$528, Kitchen God Temple (1/2)
The morning sun rises from the hills.
Green trees surround a large green brick village.
At the main entrance of the classical manor, there is a plaque hanging on the door with the words "Zaojunzhuang" written on it.
Tourists come and go at the gate of the manor.
Among them, many local villagers in simple clothes can be seen, carrying vegetables and grains on their backs, and even carrying a few chickens and ducks to the Zaojun Village.
"What are they doing carrying grain and vegetables to tourist attractions?"
Yun Nishang followed Su Wu and asked curiously.
Su Wu didn't know the answer either.
He stopped in front of the stone tablet on the side of Zhuangzi's entrance.
The stone tablet records the date when the Zaojun Village was first built, the date of its expansion, and the date it was later damaged by war and rebuilt by later people. In the Zaojun Village, the main body of the Zaojun Temple and the temple in front of the temple are A stone tablet has been preserved from beginning to end.
After seeing the record that "the stone tablet in front of Zaojun Temple still exists to this day", Su Wu breathed a sigh of relief.
A local villager passed by the two of them and happened to hear Yun Nishang's words. He smiled and replied, "We carry some vegetables and grains to the village every month.
This is not only a tourist attraction, but also an activity center and canteen for the elderly.
If you pay some grain and vegetables here every month, you can eat here for a month. Young people sometimes don't want to cook, so they can have a few meals here. It tastes good. You can buy tickets to go to the canteen later. Try it! "
"Thank you." Yun Nishang thanked the villagers who took the initiative to explain.
A smile appeared on Su Wu's face.
He looked at the Zhuangzi in front of him, which was surrounded by green bricks.
It feels quite strange now.
——After all, many years have passed, and most of the traces and traces left by me and my junior brothers and sisters when I lived here have been erased by time. What we see now were built by later generations.
But the main body of Zaojun Village, the Zaojun Temple, is still there.
Is it still the way you remember it?
In the Zao Lord Temple,
Is Master still here?
Su Wu traveled all the way from Longhu Mountain to Linyang without stopping.
When we arrived in Linyang, it was already midnight.
At that time, he asked Yun Nichang to communicate with the management staff of Zaojun Village. After learning that the village was closed at night, he came here before rushing to open Zaojun Village today, just to get acquainted with the Zaojun Village as soon as possible. See'.
However,
Now we are approaching Zaojun Village,
You can cross the threshold in just a few steps,
Su Wu hesitated for a moment.
There is actually a bit of "timidity in close proximity to hometown".
"Let's go, why aren't you leaving?" Yun Nishang couldn't help but feel strange when she saw Su Wu carefully looking at all the details of the Zaojunzhuang gate, standing in front of the door, but hesitating for a long time and never taking a step forward. One sentence.
Seeing how he was often dazed and unable to move forward, the people around him also cast curious glances.
Several young girls passed by Su Wu, and they didn't know what they said to each other. The girls started laughing and making noise, and some took the opportunity to turn around and look at Su Wu on the other side of the door.
Su Wu turned back and glanced at Yun Nishang.
After calming down the emotions in his heart, he calmed down the expression on his face, raised his legs and stepped across the threshold.
Entering the manor,
There are traces of commercial tourist attractions everywhere.
The outline of the original Zaozhuang is no longer visible.
As the crowd slowly moved forward, Su Wu saw many places.
After crossing the steps,
He finally saw the 'Zao Wang Temple' built on the top of the hill.
That temple was quite different from the image of the Kitchen God Temple in his memory, but overall it had not changed much. Compared to the temple in Su Wu's memory, the current Kitchen God Temple looked much better. Much 'older'.
Touching the scene and feeling emotional,
for a time,
All kinds of scenes from the past flashed back in Su Wu's mind.
There was a gentle breeze blowing across the hills, and the flower trees planted in the square in front of the temple shook off their snow-colored petals.
Vaguely, Su Wu seemed to hear someone whispering a poem, walking past him: "In the past, the snow was like flowers, now the flowers are like snow."
He turned his head to look for the figure of the poet,
But I saw many tourists passing by me with curious eyes.
There are no poets.
In front of the ‘Zao Lord Temple’,
Some police officers patrolled back and forth with guns in hand.
They were obviously temporarily dispatched here. Tourists who wanted to enter the Zao God Temple would be persuaded to leave by them.
Except for the main building of Zaojun Temple, other areas of Zaojun Village are not affected and can be visited normally.
Those police officers were obviously mobilized by Su Wu through the platform.
He looked at the Zaojun Temple on the stone steps at the end of the square, and walked towards the police officers. As he approached, Yun Nishang showed his ID to those people before him.
The police officers immediately made way for Su Wu.
Watch him walk up the steps,
Enter the Zao Lord Temple.
The statue of 'Master' is on the altar, smiling, indescribably open-minded and hearty.
Su Wu looked at the statue of 'Master' in the spacious temple, with many unspeakable emotions overflowing in his chest. He opened his mouth without making a sound, and formed the 'Heart Lamp Seal' with his hands towards the 'Zao Lord'. ’
"The fire will last forever." Su Wu finally muttered in a low voice.
The manager of Zaojun Village was holding a wooden box and standing on the side of the door. When he saw Su Wu walking in, he wanted to hand the wooden box to Su Wu.
Yun Nishang stopped him at this time,
and motioned him to wait for a while.
The manager of Zaojun Manor didn't understand why, but he stayed there and waited.
