Chapter 546: Secret Report From Many Years Ago
Even if there seems to be no one else around, you still have to be cautious. He has noticed Bai Ziqi's attention to him, although the reason is not clear.
"!! How can you be sure..." Jing Jing was surprised, but it took him a few breaths to realize, "Oh, when did you do it to him?" It had been staying on He Lingchuan, so why didn't it even notice it?
This owner is getting increasingly unable to keep up.
"last night."
He Lingchuan gave this little hint and didn't elaborate further.
He and Bai Ziqi arrested the fugitive last night, and it was he who captured Cheng Yu with his own hands.
At that time, Cheng Yu was injured by the lantern spirit and fell into coma. He Lingchuan held him in his hands and faced two choices:
Use a mirror to suck away his soul, or use nightmares.
It was easiest to use a soul-capturing mirror, but it would easily be suspected by Bai Ziqi afterwards. After all, the last person who came into contact with Cheng Yu was He Lingchuan.
Sending the nightmare means a long night and many dreams. After all, the nightmare has to sneak into Cheng Yu's dream and devise a trap to kill him. However, the good thing is that Cheng Yu could still wake up after being brought back to Bai Shaqian and say a few words——
Yes, this is He Lingchuan's request for the nightmare.
Nightmare struck after Cheng Yu fell into coma for the second time, so Bai Ziqi would naturally recalculate the time of his attack, and He Lingchuan would be able to clear away the suspicion.
So he decided on the latter plan almost in the blink of an eye, and then touched Cheng Yu's nose with the Juluo branch carrying the nightmare.
Cheng Yu was already unconscious at that time, so it was very convenient for the nightmare to fall asleep.
Now it seems that this risky move was right again.
After Bai Ziqi captured Cheng Yu, he set up ever-burning lights around him, so that any sneaky approach would trigger an alarm.
But the nightmare was lurking in Cheng Yu's dream earlier, so how could it trigger the police?
Bai Ziqi arrived at Baishaqian yesterday and gave He Lingchuan a kick.
But he didn't know that he was also plotted by He Lingchuan.
After He Lingchuan finished playing the song, the tiger Jiao Yu ran over, holding a cloth bag in his mouth. He raised his head and said to him: "The prince has something to give to you."
He Lingchuan perked up and jumped down to take the cloth bag: "Thank you very much."
Jiao Yu said: "The prince said that this is a secret. I will retreat first."
He didn't dare to look either.
He Lingchuan patted the tiger's head, turned back to the house, closed the door, placed another barrier, and then opened the cloth bag.
"Oh, I finally got it!" Mirror whistled. He Lingchuan didn't know how it made the sound.
Inside the cloth bag was a box. When he opened it, there was a pile of letters inside.
This is the last thing Fu Shanyue sent as promised:
A letter recording the black dragon pattern.
He Lingchuan helped him catch Cen Boqing and also gave him Zhongsun Mou's death. He overfulfilled the task entrusted by Fu Shanyue and deserved to receive full reward.
These letters are all in the royal study of King Chiyan. Anyone who wants to enter will have a narrow escape, let alone slowly collect related objects. After Fu Shanyue was promoted to crown prince, he also just gained the right to enter and exit the imperial study.
He Lingchuan looked at the things on hand and smiled bitterly: "Stingy, you won't let me take advantage of it at all."
There are more than a dozen pieces of paper here with different background colors and styles, except for a few pieces of letter paper, some of which are even torn from different books.
Of course He Lingchuan wanted to read the entire book, but Fu Shanyue only tore off the part with the black dragon pattern, probably for the sake of confidentiality.
After all, these are all things taken from the imperial study of the King of Chiyan, so they have their own secrets.
The one placed on top is a piece of silk, which when unfolded is like a scroll, stretching into one long piece. Because it has been specially refined, the silk surface is slightly old, with no damage or powder loss.
It was the first time that He Lingchuan saw so many black dragon patterns gathered together.
He counted at random and found that there were as many as eighteen.
Every pattern is hand-painted, and the painter is very meticulous. Each stroke has charm, and even the eyes of the black dragon are painted lifelike.
Next to each black dragon pattern is the address and period when it was painted.
The earliest one can actually be traced back to the Yangxing tribe in the Shahe River Basin 2,100 years ago.
Where is the Shahe River Basin? He Lingchuan thought for a long time and gave up.
Write down the place name first and look it up later.
He also had no memory of the next few addresses, as they were all from a long time ago.
Then, he saw the black dragon patterns of Yuan Kingdom, two in total.
Afterwards, He Lingchuan was shocked again, because the three words "Panlong City" suddenly came into view!
The last five patterns on this silk scroll all come from Panlong City.
More importantly, the artist also specifically noted that these five patterns were all drawn from the same black dragon emblem in Panlong City, but in different periods.
He Lingchuan did a quick calculation and found that these five patterns were drawn in the third year, the eleventh year, the seventeenth year, the twenty-fourth year of the Panlong calendar, and...the thirty-one year!
Panlong City existed for thirty-two years, so the fragments selected by the artist almost run through the entire Panlong era.
It's like a microcosm of an era.
