Chapter 185: The Bronze Furnace's Mysterious Diagram

The old scholar had nothing much to do anyway, and seeing that Jude Kao was very interested, he also became enthusiastic and told Jude Kao about what had happened back then.

That was thirty years ago. At that time, the old man was a professor of Chinese classics at Peking University and a member of the Kuomintang. After the Kuomintang's remaining forces dispersed into smaller units, his son-in-law led the remnants into the Qimeng Mountains, became a bandit, and hid in the mountains for three years. Later, when his son-in-law was driven into a corner with no way out, he prepared to flee to the United States.

After bribing their way, the old man and his family were taken into the mountains by his son-in-law to wait for news of a boat. Because the situation was tense and it was inconvenient to have the family with him, during this time his son-in-law settled them in a Taoist temple, disguised as Taoist priests, waiting for contact from the agents.

It was called a Taoist temple, but it was actually a kind of local folk shrine. However, unlike other mountain temples, this Taoist temple was built between two cliffs less than fifty meters apart, suspended in the air below, which was very peculiar. The whole temple resembled a huge staircase, layer upon layer, totaling seven levels. The walls were simple plaster walls painted with yellow lacquer, very crude. The top four levels were just wooden planks spanning the two cliffs, without even railings. Several shrines housed clay statues of the Three Pure Ones, as well as Guanyin and the Earth God, very characteristic of Chinese tradition.

The entire temple was managed by two old Taoist priests; the older one was the father of the younger one. In those chaotic times of war, incense offerings were meager, so his son-in-law gave them some money as a cover.

The old professor lived in the Taoist temple for two months. The temple was deep in the mountains, making it inconvenient to climb up and down. With nothing else to do, he began studying the antiques in the temple. It was during that time that he discovered a strange object. Most of the items in the temple were crudely made local folk goods of little value. Occasionally there were a few antiques, all from the Ming Dynasty. However, on the very top level of the temple, there was a bronze alchemy furnace, extremely peculiar in shape, like an upturned lotus. Judging by the patina, it was much older and very different from everything else there.

The old professor was not a history scholar, but in those days, old scholars had some experience with such things. He was very interested and asked the old Taoist priest where the furnace had come from.

The old Taoist praised his sharp eye, saying the furnace was indeed unusual. It had been dislodged from the mountain during an earthquake before Liberation. Many dead skeletons also came out at the same time. The villagers were terrified and brought it here to be suppressed by the gods. It had been over sixty years since then; the Taoist was still young at the time and didn't know the details.

The old professor found this increasingly interesting, but with the chaos of war and his own special identity, he couldn't conduct further investigations. He pondered over it in the temple for a while, and later nothing came of it. However, the circumstances and environment at the time left him with a very deep impression, and he remembered the shape and patterns of the furnace very clearly. So as soon as he saw the diagram Jude Kao showed him, he recognized it.

He told Jude Kao that this pattern was on the lid of the furnace, identical in shape to the diagram. He was absolutely certain he couldn't be mistaken. If Jude Kao wanted to know more, he could try to go to that Taoist temple to investigate, but times had changed greatly; whether that place still existed depended on his luck.

After hearing this, Jude Kao was both excited and disappointed. Excited because the things behind this diagram were clearly richer than he had imagined; disappointed because even after hearing the account, he still knew nothing about the diagram.

He very much wanted to see with his own eyes the bronze furnace the old professor had mentioned, but this was almost impossible at the time. It was quite difficult for an American to go to China back then, especially for a notorious antiquities dealer like him.

However, Jude Kao was a very arrogant person. No one could stop him from doing what he wanted. He still found a way: he couldn't go to China himself, but after so many years of antiquities dealings, he had a tight network of contacts in China. He began trying to get in touch with his old connections in China, looking for someone to enter the Qimeng Mountains, go to that remote Taoist temple to take a look and gather information. Ideally, he wanted to steal that furnace and ship it to the United States.

At that time, China was recovering from turmoil, and his old contacts had completely vanished. The older generation of grave robbers had either died or fled, and the scene had been completely reshuffled. He used his connections within the Kuomintang and exhausted almost every channel, but could not find a single person he knew.

