy in a panic.
Finally, the bronze mirror standing aside spoke weakly: "I probably know where Pu Tao is."
Pu Tao was sitting on the doorstep talking to the bronze mirror when a carriage drove past the door at high speed, raising a huge cloud of dust on the ground. Then the carriage stretched out a hand and pulled Pu Tao in regardless of her struggles and shouts.
The bronze mirror comforted her not to panic, and at the same time, it endured the pain and broke the corner of the mirror, then rolled off the carriage.
It rolled all the way to the entrance of the restaurant and was discovered by A Pan who was pouring water in front of the door. Only then did he realize that Pu Tao had been kidnapped.
A corner of the bronze mirror remained on the carriage, and it rolled down, groaning in pain. A corner of it was broken, and the whole mirror looked broken and a little funny, but no one could laugh.
It seemed to know that it was no longer in the shape of a round bronze mirror, and it looked a little sad.
Duan Zhiwei took a clean handkerchief and bandaged the broken corner tightly, just like bandaging the round head of an injured person.
Seeing that she was also very sad, the bronze mirror comforted her: "This is good. That year, I followed my master to sneak across Yumen Pass. Almost every border guard had wounds on his body. This is the symbol of a warrior."
The fragments of the bronze mirror remained on the carriage, and it could vaguely sense the location of its own fragments.
Duan Zhiwei quickly carried the mirror onto the donkey cart. She asked Aunt Duan to guard the restaurant while A Pan went to Chang'an County and the Dali Temple to report to the authorities. Then she drove the donkey cart quickly to the office where Yuan Shenji was on duty.
It was daytime, and there were many tourists and merchants passing by. Her rushing over in her cart did not seem out of place, but the large amount of dust raised by the donkey cart on the yellow earth still attracted the attention of several Wu Hou.
Wu Hou approached from a distance with a Mo Dao in his hand. Just as he was about to scold, he found that it was Duan Zhiwei and quickly bowed to her.
She held the mirror and hurriedly asked Wu Hou to report. Soon, a tall and burly figure came out with steady steps.
Duan Zhiwei ran over and told him about Pu Tao being kidnapped: "Didn't I say a few days ago that a murderer appeared in Chang'an City? I'm worried about Pu Tao's safety. You should come with me."
Her hands were shaking violently and her voice was trembling. Yuan Shenji held her shoulder firmly with one of his big hands, and wiped away the cold tears on her face with the other hand. Then he went to the government office to get the best horse and pulled her on board.
The bronze mirror was in her arms. She was silent for a moment and said, "I seem to hear the bustling trading sounds in the market. The carriage should have passed by the slaughter market, the metal ware market, the silk market..."
Duan Zhiwei turned his head and glanced at Yuan Shenji: "That should be in the West Market. The slaughter market and the metal ware market in the West Market are connected."
He nodded, pulled the reins, and the horse turned and galloped towards the West Market.
The hustle and bustle of the West Market was like a cloud of hot mist above a steamed cake stall. The Hu merchants walked by leading their camels, their rough shouts mixed with the crisp camel bells. The sweet aroma of green ant wine wafted from the taverns, and the place was lively and chaotic.
The bronze mirror was unusually silent for a moment.
The beautiful Western girls toasting the guests with wine and the rich and pungent smell of various precious spices really interfered with the bronze mirror's sense of direction.
Finally the mirror said, "This way."
They passed the silk market and the medicine market and turned into a narrow alley. The ancient buildings sold on the stalls kept emitting the aroma of hot oil. The Uighur merchants were doing business in stiff Mandarin, and the men with miserable faces begged them for loans in a humble manner.
The two continued to walk deeper into the alley. The noisy chatter of the merchants gradually faded away. Duan Zhiwei suddenly grabbed his sleeve and said, "Wait."
Then he squatted down and picked up a small hairpin with purple grapes hanging on it. It was covered with mud, and Duan Zhiwei's heart immediately tightened.
The bronze mirror looked at the small hairpin and felt very sad. It held its breath and concentrated its attention again. The sunlight shone on the mirror, and a bright spot of light began to jump, and then pointed to a courtyard at the end of the alley.
They ran over quickly. This courtyard was very different from the Han people's houses. The wooden door was low and wide, with a galloping horse painted on the thick door panel and a stone-carved strange beast standing on the eaves.
Yuan Shenji drew out his Mo Dao and kicked the wooden door open without hesitation.
"Bang!" The wooden door shattered into pieces.
