Riding the wind of rebirth

After walking along the mountain wall for another two miles, they arrived at an open area.

This place has obviously been artificially processed. A circle of stone walls as high as a horse's head was built outside the stone wall. The stone walls together formed a long and narrow courtyard, about three meters wide and thirty meters long, with an area of ​​nearly one hundred square meters, which can accommodate both people and horses.

After entering the yard, Zhou Zhi knew where the stones for building the wall came from. It turned out that there were stone caves on one side of the mountain wall, and the stones used for the stone wall were recycled waste materials chiseled out of the stone caves.

Zhou Zhi was very familiar with this type of stone caves. One of the important achievements of his field survey in Jiachuan was that he figured out the distribution of stone caves in Jiachuan County. However, the stone caves in Jiachuan were all used as cliff tombs. Later, some large ones were used as places for storing firewood and raising cattle.

The stone caves here are similar to the Han Dynasty cliff tombs in Jiachuan, but their function should be for living people.

There is even a water source here. A small stream of water seeps down from the cracks in the cliff and converges along the bottom of the stone wall into an artificially carved pit. The pit is covered with stones to form a "yin well". A jar is used to cover the small wellhead, closing the entire well and leaving only one outlet. The water will flow out by itself when it is full.

The advantage of doing this is to prevent the growth of organisms in the water and keep the water clean.

In addition to the well, there are also fire pits, stone seats, stone tables, and even concave pits dug at the exits of the stone caves that serve as bedrooms. Inside the pits is a rough bowl with a rope on the mouth of the bowl, which turns out to be an oil lamp.

"Can this be considered a village?" After everyone curiously walked around here, Zhou Zhi asked Lao Chi Ri who was hanging feed bags on the horses.

"This is the Niangniang Temple." Old Chi Ri said, "A few old Bimos once built a temple and chanted scriptures here, but I don't know when it was abandoned."

"Probably after the people from the villages outside withdrew." Zhou Zhi pondered.

This village itself is not capable of carrying out production activities, so if one wants to survive here, basic supplies have to be delivered from outside, and recently they have to be delivered from Pantuo Village on the river outside.

However, there is also family migration within Daliang Mountain. Some places that are not convenient for survival will be abandoned as the population moves, and then gradually become unknown. When new people move to Pantuo Village, they may not know that there is a small path leading to here behind the secret entrance under the stone bridge.

And when the later settlers of Pantuo Village moved away again and even Pantuo Village became a ruin, it was even less likely that anyone would know about this place.

In addition to word of mouth, the Bimos also kept the secret.

"But you can call it a village." Old Chi Ri said, "It can also be considered a village to protect the Bimo Cave."

"Where is the Bimo Cave?"

"It's behind the stone wall of this yard, not in the yard." Old Chi Ri pointed to a direction and said, "I'll take you there after the horses are taken care of."

"Grandpa Chi Ri, you don't seem excited or nervous at all?" Chi Xueli looked at Old Chi Ri who was putting feed bags on the horses one by one, and felt that the old man really didn't look like he was about to open a great treasure.

"I just feel relieved now." Old Chi Ri smiled very frankly, as if every wrinkle on his face was filled with comfort: "From now on, the heavy burden will be handed over to you."

Zhou Zhi couldn't help but sigh at the old man's wisdom. If one day, when someone has the conditions to better preserve his collections, would he be able to hand over the work as happily as Old Chi Ri did?
No, as soon as he had this thought, Zhou Zhi felt his heart begin to ache. Those below level two or three are still easy to negotiate, but those above level one will only be handed over if I die!
It is probably because horses lived in the courtyard. The Bimos of all generations believed that horses' peeing and pooping would desecrate the scriptures, so the courtyard was not suitable for storing scriptures, so a stone wall was built between the scripture storage and the courtyard to separate them. Old Chi Ri led everyone around the stone wall and came to the back, and the full view of the Bimo Cave was finally revealed to everyone.

This is a natural cave, about one person high from the ground, with natural moisture-proof conditions. In order to facilitate entry and exit, later generations chiseled out stone steps up and down.

There was a mud wall on the stone steps. Under Chi Xueli's camera lens, Lao Chi Ri took out a scraper and scraped off the surface, revealing the back, which turned out to be a pile of mud bricks.

Mud bricks are stacked up, and after the mud layer is scraped off, they can be pried off with a scraper.

Everyone went up to help, and soon a hole the size of the window was made.

"That's all for today." Old Chi Ri paused and said, "According to old habits, we need to get some fresh air first and then go in tomorrow morning."

"Then I'll fix the shots first." Chi Xueli said as she raised the camera: "Elbow, help me get the light."

Under the light of the photographic lamp, everyone can explore the inside of the cave through the entrance. The space inside the cave is very large. There are at least three caves that are three to five meters high and five to six meters deep. They are densely packed with wooden racks and bamboo baskets, and piled with sheepskin, silk, linen, rice paper, and even yellow straw paper and other scriptures.

The further in you go, the more messy the scriptures become visibly. The further out you go, the cleaner and tidier they become.

This is easy to understand. The Yi people have experienced several cultural disasters in history. The materials originally hidden in the cave must have been collected in a hurry. There were many materials collected in a hurry, so they were not arranged neatly.

Later on, the Bimos became more relaxed in delivering the scriptures. However, the number of people involved was very small, usually only one or two people, and they did not have much energy to organize them. The current situation may be the result of the organization of many later generations.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

After all, later generations still have to organize the materials they sent in, or they are busy copying scriptures to take out, so there is not much time left for organization.

However, Zhou Zhi was a little worried about the condition of the parchments inside. After all, he could smell the unpleasant smell at the entrance of the cave.

Chi Xueli couldn't hold on for too long, and the two of them quickly left the cave, gasping for breath, as they were almost suffocated from the breath they had just taken.

Old Chi Ri had already taken a baking oven and buried a red-hot medicine cake with smoke coming out of it in the incense ash that had been stored in the oven for who knows how many hundreds of years. He used a bamboo pole with a hook to carry the baking oven into the cave, and then covered the cave entrance with a chalwa, which is the cloak of the Yi people: "That's it, it will be easier to enter the cave tomorrow. Now let's cook first, and then settle down!"

"It's not a good idea to send fire in, right?" Zhou Zhi was terrified. As long as there is fire, there is the possibility of a fire. He was so scared.

"It's okay. The incense ashes will burn slowly. There will only be light smoke, but not even a spark." Old Chi Ri said, "We are afraid that the smell inside will attract wild animals and destroy the books. We should choose the lesser of two evils. We have always done this."

Zhou Zhi thought about it and decided to respect Bimo's inheritance. Since there was nothing wrong with the inheritance after so many generations, it meant that there might be something special about the baking furnace.

Instead of worrying about this, it is better to prepare dinner and get enough rest to face the big show tomorrow. (End of this chapter)