Chapter 215: Snake Swamp Ghost City Chapter (Middle): Wenjin's Notes (Part 1)

Seeing this line, I took a deep breath, and the shock in my heart was utterly indescribable.

The content of this passage was not what startled me most—to be honest, the moment I saw that notebook, I had already imagined I might see something like this. What made me freeze in an instant was the signature.

"Chen Wenjin!"

God, I really hadn't expected that this thing would have been left by her. That said, the one who sent me the videotape and lured me here—was it her?

This was truly a twist and turn, and yet it left me utterly baffled. Although Third Uncle had never mentioned any information about her, in my mind she was surely dead somewhere. How could she suddenly appear at a time like this and have led me here?

Moreover, this short paragraph contained far too much information. What three people? Which three? What was "it"? Who did "we" refer to—could it be the group from Xisha? What research? What secret? Countless thoughts flashed through my mind, but I couldn't process a single one. I steadied myself, immediately opened the notebook, and read on.

This was a very thick notebook, with a full twenty-six or twenty-seven pages densely filled with writing, extremely neat, and with many drawings—it looked like a work journal.

I placed the lighter on the edge of the pulled-out drawer, then sat down on the floor, calmed my mind, and began to read.

As soon as I flipped open the first page, the page after the flyleaf, I was immediately jolted. I saw a strange picture drawn on it, very finely detailed.

This drawing consisted of only seven lines: six curved lines and one irregular circle. After a brief recall, I immediately recognized it as the pattern that Third Uncle had described to me, translated from the Warring States silk manuscript.

I was astonished—it seemed Wenjin and her team were quite formidable, as obtaining this pattern was extremely difficult. So she, too, had been interested in this pattern.

However, unlike the rough sketch Third Uncle had drawn for me, this time the drawing had annotations. As soon as I saw them, a cold sweat broke out on me. On each of the six curved lines was a black dot, which seemed to correspond to the six stars selected by aligning the astrolabe with the straight line that Third Uncle had mentioned. Yet on four of those black dots, I saw several small characters.

From top to bottom, they read:

Changbai Mountains — Cloud Summit Palace

Guazi Temple — Lu King's Palace at Qixing Luwang, Wolong Ridge — Tian Guan Temple Pagoda, Shatou Reef — Underwater Shipwreck Tomb. I sucked in a breath of cold air. After a few seconds of confusion, I suddenly had a flash of insight and immediately understood what I was seeing.

Dizzying, too dizzying. Could it be that the curves of this pattern were actually the vein diagrams of each mountain range along the great dragon vein that Wang Zanghai had delineated? Looking closely at the curves, I saw that was indeed the case. Since I wasn't looking at a map, those six lines hadn't reminded me of that at all—they only looked like leaf veins or a river distribution map. But now, looking at them, I immediately saw that this was actually a "dragon." The six lines were the dragon's head, tail, and four limbs! Each line was a mountain range, and the dots on the lines were the treasure eyes on the ranges.

So this was not at all the star map that Jude Kao had talked about! I went ice-cold all over, realizing what had happened. Damn it—either Jude Kao had been misled, or that old fox had tricked Third Uncle! I then looked at the two lines without writing. I immediately saw that they also had black dots, but beside them were all question marks, obviously indicating that these too belonged to the great feng shui dragon veins, but the condition of the dragon's eyes on them was unclear.

This sudden impact left me almost at a loss. I really hadn't expected to encounter such a subversion the moment I opened the notebook. I immediately closed it and took a deep breath, but my hands still trembled. Remembering the sentence on the flyleaf—that the contents involved some huge secrets—I thought to myself, You didn't have to hit me with something this stimulating on the very first page!

Yet this shock was soon replaced by wild joy. Gritting my teeth, I patted my chest to shake off that suffocating feeling, then opened the notebook again.

I carefully examined the diagram, and this time I saw something even more crucial.

Outside the six lines, in the blank space surrounded by the six curved lines, on the inner side of the circle, there was also a black dot. This dot was not on any of the lines; it stood alone and isolated, roughly at the center of the entire figure.

Beside this black dot was also a line of small characters: Qaidam — Tamutuo.

This I didn't understand, but beneath that line of small characters were several deep strokes and two or three question marks. Clearly, on this diagram, this dot was the most important. Moreover, when drawing it, Wenjin had had some doubts, so she had drawn these question marks while thinking.

Judging from the experience with the other annotations, this dot should also represent a place. Qaidam? Tamutuo? Could it also be an ancient tomb? I thought to myself. Why was this dot outside the lines? Suddenly, I realized that Wenjin knew far more than we did. It seemed this notebook could answer quite a few of my questions. Thinking this, I immediately turned the notebook to the next page and began reading the later content.

The subsequent content was a mix of text and drawings. The handwriting was very neat and orderly, but the characters were very small, making them extremely hard to read in the dim light of the lighter.

I steadied myself, concentrated, and read on carefully. As I read, I grew more puzzled and also more disappointed. By the time I finished, my confusion and disappointment had reached their peak. I sat there stunned, unable to describe the feeling in my heart.

The entire notebook's content could be roughly divided into three parts, totaling over a hundred thousand characters. It was all diary-like work logs, extremely tedious, but according to the content, it could be split into three sections.

The first part was recorded from April 2, 1990, to March 6, 1991. I cannot copy the entire notebook here; I can only summarize and select the most critical chapters for clarity. The first part reads as follows: April 2, 1990.

We have catalogued and organized most of the porcelain from the underwater tomb, copying almost all of it, while comparing it with the murals, hoping to trace Wang Zanghai's life trajectory. Through this comparison, we did discover some patterns. The murals record his life experiences, while the porcelain paintings document the process of his construction projects. This is proven by several series we've sorted out—for example, entering the Eastern Xia Kingdom and building Cloud Summit Palace, and being rewarded by Zhu Yuanzhang and designing the Ming Imperial Palace—all of these are represented. Moreover, following the order of the tomb chambers, it's easy to distinguish the chronological sequence, with one-to-one correspondence.

Following this reasoning, these murals all record Wang Zanghai's illustrious achievements as a great feng shui master. The content relates only to his works, without any records of other events that might be important to others, such as marriages or hunts. I call this "Wang's Relativity."