The moment I saw my father lying in Old Man Liu's coffin, my heart was immediately tightened, and at the same time, an idea vaguely appeared in my mind.

I finally figured out what Old Man Liu borrowed from my house with such a precious antique as the longevity box, and what he borrowed was my father's life.

I can't figure out what is strange in this for a while, but I can see that my father has lost his breath and his body has become cold and stiff.

I was at a loss for a while, in our hometown, burial and relocation of graves are very important things, and we can't come nonsense. But my father's death was so strange that I couldn't let anyone else know about it. It took a long time for my messy mind to calm down a bit.

I didn't even go back to the village, so I rushed to the nearest town overnight to buy a coffin and pull it to the cemetery. I re-dug the pit alone and moved my father's body to the other side of the cemetery.

At dawn, these things were finally done, but I can't describe the feeling in my heart, sadness, loss, confusion, confusion, anger......

I think that unless I find Old Man Liu again, I will know the ins and outs of borrowing my life.

I dragged my tired body home, and I barely closed my eyes for two or three days, and I was so sleepy that I couldn't open my eyelids as soon as I lay down in bed.

I slept for hours, and at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, I was awakened by a banging on the door. I put on my clothes and went out to open the door, and at a glance I saw the silly sea of the village standing outside the door grinning at me.

Silly Hai is two years younger than me, when I was a child, I fell out of bed and broke my head, stupidly, dragging two buckets of snot every day in the village.

"Silly Hai, do you have something to do with me?"

"Brother...... Brother......" Silly Hai spurted his nose, tilted his head and thought about it, and said to me, "Uncle...... Uncle called me...... Tell me to bring you a message......"

"Who!?" My residual sleepiness disappeared without a trace, and I involuntarily reached out and grabbed Silly Hai's collar: "Who told you to bring words!?" ”

"Uncle...... Uncle let the ......" Silly Hai was frightened, and the snot that had just been inhaled flowed out silently, and said with a crying voice: "Uncle said...... Box, you take it...... Money ...... Money and goods are cleared ......"

I originally wondered if Silly Hai was idle and had nothing to do, and came to tease me, but as soon as he said these two words, I could be sure that Silly Hai alone couldn't make up these words.

"What else?"

"And ...... And also...... Uncle said...... The box cannot be opened...... Unless one day...... You see what's drawn on the box......"

I patiently interrogated again. Silly Hai will not lie, he said very clearly, he met a person in the northwest of the village, and it was this person who asked Silly Hai to come back with two sentences. I'd love to know who made Silly Hai talk, but it's good that Silly Hai can remember so many words, and now he can't tell who is the person who asked him to talk.

But I can surmise that Silly Hai called that person "uncle", which means that the person must be old.

Is it the father? Could it be that my father made the stupid Hai talk to him?

I gave Silly Hai five dollars and sent him away, while I ran to the cemetery outside the village. In the countryside, unless it is to move the grave, the children and grandchildren must not touch the graves of the older generations casually, but the matter has reached a critical juncture, and I can only bite the bullet and dig up the grave where my father is buried again.

I had a hunch that my father's coffin must be as empty as Old Man Liu's. The coffin was empty, so it was possible for my father to let Silly Hai bring me a message.

However, when I dug up the grave and opened the coffin, my hunch was disappointed. My father's body remained in the coffin, just as it had been when he was buried.

My hands shook slightly, because I suddenly realized that I had made a mistake in my thinking. The one who made the stupid Hai talk was an elderly person, and I had a preconceived idea that it was probably my father. But now that I think about it, isn't Old Man Liu an old man?

This time, I was completely dizzy, and I couldn't tell who the person who let the stupid sea talk was.

Birth, old age, sickness and death are commonplace, but when people die, so many things are tossed, which is far beyond the scope of my previous understanding.

I came home in a huff, my father's body was in the grave, Old Man Liu was nowhere to be found, these two lines were completely broken, there was no other way, I naturally shifted my attention to the longevity box left by Old Man Liu.

This box is not painted, and you can see the natural wood texture of periwinkle wood, and the wood grain like a copper coin is clearly visible. I've been in the business since I was 12 years old, and I can't say how good my eyesight is, but this box makes me feel that it is not a fake, but an authentic product.

On the front of the box, there are three talisman-like characters engraved. I handle so many goods every year, and my understanding of ancient characters is relatively profound, not bragging, even the most complex and obscure Tangut script, I can identify some of it.

However, the three words on the longevity box, like a book from heaven, have never been seen before.

I gently turned the box over, and the back of the box was a very fine carving, and I could tell it was a monkey just by looking at it.

When I saw this monkey, I immediately judged that most of this longevity box was not an item of the Western Han court, and it may have been exiled from the court to the people. Because in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, this kind of flat wooden box and wooden box made of wood and the like, also called "seal", sealed with a carved monkey, has the homonym of "Fenghou", folk people like to use this way to beg for a lottery, and the royal craftsmen in the court will not engage in these boring tricks.

