"What do you mean? Such a huge cauldron, just vanished like that?" Wei Dong asked in surprise.
"The Nine Cauldrons were national treasures. The ancients, who believed in gods and ghosts, thought that whoever possessed the Nine Cauldrons could rule the world and become the chosen ruler of the land," Shao Ling said. "The *Shi Yi Ji* says: 'Later sages, following the example of Yu, cast cauldrons generation after generation.' Therefore, these nine cauldrons became rare national treasures that the rulers of various states vied to possess during the Warring States period, a time of great chaos.
"As for the whereabouts of the Nine Cauldrons, some say that the Zhou royal family was in dire financial straits and heavily in debt, so the Nine Cauldrons were melted down and used to cast coins to pay off the debts. Others say that the Zhou dynasty was weak, and the Zhou king, fearing trouble, sank the Nine Cauldrons into the Si River, falsely claiming that the Nine Cauldrons had disappeared. This even led to the famous historical event of Qin Shi Huang retrieving the cauldrons from the Si River."
"But the most mystical account comes from the *Shiji Zhengyi*, which recounts that King Zhaoxiang of Qin seized the Nine Tripods from the Zhou royal court. One of the tripods suddenly flew into the Si River, and the other eight disappeared afterward. Later, Qin Shi Huang sent a thousand men to retrieve it, but to no avail. The Nine Tripods vanished without a trace.
Throughout history, so many people have searched for the Nine Tripods, all to no avail. We only have ten people; to find them out of thin air, we'd need a miracle."
A silence fell over the group, broken only by the crunching of their footsteps on the snow.
"A miracle? We have one!" "Ke Xun suddenly laughed.
Everyone turned to look at him
. "I've always felt that only truly talented and outstanding people like Yi Ran and President Shao can survive the trials in the painting," Ke Xun took a few steps forward, then turned back to look at everyone, walking backward while smiling through the hot white breath he exhaled, "while an ordinary newbie like me would probably be dead long ago when entering the first painting. "
So why am I still alive? Of course, I have Yi Ran protecting me. But what about Dongzi? What about Luo Bo? What about everyone else? Why did people who were clearly more capable than us die in the painting, while we survived?
"Only today did I suddenly realize that we've always thought we might be the unluckiest people in the world. This event of entering the painting didn't choose anyone else, but chose us, making us experience this terrible life-or-death situation. Who could be more unlucky than us?" But what if we look at it from a different angle?
"Perhaps we are actually the luckiest group among the crowd, which is why we've managed to survive so many times in the world of the paintings. If it were someone less lucky, they might have been chosen prematurely by the rules of death, like the others who have already died in the paintings, becoming the first or second test subjects to verify the conditions for death.
"Like how I met Yiran in the very first painting I entered. Why were I grouped with him when they used the cloth ribbons? If it weren't for him, I would have died on the first night. So, meeting Yiran was my luck.
"And have you noticed? In so many paintings, besides the deadly situations we can handle ourselves, we weren't the first ones chosen for those death situations caused by uncontrollable forces. Like the recently concluded painting 'Reboot,' let me ask you, among us, who has a mosquito-attracting constitution?"
Wu You, Fang Fei, Qin Ci, and Wei Dong raised their hands.
"Look," Ke Xun shrugged, "We spent so long in the primeval forest on the first day, why didn't anyone get bitten by mosquitoes? Instead, Xiao Kai... became the first person to be bitten. Aside from Tian Yang, who died because of the blood, the second person bitten was He Tang. We were all spared.
—What does this mean?
It means we are the truly lucky ones! It means that the power behind the painting, besides selecting the truly strong, is also selecting the resilient, lucky chosen ones—this is the golden finger that heaven has given us!
So, with so many lucky people gathered together, maybe we really can find the lost Nine Tripods of Yu, which have been lost for thousands of years!" Ke
Xun's words were like a sudden awakening, giving everyone a jolt of realization—yes! The question of fortune or misfortune had never been considered from a reverse perspective.
Perhaps everyone had been making a mistake all along: letting negative energy and setbacks blind or suppress optimistic and positive thoughts. Like good and evil as one, like black and white, yin and yang, many things are two sides of the same coin; a turn of the hand brings joy, a turn brings sorrow. But once our eyes are blindfolded, we habitually close our eyes and obediently endure the darkness, forgetting that if we try to open our eyes, the first thing we see is a warm and powerful palm.
"I suddenly have boundless motivation," Wu You waved her arm.
"I'm also full of confidence," Gu Qingqing said, for the first time without being so shy, her words so inspiring.