In utter desperation, he had to take a risk and turn to a few people he wasn't familiar with at the time, asking them to introduce him to some newcomers in the trade in Changsha.

This involved many twists and turns, but hard work paid off. In the end, he finally got in touch with a Chinese person willing to cooperate with him.

That person was Xie Lianhuan.

How Xie Lianhuan got into this line of work was something Third Uncle couldn't figure out at the time, because in the overall environment back then, even Old Master Xie dared not touch the family's old trade and could only live off past savings. This was a capital offense, a job that put one's head on the line; normally, no one would dare do it unless they desperately needed money to save their life. And Xie Lianhuan was a playboy, a complete spoiled second generation. Old Master Xie had intentionally tried to clean up the family's reputation, keeping him away from the family business since childhood and not letting him learn the trade. So, in terms of courage, vision, experience, or any other objective condition, it was impossible for him to have entered this line, and even less reason for him to have made contact with overseas connections.

To put it plainly, the antiquities smuggling trade requires skill. Techniques like obtaining goods, appraising goods, and pricing require at least twenty or thirty years of training and accumulation to amount to anything. Without these abilities, even if you subjectively want to enter the trade, you won't find the way, and buyers won't pay attention to you. Therefore, if Jude Kao could get in touch with Xie Lianhuan through an intermediary, it meant that Xie Lianhuan must already have had business dealings with these people and gained their trust. Given Xie Lianhuan's abilities, this seemed highly unlikely.

This question had been bothering Third Uncle until he returned from his first trip to Xisha and began investigating the matter. He asked the eldest of the Xie family and then found out some of the background. However, this matter had nothing to do with Jude Kao's affairs, so there is no need to mention it here.

After Xie Lianhuan made contact with Jude Kao, Jude Kao sent his plan to Xie Lianhuan. It was a detailed package, including a sketch of the bronze furnace drawn by the old man and an advanced camera. He instructed Xie Lianhuan to first confirm whether the Taoist temple still existed—during that period, historical sites and temples might have been destroyed—then collect information on the furnace, take photographs, and send them back to the US for confirmation. If everything was correct, then he should find an opportunity to smuggle the item out of the country.

Although Xie Lianhuan didn't know about grave robbing, he could still go to a place, check if something was there, and ask around. After receiving the documents, he went to Shandong and, based on the old man's recollections in the documents, found the mountain area where the ancient Taoist temple had been built.

Fortunately, because the temple was very remote, it had not been disturbed much. It miraculously survived the turbulent decade. However, the old Taoist had died, leaving only his son, who was also in his twilight years. Xie Lianhuan took photos of the temple and the bronze furnace and sent them back to the US. Jude Kao compared the translated pattern and indeed the old man was correct: the pattern on the lid of the bronze furnace was exactly the same as the one on the silk manuscript. However, regarding the origin of the furnace, because it was so ancient, the Taoist's son could only give a rough idea, similar to what the old professor had said, yielding no further clues.

Even so, Jude Kao was overjoyed. He issued instructions for Xie Lianhuan to start preparations and find a way to secretly smuggle the furnace out.

However, as soon as Xie Lianhuan began preparing, he realized that this was actually an impossible task.

What Jude Kao hadn't considered was that this furnace was much larger than he had anticipated. Such an object could not be transported out. If they tried to use a smuggling ship, they would need to first reach the Zhejiang or Guangdong area, which also involved great risk. The chaos along the southeastern coast at that time was unimaginable to ordinary people.

They tried many methods but got no results, and instead attracted the attention of the police. Helpless, Jude Kao came up with a crazy idea. He had Xie Lianhuan smash the entire furnace into pieces, saw it into over forty fragments, mark them, and smuggle them out in batches mixed with the silk that was being exported at the time.

To the archaeological community, this was an appalling atrocity, but Jude Kao didn't care at all, because the intrinsic value of the object had no meaning to him anymore; what he wanted was the information on it.

It can also be said that truth is stranger than fiction. While sawing the furnace, Xie Lianhuan discovered that at the bottom of the bronze furnace, there was a very ingenious mechanism. It was by means of this mechanism that the secret of the mysterious pattern on the Warring States silk manuscript was finally unraveled.