I hurried towards the entrance, only to find it completely blocked by a large group of visiting students. By the time I pushed through the crowd and reached the ground floor lobby, the person I was looking for had vanished without a trace.

I muttered an oath under my breath. Damn it, I felt like I’d seen that person before, but the memory wouldn't surface. A vague premonition suggested they, too, were after the artifacts recently transported from Hunan for exhibition.

Just as I was lost in thought, Ai Hongjun caught up from behind, calling out loudly, "What’s wrong, Company Commander? Who did you see? You look like you’ve lost your soul. You can’t just leave this time; let’s grab a drink once I’m off duty."

Fearing Ai Hongjun’s booming voice would disturb others, I pulled him outside the Natural History Museum, engaging in superficial conversation. I asked, "How did you, the loudmouth, end up as a police officer? With a voice like a cannon, you’d scare off thieves from two miles away."

Ai Hongjun laughed. "The leaders at our precinct specifically value my clear voice; it commands respect. I heard from other former comrades that you’re heading abroad soon? It seems our country can’t keep you anymore—are you really planning to go out and play the market?"

I replied, "Is there such a thing as 'playing the market' abroad? I’m not going out to be a black marketeer either. I’m practicing flexible survival—doing whatever seems suitable. Why are you hanging around the museum in uniform? Aren't you on duty?"

It turned out that Ai Hongjun was originally from Hunan. After leaving the army, he was assigned work in Tianjin. Due to his busy schedule, he hadn't had time to visit home. This time, a batch of Hunan provincial artifacts was on display in Tianjin, and among the accompanying staff was Ai Hongjun’s younger sister, Ai Xiaohong, which is why he had specifically taken time off to see her.

A thought sparked in my mind: didn't this mean Old Ai had an easy backdoor route? I quickly turned to Ai Hongjun and said, "We'll have to postpone the drinking. I have an urgent matter right now, and you need to find a way to help me use a backdoor connection." Ai Hongjun immediately responded, "Why mention help between us? Tell me whatever you need; I’d give you my head, short of lending you a gun."

I said, "Who said I was asking to borrow a gun? Here’s the deal: you know my fiancée is American, right? Even though she looks Chinese, she’s an old friend of the Chinese people, but she was raised eating foreign bread—she’s basically a foreigner. Those foreigners, they love looking at our Chinese antiques. Apparently, the Han Dynasty bronze censer on display here was an ancestral collection item of her family generations ago, so she has a deep emotional attachment to it; she’ll be in tears the moment she sees it."

Ai Hongjun interrupted, "Commander, you’re already married? I haven't even had a sip of your wedding wine..."

"Don't interrupt. I'm not married yet, but when I am, I certainly won't forget to treat you to drinks. Do you want to drink wedding wine? If you really want that, you have to help, because my fiancée said she wants to examine this artifact closely up close. If I can’t satisfy this small wish of hers, she’ll break up with me. I’m not getting any younger, and finding a wife is hard enough."

Ai Hongjun looked troubled. "All these Hunan artifacts are locked in display cases. I’m not part of the security department here, and I don’t have keys. Besides, these are national treasures; how can ordinary folks just look or touch them whenever they please? Even foreign guests don't get that treatment. But Commander, don’t worry. I’ll ask my sister; maybe she can find a chance to show you both around."

After saying that, Ai Hongjun called his sister, Ai Xiaohong, over and introduced us. When I saw Ai Xiaohong, who used to work as a docent, spoke softly, and had perfect Mandarin, I could hardly believe she was his biological sister. After making some polite small talk, I asked her if she could pull some strings, open the display case, and let us examine the artifacts up close, maybe even take a few photos for research.

Unexpectedly, Ai Xiaohong readily agreed without hesitation. "No problem. But what’s on display here in Tianjin aren't the originals; they are exact 1:1 replicas made by experts specifically for the exhibition. According to regulations, first-tier artifacts are kept in special storage and aren’t moved lightly. Looking at fakes is no big deal... But it’s inconvenient during the day. I’ll arrange things with the night watchman, and I can bring you in through the back door tonight for a tour."

When I heard they were replicas, I felt a wave of disappointment. The real items were probably sealed away in underground treasuries, and without some extraordinary fate, I might never see them in this lifetime. I immediately abandoned the thought. But Ai Xiaohong added, "Though they are copies, they were made by experts. Every detail is flawless, virtually indistinguishable from the originals—even the hairline cracks are identical."

