Chapter 115: New Message

I was unconscious for three days, and when I woke up, I had already been sent to the hospital. The moment I opened my eyes, I couldn't remember anything—I just felt the world spinning, overwhelmed by nausea and dizziness.

Two days later, this condition began to improve little by little, but I had completely lost my ability to speak. No matter what I tried to say, all that came out of my mouth were strange noises.

I thought my brain had been damaged, affecting my speech nerves, and I was terrified. But the doctor told me it was just a side effect of severe concussion and told me not to worry.

I communicated with others like a mute, using gestures, until the fourth day when I could barely ask the doctor where I was. He told me this was the Red Cross Hospital in Beilin District, Xi'an. Some armed police had brought me in; he couldn't explain exactly how they found me, only that I had about twelve broken bones, likely from falling off a cliff.

I had a cast on my chest and left hand, but I didn't know how severe my injuries were. Hearing him say that, I realized how lucky I was to be alive. I asked him when I might be discharged. He smiled and said I wouldn't even be able to get out of bed for at least ten days to two weeks.

That evening, the armed police who had brought me in came to visit with a fruit basket when they heard I could talk. I asked them the same questions I'd asked the doctor. They didn't know how to answer either, only saying that some villagers had found me by a stream in Lantian, lying on a bamboo raft, with my wounds already roughly treated. The doctor said that if not for that treatment, I would have died long ago.

I found it strange. My last memory was the moment I fell into the water. Logically, I should have been washed up on the riverbank, not placed on a bamboo raft. And second, Lantian is about seventy or eighty li from the Jiazigou area. Could it be that the distance we traveled through the underground river had unknowingly been that long?

I made up a story about falling while mountain climbing, thanked the armed police profusely, and sent them off. I immediately called Wang Meng and asked him to come to Xi'an, bringing some money and my clothes. The next day, Wang Meng arrived. I paid the medical bills, then bought a new phone and a laptop.

I asked Wang Meng how the business was doing. He said there was nothing important, except that my dad had been looking for me repeatedly. I thought that when I left, I hadn't expected to be gone this long, so he might be worried. I called home to let them know I was safe. My dad wasn't there, so I talked to my mom for a bit and asked about Third Uncle—still no news.

It seemed everything was just as it was when I left. I sighed.

Over the next few days, I was bored out of my mind. I suddenly thought of Old Yang and felt a pang in my heart. Lying on the hospital bed, I rummaged through my completely torn mountaineering clothes from the fall, searching for Old Yang's diary. The diary was still there, but it was soaked and completely illegible. I tried to read for a while but couldn't make out anything, so I connected to the hospital's phone line and went online to kill time.

I looked up a lot of information, but there wasn't much about antiques online. I roughly described the bronze tree in my mind and sent it to some friends. Replies came in one after another. Most of them had no idea what it was and didn't believe my description. However, a few letters were quite enlightening.

One of them came from the United States, from a friend of my father's who I got along with well. In his email, he said that this kind of bronze tree was called a "chi pillar," because it resembled a chi (an ancient musical instrument). In 1984, a similar one was found in a mine in Panzhihua, but it was nowhere near as big as what I described—only a fragment, with the underground part completely rusted.

So far, no literature could explain what it was used for. However, based on the Classic of Mountains and Seas and some written records of minority narrative poems, it was indeed related to ancient activities of capturing "earth dragons (snakes)."

"Candle Dragon Yin" was probably a type of snake that lived in extremely deep earth veins. Because it spent years in steep rock crevices, it hardly had a chance to look straight ahead, so its eyes mutated like a flounder's. Ancient people used blood to lure it out of deep earth veins, then shot it and made it into candles. It sounds unfair, but back then, a lasting light source was extremely precious, especially for those who moved at night or lived in pitch-black caves.

I thought his analysis made some sense, but it still didn't explain why encountering the so-called "chi pillar" produced that kind of wonderful yet terrifying ability. I wrote back, asking if there had been similar incidents in history.

