Chapter 6: The Treasured Book of Buddhism
“Eh? The sky is darkening. I need to return. Elder Tu, you can have a chat with the little mister today. Little mister, you should be a trustworthy scholar. Elder Tu, let him sort out the collection of books.“
Yuan Fei lifts her head up. It is getting late. She suddenly stands up and leaps. She is immediately 30 steps away, and a few leaps later, she disappears into the mountains.
Yuan Fei left as soon as she said she’d leave. She really is the type who always keeps their word.
“She truly is a Xianxia swordswomen.” Hong Yi compliments as he watches Yuan Fei’s movements, her mysterious ident.i.ty making him more and more curious.
“Mister, let us visit my collection of books.” Elder Tu seems to want to show off his collection of books very much, after chatting for awhile, he excitedly invites Hong Yi to his cave.
The cave is south of the valley, and it is clear that it is where the foxes live. It is not only big but also wide. The cave is five hundred to six hundred feet wide, and is the height of about five to six people. Upon walking in, it looks like a humongous hall. it isn’t the least bit constraining.
On the stone walls of the cave, there are many chiseled-out holes. In those holes are ignited oil lamps. The type of oil that is being used is unclear, but it releases fragrance without smoke. The light is very bright, and the flame does not shake.
The cave is completely covered with wooden bookshelves filled with books. There are many different types: big books, small books, handwritten books, and wooden books. The paper is also varied: there is bamboo paper, sand paper, silk paper, scrolls, and even paper made out of iron!
Excluding the 10 large book cases, there are also piles of yellowed books in the corner. There are fragments of ancient books, along with religious texts.
Even a conservative estimate of the number of books in the stone room would still be about 100,000.
The martial duke’s manor’s famous “Lang Huan Book floor” could not even compete with the number of hidden books here. Only when Hong Yi was little, when his mother was still here, did he visit Wu Wen Manor’s “Lang Huan Book floor.” He was surprised at the number of books there were then, but after his mother died, he hasn’t had the qualifications to go back again.
To read, Hong Yi usually has to save up money to buy books, or borrow them from places and copy them.
But bookstores wouldn’t have good books, not to mention it’s also very difficult to borrow them. Now to suddenly see this many books, he looks like he has just walked into a room full of treasure. He even forgets to ask why a fox’s den would have so many books.
“Tripitaka? Avatamsaka Sutra? Reincarnation chronicle? Why are so many of these Buddhist Sutras?” Hong Yi walks to the front of a big bookcase, pulls out a book and opens it. It is Buddhist teachings scripture with wooden engraving prints. The back has an old seal, which reads “Large Buddhist Temple.” It’s an ancient book, worth a good amount of money if sold to book shops.
After flipping through some other books, Hong Yi discovers that they all had the “Large Buddhist Temple” seal engraved on the back.
“These are the Large Buddhist Temple’s books.” Hong Yi says: “These books are all placed together with no cla.s.sification, so it might be difficult to find the books I need during reading”
“Old man, you actually don’t know a lot about ancient book cla.s.sification.” Elder Tu seems a bit embarra.s.sed; his face is turning red.
Act
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ually, what Hong Yi says is an understatement. Generally, scholars’ book collections are all carefully categorized in perfect order.
The books in this stone room, however, are a mess, just like a big upstart wanting to decorate their own house into that of a family of scholars. In doing so he spent a lot of money buying books, but messily placed them.
”Actually, these books were from the year the great temple was destroyed. When the temple was destroyed, we rushed into the temple and saved them.” Elder Tu sighed. “Such a big temple, with monks numbering in the ten thousands. Every year in autumn, in the countryside, you can find thousands of monks looking for places to stay. Each and every layer of the large hall would be filled with incense, flickering endlessly, the fiery glow visible day and night. But unfortunately, they were broken by the military attack, the glorious temple was torched, and the treasure was sc.r.a.ped clean. Ah, success and failure, is truly a mere illusion.”
“The temple was immensely large……I see, so Elder Tu and company came from the Middle State Large Buddhist Temple and went to the Jade City capital Western mountains.” Hong Yi finally grasps the origins of these foxes.
The Middle State Big Buddhist Temple, located in the middle part of the land during the Da Qian dynasty, is a thousand-year-old ancient Buddhist temple. In the height of the golden age, a lot of works of literature were dedicated to the vast temple. It is said that in this temple, every morning, the little monk that gives prayers to the founder, Buddha, has to ride a horse in order to place the incense on time. Thus there’s the saying of riding speedily for incense.
At the same time, this temple is also the sacred place of martial arts, the sacred place of religious practices, and the sacred place of fortune
Since the temple does not need to pay taxes and they have large quant.i.ties of land, many come to light incense for the Buddha, with a thousand years of acc.u.mulation, they had the wealth of a nation.
Only it’s a pity, 20 years ago, because the Big Buddhist Temple made an alliance with the old rebellion group, it was captured by a large army, causing the thousand year old temple to be torched.
It is said the thousands of years worth of acc.u.mulation of this temple, once ransacked, caused the financial situation of the Da Qian Dynasty to become unprecedentedly stable.
All of these things have been recorded down in many scholars notes. Hong Yi knows it very clearly.
“These foxes are definitely part of the fox clan residing near The Big Buddhist Temple. Since the monks do not kill, living there is quite safe. In addition, they can learn quite a bit. However, foxes are just foxes after all. Although they have intelligence, understand reason, and know to practice austerities, they are inferior to humans.
At this time, Hong Yi has a clear understanding of the fox demons.
“Would Mister mind helping me cla.s.sify the books into a certain order? This book collection is the treasure of my household. After the little foxes can understand words, they can come in and read and be considered to be of a literary family. With this room of books, my family at least wouldn’t be muddleheaded for their entire lives and be mere beasts.”