Chapter Eighteen Thirty Years Ago (I)

  Duan Yuwen told me the whole story at a moderate pace, and I listened with rapt attention. Gradually, a strange and mysterious adventure unfolded before my eyes. To ensure the smoothness of the story, I will now recount my father's mysterious experience thirty years ago.

  Thirty years ago, the Yunnan investigation team was completely formed by individuals and had no official background. Since my father already had a reputation in the academic circle at that time, many of his peers thought that he was the organizer of the Yunnan investigation.

  But in fact, my father also participated in that inspection activity with confusion at that time.

  The main planner of the inspection activity was actually my father's old classmate Wang Chengbao, who formed the inspection team with his own hands. It is worth mentioning that in Wang Chengbao's initial plan, there was no existence of Duan Yiwu. There are two main reasons for this: Firstly, because Duan Yiwu was a good friend of my father in the academic circle, while Wang Chengbao did not know him; Secondly, because at that time, Duan Yiwu was still young, although my father thought highly of him, but at that time, Duan Yiwu was just over twenty years old, and Wang Chengbao did not look up to him in his heart. It was only under my father's repeated requests that Wang Chengbao reluctantly agreed.

  Here is the translation:

  Now that I've come this far, I should briefly introduce Wang Chengbao. Back then, he and my father were close friends who shared a similar background, but they had different talents. At that time, my father was well-read and had a great memory, often providing new insights on old historical events, which earned him the respect of his elders. In contrast, Wang Chengbao's interests were vastly different from my father's; he didn't enjoy studying orthodox history, instead preferring to research unofficial histories, folklore, and legends. Many elderly gentlemen felt that he was wasting his talent. Moreover, compared to my father, Wang Chengbao had a more plebeian air about him; he often disregarded authority and went his own way, having no friends other than my father. Even with my father being his only friend, Wang Chengbao never truly opened up to him, as my father would say, "Wang Chengbao's gaze always seemed to be saying that you're not worth trusting." However, my father had always been enthusiastic about field investigations, so when Wang Chengbao suggested going to Yunnan to investigate the geological features of ancient Dian Kingdom, my father readily agreed.

  Among the five members of the inspection team, three were professional historians, while the other two were complete outsiders. The two men were brothers with the same surname, Qin Guiren and Qin Guihe, who were not from Liaoning or Yunnan locals, but came from Chengdu, Sichuan. My father did not know the two Qin brothers, and it was only through my father's inquiry that he learned that they had both been soldiers before.

  However, what I didn't expect was that in order to clearly and logically recount the entire incident, it would be necessary to start with a bizarre experience of the Qin brothers during the Sino-Vietnamese War.

  The Sino-Vietnamese War is the closest war to my generation where China was the main belligerent. I remember that when I was young, it was still common to hear news about the situation of the war.

  Throughout the 1980s, there were almost constant frictions along the Sino-Vietnamese border, with small-scale skirmishes and ambushes occurring from time to time. However, everyone knew that a large-scale conflict only occurred during the short period of February-March 1979.

  Due to the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations and Vietnamese provocation at that time, almost all major military regions in China were in a state of war preparedness. In the war against Vietnam, China also adopted the method of rotating troops from seven major military regions, with a total of 200,000 soldiers rushing to the battlefield in succession. The Qin brothers, as soldiers of the 13th Army of the Chengdu Military Region, were also dispatched to the battlefield to perform tasks.

  Although China was almost in an absolutely advantageous position in the war that year, and quickly occupied many major cities in northern Vietnam in just one month, there were still many soldiers who died on the battlefield, and a very small number of companies lost contact with the main force on the battlefield, fighting alone until today.

  The Qin brothers were lucky to be assigned to the same company, but their company was destroyed in an operation because the soldier in charge of the radio station stepped on a landmine, and all the equipment was destroyed, so they completely lost contact with the main force. In a heavy rain, they encountered fierce and ruthless Vietnamese soldiers again, and after a fierce battle, only seven or eight people with good skills were left in the whole company.

