Shao Ling's explanation offered another avenue of thought, but it also made the origin of the "entering the painting" incident even more perplexing.
Gu Qingqing summarized
the possibilities in her notebook: First, the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* is a painting, and also the origin of the "entering the painting" incident—the first painting the person entered. The reason might be that during a witchcraft ritual, some event triggered an alternate world, thus drawing out dark forces. These dark forces then used the method of attracting people into the painting to find a way to break through the barrier and enter the human world.
Second, the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* is a witchcraft symbol, or rather, a spell, used along with the Nine Cauldrons and the Earthly Dimension to suppress the pre-existing dark forces. For some unknown reason, these dark forces created the method of attracting people into the painting to find a way to break through the barrier and enter the human world.
Unable to determine which of these two possibilities was correct, everyone pondered for a while. After a while, Ke Xun said, "Actually, we don't need to get bogged down in these two questions for now. Regardless of the possibility, we need to find the Nine Tripods. So, we can slightly change the direction of our investigation. We should collect information about the Nine Tripods and investigate whether anything noteworthy happened during the time of Yu the Great."
Shao Ling looked at him with amusement, "Investigating the information from that era will probably be very difficult, because no written evidence of the Xia Dynasty has survived. Even the Shang Dynasty, which followed closely behind, has not been mentioned in any of the unearthed oracle bone inscriptions. Therefore, some historians believe that the Xia Dynasty may never have existed at all.
"Of course, some artifacts unearthed later in China can confirm the existence of the Xia Dynasty's chronology, but regarding the entire history of the Xia Dynasty, apart from some records in historical books such as the Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Zhou, most of it is a blank."
"However, on the pottery unearthed at the Erlitou site from the Xia Dynasty, there are dozens of symbols resembling characters. Some speculate that these are the precursors to oracle bone script, but other scholars argue that people in the Xia Dynasty used more wood carving and knotted ropes for record-keeping, and oppose considering these symbols as writing…"
"—Symbols?!" Ke Xun suddenly raised his eyebrows. "Comrades, perhaps all the coordinates of the art museums, when connected, don't form a signature, but rather—a symbol?"
"Haowen, have the simulator results come out yet?" Mu Yiran asked Zhu Haowen almost immediately after Ke Xun finished speaking.
Zhu Haowen reacted quickly, immediately showing everyone his laptop screen. Connecting the fourteen coordinates plus the coordinates of the next art museum they were going to could form thousands of shapes. "I've excluded the results from English letters and simplified/traditional Chinese characters, and then imported them into the oracle bone script, bronze script, and seal script character databases. Images that match the character shapes in the databases will be filtered out."
Everyone held their breath, staring at the rapidly running screening program on the screen, waiting for the confirmation of an important deduction that might come true.
The screen rapidly switched, flashing various fonts and coordinate point comparison images. Three minutes later, the screen abruptly stopped, revealing a bronze inscription that perfectly matched the coordinate point image, displaying a 90% overlap.
This was the character with the highest overlap in the font library.
While it could be called a character, it resembled a pictograph. The central element was a cross, with the horizontal strokes slightly upturned at both ends and a dot on each side. The lower end of the vertical stroke connected to a shape resembling a softened version of the character "弓" (bow).
The entire character looked like a person kneeling devoutly, arms raised, holding a flame.
"This character is…" Everyone turned to look at the ancient and modern character comparison table Zhu Haowen had displayed—
"Light!"
"—Light! The white and black in 'Shadow'—+ and - positive and negative poles—mixing colors creates all colors of 'light,' resulting in 'white' light!—It matches!" Wei Dong was excitedly incoherent.
"What kind of script is bronze inscription?" Fang Fei asked Shao Ling from the side.
"During the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, bronze was called gold," Shao Ling answered her steadily, suppressing his own excitement. "The ritual vessels made of bronze are represented by the ding (a type of ancient Chinese cooking vessel), and the inscriptions carved on the ding are called bell and tripod inscriptions, also known as bronze inscriptions."
"--Ding! Bronze inscriptions! Light!" Luo Yi shouted, clenching his fists.
"What's the difference between bronze inscriptions and oracle bone inscriptions?" Zhu Haowen asked Shao Ling from the side.
