At the end of 2005, according to the oral recollections of the person involved (Mrs. Bao).
In that era of the last century, a large number of cultural relics were destroyed and confiscated. Many wealthy families had no choice but to bury their family heirlooms deep underground, usually in a jar and buried with the soil.
After 1970, the state took the initiative to return many things to the heads of households. This type of returned cultural relics usually comes with a box made of ebony, with the words "return to a certain number of 000" written on it, so I saw this when collecting.
Those who grow boxes have many good things.
At around 10 o'clock in the evening, the huge Bao family cemetery was very desolate. A fire lit up in front of a tombstone. It was Old Mrs. Bao who was burning paper for his father.
Next to the tombstone, a narrow hole with a diameter of less than one meter square was opened in the ground.
A long rope hangs down from the hole. The temporary helper I called, Dou Sprout, is squatting next to the rope and smoking. Along with the rope, there is also a blower pipe.
Seeing the rope swaying, Dou Sprout immediately started to lift the soil. The loess he lifted casually fell next to the tombstone and piled up into a small mountain.
"Damn it, Fengzi, haven't you reached the end yet?"
"No!"
It’s too deep. This is the second deepest hole I’ve dug since I started in the industry!
Some people say that you are bragging. If you are 30 meters deep, you must be ten stories high. Who believes it? Anyone who has this idea is an amateur. There are many tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Warring States Period that are buried tens of meters deep underground.
From the afternoon till now, the vertical depth is already close to 30 meters!
The space underneath is small, dark, and lacks oxygen. The blower has to be turned on every five minutes to provide oxygen. In the early years, people in the industry used the Dongcheng brand portable blower, which burned diesel and had a soft plastic pipe connected to one end.
I was wearing a headlamp and was covered in dirt, so I could only dig sideways underneath.
"Bah, damn..."
I thought to myself, is this old lady playing tricks on me?
I have been digging for a long time, but now I don't see any hair. If I keep digging, I am afraid that I will reach the underworld.
Half an hour later, the depth dropped another two meters. I was digging and digging, and suddenly I saw a lot of rotten hay.
After digging through the hay, I saw a small water tank half-buried in the soil.
At this time, my heart was beating wildly, and I carefully cleaned the floating soil around the mouth of the tank with my hands to expose it completely.
The tank is pressed with a three-inch thick solid wood board!
The surface of the wooden board was moldy and rotten. It was obvious that it had been buried for a long time. After removing the wooden board, I saw that there was still hay in the tank. At the bottom, there was a cast iron box hidden.
The whole box is square in shape, with the old-fashioned long copper lock on it. The surface of the iron box is stained with rust. There is a round pull ring on the left and right sides. I tied the pull ring on the rope and looked up at Dou Sprout, pulling it up little by little.
.
It took me a lot of effort to climb up, and I gasped and asked: "Grandma, where is the key to this box? Open it quickly and take a look."
The old lady looked at the iron box, shook her head and smiled bitterly: "I saw this thing once when I was a child. I didn't expect that I could still look at it before I died. Dad, all the ancestors of the Bao family, please
You forgive me."
The eldest sister covered her face and choked softly. Almost no one noticed that the corner of her mouth curled up.
The old lady took out a bunch of old-fashioned keys from her arms. She pointed out which one it was, then handed it to Dou Sprout and said to open it.
Dou Sprout took the key and fiddled with it for a long time. He shook it vigorously and said angrily: "Grass, is it rusted to death? It can't be opened!"
"Get out of the way, I'll do it."
Little Dou Sprout didn't know that there was a skill in opening this kind of old lock. After I took over, I first inserted it until it stopped, and then rotated it hard at a 45-degree angle.
If your hand feels like it can't turn anymore, you should slowly pull it out a little, and then twist it again.
I just heard the sound of Kata...opening.
After opening it, I saw that there was a lot of old oil paper stuffed inside the iron box. After peeling off the oil paper layer by layer, what appeared in front of me was a scroll.
The eyes of the shaft head were white and yellow, and I recognized it at a glance. It was a shaft head made of "a certain kind of tooth". In the past, it was a very high-end material that ordinary people could not afford.
Dou Sprout's eyes widened. He held up a flashlight to help me illuminate, while I untied the rope and unfolded the scroll bit by bit.
It's not a paper painting, it's a silk painting.
The first time I saw this thing, I felt a sense of old-fashionedness.
The silk looks very dry, severely oxidized and yellowed, and there are some stains on the edges. The subject of the painting is an ancient pine tree, and the side is covered with dozens of red seals, large and small!
These seal fonts cover official script, cursive script, running script, etc., and even nine-fold seal script. I don't recognize these seals, but I recognize one seal, which is also the largest seal in the painting.