He replied, attaching a fragment of a notebook-style novel that recorded an event from the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty. It mentioned that a blue-and-white stone box with dragon patterns was unearthed from a mine in Xi'an. When Emperor Qianlong opened it, he secretly summoned several ministers to the palace that night for a meeting that lasted until midnight. After that, the Qianqing Palace caught fire. Except for one well-known minister, all the others met bad ends, eventually killed for no apparent reason.

I checked the time; it was roughly around the same period as the event Li Pipa recorded in the "Hemu Collection," so there should be a connection. It seemed that the person who finally unearthed the white stone dragon box and those who knew about it were all silenced. The emperor went to such great lengths to keep a secret—what was inside that white stone dragon box? Could it be the origin of this ancient bronze tree? I wrote back again asking for his opinion, but he only replied with one sentence: "You'd have to dig deeper to find out."

I gave a bitter laugh, knowing it was unlikely. Who knew how much deeper it went? Maybe they spent centuries casting that thing. Even if someone actually wanted to dig, I would never live to see it unearthed.

There were also a few letters from my second uncle. He said that the minority cultures at that time inherited the decorative style of the Western Zhou, but communication between ethnic groups was limited, and transportation and communication were extremely underdeveloped, so there should have been a time lag. In other words, I had estimated the date too early. According to general patterns, the Central Plains region should have been in the late Qin period by then.

At that time, almost all activities were related to Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb construction. Hunting the Candle Dragon Yin might have been to extract "dragon oil" as tribute to the emperor for alchemy or similar activities. Moreover, according to geological surveys, the bottommost layer of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor also contained a huge metal object surrounding the entire tomb. Logically, the metallurgical technology of that era should have been incapable of completing such a massive project. The builders of that part were likely from a foreign ethnic group with highly developed metallurgy.

My second uncle was a huge fan of Qin Shihuang and could drag everything back to that period. I wasn't convinced by his speculation.

A month later, I was discharged and went home. After tidying up, I pulled myself together and got back into life. I sorted through the almost overflowing mailbox, pulling out some magazines and newspapers, and found an unsigned express delivery.

Old Wu:

Guess who I am?

Right, I didn't die, or rather, I came back to life.

I'm sorry for dragging you into this, but you're the only person I can trust, and I had no other choice.

Now this whole thing is over, our relationship has to end here. I'm glad I got to be friends with you, but none of that matters now. Are you dying to know what happened three years ago? Three years ago, I went with a bunch of Liaoning thugs to scout around the Qinling Mountains. Based on local legends, we found a tree hole in the banyan forest on the mountaintop. After much deliberation, we decided to take the risk and go down. You know the whole process—I ended up trapped in a stone cave.

By then, I was in despair. Even though I wouldn't die quickly, living was even more terrifying to me—forever confined in a narrow, pitch-black deep mountain, with no way out. You must have experienced that kind of pain too.

I stayed in the darkness for a full four months. Those four months were pure hell. But during that time, I kept thinking, and I came to understand that this ability is related to the subconscious. For example, if I wanted to create a door in the rock, I had to make myself believe that the rock already had a door. Otherwise, even if you racked your brain, the door wouldn't appear.

You can't deceive your own subconscious, so to use this ability, you have to guide it. That's very difficult—I told you, if the guidance fails or goes wrong, the thing you materialize could turn into anything, and it's terrifying.

I kept working at it and gradually grasped some tricks, but then I discovered that this ability gradually faded over time. The feeling was very distinct, like slowly getting tired. I realized that if I didn't find a way out soon, I might starve to death there.

Desperate, I tried using that ability to duplicate myself. I never thought it would work, and I startled myself. Suddenly, I found myself outside the cave.

At that time, I didn't realize I was the duplicate. The duplicate and I had exactly the same memories, so when he called out to me, I completely rejected the idea that I was a copy. He started cursing me, saying I wanted to replace him in the world and that he would make me disappear. I was terrified; I thought the one in the cave was a monster. So, ignoring how the original me in the cave screamed, I found explosives and completely collapsed the cave.

In truth, I did know I was the duplicate, but my subconscious refused to believe it. So I chose a destructive state—I killed the original and told myself I had only killed a substitute.