"Bronze inscriptions evolved from oracle bone inscriptions, and it is said to have originated at the end of the Shang dynasty," Shao Ling said thoughtfully. "Although there are no records of written records from the Xia dynasty, the fact that they haven't been unearthed doesn't mean they didn't exist.
"You know, by the Shang dynasty, oracle bone inscriptions already had a fairly mature and complete writing system, which proves that oracle bone inscriptions before the Shang dynasty must have gone through a gradual process of maturation."
"And before the Shang Dynasty was the Xia Dynasty. In a sense, the Xia Dynasty may have already had the early prototype of oracle bone script. Bronze script evolved from oracle bone script, and oracle bone script may have evolved from—let's call it 'Xia script' for now. So, it's not unreasonable to say that this character '光' (light) is a 'Xia script'!"
"I only understand now," Ke Xun said, "that the hint in the painting 'The Funeral' might not just be about shamanism, but—writing. This oracle bone script composed of the coordinates of the art museum is the hint that 'The Funeral' is giving us!"
"Oh my god, I got goosebumps!" Wu You exclaimed, rubbing her arms.
"So, is this character '光' here a signature or a symbol?" Qin Ci asked.
"…It feels like both are possible," Wei Dong said.
"If it's a signature, then it's truly terrifying to think about," Zhu Haowen said. "Just like Ke Xun suspected before, the real world we live in might actually be a painting, and this word 'light' might be the signature of the painter."
"Brother Wen—you scared me to death—" Luo Yu was particularly afraid of hearing this, grabbing a down jacket that someone had tossed on the sofa, crumpling it into a ball, and hugging it tightly to his chest.
Shao Ling: "…" Mine. Let it go.
"And if it's a symbol," Mu Yiran, who hadn't spoken for a long time, continued Zhu Haowen's words, "it's very likely a shamanic symbol, which might confirm another of our guesses: the Mountain and Sea Maps on the Nine Cauldrons are actually all diagrams related to witchcraft, including shamanic dances, shamanic clothing, methods of performing witchcraft, and symbols representing the content of witchcraft."
"Actually… the most incredible thing is the scale of this character 'light'," Gu Qingqing said with awe and a little bewilderment in her eyes, "If it's a shamanic symbol, then who could 'depict' this symbol on such a vast area of land? People in the Xia Dynasty would probably need a lifetime to walk all over these places…" "
…So, in fact, this character 'light' is also a signature?" Wei Dong swallowed, "So this world is still a painting, and it's not difficult for people outside the 'painting' to sign their names on it…"
Luo Yu: "Eek…"
"The program just showed a 90% overlap, which means that the coordinates that have appeared have been connected to complete 90% of the character 'light'," Ke Xun said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Brother Qin said that the painting 'Ling Shu' hinted at the relationship between each art museum and the entire event of entering the painting. I think that's only one aspect. It also hints at another point: that every time we conquer a painting, it's like opening an acupoint on the Ren and Du meridians. Now we have opened 90% of the acupoints. When we open all the acupoints, we will have completed a complete signature. Maybe at that time, just like with every painting we conquer, we will find the signature and be able to leave the world of the painting."
Luo Jin: "Waaah... Brother, you mean we might leave this world and go to that world we've never seen before? But we... we were born into this world, what can we do outside? We have no home, no family or friends, and who knows what the creatures in that world are like? We're just... paper cutouts, wouldn't we be blown away by the wind?"
Everyone: "..."
Ke Xun: "You have quite the imagination."
Luo Jin: "This isn't the time to praise me, brother."
"Silly boy, do you think we have any other choices?" Ke Xun looked at him, "We only have two choices, either we all die in the painting, or we have to fight our way to the end, even if what awaits us is unimaginable. Anyway, I'm not willing to die halfway through, which one do you want to choose?"
Luo Jin rubbed his eyes: "Of course I'll follow you guys."
"Let's get back to the character 'light'," Ke Xun said, looking at everyone. "If it's a signature, then we can only continue to enter the painting and try to 'write' the character completely, and then see what happens. But if it's a talisman, then it's very likely to possess some kind of magical power. Based on Yi Ran's previous speculation, perhaps this character 'light' is a talisman used to seal the dark power beneath the ground. What do you think?"
