Anecdote of the Yellow River

Chapter 34
But in a quarter of an hour, we have come to the top of the tower.Compared with the bottom of the tower, the bottom of the tower is very narrow and cramped. This inverted ancient tower is like a huge funnel, and we are at the bottom of the funnel at this time.

We have tried to think about what will be hidden at the top of the tower many times before, but when we actually came to the top of the tower, we found that the things buried below are really beyond our imagination.On the tip of this tower, which is only half the size of a basketball court, there is actually a huge giant turtle buried!

Of course, the giant tortoise is long dead, and all we see is the corpse of the giant tortoise.But we are still very shocked, because this giant tortoise is really too big, which is beyond our cognition.It makes people feel that this is not a turtle, but a terrifying alien creature.

This giant tortoise is like a hill, lying quietly on the top of the tower. Four thick bronze chains bind the four feet of the giant tortoise respectively, pulling the giant tortoise's body into a "big" character.The size of the giant tortoise is larger than that of a locomotive, and its back is wrapped with a huge cyan tortoise shell, with a strange cyan light glowing on the tortoise shell.

We walked down the plank road and came straight to the back of the giant tortoise. The cyan light was flowing on our faces, making our expressions look cloudy and uncertain, which was very weird.

Gu Meidi exclaimed: "This giant tortoise is really too big, more than twice the size of the deep sea turtles I know. This... Did this thing live under the Yellow River back then?"

I said: "The thousand-year-old king and the 8-year-old tortoise, maybe this giant tortoise has become a spirit, so the Xixia people tied it up and suppressed it at the bottom of the ancient pagoda!"

Professor Ye pondered for a while and said, "I think you may have guessed wrong, this is not a giant tortoise!"

"Ah? It's not a giant tortoise?" Gu Meidi and I looked at each other with doubts in our eyes. This thing looks like a tortoise.

Professor Ye said: "I don't know if you have heard of a creature called Pleurotus."

"Yarth?" Gu Meidi and I shook our heads at the same time. We have never heard of this kind of creature.

Professor Ye pointed to the huge monster at his feet and said: "Plutosanctus has long been recorded in Chinese history. Although it looks like a turtle, it is actually more similar to a turtle. Its head is blunt, wide and flat. , the nostrils are small, located at the end of the snout, the snout is short and not protruding. The body is flat, round, flat and thin, the back is flat, the carapace is not raised, and it is round. The biggest feature is that it is not like turtles The horny scutellum is covered by bone plates on both sides of its back and belly, and the left and right sides are connected to form a special armor. But to be honest, although this thing is huge in size, I really didn't expect the size of this giant turtle It is so huge that it is several times larger than ordinary turtles, this thing can definitely be regarded as a monster in the ancient Yellow River trail."

"According to literature records, turtles have been produced for 500 million years, and they are indeed ancient creatures. In Chinese history, turtles have also been used as a symbol of divine power. Many temple steles and emperors' The tombstones are all carried on the backs of turtles carved in stone, with their heads held high and their feet held high."

"This thing is not only powerful, but also has a fierce temperament. In the book "Xuan Bao Zhi" of the Tang Dynasty, it is also recorded that a giant turtle in the Xuanzhou River went ashore to fight a fierce tiger. It is said that once in the past, it rained for half a month , After the heavy rain, a giant turtle appeared on the banks of the Xuanzhou River. The Xuanzhou River was surrounded by jungles, and there were many beasts in the jungles. A white tiger walked out of the jungle to drink water by the river, and happened to bump into this giant turtle. "

"Diaojing Baihu thought it was a big gray rock at first, but he didn't expect that when he walked past the rock, the rock moved by itself. Diaojing Baihu was startled, and then realized that it was not a rock. It's a living creature. The eye-catching white tiger is a tyrant in the jungle. I didn't expect to be startled by this giant turtle lying stupidly in the mud by the river. The giant turtle let out a domineering roar."

"But what the eye-catching white tiger didn't expect was that the giant turtle was not afraid of it at all, and instead attacked the white tiger first. It opened its mouth, turned around and bit the white tiger suddenly. The white tiger's reaction was also extremely fast Yes, he immediately jumped to the side and dodged it. The eye-catching white tiger was extremely angry, and raised its sharp tiger claws to grab the giant turtle. The giant turtle quickly retracted its head into the deck, and the tiger claws landed on the hard on the top of the shell, without doing any harm to it."

"The giant turtle has been wrestling with the white tiger with hanging eyes for at least half an hour. The white tiger with hanging eyes is exhausted and panting, but it still has no advantage. The hard armor plate on the back of the giant turtle is like a piece of armor. With the protection of the armor, , the giant turtle was not harmed by the white tiger, but threatened the white tiger several times. Finally, the eye-catching white tiger voluntarily gave up the fight. Avoided the giant turtle."

In Professor Ye's vivid narration, we walked to the center of the giant turtle's back.To our surprise, there is a huge cyan stone tablet standing in the center of the giant turtle's back.The stone tablet is about three feet high, two feet wide, and more than one foot thick, like a tall giant standing on the back of a giant turtle, guarding the thousand-year-old pagoda.

