After determining the location of the Vientiane Shrine, we discussed three days later to leave, this is a long way to go to Hongbai Mountain, at that time the means of transportation to Hotan are still ox carts and horse-drawn carriages, and the time on the road will have to be bumpy for more than half a month.

Zhuo Mingfeng is unprecedentedly willing to help, he is responsible for arranging supplies and transportation to Hongbai Mountain, General Zhuo Mingfeng is more effective than Ye Jiuqing in this industry, not to mention that in such a remote place as Dunhuang, it really depends on Zhuo Mingfeng to prepare so many supplies in a short time.

Coming back from the Yumen Pass, Ye Zhiqiu and Tian Ji are stupid, the two of them seem to have lost their souls, they don't think about it, I can't cry and laugh and say anything, Ye Zhiqiu is heartbroken, Tian Ji is happy and sad, both of them are still thinking about the stone room of the Jade Gate Pass, and it is estimated that it will be difficult to think about it for a while.

"Song Wenjie is here, just outside, I see that he looks very anxious." Ling Zhihan hurriedly pushed the door in and said.

"How many people are here?" Tian Ji immediately straightened up.

"One."

Tian Ji looked at me and the palace lord with palpitations, I guess he was afraid that Song Wenjie would find out about the murals we had destroyed, and now he came to the door.

"What's the panic, Xingshi won't come alone when he asks for sin." The general was not surprised when he saw it, and said to Ling Zhihan while rolling a cigarette. "Let him in and see what's going on."

Song Wenjie walked into the house and nodded to us politely, looking very kind, but in a hurry.

"Dunhuang is a big place, I wanted to accompany you to see around, but I've been too busy lately." Song Wenjie is bookish, but he is loyal. "I'm taking a leave of absence tomorrow to be a guide for you, and there are Mingsha Mountain and ...... nearby"

"Don't bother, I've been here for some days, and I'm going to go back." I guess the general gave the painting to Song Wenjie, and he wanted to take us around without retribution, and he was also a real person. "I see you're in a hurry, and we won't keep you if there's something wrong."

"It's not a big deal, it's just that there is something going on in the Mogao Grottoes, and it hasn't been dealt with yet." Song Wenjie replied with an apologetic smile, looking at Ye Zhiqiu, who was speechless. "She, what's wrong with her?"

"It's okay, she broke something, haven't you been regretting it." Gong Jue poured good water and handed it to Song Wenjie, smiling happily.

"Zhiqiu, it doesn't matter, what is so important." Song Wenjie asked with concern.

Wen Jie...... You said that if I destroy an important cultural relic, I will have to turn myself in. Ye Zhiqiu slowly raised his head and asked seriously.

"Don't listen to her nonsense, it's probably not clear." Ye Zhiqiu is a tendon, she only has black and white right and wrong in her mind, there is no flexibility and tactfulness, I am afraid that she will say the matter, it just so happens that there is a Song Wenjie with the same tendon sitting in this room, who is more real.

"What are you kidding, how can you destroy cultural relics if you value them more than your life." Song Wenjie picked up the water glass, and the glasses were full of fog, so I couldn't see his eyes, only his innocent smile. "Now these people don't know what's wrong, they don't have any awareness of cultural relics protection, I've been busy repairing a damaged cultural relic these days, oh, you've been to that place before."

"Where?" Tian Ji asked while drinking water.

"It's Cave No. 126 of Mogao Grottoes, and the murals in it have been dug into a hole."

Burst!

Tian Ji sprayed a mouthful of water on Song Wenjie's body opposite.

Tian Ji couldn't hide things in his heart, he was not a person who was not shocked at all, everything was written on his face, and now his expression was flustered and at a loss.

Song Wenjie smiled very embarrassedly, I hurriedly handed over the paper to apologize, and kicked Tian Ji under the table: "I'm sorry, he choked too fast." ”

"It's okay, it's okay." Song Wenjie didn't seem to notice that Tian Ji's expression was different.

The general next to him wiped the water stains on his face, calmly lit a cigarette, and asked casually, "Do you know who did it?" ”

"Wen Jie, are you saying that the grotto that we took to see last time was destroyed? When was this? Ye Zhiqiu walked over in shock and asked.

"Just the other day, it happened to be the day I took you there." Song Wenjie replied.

Cough, cough, cough.

As soon as Song Wenjie's words fell, the general was choked by a puff of smoke, coughing violently, and now even his expression was unnatural, Ye Zhiqiu looked back and forth at Tian Ji and the general, and frowned: "You guys...... What did you do after Wenjie and I left? ”

"No, don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with them, they are all your friends, how can they destroy cultural relics." Song Wenjie shook his head while wiping his glasses. "The person who destroyed the antiquities was caught red-handed."

"What?" All of us looked at Song Wenjie in surprise, and it took me a long time before I asked. "Who? Who did you catch? ”

"Two Britons, a man and a woman, are husband and wife." Song Wenjie said.

"British?!" We looked at each other, and Ye Zhiqiu asked puzzled. "What the hell is going on, why are the English couple in the grotto, why are they destroying the frescoes?"

Song Wenjie told us that after we left the No. 126 grotto that day, he and Ye Zhiqiu went to look for us and found that the iron gate outside had been closed, so they returned with Ye Zhiqiu, but at night, the person in charge of the inspection saw that there was light in the grotto, and immediately went in to check, and saw two Englishmen, a man and a woman, inside.

The middle of the frescoes in the grotto was dug up, and the damage was quite serious, and the inspectors saw the two Englishmen groping in it on the spot, and immediately seized them.

