Ghost Blowing Lantern II

I suddenly remembered that Blind Man Chen mentioned that the bronze figures and ghosts in the Pingshan Tomb seemed to be the same thing as the bronze dragons I had seen and the bronze fish embedded in the "King of Qin Bone Mirror". He had said before However, this thing is related to the hexagram numbers in ancient times, but I didn't have time to study it deeply at the time. Now that I thought about it, I asked him for advice.

Blind Chen said: "The origin of these artifacts...Although I was also a scholar of heaven and refused to let Confucius and Mencius, I really didn't see the ugly Yinmao in this object. How did I know it? It was someone else. There was an encounter.”

Chen Xiazi talked about what happened. Before he led his people south to Yunnan to fight, he was about to appraise and sell various treasures dug out from Pingshan. In the past, he was not able to get rid of the stolen artifacts as quickly as this time. Because of the tomb robbing incident in western Hunan, there was a lot of trouble. The success was not small. At that time, not only did public opinion strongly condemn the warlords and bandits for stealing treasures, but antiquities dealers from all over the country came in droves, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune.

At a time when the world is in chaos, the price of antiques is low, but if it falls, it will inevitably rise. Many businessmen want to hoard a batch of genuine items at this time, so that they can ask for sky-high prices in the peaceful years, so the transaction of antiques and memorabilia has never been done. Interrupt.

There is a rich man named Qian who loves antiquity in the province. His family has opened several yarn shops in Shanghai, Qingdao and other places, and also has many local industries. Boss Qian was born in a Confucian family and was influenced by his family. He has been fond of antiques since he was a child. The trustee found Chen Xiazi and personally picked out a few things he liked.

Among them are the partridge whistle in the alchemy well, the six-winged old centipede worshiping the coffin and spitting elixirs from the coffin, the bronze alchemy furnace in the alchemy well, and the "bronze figures and bronze ghosts" with strange and simple shapes that were sold. Boss Qian was overjoyed as if he had found a treasure.

Blind Chen has always been conceited, not like Tang, Wu or Confucius. He always felt that his talents, knowledge and knowledge were unmatched by anyone in the world. Even the ancient sages and sages refused to take him seriously. However, he looked at the pair of eyeless bronze figures. , Bronze Ghost, although I knew there were a lot of strange things in them, I couldn't figure out the mystery at all. I wanted to ask Boss Qian why he chose these ancient relics to see if he knew their origins, but when he said it, he felt that it was wrong. identity.

In the end, I went around in a few more circles, using the excuse of talking about the past and the present, and learned a thing or two from Boss Qian. Boss Qian likes to read "Yi" the most, and he has studied it very deeply. He knows that today's gossip is all deduced. It turns out that the earliest ancient hexagrams did not use symbols such as "Qiankan Genzhen". The bronze eyeless human symbols and ghost symbols are the most primitive symbols in the ancient hexagrams. If you want to divine a hexagram, , at least four ancient talismans must be collected, but unfortunately there are only two, let alone a complete set.

Only four ancient bronze talismans can be used. It is said that mastering this method can gain insight into the mysteries of heaven. As for how to use it, Boss Qian does not know. He only knows that the bronze talisman must be an ancient relic from the Three Dynasties. The so-called Three Dynasties refers to Xia, Shang , Zhou Dynasty, as for things from the Tang and Song Dynasties, compared with the historical relics of the three dynasties, they cannot be called ancient relics. In the eyes of real experts, their collection value is incomparable, and the copper furnace for burning elixir should be It is from the late Western Han Dynasty.

There are some exquisite and mysterious patterns on the alchemy furnace, all depicting scenes of ancient people refining alchemy. If you look carefully, there are also marks of ancient bronze talismans. However, even though Mr. Qian has a profound knowledge, he cannot understand the content. He just feels that this is It is an ancient wonder, containing profound secrets and has high collection value.

Blind Chen thought to himself that since he didn't know what he was doing, what was the use of hiding it at home? The boss Keqian was sent away at the moment without taking the matter to heart. He turned his eyes and saw that more than half a century had passed, and he had never encountered a similar ancient bronze talisman again. The events of that year had long been forgotten, until The last time he heard me mention the dragon talisman in Baiyan Cave, he suddenly remembered this section.

Blind Chen said to me: "If you have a chance, why not collect four ancient talismans so that I can know what secrets they have."