On the four corners of the stone tablet, there are four white animal bone brackets, the stick bones of unknown beasts, thick and strong, and every four stick bones are cross-jointed to form a bracket.There is a shallow bronze basin on the support, and some strange runes are densely carved on the edge of the bronze basin.Four groups of everlasting lights were burning in the bronze basin, illuminating this huge blue stone tablet brightly.

Professor Ye said in an amazed tone: "I have only seen stone turtles carrying stone tablets in some temples and ancient tombs. I never thought that the Xixia people would use real giant turtles to carry stone tablets. In today's words , It's simply too awesome!"

We looked at this blue stone tablet in surprise. The Xixia Dynasty spent so much manpower, material and financial resources to build this strange ancient tower, just to bury this blue stone tablet?This is really beyond our expectations.According to common sense, there should be many rare treasures buried under this ancient pagoda, or the treasures of the Xixia Dynasty, or the coffin of the Xixia Emperor. Why... why is there only such an inconspicuous stone tablet?

Full of doubts, we cast our eyes on the giant stone tablet, and saw dense square characters carved with cinnabar on the stone tablet. The whole stone tablet is like a wall of words. It is roughly estimated that there are thousands of square characters at least. .The red font and the blue stele complement each other, and under the illumination of the ever-burning lights, strange colors emerge.And I don't know what visual processing techniques the craftsmen used when carving these square characters, so that under the light of the lights, these square characters rippling gently like water patterns, appearing both illusory and real, very magical.

Gu Meidi shouted excitedly first, "These are Xixia characters! These are the lost Xixia characters!"

As talented students majoring in archeology, although we cannot understand Xixia characters, we are still very familiar with the historical origin of Xixia characters.In 1036 A.D., the first year of Daqing, before Emperor Jingzong Li Yuanhao of Xixia officially proclaimed himself emperor, Li Yuanhao ordered his minister Yeli Renrong to create Xixia characters.It was completed in three years, with a total of more than [-] characters. It is square in shape and complicated in strokes. It is also called Fanshu or Fanwen.

The structure of Xixia characters imitates Chinese characters, but it also has new features.Xixia characters use dots, horizontal, vertical, left, right, guai, guaigou and other groups of characters. There are more oblique strokes, no vertical hooks, fewer simple characters, and most of them are compound characters.Two characters are mostly combined into one character, and three or four characters are combined into one character.Generally only part of a word is used for synthesis, such as upper part, lower part, left part, right part, middle part, most part, and sometimes the whole part of a word is used.The ideographic composite characters and phonetic-meaning composite characters are similar to the ideographic characters and pictophonetic characters of Chinese characters respectively, accounting for about 80.00% of the total.Some transliterated characters are synthesized by each part of the inverted upper and lower characters, similar to pinyin characters.Some characters are formed by exchanging the left and right or upper and lower parts of another character.There are very few pictographs and indicators.Calligraphy can also be divided into Kai, Xing, Cao, and Zhuan. Regular script is mostly used for engraving, seal script is scattered in gold and stone, and Xing and Cao are often used for handwriting.

Li Yuanhao designated the more than 1227 Xixia characters as "national books", from Buddhist scriptures to edicts to folk letters, all written in Xixia characters.In order to facilitate people to learn Xixia characters, Xixia also compiled a dictionary. In [-], the Xixia Dynasty fell to the Mongol Empire, and the Xixia writing was gradually annihilated.

Xixia characters not only have complicated strokes, but also have a very unique grammatical structure.In a sentence, the predicate verb is often placed at the end, the object is placed before the verb, and the adjective is sometimes placed before the noun, sometimes after the noun.Although scholars at home and abroad have gained some understanding of the laws of the Xixia language after long-term research, many issues still need to be further explored.

In view of all these factors, until today, few people can understand Xixia characters. Looking at the whole country, and even the whole world, there are only a handful of experts who can decipher Xixia characters.Therefore, Xixia characters are also called "Xixia Dead Book", or "Xixia Book", which means that no one can decipher the text.

Gu Meidi and I looked at the stone tablet engraved with Xixia's books for a long time, and didn't even know a single word.We turned our attention to Professor Ye for help, and Professor Ye waved his hands again and again, "Don't look at me, I'm not a god, I don't know everything. This Xixia book is difficult to understand, and the whole world can understand Xixia book There will never be more than ten people. Although I don't know what is written on this stone tablet, but based on experience, it should be a narrative stone tablet, which may contain a secret about the Xixia Dynasty!"

Looking up at this tall stone monument, we all felt a deep sense of loss in our hearts.We have gone through untold hardships and risked our lives to come here just to explore the mystery of Xixia that has been buried in the long river of history. Unexpectedly, not only did we not solve the mystery in our hearts, but fell into even greater confusion when we walked all the way to the end .

I let out a long sigh, and fell down on the ground with a look of despair on my face, "It's so depressing! It seems that our trip was in vain!"

Gu Meidi couldn't help feeling sad, "Oh! I really don't know what to say to describe my mood at this moment!"

