Chapter 183: Videotape

Just as I was chatting with Third Uncle, someone suddenly knocked on the door, and then a courier walked in, asking which one was me. Only my family and some people from A Ning's side knew I was here, so I thought it was a care package from home or materials sent from abroad. I didn't pay much attention and took it. Only after I signed my name and looked closely at the sender did I realize the signature on the package was actually Zhang Qiling.

For a moment, I was stunned, and then a chill ran through my whole body.

During my time here, I had gradually forgotten about the events in the Changbai Mountains. Aside from the fear, almost all other memories had been buried under trivial matters. But this three-character name suddenly yanked the dull string in my heart taut, and memories from not long ago came flooding back like a tidal wave in my mind.

Why would he send me something? Didn't he go into that huge bronze gate? Had he come out already?... Was this sent before or after he went into Cloud Summit? I immediately checked the date on the package, and my eyelids twitched again: it was from only four days ago.

So he really had come out! He had come out from that giant gate! My hands started trembling. The image of Poker-face walking into the underground bronze gate flashed through my mind. Staring at the package in my hands, my thoughts were in turmoil. What could this be? Could it be something he brought out from inside that bronze gate? What would that be? A severed head? A funerary object? The Ghost Jade Seal?

Countless bizarre ideas raced through my mind. It took me a long time to realize I should open it immediately, and I frantically looked for scissors.

Third Uncle, who was beside me, saw my expression change dramatically. Curious, he leaned over to see what I had received. When he saw the name Zhang Qiling, he also sucked in a breath of cold air, looking extremely shocked.

The two of us fumbled around for a while until Third Uncle finally found a fruit knife and handed it to me. Only then could I cut open the protective box outside the package.

Inside the box was a wrapped bundle. The parcel was square-shaped, with plastic tape crisscrossed neatly on the outside, making it very hard to tear. After exerting tremendous effort, I managed to rip open an opening, revealing two black objects inside. My heartbeat suddenly quickened. I paused, took a deep breath, and yanked hard, pulling out two black objects.

At that moment, I had braced myself to see anything terrifying, but what I saw still left me dumbfounded—they were two old-fashioned black videotapes.

My mind had been a chaotic mess just now, and I had thought of almost everything, except the possibility that there would be videotapes inside. Because with that guy Poker-face, it's easy to associate him with coffins, but it's really hard to connect him with an outdated piece of modern technology like a videotape.

Damn, why would he send me something like this? What was on them? My heart immediately tensed up. The thought crossed my mind: could it be footage of him going into the bronze gate? Had he filmed what was behind the bronze gate?

If that were true, it would be too... but then I thought it was impossible. I hadn't seen him carrying a camera in. Besides, I believed that what was behind that bronze gate couldn't be a nice place, so he probably wouldn't have been able to casually film it.

What could it be, then? My mind felt like thousands of ants were crawling inside it. I desperately wanted to play them and see right away.

However, these two videotapes looked very old-fashioned in both appearance and materials—they seemed to date back quite a while. I knew I would need an old-style VCR to play them, and those were very hard to find nowadays.

Third Uncle gestured for me to turn them over. I set the packaging aside, took out the two videotapes, and carefully examined the sides to see if there was any identifying information.

I was no stranger to videotapes. Ten years ago, when the streets were still full of video rental stores, watching foreign movies was almost my only form of entertainment. Back then, I would definitely rent five tapes a day during the holidays. Having been exposed to so many, I had some understanding of their structure. I knew that with homemade tapes, people usually wrote something on the spine; otherwise, it would be impossible to tell them apart.

But when I looked, it seemed a bit odd. There had indeed been a label on the spine, but it had been torn off. The torn edges looked fresh, as if it had been removed not long ago. It seemed that Poker-face didn't want us to see the label on the side.

