The author of the book "The Book of the Dead"

Chapter 25: The Taoist Priest Liu An, the Last Voice in Five Hundred Years (Seeking Follow-up Reading)

The village is remote and quiet, with smoke rising from the chimneys and sunlight shining on the roofs, creating undulating golden light.

Early in the morning, the villagers cooked, and some went to the market with large and small bags.

"Brother, wait a moment!" Liang Yue handed over two copper coins. "We are two merchants passing through. What is the name of this village?"

“This is Liujia Village.”

"Liujia Village, are there any ancient sites nearby?"

"I don't know..." The middle-aged man walked away with two copper coins in his pocket.

After that, Liang Yue made some inquiries and finally found out the origin of Liujia Village. The people here were most likely the descendants of Liu An, King of Huainan, or his collateral relatives.

The people of Liujia Village do not engage in farming, but make a living by collecting Ganoderma lucidum and making tofu.

Liang Yue found an old man wearing a bamboo hat and carrying a bundle of ropes. He said, "Wait a minute, old man. Is there a place where Liu An and Emperor Wu of Han worshipped the gods in ancient times?"

The old man took away five copper coins, his eyes lost in thought, and said, "Haha, you came at a good time. Others may not know about it, but I know that place well."

"Please lead the way, old man. I will reward you handsomely." Liang Yue took out a string of copper coins.

The old man pushed the coin back and said, "Little kid, there are wolves and tigers everywhere there, it is very dangerous. I swear I will never set foot there in my life. I am not worthy of this money, you take it back."

Liang Yue added two more hangs.

“Ahem, it’s not impossible. Let me make it clear first. I’ll take you to the edge and leave, and you can go down by yourself.”

"Okay." Liang Yue looked at Shi Quanzi on the carriage and said, "Senior, you have difficulty walking, why don't you stay in the village and rest."

"Alright."

The old man arranged for Shi Quanzi to rest at his home.

The two of them got ready to set off.

Old man Liu narrowed his eyes into slits, shielded his eyes from the sun, and said curiously: "This is strange, why are there crows in the sky?"

"Maybe he just happened to pass by." Liang Yue changed the subject.

The two went to the mountains.

The mountains are dense and one after another.

Old Liu was familiar with the route, picking wild Ganoderma lucidum along the way. Occasionally, when he passed terrain with a large drop in elevation, he would let down the rope and climb.

"You are in good health, young man." Old Man Liu thought Liang Yue couldn't keep up, but he didn't expect that the boy was not out of breath. It seemed that he came prepared. "When I was young, I saw many people come to the mountains to look for treasures, but they all got nothing. No matter what you are looking for, life is the most important thing."

"I understand."

The dew was heavy in the deep mountains, soaking the clothes. The dead leaves were soft and made a crackling sound when stepped on.

The dense shade of the trees blocks the sunlight, and the sight is slightly obstructed.
Suddenly, the view ahead became clear.

It turned out to be a huge tiankeng, with tenacious trees growing on the cliff.

At a glance, it may be hundreds of feet deep and the bottom cannot be seen.

A strong, damp and fishy smell hit me in the face.

The deep pit spewed out cold white fog, and the mountain wind made a whistling sound, as if there was a monster at the bottom of the cave.

"This is it. The older generation said that this was where King Huai made elixirs. There was no such pit many years ago, but it collapsed later." Old man Liu was a little scared.

"Okay, thank you." Liang Yue found a bulge and leaped over, scaring the old man.

After two or three leaps, he disappeared.

Liang Yue performed bird steps, gliding all the way down, with the divine crow leading the way in front.

Looking down from the sky, you can vaguely see broken walls and dilapidated houses; these are the remains of the altar built by Emperor Wu of Han when he defeated Liu An.

When you get down there, you'll see moss, vines, weeds and shrubs covering the hard soil and bluestone. In the unnoticed corners, you can even vaguely see rotten bones.

In an instant, it was as if time had gone back, and the broken walls and ruins were restored into luxurious buildings, returning to five hundred years ago.

"King An of Huainan was fond of learning and had many talents, so he recruited people with skills in alchemy. Thousands of alchemists came from Yan and Qi."

"Men of rivers and seas, men of valleys and mountains, look down on the world and take everything in its place."

There was a great bustle of people, taking medicine and making elixirs.

Liu An's reputation was too great, and he was instigated by villains to rebel, and eventually he committed suicide in Huainan.

Before this place collapsed, many people must have come here, but no pots, pans, or huge wooden beams were seen.

Liang Yue released his divine sense, and the 55-foot divine sense sensed every tiny corner.

Suddenly, he stopped in front of a broken wall. There seemed to be a crack at the bottom and a huge cavity inside.

After moving all the stones away, they indeed saw a crack, the size of a palm, with a secret hidden inside.

He instantly understood what was going on, so he knocked the hole a little bigger, and found that it was hollow at the bottom.

"It turns out that this place was built on a karst cave." It may be due to the long time and the change of the landform that the whole place collapsed.

There may be a deeper hole below.

He opened his palm and dropped a long-burning flame. Then he let the divine crow lead the way.

