"In June 1972, when a soldier of a certain unit of the Lanzhou Military Region was digging the foundation of the project at the foot of Helan Mountain, he accidentally brought more than a dozen ancient pottery products to light. After that, the archaeological team intervened, and found pyramid-shaped loess buildings held up by the boundless wild desert in this desert, and the tombs of the Western Xia kings that had been sleeping for thousands of years......"

In 1989, in the middle of the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur region, the country was wonderful, "the land was hot and humid, and it was difficult to perform the "......"

The second uncle participated in the tombs and expeditions that appeared in the notes, either as organizers or hired consultants. Each time the account is very detailed, and even the feelings when entering the tomb are clearly written, which makes me feel like I am there. I was fascinated by it, Aunt Ming was still in her own silence, and for a while, the atmosphere in the room became a little depressing.

I don't know how long later, this quiet atmosphere was broken by Aunt Ming, she was wearing that beautiful light blue embroidered cheongsam leaning on the table next to me, her naked white arms against the edge of the table, looking at me slightly sideways, relaying to me the arrangement of the second uncle, as if the silence just now disturbed her emotions, at this moment she put away the smile that made me feel like a spring breeze, and became joyless and sad.

When I walked out of the "quiet house", I looked back at her, still as I saw when I first entered the door, with her back to the street and curly cheongsam. It's just that the back is a little different from before.

Following the route I had come, I embarked on the return journey. Sitting on the seat in the aisle of the hard sleeper car, I skimmed out the window past the rows of gray buildings that had been stained by the haze, and left the capital, and the empty fields flashed in front of me. As twilight fell, the hollow scene gradually disappeared, replaced by pitch blackness, as if I had fallen into the dark "forest" where I had been imprisoned, this time by my second uncle.

The carriage was filled with the same noise as when I came, and with headphones on, the Beetle's "Norwegian Wood" could only hide the noise outside my ears, but not the "noise" inside me.

The second uncle asked Aunt Ming to convey to me that I should be admitted to a university in Beijing to study archaeology. As for my questions, during my study of archaeology, he would answer them for me in a special way, and as for what way, Aunt Ming did not know.

Bidding farewell to the darkness outside the window, and returning to the cold hard bed, the tiredness that was evacuated by Aunt Ming's smile came back to me, and I fell asleep in a mood that was even more nervous than when I came, and woke up many times during this period.

I didn't gain anything from this trip, just one more "adventure" notebook than when I came, an unknown number of bank cards and an arrangement that I didn't like but had to complete, and the second uncle personally pushed me back to the dark "forest", but it was not cruel enough not to give me hope of escaping, that hope was waiting.

Half a year later, I sat in the library of the university designated by my second uncle, looking at the books, and after half a year of precipitation, my feeling of falling into the forest still did not lessen at all. On the contrary, there were more questions, such as the seven-digit bank card given to me by the second uncle, such as the closed door of "Qing Xianju".

I have no interest in studying archaeology at all, and after a few months of study, the only thing that attracts me is to invite some researchers to give us public lectures, because the word researcher reminds me of my second uncle.

Time passed day by day, and the wait to pull me out of the "forest" had not yet arrived, and in my uninterested days, I was crammed into the content of ancient characters, the content of the characteristics of ancient tombs of various dynasties, and a lot of archaeological knowledge.

Gradually, I developed my own insights into how archaeology felt. The professor believes that archaeology is to use archaeological materials to make a chronicle of a dynasty in order to ensure the objectivity of archaeology. Archaeology is the relationship between the excavation of artifacts and artifacts. In order to explore, in order to discover and fill in our blank history.

I think the essential difference between archaeology and tomb robbery is that one is a thief and the other is a robber, one is to rummage through boxes and cabinets and take valuable things and slip away, while the other is the "blatant" "blatant" who colludes with "officials and bandits" and moves them all away in broad daylight, and does not even let go of the bones that have been dead for thousands of years.

With this idea made me more resistant to my major, the only thing that interested me was the explanation of history in this major, I have always imagined the change of dynasties in ancient times, especially the life of the people before the Qin, which is related to my curiosity about the unknown, which is very similar to my second uncle, I don't know if it is like my mother, but it is not like my father at all.

In the past two years, I have read many books that I can't usually see, such as "History of Ancient Architecture", "Shangshu", "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period", "Bamboo Book Chronicle", and "History of Chinese Manuscripts".

"Seeing him rise up a tall building, watching him feast guests, seeing his building collapse", this sentence re-entered my mind.

I spent almost all day in the library, reading books in a fixed position, and one day I was concentrating on reading a book of "Shangshu" when a lively voice interrupted my concentration.

"Like history?"

At my 45-degree angle, there was a slightly powdered girl, with a full ponytail (I later learned that it was dirty braids), and a wide school uniform as a coat on her body, although it covered her figure, but the casual combination made her look full of vitality. My dark "forest" suddenly lit up, and the exit was gone.

"I like it."

I looked up at the starry sky at a forty-five degree angle.

"I'm from the history department, so I had a chance to talk about it."

She held a copy of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Forest in both hands, pressed the book against the hem of the wide school uniform with straight arms, and bent down to glance at the notes I had placed on the desk, and only a palm away from me, I could smell the faintly scented cosmetics on his face.

She remained in this position for two seconds, as if she were checking the notes I had taken as a teacher. After that, he walked out of the library with the book in his hand, and when he reached the door, he turned back and smiled at me. Such a smile made the dark "forest" that "imprisoned" me light up again.

A day later, I met Aunt Ming, and she didn't tell me the reason for the loss of contact in the past two years, but just handed me a package, which was sent by my second uncle. Seeing each other again, the face of two years ago, which had not been left by the years, had a few more wrinkles and haggardness.

I went back to the library, and in a secluded corner, I opened the package, and there was a map in a newspaper roll, and half a page of yellowed paper that seemed to have been gnawed by a mouse, with only a few lines. I recognized the source of the paper at a glance, it was clearly the paper on the black notebook left to me by my second uncle, and the map and the paper pointed to the same place, "Ghost Cub Ridge".