Chapter 1531 Rong Leng’s Temples Hurt Suddenly!

Rong Leng is quite humane.

But the more Liu Wei thought about it, the more she felt that this method was feasible. She stood up suddenly and was about to go out.

Rong Leng grabbed her and pulled her back.

His strength was so strong that Liu Wei was caught off guard and staggered, his body tilted and he bumped the table.

There was still half of the tea that Rong Leng had drunk on the table. The water glass shook and the water poured out, soaking the scripture paper on the table.

"Oops." Liu Wei frowned and shouted. She picked up the paper and wanted to dry it, but suddenly, she felt blessed and looked at Rong Leng.

Rong Leng was stunned for a moment, an ominous premonition welling up in his heart.

Sure enough, the next moment I heard Liu Wei say: "I haven't tried water and fire yet. Maybe it's invisible characters. Come on, come on, wet all these papers."

Rong Leng held down her eager hand, took a deep breath, and sighed, "It's wet, but I really can't sew it back together."

Hearing this, Liu Wei obviously hesitated for a moment, but in the end, his reason was overcome by the desire to pursue the truth!

She poured water on all the papers on the table, and then compared them page by page and carefully distinguished them.

A quarter of an hour later, she sat down again in disappointment and whispered: "It's not water."

Then he raised his head again: "Then there is only fire."

Rong Leng stood behind her, his temples aching.

Liu Wei took the risk, lit a candle, and baked the soft piece of prayer paper close to the candle. After burning it for a while, the invisible words did not come out, but there was a scorch mark, and it almost didn't burn.

Rong Leng blew out the candle, pulled Liu Wei and stood far away, and then said, "I'll go to the bookstore to buy a new book and come back. Don't bother with it."

Liu Wei nodded with a complicated look and sat on a chair to think.

Rong Leng was worried, fearing that Liu Wei would burn down the house as soon as he stepped out of the door. Before leaving, he took the candle with him.

When Rong Leng came back, he saw Liu Wei still sitting in the same place as before, but his eyes were far away, staring at the pages on the table.

He handed her the newly bought "Diamond Sutra". After Liu Wei took it, he flipped through two pages at will, but suddenly paused: "This...is different."

Rong Leng took a look, but didn't find anything different.

Liu Wei walked to the table, picked up a half-dried book page, compared it with the new book, and said: "One edition is in ink printing, and the other is in lead printing. Grandfather's volume is made of lead type."

Rong Leng heard the words and compared them. The fonts on the new book were darker, inky black, and the handwriting was clear. The fonts on the old book were lighter, grayer, and the handwriting was blurry. Just looking at the two books. The printing materials are indeed different, but what does this mean? Liu Wei said: "Nowadays, books and classics are mostly printed using engraving techniques. That is to say, the template is carved out first, then printed on clean paper, and finally bound into a volume. For this type of engraving, ink printing is easier than lead printing. The upper shape is also more durable and the color is more durable. There are very few prints and engravings. My grandfather's book of scriptures was available many years ago. In other words, this book was also made of prints at that time. However, since the ink printing was done by various calligraphers, The more commonly used printing fluid, why should this book be printed with lead? Was ink printing more popular than lead printing at that time? But this is not right. Yun Mansion also has many classic books. I have translated them.

I have read a few ancient books, and some of them were printed with ink or hand-copied. In other words, a few decades ago, ink printing was far more popular than printing, so why is this book printed? The only reason I can think of for printing is cost. "

Rong Leng shook his head and rejected her statement: "Ink is cheap, but lead is expensive."

Lead is an ore and a medicinal material. The ancients said that its weight is strong, its nature is slippery, its color is black, and it connects the kidneys.

Lead is often used as medicine in the apricot forest world. Because lead is extremely effective and has a wide range of uses, its price is much higher than that of ink that can be found everywhere.

Liu Wei smiled: "Under normal circumstances, lead is indeed more expensive than ink, but what if it was born near a lead mine?"

Rong Leng was stunned: "You mean..."

Liu Wei suddenly felt enlightened and couldn't help laughing: "There is no map described in this book. It is just a map. Now you only need to know a few important locations where Xianyan Kingdom is rich in lead mines to determine the source of this book. place."

Rong Leng stood up and walked out.

Border maps are no trivial matter. Ordinary bookstores have no right to sell them, and ordinary people dare not draw them privately, but you must have them in Prince Rujiang's palace.

When Rong Leng left for Ru Jiang Palace, Liu Wei was not idle either. She carefully dried the wet pages, then folded them into a pile, arranged them in order, and compared them one by one with the new books.

The two editions of the book have different fonts and different printing colors, but the content is exactly the same.

Liu Wei was unable to explore the differences in the text and could only work hard on the paper and the engraving artist.

Making a book engraving is not a piece of cake. You first need a large enough engraving, and the engraving author will usually use his or her own custom font to engrave the engraving.

For a new book with ink printing, the engraving author has indicated on the title page that he is a descendant of a current engraving family, and he uses block script.

However, the author's name marked on the title page of the old printed book only has a code name, Qinglan Juke, and he uses italics.

Qinglan is a branch of orchid, which is distributed in the northwest. Liu Wei boldly hypothesized that the engraving author may be from the northwest?

In addition to the author of the engraving, there is also a red seal engraved on the last page of the printed book. What is written on the seal is "Knowing its meaning in the heart, Mahayana is the best." This is the summary of the Diamond Sutra. It is not unusual for a red seal to summarize the Sutra. That's right, but this red seal uses small seal script.

When the whole engraving is in italic script, the small seal seal seems a bit strange.

While Liu Wei was still pondering the details of the seal, Rong Leng hurried back and brought back a long scroll.

Unfolding the long axis, it turns out that there is a picture of Xianyan River and Mountain inside.

When borrowing the picture, Rong Leng had asked in advance. When he unfolded it, he pointed directly at Tianshi Prefecture on the upper left and said: "Anyi County and Laicheng County are both lead ore-producing areas, and Ting. Jindong County in Jiangzhou also has some stone mines."

Liu Wei pointed out the engraved title on the title page of an old book and said: "Tianshi Prefecture and Tingjiang Prefecture are both located in the northwest. The Qinglan in Qinglan Guest also comes from the northwest."

Rong Leng frowned, with a bad expression: "Tianshi Prefecture covers an area of ​​over a thousand acres, and Anyi County and Laicheng County each occupy half of it. Not to mention Jindong County in Tingjiang Prefecture also covers an area of ​​hundreds of acres. If we look for it this way, we still can't find it." It’s a needle in a haystack.”

Liu Wei pointed to the red seal on the last page: "If the person who carved this seal could be found, the scope would be much narrower."

The sea of ​​​​people is huge and the sky is huge. It is not easy to find a seal carving craftsman within two states. Liu Wei also knew that it was not easy to find, so she continued to exclude: "The Diamond Sutra is a famous Buddhist classic. Such books are usually published by big bookstores, and the seals used by big bookstores will definitely not be found at small stalls. It was carved by a vendor. Finding out the ranking of the most famous carving experts in the two states in the past fifty years should provide more clues."