"I feel like if I threw a snowball into the sky, it could smash an airplane down." Wei Dong clenched his fist and raised his arm in a gesture of flexing his muscles, but all that was displayed was the soft, fluffy sleeve of his down jacket.
"But we can't deny that being sucked into the painting is still incredibly unlucky," Captain Ke, always shrewd and collected, would promptly pull his team members back to their feet when they got carried away. "This shows that even with our luck, it's still no match for the power behind the painting. But don't forget, if there are two forces at play, at least one of them is on our side. Since they allowed us to find the bone structure and the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, I think they'll also allow us to find the Nine Cauldrons."
"Anyway," Shao Ling said, "Everyone, go back and get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, let's keep pushing. I feel like we're already on the edge of the decryption gate, just one last threshold away. Once we cross it, the truth will be revealed."
"Whoa! Let's do it!" "Ke Xun, Wei Dong, and Wu You cheered.
The swirling snowflakes danced in the air for a few moments before scattering in all directions.
The next morning, the people who had been in the painting gathered again in Ke Xun's living room.
Shao Ling's summarized chain of clues was printed out ten times and given to each person. The clue corresponding to the "Burning Rhinoceros at Sea" was changed to "The Nine Tripods Lost in the Qin Dynasty."
"Besides this chain of clues, what we now know is that the rope-patterned bone structure on me, Mu, and Ke Xun is inferred to be 'Earthly Root,' while the bone structure of the others corresponds to the Yu version of the 'Classic of Mountains and Seas' on the Nine Tripods," Shao Ling tried to sit up straight in Ke Xun's beanbag chair, but couldn't, so he just sprawled out in a particularly Ke Xun-esque old-fashioned manner. "And the problem we urgently need to solve is: where are the Nine Tripods?
"If the legend of one of the Nine Tripods flying into the Si River is true, then finding the Nine Tripods will be extremely difficult. The Si River has thirty tributaries of varying sizes, five of which are first-level tributaries with a drainage area of over 100 square kilometers. To conduct a thorough search of them would not only require enormous financial resources, but we would also struggle to meet the manpower requirements."
"Moreover, Qin Shi Huang used the nation's resources to retrieve the tripods. We only have ten people; if we try to retrieve them in a conventional way, it will probably be a waste of time. We lack both manpower and time.
"So, to find the tripods, we may have to rely on luck, as Ke Xun said. But even if we rely on luck, it has to be within a certain range. This range means we must first define the smallest possible area where the nine tripods might be, and we need to be at least 50% certain that they are sunk in the Si River."
"Actually, I thought about it last night," Ke Xun said, "The nine tripods are historically verifiable real objects, but what about the Earthly Dimension? Logically speaking, this thing shouldn't exist. But since this whole thing defies common sense, let's assume the Earthly Dimension does exist. Then where do we look for it? The ancients believed the earth was flat, but in reality, the earth is round. Where do we look for the four corners of the earth? And if the Earthly Dimension is impossible to find, or doesn't need to be looked for, then the nine tripods are also impossible to find, and don't need to be looked for either?" "
This statement stunned everyone. Indeed, some of yesterday's deductions could explain the Nine Tripods but not the Earthly Dimension. If the Earthly Dimension didn't exist, then the Nine Tripods, which also represent the skeletal structure, shouldn't exist either.
" Zhu Haowen asked, "I want to know, why are there thirteen people required?" "If the event originated from the 'Classic of Mountains and Seas Illustrations,' wouldn't nine people be enough? Why are there four more people representing the Earthly Dimension? Does this mean that the Earthly Dimension is indispensable, and that it needs to be paired with the Nine Tripods to play a certain role?"
"This line of thinking makes sense," Ke Xun nodded.
"We mentioned before that the 'Liezi: Tang Wen' chapter mentions the role of the Earthly Dimension," Mu Yiran said, "Gonggong fought with Zhuanxu for the throne, and in anger, he struck Mount Buzhou. The pillar of heaven broke, and the Earthly Dimension was severed. Therefore, the sky tilted to the northwest, and the sun, moon, and stars settled there. The earth was not full in the east and west, so all the rivers and floods flowed there."
"From this description, we know that if one or two of the Earth's Belts break, the earth will collapse, indicating that the Earth's Belts' function is to maintain the earth's stability.
"The Nine Tripods, inscribed with images of the nine provinces, are of immeasurable weight. The ancients believed they possessed supernatural power and were blessed by witchcraft. One tripod represented the land of one province, and the nine tripods represented the entire world. The world, under heaven, is all the king's land; the nine tripods represent the land of the world.