Why was that? He had sent us the tapes, but still tore off the label. Was there something on it that I wasn't supposed to know? "What's going on?" Third Uncle picked up the packaging from the floor, shook it to make sure there was nothing else inside, and asked me, "Big nephew, that wasn't very upfront of you. Why didn't you tell me you were still in contact with him?"

I shook my head, insisting that I absolutely wasn't. Third Uncle patted the tapes and asked how to explain that. I said, "If you're asking me, who am I supposed to ask?"

Seeing that I didn't seem to be lying, Third Uncle frowned and clicked his tongue. "That kid really is resourceful. How did he know you were here?"

I was wondering the same thing. Since I came back from Cloud Summit, only A Ning's group and my family knew my address. He had no information about me, yet he was able to send something to me accurately—that was quite difficult to pull off. Without someone gathering intelligence for him, it would be impossible. It seemed that the waters behind that taciturn guy were truly unfathomable.

Third Uncle thought for a moment and then asked me if the shipping label said where the package was sent from. I picked up the label and looked at it, then shook my head. It only had the sender and the date; everything else was blank. Not only was the return address missing, but the place of origin wasn't marked either. I really had no idea how this courier service operated.

But the date was four days ago. Local express delivery within the province usually takes one day, and delivery from nearby provinces takes two. This package took four days, so it must have been sent from either a very faraway place or a very remote area with poor transportation. I could check the courier company's computer system; if they had online records, I could find out with a search. After saying this, Third Uncle and I exchanged a glance and smiled wryly. This sudden item derailed Third Uncle's narrative, and I didn't know how to deal with these tapes. Third Uncle said, "Big nephew, how about we take a break? That kid is mysterious in his ways; he wouldn't send something for no reason. These two tapes could be very important. Let's first find a VCR and see what's on them, okay?"

I hesitated and shook my head, saying that wouldn't work. Although I was also very curious about the content of the tapes, Third Uncle hadn't yet given me a clear outline of what he was telling me. If we stopped now, his mood might change, and there was no telling if he'd continue later. Besides, VCRs had been discontinued for almost ten years. Even VCDs were obsolete now, and it would be hard to find one even at a flea market. We definitely wouldn't be able to watch the tapes anytime soon.

However, pretending the tapes didn't exist was also impossible. I said, "Let's continue our talk. Have your guy check where the local flea market is in this city. If he finds a VCR, buy it. If not, I'll think of something online tonight."

Third Uncle thought that made sense and said, "Alright. We'll get to that kid's story anyway." He waved his hand and instructed his man to do as I said.

That guy had been listening to Third Uncle's story with great interest, so he was a bit reluctant to be sent away. But after Third Uncle glared at him, he lost any complaints.

After the guy left, Third Uncle patted his face and said, "Then let's speed through this. Where was I just now?"

I repeated what I had heard so far, and Third Uncle nodded. "Right, the key is the content of that silk manuscript. That foreigner has a deep connection with the Warring States silk manuscript. It's quite complicated, and I have to start from the beginning. Big nephew, you've been in this business for quite a while now. How much do you know about Warring States silk manuscripts?"

I thought about it. In every profession, you get to know the trade. Although I didn't really like the rubbing business—the margins were too thin and the people I dealt with were a bit odd—after doing it for so many years, I had a fairly deep understanding of this line of work.

Warring States silk manuscripts aren't the main type of rubbing. As the name suggests, they are silk manuscripts from the Warring States period. However, in practice, the term 'Warring States' is used somewhat loosely—in official transactions, artifacts from the Spring and Autumn period are also counted under Warring States. Authentic Warring States silk manuscripts are very rare and extremely valuable. Based on the tomb sites they were unearthed from, they are classified into Chu silk, Wei silk, etc. The contents also vary. The most precious are Lu silk manuscripts. As far as I know, the ones currently recognized as Lu silk can be counted on one hand, and none of them are complete. There are plenty of fakes mixed in, but it's hard to tell real from fake, and the official authorities generally don't recognize them.

