Chapter 58 Ancient Temple
It is unknown when the stone steps on Yunxia Mountain were laid, but the edges of the steps have been polished round and smooth by time.
There are tall trees on both sides of the stone steps, so people don't feel hot when walking on them in the hot summer. In addition, every morning, the Du'e Temple will ask the disciples to come down and clean the stone steps, so there are no leaves or stones on the bluestone slabs.
The four of them walked up the mountain and kept meeting other people who were also going up the mountain.
Seeing a child of four or five years old jumping past him and running up the mountain, Shen Yuan took a deep breath and continued to climb up with his sore legs.
Lu Shuyan and Jiang Yunyi were in the same situation as her. Only Yan Siyu ran to the front alone without blushing or breathing hard. When she saw that they hadn't caught up, she even ran back to pull them up.
Fortunately, the entire Yunxia Mountain is not too high. After walking for about half an hour, they saw the gate of Du'e Temple.
The whole temple looks very simple, with the outer walls and gates slightly faded. The gate is often open during the day, and pilgrims can go in directly after arriving.
As soon as you enter the door, you can see a towering old tree. Because it is summer, the tree's lush branches block out most of the sunlight in the small courtyard.
"I want to go to the temple and burn a stick of incense." Lu Shuyan wanted to ask the Bodhisattva for blessings and protect her mother's good health.
Because of her marriage, her mother had a big fight with her father and then fell ill. Although her mother didn't want her to know, how could she not know.
Her mother always hoped that she could marry a good husband, as long as his family background was clean and he was ambitious, and most importantly, his family was simple and harmonious, not like the Lu family. But her father was different. He always hoped that his daughter would marry a rich family, and his son would marry a daughter of a rich family. He didn't care about anything else.
"Let's go, let's go together." When you come to the temple, you naturally have to worship and pray.
When it was Shen Yuan's turn, she also clasped her hands together, knelt down upright, closed her eyes and silently recited her wishes in her heart, hoping that the Buddha would bless her family with happiness and health, and that her brother would be admitted to high school next year.
When they came out of the temple, it was still early and it was not yet time for the temple to provide vegetarian noodles, so they thought about taking a walk around the Du'e Temple.
After all, the temple is really small and you can see it almost entirely at a glance from the courtyard.
"Yunyi, what did you ask for just now? I saw your face was red when you came out of the temple." As soon as they walked out of the temple, Yan Siyu couldn't help teasing Jiang Yunyi.
Jiang Yunyi was not used to her and did not respond to her jokes.
"I'm not telling you."
"Hehe, I know it even if you don't tell me. Yuanyuan, what about you?" Not getting an answer, Yan Siyu turned the question to Shen Yuan.
"The imperial examination will be held next year. I hope my brother can get into high school."
Lu Shuyan, who was holding Shen Yuan's arm, squeezed her hand and said to her, "It will definitely work."
"Yes, yes, Yuanyuan, you are so pious today. Let's climb up step by step. The Buddha will surely bless your brother."
Jiang Yunyi asked Yan Siyu again: "You only asked us, what about you?"
Yan Siyu had nothing to be embarrassed about, and there was no one else here, so she just said that she was seeking a marriage.
"I don't have anything to ask for. My mother keeps complaining that I won't be able to get married in the future. So I'm just going to pray for a good marriage for myself."
"You are very pious today. The Buddha will surely give you a husband of your dreams."
Yan Siyu nodded, "Of course!" She laughed. The other three were amused by her. The girls' laughter startled the birds resting in the forest, and they flew away flapping their wings.
The four of them had no destination, so they walked along a path. The further they walked, the clearer the sound of flowing water became.
"Little stream!"
As they walked, they came to a stream. There were many streams in Yunxia Mountain, and it seemed that they all flowed down from a spring somewhere on the top of the mountain.
The stream was only about four feet wide, very shallow, and clear to the bottom. On the flat open space beside the stream, you could see a simple rack made of branches, with a pile of burnt black stones underneath, which seemed to indicate someone had a picnic here before.
"Come and look." Yan Siyu, who was walking upstream along the stream, suddenly stopped and pointed at something, calling them over.
Everyone looked over and was shocked. What she was pointing at was actually a long white bone.
Half of the bones were on the shore, and half were submerged in the stream. It seemed that they were blocked by a rock and did not float down the stream.
"Is it a cow bone, or some other wild animal bone? A wild boar?" All of them were ladies from wealthy families, so naturally they had never had the chance to see such a large bone.
One of the maids who came with Jiang Yunyi bravely expressed her opinion.
"I have seen this in the village when I was a child. The bones of cows and pigs are thicker than this."
At this moment, Yan Siyu said with a trembling voice something that made everyone tremble.
"Why do I look like a human..."
"Are you serious, Siyu? How come there is someone here?!"
Yan Siyu swallowed and said nervously, "I'm not sure either. I was reading my father's military book before, and there was a medical book used by military doctors tucked inside. There was a picture of human bones inside, so it looked like it."
Shen Yuan bravely said to them, "Don't be afraid if it's a human. It looks like one of the mass graves above has been washed away. It rained heavily a few days ago." She regretted not bringing Fuling out today. Fuling studied medicine, so she should be able to tell whether it's a human or not.
"What should we do? Should we go to the temple and find someone?"
"No." Shen Yuan immediately rejected the suggestion. After all, she was the daughter of the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple and she was influenced by the environment.
"What if this is a murder, and the murderer is someone in the temple? Baizhi, you are fast, go down the mountain right away, ride to the Dali Temple to find my father, and ask him to quietly send two detectives to take a look."
Qing Dai was a little worried, "Girl, let me go back. Bai Zhi knows Kung Fu, let her stay here to protect you."
"It's okay. There are so many people here. You can't ride a horse. It's faster for Baizhi to go back."
In the end, he still followed Shen Yuan's instructions and let Bai Zhi go back.
Shen Yuan was afraid that the bone would be washed away, so he asked someone to pick it up.
The maidservant beside Yan Siyu said to her mistress, "Miss, why don't you go down the mountain first? I will wait here for the constable to come."
But Yan Siyu refused without a second thought, "No, what if it's just a false alarm? I still want to go to the temple to eat vegetarian noodles. I won't feel like coming back after I go down."
Yan Siyu's words made everyone relax a lot, and they just stayed here and waited for Bai Zhi to come back.
Over there, Baizhi rode a fast horse all the way to the Dali Temple. Shen Yun was shocked when he saw Baizhi, thinking that something had happened to his daughter. He knew that Baizhi had gone out with his daughter today.
After hearing what Bai Zhi said, he felt relieved. However, the suspected human bones on Yunxia Mountain were also very important. He immediately asked for leave from the Lord of the Temple and prepared to personally take two constables and the coroner from the Dali Temple up the mountain.
Before leaving, he asked the constable to change his clothes, and he also changed out of his official uniform. He also informed Xie Hui that if it was really a murder case, he would let him take someone else over.
A few people rode all the way to the foot of Yunxia Mountain and then climbed up the mountain as quickly as possible.
The coroner rushed to examine the bone without even taking a breath.
"Sir, it is confirmed to be a man's thigh bone. It looks like he was only about 30 years old before he died. Judging from the bones, he must have died two or three years ago."