I was in a coma for three days, and when I woke up, I had already been sent to the hospital, and the moment I opened my eyes, I couldn't remember anything, I just felt that the world was spinning, and I couldn't stop nausea and dizziness.

After two days, the situation improved little by little, but my ability to speak was completely lost, and no matter what I wanted to say, all the sounds I came out of it were weird.

I thought my brain had broken and affected my speech nerves, and I was very scared, but the doctor told me that it was just a sequelae of a severe concussion and told me not to worry.

I used gestures to communicate with others like a mute, and it wasn't until the fourth day that I reluctantly opened my mouth to ask the doctor, where I am now, and he told me that this is the Red Cross Hospital in Beilin District, Xi'an City, and I brought it back by a few Wu jǐng, and he couldn't say exactly how he found me, he didn't know, only that I had about twenty broken bones in my body, which should have been caused by falling from a cliff from a height.

I had a cast on my chest and left hand, and I didn't know how serious my injuries were, but when I heard him, I realized that I was dying. I asked him when he would be discharged from the hospital, and he smiled at me and said that he wouldn't even be able to get out of bed in ten days and half a month.

That night, Wu Jǐng, who sent me over, heard that I could speak, and brought a fruit basket to see me, and I asked him again to ask the doctor the same thing, but he didn't know how to answer me, only that a few villagers found me by a stream in Lantian, and I put it on a bamboo raft, and the wounds on my body had been treated simply, and the doctor said that if it weren't for these treatments, I would have died a long time ago.

I think it's strange, my last memory is the moment I fell into the water, it stands to reason that the most I should have washed the water on the river beach, how to put it on the bamboo raft, second, Lantian is seven or eight miles away from the Jiaozigou area, is it, the road we walked in the underground river, unconsciously has been such a long distance?

I made up a lie about climbing the mountain and following the cliff, and I sent Wu Jǐng away with a thousand thanks, and immediately called Wang Meng. Let him come to Xi'an, bring some money and my clothes, and Wang Meng will arrive the next day. I paid for my medical bills and bought a new phone and laptop.

I asked Wang Meng how his business was recently? He said it didn't matter, it was just that my dad had come to me many times. When I said it in my heart, I didn't expect it to take so long, maybe I was worried, so I reported to my family that I was safe, but my father was not there. I had a few words with my mother. By the way, I asked about the news of the third uncle, but there was still no news.

It seems that everything is still the same as when I came, I sighed.

For the next few days, I was bored and suddenly thought of the old itch. My heart was sour, so I lay on the hospital bed, looked through the completely tattered mountaineering clothes I wore when I fell from the mountain, and looked for the old itchy rì book, which was still there, but I couldn't see anything clearly because of the water blistering, and I read it for a while. I couldn't see anything anymore, so I connected to the hospital's phone and went online to pass the time.

I checked a lot of information, but there is not much information about antiques on the Internet, I can only briefly describe the scene of the bronze tree in my mind, send it to some friends to see, and then I received letters one after another, most of them don't know what it is, and they don't believe my description, but a few letters are very inspiring to me.

One of them was sent from the United States, a friend of my father, who had a good conversation with me, wrote in his e-mail that this kind of bronze tree, called "pillar", because the shape resembles "" (ancient musical instrument), in 84 years, a mine in Panzhihua also found one, but it was far less big than I said, only one section, and the section that went deep into the ground had been completely rusted.

So far, there is no documentary material that can explain what this thing was used for, but according to the Classic of Mountains and Seas and some written records of ethnic minority narrative poems, this thing is indeed related to the ancient "earth dragon (snake)" hunting activity.

"Candle Nine Yīn" is supposed to be a snake that lives in extremely deep earth veins, because it has survived in steep rock crevices for a long time, it has almost no chance to face it, so its two eyes have mutated like a flounder. The ancients used blood to draw it out of the extremely deep leylines, and then shè kill, making candles. It sounds unjust, but at that time, a persistent light source was extremely valuable, especially for those who were active at night or lived in a dark cave.

I think his analysis has some truth, but I still can't explain why encountering the so-called "pillar" will produce such a wonderful and terrifying ability, I wrote back to the past, asking him if there has been anything similar in history?

