The clues come from the "Preface to Bie Ya" by Wang Jiaben of the Qing Dynasty: The door to Tongzhuanjia is opened, and it is so vast that there are almost no words in the world that cannot be used universally. So does anyone know what the clues originally mean? Let’s take a look.
The original meaning of clues is that you can find where the spider is through the hanging spider silk, and you can find out where the stove horse went from the footprints left by the stove horse crawling over. It is a metaphor that the traces left behind by doing things are traceable. "Trace" is mostly used to describe inconspicuous details that are difficult to detect. Also known as "spider traces", "spider traces", "horse traces".
Many people think that the "horse traces" in "clues of horses" refer to the hoof prints of horses. In fact, the "horse" in "clues of horses" is related to mammals that pull carts and shafts and have flying hooves. "Horse" has nothing to do with it, but refers to "stove horse, an insect that lives in burrows next to wood stoves." This small insect, with the scientific name "Katyton" and its common name "Katydoma", belongs to the family Orthoptera family. Its name varies from place to place. Chongqing calls it "Zao Chicken", Hangzhou calls it "Zao Bi Chicken", and Guangdong calls it "Zao Shrimp". Stove horses live in both the north and south of my country. When the weather is warm, they live in the grass, rocks and soil gaps in the wild. When the weather is cold, they live on the stove and feed on leftovers, rice crumbs, plants and small insects.
The "Dragon Classic" is a book about Feng Shui geography. The dragon is used to represent the mountains on the ground, and nine stars are used to determine good and bad luck. In "Wu Qu Xing", there is "The spider's thread is long when the horse is thrown, and the thread is continuous in the shuttle", and there is also "It is like a spider thread when it is led to a flat place, and it is like a spider's thread that is trying to break, and things are hidden in the shuttle." The sentences "Silk" all use clues to describe the faint traces of the earth's veins. For example, when describing the terrain of Tanlang Pojun, he said that the entire terrain looks like a ladder ascending in layers, with a cave protruding from the highest point, looking like a crowing rooster. There is a vein extending downward from the top of the mountain. Although it is not obvious when it comes to the flat ground, it looks like a spider's thread. It is constantly being broken, and there are traces of horses to be found. It runs across the east and west, and it is like a thread hidden in a shuttle. Later, "clues" were used to describe vague clues.