Chapter 236: Dinosaurs from the Jurassic

Wei Ming and Biaozi were chatting in the courtyard, under a sky full of stars—only the two of them—and both thought, if only someone like Yanzi/Xuejie, Linjie, or Melinda were beside them.

"You know about my cousin and Xiao Mei, right?" Wei Ming opened first, glancing at the moon.

"Mei Wenhua told me in her letter—said your cousin's a huge, huge beauty, prettier than my Yanzi. You're just blowing smoke, right?" Biaozi's expression showed utter disbelief, yet deep interest.

Wei Ming smiled: "Love makes beauty; they're evenly matched."

Neither was as beautiful as his own Xuejie and Linjie—that wasn't love-blinded eyes, that was the people's voice.

"Got any photos?" Biaozi asked eagerly.

"I did, but I left them with my uncle."

"What a pity."

"You'll see them when you finish filming and get back to Beijing—you'll have to be the best man." Wei Ming said. Only Biaozi could do it; he couldn't—he was family on the bride's side.

"What? Best man? They're getting married?!" Biaozi exclaimed.

Wei Ming nodded: "They're planning it this year. The clothing shop made a lot of money—Xiao Mei's already thinking about buying a house and a car."

Biaozi felt a rush of being left behind, but mostly confusion: "Are they really that desperate? Is it… is it because she's pregnant?"

If the girl weren't Wei Ming's cousin, Biaozi would've said it outright: Did he knock her up?

"Get lost—I'm watching him. He dares?" Wei Ming snorted. "But you and Yanzi—you better be careful. You're not old enough yet. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't."

Biaozi and Wei Ming were the same age. Next year he'd turn twenty—hey, guess what? The marriage law changed—had to wait two more years!

Biaozi's face flushed: "Ah, I'm being careful!"

"Really careful? I doubt you even know how." As a seasoned player, Wei Ming couldn't hide his superiority—sometimes a senior had to give a lesson.

"I don't know? What don't I know?!" Biaozi pulled a contraceptive from his pocket and waved it in front of Wei Ming. "Once I got hurt and stole three from the clinic."

"Only one left?" 3 minus 1 is 2—Wei Ming did the math.

Biaozi coughed twice, quickly tucked it away, his face reddening in the dark: "Just leave it."

Tsk tsk—looks like the four guys from the same dorm are now down to just Xiao Mei as the last virgin.

Wei Ming patted his pocket—unfortunately, he didn't carry Durex habitually; otherwise he'd have recommended this foreign product to him.

"Tomorrow you come with us to the set?" Biaozi suggested.

Wei Ming: "Mm, I'll go take a look."

"How long will you stay? You wanted to shoot landscape photos, right? I know some spots—stunning scenery, pure paradise!" Biaozi said. "I'll take you. I'm useless on set anyway."

Wei Ming shook his head: "I leave the day after tomorrow—I've got to go to Zigong to find someone."

"Zigong?" Biaozi froze. "Looking for your aunt?"

"Mm. Doesn't matter if I find her—I need to bring my mother back to Beijing after."

Biaozi thought a moment: "Maybe I should come with you."

"Huh?"

"I'm bored stiff on set. Sichuan's so big—I've never even toured Chengdu, just passed through once during a transfer," Biaozi grew more animated. "It's settled—I'll tell the director tomorrow. Give me a few days off. As long as I'm back for my final battle scene."

Then Biaozi asked: "By the way, Ming-ge, what's good to eat or see in Zigong?"

Zigong mobile? Wei Ming shook his head, then thought: "Uh… rabbits?"

Biaozi asked: "For eating or playing?"

Wei Ming: "Both tasty and fun."

The next day, Biaozi first asked Yanzi's permission. Despite his boldness last night, if Yanzi said no, he probably wouldn't go.

After getting Yanzi's approval, Biaozi went to pester Director Xu Xiaoming. Though Yang Qitian was a mainland director, Xu was more flexible and easier to convince.

Biaozi painted the family search as perilous—like Wei Ming couldn't survive leaving Zigong without him as a bodyguard.

Xu Xiaoming chuckled: "Didn't know mainland had places this deadly. You better be careful—if you don't come back, we'll need a new boss."

That day, Wei Ming watched the crew film an action sequence—it was complicated, especially to make it look good. A minute of footage might require dozens of shots, each demanding adjustments to lighting, props, and personnel. Han Sanping quickly joined in—he was an old hand at lighting and adapted fast.

This film had tons of action scenes—a visual feast for mainland audiences who'd never seen polished cinema.

Not just mainlanders—even Hong Kong audiences would've nodded in approval. Yuan Xiangren had pulled out all the stops, and Xu Xiaoming hadn't let Xia Meng down.

Biaozi said Xia Meng had flown to Wuhan right after filming began to cheer everyone on.

