The Cold Dew had just passed, and the corridors of Canglang Pavilion were still shrouded in morning mist. Tang Xiao was holding up a crab-shell yellow baked cake and was about to take a bite when he suddenly saw a wooden black bird floating on the water. Su Chen used a bamboo pole to pick up the wooden bird, and the tung oil dripping from the bird's beak formed a Big Dipper pattern on the bluestone slab.
"This mortise and tenon structure..." Su Chen unscrewed the hidden buckle on the bird's belly, and a half-faded piece of "Lu Ban Jing" was stuck between the gears. Qin Feng suddenly pointed to the curved corridor: "There, there are new chisel marks on the column over there!"
The three of them touched the back wall of Mingdao Hall, and the crumbs of Tang 꿦놅's baked cakes fell into the cracks between the bricks, attracting a group of wood ants. Su Chen opened the ant nest and saw 23 miniature wooden figurines lined up in a military formation, each holding a banner with the letter Q on it.
The setting sun shone through the ice-cracked windows of Linglong Pavilion. Su Chen counted the mortise and tenon joints of the window frames: "One horizontal and two vertical, the same number of palaces as in 'The Exploitation of the Works of Nature'." Tang Xiao kicked the antique shelf, and the entire wall suddenly flipped over, revealing twenty-three wooden orioles hanging in the dark room.
"This, this is the 'golden thread hanging gourd' mechanism!" Qin Feng pulled the silk thread, and the wooden eagles turned their heads. Su Chen touched the scorch marks on the beam: "Lightning strikes the wood... Someone is imitating Zhang Heng's seismometer."
When the night watchman passed by, the wooden osprey suddenly flapped its wings, knocked over Su Chen, and the steel needle of its tail was nailed into the wall, spelling out the bloody words "Bingshen" - the year when a Suzhou carpenter died suddenly during the reign of Emperor Guangxu.
The ancient cypress in the backyard of the manor was chopped into charcoal, and Su Chen scraped the silver powder off the bark: "It's saltpeter for refining elixir." Tang Wu removed the loose soil at the root of the tree, revealing half of a bronze rocker arm - exactly the same as the mechanism of the wooden eagle.
Qin Feng suddenly pointed at the broken stele: "This, this is the remaining page of "Construction Methods"!" Su Chen dipped the remaining page into the spring, and the water pattern revealed the map of the secret passage of Linglong Pavilion. At the end of the secret passage were piled up with camphorwood boxes, which were pried open to reveal bundles of land deeds from the Hongwu period, each of which was stamped with a cinnabar seal of "Chengtiangong".
The lanterns on the eaves of the riverside house flickered, and Su Chen found the old house of "Yongchang Pawnshop" according to the deed address. When Tang Xiao kicked open the rotten door, 23 Luban locks suddenly fell from the beam. Qin Feng unlocked the first lock, and the lock core ejected half a jade pendant with tooth marks - it was exactly the same as the evidence in Hui Xiao's clay figurine case.
"At 3:30 of midnight, thunder and fire will burn the sky." Su Chen was reciting the inscriptions on the jade pendant. As soon as the night watchman finished, a faint blue flame suddenly rose from the old house. Tang Xiao grabbed the jar in the yard and poured water on it, but the fire became even stronger - it was actually a will-o'-the-wisp fire mixed with white phosphorus and saltpeter!
The sound of the bell from Han Temple cleared the thick smoke from the fire, and Su Chen found half a bronze mechanism among the charred beams. Qin Feng wiped off the carbon with his sleeve, revealing the inscription "Jiajing Gengxu". Tang suddenly pointed at the remnant wall and said, "There's something stuck in the crack of this wall!"
After prying open the hole in the wall, the gilded box inside the Tiangong Pu was intact. On the back of the page was written in blood: "Lumen's unique skills, rather buried in the sea of fire." Su Chen touched the signature of his ancestor Su Zhang, and suddenly there was a sound of a mechanism turning from the eaves - 23 wooden puppets broke out of the tiles, and the bloody word "Cheng" was engraved on the joints.
"Break the eye of the formation!" Su Chen threw the "Heavenly Craftsmanship Record" into the fire. The moment the flames rose into the sky, the puppet suddenly turned around, and the steel needles simultaneously pinned the figure in the dark. In the morning light, the shrimp whisker bracelet on Master Hui Xiao's wrist fell to the ground with a clang, and the poison sac hidden in the bracelet oozed green juice.
Tang 꿦 chewed on the newly bought sweet-scented osmanthus lotus root and approached: "This broken bracelet..." Before he finished speaking, the sugar thread stuck to the poison and revealed a new hexagram. Qin Feng looked at the hexagram and gasped: "Qian, Qiankun reversed, the next murder case is..."
Newly-twisted lotus lanterns floated on the canal, their wicks bursting with blue flames, spelling out the new Chinese character "承" (cheng) on the water.
It was a light rain during the Qingming Festival. Su Chen leaned over and parted the tea leaves. His fingertips were stained with morning dew, which was a strange indigo color. Tang 꿦 squatted on the edge of the field and ate Dingsheng cake. He shouted indistinctly: "This old Zhou really knows how to choose the right time to die. It seems that the weighing of the Qingming tea is about to begin..."
