Yellow River Craftsman

Chapter 44

"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 tiger. It is said that there was a half-month torrential rain that year. After the heavy rain , A giant turtle appeared on the banks of the Xuanzhou River. The Xuanzhou River is surrounded by jungles, and there are many beasts in the jungles. A white tiger with eye-catching eyes came out of the jungle to drink water by the river, and happened to bump into this giant turtle.

At first, the eye-catching white tiger thought it was a big gray rock, but he never thought that when he walked past the rock, the rock would move by itself.The eye-catching white tiger was startled, only to realize that the thing was not a rock, but a living thing.The eye-catching white tiger is the tyrant of the jungle, he didn't expect to be startled by this giant tortoise lying stupidly in the mud by the river, his heart was really angry, and he couldn't help sending a domineering roar at the giant tortoise roar.

But to the eye-catching white tiger's surprise, the giant turtle was not afraid of it at all, and instead attacked the white tiger first.Opening his mouth, he suddenly turned around and bit the white tiger.The white tiger reacted extremely quickly, and immediately jumped to the side, dodging away.The eye-catching white tiger was extremely angry, and raised its sharp tiger claws to grab the giant turtle.The giant tortoise's head quickly retracted into the shell, and the tiger's claws landed on the hard shell, causing no harm to the giant tortoise.

The giant turtle has been wrestling with the eye-catching white tiger for at least half an hour. The eye-catching white tiger is panting with exhaustion, but it still has no advantage.The hard bone plate on the giant turtle's back was like a piece of armor. With the protection of the armor, the giant turtle was not only not hurt by the white tiger, but threatened the white tiger several times.Finally, the eye-catching white tiger voluntarily gave up the fight. It had nothing to do with the giant turtle, so it could only choose to take a detour and avoid the giant turtle by a long distance. "

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 turned our eyes to 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. Roughly estimated, there are at least a thousand of those square characters.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 kind of visual processing techniques the craftsmen used when carving these square characters, so that these square characters seem to stand out on the surface of the stone tablet under the light of the lights, rippling gently like water patterns, appearing illusory and real, Fantastic.

Gu Meidi was the first to shout excitedly: "These are Xixia characters! These are the lost Xixia characters!"

As high-achieving 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. The shape is square and the strokes are complicated. 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.Calligraphy can also be divided into Kai, Xing, Cao, and Zhuan. Kai 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 are not only complicated in 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 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, you two, 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 because we originally wanted to explore the mystery of Xixia that has been lost in the long river of history.Unexpectedly, all the way to the end, not only did not solve the mystery in my heart, but fell into even greater confusion.

I let out a long sigh, and sat down on the ground, with a dejected expression on my face: "It's so depressing! It seems that our trip was in vain!"

Gu Meidi couldn't help feeling sad too: "Hey! 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's books, we can take back the Xixia's 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 that 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 transcribe them when you go back on the 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: "Smart! Fortunately, I was prepared. I didn't expect it to come in handy today!"

Professor Ye lifted up the black pen while talking, and pressed the shutter several times in succession on the stele of the Heavenly Book in front of him, then he carefully put the pen back into the backpack: "This is the biggest and only one of our trip. If you harvest it, you must take it back intact!"

After staying on the back of the giant turtle for nearly 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 for a moment.

After relaxing, I was about to turn around and leave with my pants in hand, when suddenly I noticed 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, only to find 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 curse: "Tuobagu, you... are you a hooligan? You pee behind, and you let us watch? Good you! I really misjudged you, no Thinking of you being so perverted and obscene..."

(End of this chapter)