Chapter 2545

Hearing Ye Chen say the three words "Rejuvenation Pill," the old lady asked with a horrified face: "Benefactor... you... you also know about Rejuvenation Pill?!"

Ye Chen nodded and said frankly: "I know."

There was one thing Ye Chen didn't say.

That was, in fact, when he came, he had specially prepared a Rejuvenation Pill for Grandma Jiang.

Grandma Jiang couldn't help but praise: "You are indeed the same as Ancestor Meng, both are people with great magical powers!"

Ye Chen just smiled slightly on the surface, but was even more shocked in his heart.

Up to now, although he had benefited a lot from the "Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra," he didn't know who wrote the "Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra."

Now, when he learned that Meng Changsheng had already refined the Rejuvenation Pill more than a thousand years ago and gave two Rejuvenation Pills to the Jiang family ancestors, he couldn't help but ask himself in his heart: "Could it be that the 'Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra' I obtained was written by Meng Changsheng? The antique that my father-in-law knocked over at Jiqingtang in the Song family that day was indeed a Tang Dynasty jade spring bottle, and Meng Changsheng was also a person of the Linde period of the Tang Dynasty. In this way, the general dynasty is consistent. Combined with the information about the Rejuvenation Pill I learned from Grandma Jiang, this inference seems to be quite possible..."

It's just that Ye Chen also knew very well in his heart that it was impossible to conclude that the "Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra" was written by Meng Changsheng based on these two points alone.

If he really wanted to verify this matter, he had to find more clues at least.

So, he temporarily suppressed this question in his heart and asked Grandma Jiang: "Grandma Jiang, may I ask how long your ancestor lived before he passed away?"

The old lady said: "My ancestor passed away in 863 AD, the fourth year of Xiantong, and lived to be 113 years old. Because Ancestor Meng's wife and children were buried on the hillside behind the mountain, my ancestor was buried at the foot of the mountain behind the mountain after he died, and the descendants of the Jiang family were also buried at the foot of the mountain."

Ye Chen couldn't help but sigh: "The old ancestor lived to be 113 years old, minus the forty years of life from the two Rejuvenation Pills, he lived to be 73 years old on his own, which was very rare in that era."

According to some unreliable scholars' statistics, the average life expectancy in the Tang Dynasty was forty-plus or even fifty-plus years.

However, their statistics and textual research are very one-sided, only counting the age of those who can be found in epitaphs and recorded in historical books when they died, and then calculating a so-called average age.

But they ignored a big problem. Those who can leave their names in historical books and have a tombstone and an epitaph written are themselves the elite class of that era.

Moreover, many children who died young, young people who had not yet married, left no tombstones after death, let alone the ordinary people who were rolled up in straw mats and buried hastily after death.

Therefore, the average life expectancy of the elite class calculated from the elite class has no real meaning.

Verifiable history shows that the average life expectancy of the emperors of the Tang Dynasty was only about 44 years old. This was the most elite class of the Tang Dynasty, gathering the best living and production materials in the country, but even so, the average life expectancy was only forty-four years old.

Many objective scholars believe that if the higher infant mortality rate and the average life expectancy of ordinary people are counted, the true average life expectancy of the Tang Dynasty should be around thirty years old.

Calculated this way, the ancestor of the old lady's family lived to be 73 years old on his own body, which is longer than any Tang Dynasty emperor, which is already very remarkable.

At this time, Grandma Jiang also nodded and sighed: "It is recorded in the genealogy that when my ancestor was 113 years old, his ears were not deaf, his eyes were not blurred, and his body was still strong. Everyone thought he could live to 120 years old, but at the age of 113, one day after dinner, he was sitting in front of the charcoal fire for a nap, and suddenly said excitedly that Ancestor Meng had sent a white crane to pick him up. After saying that, he passed away with a smile on his face."

Ye Chen said: "It seems that your ancestor really had a deep relationship with that Ancestor Meng."

"Yes." The old lady said: "The ancestor left ancestral teachings before he died, that the Jiang family descendants must not leave here for generations, and must guard the tombs of Ancestor Meng's wife and children, because Ancestor Meng told my ancestor when they parted that when he found the way to longevity, he would definitely come back to find my ancestor and give him a chance..."

Ye Chen said in a low voice: "This Ancestor Meng has never appeared since then?"

"No." The old lady shook her head and said: "The Jiang family has not left here for more than a thousand years, nor have they seen the person in the painting appear here. Perhaps Ancestor Meng didn't find the way to longevity and passed away at the threshold of two hundred years old, who knows..."

Ye Chen nodded and said: "It is not impossible. Although the Rejuvenation Pill is a panacea, it cannot be superimposed indefinitely on anyone. Relying only on the Rejuvenation Pill, one cannot live to two hundred years old. Even if one has spiritual energy, it is not immortality. To live forever, one must have other opportunities."

Even in the "Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra," there is no record of any method to make people live forever. The "Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra" is more like a textbook on how to use spiritual energy, but there is no record of how to make spiritual energy more powerful, powerful to the point of being invincible and immortal.

Moreover, there is no pill in the "Nine Mysteries Heavenly Sutra" that can make people live for two hundred years or more, or even three or five hundred years, or even thousands of years.

Therefore, theoretically, that Ancestor Meng could not have been alive for more than a thousand years. His life probably stopped on a certain deadline.

This kind of person lives only for practice. Maybe when he died, there was no one to accompany him. He passed away in a cave in some deep mountain and old forest, and finally could not escape those six words: dust to dust, earth to earth.

Thinking of this, Ye Chen asked the old lady again: "Grandma Jiang, your clansmen have never left here for so many years?"

The old lady thought for a while and said: "My ancestor's ancestral teachings are not to let us stay here, but he hoped that we could guard here, but also hoped that we could know the affairs of the world, so the Jiang family has always attached great importance to reading. When I was young, my father taught me to recognize characters and read books, and later sent me down the mountain to attend middle school. For so many years, some descendants couldn't hold back and ran out, but most of them have always lived here..."

Ye Chen asked her: "Living here must be very hard, right?"

The old lady smiled and said: "In this deep mountain, except for the difficulty of illness, food and drink are not a problem. Our clansmen farm in spring and summer, and hunt in autumn and winter. We have always lived very well, and here is far from the flames of war. For more than a thousand years, no matter who it was, no one has fought here, so we can ensure that the family inheritance has never been broken."

Ye Chen asked again: "Are the others in the village your clansmen?"

The old lady said: "There are very few people with the surname Jiang here now."

As she spoke, she sighed: "The Jiang family has not been prosperous for more than a thousand years, especially the male descendants are very few. In the early years, many of our female descendants had to marry. In order not to leave here as much as possible, they had to find ways to recruit sons-in-law. There are more and more people with different surnames, and they are all strong laborers. Gradually, the male is prosperous and the female is declining, and the Jiang family's right to speak has slowly become smaller and smaller;"

"Many men with different surnames, when they were recruited as sons-in-law, agreed that the children born would follow the female surname Jiang, but when the children were born, they went back on their word. Either they must follow the male surname, or they would take the children away. There is no way, the Jiang family are all women, and the arms cannot twist the thighs, so gradually they let them go;"

"One man with a different surname comes, and several children with different surnames are born. The children with different surnames marry or marry other people with different surnames. Over time, there are fewer and fewer people with the surname Jiang. Although the people in this village are all related to the older generation, there are almost no people with the surname Jiang left, leaving only our mother and son."

Ye Chen nodded and asked again: "Do people with different surnames know about these things about Ancestor Meng?"