I said: "Actually, I just saw two ancient bronze talismans by accident. Although I am personally interested in them, I will not search all over the world just because I want to pry into the secrets left by the ancients. Now I am most anxious to know, Where in the world are there still golden elixirs in ancient tombs? Saving people is like putting out fires, and the inner elixir of ancient corpses can no longer be found."

Blind Chen said with a smile: "That's wrong. Life passes by in a hurry for decades, and you are as humble and insignificant as an ant. If you can understand the secrets of God with the body of an ant, even if you are shattered to pieces, it will not be in vain."

I smiled bitterly and shook my head. Although Blind Chen was a late hero, his ambition was still there. However, his pursuit had changed now, and he was at a higher level. He actually wanted to know the secret of "god".

My experiences over the years have caused my view of the universe to wander between "materialism" and "idealism." But if you ask me whether I believe there is a real "god" in the world, I will definitely not nod.

I think Shirley Yang is religious and very pious. She may believe in these concepts of "divine secrets, revelations, and gods." But Shirley Yang also shook her head. She said: "Asking a person what God is like is like asking a goldfish. It doesn’t matter what the water it lives in is, faith should be the destination of the soul.”

Chen Xiazi said: "As for the ancient corpse inner elixir, there are more than one or two in Pingshan Mountain in western Hunan. This is because Pingshan Mountain was originally an elixir palace and a mountain of medicine. It is not surprising that there is such a thing. The rest of the place can be found There are very few, but the Pingshan Mountain has been robbed decades ago, and even the local Dongyi tombs with no visible artifacts were dug out by those arrogant thieves. Now you two want to To find the golden elixir from ancient tombs, I’m afraid I have to ask God. Without the revelation of the apocalypse, it’s hard to find it in this vast world, even if you wear iron shoes.”

Seeing that my last hope had failed, I couldn't help but feel extremely discouraged. It seemed that Duo Ling's life could not be saved after all, but I would not give up until I reached the Yellow River. As long as Duo Ling was still alive, I would try my best to think of other ways. Seeing that it was getting late, I had no way to return to Beijing that day, so I had to stay temporarily in the guest house of the Ministry of Railways.

The next day I asked Blind Chen what his plans were for the future. Do you want to go shopping in the United States with me? Chen Xiazi sighed: "The ancients often compared floating life to dreams, lamenting that time flies so fast, and life is like living in a void. During this period, there are so many joys, angers, sorrows, haggardness, gains and losses, life and death, and transformation. Shell, in the end, it is like a dream, we get together and eventually break up. We deserve the word impermanence. I never thought that we would never see each other again after we said goodbye by the Dongting Lake. Looking back on the past, it feels like yesterday, in love. Yu Lidu should go to the tomb of his old friend, Partridge Shao, to pay homage. However, I am afraid that my old bones will only have a few days left to live. I really don’t want to die in a foreign country thousands of miles away, so I still want to return to Hunan first. A visit to my hometown."

I had no choice but to buy a train ticket, go to the train station with Shirley Yang and put him on the train, and made an agreement with him to find him before Qingming Festival, and then go to the United States together to visit the grave of the "last mountain mover".

After bidding farewell to Mr. Chen, we went back to the guest house to pack our things. We bought a newspaper on the way and flipped through a few pages on the bus. We saw a whole page about "After the Reform and Opening Up, the Party's Eleventh Day" Since the Third Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee, what brilliant achievements have been made in various fields? In order to enrich the amateur cultural life of Tianjin citizens, the Tianjin Natural History Museum has reopened to the public, and leaders from all walks of life have written congratulatory messages."

This kind of news can be seen everywhere, and there is nothing special about it, but one part of it caught my attention. The news mentioned that in order to enrich the exhibits of the Natural History Museum, a batch of precious unearthed cultural relics from Hunan Province will be sent to Tianjin. It will be on display for one week in the sixth exhibition room on the second floor of the museum.

This batch of precious cultural relics from Hunan Province includes a batch of national treasure-level cultural relics donated by patriotic overseas Chinese. Among them, the ones that deserve special attention are the relatively rare "eyeless humanoid bronze ornaments (Zhou) in history" and the nine-color painted bronze statues with gold and silver. Furnace (Han)..."

I wondered: "History is always full of amazing coincidences. Aren't these the treasures that the heroes who moved mountains and unloaded mountains poured out from Pingshan? It turned out that they had been donated to the country by patriotic overseas Chinese, and they were brought to Tianjin. The exhibition is open to the public.”

Shirley Yang took the newspaper and read it. She was also curious: "The photos in the newspaper are a bit blurry. Why don't we drop by the Museum of Natural History to see for ourselves?"