After confirming that everything is correct, he entered the cave holding the eternal flame.

The cave had not collapsed completely yet. Liang Yue saw a collapsed five-colored earth altar in front of him. There were four big characters written on the stone tablet: Emperor Taiyi.

"Taiyi...Taiyi..." This is the supreme god worshipped in the Han Dynasty. It is said that he is the ancient Chu god most respected by the alchemists of Yan and Qi. He had the highest status in the Han Dynasty, but his status declined after the Han Dynasty.

On the wall beside it was painted a scene of immortals receiving dew and the emperor's chariot going on tour.

There was an inconspicuous stone in the corner. Liang Yue sensed it with his mind and felt that there was something strange, as if there was something hidden inside. So he stepped forward and knocked off the stone, revealing a bronze drum with a diameter of one foot.

The whole body is made of bronze, with carved dragons and phoenixes, and the drum surface is mottled with rust.

There were lines of words engraved on the collapsed stone tablet nearby.

This is Liu An’s own account.

More than 500 years ago, Liu An accidentally discovered this blessed land. It was suspected that the cave was left by ancient immortals, and there were also magical Kuiniu community drums.

There was some spiritual energy remaining in the cave. With the help of the magical spiritual energy, Liu An spent a huge amount of money to learn Taoism. He also used the tiger and leopard thunder sounds of the Kuiniu divine drum and the ancient Yanzhao qigong to research and train the first batch of internal strength masters.

"It turns out that the internal strength was created by Liu An!!" Liang Yue was greatly shocked. This man is truly a genius.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. The spiritual energy in this blessed land was completely cut off and he could no longer cast magic.

The power of the sacred drum gradually declined, and Liu An was powerless to do anything about it.

His ambition to usurp the throne and become emperor was ultimately thwarted.

"The sun is the master of yang, and the moon is the ancestor of yin. When yin and yang are out of balance, the spiritual energy is annihilated, and only the blessed land retains a little bit of it. Now the spiritual energy of the blessed land is completely cut off..."

Back then, he summoned Taoist priests from all over the world and collected all the remaining scriptures in the world. He deduced based on the Yin-Yang, Five Elements and numerology that by his time, the spiritual energy of the ancient blessed land had disappeared.

"Guangchengzi, Chisongzi, Queen Mother of the West... all the gods and men have fallen; since I came, there are no more monks in the world! How sad! All that is left is a room of books and treasures to be passed down to future generations..."

The handwriting was messy at the end of the text, which showed Liu An's grief and anger.

This sentence dispelled Liang Yue's concerns.

Liu An was the most powerful and famous alchemist five hundred years ago, and he was countless levels higher than Ning Yangzi. If he said that there was no spiritual energy, then it must be gone.

Liang Yue looked around. Where did all these books and treasures come from?

Could it be that Emperor Wu of Han’s soldiers took all the things away?
Perhaps the unique copies of magic spells in the collections of aristocratic families of this era, the magic weapons of the Taiping Heavenly Master Sect, and the internal strength of various schools were all passed down by Liu An's group.

"Hey... there are words on the cave wall!"

There were lines of words carved in ancient official script on the wall of the cave. The first line had eight characters: "Seven Methods of Calligraphy of Huainan Taiyi Dao".

Seven ancient Taoist techniques are recorded below: Looking at Qi, Hiding Qi, Crossing the Wall, River Prison, Medical Talisman, Elephant Finger, and Horse Chopsticks.

It seems that these are things that cannot be transported away and remain here.

Liang Yue hurriedly wrote it down.

He then came to the Kuiniu She drum, input true energy, and refined it with his spiritual thoughts.

I don’t know how much time has passed.

Suddenly, Liang Yue opened his eyes, and golden light shone in his pupils.

Wow…

The rust on the bronze drum fell off, an invisible aura spread out, and the divine crows were frightened and ran around in panic.

thump...

The sound of the huge bell is sacred and solemn.

The sound of the drum is like a sigh, just like Liu An’s regret that spans five hundred years; it is also like an exclamation of relief that “I am not alone”.

The world has changed dramatically over the years, but the grand gathering of thousands of alchemists studying Taoism is still vivid in our minds. Across the long river of history, someone finally sounded the drum again.

A sigh once in a thousand years, a silence once in five hundred years.

The drumbeats seemed to alarm the fragile cave structure, causing rubble and dust to fall, with signs of collapse.

Liang Yue stood up and bowed deeply to Liu An's suicide note.

"Thank you!"

Then he jumped out of the cave, and the rocks completely buried the ruins.

This unknown history will eventually be completely hidden.

boom!
Before the collapse, Liang Yue looked back. No matter what, he was carrying on the expectations of his ancestors and hoped that he would live a long and healthy life.

The yellow sand was a hundred feet high and smoke and dust were rising everywhere.

boom!
Liu Gong of Huainan has ambitions higher than the sky.

The Tao is not yet achieved, but my hair has turned gray. My heart is in Tianshan, but my body is lost in the nine continents.

(Ask for monthly ticket)

(End of this chapter)