Pu Tao was tied to a wooden stake, with strange oil lamps lit around him and a man in a black robe holding a knife in his hand. The man had a pair of blue eyes with deep eye sockets, his face was pale, and he was muttering something and laughing crazily.
Beside him stood an intricate bronze mirror.
"My wife!" Seeing them break in, Pu Tao cried and struggled. While Yuan Shenji was attracting the man's attention, Duan Zhiwei hurried over and wanted to help Pu Tao untie the rope, but found that the rope was coated with a layer of sticky liquid similar to resin, and he could not cut it with a knife, so he could only do it slowly by hand.
The man roared and fought with Yuan Shenji with a knife: "Kill one more! Kill one more and I will gain eternal life! No one can stop me."
Yuan Shenji dodged to the side, grabbed the other person's wrist and threw him onto the incense table. The man was hit hard, but he still didn't give up and turned around and continued to pounce on him.
Yuan Shenji did not back down either and kicked him down. The man staggered and fell, and hit the loess wall heavily, raising a cloud of sand.
"Don't be afraid." Seeing the man lying motionless and without his accomplices around, Yuan Shenji felt relieved and comforted Duan Zhiwei and the crying Pu Tao.
In the mirror standing next to the man, a scaly, rotten hand suddenly stretched out, and a handful of powder shook out from the hand. Yuan Shenji never thought that there was anything strange about the mirror. He was not aware of it for a moment and quickly closed his eyes.
But it was too late, the powder still got into his eyes.
The devil in the bronze mirror shouted sinisterly: "There is only one missing, don't you want to have eternal life..."
The man lying on the ground suddenly got up and raised the dagger with a cold glow in his hand.
Yuan Shenji couldn't see, so he could only use his ears to identify the enemy's direction. He shouted, "Be careful!"
Duan Zhiwei finally untied the rope for Pu Tao and was patting her back to comfort her. He was telling jokes to cheer her up with gauze wrapped around his bronze lens. The few people had no idea that danger was suddenly approaching.
Seeing the man rushing towards him with a dagger, Duan Zhiwei quickly squatted down, hugged Pu Tao tightly in his arms, and then closed his eyes.
“Clang.”
Something was hit by the dagger, making a sound of metal hitting metal.
That was the bronze mirror that Duan Zhiwei bought from Yunyuntan. It was originally placed aside by Duan Zhiwei and properly placed, but at this critical moment it made a clear cry, and then flew out without hesitation, blocking the dagger.
Yuan Shenji's eyes were still blind, but he could already identify the man's position with his ears. When he was bounced away by the power of the bronze mirror, he rushed over again, raised his Mo Dao, and stabbed the tip of the knife straight into the man's heart.
The man screamed, then fell to the ground, no longer able to breathe.
The bronze mirror lay quietly on the ground, emitting a soft light. It was already broken at one corner, and now countless fine cracks appeared on the mirror surface.
This bronze mirror is a chatterbox. Whenever he is with anyone in the restaurant, he is like a chatterbox who can't stop. But everyone in the restaurant loved it.
Duan Zhiwei was bored washing vegetables in the fire room alone, and the dog was telling him about the scenery he had traveled to, the surging Mian River and the frost-covered sandbar.
Duan Daze's mother liked to put on makeup in front of it. The mirror was sweet-mouthed and kept praising her for her "beauty", which made Duan's mother laugh heartily.
At night, the bronze mirror accompanied Pu Tao and the little wolf to sleep and told them some novel and interesting bedtime stories.
Although the time was short, everyone felt very happy being with the mirror, and the bronze mirror itself was also very happy.
Many, many years ago, the owner of the bronze mirror kowtowed several times before the Buddha, took a horse, a pot of water, some steamed cakes, and the bronze mirror, and left Yumen Pass, all the way to Gaochang, to Loulan, passed through Suiye City, and finally went to the birthplace of Buddhism - Tianzhu.
The journey was difficult, with wind, sand, frost and snow, and there was also a life-threatening ferocious dragon hidden in the Dragon Pool.
But the bronze mirror was very happy. It accompanied its owner all the way through the uninhabited desert and over the steep and dangerous Gobi Desert. One person and one mirror depend on each other for survival, and the owner always teaches it: "Respect others and despise yourself."
Bronze Mirror was confused by what he heard.
Neither the master, the Buddha, nor the mirror knew whether they could reach India, but they all knew that as long as they were still alive, they had to head west.
Finally, when they were crossing the snow-capped mountains, the master almost fell off the cliff. He held on to a branch and slowly climbed up, with a hungry vulture watching him closely.