"Both the Earth's Belts and the Nine Tripods are related to the earth. The Earth's Belts maintain the earth's stability, and the Nine Tripods, used to stabilize the earth, were probably used to suppress the earth."
"That's right!" Ke Xun's eyes lit up. "This matches the clue in 'Breaking the Ground' that 'the dark power is about to break through the ground and enter the real world'—maybe these nine cauldrons are divine artifacts used by the shaman to suppress this power! What do you think?"
Everyone nodded in agreement. Wei Dong said, "This connects! The story might be like this: the dark power was originally suppressed by these nine cauldrons, but during the Qin Dynasty, these nine cauldrons suddenly disappeared, and the power suppressed beneath the earth began to stir, wanting to rush into the human world. At this time—at this time—"
At this point, Wei Dong suddenly opened his eyes wide in horror, looking… Looking at the crowd before him, he said, "At this moment... the power of the Nine Cauldrons is needed to suppress that force again, but the Nine Cauldrons have disappeared, so... so the Painter appeared, and the Painter's bone structure is the mountain and sea pattern on the Nine Cauldrons... so... so, we are actually... actually... cauldrons? We—we are the disappeared—Nine Cauldrons?"
In the past few days, the crowd had been meticulously deducing clues, and their nerves and cognition had been repeatedly shocked by the newly derived inferences. They thought that after several baptisms and temperings, their nerves were strong enough, but they were still stunned by the new inferences and their minds went blank for a moment.
After a long silence, Mu Yiran finally spoke: "That's not entirely wrong, but I have another theory. Why the Nine Cauldrons disappeared is unknown. Since we assume their function was to suppress evil, then the person who imbued the cauldrons with divine or sorcerer power must have been a sorcerer.
"If that dark force did indeed try to break through the barriers and invade the human world while the Nine Cauldrons were gone, perhaps the mountain and sea patterns and rope patterns on their bones were specially chosen by the sorcerer, imprinted on their bones with sorcerer power to replace the cauldrons' function and suppress that force.
"So, perhaps we are not the cauldrons and the Earthly Dimension themselves, but rather inherit a seal-like mark that can function as the Nine Cauldrons and the Earthly Dimension."
"...Brother-in-law, what you said makes me feel much better..." Luo Yiran patted his chest hard and let out a long sigh.
"Of course, these are all just speculations for now," Mu Yiran said. "Moreover, if the Bone Form Seal works, what's the reason for the continuous stream of people entering the painting over the past thousand years? So, we still have to try our best to find the whereabouts of the Nine Cauldrons."
"But then again, what is the connection between the world of the Classic of Mountains and Seas and that dark force?" Zhu Haowen suddenly asked.
"I feel that with our current clues, it's difficult to say for sure," Shao Ling said. "There's a theory that the images in the 'Classic of Mountains and Seas Illustrations' are actually related to witchcraft.
"For example, in the 'Overseas Southern Classic,' the Feathered People's Kingdom, the Long-Armed Kingdom, and the Crossed-Legs Kingdom are depicted wearing feathered robes, the Crossed-Legs Kingdom is shown with its legs crossed, and the Long-Armed Kingdom is likely just an exaggerated depiction of an outstretched arm."
"The original version of the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, engraved on the Nine Tripods, disappeared during the Qin Dynasty. Perhaps some rubbings survived for a few years, but during this transmission, its meaning was easily misinterpreted or its illustrations misread by later generations. This led to the gradual inclusion of many exaggerated and fantastical figures in the written version of the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*.
However, it is very likely that the figures of the Feathered People, the Cross-Legged People, and the Long-Armed People were initially just ordinary people or shamans. The images engraved on the tripods actually depict ordinary people or shamans performing shamanistic rituals. They wore unusual clothing, danced shamanistic dances, and gestured as if performing rituals. These exaggerated images and actions, passed down for hundreds or thousands of years, gradually became distorted and were transformed into images of people from certain countries resembling ghosts and monsters."
"Therefore, there might be another possibility—the world depicted in the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* might not exist at all. All its images might be symbols of witchcraft, possessing supernatural power. What truly exists is the dark power hidden beneath the earth. The true purpose of the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* might be to suppress evil and seal away evil, and this entire incident of entering the painting could very well be an opportunity set up by that dark power to break free of its constraints.
I think the frame is a barrier separating the black and white worlds. The world within the painting might be what that dark power is showing us—the appearance of that world."