Chapter Seventeen: The First Glimpse

  I was taken aback when Ma Si Zhe interrupted me, fortunately Cheng Shu didn't notice anything unusual. It seems his attention was all on the sandalwood that Ma Si Zhe was talking about.

  Ma Si Zhe added oil and vinegar to the story of finding sandalwood when we went down the stairs, and it was so fascinating that I almost believed it was true. This kid's lying skills haven't decreased at all, and he fooled Cheng Shu into being stunned.

  Cheng Shu didn't suspect a thing, his mind was preoccupied with the sandalwood incense ashes.

  "I thought at the time that this sandalwood wall could ward off evil, and it's quite common, so I didn't study it much." Ma Si Zhe had a look of ignorance on his face as he continued to fabricate nonsense.

  "You only know one side, but not the other. This sandalwood is used in ordinary households to ward off evil spirits and misfortune, but it's not that simple when it comes to tombs." Cheng Shu's eyes became deep and solemn.

  "Is there anything different?"

  "Of course it's different, you young people wouldn't know, according to ancient records, sandalwood ash is often used for sealing the bones in tombs."

  According to Cheng Shu's description, Gu bone is also a kind of witchcraft and it is extremely poisonous.

  The deceased would find someone with a birth date that clashes with their own before they die, and make them a scapegoat. At the time of their death, they would order people to drown the scapegoat in water. Afterwards, they would burn the corpse into ashes using sandalwood, mix it with black rice, and seal it in the tomb passage with mud.

  May the deceased have a smooth and peaceful next life, free from entanglements with people who were at odds with them in their previous life.

  "Could it be that behind that wall are all skeletons?" Just thinking about it makes me feel a chill run down my spine.

  "It's just why it appeared in that cave, really can't figure out" Cheng Shu was puzzled.

  I thought to myself, don't think about it anymore, it's strange if you can figure it out.

  "Don't talk about this here, it's so eerie. I think this Tongtian Hall is very strange. Let's not have any accidents and be unable to leave later." Ma Si Zhe shivered and said while rubbing his arm. I can feel that Ma Si Zhe now urgently wants to get rid of them, probably he has a lot on his mind and is about to have an emotional breakdown.

  "Just now, we saw many strange things downstairs. Do you want to go down and take a look? Maybe there will be some clues." I suddenly thought that the two of them came out from the secret passage and went directly to the second floor, so they didn't know about the situation on the first floor. We can't figure out what's going on downstairs, maybe Uncle Cheng knows something.

  Another thing is to think of a reasonable excuse to get rid of Cheng Shu and Huo Ying. As for Jiang Liu, I really can't think of any good excuses.

  "I'm going downstairs with Huo Ying, you two stay upstairs and don't mess around with the things in the house," Cheng Shu told me and Ma Si Zhe before he went downstairs.

  Ma Si Zhe nodded like a little daughter-in-law, obediently nodding her head. I also followed suit and nodded in agreement.

  "Jiang Liu can go too. If there's anything that requires effort, it won't be good for a woman and an old man to handle alone." Ma Si Zhe said with a smile, my heart tightened.

  Ma Si Zhe is too obvious, it's clear that there's something to be said behind people's backs.

  Cheng Shu just said it was exactly what he wanted, and went downstairs with Jiang Liu, Huo Ying and three others. As soon as they left, Ma Si Zhe began searching the whole house for the secret passage Cheng Shu had mentioned, and I followed him back and forth.

  "You're stupid, saying it so obviously, aren't you afraid of letting Uncle Cheng find out?" I lowered my voice and whispered.

  "You think Master Cheng is you? How could that old fox not see through it? I'm saying this just to save face for both of us."

  As they spoke, Ma Si Zhe discovered that there were many double doors in the house, and the arrangement of the doors was very strange. There were all sorts of directions, and it was impossible to tell what they were used for.