"Then, what are the bones of us Nine Cauldrons and Earth Dimension used for?" Wei Dong asked.
"Perhaps for 'blessing'," Wu You said. "Every New Year's Eve, my great-grandmother would write many amulets with cinnabar and yellow paper to give to relatives and friends who came to ask for them. After writing these amulets, she wouldn't just hand them the paper directly, but would sew them into a small bright red bag, or wrap them in red paper and fold them into a triangle. I feel that this red cloth or paper bag is a kind of blessing for the yellow paper amulets inside. Perhaps the Nine Cauldrons and Earth Dimension serve the same purpose."
"That makes sense." Everyone nodded in agreement with this guess.
"So to summarize," Zhu Haowen said, "this character 'light' that connects landmarks to form a giant shamanic symbol originated in the Xia Dynasty. If it was used to suppress the dark power beneath the ground, it means that this power existed during the Xia Dynasty and had a negative impact—otherwise, there would be no need to suppress it. So the question is: what major events happened during the Xia Dynasty?"
"But Mr. Shao said that the historical records of the Xia Dynasty are almost blank. Where can we find this information?" Wei Dong asked worriedly.
"If something so miraculous and bizarre could have happened, I don't believe there wouldn't have been any related records back then," Ke Xun said. "Even if there were very few or no written records, surely images could have been drawn, right? The Classic of Mountains and Seas could be drawn, so surely a major event related to witchcraft couldn't be depicted? Mr. Shao, think about it again, were there any artifacts with carvings unearthed from the Xia Dynasty?"
Shao Ling shook his head helplessly: "Let me put it this way—before the Xia Dynasty, there were no written records, only oral legends, so it's called the legendary era or the mythological era. The era with written records or unearthed artifacts documenting the social conditions of that time is called the reliable historical era, which begins at the end of the Shang Dynasty.
"The period between the legendary era and the reliable historical era is called the semi-reliable historical era. This 'semi-reliable' doesn't mean half-believing or half-doubting, but rather that during this period, some historical events were confirmed to exist through unearthed artifacts, while others, such as those half-human, half-divine heroes and strange and bizarre monsters and beasts, still appeared in the oral history of this period." Therefore, the semi-historical era is an era in which real, proven historical events coexist with myths, legends, and oral traditions.
"The semi-historical period is a transitional period between the legendary and historical periods, a very long one, lasting over 1,500 years. A very significant characteristic of this period is the blank space.
If we compare the semi-historical period to a long white banner, then the proven historical events are like a few ink marks appearing only every few tens or hundreds of meters on this banner. The vast majority of this banner is blank."
"These blank periods have occurred many times, sometimes lasting for hundreds of years. There are no historical records, no myths or legends, like a vacuum where everything has been removed, eerily quiet. Later generations have no idea what happened during such a long period.
"The entire Xia Dynasty and the early Shang Dynasty were in a semi-historical period. The historical gaps were too long and too numerous. It's not that we couldn't find the information, but that there simply wasn't any information to find..." "
...This semi-historical period is truly mysterious..." Wu You exclaimed. "It feels like those completely blank periods have a... eerie and deliberate quiet, as if a few sentences in a long text have been deliberately erased."
"--Wait," Ke Xun opened his eyes wide, looking at Mu Yiran and Shao Ling, "Wu You's words make a lot of sense—could those blank periods have been 'erased' from history by some force?" These
words sent a shiver down everyone's spines. Shao Ling's breathing quickened slightly, and he frowned, saying, "It's not impossible... but we also have to consider whether writing truly existed at that time. If there was no writing, of course, no historical records would remain... But that's not right... there are historical facts confirmed by unearthed artifacts. It doesn't make sense that historical traces would only reappear hundreds of years later. This gap of several hundred years... is indeed abnormal..."
Mu Yiran was more composed than him. After pondering for a moment, he said, "Perhaps, this is the real reason why Yu the Great cast the Nine Tripods?"
(Author's Note:
This chapter ends here. Welcome to the next chapter, the penultimate one!
I apologize for the inconvenience caused by these chapters!)