When he was nine years old, in the dark night by the Haihe River in the German Concession of Tianjin, when Qin Beiyang was still called Qiu Xiaogeng. The young Ye Kenan came to his house and said nonsense that the junior class of Beijing Normal University was recruiting prodigies from all over the country and invited him to an interview. For a moment, he thought about becoming a student at Beijing's highest university, Beijing's highest university.

The Beijing Normal University Hall in the late Qing Dynasty was not on the shore of Weiming Lake in Haidian. In the year of the Wuxu Reform, Emperor Guangxu approved Liang Qichao to build a site in the east of Jingshan, the Ming Dynasty Horse Temple in today's beach back street, and the four princesses of Emperor Qianlong's mansion. There is a pair of stone lions at the palace gate of the five lintels, and the gate hangs the "University Hall" plaque. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, it was renamed National Peking University.

Qin Beiyang took the "big dog" Jiuse and followed Professor Wang Jiawei into Peking University. There are also several Western-style buildings, such as the Mathematics Department Building and the Liberal Arts Faculty Building. The Department of History is the old house of the Princess's Mansion, the study of Fulongan, after the chaos of the Gengzi year, it has fallen into disrepair, the roof is leaking, the walls are cracked, and the school is about to start after the New Year, and it is in urgent need of craftsmen to repair it.

He climbed on the roof to work. Drifting through a winter cloud, next to Jingshan Mountain in the west, a stone's throw away from the old locust tree hanged by Emperor Chongzhen. Looking at the palace wall of the Forbidden City in the south, the northeast corner tower is particularly clear, and Pu Yi is still the little emperor in it.

Qin Beiyang, who works at National Peking University, did not dare to live in the city, for fear that his face would be recognized as a wanted criminal in the Longxitang extermination case.

He went out of the city wall with the Nine Colors, and headed northwest, where he came to a large barren and decaying garden. Under the cold moonlight, several Western-style ruins were illuminated. There was an overgrown body of dead grass underfoot, and charcoal-like, charred black wood.

Old Summer Palace.

Dad said that during the Xianfeng period, the craftsman village of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was in the Old Summer Palace, which was once the most beautiful palace in the world, the dreamlike Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens, and the Qin family lived here for four generations. History is shattered into countless stones in the barren smoke and vines, and the man and beast who depend on each other for their lives are getting longer and longer by the moonlight.

He found a small house, patched up the window paper, plugged the holes in the roof, cleared the unearthed kang, laid hay, and slept with his clothes together.

When the leaves fell back to his roots, he dreamed of his grandfather, who had been a craftsman for generations in this royal garden, and his grandfather's grandfather......

A few days later, before the willow silk in the capital had yet budded, the new students of the history department of National Peking University came. No one paid attention to Qin Beiyang on the roof, he was like the gatehouse, the messenger, the cook and the gardener on campus.

A girl with curly hair and bangs, glass-colored eyes, looked curiously at the campus. The skin is like mutton fat and white jade, and there is a Nanyang coconut flavor in the eyebrows and eyes, like a princess dressed in a sari who came to the palace of the princess of the Qianqing Dynasty.

In an instant, Qin Beiyang almost stumbled and fell from the roof, and the name was on his lips, ready to come out......

Ouyang Anna.

Wusongkou said goodbye to the Yangtze River, and I haven't seen it for almost three months. His heart was pounding, and he couldn't help but shout out as she walked into the old classroom.

Qin Beiyang opened two tiles, and there were only five or six girls among the more than 20 students in the classroom. In the back row of Anna, sat a fair-skinned and handsome young man, dressed in Mongolian costumes, with a somewhat familiar face?

It turned out to be the king of the small county of Ordostoro. More than two years ago, at the gate of the Beijing District Court, Qin Beiyang tried wrestling with him to compete for A Youbi. Now that the little county king has grown up, the northerners and the southerners are more gentle, and he has become Ouyang Anna's classmate.

At the beginning of the freshman class, Professor Wang Jiawei wrote the word "faith" on the blackboard.