We hit it off right away. We didn’t even go back to the guest house. We went straight to the Museum of Natural History to buy tickets. This exhibition hall was established very early and can be traced back to the early years of the Republic of China. It was called the "Northern Xinjiang Museum" and later changed to the "People's Science Museum". "Since it reopened not long ago, there are not many exhibits, but there is an endless stream of guests visiting inside. Organized school groups account for more than half of the crowd, and most of them go to see the fossils and specimens of various paleontological plants.

At that time, there was a popular "exhibition craze" in the society. If you go to the park, you can often see exhibitions such as "abnormal fetal specimens, ancient corpses from Xinjiang, human anatomy..." and even some rare animal exhibitions. There are mice as big as piglets, monsters with human heads and snake bodies, etc. There are all kinds of gimmicks, but some of them are selling sheep's heads as dog meat.

Therefore, I was not interested in the exhibits in the museum. Seeing that there were stairs outside the museum that led directly to the "Exhibition of Precious Cultural Relics Unearthed in Hunan Province" on the second floor, I took Shirley Yang straight to the second floor.

When you go in from the outside on the second floor, you can see that the exhibits are really rich. Hundreds of large and small cultural relics are displayed in various glass display cabinets in various categories. Many of them are imitations. It is impossible for real people to see them so casually, but ordinary Visitors can't see it, they just see it freshly. However, there are not many people visiting this floor, so it seems a bit deserted.

I have seen countless artifacts. When I saw these things, I couldn't help but feel that they all looked familiar. I glanced at them and saw the legendary alchemy furnace in a display cabinet. It was exactly the same as what Chen Xiazi described. Judging from my eyesight, this thing is definitely authentic. Perhaps because of its large size, there is no need to worry about being stolen easily.

Shirley Yang remembered that her grandfather had hidden in this furnace, and she couldn't help but imagine, and she was fascinated. I stared at the lines on the furnace body, trying to carefully identify the details in the picture, but there was no difference between the alchemy furnace and the glass of the display cabinet. The distance is one meter away. Although I am not short-sighted, I can't see the details clearly. Moreover, there are a total of eight "Immortal Transformation Pictures" cast on the copper furnace. Several of them are blocked due to the angle, so I can't even see them. Less than a glance.

Shirley Yang suddenly remembered that she had left her inseparable camera in the guest house. She was anxious to take some photos, so she asked me to wander around casually. She immediately went back to get the camera.

I had no choice but to wander alone in the Museum of Natural History, looking at the alchemy furnace several times, and then looking at the "bronze talismans" in another set of display cabinets. The hollow "human talisman and ghost talisman" in the eyes were all there, and there were traces of bronze. They were beautiful and seemed to be genuine. I was about to take a closer look when a uniformed policeman suddenly came over and slapped me on the shoulder without saying anything.

I only focused on looking at the ancient talismans. I never expected that such a situation would happen. It happened suddenly, and I was a little confused. Is it illegal to look at visible weapons? I said to the policeman inexplicably: "Comrade policeman, what do you mean? Five lectures, four beauties and three loves, but I have not fallen behind in any of them..."

But the policeman shouted: "Company commander, you don't recognize me?" The voice was so loud that it made people's ears buzz.

I took a closer look, and it turned out to be a comrade of mine in the army who we fought on the front line in Vietnam. His name was Ai Hongjun. I had nicknamed him "Naughty" before. Since I left the army, he has not When I saw him again, I didn't expect that I would meet him in the Museum of Natural History a few years later. I was surprised and happy to meet the comrades who crawled out of the dead together unexpectedly.

I laughed and said, "Lao Ai, you still have such a loud voice, why are you sneaking into the police force now..." Just as I was about to reminisce with him, I suddenly saw a familiar figure flash past the door of the exhibition room, and I was immediately startled. , I felt something bad in my heart, as if someone had stabbed me in the back, but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I was at a loss and couldn’t catch any clue. I hurriedly pushed away the man in police uniform. Ai Hongjun quickly chased after the familiar mysterious figure.

I walked quickly to the door, but unexpectedly, a group of students who were visiting as a group came in and blocked the corridor in front of the door. When I pushed aside the crowd and went down to the lobby on the first floor, I could no longer find that person.

I muttered a curse to myself, what the hell, I did seem to have seen that person before somewhere, but I couldn't remember it. I had a vague hunch that the other person was also attracted by a few cultural relics brought from Hunan for exhibition. Come. (To be continued. If you want to know what happened, please log in. There are more chapters. Support the author and genuine reading!)