"This ...... This should be caught, what the ancestors left behind, when will it be the turn of these foreigners to toss. "I was relieved after listening, it is estimated that when we left, the iron gate was not locked, and the two tourists went in by mistake, saw the hole in the mural, and wanted to find out, but they were caught red-handed, which really jumped into the Yellow River and could not be washed.

"This has to be punished severely." Tian Ji's face was relaxed.

"In the middle of the night, what are the two tourists doing in the grotto?" The general also looked gloating.

"It's not easy to talk about this, these two people are not small." Song Wenjie put his glasses back on and said.

"How big can two foreigners be?" Tian Ji disagreed.

"Stein's descendants." Song Wenjie blurted out.

"Stein's descendants, what about Stein, even Einstein's descendants can't touch the things left by our ancestors, what time is it now, and when will it be the Eight-Nation Alliance." Tian Ji probably knew that someone had destroyed the mural by mistake, and he would have nothing to fear. "By the way, what did Stein do?"

"Stein?" Ye Zhiqiu was taken aback when he heard this.

"You know?" I was curious and asked.

"You should know each other." Ye Zhiqiu seemed to be indignant when he heard this person's name.

"The foreigner and we are not related, why do I know him." I said with a smile.

"Count it up, but they are your predecessors." Ye Zhiqiu said coldly.

I frowned, a little curious, "What the hell is this Stein doing?" ”

Song Wenjie told us that Stein was an Englishman, a world-famous archaeologist and explorer, and one of the founders of Dunhuang Studies. He was the main collector of Dunhuang and Central Asian artifacts in Britain and India today, and was one of the earliest researchers and publishers.

The four most famous archaeological and expeditions were all in Xinjiang and Gansu, and the Dunhuang cultural relics found are important materials for Dunhuang studies today.

"This person is your senior, right, what's the matter with us?" After listening, I stared at Ye Zhiqiu and said.

"He doesn't deserve the word archaeology." Ye Zhiqiu's voice was cold.

Ye Zhiqiu sat down and told us with righteous indignation that Stein's four expeditions to Gansu and Xinjiang could be regarded as a catastrophic destruction of Dunhuang culture, and he excavated and robbed a large number of precious cultural relics without authorization, and because of his blind excavation, many cultural relics that were originally preserved in the quicksand layer were destroyed.

"Especially for the second time, Stein transported away 24 boxes of Buddhist scriptures and 5 boxes of embroidery and paintings in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. Ye Zhiqiu continued to say to us. "Fortunately, in 1930, when Stein entered Dunhuang for the fourth time, the government issued a cultural relics protection decree and other factors that allowed him to return in vain, otherwise I don't know how many cultural relics would have been lost."

"This is a big thief, this is too arrogant." Tian Ji scratched his head and stood up and whispered in my ear. "She really didn't talk nonsense, it's really our senior."

"People are more clever than some people, in the name of archaeological exploration, blatant theft and excavation of cultural relics, and in the end they can also fall into the reputation of an archaeologist." Ye Zhiqiu glanced at me as he spoke.

"Zhiqiu, what you said is too extreme, Stein did take away a lot of precious cultural relics from Dunhuang, but if it wasn't for Stein's excavation at that time, many Dunhuang cultural relics would have been destroyed, what is his starting point, we have no way to verify, but now, this person's merits and demerits are offset, and we must also see his contribution to Dunhuang cultural relics." Song Wenjie said.

"A thief is a thief, there is nothing to counteract the words, he is the first person to steal treasures in Dunhuang, and he went to other countries to take away so many precious cultural relics, and it is called protection, since there is no selfishness, then why not return it now." In Ye Zhiqiu's cognition, black and white are distinct, and there is absolutely no gray area, which is why I have always been unable to take her.

"Wait a minute, what is this, you can say it yourself." I interrupted Ye Zhiqiu's words and looked at Song Wenjie seriously. "The Englishmen you caught in the grotto, since they are descendants of Stein, what are they doing in the grotto?"

"They said they were looking for someone." Song Wenjie replied.

"Looking for someone to find the grotto?" Tian Ji laughed. "It's not fooling."

"Shut up." Gong Jue probably didn't feel right. "Did they say who to look for?"

"After asking, they insisted that they did not destroy the mural, but strangely enough, there were no excavation tools on them." Song Wenjie looked up at us and said. "They said that their father and uncle had gone to Dunhuang for archaeology, but they never came back and never heard from them, so they wanted to find out the whereabouts of these two people."

I touched my lips and suddenly thought of the two bodies of foreigners I had seen in the stone chamber, and I was still curious whether they had accidentally discovered the stone chamber outside the Jade Gate, or if there was something that led them to the place, if it was the latter, there were too many mysteries that could not be solved.

"Do you know how much the painting is worth?" I bent down and looked at Song Wenjie seriously.

He was stunned for a moment, nodded at first, but quickly shook his head again: "That's not what money can measure, the artistic value and research value of that painting ......."

"Anyway, it's very valuable." I interrupted Song Wenjie to ask. "Come and don't be rude, you have to show something a little bit if you accept such a precious thing from us."

"I ...... I really don't have any money. Song Wenjie rubbed his hands and looked at me honestly.

"What do we have to do with it, it's cliché to talk about money, not to mention that you said it, that painting can't be measured by money." A ruffian smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Didn't you just say that there is nothing to repay, I really have something you can help here, you helped me, let's settle this matter evenly, don't you think it."

"What's the matter?" Song Wenjie asked a little nervously.

"I want to meet the British couple." Yan Yuese and I patted him on the shoulder.

The sweat on Song Wenjie's head oozed out, he probably thought I was going to say something big, and when he heard that he was going to see the captured British, he breathed a sigh of relief, took a big sip of the water glass, and then nodded affirmatively to us.

"I'll take you tomorrow."