94. Forty-Nine Heavens
In the late autumn evening, the setting sun shines obliquely.
The young men in the oxcart were laughing and joking, writing on each other's dusty faces.
After some laughter, the prince sat on the ox cart and looked at Chen Ji. "Over the years, not many people have been able to plot against my father. Half a year ago, when Yuzhou was hit by a flood, he went south to collect grain. The local gentry colluded to conceal the amount of land they owned to evade taxation. Each household donated ten stone of grain, like they were sending away beggars. That same day, they hosted a banquet on the Qinhuai River, pouring one hundred jars of fine wine into the river, euphemistically calling it 'inviting the world to drink together.'"
"And then?" Liu Quxing became excited. They usually didn't hear such interesting stories from the court and the public.
The prince chuckled cheerfully, "My father didn't get angry with them. Instead, he had a craftsman bring in a stone stele over ten feet tall and erected it squarely at the gate of the Jinling government office. It clearly recorded the amount of grain donated by all the gentry. He claimed it was to praise their merits, but in reality, it was to expose the common people to their true colors. At the time, even the storytellers in the teahouses were making up stories to mock the gentry for their usual talk of benevolence and morality, but their actual wealth was unkind and hypocritical."
Chen Ji pondered: "The storyteller's story was told by the prince, right?"
The prince glared: "How do you know?"
"And then?"
"Within half a month, the gentry, unable to bear the loss of this man, obediently donated grain."
Liu Quxing exclaimed in admiration, "Your Highness is truly adept at using ingenuity to move a thousand pounds."
The prince looked at Chen Ji and gave him a thumbs up: "You are a man who can plot against my father!"
However, Chen Ji couldn't be happy.
Seeing his frown, the prince asked curiously, "Why are you unhappy? If I could trick him once, I could brag about it for ten years!"
Chen Ji sighed, "Your father is not the kind of person who would suffer for no reason. I feel like he's going to plot against me again."
The prince sighed and said, "That's true..."
Liu Quxing looked over and said, "Chen Ji, how did you know about the inverted flame kiln? I've never heard you mention it before."
"The immortal came to me in a dream," Chen Ji sat cross-legged on the ox cart with his eyes closed to rest.
Liu Quxing curled his lips and said, "That's nonsense! If there really were immortals who could dream, why would they only dream for you and not for me?"
However, the prince suddenly said, "There really are immortals in this world who can send messages in dreams. You ordinary people may not know this, but the disciple of the Huangshan Taoist leader can actually summon gods from the forty-nine heavens."
"Um?"
Chen Ji, who had been resting with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them and stared at the prince like a torch, but asked nonchalantly, "Forty-nine Heavens?"
finally.
Chen Ji finally heard someone mention the Forty-Nine Heavens.
He asked his master, but his master had never heard of it.
He asked Xuanyuan, but Xuanyuan hadn't heard of it either.
For a while, Chen Ji vaguely thought that everything that happened in Qingshan Mental Hospital was just a dream that he had imagined in his dying moments.
Li Qingniao, the Forty-Nine Heavens, Pao Ge, Erdao, and even himself, do not exist.
And now, the dream has finally come true.
The prince sat up straight and pointed mysteriously at the rosy clouds in the sky. "You don't know about the Forty-Ninth Heaven, do you? It's said to be where the gods live. My father said that the reason the Huangshan Taoist sect is so powerful is because they can summon gods from the Forty-Ninth Heaven to possess their bodies. It's said that when the Taoist leader, Disciple Zi, was fighting against a master from the Jing Dynasty, he once invited the Five Star Gods from the Forty-Ninth Heaven to the mortal world."
Chen Ji leaned forward slightly and asked, "The forty-ninth heaven is where the gods live?"
The crown prince returns
Recalling this, he said, "My father occasionally mentioned that all the gods and Buddhas are in the forty-nine heavens. Mount Wuji, Mount Yujing, Lirentian, Mount Xumi, Penglai, Fangzhang, Northern Juluzhou, and Southern Zhanzhou are the names of each heaven. But that's all I know. My father rarely mentioned it, as if he was trying to avoid something."
After saying this, he lifted half of his buttocks, leaned into the middle of the crowd, and said mysteriously: "My father said that every once in a while, a god from the forty-ninth heaven will reincarnate and come down to earth, hiding in the market. Maybe we have all seen gods, but we don't know it."
Chen Ji leaned back slightly and asked nonchalantly, "What are the characteristics of a god? How can we tell if someone is a god?"
The prince shrugged his shoulders: "That's not clear."
Chen Ji breathed a sigh of relief.
But Liu Quxing asked curiously, "Prince, have you ever seen the immortals of the forty-ninth heaven?"
The prince shook his head: "I don't know, maybe he has seen it, maybe he hasn't."
Liu Quxing asked again: "Do the immortals in the forty-ninth heaven need to poop?"
She Dengke laughed: "You have to poop after eating."
Liu Quxing stiffened his neck: "What if they don't need to eat?!"
She Dengke also stiffened his neck and said, "How can they survive without eating? They must poop a lot!"
Chen Ji's expression became complicated.
He changed the subject and asked, "Prince, are there any known forty-nine-level gods in the history of our Ning Dynasty?"
"have."
Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw Liang Gou'er, lying at the end of the cart with his legs crossed. He lifted his straw hat and said, "My ancestors once met a man who claimed to have come from the forty-ninth heaven and entered the human world to cultivate the Taoist Yang Shen, hoping to achieve harmony with the Tao through this method. Even in the dark of night, the Yang Shen was as bright as the sun."