I have to say that the carving on the box is quite exquisite, vivid, even the monkey's expression, or even the monkey hair on the body.

I looked at it again and couldn't help but shudder. The monkey on the longevity box is a one-eyed monkey with only one eye, and its expression is a little strange, as if it is crying and laughing.

I don't know if it's a psychological effect, I held the longevity box, and I felt uncomfortable all over my body, as if there was an eye in a dark corner that was constantly peeking at me. The one-eyed monkey that seems to cry and laugh always makes me feel a faint evil and gloomy.

The box is not locked, but there is a circle of gold paint fire seal, because the Changchun wood is very hard, so the box is relatively heavy, if you don't open the box, it is not easy to judge whether there is something inside.

However, if the box is empty, then there is no need to leave a fire seal, from which it can be inferred that there should be something in this longevity box, which is rarer than the Doucai chicken bowl cup.

Although the words brought by Silly Hai have been very clear, this box cannot be opened casually, but my heart is burning and I want to open the box to see what is inside.

When I stretched out my hand, I hesitated a little, what happened in the past few days is completely unpredictable and uncontrollable, I don't know if there are any taboos in this box, if it is opened like this, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no more terrible accidents.

But the hesitation in my heart just came out, and I thought of my father again, his death was strange, bizarre, and even unclear, if I made a mistake at this juncture, would it still be a gentleman?

I gritted my teeth and knocked off the fire seal around the longevity box, the box was not locked, but after the fire seal was knocked off, I broke the lid of the box, and I could feel that there seemed to be some metal in the box.

The clicking sound was very slight, but I immediately stopped all movements, and based on the sound I heard, coupled with the touch of my hand, I dared to conclude that there must be a very delicate mechanism in this longevity box, and if there is no correct way to open it, forcibly opening the box, the machine will destroy the contents of the box.

The words of Silly Hai and me still seem to linger in my ears. No matter who asked him to speak, but the information in the words is so clear and straightforward, this box must not be opened without authorization, unless...... Unless I see a one-eyed monkey with my own eyes.

In other words, this box, I can't open it now, and besides, now is not the time to open it.

I gave up on the idea of opening the box for a while, but I didn't give up looking for the truth about these things. For the next half a month, I kept wandering around my hometown, searching, but no matter how hard I tried, I never found anything.

I can't find Old Man Liu, so the longevity box he left behind has become the only clue that can be checked at the moment. I returned to Qikongqiao from my hometown and immediately went to find Blind San'er.

Blind San'er is a supplier of Qikongqiao, in his forties, highly myopia, and if he doesn't wear glasses, he is almost like a blind man, so he is nicknamed Blind San'er. In the past, my father secretly told me that the people who mix with the ancient line are all human spirits, and they are better than monkeys when they are stained with hair, and there are fewer kind-hearted people, because the kind-hearted people are not long-term in this industry, and the blind San'er is a very kind-hearted outlier in the ancient line.

Because of my father's words, and I also feel that the blind three sons are really good, so they get along with each other very well. I found him, brought the box with me, and asked him to help with the palms. People in the ancient line generally know the depth of the rules, and the blind San'er didn't ask how the box came about.

Two days later, Blind San'er made a phone call. He said that the periwinkle wood is almost a unique product now, and there is no corresponding reference, and it is not easy to tell whether the box is really made of periwinkle wood. In addition, it is uncertain whether the box was finished in the Western Han Dynasty, but it is certain that the whole box, together with the characters on the front of the box and the one-eyed monkey carved on the back, is definitely a thousand-year-old thing.

"Is there anything else you can see besides that?"

"There's still a bit of a situation." Blind San'er said on the phone: "You are lucky, there is an uncle who happens to stay with me for a few days, and I asked him to read the words on the box." ”

The uncle of Blind San'er, who has a high rank and a wide range of knowledge in the ancient industry, said that the words on this box are not the ancient fonts of the Central Plains. The words on the box come from Central Asia, to be exact, from the ancient country of Kuqa on the ancient Silk Road. Kucha country, in fact, is the ancient country of Qiuci recorded in historical materials, one of the countries of the Western Regions, and the necessary place of the Silk Road.

This kind of word is called Polo riddles, and the ancient lines in the mainland rarely dump the goods over there, so whoever reads the Polo riddles is the same as seeing the book from heaven. If it weren't for the well-informed uncle of Blind San'er, it would have taken a lot of effort to figure out the source of the font.

"Third brother, your uncle didn't say it, what do the three words on the box mean?"

"He didn't say it, but I'll check it for you afterwards." Blind San'er paused, and then said: "Brother, I don't know the origin of this box, but I think this box is quite strange. ”

"How?"

"Even I don't know what to say." Blind San'er paused again: "If you know what the three words on the box mean, you may have a short circuit in your brain." ”