Chapter 92: Gathering Immortals Garden

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe carried Seeing Lan Shiwen on his back and rushed through the dark green old forest in the depths of Chuyun Mountain. The caltrops as hard as steel needles and the cogon grass as sharp as knife blades could not help his thick and tough fur.

However, the brown bear's eyesight is not good, and its field of vision is far inferior to that of raptors such as golden eagles and owls. Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe ran wildly up the mountain like a fierce tiger along the bluestone path pointed out by Seeing Lan Shiwen. Gradually, the dense vegetation around became sparse, and the dense canopy above his head began to have gaps. The pale sunlight spilled down powerlessly through the gaps in the branches.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe rushed out of the deep forest, and his thick bear paws stepped on a winding bluestone path leading upward.

"That's enough." Lan Shiwen jumped off Ning Zhe: "This is the road for tourists to go up the mountain. We just took a shortcut, walk a little further up, and we'll be at Gathering Immortals Garden."

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe turned back into a human body, looked up at Chuyun Mountain above his head. Only to see an ancient mansion hidden between the dense forest canopy, shallowly revealing a corner of the high wall and the glazed tile roof, half-hidden.

Walk two more steps forward, and you can see a small shrine standing by the road. In front of the shrine is a small two-eared three-legged bronze tripod, with three sticks of bright yellow incense burning inside.

A very familiar shrine.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe walked up to it, only to see a clay painted statue enshrined in the shrine, but it was not the God of Wealth child statue he had seen before, but a combined statue. Counting from left to right, a total of three gods stood together.

On the left is a young man in brocade clothes, bright and beautiful, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, high-spirited, holding a small peach charm in his palm.

In the middle is a childish child with round cheeks and an auspicious face, looking only five or six years old, holding a small cloth bag in his arms.

On the right is a hunched old man with white hair and beard, bulging forehead, thick earlobes, and a kind face, with a golden longevity lock hanging on his chest.

"This is the Three Immortals of Yunling." Seeing Lan Shiwen said at the right time: "In the mainstream mythological system of the Yangtze and Yellow River basins, the Lu Star Wenchang Lord refers to the Wenqu Star, who is in charge of the gold list of scholars who study hard and become officials. But in the primitive belief of Yunzhou, the Lu Star generally refers to the God of Wealth, which is more inclined to wealth than talent."

The vast land of Kyushu has a long history, and each region has a mythological system that is perhaps similar but different, among which the Central Plains and Chu regions are the most representative.

Yunzhou's belief in honoring the Lu Star as the God of Wealth, to be honest, is not mainstream. Wenqu Star and Wenchang Lord are more common names. In the temples of the Central Plains, the image of Lu Star Wenchang Lord is generally a champion image wearing a red robe and a big red flower on his chest.

Not the child appearance like this.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe stayed in front of the Three Immortals shrine for a few minutes, didn't find any other clues worth noting, and then climbed up the mountain along the winding bluestone path with Seeing Lan Shiwen.

Everyone calls the road to Shu difficult, but the mountain road on Chuyun Mountain is not easy to walk either. It took them nearly 20 minutes to finish this last section of the road.

The long mountain road is like a winding snake, with its tail outside and its body long and deeply pierced into the dense forest.

Walking to the end of the bluestone path, the gate of an ancient and heavy mansion appeared in front of him. The blue bricks were tightly fitted, building a stone wall neatly. In the center, a large red door panel was as red as blood, with golden metal edges on the corners, without the slightest dimness of the passage of time.

A door that can be called magnificent, but without the slightest nobility, the blood-like red paint is full of weirdness.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe looked up and saw that there was a couplet on both sides of this magnificent gate, but what was abnormal was that the paper used to post the couplet was not the red paper common in ordinary people's homes, but white paper as pale as snow.

White couplets were posted on the wall, with red characters written on them, exactly the same as the couplet in front of the stilt house at Chuyun Shanzhuang:

【The door welcomes the blessings of spring, summer, autumn, and winter】

【The household receives the wealth of the east, south, west, and north】

【Boundless longevity】

A couplet with quite good meaning, but it is very abnormal to post it with white paper and red characters. Was this place really a Daoist temple before?

