"It's definitely not a hallucination! I understand what you are saying. I was trained when I was a scout. With my current physical fitness, I can control hallucinations even if I get an injection. I really heard strange sounds.
."
Wan Li specifically emphasized his ability to control hallucinations and his excellent hearing. Under special circumstances, he could hear a pin dropped ten meters away.
I think of the story that Chujiu once told me, that my uncle and grandpa’s friend Sun Nong, a corpse exterminator, also had very good hearing.
"Guo Guo, Master Wanli, let me go in and take a look. Don't come in unless I call you."
When Chujiu started calling him Master Wanli, it meant that he was getting serious.
At this time, Chujiu, who was standing at the entrance of the cave, had already taken out the copper coin sword in his hand.
"Be careful! If something goes wrong, come out quickly!"
As soon as I finished speaking, Wan Li jumped into the pit and stood at the entrance, ready to respond to the ninth day of the lunar month.
For about ten minutes, there was no response from Chujiu. Just when Wan Li couldn't help but prepare to jump into the cave again, Chujiu's shouts came from the cave, and we could go in.
The entrance of the cave was more than one meter high from the ground of the corridor. After Wan Li jumped in, I could only see his upper body.
When I jumped into the hole, Chujiu was shining a flashlight on the wall and staring at the patterns on it seriously.
The walls of the corridor are indeed just as Wan Li said, there are murals one after another. The murals are extremely simple, without any text, just using lines to outline various graphics to express the meaning.
"Did you see any tricks?"
I walked up to Chujiu and stared at the mural in front of him. The content of the mural was a man falling from the sky. The position of the man's hand was specially painted into a rectangle.
"Kekeke~"
Just when I was staring at the mural and seriously thinking about what the pattern meant, a soft female laughter came into my ears.
Wan Li, who was standing next to me, instinctively raised his pistol and pointed it at the depths of the corridor.
"Don't worry, Sa, it's just a bluff."
Chujiu raised his flashlight and shined it into the depths of the corridor. Four or five meters in front of us, a black object the size of a head was floating in the air of the corridor. If you look at it fiercely, you will be really scared.
"I've checked inside, and there's nothing there. It should be said that it has run away and returned to where it belongs."
Chujiu turned around and continued to stare at the mural, speaking in a calm tone.
"It? What did you say escaped? Where did it go?"
Wan Li approached Chujiu and asked seriously, regarding the situation related to the mission, Wan Li needed to make a report when he returned to the department and needed to get more detailed information.
"The answer lies in the mural. Forget it, I'll show you the depths of the corridor first."
After Chujiu finished speaking, he turned around and walked towards the depths of the corridor. When he passed by the black object, he stopped and shined a flashlight on it.
It turned out to be a sphere made of animal skin that resembled a leather ball. It was covered with hair. The bottom of the sphere was supported on the ground by a thin black rod.
No wonder it looks like a head floating in the air from a distance.
"Kekeke~"
Just as Wan Li and I were observing the sphere carefully, a woman's laughter came from behind the sphere.
Because I was very close to the sphere, I could hear the strange laughter extremely clearly this time. I instinctively took a step back, and the hairs on my back suddenly stood up.
Although Wan Li's physical reaction was not that obvious, it was obvious that he was also frightened, which could be heard from the changes in his breathing.
"Look here."
Chujiu walked around the sphere against the wall of the corridor, led us to the back of the sphere, and pointed at the black hair.
Only then did I see clearly that it was not a sphere like the ball I imagined. This strange thing was just a hemisphere, and there was nothing behind the ball.
Under the illumination of a flashlight, you can see some small holes on the front of the ball where it is close to the hair.
There are some transparent films like cicada wings attached at different angles behind the small holes. Behind the films are some intricately arranged bamboo pieces. Behind the bamboo pieces is a bag-like object similar to a balloon.
Just when I was wondering about the purpose of this design, the membrane at the front of the sphere began to shake, the bag behind the bamboo piece started to shake, and then a "clucking" sound came from there.
"What an exquisite design. It controls the area where the air flows through, thereby generating backflow and achieving the purpose of making strange sounds. This is simply a super complex version of a whistle."
Wan Li instantly understood the design. After his explanation, I remembered that the method of intimidating tomb robbers in tombs was very similar to this in the books I had read. It was also created through the weak airflow caused by people walking around.
Weird noise.
"It's been too long, and this thing has lost its greatest use. It should have contained medicinal powder that can cause hallucinations."
Chujiu pointed at the last bag, and I saw clearly that there were some tiny holes behind the bag.
Wan Li instantly mentioned many kinds of items that can cause people to hallucinate. One of them is the powder on the wings of a butterfly. If put into this bag, it can be emitted from such a tiny hole.
"From here to the end of the corridor, apart from the special walls, there is only a stone jar."
