214 – Temple

“The Perceived Blessing Temple has been discovered for a while, but it's only recently that they have revealed the finding to the public,” Rouxi said during their drive to Xubin. “For years people thought it was destroyed during the Song Dynasty.”

Li Yun tilted his head to the left, thinking about why the name of the temple sounded familiar. Before going to Panda City, there was news about a temple discovered in the downtown area of Xubin. The government quickly took control of the site and sent out archeologists to oversee the restoration.

“Is this the project part of your thesis?” Li Yun knew she was almost done  with her thesis.

“I focus more on tombs, but many tombs have Buddhist relics, so it will be good to study them. They recovered a lot of tablets and stone statues.”

As they arrived near the excavation site, the tall chainlink fence wrapped in barbed wires rose up high and blocked their view of the inside. It made the site look more like a prison than an archeological site. It seems excessive, but it was necessary to guard against looters. 

Antiques were a lucrative business, and there were many valuable items in archeological sites. Even with the heavy fines and punishment for looting national treasures, many still attempted.

It was rare to find a undiscovered site within the city border, marked by both new highrise apartments and dilapidated buildings filled with migrant workers. There was a treasure next door, and it made looting more tempting.

At the gated entrance, Rouxi requested to see the professor. One of three guards stationed at the checkpoint called the professor to confirm while the other guards requested that they keep personal belongings and phone in the outhouse's locker prior to entering the site.

After waiting for 15 minutes, an elderly man appeared. Although his face was wrinkled, his small framed body was healthy and active.

“Meimei! You’re finally here to visit this old professor,” Professor Laisu loved to see visiting students. He glanced at the gentleman next to her. “And this friend?”

“Li Yun, my boyfriend,” Rouxi responded.

Professor Laisu nodded out of habit, he didn’t care much about students’ dating life.

“Come, I’ll give you a tour,” Professor Laisu gave them temporary guest passes after the quick introduction.

They walked through an area lined on both sides by sand colored walls. Li Yun touched the grainy texture of the wall and felt the rigid craving that craftsmen thousand years ago had spent time to chisel. 

A quick flash revealed a monk instructing workers in Tang dynasty working clothes to build the temple. The monk had little involvement in the actual construction, but the overall scheme of the building was planned according to his design. There were noticeable feng shui principles designed into the layout, with the entrance aligned due north.

After seeing the short scene, Li Yun felt that his ability had increased. Although he was used to seeing visions in artifacts, it was rare to see visions of places and buildings.

Up ahead, the professor led them through a series of corridors that looked like a maze from afar. There were no roofs, as they had been destroyed at some point in history. Over time, sand and dirt had covered away the temple, hiding it for centuries before it was discovered. 

Inside the main hall, the labor workers were busy excavating and removing dirt away from the site. 

“Do you know that the Perceived Blessing Temple was famous before it was discovered?” Professor Laisu asked in his usual teaching tone.

“Why is that?” Li Yun asked.

“The monk named Daoxuan from the Tang Dynasty wrote a rite to pray for rain during a drought that devastated the city,” Rouxi explained. “After the ritual, a miracle happened and it rained throughout the land. So the temple was named Perceived Blessing because of it.”

Li Yun nodded. The ability to command the weather, it sounded too mythical to be real. If anything, it was likely that the monk had known that it was about to rain.

Much like the farmers’ almanac, diviners of the past were able to predict future forecasts based on past cycles. Like eclipses, sunspots, and seasons, everything had a cycle and pattern. Once the pattern was understood, it was possible to know that next Monday in December was going to be chilly.

However, to be able to predict the weather was still remarkable. Perhaps the monk Daoxuan had mastered the I, Ching.

“When this was uncovered, we were so amazed that such a temple could be buried underneath the city,” Professor Laisu explained. “The majority of relics are believed to be from the Jin Dynasty. However, the oldest tablet might be from the Shang dynasty.”

Professor Laisu unraveled a plastic covering a large tablet embedded in the center of the floor.

“An ancient divination?” asked Li Yun marveling at the different inscriptions carved onto the wall that contained oracle bone script and baqua.

Professor Laisu nodded. “We have tried to decode it, but we still do not understand what it’s saying.”

The I,Ching was used not only by Taoists, but by Budhists and Confusionists. Described in the ancient book were mathematical and patterns the ancient had used to understand nature and predict the future. Using the information, it was possible to understand probability and determine the path of people’s future.

“Do you understand any of this?” asked Rouxi knowing that he had copied the I, Ching before.

Li Yun shook his head. He was familiar with the I, Ching, but that was the only extent. He understood the method to select the hexagrams and had memorized the 64 different hexagrams, but to master it and apply it to real life situations was beyond his grasp.

According to Master Yue, divination could only work if something was beginning to take place. If there was no subject, there was no future. I, Ching could not predict a business success if there was no business set in place. There was no straightforward math to multiply a zero into any other sort of number.

Heaven, Earth, and Human represented the three stages of cause and effects. Heaven was the source of energy, Earth processed the energy, and the resulting stage was the Human.

The two baguas, forming the trigram, symbolized the cause and effect, or the before and after effect of the potential decision.

Li Yun looked at the stone tablet, a bit mesmerized by the text.

“Is it okay to touch it briefly?” asked Li Yun.

Professor Laisu didn’t have any particular problem if it was only briefly. Li Yun approached the tablet and lightly touched the ancient carving.

Upon using Qivi, he felt himself transported back. Unlike the typical scenes of craftsman carving in the words, Li Yun saw a man with chiseled features, dark skin, and tall headdress reading the words on the tablet.

The language was very different from the modern Chinese that Li Yun was used to. The sound transmitted from the man was flat, not curling his tongue to transmit the word. It also had palatal obstruents, forming words by obstructing the passage of the airflow.

The sound produced was voiceless, not coming from the larynx, but yet, there was so much power in the words. Li Yun did not understand what he was saying, but the man was reading from the tablet. 

Typically, when Li Yun used Qivi, he was shown a vision of when the qi was activated inside the object. From that, he guessed that the man's voice contained qi. Was there power in the voice and language?

If Li Yun thought about it, speeches and language had the power to evoke powerful emotions in people. As long as people could feel the emotion, it could provoke them to cry or to feel a certain way.

When a singer sang a song in a foreign language, how was it possible for someone who did not understand the language to suddenly cry? It was the power of the emotion emitted from the person. A combination of tones, sounds, and vibrational energy that could be transmitted to any distance and any moment in time seemed magical.

Li Yun stared back at the tablet from back in the temple.

“Are there other tablets?” Li Yun asked.

chocomug

The chapter number 214 is correct, I am skipping a chapter because there is a missing rewrite chapter.

I have drafted a good portion of the next volume 23/30, so I still need seven chapters to refill my stock. There are less chapters, but I think it's because my chapters are getting longer, 40k.