Of course, since Wei Ming hadn't deeply participated, and due to era limitations, it still fell far short of his ideal action masterpiece—even compared to "Shaolin Temple." That could wait; first, seize the advantage.

After two days in Jiuzhaigou, shooting plenty of landscape and portrait photos, Wei Ming, Biaozi, and his cousin boarded a tractor headed for Zigong.

"I haven't asked—you met your dad yet, since coming to Sichuan?" The tractor roared; Wei Ming shouted over the noise.

Biaozi: "I might meet him this time."

Wei Ming blinked: "Your dad's in Zigong?!"

Biaozi grinned and nodded.

Wei Ming: "When we get to Chengdu, I'll develop the photos of Yanzi I took yesterday."

Biaozi rummaged in his bag: "I've got them."

Yanzi was the female lead—her scenes in Sichuan were heavy; she couldn't leave the set. Biaozi could only bring photos for his dad—that's why he insisted on coming to Zigong with Wei Ming.

Wei Ming nodded. He knew the Third Front construction was ending soon. Engineer Zhao, who'd sacrificed so many years for the nation, could finally return home. Maybe, by accident, Biaozi would even get to dandle his grandchildren.

After a stretch on the tractor, then a bus, a train, another bus, then a donkey cart, Wei Ming wrote a few essays along the way.

Writers are always emotionally charged—once moved by breathtaking scenery, their pens can't stop, just as seeing a stunning beauty makes the heart race.

Sichuan was vast. Though Jiuzhaigou to Zigong wasn't the longest stretch, it was nearly as long as Jiangsu. With poor roads, it might take two or three days.

Biaozi told Wei Ming his father was in charge of tunneling through mountains—digging tunnels to build roads. Long Xiaoyang listened, deeply respectful—living in the mountains, he understood the importance of roads.

On the way through Chengdu, to satisfy Biaozi, they stayed overnight, eating Tiancan Potatoes and San Da Pao, then the three men left, clean and pure.

Entering Zigong's territory, they rode a worn-out bus, jolting along. Wei Ming chatted easily with local passengers. When he couldn't understand the dialect, Long Xiaoyang stepped in to translate.

As they talked, the bus suddenly stopped.

"Roadwork ahead—we need to detour," the driver said, pointing to a warning sign. "It'll take longer."

Biaozi glanced at the sign's company name and shouted: "Master, stop here—we'll get off right here."

Wei Ming asked: "Your dad's workplace?"

"Mm!"

So the three were dropped off in the middle of nowhere. They carried their bags and walked a long way before spotting the construction crew.

Zhao Debiao stepped forward: "Brother, can you tell me—is there a man named Zhao Tiezhu here?"

The worker spoke Northeastern dialect. Seeing Biaozi's build, face, and bald head, he jumped back, wary: "Who are you? What do you want?!"

Wei Ming stepped forward, offered a cigarette: "Comrade, hello. We're here to visit family—this is Zhao Tiezhu's son."

"Zhao Tiezhu from Beijing?"

"Yes."

"You're Engineer Zhao's son?" The Northeastern man studied Biaozi closely. "Didn't see it."

Wei Ming offhandedly said: "He takes after his mother."

The Northeastern man suddenly felt sorry for Engineer Zhao—no wonder he didn't want to go home for New Year.

The man's name was Changhai. He told Wei Ming: "Engineer Zhao isn't here—he's at Dashanpu. We hit dinosaur fossils while digging, and he went over to handle it."

Long Xiaoyang: "What? Dinosaur? What's a dinosaur?"

He knew dragons, knew Confucius—but didn't know what "Confucius dragon" was.

"I'll explain later," Wei Ming said. "Thanks, brother. How do we get there? Where can we catch a ride?"

Brother Changhai: "No rides here. Mountains stretch endlessly—you'd walk a full day and night and not reach it."

Long Xiaoyang: "Then what do we do?"

Brother Changhai smiled: "You're lucky—we've got a truck heading over to haul equipment. Since they can't start work there yet, you can ride along."

"Oh, that's perfect! Thank you, Brother Changhai!"

After over an hour, a Liberation-brand truck started. Wei Ming and the two others sat in the cargo bed, along with two workers—one from Shandong, one from Xuzhou, a spirit of Shandong.

The Third Front construction mostly drew workers from industrial provinces. Everyone spoke different dialects, united by one goal: even if we had to fight the damn Soviets to the death, we'd preserve the sparks of industry—so long as the green hills remain, we'll never lack firewood.

Both workers knew Zhao Tiezhu and greatly admired his skill—Biaozi beamed with pride.

They knew the fierce-looking man was Zhao Tiezhu's son, and asked what Wei Ming and Long Xiaoyang did.

These days, even visiting family didn't require two escorts—surely Zhao's son didn't need protection from bandits.

