Chapter 40: Tian Gang has thirty-six
February 11th
Looking again, there were a few more puppets around it, all of them were the puppets from "The Legend of the Heroes" that were lost from the "Wood Spirit Troupe" stage a few days ago.
They actually came to life! In the dead of night, these ghosts were seen jumping and hopping freely on the roofs of tall buildings or on the eaves. Every time they jumped closer, a terrifying laugh could be heard. The people in the mystery club were so scared that they screamed.
The biggest of them, Hou Jing, appeared before everyone again. He chuckled and actually spoke:
"If you have a tree at home and you have no virtue, you will be killed by the dog after drinking a little wine."
Then the second Ying Bu landed not far away, and his voice became sharper:
"The running dog is cooked, yellow, green and blue, wearing a yellow robe inside out to cover his ghost face."
Then Lu Bu appeared on the roof of the building. He was farther away and his voice was even quieter:
"The ghost's face is covered, the general is in charge, and the treacherous villains are the vanguard."
The fat An Lushan jumped up and down and shouted with laughter:
"Be the vanguard, with the demon flag, the flag will fly over the Five Thunder Curse..."
Shen Kuo looked carefully and saw that there was actually a flag waving above the puppets, with four huge characters in the middle, which were: "Yuanrong Yin Shuai".
Another person appeared in the air, and it was clearly Dong Zhuo: "Five Thunder Curses, Heavenly Enmity, the Heavenly Gangs have thirty-six..."
Jin'er was brave. She secretly went forward to help up Xiaoping, who had collapsed to the ground and was trembling. She wanted to leave the window, but saw An Lushan jumping over. With a "clang", he landed on the railing, close to the two of them. Xiaoping looked at the grinning puppet and finally screamed. Jin'er was really brave. She swung the pipa and hit him. An Lushan jumped up with a smile on his bulging belly and escaped into the air.
"Thirty-six. Don't panic. There are seventy-two more Earthly Fiends." His voice gradually faded away and finally landed on the roof opposite.
Jin'er supported Xiaoping as she gasped for breath beside the railing, but the revolving lantern behind her suddenly caught fire and the fire spread to the curtains.
Shen Kuo rushed into the curtain without caring about the danger and dragged Xiao Ping outside, while Xu Chong tore off the burning curtain and rescued Jin Er. It was too late for Shen Kuo to turn around and save the lamp. He took off his coat and beat the fire. Xu Chong came to help. It took a while to put out the fire. Meanwhile, the puppet outside suddenly disappeared without a trace.
The two looked at each other, then lowered their heads to take apart the revolving lantern, which had been burned completely with nothing left.
I heard the sound of gongs on the street, followed by the roars of people and the neighing of horses. This place is very close to the palace, so I guess the troops from the Imperial City Bureau have arrived.
Xu Chong walked to the window and looked around blankly. There were thousands of lights outside, but he could not see where the puppets had gone. Did they suddenly come and then disappear out of thin air? When he looked up again, the moon was not full again, but there were dark clouds in the distance.
February 12th
Inside the lobby of the Military Head Office, Shen Kuo was dismantling the burnt "Candle Shadow Horse Running", which was the most important piece of evidence related to the Flower Demon Case in the Prince Consort's Mansion, but it was also destroyed, even more thoroughly than the previous one.
Surrounding him were Bao Zheng, Wen Yanbo, Yang Weide, Xu Chong, and the Taoist priest Li Cheng'an. This was the most complete gathering of this small team, with only the imperial guard Shi Quanbin absent.
After the case happened last night, the emperor was frightened again, so he called Shi Quanbin early in the morning. The primary purpose was of course to find out the truth, because someone in the undercover team was at the scene, and the emperor probably also knew it from the Imperial City Bureau (when the guards rushed to Baifan Tower to arrest people, two of them showed their badges).
The second thing to do when I went to find Shi Quanbin was, of course, to give him a good scolding. It had been more than a month since the secret investigation team was set up under the guidance of the government's oral instruction: "The enemy is in the dark, so we must not be in the light." There was no decent result, and it was even unclear whether there was any supernatural power involved in this disaster. There were even differences of opinion within the team. Taoist Li Cheng'an had his own way to get to the ears of the emperor, saying that he was angry with Lao Bao. Shi Quanbin could only report the truth, and the government was obviously dissatisfied with such progress. The day before yesterday, it was said that the Maitreya sect's nest was raided, but the mastermind behind the scenes was missed. It was expected that those thieves would not cause any trouble in the near future after losing their nest. Such a thing happened last night, which shocked the capital. It should be noted that when the commotion on the Baifan Building occurred, it was the night market. At that time, there were thousands of people on the Baifan Building alone, plus the guests in various buildings around, and many of them saw those flying puppet spirits.
The speed of the spread of this ominous event was much faster than when the skeleton demon ascended to heaven with only a dozen people watching, or when the hat demon on Pan Street was only seen by a few dozen people. Even the soldiers with good eyesight on the walls of the imperial city saw it. Since the city gates were opened in the morning, people from the wealthy families in Tokyo have been running out of the city with their families. Until now, people and horses have been clogging the city gates and roads. Those who want to leave the city cannot leave, and those who want to enter the city cannot enter.
The emperor had been somewhat shaken at first, thinking that this case might just be a conspiracy and not mixed with witchcraft, after all, Shen Kuo also provided a plan for the collapse of the round hill, but this time the emperor completely leaned towards the theory of the witch and the witch's method set by Zhang Sizong, and even began to doubt whether he still had faith in the Song Dynasty. After reading the nursery rhymes that the Imperial City Bureau had copied last night, the emperor was so scared that he went directly to the Imperial Ancestral Temple to pray in the morning, and then cried in the Ancestral Temple. I don't know why?
