Hearing Ni Tuo's words, my heart trembled, "Why are you so pessimistic, sir?"

Ni Zhuo smiled and shook his head but did not answer.

"Your Excellency, you are overly worried," he said. "As the saying goes, the changes of yin and yang will bring peace and prosperity. Although the Tang Dynasty is currently besieged on all sides and is in turmoil, it is not impossible for it to recover."

Ni Zhuo did not refute, "I am just preparing for a rainy day, and I don't hope that my words will come true."

Although I didn't have much contact with Ni Zhuo, I knew that this man was very thoughtful and would never make a blind move. He felt uneasy and asked, "Sir, do you think the Tang Dynasty has no way to recover?"

After a brief pause, Ni Zhuo spoke up and said, "In my opinion, although the Tang Dynasty is not prosperous, it will not collapse, but I know a strange person. According to this person, the Tang Dynasty is exhausted."

"Weird? As far as I know, although Buddhists and Buddhists have some miscellaneous knowledge of numerology, they can only deduce some trivial matters, and the national destiny cannot be calculated," he said. "Before this, I was living in the world.

Wandering around, I also encountered some evil spirits and ghosts, but it is not true to believe that there must be evil spirits when a country is about to perish."

"This stranger is neither a Taoist priest nor a monk, nor is he a fortune teller who knows the art of Yin and Yang," Ni Zhuo shook his head and said, "but a beggar."

"The beggar's nonsense is even more unbelievable," he said. "The spells of Longhu Mountain are very mysterious, and they also include the art of stargazing and divination. If the Tang Dynasty is really exhausted, my uncle and uncle will not go against it."

Walking in the sky, he came out of the mountain to assist Bi."

Ni Zhuo nodded and said nothing more.

"Sir, is this beggar you are talking about a disciple of the Beggar Clan?" he asked.

Ni Zhuo shook his head, "No, this man was harmed by the beggar gang and was subjected to the art of harvesting and cutting. When I met this man, he had no hands or feet."

There are many people who are puzzled and ask doubtfully, "You have a sharp eye and can see clearly. You will never fail to distinguish between true and false, and you will listen and believe credulously. What is so different about this person that he can win your trust?"

Ni Zhuo did not answer immediately. After thinking for a while, he asked, "Do you have any other plans for the evening?"

"No." He shook his head.

Ni Zhuo stood up and said, "Well, since you are not in a hurry to go back, come with me to the study and I will look at a few things with you."

He looked at each other and Ni Chenyi, stood up and followed behind.

After walking a few steps, Ni Zhuo stopped, turned around, and said in a deep voice to Ni Chenyi, "Don't follow me."

"Dad, you can't even trust me." Ni Chenyi was unhappy.

Ni Zhuo didn't answer and turned around to go ahead.

Although Ni Zhuo was very doting on Ni Chenyi, he did not lose his majesty. Ni Zhuo refused to let her go. Even though Ni Chenyi was very angry, she could only stay where she was in frustration.

Seeing that Ni Chenyi was really angry, he leaned close to her and whispered, "I'll go read it and tell you when I get back."

Hearing what he said, Ni Chenyi turned from anger to joy and hurriedly raised his hand and pointed forward, signaling to follow him quickly.

Ni Zhuo's study is located in the courtyard to the west of the main hall. This courtyard is also very large. There are more than ten main rooms and nine wing rooms on the left and right. There are candlelights in the left and right wing rooms, indicating that there are people living inside.

As soon as the two of them entered the courtyard, someone pushed the door out of the west wing. To their great surprise, the person who came out of the wing was not a Chinese native, but a tall, blond, and blue-eyed foreign man.

When he saw Ni Tuo, the foreign man covered his left chest with his hand, bowed and saluted Ni Tuo, and at the same time spoke a foreign language.

Naturally, he couldn't understand what this man said, but Ni Zhuo understood. Not only could he understand, but he could also speak. He briefly said something to the foreign man in the same language. The latter nodded in agreement and walked to the courtyard.