Biaozi immediately bragged: "This is my brother, the famous writer Wei Ming—you know 'The Herdsman' and 'The Children of the Choir'?"

Both shook their heads—never heard of Wei Ming's name.

Biaozi wasn't discouraged: "What about 'On the Fields of Hope'?"

Both nodded vigorously—every Chinese person knew that song. You still heard it sometimes on the radio, sung by different singers.

Biaozi grinned: "He wrote that song. 'Where Is Spring?' and 'Little Grass'—also my buddy's."

"Wow, that's amazing!" The two workers instantly warmed up, even inviting Wei Ming to sing "On the Fields of Hope."

Wei Ming was sharp—he refused to show his weakness: "Singing alone's no fun. Let's all sing together—I'll start."

"Our homeland, on the fields of hope…"

After Wei Ming began, everyone joined in—even the driver and front-seat passenger sang along. The song was wildly popular, timely, and deeply meaningful to those far from home.

They sang one song after another. Long Xiaoyang grew impatient. Finally, when they paused, he seized the chance to ask again.

"Brother, what's Konglong?"

Wei Ming: "Dinosaur. A collective term for extinct animals. They first appeared 200 million years ago, went extinct tens of millions of years ago. Some could fly, some swam, many lived on land. The smallest were shorter than you; the largest reached dozens of meters tall—fierce, brutal. For over a hundred million years, they ruled Earth…"

These past years had seen rapid updates in dinosaur knowledge—new discoveries nearly every year. Dinosaur interest remained high abroad, so Wei Ming stuck to the latest "100, 00 Whys" version.

Not only Long Xiaoyang listened intently—the two workers did too, silent and absorbed.

It's really the big writers who explain things clearly—they actually don't have a clue what a dinosaur really is.

Long Xiaoyang exclaimed, "Whoa, tens of meters tall? People back then must've been miserable!"

Wei Ming laughed heartily: "There weren't any humans back then, so no need to worry about us."

"I wonder how big the dinosaur they dug up is—I really want to see what a dinosaur looks like." Long Xiaoyang was eager; traveling with his cousin was truly eye-opening—he'd just learned how movies were made the other day, and today he'd get to see a dinosaur corpse.

Wei Ming: "You probably won't get to see what the dinosaur looked like."

Biaozi, with his insight, said: "Exactly—this was tens of millions of years ago. It's probably just a skeleton left behind."

Wei Ming: "Actually, it's not a skeleton—it's a dinosaur fossil. Strictly speaking, it's not even the dinosaur's original bone. After being buried underground for hundreds of millions of years, it's been compressed and deformed. When first dug up, it's rarely intact—it's just chunks of rock. Scientists have to use their knowledge to clean the fossil fragments and piece them together into a dinosaur skeleton."

Wei Ming gave them a basic lesson on dinosaur fossils and described what dinosaurs looked like.

They still couldn't picture it, so Wei Ming pulled out his notebook and pen.

"Let me draw it for you." He immediately sketched a classic Tyrannosaurus rex.

Although the Tyrannosaurus rex became world-famous through the Jurassic Park films, it actually lived in the Cretaceous period, after the Jurassic, and was the apex predator at the end of the dinosaur era.

To give them a visceral sense of the Tyrannosaurus rex's terror, Wei Ming drew one with its mouth open, revealing a row of sharp teeth, and added a human beside it for scale.

The standing Tyrannosaurus rex was as tall as three adult humans; if a human lay down, it would be six or seven times as long.

The four immediately gathered around to look at Wei Ming's drawing, gasping in awe—damn, if this Tyrannosaurus rex were still alive today, it'd swallow them whole!

And this big writer didn't just write songs—he could draw too!

"Bro, can you give me this drawing?" Long Xiaoyang asked. After all, his surname was Long—he couldn't help being drawn to anything dragon-like.

Wei Ming tore it off and handed it to him: "This is a carnivorous dinosaur. Let me draw a herbivorous one."

This time, Wei Ming still used a human for scale, but drew the human tiny, while the dinosaur—with its extremely long neck—was as long as over ten humans.

The onlookers gasped again—dinosaurs were just too huge! If you could eat one, how long would it last? It'd probably feed a whole village for the New Year!

Seeing the herbivorous dinosaur, the Chinese no longer worried about being eaten—they started debating whether to stir-fry, stew, or barbecue it.

"This is called a Diplodocus," Wei Ming said, fond of singing, cross-dressing, and playing alternative rock.

The man from Shandong suddenly said: "I remember—there's an animal overseas called a giraffe. Isn't it related to this Diplodocus? Also got a super long neck."

Wei Ming laughed: "Actually, they're not related. The real relatives of dinosaurs are today's birds."

"Huh?"

Everyone couldn't imagine it—birds were so small, how could they possibly connect to dinosaurs?