He saw Su Wu make a complicated hand seal with his hands,
and after chanting in a low voice,
the clay statue-the Zaojun statue suddenly rose up with blazing white light and fire behind it!
When the manager of Zaojun Manor was stunned, those lights and fires suddenly burst out, passed over the head of the 'Zaojun', and submerged Su Wu who had made the 'Heart Lamp Seal'!
The moment the blazing lights and fires surrounded Su Wu,
Su Wu immediately understood that these lights and fires were all the 'firewood' collected by the 'Zaojun' for hundreds of years!
For hundreds of years,
the 'Master's' instinct has been silently collecting the firewood accumulated by all living beings, and has kept all of these firewoods, just to pass them on to Su Wu today!
In the brilliant lights and fires,
Su Wu stared at the Master's face with a hearty laugh.
A group of emotions blocked his throat.
He didn't know how to speak!
In fact, the master was a rather partial cook, but Su Wu could not blame the master for his partiality.
Because the one the master was partial to was Su Wu.
He had given Su Wu the copper seal of the kitchen team and the qualification of cook early on, and strictly ordered other disciples not to snatch it. He often taught Su Wu alone many things that other disciples could not learn...
Wisps of firewood flowed into Su Wu's eyes, ears, mouth and nose, and strands of flames as thick as hair floated out of his pores.
Many flames gathered behind Su Wu,
vaguely forming a human figure.
The brilliant flames finally returned to Su Wu's body. Now, in the Kitchen God Temple, except for the residual heat left by the burning flames, there was no trace of firewood.
The person in charge of the Kitchen God Village saw the blazing light and fire pouring out of the Kitchen God statue engulfing Su Wu,
and thought that the young man would be burned to ashes by the fire!
But he did not expect that the other party's body actually absorbed those lights and fires!
Absorb all the flames, leaving no trace!
What's going on?
Is it an illusion? Or is there something wrong with this young man?
The person in charge of Zaojun Manor had countless questions in his mind. After getting Yun Nishang's approval, he walked up to Su Wu with the wooden box in his hand and handed it to Su Wu. His face was full of inquiring desire, but he could only hold back and talked about other things: "This wooden box contains some records after the establishment of Zaojun Temple.
Because there are many simplified Chinese characters in that booklet, experts believe that the booklet in the wooden box may have been forged by later people.
However, since we took over the ownerless Zaojun Manor, we found this booklet on the top of the beam.
Alas...
It's hard to tell whether it is true or false for a while,
but since you want to see it, I'll show it to you."
"Thank you."
Su Wu took the wooden box.
After the person in charge of Zaojunzhuang handed over the wooden box, he did not leave directly. He looked at Su Wu from head to toe and could not help asking, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Yes." Su Wu nodded and said, "Anyway, after you walk out of the temple, you will forget everything you saw in the temple just now."
Why did he forget everything he saw in the temple?
A thought flashed through the mind of the person in charge of Zaojunzhuang.
He did not completely believe the second half of Su Wu's words, and turned to Su Wu and asked, "I just want to ask you, the Zaojun statue just caught fire, did you see it?
Those flames, I saw them all burn on you,
What, what's going on, is there something wrong with my brain?"
"Your brain is not wrong.
Those flames do exist.
I finally gathered them all." Su Wu answered the question of the person in charge of Zaojunzhuang seriously, and when the other party was still at a loss, he continued, "Okay, you can go out first."
"Okay, okay."
The person in charge of Zaojunzhuang agreed subconsciously,
and walked out of the temple at the same time.
The moment he walked out of the temple gate, he had new questions and wanted to ask Su Wu to answer them.
However,
when he stepped over the threshold,
all the questions, even the root of the questions, were gently wiped out from his mind.
He looked back at Su Wu who opened the wooden box in the temple, scratched his head, turned around and walked down the steps in front of the temple.
Su Wu opened the wooden box and
saw the book with many stains, which seemed to have been burned by fire.
He opened the first page of the book and
saw a line of crooked handwriting.
Among the traditional Chinese characters, there were also some simplified Chinese characters that only exist in modern times.
"The twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month.
The nineteenth day after my senior brother left.
Sister Qingmiao's health has finally improved. On the day my senior brother left, she suddenly fell ill after receiving the news...
These days, I have been taking care of Sister Qingmiao and many things in the construction of the village. It seems that I have never had time to think about my senior brother.
But now I suddenly think of it,
Why do I still feel very uncomfortable?"
"The twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month.
It's almost the New Year, and the village has distributed some dried meat to each villager who helped. At noon today, the kitchen team gathered together to have a good meal.
Everyone ate quickly, and no one spoke.
Xiuxiu suddenly burst into tears while holding the bowl.
Everyone cried.
Brother,
Why are you like this?
Where are you going? Why can't you tell us in advance?
Brother, Senior Sister Qingmiao misses you very much, Junior Brother misses you very much, and Xiuxiu misses you very much. ”
“The 30th day of the twelfth lunar month…”
“The first day of the first lunar month…”
“The sixth day of the first lunar month.
The old Taoist priest saw that Brother would never come back, and he was very angry. Today he asked us for a cured chicken as food and left on his own. I am really sorry for the old Taoist priest. He helped us a lot, and Brother promised to help him, but Brother broke his promise in the end.
Calculating the time, it seems that it was only a month from the time we met Brother to the time we separated.
Only a month…
It seems like a lifetime.
If only I could live in that month forever. ”