The courtyard door was closed.

Without waiting for questions, another person walked out of the right side room. This person was a foreign woman with a dark face. She had seen Kunlun slaves on the streets of Chang'an before, so I was not very surprised to see this person.

The foreign woman knelt down on one knee, saluted Ni Zhuo, and then said something urgently. Ni Zhuo nodded and waved his hands, and replied in a similar tone to hers.

Although he couldn't understand what the two said, he knew that the female Kunlun slave and the foreign man with blond hair and blue eyes did not speak the same language. Ni Zuo was actually able to talk to the two of them in two different languages.

Ni Zhuo did not explain the identity and purpose of these foreigners, but went straight to the main room in the north. The door of the main room was not locked. The female Kunlun slave who had spoken before quickly stepped forward, opened the door, stepped in, and took out

The fire ignited two braziers in the room. The two braziers were in the shape of kneeling bronze figures. The two bronze figures knelt on their knees and raised their hands, holding a round brazier one foot square.

After lighting the brazier, Kunlun slave

He turned around and backed away, closing the door behind him.

After Ni Zhuo entered the house, he walked straight to the northwest corner and took the opportunity to look at the layout of the study. Different from the study rooms of ordinary officials, there were no books in this study room. In the middle of the study room was a huge wooden table and a wooden chair with a backrest.

Large wooden cabinets are placed on the walls. All wooden cabinets are in the shape of drawers. Most of the drawers are one foot long and half a foot high. Those large drawers are also twice or several times this size.

Small drawers are composed of several small drawers, one foot long and half a foot high.

Therefore, although these drawers are of different sizes, they are arranged in an orderly manner and do not appear messy. The whole room does not feel like a study, but more like a large drug store filled with medicine cabinets for treating diseases and medicines.

While looking around, Ni Tuo pulled out a drawer in the northwest corner and brought the drawer and its contents to the table in the middle of the room.

He stood at the door and waited until Ni Tuo waved to him before he walked to the table.

Ni Zhuo took out something from the drawer and laid it on the table, "You take a look at this thing first."

I don't know what kind of grease was placed in the two braziers. The room was as bright as day. I leaned over and took a closer look. I saw that the thing spread on the table was a piece of clothing. To be precise, it was a strange piece of clothing covered with dirt.

The reason why the black dress is strange is that it is very short. It is not a common robe, nor does it have a slanted lapel. It opens and closes from the front of the chest, and is symmetrical from left to right. There are no cloth buttons to connect the opening and closing.

After looking doubtfully, Ni Zhuo stretched out his hands, pinched two small objects at the lower end of the black clothes and connected them slightly. He then pinched a small object on the left side and slowly moved it upward. As Ni Zhuo's left hand slowly moved up, the two sides of the black clothes

The jagged things gradually closed together, and after a while, the black clothes were connected to the left and right, and merged into one.

Seemingly guessing what was going to be said, Ni Zhu took the initiative and said, "Our business is very big. I have asked many foreign merchants, whether they are from Turks, Persia, or Tianzhu, and they all said that they have never seen similar clothing.

, I also asked the Silla and Japanese people in the east, and they have never seen such strange clothing."

"Is this piece of clothing brought by the stranger you mentioned?" he asked.

"It's what he originally wore," Ni Zhuo nodded, "I also tried to identify the origin from the material, but this thing is neither hemp nor silk, nor is it cotton produced in Tianzhu. If you remove the threads and burn them close to the fire, there will be

Pungent smell.”

"What about the dye used?" asked.

"I've tried it too," Ni Zhuo said. "The current dyes used to dye black are nothing more than acorn squash, gallnuts, lotus seed shells, cypress leaves and other dyes. These things will fade to varying degrees when exposed to wine and vinegar, but since black clothes

The dismantled cloth was put into wine and vinegar but it did not fade."

After Ni Zhuo finished speaking, he took out a pair of black trousers from the drawer. These trousers should not have been black originally. The reason why they looked black was because there was too much dirt on them.

