The Spring Festival is approaching, and the eaves of Yuehe Inn are hung with wormwood. Su Chen picked up the five-colored silk thread on the counter, and suddenly felt a pricking pain in his fingertips - the silk thread was mixed with half a bamboo strip, and the cross section was soaked with dark red juice. Tang Ren chewed a meat zongzi and came closer: "The color of this zongzi leaf is very strange green..."
"It's indigo-dyed." Su Chen cut open the zongzi, and found a bloody page from the "Manuscript of the Craftsmen" between the glutinous rice. Qin Feng used a silver hairpin to lift the page to let in light, and the watermark showed a square dot pattern of the Can Shen Temple in Xinshi Ancient Town.
The drums at midnight startled the crows, and a terrible news came from the kitchen behind the guest inn. When the people rushed into the steaming room, the waiter was lying face down in the pile of zongzi, with a bronze zongzi needle stuck in his throat. Twenty steamers on the stove were emitting green smoke, and each zong lid was engraved with the tooth-marked "Zhen Zhen Lao Lao" mark.
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The cypress door of the Baidong Zongzi workshop creaked, and Su Chen touched the sticky door ring. Tang Ren held up the oil lamp and saw the indigo between his fingers: "This, this is the indigo juice used to dye the Zongzi leaves!" Qin Feng suddenly knocked over the drying rack. On the back of the bamboo plaque, half of the "Jiaxing Prefecture Chronicle" was glued with glutinous rice paste. A certain page recorded the case of hiding poison in Zongzi leaves during the Guangxu period.
There was a rustling sound from the cellar, and the people followed the sound to find the ash soup in the twenty-year-old jar. Su Chen scooped up the turbid soup, and found human teeth mixed in the sediment. Tang Ren kicked over the wine jar, and the Beidou pattern engraved on the bottom of the jar was exactly the same as the Ningbo secret color porcelain.
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The reflection of the stone bridge shattered in the morning mist. Su Chen stood in front of the Xiuzhen Temple. The evil-repelling sachet handed by the Taoist boy suddenly fell apart, revealing half a bronze zong needle wrapped in moxa. Tang Ren sniffed the end of the needle: "It smells like realgar!"
The caisson of the ancient theater in Xiuzhen Temple suddenly collapsed, leaving twenty painted rice dumplings hanging in the air. Qin Feng pulled the curtain, and the entire "Officials Granting Blessings" painting suddenly flipped over, revealing the charred "Secret Recipe for Ash Soup" behind it. Su Chen dipped in incense ash and smeared it, revealing the location mark of the pagoda.
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The sound of the canal waves hit the base of the ancient pagoda. Su Chen touched the weathered bricks of the pagoda. Tang Ren suddenly pointed at the pagoda and said, "This copper gourd is crooked!" Qin Feng climbed up the Sumeru pedestal and dug out the bloody rice dumpling rope from the lotus pattern. The knot style was exactly the "Five Poison Knot" unique to Xinkeng Town.
When the stone door of the underground palace was smoked open by the wormwood smoke, twenty pottery jars were arranged in the shape of a Big Dipper. Su Chen opened the seal of the jar, and a whole set of human bones was soaked in the ash soup, with the word "Cheng" engraved on the ribs. Tang Ren kicked over the pottery jar, and half a pawn ticket from the 20th year of Guangxu was stuck to the bottom of the jar.
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The Candy Flower Temple in Xiaoman was crowded with people, and Su Chen stood in front of the Juehai Temple. The Candy Flower that Tang Ren bought suddenly withered, and a bronze Candy Flower hook fell out of the petals. Qin Feng used the hook tip to lift the curtain of the shrine, and the pupils of the Candy Flower Goddess were embedded with secret colored porcelain pieces.
The night rain wet the bluestone slabs, and the people followed the glimmer of porcelain pieces into the cocooning station. The residual heat of the cocooning stove was still there, and twenty silkworm pupa-shaped pottery jars were smoking. Su Chen pried open the jars, and the bloody remains of the "Cocoon Workers' Book" were mixed in the silkworm sand. When the ink was heated, it revealed a map of the secret passage of Xinshi Water Street.
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When the black-sailed boat passed the Zhuangyuan Bridge, it suddenly hit a hard object. Tang Ren leaned over to pick it up and pulled up a swollen camphorwood box. Inside the box was a child's corpse wrapped in a whole piece of silk, with Jiaxing's five-color silk thread tied around the waist. Qin Feng unfolded the silk and found a panoramic view of the pagoda on the dark pattern.
"Be careful of the bridge hole!" Su Chen pushed Tang Ren away and nailed the poisoned silkworm hook into the boat awning. The bronze needle on the masked man's wrist shone coldly, just like the deadly weapon in Yuehe Inn. During the fight, the wooden box fell into the river, and the remaining pages of "The Manuscript of the Makers" appeared in the water - the whole book was actually a list of blood debts written in silkworm sand.
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The drums and music of the Xiaoman Festival to the Silkworm God resounded throughout the ancient town, and Su Chen offered the incomplete book to the Silkworm God Temple. Tang Ren chewed the Dingsheng Cake and muttered: "This broken book is finally..." Before he finished speaking, the temple priest suddenly convulsed and fell to the ground. On the silkworm plaque that slipped out of his sleeve, the newly tied silkworm coils spelled out the word "Cheng".
Morning mist spread over the Shihe River. Qin Feng pointed to the teahouse on the other side. On the newly pasted window paper, paper-cut figures were interpreting the Cansha case in Guangxu. Su Chen stroked the indigo stains on the window frame. The copper bells on the eaves rang again. On the back of the falling wormwood leaves, a tidal map of Ningbo Port was clearly imprinted...