Professor Ye walked around the Tianshu stele, "Don't be discouraged. Although we don't understand Xixia books, we can take back the Xixia books on this stele and seek professional help."

"This is a good idea!" I regained my spirits and patted my buttocks to get up from the ground.

Gu Meidi looked at me depressedly, "Did you bring paper and pen? How can we copy these words back?"

The enthusiasm I burned in an instant was extinguished in an instant, and I looked at Gu Meidi, "You... don't you have a super memory that you can't forget? Can you remember all these words in your mind, and then copy them in after you go back. on paper?"

Gu Meidi rolled his eyes, "You really think I'm a robot! These Xixia characters are so complicated, and there are thousands of words, how can I remember it? I can remember a dozen or twenty words, which is not bad. !"

Just when we were deeply disappointed, Professor Ye brought us new hope. He took out a black pen from his waterproof backpack and said with some pride, "What do you think this is?"

Gu Meidi and I exclaimed in surprise: "Pen!"

"Wrong!" Professor Ye said with a smile, "This is not an ordinary pen. To be precise, this is not a pen at all, but a miniature camera with the appearance of a pen."

"Ah!" Gu Meidi said in surprise, "This...isn't this the high-tech equipment in Hollywood spy movies?"

Professor Ye nodded, and said with some pride: "Smart! Fortunately, I was prepared. I didn't expect it to come in handy today."

Professor Ye raised the black pen and pressed the shutter several times in front of the stele of the Book of Heaven, then he carefully put the pen back into the backpack, "This is the biggest and only gain of our trip, we must Bring it back intact!"

After staying on the back of the giant turtle for nearly half an hour, after confirming that there were no other discoveries, we packed our bags and prepared to go home, ending this adventure trip.Just as we were about to leave, I suddenly had a urgency to urinate, so I walked around behind the stele, preparing to relax before leaving.

Gu Meidi blushed, turned his head and said, "Tuoba Gu, can you bear it?"

While booing comfortably behind the stone tablet, I said loudly: "There are three urgencies in people. How can a heroic man be suffocated to death by a bubble of pee?"

"You..." Gu Meidi was speechless.

After relaxing, I was about to turn around and leave with my pants in hand, when I suddenly found that something was wrong behind the stele.The urine flowed near the bottom behind the stone tablet, and a lot of urine was absorbed by the stone tablet. Could it be that this stone tablet can also absorb water?
I felt very strange, so I squatted down to observe carefully.After looking at it, it turned out that there was a thin crack on the top of the stone tablet, and all the urine flowed into the crack.Logically speaking, it is normal for a crack to appear on the stele, but the edge of the crack is very smooth, like a deliberately chiseled gap.

I noticed something different, and immediately yelled loudly: "Professor Ye, Gu Meidi, come and have a look!"

As soon as the voice fell, I heard Gu Meidi scold: "Tuobagu, you... are you playing a hooligan? You pee behind and let us watch, okay you! I really misjudged you, I didn't expect you This person is so perverted and obscene..."

I was scolded bloody by Gu Meidi, so I quickly defended myself: "I didn't ask you to watch me pee, I've already finished peeing!"

Gu Meidi asked: "Then what do you want us to come and see?"

I said, "I've made some new discoveries behind the stele..."

This time, before I finished speaking, Gu Meidi and Professor Ye appeared beside me at the same time, and they looked at me eagerly, "What did you find?"

I pointed to the crack at the bottom of the stele and said, "Look here, there is a crack here!"

Gu Meidi covered his nose, frowned and said, "It smells so strong of urine, Tuoba Gu, you must be on fire recently!"

I said: "Eating dry food and grilled fish on the boat all day, of course I will get angry!"

Gu Meidi looked at the crack and said, "Isn't it just a crack? It's normal!"

"No! No!" Professor Ye noticed the clue and said, "The edge of this crack is very smooth, it should be chiseled out by humans."

I nodded, "Your opinion is the same as mine. I'm very surprised. Why did the ancient craftsmen carve a crack behind the stele after they built the stele? Could there be some mystery hidden in this crack?"

"Try it and you'll know!" Professor Ye took out the dagger from his pocket, and carefully inserted the dagger into the crack.After fiddling inside for a while, Professor Ye suddenly raised his head and said, "There seems to be something hidden in the stele! I think it's a bit hard, it might be a bronze vessel!"

Professor Ye was talking, when he heard a crisp crackling sound from inside the stele, Professor Ye's face suddenly changed, "Not good! There are traps inside!"

Gu Meidi and I were shocked when we heard the words, and quickly lay down on the ground.

However, the deadly mechanism did not appear, only a hollow square brick slowly slipped out from under the crack.

We held our breath for a moment, and all of us stretched our necks and cast our eyes on the hollow square brick.What is hidden inside the hollow square brick?Since this thing is hidden so secretly, could it be a world-renowned treasure?Could the answers to all the mysteries be hidden inside the bricks?
We gathered together one after another, and Professor Ye reached out and took out something from the hollow square brick.

I saw that thing was cast in bronze, oval in appearance, about the size of a fist, with ancient patterns engraved on it.

(End of this chapter)