Riding the wind of rebirth

“Wow, Elbow, have you ever taken risks like this?” Mai Xiaomiao’s eyes began to sparkle again: “Isn’t this Indiana Jones?”

"Huh?!" Zhou Zhi hurriedly shook his head. "The story of Indiana Jones is too comical. Real archaeological work is not even 10% similar to it. If you are interested, Xiao Miao, I can take you to see several rescue excavation sites in the Three Gorges. I believe that kind of boredom and loneliness will make 99% of people avoid it."

"It's like this mountain road. If a group of us walk along it like sightseeing, chatting and laughing, everyone will find it novel and exciting. But if one walks along it once, ten times, or a hundred times, what do you think it would feel like?"

Everyone thought about it carefully before they realized that just now when Old Red Sun used his knife to clear the way, if they came alone...

When I thought about having to spend the night alone in this desolate mountain area, I suddenly felt uneasy.

"Grandpa Chi Ri, you are so great!" Mai Xiaomiao's biggest advantage is that he likes to praise people very much, and he praises them very directly, with strong emotional expression.

Old Chi Ri waved his hand and said, "Sonobi Sonobi, without Sono, there would be no Bimo. This is what you must go through to become a Bimo."

"Sono means the source, Bi means the activity of blessing and chanting scriptures during religious activities, and Mo means teacher." Zhou Zhi explained: "Bimo means scripture teacher, Sonobi means scripture source. Without the resources of scriptures, there will be no scripture teacher. This is what Grandpa Chi Ri meant."

"So the Sutra Cave we are going to now is Sono?" Chi Xueli asked.

"Yes, we can get there tonight."

Although it is a road that horses can walk on, it is still not easy to travel on. Fortunately, the pine forest is relatively dry and the road is covered with pine needles, making it more comfortable to walk on.

Gradually, some stone carvings with religious themes began to appear along the way. Some were carved with strange patterns, some were carved with talismans, and some were carved with Yi scriptures. They were all carved rather roughly, and it was obvious at first glance that they were not the work of professional stonemasons, but they were full of rough and mysterious colors. I believe they were the marks left by the Bimos of successive generations.

The group didn't even dare to make too loud a noise, as if the stone carvings were attached to the souls of the sculptors and they didn't dare disturb them.

Whenever Lao Chi Ri passed by a stone carving, he would touch it with his hands and recite a few verses of scriptures, just as if he was walking in the village and greeting the villagers who were sitting at the door to rest.

This made the group of people who were unaware of the situation even more nervous.

Zhou Zhi had to whisper to comfort them when he saw this: "We are here with the purpose of promoting the Yi civilization. The ancient Bimo masters will definitely approve of this and bless us, so don't be nervous."

Old Chi Ri was leading the way. He was performing the ritual seriously and his mood changed. He didn't notice that there was silence behind him. He realized it at this moment and said, "These carvings do have a deterrent effect, but they only target evil spirits, thieves, and curses. Of course, they won't be used on good people. Even if they are used on good people, it will be ineffective."

"Did you hear that?" Zhou Zhi breathed a sigh of relief and said, "In Chinese, it means..."

Mai Xiaomiao raised his hand: "I know! If you don't do bad things to others, you won't be afraid of ghosts knocking on your door in the middle of the night."

“Hahahaha…” Everyone laughed. Chi Xueli praised: “Xiao Miao’s Chinese level is getting better and better!”

It was not until a little after four in the afternoon that the team arrived at the foot of a large mountain.

The shape of this mountain is very special, as if a god had inserted a card on the top of a mountain. On the top of the arc-shaped mountain is a wide and thin stone wall. The stone wall is very smooth, with no soil or trees attached to it. There is only a layer of green on the top, which looks a bit like half a stone tablet without words. "We're here."

"This place looks special." Zhou Zhi looked at the stone wall rising not far away and said, "It would be spectacular if a few big characters were carved on it."

In a few years, the three characters "River of Fine Wine" will be engraved on the cliff by the Chishui River in Maotai Town, not far from Zhou Zhi's hometown. Each character will be more than 30 meters high and 30 meters wide, becoming the largest in the world. As soon as Zhou Zhi saw this smooth cliff, he thought of engraving the words on it.

"Who are you carving here for?" Old Chi Ri was confused by Zhou Zhi's sudden idea. "Almost no one comes here. There are many flying squirrels on the cliff. Sometimes I go up to get the five-spirit fat."

"Flying squirrel? Bat? What is aconite?" Mai Xiaomiao asked.

"Flying squirrels are not bats, but flying squirrels. They are a bit like squirrels, but their four legs and tail are connected by webbed feet. When stretched out, they can glide like a kite. Notopterygium wilfordii is their poop, and it is a traditional Chinese medicine. I don't know what it can treat." Zhou Zhi explained to Mai Xiaomiao.

"Wulinzhi can be used raw or cooked. The raw one can promote blood circulation, while the cooked one can stop bleeding." said Lao Chi Ri.

"Oh, right!" Zhou Zhi suddenly remembered a funny story: "When we were young, we all learned the story of the cuckoo bird. In fact, the cuckoo bird is not a bird, but a flying squirrel."

"Really?" Everyone has memorized this text, but most children just memorize it and forget about it. No one would ask what kind of bird this cuckoo is. Chi Xueli couldn't help but laugh in horror: "The cuckoo is a squirrel with wings?"

"They're called flying squirrels." Zhou Zhi corrected him, "They're much bigger than squirrels, about the same size as a cat."

"Flying squirrels have a habit of 'foraging for food in one place'," said Lao Chiri. "They won't defecate anywhere outside. Even if they are foraging in a faraway place, they will return to their fixed place if they want to defecate. There must be a specific place near their nest as a 'toilet'. Once we find it, we can often find dozens or hundreds of kilograms of five-spirit fat."

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Mai Xiaomiao thought it was a little funny that a cat-sized animal could actually pile up hundreds of kilograms of feces in its own "toilet": "How many years would it take to store it?"

When everyone walked to the bottom of the stone wall, they found that it was not as smooth as it looked from a distance. There were some cracks and cavities on the stone wall, especially at the bottom where the stone wall met the soil. There were even some tenacious plants that drilled into the cracks in the stone and climbed upwards along the cracks.

There were some small mud balls at the place where the stone and soil touched the stone wall. Old Chi Ri picked one up, rubbed the mud off the stone wall and handed it to Zhou Zhi: "This can also be sold for money. Do you know elbow?"

Zhou Zhi looked at the stone in his hand that had a quartz sheen and was slightly translucent. "I don't know what it is."

"This is the glaze fruit!" Zhou Zhi couldn't help but laugh when he heard it: "Old Zhong kept it hidden from me, but now it turns out that the glaze fruit looks like this!"

Lao Zhong is a porcelain worker who makes earthenware porcelain in the Mantou Kiln in Jiukou Township. Nowadays, porcelain is all bought up by Japanese people because it is "purely handmade in the Song Dynasty style". The price has also increased by 20 to 30 times compared to the previous selling price in the township. As a result, Lao Zhong has become the first person to "get rich" in Jiukou Township.

Earthenware porcelain also needs to be glazed. The glaze comes from a slurry made from several kinds of stone powder. It is said that the glaze is "glaze fruit" found in the mountains. After heating and simmering, it is ground into powder, and the impurities are removed by water jetting. The fine material is then aged.

The fired porcelain comes in a variety of colors including earthy brown, black, light blue, light green, and yellow-green, and is very elegant if handled well.

But today was the first time Zhou Zhi saw the original appearance of traditional glaze. (End of this chapter)