When we talked about the wall on the ninth day of the lunar month, we discovered that the wall behind the sphere was not black, but black with some deep red. When the light was so dark, it was impossible to tell without looking carefully.
"It should be paint made from many kinds of materials, mainly cinnabar, and there should be some Chinese medicinal materials. I found some wooden residues on the wall at the end."
As Chujiu walked, he explained to us that there was a one-foot-high stone platform on the ground at the end of the corridor, and on the stone platform was a stone jar with dense lines carved on its surface.
The lid at the mouth of the stone jar was partially opened, and it was empty inside. If you look carefully, you can see that there are some black residues on the ground of the stone jar.
"Go back and study the murals. There is nothing behind them."
Chujiu said that the purpose of our trip should be all about the murals, and started to walk back.
"Wait, give me the flashlight."
Wan Li took the flashlight from Chujiu and shined it on the side of the stone platform under the stone jar. Next to the gap between the stone platform and the corridor wall, there was a bunch of keys stuck.
Wan Li did not pick up the bunch of keys, but said that they had indeed been here before. Just when Chujiu turned around and the flashlight light disappeared, Wan Li vaguely saw a reflective spot.
Returning to the front end of the corridor, Chujiu pointed to the mural next to the hair sphere and told us that this should be the first painting and we had to start looking at it from here.
The mural uses lines to outline some houses with triangular roofs, surrounded by a group of tall, short, fat and thin people.
In the adjacent mural, a tadpole-like insect is emerging from the ground, with a huge head dragging a slender tail.
When I saw the third mural, I realized that I had misunderstood the second painting.
A humanoid monster stood in the middle of the house. The monster had a huge head and a neck that was so slender that it was completely disproportionate to the head. The monster held a fat man in its hand.
The content of the fourth mural is easier to understand. The monster stuffs the person in its hand into its big mouth.
The fifth mural still shows some houses, but the crowd has become a little thinner.
We followed the order of the murals and read the entire two walls, and finally understood the content of the murals.
In a village, suddenly one day a man-eating monster with a big head and a thin neck emerged from the ground. This monster would eat a person every once in a while.
Just when everyone in the village was about to be eaten up, a god came down from the sky.
The fairy fought with the monster from day to night, and finally subdued the monster.
After the immortal put the monster into a jar, he carved a spell to seal the monster on the jar, and then took the survivors to a mountain.
People dug a hole in the mountain and put the jar in the hole.
The immortal stayed outside the cave to guard the cave. When the immortal finally left, he turned the weapon in his hand into a stone tablet and let it guard the cave on his behalf.
There is no record of Shidunzi chess and silver runes in the murals.
According to Chujiu analysis, it may be that many years later, Taoist ancestors passed by this place and found that the seal of the cave was loose, so they used runes to bless it again.
It is also possible that Shidunzi chess is also a kind of magic weapon. This kind of magic weapon should have appeared among the gods and Taoist ancestors on the murals before the appearance of runes, and blessed and sealed the cave.
Chujiu guessed that this cave appeared before human history. There was already written history after the Shang Dynasty. Even the Xia Dynasty had oracle bone inscriptions.
Wan Li expressed doubts about Chujiu's statement. It was possible that the people in the mural village were illiterate.
Chu Jiu rolled his eyes at Wan Li and asked Wan Li if he knew about Xi Zhong?
Wan Li shook his head and said he had never heard of this person.
As Chujiu climbed out of the cave, he said that Xi Zhong was a craftsman from the Xia Dynasty and belonged to the Xue State, which was located in Guanqiao Town, Tengzhou, Shandong Province.
Xi Zhong is also one of the ancestors of the surname Xue. Because he invented the car, later generations regarded him as the God of Cars.
"Then what?"
Following Chujiu, Wan Li climbed out of the cave and stretched out his hand to pull me out of the cave. Seeing Chujiu talking about the God of Cars, he suddenly became silent, and asked Chujiu in confusion what did he want to express?
Chujiu curled his lips and looked aside with a look of disgust.
"Qin Feng, do you know what it means?"
Wan Li had no choice but to ask me, and I told Wan Li with a wry smile that Chujiu means "car" and was invented in the Xia Dynasty.
However, it was originally a pictorial text similar to oracle bone inscriptions. When writing was formed, at least during the Shang Dynasty, Shidunzi chess and murals were definitely not products of the same period.
Wan Li scratched his head in embarrassment and muttered in a low voice that Chujiu had so many things in his head, why couldn't he remember English words?
According to Wan Li, the task assigned to us by the department is over. We only need to fill the pit back and then go down the mountain.
Wan Li, who was swinging the engineering shovel rapidly, suddenly stopped what he was doing.
"I suddenly thought of two questions. Xia Chao's records in the department are also confidential, and is it feasible for me to report to Mr. Xu as Chujiu said when I get back?"