I reconsidered. Our main purpose in coming to see this censer was to examine the alchemy diagrams carved on its walls. Perhaps they held clues about the Golden Elixir of the Ancient Tomb. If the copies were indistinguishable from the originals, their carvings and etchings would naturally be identical, just like photographs of the real thing, and thus worth seeing. So, I arranged to meet Ai Xiaohong at the museum's back door at eleven tonight.

Ai Hongjun had work to attend to, so after giving Ai Xiaohong a few instructions, he bade me farewell and hurried off on his white bicycle. I waited at the main entrance for Shirley Yang to return, briefly explaining that I had met an old army buddy who could get us inside tonight. She was naturally delighted but also a bit disappointed to hear we would only be seeing replicas.

That evening, we arrived at the museum's back entrance as arranged. It was a narrow, deserted alleyway; the cold wind was biting late at night, making the dead tree branches creak rhythmically. Not a single pedestrian was on the entire street.

I knocked on the door. Ai Xiaohong, wrapped in a military greatcoat and carrying a very long flashlight, let Shirley Yang and me in. The entire museum was silent; all the lights in the main building were out. In the small guardhouse outside, a night watchman, who had been alerted beforehand, handed me a set of keys, and we proceeded directly to the door. After unlocking it, we entered the vast, dark specimen exhibition hall. The hall was spacious, and every footstep echoed in the emptiness. Ai Xiaohong shone the flashlight around; the various insects and beasts mounted as specimens were frozen forever in a fixed posture. They were unremarkable during the day, but in the deep night, they looked distinctly eerie.

Ai Xiaohong seemed somewhat unnerved, turning to me and saying, "The Natural Museum at night is a completely different place from the daytime. Maybe it’s too quiet; I’m finding it a bit unsettling."

I was intimately familiar with such quiet and bizarre atmospheres. Moreover, I knew Ai Xiaohong wasn't a regular staff member and wasn't familiar with the interior layout, so I took the flashlight from her hand and walked ahead. As we walked, I said to her and Shirley Yang, "In this building, the first floor has zongzi, and the second floor has funerary objects. It’s strange if it isn’t quiet."

Ai Xiaohong didn't understand what I meant, but Shirley Yang naturally did. She whispered, "Don't talk nonsense, Hu. These exhibits are all taxidermy models of animals and plants; there are no human ancient corpses here to be zongzi."

I spoke carelessly, voicing my opinion that animal specimens were also a kind of "zombie," reasoning that early taxidermy methods must have incorporated a lot of experience from creating mummies. Furthermore, biological specimens include "human specimens." I recounted a story my grandfather told me about a female rebel leader named "Wang Guanyin" during the Qing Dynasty. After she was captured and executed, her corpse was secretly bought by foreigners, mounted as a specimen, and shipped by sea to England for exhibition, advertised as the remains of a demonic saint, capitalizing on foreigners' curiosity about the mysterious East to swindle money. Such human taxidermy, I argued, was deeply inhumane and had nothing to do with popular science.

Hearing me discuss human specimens, Ai Xiaohong’s face turned pale. She quickly said, "Big Brother Hu, please don't talk about these things anymore. I heard someone today say that there are two specimens in this museum that are very... very evil. If you weren't my brother's comrade, I truly wouldn't dare bring you in at night."

Shirley Yang and I exchanged curious glances. What kind of specimen deserved the description "evil"? Ai Xiaohong stopped walking and pointed to a glass case at the far end of the hall. "It’s in that display case—a specimen of a white bat."

I asked, "A white bat is certainly rare, but they do exist in the world. Why the big fuss? Tell me the story; I can analyze whether it’s true or false."

Shirley Yang said to Ai Xiaohong, "Museums have many collections, so there are naturally many related stories and legends. When things circulate for a long time, they inevitably become distorted; there's no need to take it all seriously." Ai Xiaohong replied, "Maybe I’m just timid. I only heard it today from an old lady next to the guesthouse. She said the white bat specimen in the Natural Museum was captured by a mountain hermit before the Liberation."

I had heard this tale before. Legend had it that children were often disappearing, and the villagers suspected "flower snatchers" [kidnappers], so they didn't dare let their children play outside. Yet, children continued to vanish one after another, forcing every household to bar their doors, living in constant dread.

