“It can’t be a mistake!” Zhao Yu said with confidence. “What the robbers want were these Buddhist scriptures!”
“Why?” Liang Huan was confused. “What do you mean by they were looking for these Buddhist scriptures?”
“I don’t know!” Zhao Yu pointed at the slab of stone at the bottom of the pond and said, “Take a look, the lotus pond is so murky. Technically speaking, the stones should be covered in mud! But the Buddhist scriptures on the slab stones are so clean and clear. Obviously, someone wiped it off!”
“Oh… This was done by the robbers!” The chief let out a sigh of relief. “But why?”
“The lotus pond is a real historical place, right?” Zhao Yu asked, “Are these Buddhist scriptures authentic from the Ming Dynasty, a few centuries back?”
“This…” The chief creased his eyebrows and said awkwardly, “That is what is said, but…you should know that this was only a marketing gimmick to attract tourists! According to historical records, the ancient lotus pond was built in the Tang Dynasty, and the other dynasties remodeled it, especially during the end of the Qing Dynasty. There was a big-scale renovation recorded during that time. So, these Buddhist scriptures should be from the Qing Dynasty! It would be impossible to have anything more ancient than that!”
“What was written on the Buddhist scripture?” Zhao Yu asked again.
“Mm… Should be some general Buddhist scripture, right?” The attraction chief took a look at Accountant Wang and she quickly added, “Should be. If it was very valuable, I reckon it wouldn’t be underwater! Officer, we didn’t research this in depth, but the experts in the municipal Cultural Relics Bureau did. Why don’t you ask the people from the Cultural Relics Bureau?”
Cultural Relics Bureau? Zhao Yu suddenly recalled the three old experts. “Maybe the three old experts had done quite a bit of research about the Buddhist scripture? The grave robbers kidnapped them to get their research on the Buddhist scripture?” he thought. “But…it shouldn’t be only to research the Buddhist scripture, right? Maybe all this was for the Golden Buddha statues?” Zhao Yu quickly asked the chief if he knew about the legend of the Dozens of Golden Buddha Statues.
“Yeah! That was how the Golden Buddha Temple gained fame. How could I not know about that!” The attraction chief nodded and said, “Back then, when we were rebuilding the Golden Buddha Temple, the leaders suggested we imitate the dozens of Golden Buddha statues to be worshiped in the temple! But it never happened, and the Sakyamuni Buddha was used instead!” Then, the attraction chief told everyone about the legend, the exact version that Liu Xiusheng had spoken of.
Zhao Yu thought of a possibility, “Could it be? The clue to the dozens of Golden Buddha Statues is hidden in the Buddhist scripture? Besides the lotus pond, there were those stone steles. On the stone steles, there were Buddhist scriptures! And on the wall of the prefect’s tomb, there were many Buddhist scriptures too.
“Could it be…the grave robbers were really looking for the Golden Buddha statues? As the clue to the Golden Buddha was hidden among the Buddhist scripture, they were willing to go through the trouble, even rob the tomb and kill people? But…that’s not right?” Zhao Yu realized information on Buddhist scriptures could easily be found in books or on the internet. “If the clues were really hidden in the Buddhist scriptures, why did the grave robbers go through the hassle of pumping out the water in the lotus pond? Was the scripture in the lotus pond any different than the general ones? Tsk tsk…” Looking at the simple carvings of scriptures, Zhao Yu wondered if it was really necessary to find an expert of scriptures to inquire about it?
Zhao Yu was pondering when his phone suddenly rang. Miao Ying gave him a call to inform him about two important matters. The first news was that through Miao Ying’s secret investigation, she found information related to the Dozens of Golden Buddha Statues in the three old experts’ work area. And that the related information was completely exclusive to a manuscript that had yet to be published!
According to the three experts’ research, the dozens of Golden Buddha Statues in the Golden Buddha Temple had represented the twelve deities in Buddhism, also known as Gods to protect and maintain Buddha dharma! They represented heavens, the dragon spirits, stars, underworld officials, and so on. In ancient times, worshipping the twelve deities was to pray for favorable weather, and to escape and expel disaster.
Besides, in their manuscript, they recorded the sizes of the twelve Golden Buddha statues, and made hand-drawn images. According to the record, every golden Buddha statue was fifty centimeters tall and twenty-five centimeters wide. The workmanship was delicate, and the designs were all different and lively. Not only were the statues priceless, but its artistic achievement could be categorized as a national art treasure!
Among the manuscripts, the earliest was written twenty years back. From that, they could tell that the three experts had been researching Golden Buddha statues for half their lives! But even though they had acquired a certain amount of research, they had never shared their work, even their family didn’t know anything about that. There must have been some other reason for them to do it so secretively!
As for the second news, it was even more shocking. Miao Ying got an update that the literature information in the Cultural Relics Bureau had been stolen. Part of the information that was taken was information regarding inscriptions of stone tablets in Qinshan! More shockingly, the robbery was done smooth and clean. When the workers realized, it had already been a long time. The local policemen got involved in the investigation and realized that the information had been stolen twenty days ago. Even the surveillance video hard drive for the information center had been changed.
“Huh?” Listening to such updates, Zhao Yu was dumbstruck! “Another surveillance video hard drive was changed! The robbery details of the information center and the Golden Buddha Temple are the same. It was obviously done by the same gang of people!” he thought.
The information center lost the information regarding inscription of stone tablets, so he reckoned that there must be countless Buddhist scriptures!
“Oh…” Suddenly, Zhao Yu seemingly realized something about this complicated case. “The grave robbers might have found some clues in the ancient tomb and then went to the Cultural Relics Bureau to steal more information! Maybe it hadn’t been found yet, or maybe the information in the Cultural Relic Bureau was incomplete, so they came to the Golden Buddha Temple and went for the stone steles in the ancient lotus pond!”
Zhao Yu was left speechless, and he was getting more and more emotional! This matter was getting more and more interesting! Obviously, there was a shocking treasure hunt behind the Tomb Murder Case! The three old experts might have gotten involved accidentally or maybe they were actually guilty!
Zhao Yu thought that if the grave robbers and the old experts had no sufficient evidence, the Tomb Murder Case wouldn’t have happened! So, the Dozen of Golden Buddha Statues in the legend might possibly not be a legend?!
“Aiya! Motherf*cker!” Zhao Yu thought. Suddenly, Zhao Yu had an unprecedented wicked idea. “Bro, system! Why not give me another ‘Dui’ hexagram tomorrow, for fun? If I could find the Golden Buddha, I would gain a fortune!”