  The remaining people wandered in the jungle all day, without knowing the specific direction, and even more didn't know where they were, whether in Vietnam or China. They also had no way of knowing. However, their survival instincts told them that they must keep moving, otherwise, they would inevitably die in the jungle.

  One day, the soldiers suddenly discovered a small village in a deep mountain valley, and this village seemed to have been unaffected by the war. The village was not large, with only about a dozen or so households. Qin Shi's two brothers and other soldiers did not dare to enter the village at first, because in their eyes, the village was likely to be a trap set by the Vietnamese. After all, during the Sino-Vietnamese War, Vietnam's militia organizations were sometimes even more difficult to deal with than the regular Vietnamese army. They were ruthless and cruel, and many soldiers would rather die in battle than fall into the hands of the Vietnamese, because the Vietnamese were notorious for their brutal treatment of prisoners of war.

  However, after several days of reconnaissance around the village by Qin Shi Brothers and others, no abnormalities were found. The villagers are very simple, at first glance, they seem to be no different from other remote mountain villages in China. Occasionally, when hearing the residents' conversations, it was discovered that their language is not Vietnamese. So, Qin Shi Brothers also entered the village with ease.

  Although Qin brothers held up their hands when entering the village, indicating that they meant no harm, it still caused a commotion among the villagers. The young men in the village surrounded them, but Qin brothers were not afraid, thinking that even if the mountain people were fierce, they had guns and didn't need to fear them. However, they didn't want to create a bloody incident, and what the soldiers hoped for most was to return home safely.

  Two groups of people stood there for a while, and then an old man who looked like the village chief appeared in front of them. The old man had a blue headscarf wrapped around his head, with white hair and beard. As soon as he opened his mouth, several people were stunned, only to hear that the old man said a sentence in Chinese, although it was not very standard, but still barely understandable, roughly meaning "Where do you come from, travelers?"

  In the team, Qin Guiren's military rank was the highest, so he stood up and replied: "Old man, we are the anti-Vietnamese People's Liberation Army, and we have lost contact with our troops. We want to get some dry rations here and hope you can show us a way out of the mountains."

  What surprised Qin Guiren was that the people in this village did not know what the Liberation Army was, but only asked: "Are you a guest from afar a Han person?"

  Qin Guiren and his companions nodded, and after some thought, the village chief let them stay.

  The village was full of dilapidated thatched cottages, and Qin Guiren and others were arranged in one of the larger houses. The whole village looked very backward, with extremely low productivity. There were several children who looked somewhat deformed, probably due to the problem of close relatives marrying each other. Apart from this, there seemed to be no other special features.

  However, soon Qin Guiren and others discovered the strange place of this village. The most unusual thing was that all the utensils in the whole village, such as pots, bowls, basins, etc., were made of bronze, and their drinking cups were actually three-legged bronze urns, which are often seen in TV dramas used by pre-Qin aristocrats to drink alcohol.

  Qin Guiren's military rank was higher, and he had received some good education. At a glance, he saw that these cups were absolutely extraordinary. Although the bronze vessels still looked bright on the outside and hadn't suffered any serious damage, from the feel of them in his hands, the age of these bronze vessels was absolutely counted in thousands of years.

  A thousand years ago? The bronze vessel from a thousand years ago is still in use in an unknown village on the outskirts of Yunnan, China, which is already unbelievable.

  Qin Guiren secretly took a bronze vase and hid it on himself, because he had a hunch that this village might be hiding some great secrets.

  That night, the village head called Qin Guiren to his own house and asked: "Guests can stay here for a few days. Three days later, someone in the village will go north, and at that time you just follow them, and you can go back."

  Qin Guiren agreed and returned to his quarters, not paying much attention to the matter. However, he strictly warned other soldiers not to relax their vigilance, as Qin Guiren always felt that there was something strange about the people in this village.

  Three days later, something happened that Qin Guiren never thought of. On the night of the third day, the whole village was wailing, and when Qinshi brothers and others went out to see what had happened, they found that the old village chief had already died.