A heavy lock hung on the vermilion gate. Seeing Lan Shiwen walked up, inserted the rusty iron key he snatched from Ji Yunying into the keyhole. With a click, the lock opened.

"Let's go." Seeing Lan Shiwen didn't pull out the key, pushed the door directly, and walked into this gloomy mansion sleeping in the deep mountains.

Walking through the gate, the first thing that catches the eye is a bluestone path similar to the mountain road just walked, winding like a spirit snake climbing on the ground. Flowers are planted on both sides of the path: peonies, roses... The sun in the sky is gloomy, and the courtyard is filled with a heavy dead air. Flowers of various colors bloom one after another on both sides of the road, competing for beauty in this dark courtyard.

In the flower garden, a pair of small stone toads squat on both sides of the road every short distance, each holding a rusty copper coin in its mouth, opening its eyes wide and looking at the copper coin in its mouth.

"Life-buying money?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's brows furrowed slightly: "No, it's not."

The copper coins held in the toads' mouths are square on the outside and round on the inside, just ordinary copper coins, not the God of Wealth Wealth Wu Tong's life-buying money.

Passing through the competing flowers, the end of the path is another wall, with transparent windows dug out of the wall, and an arched door as full as a full moon.

Passing through the arched door, you can see another door in the deep courtyard. This quadrangle has at least three doors.

A three-entry mansion, in any dynasty, is a wealthy family. It seems that the financial resources of the official surnamed Yin who converted the Daoist temple into a summer resort cannot be underestimated.

Passing through the arched door, the first thing that catches the eye in the wide courtyard is two rockeries, one black and one white. The black one is basalt, and the white one is white marble. Spring water constantly flows down from the top of the mountain. There are green plants on both sides of the rockery, growing lushly in this dark courtyard, green and dripping.

There are four spacious wing rooms, embracing this rockery in the center. The doors of the wing rooms are all closed, but not locked.

=9+Shu_ba

Wooden doors, paper windows, copper locks, no lights in the room, a peaceful darkness and silence.

"Be careful, this is not a scenic spot where tourists come to sightsee and take pictures on weekdays." Lan Shiwen reminded: "We came in with a key. The moment we walked into the gate, you and I stepped into another world. This ghost house is called Gathering Immortals Garden. What kind of immortals are gathered, you know in your heart."

"Understood." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe nodded slightly: "We are here to find Ji Bochang's legacy. Where do you think he hid the money? Where should we start looking?"

"... Keep walking forward." Seeing Lan Shiwen said.

Passing through the third door, the two left the courtyard where the rockery was located and came to the middle courtyard of Gathering Immortals Garden.

The size of the middle courtyard is much smaller than the two outer courtyards. In the center of the middle courtyard is a small piece of green bamboo forest, surrounding a small pond.

Looking across the pond, you can see the door of the main hall.

"Strange..." Recalling the layout of this Gathering Immortals Garden, a sense of inexplicable weirdness welled up in Ning Zhe's heart.

The architectural layout of Gathering Immortals Garden is a very classic quadrangle courtyard, but it is different from the quadrangle courtyards common in Yongzhou.

"Traditional quadrangle courtyard, four residences embracing the courtyard. Walking through the first door, you should be able to see the main hall, the second entry is the wing room, and the middle courtyard with landscape should be after the third entry."

Ning Zhe's mind flashed some ancient house styles he had understood before, from various dynasties, but none of the layouts matched this Gathering Immortals Garden.

"The layout of this Gathering Immortals Garden is completely opposite to the common quadrangle courtyard. Decorations such as flowers, trees, stone carvings, and bonsai are placed on the outermost periphery, the wing rooms are in the second entry, and the main hall that should be placed at the entrance is wrapped in the deepest and most central part.

It's like turning a piece of clothing inside out, hiding the brilliance inside, and exposing the stitched lines outside. It doesn't look like a place for people to live at all.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 93 =====