He replied to the letter, and also paid a fragment, is a notebook novel, which recorded an incident that happened during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, which mentioned that the Xi'an mine dug out the blue and white stone dragon pattern box, the Qianlong Emperor opened it, and secretly recruited several ministers into the palace that night, and the secret talked about the sound in the middle of the night, and then there was a fire in the Qianqing Palace. Those ministers, except for one famous one, all of the others did not die well, and they were all killed inexplicably in the end.

I look at the time, probably the time when the incident written by Li Pipa's "Hemu Collection" happened, that is, it should be related, it seems that the person who dug up the white stone dragon pattern box and the person who knew about this matter were so bad that the emperor made such a big determination to keep a secret, so what is in this white stone dragon pattern box? Could it be the origin of this ancient bronze tree?

I wrote back again to ask for his opinion, and he only replied with one sentence, and I won't know until I dig down.

I smiled wryly, knowing that this was unlikely, who knows how deep it would be, maybe it took centuries for them to forge this thing in the first place, and even if anyone was willing to dig it, I definitely wouldn't see the time to dig it out.

There are also a few letters, which were sent to me by my second uncle, who said that at that time, the ethnic minorities inherited the decorative style of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the exchange of the Yi people was limited at that time, and the transportation and communication were extremely underdeveloped, so there should be a time lag, that is, I estimated the time too early, according to the general law, at that time, the Central Plains should have been changed to the late Qin period.

At that time, almost all activities were related to the construction of mausoleums by Qin Shi Huang, who hunted candle nine yīn, probably to refine "dragon oil". Paying tribute to the Emperor or something like that. And according to geological exploration, the lowest layer of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang also has huge metal objects. Surrounding the entire mausoleum, it stands to reason that the metallurgical technology of the time should not have been completed as a huge project. The builders of this part should be foreign peoples with particularly developed metallurgical technology.

The second uncle is a loyal fan of Qin Shi Huang, and everything can be involved in that paragraph, and I don't think so about his speculation.

A month later, I was discharged from the hospital and returned home, and after tidying up, I started to clean up. Bring it back to life from scratch. After sorting through the almost bursting mailbox and sorting out some magazines and newspapers, I found an unsigned shipment.

Lao Wu:

Guess who I am?

yes, I'm not dead, or rather. I'm alive again.

I'm sorry to get you involved, but after all, you're the only person I can trust, and I have no other choice.

Now that the whole thing is done, our relationship must end here, and I'm glad to be friends with you, but it doesn't matter anymore.

Are you curious to know what happened three years ago?

Three years ago. I went to the Qinling Mountains with a group of Liaobian guys to step on the plate, and according to the local legends, we found a tree hole in the banyan forest on the top of the mountain, and we thought about it again and again and prepared to go on the adventure, and you know all about the process, and then I was trapped in the stone cave.

At that time, I was already desperate, although I would not die so soon, but it was more terrible for me to live, to live forever in the depths of a narrow, dark mountain, never to come out, that kind of pain, you should have also experienced.

I spent four months in the dark, and those four months were hell, but during this time, I kept thinking, and I knew that this ability was related to the subconscious, for example, I wanted to open a door in the stone, and I had to convince myself that there was a door in the stone, otherwise, even if you wanted to break your head, the door wouldn't appear.

People themselves can't deceive the subconscious, so to use this ability, you have to guide, it's very difficult, I've said it, once the guidance fails or there is a deviation, you don't know what it is, it's very scary.

I kept doing things and gradually got the hang of it, but at this time, I found that this ability would fade over time. The feeling was very palpable, as if one was feeling tired little by little, and I realized that if I didn't get out again, I might starve to death here.

I was desperate and tried to use that ability to replicate myself, but I didn't expect it to work, and I was startled, and suddenly I found myself outside the cave.

At that time I didn't realize that I was a copy, and all my memories were exactly the same as my own self, so when he called me, I didn't recognize me as a copy at all, and he started scolding me, saying that I wanted to exist in this world instead of him, saying that he wanted to make me disappear. I was scared, I thought the one in the hole was a monster, so I didn't care about the screams of the self in the cave, but I still found explosives and blew the hole completely down.

In fact, I did know that I was copied, but I subconsciously didn't want to believe it, so I chose a state of destruction, where I killed my self and told myself that I was just killing a substitute.