"Did he finally achieve enlightenment?"
Liang Gou'er scoffed, "No, he was in the Ning Dynasty's border army. He was ambushed and killed by the Jing Dynasty's Martial Temple. He died. It must have happened two hundred years ago. I don't know the details."
Chen Ji fell into deep thought.
Li Qingniao once said to him, "The forty-nine heavens cannot hold you back, go where you should go." He was sure that he came from the forty-nine heavens, but the place where he lived had nothing to do with the residence of immortals, and he was not an immortal at all.
But no matter what, Chen Ji finally grasped some clues about the forty-nine heavens, like a ship drifting without a trace, finally dropping an anchor of its own to the bottom of the sea.
…
…
In the orange-red afterglow of the setting sun, a slow oxcart entered the city from the south. Liu Quxing suddenly said, "Look, there are so many people in front of the Imperial Examination Hall."
Everyone turned to look.
Under the sunset glow, hundreds of people were gathered at the gate of the Imperial Examination Hall, including ambitious young people, depressed and frustrated middle-aged people, and numb old people.
"He's a candidate for the Autumn Examination," the prince whispered. "I've seen that old man before. I heard he's been taking exams his entire life. He sold all his family's farmland, and his wife and children left him, but he never gave up."
But in front of the Imperial Examination Hall, each of the candidates for the Autumn Examination was carrying a bamboo box on his back, which contained his bedding and three days' worth of food.
Before queuing up to enter the Imperial Examination Hall, the outer curtain officer would open each box and check it one by one, and then conduct a thorough body search to prevent the candidates from bringing in cheat sheets.
When the oxcart passed the entrance to the Imperial Examination Hall, the disheveled prince hurriedly lowered his head and said, "Quick, quick, look down! I see a lot of familiar faces!"
However, it was too late.
Someone accidentally caught a glimpse of the ox cart and asked uncertainly, "Hey, Prince?"
All the candidates for the Autumn Examination turned their heads to look at the ox cart. At the gate of the Imperial Examination Hall, Chen Wenzong, Chen Wenxiao and Lin Chaojing, who were being inspected by the outer curtain officials, also turned around.
"Prince?"
"Is the disheveled man on the ox cart the prince?"
On the ox cart, the prince buried his head in his chest, raised his whip and hit the ox's butt, muttering: "Go, Brother Niu, go faster, this is so embarrassing!"
But the old ox walked slowly and ignored him. Instead, it wagged its tail and pooped out a pile of feces that smelled of grass.
Someone followed closely beside the ox cart, tilting his head to confirm the prince's identity.
Suddenly, someone exclaimed in surprise, "Is it really the Crown Prince? Crown Prince, how did you get yourself into this state?"
The prince looked up, stopped the ox cart, and said with an awkward smile, "Go to work."
Chen Ji turned around and saw his two brothers, Chen Wenzong and Chen Wenxiao, standing on the steps of the Imperial Examination Hall looking back. Chen Wenzong's eyes were full of disappointment and regret.
The three brothers looked at each other from afar. The setting sun shone over the eaves of the wall behind Chen Ji and shone on the gate of the Imperial Examination Hall. Chen Wenzong and Chen Wenxiao seemed to be shining.
At this moment, the crowd slowly dispersed. Lin Chaojing stepped out from the crowd and said sincerely, "I remember when the Crown Prince was at Donglin Academy, he said he wanted to take the Autumn Examination with us to see if he could pass based on his own abilities. But today, the Crown Prince has not appeared at all."
The prince's expression calmed down. He simply smiled and said, "You are all so talented. I feel inferior to you. I will simply not come and embarrass myself. I wish all my classmates success in the imperial examinations and may your names be on the honor roll."
Lin Chaojing bowed and said with a smile, "Thank you for your kind words, Your Highness. I just have something to advise you about, but I'm not sure if I should say it or not."
The prince said calmly: "Please speak."
Lin Chaojing said, "Your Highness is the descendant of Prince Jing. Prince Jing is diligent in his work and is well-loved by the people. I hope you will put aside your playful nature and cultivate your character, so as not to let down the reputation of Prince Jing's Mansion."
The prince also stood up and bowed in return: "Thank you for the reminder. We will not disturb you for now. Go behind the curtain. Goodbye."
After saying this, he sat down again, shook the reins calmly, and the ox cart slowly moved away.
Behind him, someone whispered, "The Crown Prince is so naughty. It's a pity that Prince Jing is so diligent and caring for the people..."
On the ox cart, Liu Quxing heard the discussion and said with his head down, "Only because Prince Jing is so friendly do they dare to do this. If it were Prince Fu, Prince Qi, or Prince An, would they dare to ridicule? Kill all their chickens and dogs!"
Chen Ji turned his head silently, but saw that the prince had a calm expression and it was impossible to tell whether he was happy or angry.
But when the sunset completely fell behind the world, the light in the prince's eyes gradually faded.
The prince whispered, "Why doesn't my father have another son?"
Chen Ji smiled and asked, "What if I give birth to another child to compete with you for the position of Prince Jing?"
The prince looked aside and said: "Just rob him, I don't want anything, I'll give it all to him."
The next moment, Chen Ji tightened the reins of the ox cart, pulled the ox's head hard, and turned the cart back.
The prince turned around and asked in surprise, "Eh? What are you doing?"
Chen Ji laughed out loud: "Life is short! Let's not go back yet. We will live in the kiln factory until cement is produced. If we can't make it, we will never go back!"
The prince was amused: "Why do we have to make cement?"
"Leave your name in history!"
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