Westerners say that the Chinese are a nation without faith, without a moral bottom line, and without the spirit of perseverance. But I would like to say that the Chinese have faith, and this belief is the tradition of recording and interpreting history since Confucius, from the Book of Shang, Spring and Autumn, Zuo Chuan, to Sima Qian's Shiji, the 40 million-character history of Huanghuang. Students, how fortunate you are to study history. History is the belief of our Chinese! ”

Wang Jiaweirusi said that Ouyang Anna behind the desk was thoughtful, and Qin Beiyang on the roof was also shaken. In this class, we will talk about history first, and then archaeology. At that time, the Chinese people's experience of appreciating antiquities was still limited to gold and stone tablets and even antiques, which was far from real science.

Ouyang Anna boldly raised her hand and asked, "Professor, have you ever seen the Tomb Beast?" ”

"Tomb Beast!" Wang Jiawei didn't expect it to come out of the little girl's mouth, "A common artifact in ancient Chinese tombs, which protects the soul of the tomb owner from the intrusion of underground ghosts. The tomb beast is usually the body of a beast, and the upper body has different shapes such as animal face, human face, and antlers. In ancient times, there was a kind of monster called the elephant, which ate the liver and brain of the dead. And the 'Fang Xiang clan' is covered with bear skin, golden four eyes, Xuanyi and Zhu clothes, and a strong shield, specializing in expelling ghosts such as dragons and elephants. ”

"Which dynasty has the most tomb beasts?"

"There have been in all dynasties, but they are extremely rare after the Ming and Qing dynasties. At present, most of the surviving tomb beasts are in the Han and Tang dynasties, especially in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the era of the hundred schools of princes - the tomb beasts were very prosperous, and developed the official system of the netherworld, just like the order created by Zhou Tianzi. ”

"Professor, have you ever seen a grave beast with your own eyes?"

"I have seen the tomb beasts unearthed from the tomb of the Chu State, there are pottery and lacquerware, as well as huge antlers, the appearance is treacherous and terrifying, not to mention that it is placed in the underground palace, even if it is placed in our classroom, it will scare you to the core." Seeing that the classmates were frightened and quieted down, Wang Jiawei said proudly, "The ancients made the tomb beast hideous, with a strong witchcraft color, and it is also their imagination of the world after death." O antlers, I will never forget! ”

Qin Beiyang on the roof, while observing Anna, remembered that on the back of his neck, there were also two antler-shaped red birthmarks, the genetic characteristics of the descendants of the tombsmith clan, like the huge antlers of the tomb beasts in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Town, and he couldn't help but feel hot.

"However, the legend that the tomb beast can prevent tomb thieves and even eat people is pure nonsense!"

Hearing Wang Jiawei's arbitrary statement, Ouyang Anna couldn't help but say, "Professor, I've seen a man-eating tomb beast. ”

The class was in an uproar, and the little county king behind Anna raised his hand: "Report to the professor, I have also seen a living tomb beast." ”

This first lesson of the school year was completely disturbed by the tomb beast......

After class, Anna walked around the campus alone, wearing a black cotton jacket and two diagonal buttons, like a common girl on the streets of Beijing in winter. She left the main gate of Peking University and walked north along the east side of Jingshan Mountain. After passing the Di'an Gate, go all the way west on the north wall of the Imperial City, and turn into the Hutong in the depths of the hundred flowers......

This journey, a lot of roads, if you had called a rickshaw in Shanghai, Anna today is all on two legs, until a courtyard house. Qin Beiyang quietly followed, went around to the edge of the yard, climbed an old tree, and peeked inside from the roof.

Anna rubbed her legs on the steps, fiddling with the flowers and plants in the garden. There is a girl with big pigtails on the side, drying bedding and clothes, isn't this Ah You? A fifteen-year-old girl, the more she grows, the more beautiful she becomes. The two girls were laughing and doing needlework together in the yard.

There was a third person in the courtyard, wearing a blue Beiyang military uniform, with yellow epaulettes on a white background and two stars with the rank of lieutenant - Qi Yuanshan.