bayedsolid Chapter 305 Duan Chengshi's Notes on the Moon Soil
Chapter 305 Duan Chengshi's Notes on the Moon Soil
The cicadas' chirping in the summer was as incessant as a broken tape recorder. Niwanzi clutched a crumpled fan, its edges curled up like scraps of rice paper from a wildcat. Niwanzi plopped down heavily opposite Sizi, the wooden chair creaking under its weight.
"My little princess, hurry! My lifeline! The new clue about Du Xiaobing has completely stalled. I heard you dug up a book of Tang Dynasty mythology that's even more outrageous than a sci-fi blockbuster?" Her voice was filled with the urgency of someone whose inspiration would fly away if she waited even a second longer.
Sizi was behaving strangely at this moment, pushing up her non-existent glasses, because in her meditative space, her mouse was clicking rapidly on a virtual screen glowing with a faint blue light, the ancient texts on the screen flickering like fireflies...
"Niwan Zi, you've struck gold! In the 'Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang' written by Duan Chengshi of the Tang Dynasty, it is said that the moon is not a flat jade plate at all, but a giant, non-luminous sphere—with a pitted surface, and it even supports more than 80,000 maintenance workers!"
At this point, Si Zi became excited, her voice rising involuntarily, like an explorer discovering a new continent. "My goodness, this is a record from the Tang Dynasty? Look, this man in white claims to be one of the 82,000 households who repair the moon, and he's showing off some interesting tools like jade axes and chisels used for moon repair."
"More than 80,000? No wonder they're the infrastructure powerhouses on the moon."
Niwan opened his purple fan with a "snap," and the wind he generated stirred the manuscript paper on the desk, causing it to flutter slightly. His eyes widened, making him look like a curious Vajra with its eyes wide open in anger in a temple.
"He's a genuine top star of the Tang Dynasty!" Si Zi perked up, leaning forward from his seat like a cheetah poised to pounce.
"He was known as one of the twin stars of the literary world alongside Li Shangyin. Not only was he a great poet, but he also went and became an 'ancient version of Zhihu big V,' stuffing all the strange and wonderful things he heard on the road into his notebook. Fox spirits and ghosts, exotic customs, even moon repairmen—he could write about such advanced ideas..." As he spoke, Sizi's eyes shone with an invincible light of admiration. "I'm thinking of... visiting... Duan Chengshi."
Niwanzi leaned forward, almost touching Sizi's chubby face, forgetting to even wave her fan, letting beads of sweat glisten down her temples: "Sizi, this is from the future, right? Tell me quickly! What's the deal with these moon laborers?"
"Well, the story begins with two unlucky guys."
"A lucky unlucky guy?"
Si Zi paused deliberately for two seconds before continuing, "Well, it's about Duan Chengshi's friend's cousin and his friend, Scholar Wang, who went on a trip to Mount Song. They got completely lost, like 'wild humans of Mount Song,' scratching their heads in frustration, when suddenly a man in a white coat appeared..."
"Oh no, the strange man in the white robe, who says 'I come from the moon' right away!" When talking about the strange man in white, Jizi exaggeratedly waved her arms, imitating the strange man's appearance.
"Wow! From the moon? This is a notebook from our Tang Dynasty? It feels even more exciting than the melodramatic soap opera that Si Zi was talking about."
"The real excitement is yet to come!" Si Zi said in the white-clad man's tone, drawing out the words while shaking his head.
“‘The moon is a seven-jeweled alloy ball. The shadows you see are just cement that our construction team didn’t smooth out!’ After saying that, he pulled out two clumps of ‘jade dust rice,’ claiming that eating them would cure all diseases and was even more outrageous than some mitochondrial health products!” Si Zi gestured the movements of mitochondria vividly.
Niwan Zi almost laughed until tears streamed down her face: "What are mitochondria? This isn't a moon repairman, it's clearly an elixir salesman! And then what happened?"
"After they finished eating, they seemed to have a GPS, finding their way home directly. When they looked back, the man in white was nowhere to be seen!"
Si Zi spread his hands, a mysterious smile on his face. "The key is that this notebook is an authentic Tang Dynasty product, certified by the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries). This book is—the pinnacle of ancient natural history notebook novels!"
The purple folding fan with muddy feet snapped open with a crisp, tearing sound. He lightly touched the ground with his toes, hanging upside down on the doorframe, his hair hanging down: "I remember now, the jade-dust rice ball that Du Xiaobing ate before he disappeared was clearly made with the same recipe as the 'essence of a lunar eclipse' recorded in the 'Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang'!"
Before the words were even finished, the person had already rolled away like a coin shot from a slingshot, disappearing into a blur along the patterns of the bluestone path, leaving only a shout carried on the wind: "I'm going to search through Emperor Xuanzong's secret archives! If I find the recipes for the Moon People, we'll open an interstellar chain!"
Sizi stared blankly at the empty threshold, the lanterns under the eaves moving erratically without any wind. Half a blurry face was reflected in the window frame—not Niwanzi, but more like Duan Chengshi from a book, winking at her strangely.
When she looked closer, all that remained was the swaying moonlight on the ground and the tattered pages of "Youyang Zazu" torn open by the night wind. "Heavens, isn't this...?" Upon closer inspection, a certain line of small characters was covered with tiny, silvery-white fragments, like the remnants of an unfinished rice ball...