Seeing that Shen Kuo was making slow progress in dismantling the palace lantern, everyone in the military department returned to the table . They watched the nursery rhyme that Xu Chong had copied that suddenly appeared on the screen. It was a pity that Huai Liang was not there, otherwise he could have guided Shen Kuo to dismantle the almost burned lantern and see if there were any clues left. Lao Bao also sent someone to invite Huai Liang early in the morning, but Huai Liang was not in the shop. According to the clerk, he went out to watch a play in the tile house at night and did not come to open the shop in the morning. The clerk said that this was a common thing. Huai Liang had a little extra money, so he went out to play at night, got drunk, and did not return to the shop in the morning. This happened several times a month.
When people read this nursery rhyme, most of them read it silently, because they really didn't dare to read out loud such a rebellious word that wanted to uproot the Song Dynasty.
However, Wen Yanbo was an exception. He was not very shy about it. He deliberately cleared his throat and then read it aloud.
"The yellow-robed inspector bullies a child, a drink from an empty cup can stop a war, the candlelight flickers and the shadow of the axe moves, the brotherhood is strong and the country is protected, the constant feeling of the earth and the sky will eventually respond, the dragon appears in the world to contain the law of heaven..." Halfway through, he laughed: "Bao Longtu, there was clearly a riddle meeting there last night, but these riddles were not profound enough. Look at the meaning of the words, they are too shallow and too explicit. It is meaningless to express the rebellious intention so directly."
"What Mr. Wen said is true. It is indeed too simplistic. His evil intentions are obvious."
"Auspicious signs descended upon the world to enthronize Mount Tai, and Empress Ehuang took the imperial carriage to the throne. Who would benefit from the imperial robes?" He shook his head as he recited, indicating that it was boring. "One day in Changge, there was a female hero... Well, this is the only sentence that has some meaning."
"I haven't figured this out yet." Bao Zheng said.
"Since you chose to start the challenge at the Riddle Society gathering, each sentence is a riddle. The first ones can be seen at a glance who they are referring to, but this one alone has a deeper meaning."
"Has Bao Xiren figured it out?"
"A long song? It's one tune, and plus one day, it's Cao. Could it be that he's trying to implicate the current queen?" Lao Bao could guess Cao, so he naturally guessed that the target was the queen, but he was still a little afraid and didn't want to say it out loud.
"With the last sentence, it jumps off the page, it is exactly about the empress. This nursery rhyme is more malicious than the previous prophetic poems. You see, since the founding of our Song Dynasty, Taizu and Taizong, the previous emperor Zhenzong and Empress Zhangxian were all not spared. These are naturally to confuse people's minds and shake the foundation of the country. The real key lies in this dynasty. Please see, there are three sentences that slander the emperor, and two of them are about the empress abusing her power. I guess why the emperor went to the temple so early in the morning."
"Why?"
"Because these lies mentioned everyone since Taizu, but not the great-great-ancestor before Taizu."
"Mr. Wen, I remember the seventh sentence of the prophecy: There will be trouble and fighting over wine and food. At that time, I thought it was a hint of chaos in the palace." said Lao Bao.
"However, there is something strange."
"I've noticed that, but nothing strange has happened in the palace. The seventh line has not been answered, so the only way to respond to the old nursery rhyme is to use a new nursery rhyme. Is this a prophecy to answer a prophecy? Is this a plan to deceive the public and confuse the public?"
"That's right. Bao Xiren is really sharp. After your reminder, it is indeed possible to deceive the public and confuse the public. It can be seen that although the enemy is in the dark, there must be changes within the group. So we cannot respond to this seventh sentence for the time being and can only act perfunctorily? I also think that the style of this new nursery rhyme has changed a lot. It is not as rigorous as before, and it seems hasty. The text is not as weird and full of evil as the previous ten prophecies. Maybe someone else wrote it?" Wen Yanbo said.
"In my opinion, it seems to be more than that. I always feel that there are some disagreements and disputes among them. However, this is just my opinion and I have no evidence, right?"
"However, even though some changes in writing style show that they are in a panic, they did not make any mistakes in a hurry. And the counterattack was so swift? After all, we just raided their nest."
"It seems that we raided their nest and disrupted the seventh sentence of the prophecy: disasters will arise and conflicts will arise, which forced them to make temporary changes. However, their response was so terrible that they actually got the upper hand. How hateful."
" So, they must have another hiding place besides the lair in the north of the city? Otherwise, it's hard to explain."
The two sighed but stopped talking. They also noticed that their opponent had revealed a little passivity and embarrassment, as if he had secretly skipped the seventh line of the prophecy. But they could not confirm this conjecture. As for whether there was a second nest, it was obvious that there was, but there was no clue.
After a moment, Xu Chong felt that he had to break the deadlock himself.
"My lords, there is another part that is not in words, but was recited by the puppet spirit later. I memorized it and recorded it silently in my mind at the time." Xu Chong unfolded another note.
Everyone gathered around to take a closer look. The paper was still filled with hurtful words, and no one dared to read it. Only Wen Yanbo, relying on his seniority, read aloud:
"If there is a tree in the house, but the ruler has no virtue, drink a little wine and cook the running dog. Cook the running dog, yellow, green, and blue, wear a yellow robe inside out and cover the ghost face. Cover the ghost face, order the generals, and let the treacherous villains be the vanguard. Be the vanguard, there is a demon flag, and the flag turns over the Five Thunder Curse, the Five Thunder Curse, make a feud with the sky, and the Tiangang has thirty-six..."