The theory that dinosaurs were the ancestors of birds was still cutting-edge in paleontology at the time; Wei Ming had read about it in foreign magazines among his fellow exchange students.

It wouldn't be until over a decade later, with the discovery of Sinosauropteryx, that key evidence for dinosaur-to-bird evolution emerged—it was the first feathered dinosaur ever found.

So the original Jurassic Park trilogy's dinosaurs had no feathers, but the later Jurassic World trilogy started showing feathered ones, because scientific views had updated.

Seeing they still couldn't picture it, Wei Ming said: "You know ostriches, right?"

Only Biaozi nodded—he'd seen one at the Beijing Zoo. Being an African bird, most Chinese didn't even know such giant birds existed.

"Ostriches can grow over two meters tall—taller than a human—and run incredibly fast," Wei Ming drew another sketch. "Imagine a smaller Tyrannosaurus rex covered in feathers—doesn't it look a bit like that?"

The four fell silent for a moment. It did look a little like that.

"Bro, what kind of dinosaur did they find here?" Long Xiaoyang asked again.

"I'm not sure, but Zigong has plenty of dinosaurs. Years ago, I heard they dug up dinosaur fossils here—even a complete sauropod fossil. Maybe it's about the same type. Oh, Diplodocus is a sauropod," Wei Ming explained.

Although Changzhou is famous for dinosaurs, that's just an amusement park. The real dinosaur hometowns are Zigong in Sichuan and Lufeng in Yunnan—more fossils, more species, and some perfectly preserved.

Hearing it might be a giant like Diplodocus, everyone grew excited—sure enough, humans' innate awe and fascination with giant things.

Since the distance was far, they ate lunch on the road—Biaozi treated them. Wei Ming couldn't argue, and they even tried Zigong's famous cold-eaten rabbit, just one of Zigong's countless rabbit dishes.

No rabbit could leave Zigong alive—Zigong people had endless ways to prepare them.

The two men in the truck bed listened again as their colleagues gushed about the multi-talented, dinosaur-savvy big writer Wei Ming.

Then they refused to sit there anymore—they demanded to ride in the truck bed for the rest of the trip, forcing the two Shandong men and the "spiritual Shandongers" to drive.

The rest of the journey continued with dinosaurs—this time, mainly about their extinction. How could such a powerful, all-powerful species just vanish?

Everyone's curiosity was insatiable, greedily absorbing Wei Ming's dinosaur knowledge, wishing they could join the excavation the moment they reached the fossil site. Wei Ming was nearly drained of all the paleontology he'd learned from Faunastrophe.

So these guys picked up another fact: "asteroid impact on Earth."

Biaozi shuddered: "So meteors are this terrifying? Small ones are just meteors, but big ones could wipe out humanity!"

"Exactly—like the dinosaurs, gone in an instant. So terrifying!" sighed the driver from Zhejiang.

Laughing and chatting, the truck arrived at the Dashanpu area in northeastern Zigong.

Since the 1970s, nearly all Sichuan dinosaur fossils have been found in this area—it must've been a dinosaur habitat hundreds of millions of years ago. Wei Ming remembered that later, a large dinosaur museum had been built here.

Before finding Biaozi's father, Wei Ming first found his acquaintance.

He spotted a Jeep and recognized it, then noticed the person.

As soon as the vehicle stopped, he jumped out and shouted: "Hey, Brother Wan!"

Brother Wan stared at Wei Ming, stunned for a moment, then ran over and shook his hand: "Writer Wei! What are you doing here? I know—you're looking for family, right?"

When Wei Ming first brought his family to Chengdu, he'd asked Elder Ma from the Writers' Association to help, and Elder Wan from Science Fiction World had driven them to find his uncle's house.

"Yes, passing through here. Heard they found dinosaur fossils," Wei Ming said, looking ahead.

Brother Wan said: "We're here for the same reason—trying to write something, or get local experts to write some popular science articles."

From his helpless expression, Wei Ming knew exactly what was happening—science fiction is hard to write; Science Fiction World had to fill its pages with dry, storyless popular science articles.

Though resigned, Brother Wan and his colleagues were genuinely curious about the dinosaur fossils.

"I got here a bit earlier. Heard they dug up a big one."

Long Xiaoyang asked: "How big?"

Wei Ming introduced: "This is my cousin, Long Xiaoyang. You remember him, right?"

"Of course! Your aunt's boy, right?" Brother Wan had a good memory. "About ten meters long, and supposedly very complete."

As they chatted, Zhao Debiao had already pushed into the crowd, searching specifically for people in uniforms and safety helmets. Three years had passed—his father's face was already blurry in his memory.

Then he heard the unmistakable Beijing accent, the loud, boisterous tone—and nervously walked over, tapping his shoulder: "Hey, Old Zhao~"

…

(Yesterday's guaranteed two-in-one)

(End of chapter)