CH 110.1

After talking to Feng Gu, Bai Lixin did not rush to find the little Taoist priest, but first returned to the Taoist temple.

In just two days, the weeds in the Taoist temple had grown even lusher.

The ruins were deserted and dilapidated.

It was probably because there were so many things, many of which the little Taoist priest considered useless, so he didn’t take them away. They were now piled up haphazardly in various corners.

There was also a group of soldiers who followed Bai Lixin up the mountain.

Dijia looked at the busy soldiers and then looked at Bai Lixin and asked, “What are you looking for?”

Bai Lixin: “I don’t know, but there must be something.”

Dijia: “After searching for a while, the clues still led to Qinglian Temple .”

He then walked over to the wall of bells and talismans and tapped on the wall with his hand to see if there was a compartment.

Bai Lixin searched the bookshelf before him and laughed. “Don’t we look a lot like those four soldiers who were controlled like puppets?”

“Wherever the clues go, we find them and see where they lead. Every time we run out of clues, the next one happens to come along.”

“It was as if someone had left them for us on purpose.”

Dijia’s eyes darkened. He curled his fingers and knocked against the wall lightly.

At the same time, the two said in unison, “Come and look at this.”

Both were stunned at the same time.

Dijia walked to Bai Lixin, “What have you found?”

Bai Lixin pulled out a small, crumpled pamphlet that was written in big, ancient characters: “The Art of Ghost Control”.

The pamphlet described how to make powerful ghosts and how to make them do one’s bidding.

The method was the same as the one used on Lord Li’s coffin.

Bai Lixin looked at Dijia and said, “What did you find?”

Dijia: “I found a compartment with a painting and a diary inside.”

Bai Lixin opened the painting first.

Inside was an exquisite and gorgeous mansion surrounded by mountains and beside a river.

The painting was extremely beautiful and delicate, and it even had a bit of a ukiyo-e painting style.

The gate was at the bottom of the painting, and it spread out a little bit so that it was mostly made up of the mansion.

At the gate of the mansion were two large characters written: “Liu Mansion.”

In the mansion, the servants and maids looked busy, and all were dressed in clothes from the time of the ancient Qing Dynasty.

There were rooms where patients were getting treatment and others where people were reading and studying.

Bai Lixin looked towards the centre of the painting. The highlight in the centre of this painting was a study.

The young man in the study had a book in his hand, his eyes reading it intently. Not far away was a gentle maiden with a dessert in her hand, her eyes looking at the man with affection.

On the wall was a picture of a woman. The graceful woman was in the process of reading a book seriously.

In a pavilion in the far corner, there was a man and a woman. There was another pair with suspicious looks kneeling in a mud pit. Their faces had pained expressions as if they were being punished.

In the right corner of the painting was a small line of characters.

–*The sea was once water, except Wushan is not a cloud.

–**Take a lazy review of the flowers, half is for the cultivator, and half is for the king.

It was inscribed with the words ‘Taoist Qing’.

When he saw this painting, Dijia gave a cold snort.

“If I didn’t know the background of this painting, I would have thought that it was a good backstory.”

He pointed to the book the man was holding. “It would be interesting if this was the scholar Xian Gu and Feng Gu talked about.”

“Yes,” Bai Lixin said, spreading the painting out on the desk. “It is clear that the scholar was used as the central point of the whole painting. He’s positioned in the centre, all eyes are on him, and he gives off an air of self-importance as he reads, very much like the master of the mansion. ”

“These two people,” Bai Lixin stretched out his finger and pointed at the man and woman in the corner, “should be Liu Changfeng and his wife.”

“They are supposed to be the masters of the Liu family, but are sitting in a more remote corner.”

“And the only discordant people in this painting,” Bai Lixin’s fingertips landed on the pair kneeling in the mud pit, “from their appearance and attire, they should be Li Mingyuan and his wife.”

“From the way this was painted, it would make one suspect that the painter was this man,” the fingertip fell on the man in the centre of the painting, “the one who has always existed only in the stories.”

“It seems that the owner of the painting really misses the days at the Liu Mansion and narcissistically portrays himself as pure.”

Dijia: “It’s a bit *like a turtledove occupying the magpie’s nest.”

*Metaphor for when someone occupies someone else’s residence or place.

After looking at the painting, Bai Lixin opened the diary Dijia had found in the compartment.

To say it was a diary would be inappropriate, it was more like an autobiography.

The main character, named Zhou Yuan, tells of how he was poor and diligent in his studies as a young man, and how he excelled in the county exams.

He seemed to be the perfect man, carrying the hopes of his family and ambitions to the capital for the national exams.

On his way, he got a cold and had to temporarily stay with a large family.

He discovered that the family had only one daughter, and the head of the family, Liu Changfeng, begged him to stay and inherit his mantle. He spoke of how Miss Liu could not leave him without him and how he had to return the favor, even though he had ambitions in his heart.

His heart was tangled and he finally decided to repay the favour by staying.

A large section of the diary was devoted to how the family liked him and how big, homely, grand and luxurious the mansion was.

But the good times didn’t last long, and two villains burned the house down.

He had eaten less that night and managed to regain his senses. He escaped in the night, but his face was burned. The flames landed just between his eyebrows and later left a conspicuous red scar that looked like a vermilion mole from a distance.

During his escape, he was saved by people from the Taoist temple. Because his face was burnt at that time, a kind-hearted wandering doctor helped to repair it and give him a new face.

By the time he woke up, the time for the examination had already passed. He didn’t dare to face his father, so he became a Taoist priest in the Taoist temple. His eyes began to change slowly as if he was a new man. After experiencing great setbacks and experiencing the ruthless road, he decided to concentrate on understanding Taoism.

That was the end of the story.

The handwriting in the autobiography was the same as that in the right corner of the painting.

Taoist Qing was the scholar in the play, the one that disappeared after the great fire.

The eyes became kind, and there was a vermilion mole between his eyebrows. His face changed, and his chin grew a beard.

It is no wonder Feng Gu and Lord Li didn’t recognize Taoist Qing as the scholar.

Dijia stared at the handwriting and said in a deep voice: “Do you remember how Bai Ban said that someone gave him the script?”

Bai Lixin: “I remember, why?”

Dijia: “I sent someone to get the script from Bai Ban. The handwriting was the same as the one in this autobiography.”

“It must be Taoist Qing who gave Bai Ban that book.”

“Tch!” Dijia sneered, “Did this man have some misconceptions about himself? He was quite narcissistic.”

Bai Lixin did not say anything, but his eyes fell on a very small corner, his eyes a little out of focus.

———-

In the live broadcast room.

[Even the big boss said that he was narcissistic, then he was really narcissistic.]

[Have you looked at that painting properly? It seemed to have a special effect. The moment I looked at it, my eyes were immediately drawn to the scholar. God Xin is right, if I didn’t know what was going on, I would have thought he was the master of the mansion.]

[In addition, he glorified himself as a humble savior in his autobiography. It’s simply outrageous.]

[No, wait. If Taoist Qing is the scholar, then he later came to Fengcheng. Think carefully, brothers and sisters. He gave Bai Ban a rejuvenating elixir to restore his youth and gave him the script. He was also there when Bai Ban went to perform at the Li residence. That can’t be a coincidence, right?]