The fat man and I got home late, and my father was alone drinking tea in the hall. The three of them chatted briefly, and my father asked me about the origin of the clay pot, and after learning the reason, he stopped asking. I said that I was a little sleepy, and led the fat man back to the house that my mother had arranged in advance, and after putting down the clay pot, I urged the fat man to wash up together.

The fat man honestly carried the gifts for a day, and he was really a little sleepy, and he was already snoring loudly not long after lying on the bed. But I didn't feel sleepy, I sat quietly at the table, carefully examining the clay pot that I brought back from the sixth master's house.

The clay pot can't tell the age just by looking at the shape, because the clay pot has generally maintained its original shape from ancient times to the present, and the same is true for this piece that the sixth master picked up. The surface of this clay pot has been roughly cleaned by the sixth master, and there are still some dust and traces of cleaning on it. I pulled a fine brush out of the drawer and began to carefully clean the dust from it. The pattern on the surface of the clay pot has been fully revealed, and the whole pattern is outlined by some thin lines of uniform thickness, and the thin lines on the clay pot remind me of a thing. It is a human face fish pattern basin in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, and I think it is the same as the thin line that outlines the human face fish pattern. I looked closely, but I still couldn't tell what it was, but I thought it was more like an ancient totem.

The door behind me was pushed open, and when I looked back, it turned out to be my grandfather who had pushed the door open in his coat.

I asked in a low voice, "Grandpa, is there something wrong?" ”

"It's okay, I saw that the light was still on at night, so I came over to take a look......" Before Grandpa's words were finished, his brows suddenly furrowed, and he asked, "Fenfen, where did the clay pot on the table come from?" ”

I let my grandfather into the house, and then briefly told me about the sixth master. Grandpa took out his glasses from his coat pocket and put them on, and looked carefully at the clay pot on the table, his expression of concentration made me wonder if he was listening to me.

"Remarkable." Grandpa finally spit out these three words, which made me a little confused, I don't know if he was praising the sixth master or praising the clay pot.

"Fenfen, you said that this clay pot was picked up by Wang Liu in the cave near the rocky ditch?"

"That's what the sixth master said."

"That's amazing." Grandpa praised again, and then said, "It's amazing that it can be preserved so well." ”

"Oh." I suddenly remembered the photo brought by Uncle Zhou, and the pattern on it was difficult to distinguish.

"I can't think of it." Grandpa also sighed on the side: "I didn't expect it to be this mark." ”

"Sigils?" I suspected I had misheard and asked, "Grandpa, what kind of mark are you talking about?" ”

"Oh." When my grandfather heard me ask, he also came back to his senses and said to me, "This is the mark of an ancient tribe, or a badge. ”

I was puzzled, and then asked, "Grandpa said that this is a plum blossom seal?" How did it get involved with the imprint badge again? ”

"Oh, you said plum blossom seal." Grandpa thought for a while and said: "This is indeed an ancient plum blossom seal character, people often think that the plum blossom seal character is the product of the emergence of calligraphy art, but in fact it is not the case, this is a kind of graphic text earlier than the oracle bone inscription, but it does not have an exact name." ”

I was a little uncertain and said: "I roughly understand the meaning of what grandpa said, this kind of writing does have similarities with the modern plum blossom seal, and perhaps the people who found it are also aware of these, so they also call it the plum blossom seal." ”

"That's pretty much it." Grandpa continued: "This is the writing of ancient times, the wisdom of the ancients. ”

I asked, "What is this written about?" ”

Grandpa smiled and said, "Xiao Fen, try to see if you can recognize it." ”

“……”

"You try to take it apart and see, there are four words in total......"

“……”

Under my grandfather's guidance, I gradually understood the peculiarity of this text. The lines that looked chaotic and disordered, after some splitting, the disassembled parts already looked like oracle bones. I found a notebook and a pen, and while splitting it, I sketched and drew the disassembled parts on paper.

I said uncertainly, "It looks like an oracle." ”

"No, this is at most the rudimentary form of Oracle." Grandpa was obviously satisfied with my split, and said with a smile: "Xiaofen, you can recognize these dismantled again." ”

"People...... "Wu", ...... "Yu", ...... "Yan......

I was still confused when I looked at these four words, because I found that I didn't know how to arrange and combine these four words, and I said vaguely: "This...... How do you read this......"

Grandpa said, "Yuren Wuyan." ”

I was puzzled and asked, "Why do you read it like this, can there be one or twenty permutations and combinations of these four words?" ”

"The ancients had their own ways." Grandpa said, "Have you noticed that every word you take apart has a mark on it?" ”

"Mark?" I carefully examined the four characters I had opened, and found that there was something strange about the drawing on each character, and I thought it was the mark that my grandfather was talking about. These so-called marks look like traces left by a pause on the tip of the pen when the writing is not smooth, there is one place on the word "Yu", two places on the word "person", three places on the word "Wu", and four places on the word "Yan".

