In this issue, let's talk about mirror flowers again.
Mirror Flower Edge is a wonderful Zhiwei novel, which is no worse than the Fengshen Yanyi.
In the last issue, we said that Xu Jingye's rebellion failed, and Luo Binwang has since lived in seclusion and his whereabouts are unknown.
According to the plot of the mirror flower edge, Xu Jingye's rebellion also involved a group of people. Among them is one of the protagonists in the book, Tang Xiucai.
Tang Xiucai's name is Ao, and the table characters are pavilions. Coming from a landlord family, there are several acres of fertile land in the family, and even if there is no business life, you can live leisurely. This also laid the foundation for his later overseas travels.
In the early years, during the Hongdao years, Tang Ao had been in Chang'an with Xu Jingye, Luo Binwang, Wei Siwen, Xue Zhongzhang, etc., and befriended brothers with different surnames.
Xu Jingye plotted rebellion, and he also suffered a lot. Keju High School explored flowers, or was beaten by someone to report a small report.
Wu Zetian sent someone to inquire and found that Tang Ao had no bad deeds and had not participated in the rebellion. But this kind of private friendship is a fact, and Tang Ao's crime has not been convicted, and the meritorious name is naturally gone.
Tang Ao was angry and angry, discouraged, and almost had the idea of becoming a monk. When he passed by the Dream God Temple, he happened to encounter Huang Liang in a dream, and was instructed by an old immortal:
A hundred flowers were mourned, all fell red dust, twelve famous flowers, unfortunately drifted to the outside world.
As long as Tang Ao could gather all the famous flowers, it would be a great merit, and maybe he could even become an immortal. Waking up in the dream, Tang Ao realized that this was an opportunity and decided to go overseas to find famous flowers.
No coincidence, Tang Aozheng has a wife uncle Lin Zhiyang who often runs boats. The two hit it off, and Tang Xiu began a path of overseas adventure.
The first stop, Overseas Higashiguchi Mountain.
Overseas Immortal Mountain is not ordinary. Tang Ao, Lin Zhiyang and the guide Duo Jiugong had just come up the mountain and encountered 11 kinds of rare beasts.
Let's talk about them one by one.
The first odd beast: sure enough.
Sure enough, it is also called the beast.
This beast has a peculiar habit of staying by the corpse and weeping if a companion dies. Even if danger comes, it will not leave.
This shows the good side of animal nature, and at the same time shows the foolish side of human nature. The death of a companion is sad, but you can't give your life for it, right?
Today, the beast is not a legendary species, but one of the macaques.
After the death of their companions, they bury them, exposing only their tails, and if they are blown, they think that their companions are resurrected and dig them out again.
So repeated, it is touching.
The second strange beast: Dang Kang.
This strange beast has been recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, which has the meaning of heralding the year of abundance. The original text of the mirror flower edge does not have a clear description of Dangkang, but only says that it is full of teeth.
Duo Jiugong was well-informed and explained: Whenever Kang is prosperous, he begins to show his form. Now that it appears suddenly, the lord will be at peace.
It confirms the statement in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
In fact, the description of Dangkang from various texts should be a kind of wild boar in ancient times.
In ancient times when primeval forests were uncultivated, this jungle omnivorous animal was difficult to see. If the wild boar leaves the forest, it must go to the farmland to forage for food.
But we all know that wild boars are wild animals that are very harmful to farmland. Why is it called the Taiping Divine Beast?
In this regard, the night has two conjectures.
Wild boars are generally not aggressive to humans, and as long as they leave a retreat, they are easily driven away. The pre-Qin ancients did not know enough about wild boars and may feel very frightened. People tend to have benign expectations of things they revere.
In the long agrarian society, wild boars were also a prey. And it does not need to be raised like a domestic pig, but as a by-product of occasional acquisition. Therefore, the wild boar has the meaning of a good year.
Therefore, it is much more reasonable for the wild boar to be called a Taiping Divine Beast.
After talking about two kinds of exotic beasts, let's talk about three kinds of rare birds.
The first type: Jingwei.
This bird does not need to be talked about, and everyone is familiar with the story of Jingwei reclamation. Interestingly, it is rare for the mirror flower edge to raise philosophical questions and explain the ethics of biological birth.
According to legend, jingwei bird was the daughter of Emperor Yan. Dying of drowning, he transformed into a small bird called Jingwei and began to reclaim the sea day after day.
It has a similar meaning to yugong moving mountains.
If the Jingwei bird is a bird in ancient times and a separate individual, then how did it reproduce?
In the mirror flower rim, it is written: Who knows that this bird has been growing for a long time, competing for a puppet, and growing day by day, and now it has become a category.
We all know that organisms have males and females, mating and giving birth to offspring. So which of the males and females appeared first? Philosophical speculation similar to chickens and eggs, eggs and chickens.
Unfortunately, the mirror flower edge only gave a general answer. How the process of puppetry happens can only be left to future generations to answer.
The second kind: unfilial birds.