The style of these trousers is also different from common trousers. The biggest difference is that it is narrow. Both the waistband and the trouser legs are very narrow, and the width is less than half of the common trousers today.

"Is this a blood stain?" Pointing to the large stain on the trouser leg.

Ni Zhuo nodded, "Yes, as I said just now, this person eventually fell into the hands of the beggar gang, and his hands and feet were amputated by the beggar gang using the technique of harvesting and cutting."

"You call him a strange person. What makes this person different?" He was puzzled. "If they are gods and ghosts, they should not be made of flesh and blood. Ordinary Yang people cannot see them and cannot hurt them."

"The strange thing about this person is his origin. This person is not a ghost or a god, nor is he a foreigner from outside the world," Ni Zhuo paused for a moment and then said seriously, "According to what he said,

He comes from a thousand years later."

"After a thousand years?" I was confused.

Although he was confused, he was not shocked. This reaction made Ni Tuo very satisfied. His reaction showed that he just felt that there was something fishy about this matter, and did not arbitrarily conclude that this kind of thing would never happen.

"According to what this person said, he originally lived a thousand years later," Ni Zhuo said. "The reason why he came to the Tang Dynasty a thousand years ago was not voluntary, but an accident happened. This person was a friend of Donkey a thousand years later.

, when he was traveling alone, he encountered a cloud of fog. When the fog cleared, he came to a thousand years ago."

"Donkey's friend?" He became more and more confused.

"His original ministry," Ni Tuo explained, "was a sinecure, doing nothing all day long and traveling around."

"This man is an official who raises donkeys?"

Make guesses.

"I guess so." Ni Zhuo nodded.

"Where is this person now?" asked.

"He died of illness five years ago," Ni Zhuo said. "When I met him, he was already terminally ill. Although I invited famous doctors to treat him, I only allowed him to live for a month."

"What happened?" asked.

Ni Zhuo did not answer the question immediately, but turned his head and looked around.

Knowing that Ni Zhuo was looking for a seat, he saw a square stool with enough height not far away, so he walked over and moved it over, sitting on the right side of the table.

Ni Zhuo sat on a wooden chair and began to talk about what happened.

He met the strange man in Chang'an. At that time, he was seriously ill and was not allowed to beg. He had been abandoned by the beggar gang and was living on the streets, barely surviving.

The reason why Ni Zhuo saved this man was because Ni Zhuo could not understand what the man said. This aroused Ni Zhuo's curiosity because Ni Zhuo was proficient in six foreign languages ​​including Tianzhu, Japanese, Persian and Kunlun slaves.

There are more than a dozen dialects spoken in the north and south of the Yangtze River. He couldn't understand what this person said, so he wanted to find out where this person came from.

While helping this person heal his injuries, Ni Zhuo kept trying to communicate with him. Ni Zhuo was very smart, and it took him only half a month to roughly learn this person's language, and then they started talking.

The conversation was mainly divided into two parts. The first was about what happened to this person after he came to the Tang Dynasty. Regarding his own experience, this person did not want to mention it too much, but this did not bother Ni Ni. The Ni family had business in various places. According to the other party

We entrusted local people to conduct visits and inspections about some of the situations mentioned, and it was finally confirmed that this person had not lied about his origins. On a summer morning, this person suddenly appeared on the street of a city on Guannai Road.

It was very strange. On the day of the incident, someone had seen him appear in the morning fog.

The villagers tried to talk to him, but found that they couldn't understand the language. They were worried that he was a foreigner, so they informed the government. The government arrested the man for interrogation. Because of the language barrier, they could not determine the person's identity, and in the end they could only give him a slap in the face.

Drive him out of the yamen.

Later, this man stayed in the city for many days. Some people saw that he was pitiful, so they kindly let him work. However, although this man was only in his early twenties, he was very lazy, could not eat hard, could not bear any fatigue, and could not afford two meals of porridge a day.
To be continued...