The power granted by the bronze tree didn't last long, so I took a bronze branch and went out through a hidden passage at the base of the tree, hoping that keeping part of the bronze tree would make my ability last longer, giving me a chance to escape outside. Later, it turned out I was right. Once out, I dug up some things we had buried before coming here, but I was afraid the bronze branch was too conspicuous, so I buried it again. Then I returned to Xi'an, planning to find a place to sell what I had.

Unfortunately, when I was doing business, I got caught by plainclothes police at an antique stall. Later, as you know, when I got home, my mother had already left. I haven't lied to you about these things.

There's something else I have to tell you. Having this ability comes at a cost. My memory is extremely poor; I have to write many things down in advance to remember them. That's the side effect of using the ability. Along the way, I could have arranged everything perfectly for you, letting you unknowingly help me complete this expedition. But unfortunately, over these past three years, I've forgotten a lot of things. I can't even clearly remember how I got out. So there were flaws everywhere. I estimate that within another two or three years, I might completely lose the ability to remember.

You also have that kind of strange energy on you. I don't know if it will affect you. Take good care of yourself. According to my calculations, this power might linger on you for a few years, but it will be very faint—almost imperceptible.

After reading the entire letter, Old Yang let out a long sigh, not knowing what to say. There was also a photo inside the envelope—him and his mother sitting on a boat, with the sea behind them. They should have gone abroad. His mother was very beautiful and young, standing with him more like a couple. I looked closely, but I always felt there was a strange aura on his mother's face—an indescribable ferocity. Maybe it was psychological.

Before I knew it, winter had arrived. Huddled in the air-conditioned room, I was too lazy to even doze off throughout the afternoon. I lay on the recliner in the inner hall of the Xiling Society, my feet ice-cold, with nothing to do. Half-asleep, Wang Meng walked in and said to me, "Boss, someone's looking for you."

I barely snapped out of it, yawned, and thought to myself: on the coldest days of winter, someone still comes to browse an antique shop—pretty enthusiastic. But business is business. I got up, patted my face, shook myself awake, and walked out.

The air conditioner in the outer room was weaker. A gust of cold wind made me shiver. I saw it was that young girl from Old Hai in Jinan, shivering from the cold. I figured she must have brought me a check, and my heart warmed. I quickly told Wang Meng to brew some tea and asked her, "What's up, girl? Did Old Hai send you?"

The young girl was named Qin Haiting, a relative of Old Hai. Only seventeen, she was already a veteran in the antique world. She nodded and said, "Oh my god, how is Hangzhou colder than the north?"

Wang Meng laughed and said, "The south has a dry cold—it feels more biting. Besides, your Jinan isn't that far north either."

Seeing Qin Haiting's teeth chattering, I pulled her into the inner hall, where the air conditioner was warm, and handed her a hot water bag. "You're really afraid of the cold. How about this—feeling warmer?"

She took a few sips of hot tea and recovered a bit, but still stomped her feet in the room. "A little better. People say Hangzhou is so beautiful, and my uncle didn't want me to come, but I insisted. Who knew it'd be this cold? Oh, I'm never coming again."

I asked, "What did your uncle send you here for? Why didn't he give me a call first?"

Qin Haiting took off her scarf and pulled an envelope out of her leather bag. "Of course it's business. Here—a cashier's check, the payment for that fish-eye stone."

I heard it was indeed that, took the check, glanced at it—the price was good—and immediately put it in my pocket. "Then thank him for me," I said. She took out another invitation and handed it to me. "Uncle Hai is coming to Hangzhou the day after tomorrow for an antique appraisal meeting. He said you should come too—he has important things to discuss with you."

I asked, "The day after tomorrow? I don't know if I have time. Why didn't he just tell me over the phone? So mysterious?" The truth was, I didn't want to go. Antique appraisals are too boring. For insiders, it's just a bunch of old folks chatting. There aren't really that many stories; you can tell if something is real or fake in a few seconds.

Qin Haiting leaned close to my ear and whispered, "My uncle said it has to do with that bronze fish. You'll regret it if you don't go."