Lu silk manuscripts are not a single type either. They are divided into several subcategories based on the script and the size of the rubbing. The most precious among them is a type called Lu yellow silk. The reason is simple: the text on it is indecipherable to others.

The grammar of the characters recorded on this type of silk is extremely peculiar. You can understand the meaning of individual characters, but you can't read the text as a whole. We know of China's eight great 'heavenly books': the Cangjie Book, the Xia Yu Book, the Hongyan Heavenly Book, the Yelang Heavenly Book, the Bashu Symbols, the Tadpole Script, the Dongba Script, and the Xunlou Stele. All are unique texts that cannot be deciphered. However, the characters on Lu silk seem to be like a cipher. The international archaeological community calls this Lu yellow silk 'China's Magic Book' because reading them in order sounds like the incantations of a shaman.

But this cipher was cracked in 1974, yielding what later became known as the 'Warring States Book Diagram', an ancient pictographic-to-text cipher. I looked up the term myself after hearing it from Third Uncle. It was a major discovery, but another event in 1974 was so famous that this archaeological event didn't cause a stir.

In current trading of rubbings from Warring States silk manuscripts, this kind of Lu silk is very popular, with many people seeking it out. A while back, I heard that according to archaeological research, there might be as many as one hundred and twenty volumes of this Lu silk, though where that estimate came from, I don't know. But what I do know is that only four or five pieces are actually in circulation—those are items for true professionals, not something you can find online. Foreigners especially like them, so many brokers go around scouring various places for these items, hoping to discover unique copies. To find rare Lu silk books, you have to sweep through rubbing shops; because we buy rubbings in large batches without sorting them—they come from all sorts of sources—they're usually just piled up. If you're determined, you might stumble upon something obscure. And people who find such things generally keep it to themselves, researching on their own, so the market for this business is still relatively easy to operate in.

The copy my grandfather stole from an ancient tomb was Lu yellow silk. But because of past troubles, we never dared to show it off. Grandfather was quite famous in the underworld, and plenty of people asked about it. It's considered a treasure hidden away in my shop.

Now we also know that this Lu yellow silk should be the miscellaneous notes of Tie Miansheng from the Warring States period. Like da Vinci, he used a script of his own creation to write his notes—very mystical. In the period after coming out of the Lu King's Palace, I studied this thing too. It's said that in human history, anyone who used cipher text to record things did so because they had discovered something that overturned the worldview of their time and feared being silenced by the mainstream powers (like the Catholic Church in da Vinci's era), resorting to such measures.

That's all I know about the silk manuscript. I told this to Third Uncle, and he nodded and said, "Right you are. Indeed, if you squat in a latrine long enough, you'll learn to grunt even if you don't shit." Then he pulled his shabby bag out from under the bed and took out a wrinkled photo. I took it and saw that it was a picture taken in a museum display case showing a Warring States silk manuscript. Judging by the arrangement of the text, it should be the original that was tricked away from Grandfather by an American.

"This is something that should have belonged to our family," Third Uncle said. "I took this while I was in the US three years ago, at the New York Museum. The whole thing started because of this object. Thinking about it, it really is fate—our family, four generations now, it's like we're cursed, all pulled into this business. That's also why I didn't want you involved; I hoped this matter would end with me."

Four generations. Yes, I suddenly felt a twinge of emotion and asked, "What exactly is written on it?"

Third Uncle chuckled and said, "As I said just now, you'd never guess. Actually, there's no writing at all on the silk manuscript. What was translated from it isn't text—it's a mysterious diagram."

"A diagram?" I frowned, thinking of that Warring States silk manuscript from the Seven Star Lu King's Palace. "Could it be another map of an ancient tomb?"

Third Uncle shook his head and said, "Not a map—it's much more complicated than a map. This whole thing is a long story. Before we went to Xisha, that foreigner told me everything. I'll repeat it for you; after you hear it, you'll understand."