Why did he do this?
He Lingchuan pulled the silk to the end to read the signature.
The painter's name is Song Wei, and he calls himself Weishan Zhenren.
The first ten patterns on this personal silk scroll were obtained from ancient books or relics. Only the black dragon patterns in Yuan Kingdom and Panlong City were all surveyed and mapped by him when the city was still there and the people lived in peace. There is almost no error.
In other words, he himself went to Yuan Kingdom and Panlong City, and then assembled the patterns on hand to make this silk.
In addition to the black dragon statue by the south gate of Panlong City, He Lingchuan did see black dragon patterns in the streets. The neighbor's kid Xiaopang had painted black dragons on the wall a few times, but his painting skills were not good, and the dragon head was painted as a dog head.
He Lingchuan carefully observed the five patterns of Panlong City. At first glance, they all looked the same -
Nonsense, they were painted with the same emblem.
However, Song Wei was not so bored that he painted five completely identical patterns for more than 30 years.
He Lingchuan calmed down and saw that there were still subtle differences between the five dragon heads.
The one in the eleventh year of the Panlong calendar had a slightly longer horn and two more whiskers than the one in the third year of the Panlong calendar.
He Lingchuan almost used a magnifying glass to find such a small change.
The pattern in the twenty-fourth year of the Panlong calendar had obvious changes. The dragon head looked a size larger than the previous ones, with a longer face, a more powerful whisker, and more prominent eyebrows.
Most importantly, the horns on its head began to branch!
All the black dragon patterns that He Lingchuan had seen before, including the ones on this silk scroll, and the ones he had seen in person in Panlong City and Yuan Kingdom, all had two bare sharp horns on their foreheads!
The branches looked like deer horns.
Or, like a dragon.
He Lingchuan took a breath and looked at the last pattern.
But to his disappointment, the dragon head did not evolve further, but regressed, the horns became sharp horns again, and the beard had lost a few strands.
It was probably similar to the pattern of the eleventh year of the Panlong calendar.
These twenty years of evolution were lonely, and at the end they changed back.
He Lingchuan looked at the two black dragon patterns of Yuan Kingdom again.
The interval between these two patterns was not long, that is, half a year or two years.
After King Yuan took over the throne from the previous demon king, Yuan Kingdom only existed for four years, of which three years were spent on war. Border management was very strict during the war. It was not easy for Song Wei to squeeze into Yuan State, and Yuan State was probably not as friendly to outsiders as Panlong City, so he only drew two pictures.
The two patterns are slightly different. The dragon head in the second picture has grown compared to the first one.
This is very interesting, especially the five patterns in Panlong City, which are like time-lapse photography, listing the changes of the same dragon head mark in different periods.
What is the use of the black dragon pattern and why does it change?
Like Song Wei, He Lingchuan does not think that this change is caused by human beings, but should be a change in the pattern itself.
In Yuan State, Panlong City, and even in the ancient monuments before, what reasons led to the "growth" of the dragon head?
Song Wei gave his own speculation.
This mark may be a totem, used to gather the faith of the citizens, just like the ubiquitous temples in Beijia.
The growth of the dragon head reflects whether people are pious to it.
Or perhaps, this dragon head is the mark of a secret immortal organization. With it, the city can get endless support from the immortals. Because the places where the dragon head mark existed were relatively rich, as if they were blessed by some unknown source.
Blessed? He Lingchuan thought about it.
He didn't know the situation of Yuanguo in the past, but the Chiba Plateau behind Panlong City was indeed rich. It had everything it wanted, from food, minerals, wood to medicine, fur, and fish. Otherwise, it would not have been able to support Panlong's soldiers and civilians for so many years.
Beijia repeatedly tried to do bad things to it secretly, but failed.
Is it that the dragon head mark only appears in rich places, or is the local area rich because of the dragon head mark?
Which is the cause and which is the result?
It's hard to say.
Seeing that Song Wei didn't have a conclusion, he was a little disappointed and continued to look through other materials.
There were various letters, book pages, and notes in it. Usually the pages were yellow and brittle, and they would also lose powder. You have to be very careful when reading them.
They were all old items, and they were old.
He Lingchuan frowned as he read them. Fu Shanyue could only find these old items, which just showed that there was no new progress in the research on the black dragon.
There is even a theory that the dragon head may have been left by some immortal sect, used as a channel for immortals to communicate with mortals and command them to seize the world.
He Lingchuan also found a war report sent back by a spy from the interior of Yuan State, which provided a lot of information about Qianxing City in Yuan State, including what happened in the city recently, what orders the royal court issued, the salary and price level in the city, etc., all in one or two sentences, very concise.
It even mentioned the black dragon pattern, saying that there was a black dragon pattern opposite the spy's residence. He observed it all day long, but never saw the mark glow or produce any power.
But just once, a horse pulling goods on the street lost control and crashed into the wall with the horse and the cart.
The wall was not thick, so it should have been hit through. However, the horse hit the black dragon mark, broke its tendons and bones, and the cart fell apart, but the black dragon pattern was still intact.
Only then did the spy realize that there was an extremely secret barrier outside the mark.