  "What's going on? We're just a few people, can't have internal divisions"

  Ma Si Zhe looked at me with a helpless expression, as if he had just heard a joke. "Are you stupid from eating too much public food? You're still naive, do you think others consider us one of their own?"

  "I didn't think so, at least we're not enemies"

  "That's when there's no conflict of interest yet. If there really is a contradiction that day, it might be worse than an enemy. An enemy won't make you defenseless."

  I fell silent, feeling even more uneasy inside. Cheng Shu was an old hand, if he wanted to scheme against Ma Si Zhe and me, we would be completely defenseless.

  "Except for me, don't believe anyone else," Ma Si Zhe said slowly as he poked his head into the dark room.

  "I don't believe you either," I said with a pout.

  Ma Si Zhe kicked me with his heel and turned into the dark room.

  I didn't follow them in, and instead walked to the stairs to take a look downstairs. Cheng Shu was holding the hem of the dry corpse's skirt and saying something to Huo Ying, while Jiang Liu stood by indifferently. Before long, a shout came from the dark room.

  "Get in here"

  I had no choice but to follow obediently.

  The room was pitch black, with a musty smell. I took out my flashlight and saw Marx sitting at a desk, reading! He looked so serious, even more so than during our final exams back in the day.

  "What's gotten into you, Old Ma?"

  "Come quick and take a look" Ma Si Zhe ignored my grumbling, only beckoning me over to take a look.

  The darkroom turned out to be a place for storing books. The house was not big, with bookshelves standing on all four sides, containing bamboo slips, silk books, and paper books, although the latter were relatively rare. Now that it's come to this, I don't bother thinking about why these things haven't rotted away - there's nothing here that follows the usual pattern, every time I touch something I think of something else, it's too exhausting.

  "Look," Ma Si Zhe spread out the book in his hand in front of me, his eyebrows furrowed tightly as if he had seen something that was hard to accept.

  "What's this?" I asked.

  I don't know

  “……”

  I was speechless. "Don't you still have such a deep grudge? I thought you were checking your family's account book."

  "I always smile when I look at our family's account book"

  I'm too lazy to argue with him, so I lowered my head and took a look at the book in his hand. I touched the texture of the paper, which felt similar to Xuan paper. This type of paper was first popularized during the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, but it's unclear exactly when it emerged.

  After taking a look at the content recorded in the book, I immediately overturned my own idea. The words recorded in the book turned out to be about the Western Han Dynasty.

  "Why does he look somewhat familiar?"

  "Of course it's familiar, we just saw similar text not long ago." I looked at Ma Si Zhe, hinting him to recall carefully.

  Ma Si Zhe suddenly slapped his thigh, 'I remembered, the characters I saw in the White Bone Cave are exactly the same as those in this book'

  No, the text used to record this book and the text on the wall of the White Bone Cave are branches of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Since all the records in this tomb are written in this script, at least one thing can be explained. This book is a description by some ethnic minority of the Central Plains during the Western Han Dynasty.

  Although the Sino-Tibetan language is used by the vast majority of ethnic minorities in China, the text on this tomb is different from all the branches I previously knew. It has the grammatical characteristics of Tibeto-Burman languages and the writing style of Clerical script. This is also one of the reasons why I determined that this book was written by a minority nationality.

  The Tibeto-Burman language family includes over 400 languages, of which only a small portion belong to ethnic groups in China. The rest are distributed across Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and other regions. Under the Tibeto-Burman language family, there are many branches, with too many varieties to count.

  The book roughly records the year of some things, which is complicated and cumbersome. When combined with some books in the back, it is found that the events recorded by the books in this room are all the same thing. It can be said that this hidden room was prepared just to record this one thing.

  The things recorded in the book are complex and lengthy, and there are many places that I don't understand. After much effort, I sorted out a general idea. And this story is actually closely related to a country.