The master sighed and said, "Buddha cut his flesh to feed the eagle. If I can never reach India today, this is also my fate."
The bronze mirror said nothing, but gritted his teeth and rolled out of his luggage and down the cliff. The vulture saw the glittering thing and could not suppress its instinct, so it dived down.
Fortunately, there was a black river at the bottom of the cliff. The bronze mirror did not break into pieces, but fell into it and was washed ashore by huge waves.
It felt a little sad, fearing that it would never see its owner again in this life.
For many springs, summers, autumns and winters that followed, the bronze mirror lay quietly on the shore, sometimes buried by autumn leaves, sometimes buried by frost and snow. Occasionally, a wild animal would come over and sniff it with its wet nose. It felt lonely and suddenly said, "Hello."
The frightened wild deer quickly turned and fled.
Later, the bronze mirror stayed there for many, many years, until one leisurely evening, when the sound of camel bells was heard in the distance.
A Hu merchant picked it up, laughed at his companions, and said he would take it to Chang'an and sell it to a nobleman there.
The bronze mirror was looking forward to it, but the Hu merchant rudely threw it into a wooden box. The camel walked in the desert with one foot deep and one foot shallow, and it felt dizzy and saw stars in the wooden box.
I couldn't stand it anymore and shouted, "I feel dizzy! Please move me to another place!"
The Hu merchants were frightened and thought they had encountered a monster, so they thought about throwing it away.
The bronze mirror said, "Don't throw me away. I am very valuable. The nobles in Chang'an will definitely want me."
It was taken to the largest Nianjin Pavilion in the West Market. The owner of the mirror said disdainfully, "This mirror has no patterns at all. Which lady would like it? I won't take it. Take it away."
The Hu merchant had no choice but to take it to Zhuanyuntan, where there were many civilians and perhaps someone would want it.
Many girls in Chang'an picked it up and looked at it carefully. They thought the mirror reflected people clearly, but they disliked the fact that the back of the mirror was badly worn and did not have the beautiful Baoxiang pattern, so they put the mirror back.
A few days later, until the mirror itself lost its confidence, a pair of gentle hands gently picked it up and exclaimed: "This mirror reflects people so clearly, let's buy it."
The two gentle masters were kneeling on both sides of the bronze mirror, crying bitterly, trying to reach out and grab the mirror. Their tears blurred their vision and they could only reach out in vain, trying to piece the broken pieces together.
The mirror flickered softly, protecting their hands from the fragments.
As if saying goodbye to them, it pretended to be relaxed and said, "Don't be sad, this is good. I remember when my master and I sneaked through Yumen Pass..."
It wanted to say something, but it couldn't. The soft light around the mirror turned into light points like thousands of stars in the night sky and gradually dissipated.
There were hurried footsteps outside the house. It was A-Pan who hurried in with the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple and the yamen runners.
Duan Zhiwei and Pu Tao took out a square towel and silently wrapped the bronze mirror. The mirror had been with them for such a short time, but it protected them in such a tragic way.
Li Heng, the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple, was busy negotiating with Yuan Shenji, and sent bailiffs to drag Aisu away from the ground.
"There is also a mirror..." Yuan Shenji went to look at the square mirror that had mesmerized him, but when he turned around, he could no longer see the mirror...
Three months later, Luoyang City.
The Nanshi Market located at Changxia Gate is prosperous, with elms and willows mingling. There are more than 3,000 shops in the market, and an ordinary antique shop hidden among them is the most suitable.
"I've never seen that shop open." A customer from the flower shop next door was chatting with the owner and shaking his head while holding a pot of peonies.
The devil in the square mirror was being scolded by the old man: "If you can't find a replacement, then you will be trapped in the mirror forever!"
It turned out that the devil in the square mirror was a silk merchant from Yangzhou. He was strolling around an antique shop in the West Market and saw that the square mirror was very old and must be worth a fortune, so he bought it back to Yangzhou.
Unexpectedly, a devil suddenly appeared in the mirror and asked him to kill four people to gain eternal life.
If you don't obey, you will be haunted by nightmares forever.
The merchant had no choice but to complete the task of the mirror with great difficulty.
The devil in the mirror came out and said, "Congratulations, you rescued me." Then he pushed the bloody Yangzhou merchant into the mirror with a grim smile and walked away.
It was difficult to trick a Uighur merchant, but we were just one step short. The mirror thought angrily.
The door of the antique shop was pushed open again.
A girl from Luoyang holding a peony came in curiously and wandered around.
"Dear guest, is there anything I can help you with?"
The old man hidden in the darkness said.
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