The ability of the copper tree is very short, so I took off a bronze branch and went out from the secret passage at the bottom of the copper tree, hoping to bring a part of the bronze tree to make my ability last a little, so that I could escape outside, and later proved that my idea was right, I went back to the outside and dug up the things we dug before coming here, and I was afraid that the bronze branch was too much of an eyesore, so I buried him in it, and then returned to Xi'an, trying to find a place to sell the things in my hand.

It's a pity that when I was doing business, I caught plainclothes at the Gu Zhi stall, and later, as you know, when I returned home, my mother was gone, and I didn't lie to you about these things.

There are some things, I also have to tell you, having this ability, not without a price, my memory is very poor, a lot of things must be written down in advance, to be able to remember, that is the sequelae of using the ability, I along the way, could have settled you well, so that you unconsciously helped me complete this expedition, but unfortunately, in the past three years, I have forgotten a lot of things, how I came out, I can't remember clearly, so full of flaws, I estimate, there will be two or three years of effort, I may have completely lost the ability to remember.

You also have that strange energy in you, I don't know if it will affect you, you have to take care, according to my calculations, this power may remain in you for several years, but it is very faint and can hardly be felt.

Old itch

I read the whole letter, I breathed a sigh of relief, I don't know what to say, inside the envelope, there is a photo, he and his mother are sitting on the top of the photo, behind the sea, it should be abroad, her mother is very beautiful, very young, standing with him, but like a couple, I looked carefully, but always felt that her mother's face, there is a demonic spirit, an indescribable hideous, maybe it is a psychological effect.

Unconsciously, winter is coming, nested in the air-conditioned room, the whole afternoon was lazy and even dozed off without strength, I lay on the recliner in the inner hall of the "Xileng Printing Society", my feet were cold, I didn't know what to do, was half-asleep and half-awake, Wang Mengpo walked in, and said to me: "Boss, someone is looking for me." ”

I barely reacted, yawned, and said in my heart that there are still people visiting antique shops, this is also positive, but no matter how you say it, it is business, I got up and patted my face, and walked out with a shake of the jīng god.

The air conditioning outside is small, the cold wind blows, people are excited, a look, it turned out to be the little girl under Uncle Hai in Jinan, who was shivering from the cold, I thought to myself that it was estimated that I brought a check, my heart was hot, and I was busy calling Wang Meng to make tea, and I asked her: "What, girl, Uncle Hai asked you to come?" ”

The little girl's name is Qin Haiting, a relative of Uncle Hai, only seventeen years old, and she is already a veteran in the antique world, she nodded and said, "Oh my mother, why is Hangzhou colder than our north." ”

Wang Meng smiled: "It's dry and cold weather in the south, it feels a little bitering, and your Jinan is not too north." ”

I saw that Qin Haiting only had her teeth, and hurriedly pulled her to the inner hall, where the air conditioning was warm, handed her the hot hand water bag, and asked, "You are too afraid of the cold, like this, is it warm?" ”

She drank a few sips of hot tea to ease up, and still chopped her feet in the room, "It's a little better, people say how beautiful Hangzhou is, my uncle won't let me come over and I'm rushing to come, who knows it's so cold, oh I won't come again next time." ”

I asked, "What did your uncle call you for?" I didn't have a phone call. ”

Qin Haiting took off her scarf, took out something from her purse, and said, "Of course it's business, give, cash check, money for that fisheye stone." ”

As soon as I heard that it was, I took it and glanced at it, the price was good, and I immediately put it in my pocket and said, "Then thank him for me." ”

She took out another invitation card and handed it to me: "My Uncle Hai will also come to Hangzhou the day after tomorrow to participate in an antique appraisal meeting, and he said to let you go too, and there are important things to talk to you." ”

I asked, "The day after tomorrow?" I don't know if I have time, why don't I say it on the phone, God is mysterious? "Actually, I don't want to go, antique appraisal, too boring thing, for insiders, it's a bunch of old men chatting there, in fact, how can there be so many

The allusion, whether it is true or false, can be seen in a few seconds.

Qin Haiting leaned into my ear and whispered, "Uncle I said that it has something to do with that bronze fish, and I don't regret it." ”