Later, an old man with a white sash tied around his waist came to the village, claiming the children were being eaten by a "Poison Fork Hungry Ghost." This ghost had eaten many children and was about to manifest as a human to reincarnate. Every pregnant woman within a hundred-mile radius risked carrying a "ghost fetus." There was nothing left to do but force abortions with herbal medicine, and the dead fetuses had to be dumped in the mountains.

The people before the Liberation were deeply superstitious, and they instantly believed it. Countless ignorant masses followed suit, coercing pregnant women everywhere to drink abortifacients and throwing the resulting corpses into a ravine, leading to the deaths of countless innocent lives.

In the mountains, a hunter was chasing a white rabbit one day and got lost, stumbling into a cave. Seeing piles of white bones inside, he was terrified. Just then, he saw a white shadow flickering deep within the cavern. He immediately struck out with his hunting fork and managed to stab an old, grayish-white bat, killing it. From that day on, no more children disappeared nearby.

Some said this old bat was the manifestation of a malevolent energy that arose when heaven and earth were first separated, driven to eat people. It had transformed into the old man in the marketplace to spread deceptive words, tricking the villagers into using abortifacients and dumping the fetuses in the mountains to feed it. It was believed that Bodhisattva Guanyin manifested by guiding the white rabbit to lead the hunter to the cave to eliminate this scourge for the people, demonstrating that the Buddha's presence was near, saving suffering. Otherwise, without the protection of Buddhist teachings, how could a mere hunter possibly defeat the old demon in the cave? The hunter obtained the white bat's corpse, and his feat was widely publicized. Soon after, several foreigners came, paid money, and bought it back, turning it into a specimen and placing it in the Tianjin museum, where it has been preserved until today.

I believe about eighty percent of this story in Buchenli is fabrication. Perhaps the hunter really did catch a white bat and sell it to foreigners to make a specimen, but the rest is unverifiable, likely wild gossip that grew more embellished with each retelling.

I approached the white bat specimen and shone the flashlight on it. There was no sign that it had ever been a man-eating demon when alive. Just as I was about to call Ai Xiaohong over to look too, telling her not to be so jumpy, I suddenly heard footsteps overhead. Ai Xiaohong gasped in shock at the sound, nearly collapsing to the floor. "The old bat spirit has come alive!"

A thought flashed through my mind, and I instantly recalled the silhouette I had seen earlier that day. I called out to Shirley Yang and Ai Xiaohong, "There’s a thief on the second floor..." Before the words were out, I had already rushed upstairs. But the door to the second floor was locked, and Ai Xiaohong still held the key. I could only hold up the flashlight and shine it wildly through the glass window.

In the darkness, I definitely saw a figure crouching near the censer. He was startled to see me outside the door, and without hesitation, he bolted toward the window and climbed out over the sill. Ai Xiaohong and Shirley Yang caught up quickly and hurriedly retrieved the key to open the door.

I pushed the door open impatiently. The window was wide open, and the cold wind howled in, but the person had escaped too quickly, already disappearing into the night. Seeing there was nowhere to pursue, we closed the window and inspected the area. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be missing, and since they were all replicas, even if something had been damaged or lost, it wouldn't matter much. However, when I first saw these exhibits, I had mistakenly believed they were real due to the distance. With the museum's lax security measures, it was no wonder someone would target this batch of antiques.

I told Ai Xiaohong, "Since nothing was lost, I think we shouldn't call the police. Thieves are usually timid; after being startled this way, he surely won't dare come back."

At that moment, Shirley Yang picked up a red, plastic-covered notebook from the floor. These notebooks were common, often distributed by organizations, and printed with the words 'Work Record.' It must have been dropped by the thief in his haste and panic.

I took the work record from her hand and flipped it open. The first page bore the owner's name: "Sun Xuewu." I read the name aloud twice, asking Shirley Yang, "Who is Sun Xuewu? That name sounds familiar; do you recall hearing it?"

Shirley Yang replied, "Old Hu, have you forgotten? That’s Professor Sun’s name—the expert who often travels through villages collecting Dragon Bone heavenly texts and researching ancient symbols and writings, Professor Sun. What was he doing at the Natural Museum late at night?"

I didn't have a good impression of Professor Sun, so I sneered, "I caught that old rogue red-handed. Let’s see what face he has left to call me a grave robber..." As I spoke, I casually flipped through the work record, and what I saw became increasingly shocking. The drawing of the priceless Qin King Bone-Reflecting Mirror was clearly sketched inside.

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