This bird is also not original to the mirror flower rim. The earliest imitation of the Shan Hai Jing is the Divine Anomaly Sutra, which is said to have been written by Dongfang Shuo.
Bird of no filial piety, shaped like a human body, dog hair, with teeth, pig teeth. On the forehead there is a text: "no filial piety", under the mouth there is a text called "unkind", on the nose there is a text called "no way", on the left side there is a text called "love husband", and on the right side there is a text called "pity woman". Therefore, heaven established this strange bird to show loyalty and filial piety.
That is to say, this bird is a kind of evil bird, which is manifested by the heavens to warn the world.
Later generations passed on the unfilial bird as a kind of owl, which we now call the owl. Since ancient times, owls have been unpopular, and there are legends of owl eating mothers.
But in fact, owls do not have this habit. People hate them only because of their habit of lying down at night, because of their frightening appearance and terrible cries.
The mirror flower edge has a whitewash on the unfilial bird, saying that it is very spiritual, can cultivate the true enlightenment, and when the feathers are faded, it can soar into an immortal.
The third kind: the saliva bird.
The earliest record of this bird comes from the natural history, in the form of a rat, five feet long, with only one foot and two large wings. Spitting like glue can stick to all kinds of prey.
The night did not find a prototype of the species.
Finally, let's talk about the six kinds of strange fruits and fairy grasses.
The first: wood grass.
This vegetation, mentioned in both the Biography of Mu Tianzi and the Classic of Mountains and Seas, is a huge tree that can produce countless ears of rice, and when mature, produce a kind of rice that is more than a long stretch, and eats for a long time without hunger.
Long Night did not believe that there was such rice in the world. In an agrarian society, people's desire for abundant food is nothing more than that.
I remember that Mr. Yuan Longping once said that he had a dream. Dreaming of cooling off under a huge straw. It is also a good wish.
Maybe in the near future, Muhe can really appear!
The second kind: meat mushroom.
Meat zhi is also known as meat ganoderma lucidum, also known as tai nian. It was first recorded in the Shennong Materia Medica. In fact, this is just a slime mold complex.
In ancient times, there was insufficient understanding of meat ganoderma lucidum, and it was listed as a magical product of heaven and earth.
In the mirror flower rim, this meat mushroom is not a combination of tai nian and ginseng.
In the original text, it is described as a small person riding a horse, which is mostly found in the legend of ginseng becoming a sperm. It is rumored that after eating it, you can get immortals. In the story of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, Zhang Guolao once ate this kind of thing.
The third kind: Zhu Yu.
Zhu Yu in the mirror flower edge is a kind of vegetation similar to leeks, and it can be eaten for a long time without hunger. This plant also appears in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
But Man Ye believes that it is unlikely that Zhu Yu is a leek. There is no description of the spicy aspect.
According to the shape description, it should be a Chinese herbal medicine, Mai Dong.
Shennong Materia Medica describes: Long service is light, not old and not hungry. It matches the description in the mirror flower rim.
The fourth type: hollow grass.
Hollow grass, also known as palm mustard. Take the seed in the palm of your hand, blow one foot long, and then blow another foot long, until it reaches three feet.
Eating can make people empty. This kind of immortal grass was found in the "Cave Meditation" of the Southern Song Dynasty, but it was used by Li Ruzhen in the mirror flower rim.
This kind of fairy grass seems to have been eaten by children at night, but it does not have the ability to fly in the air.
What's it called?
It should be called white grass, also known as grass onion. The roots are also edible, called sweet roots in our locality.
The buds of the white grass are moist strips that become flocculent when blown dry. Swelled many times, similar to the description in the mirror flower rim.
But why can't you vacate after eating? This can only be said that the ancients' desire for flying sky is also a kind of admiration for the transcendental world.
When the seeds of the white grass are dried, the wind will blow in the wind, similar to a dandelion. Combining the imagination of the ancients, there is the origin of the hollow grass, right?
Fifth: knife-flavored core.
This is a strange fruit made up in the mirror flower rim. The shape is like a date, but the taste is uncertain and changes with the knife, so it is called the knife taste core.
So is there such a fruit in reality?
There really is!
This fruit is called the mysterious fruit and has a magical effect. Eating the mysterious fruit, eating anything of any taste will turn sweet.
It is just that this fruit is produced in Africa, which must have been very rare in the Qing Dynasty. As for whether Li Ruzhen really ate it or hearsay, I can't say for sure.
Sixth: vermilion grass.
The original text of the mirror flower edge said: The compound food formula has recorded vermilion grass, which is shaped like a small mulberry, the stem is like a coral, and the juice flows like blood; it is thrown with gold and jade, and it is immediately like mud. ——The name of the gold throwing is 'golden pulp', and the name of the throwing jade is 'jade pulp'.
Man who eats can transcend the sanctified. It sounds very similar to the ginseng fruit in Journey to the West.
But is there such a vermilion grass in reality?
Looking at the information at night, I did not find any similar fruit. If you have an answer, you may wish to write it in the comments section.