"It was sudden death." Qin Feng used a silver hairpin to stir up the white foam at the corner of the dead man's mouth. The hairpin head instantly turned black. "Tea, tea poison!"
Suddenly, there was a sound of earthenware pots breaking in the backyard of the tea farmer's house. When the three rushed in, the bamboo tray for drying tea fell to the ground, and ten celadon tea pots were half cracked. Su Chen picked up a piece of porcelain, and the Big Dipper pattern was faintly visible under the glaze on the inside - it was exactly the same as the secret color porcelain in the Suzhou case.
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The ancient tea tree in front of Hu Gong Temple was wafting a strange fragrance. Tang Chen climbed up a branch to pick young buds, and suddenly felt a scratch on the bark: "This is crooked, could it be a ghost's scribble?" Su Chen looked up and saw a fragment of The Classic of Tea hidden between the bark texture, with "Its water, on the water" written in Hui ink and circled in cinnabar.
"Look at the roots!" Qin Feng pulled aside the rotten leaves, revealing half of a tin tea-making pipe. Su Chen wiped it with a sweat towel, and under the two words "Lion Peak" engraved on it was a dark pattern with teeth marks - it was the teeth mark of the tea ticket that Old Man Zhou held in his hand until his death.
When the temple priest rang the bell for the evening prayer, the altar suddenly tilted. The falling bronze chimes smashed the floor tiles, revealing a pottery jar hidden in the rammed earth layer. The 23 tea cakes in the jar were all eaten by insects, leaving holes in the shape of a dipper.
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The bamboo pole creaked, Tang Xiao scooped up some spring water to drink, but was knocked over by Su Chen. The oil flowers floating on the water reflected colorfully in the sunset. Qin Feng took out a silver needle to test it: "Yes, it's tung oil!"
The stone inscription of "The Classic of Tea" beside the spring suddenly fell off, revealing the charred "Tips for Roasting Tea" underneath. Su Chen felt the dent at the word "fire", and his fingertips were stained with sulfur powder. Tang Xiao kicked open the monument of virtue, and at the bottom of the monument was an iron box, with a stack of tea leaves from the Guangxu period, stamped with the "Yongchang" horse-stitched seal.
"This, this is the Suzhou Pawnshop..." Qin Feng's voice had not yet fallen when birds flew up in the forest in surprise. Twenty-three pottery jars rolled down from the top of the slope. The roasted tea leaves in the jars caught fire when they came into contact with water, and the flames instantly engulfed half of the tea forest.
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The Longjing teapot was still warm. Su Chen picked up the tea from the bottom of the pot and said, "Mixed with intestinal grass ash." Tang 꿦 turned over the teapot and found half a bloody fingernail stuck in the gap between the bamboo strips - it matched the pinch marks on the palm of the deceased in Meijiazhuang.
Qin Feng suddenly knocked over the drying rack, and found a secret passage on the back of the bamboo plaque. He crawled into the cave through the secret passage, and found a whole box of tea leaves sealed with the word "Gong" that was rotting, and each basket was stuffed with the remaining pages of "Heavenly Works' Book".
There were footsteps coming from the cave, Tang Xiao picked up the tea shovel to chop, but was held down by Su Chen. The moonlight illuminated the visitor's bamboo hat, and it turned out to be a Suzhou tea merchant who had been missing for three years, with a jade pendant on his waist engraved with the new word "Cheng".
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The lanterns on the painted boat turned into a red mist in the drizzle, and Su Chen opened the cabin curtain. Twenty-three blue-and-white tea jars were lined up on the table, and the water stains on the bottom of the jars showed a new hexagram. Tang 꿦 grabbed a jar and was about to smash it, but Qin Feng suddenly stuttered: "The temperature of the jar, the jar body is not right!"
Su Chen dipped the teapot into the lake, and dark patterns gradually appeared on the glaze surface - it turned out to be a panoramic view of West Lake, with cinnabar dots marking the Three Pools Mirroring the Moon. The boat suddenly tilted, and the entire box of teapots slid into the lake, with the floating tea leaves spelling out the bloody "3:00 pm" on the water.
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The sound of the Lingyin bell broke through the rain curtain, and Su Chen stood beside Longhongjian. Tang 꿦 pulled aside the vines, revealing a tea ban stele from the Jiajing period. The inscription recorded the "tea poisoning case", and the surname of the tea farmer involved was exactly the same as Zhou Laohan's family tree.
"Be careful!" Qin Feng pulled Su Chen away and nailed the poisoned tea sling into the ancient stele. The shrimp whisker bracelet on the masked man's wrist jingled, and it was the missing evidence in the Suzhou case. During the struggle, "Heavenly Craftsman's Book" fell, and the sheepskin cover was exposed to water - the whole book turned out to be "Inheritance Book" written in blood by tea farmers.
When the morning mist filled the teahouse, Su Chen offered the copper tea to Hu Gong Temple. Tang chewed the newly fried Longjing tea and muttered, "It will be quiet this time, right?" Qin Feng suddenly pointed at the tea-picking girl's hat, and the new silk flowers were spelling out the pattern of the word "Cheng".