  The protagonist recorded in the book is called Nà Wū, an arithmetic master of ancient Dian Kingdom. The so-called arithmetic master is not much different from the national teacher. Helping the ruler to plan and make elixirs. The only difference is that the selection of the arithmetic master is determined by the death of the previous generation's arithmetic master. The infant born at the same time as the arithmetic master's death is selected as the next arithmetic master. It is done by heaven, and life goes on without interruption.

  Na Wu was the seventh astrologer of ancient Dian Kingdom. During his term, a strange thing happened.

  One day, Wu was writing down the medicinal materials needed for alchemy when someone came to visit. Wu took a glance at the visitor and saw that it was a young woman wearing a veil covering half of her face.

  "What brings you here, young lady?" The witch stopped writing and asked the person in front of her.

  "Why didn't you ask who I was first?" the woman said calmly.

  "It doesn't matter who you are, since you've found me, you must have something to ask for." Wu Ping was a kind person and many people would come to him for help, mostly to see a doctor or get medicine, so he thought the visitor was here for the same reason.

  "Perhaps after you know who I am, you will be more inclined to believe what I say."

  "Alright then, may I ask who you are, miss?"

  The 'Hani Beauty' finished speaking and removed the veil from her face, revealing a stunningly beautiful face with cloud-patterned tattoos on her cheeks.

  Na Wu listened, then quickly got up from the chair, walked swiftly to the woman's front, knelt down with reverence and knocked three times, placed her index finger on her brow, closed her eyes and said "You Nu Bei You"

  The Hani people were the ancestors of the ancient Dian Kingdom, and later merged with other ethnic groups. Nuo had been in office for over a decade and had never seen a female shaman before. Female shamans usually only appeared to preside over national sacrifices or when conflicts arose with neighboring countries. Today's sudden visit made Nuo very uneasy.

  "What instructions does the mysterious lady have?"

  After a brief pause, the voice of the mysterious woman came from above 'Gu Dian will perish'

  A month later

  He brought the things given by the witch and the witch girl to Chang'an, which is now Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province.

  Standing in front of the city gate, Wu remembered the words that the mysterious woman had entrusted him with that day.

  The Hani people's divination girl divines for the ancient Dian Kingdom every year, and this year's oracle shows that the kingdom's luck is getting weaker and weaker. At the latest, it will disappear next year.

  "What can I do?" That was a clever person, the girl's visit must have had a task to entrust him with, otherwise such a big matter, why bother notifying a small abacus?

  The girl in the dark took out a silver turtle from her sleeve and handed it to the witch. 'You only need to put this silver turtle under the bed in Weiyang Palace to complete the task.'

  The content of the book stops abruptly, without explaining whether the witch completed her task or why the silver turtle was placed in Weiyang Palace. I flipped through other books, and the content is all the same. There is no more content.

  The ancient country of Yunnan is mentioned here.

  Actually, the demise of the ancient Dian Kingdom has always been an unsolved mystery. Some speculate that it was due to a plague, while others believe it was a natural disaster. These are just speculations within the archaeological community. In Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", the description of the ancient Dian Kingdom is brief: "In the southwest, there were tens of small states, with Nanzhong being the largest; to its west, there were tens of Mo states, with Dian being the largest." The general meaning is that in the southwestern region, there were many small states, with Nanzhong being the largest, and to its west, Dian was the largest.

  We now only know about the Dian Kingdom's resplendent bronze civilization and ancient culture, but we still know nothing about its politics and military.

  "Maybe this tomb is related to the mystery of the fall of the ancient Dian Kingdom." Ma Si Zhe and I thought of it at the same time. Now there are many more things that I can confirm.

  The glow-in-the-dark skull pit suggests that this tomb is related to a grand sacrificial ritual. The murals in the White Bone Cave further confirm this idea. The female corpse downstairs, combined with this book, has an intricate connection with the Hani people. In the end, it involves a country, Ancient Dian. The whole thing becomes clearer and more confusing at the same time.