I still thought it was a little incredible, so I asked, "Grandpa, could it be that these marks are not the order of words, but just a coincidence caused by a pause in writing?" ”

"Archaeology is the only way to be skeptical." Grandpa smiled and said, "But this has been confirmed." ”

I was still puzzled and asked, "Why did the ancient ancestors go to such trouble to connect the words together first, and then bother to mark the order, when they want to read, it is very difficult to just disassemble the words, right?" ”

"Haha." Grandpa smiled without saying a word, he picked up the pencil on the table and wrote the words "Yuren Wuyan" in the blank space on the paper. The four characters are squeezed together, and the strokes between the characters are already connected end to end, and they look like a mess like the marks on a clay pot.

"This ......" I groaned slightly, and I already roughly understood what Grandpa meant, and asked: "Grandpa's meaning, the ancients looked at ancient characters like we look at modern characters, and we can recognize them at a glance, but they lack the reading order, right?" ”

"Hmm."

I suddenly thought about the secrecy of this kind of text, and asked, "Now that the order has been marked, how can these words be kept secret?" Is it necessary to keep it secret and not to mark it? ”

"Hmm."

I then asked, "How do you know the correct order of words when you need to read?" Is there any other way to record the order? ”

"Hmm."

I was still a little puzzled and asked, "What is the difference between hiding a piece of text and hiding the reading order?" ”

"Yes." Grandpa said: "Because most of the words of that era were carved on stone walls, it was not so convenient to hide, and no reading order was equivalent to encryption." ”

"Oh." I already knew what Grandpa meant, but I still didn't understand the meaning of the four words on the clay pot in front of me, so I asked, "Grandpa, do these four words have any meaning?" ”

"What does that mean?" Grandpa thought for a moment, and then asked me, "Have you heard of the Feather Clan?" ”

I was surprised and said, "Is it the legendary winged feathered people that grandpa said?" ”

Grandpa said, "That's a mythical story, and the real feather man should be the one wearing a feather coat." ”

"Feather coat?" I imagined in my mind that a person would look like a person covered in chicken feathers, and I couldn't help but smile and say, "Grandpa, does that kind of person really exist?" ”

Grandpa pointed to the clay pot and said, "This is the evidence of their existence, 'Yuren' is the name of the tribe, 'Wu' should have referred to craftsmen or sacrifices at that time, and 'Yan' may be the name of the person." ”

"I see." I looked at the clay pot silently, contemplating the legend of the Feathered Clan.

Seeing that I didn't speak, my grandfather straightened his waist to the side, reached out and lifted up the coat he was wearing, and then said to me: "You put away this clay pot first, national treasure-level cultural relics, don't let you break them before they are handed over to the Cultural Relics Bureau." ”

"Hmm." I answered, found a cardboard box of the right size, gently placed the clay pot inside, and then found a stack of old newspapers, and carefully put paper balls around the clay pot. I was doing it quickly, but my mind was already thinking about whether the photo I sent to the fat man could also have something to do with this human race.

"It's not too early, go to bed early." Grandpa saw that I had done everything, nodded with satisfaction, and then was about to leave.

After sending my grandfather away, I couldn't wait to take out the stack of photos from my backpack. I was anxious to put the pictures together and see if there were any markings on them, and what was going to be inside. The photographs were clearly deliberately taken in separate frames, and the puzzle was quickly completed, with twenty photographs neatly laid out on the table, the patterns on which were fully revealed, and did not look too complicated.

Gradually, I discovered that the work of taking apart the reading was far more complicated than I had imagined, and the progress was very slow. I didn't know how many words I could split in total, so I had to try to split one and write one on paper.

"Wood", "Worm", "Man", "Stone", "Bird", "Mountain", "Water", "Fire". Looking at the results on paper, I was lost. These eight words are the result of my final disassembly, and I did not find any marks on them, let alone think that these eight words could arrange any meaningful sentences. But I think that since someone bothered to send it to the fat man, most of them will still hide something, maybe I just haven't found the key.

I sat quietly and meditated, and before I knew it, sleepiness gradually set in. I didn't think I would find anything if I held on a little longer, so I took the picture on the table and the eight-word paper back into my backpack and fell asleep in a daze.

By the time I woke up, it was already dawn, and the fat man was nowhere to be found. I opened my phone and took a look, and there was a message from the fat man: "Waste, the fat man has gone to learn the craft, see you in the evening." ”

The fat man went out early and returned late for the next three days, during which he only occasionally sent a text message to each other, mainly because we didn't have anything serious. I have already accepted Uncle Zhou's errand, and I can only wait at home like this, and the fat man also invited me to follow the sixth master into the mountains to hunt rabbits, but I refused, I think it's good to accompany the old people calmly like this.

Finally, on the afternoon of the third day, I received a call from Uncle Zhou, saying that he had stayed at a hotel in a nearby county town and would enter the mountain with us the next morning. After I waited for Uncle Zhou to hang up the call, I hurriedly called the fat man's mobile phone, thinking about notifying the fat man. As a result, the fat guy already knew, probably patronizing and playing, and forgot to inform me.