As I heard this, I lost the mood to take a shower. I pulled Old Liu aside and steered him into the guesthouse dining hall, finding a quiet corner where we could sit down so he could tell me the whole story in detail.

The marks on my back had variations in color, some dark, some light, their contours and layering strongly resembling an eyeball. The shape was strikingly similar to the jade eye I had shattered in the ancient city of Jingjue. I’d been worried sick that this was some sort of curse, and that perhaps not just Fatty and I, but also Professor Chen and Shirley Yang, all the way in America, might start showing the same symptoms.

Just then, hearing Old Liu say this wasn't an eyeball but a character made me even more anxious. I fumbled out my cigarettes and lit one for him. The guesthouse kitchen had already closed down for the night, so Old Liu was free, and he proceeded to recount the whole sequence of events.

It had all happened not too long ago, less than three years by my reckoning. At that time, the archaeology team experts were staying at this very guesthouse in Gutian County, cataloging and organizing the bones they had recovered. The local authorities took the matter very seriously, sealing off the entire guesthouse; no unauthorized personnel were allowed inside except for the staff.

Old Liu, who worked in the guesthouse kitchen, was a curious sort. He cooked for the archaeology team members, and in his downtime, he’d hang around watching the proceedings. If they needed an extra hand, he’d pitch in. The experts ate his cooking and got to know him; they realized the old man was genuinely warm-hearted. Sometimes, out of politeness, they’d turn a blind eye, letting him watch as long as he didn't steal anything or cause trouble.

This particular excavation had yielded a massive quantity of tortoise plastrons and various unidentified animal bones. Each piece of bone or shell was engraved with numerous characters and symbols, but most of them were damaged, arriving in fractured pieces that required significant manpower and time to restore.

However, amidst the multitude of broken shells, one enormous tortoise plastron was remarkably intact. This shell was as large as a standard baxian table. Old Liu happened to be nearby when the archaeologists were cleaning this piece with a solution of ice acetic acid. The symbol that appeared most frequently on it, he noted, was one that looked exactly like an eyeball.

Old Liu didn't recognize anything else, but the eye symbol struck him as incredibly conspicuous; he instantly recognized it as an eye. He asked the team member who was doing the organizing if that symbol represented an eyeball. The archaeologist replied, "No, this is an ancient script similar to oracle bone script; it's not an eyeball…"

Before he could finish his sentence, he was cut off by the team leader, a professor surnamed Sun. Old Liu clearly remembered Professor Sun sternly warning that archaeologist that this was all highly classified state secret material and absolutely must not be revealed to anyone.

Old Liu thought to himself, What does a simple cook like me care about your state secrets? So, he dropped the matter. But the more he thought about it, the more curious he became. What secret could something thousands of years old hold that couldn't be revealed to the outside world even now? Maybe they were just trying to bluff an old man, but if they insisted on maintaining secrecy and didn't welcome further inquiries, then that was that.

However, ever since that large tortoise shell was brought in, our guesthouse had been plagued by small fires every few days, making life utterly miserable for everyone.

A few days after that, the archaeology team felt they had collected enough bone fragments, and perhaps more importantly, that the fire hazard here was too great. So, they packed up and left, loading the inscribed bones into large wooden crates—enough to fill an entire large truck. What happened next, they say, was truly bizarre: they intended to airlift the materials to Beijing, but the military transport plane crashed en route, and everything, including all the inscribed bone fragments, was incinerated.

Of the entire fifteen-person archaeological team, only Professor Sun survived. He had forgotten his operational manual at the Gutian County guesthouse and rushed back to retrieve his notes, narrowly missing that flight.

When Professor Sun heard the news of the plane crash in Gutian County, he collapsed right there on the ground. It was I who took him and a few colleagues to the clinic; you could say I was half his savior. Afterwards, whenever Professor Sun worked near Gutian, he always made a point to visit me, and we’d share a few drinks. But whenever I asked him what those characters on the bone fragments meant, Professor Sun would evade the question. He’d only caution me that those characters were symbols of grave danger and evil, and that it was better not to know. He always insisted I shouldn't inquire about them ever again, especially since they were all destroyed now. Every time, he would sigh, saying he wished he had never even seen those characters in his entire life. "But today," he finished, "the moment I saw this red patch on your back, I was reminded of those terrifying characters—they are exactly the same! This is no skin disease. What in the world have you done?"

Hearing all this, I couldn't help but interrupt Old Liu: "Master Liu, so you don't actually know what that character means either?"

Old Liu let out a loud laugh, feigning mystery as he replied, "My friend, I only know it’s an ancient script, but I genuinely don't know its meaning. However, someone does know! You’ve arrived at the perfect time. That Professor Sun is staying right upstairs from you! He comes to Gutian to work for a period every year, and you've managed to catch him!"

I immediately seized Old Liu's hand, exclaiming with eagerness, "Master Liu, you truly are a living Bodhisattva! You’ve helped me this far, now please see this through to the end. You absolutely must introduce me to this Professor Sun!"

Old Liu thumped his chest, guaranteeing, "An introduction is no problem. But that old fellow Sun is tight-lipped. Whether he tells you anything will depend entirely on how you approach him. With such a peculiar patch on your back, maybe he’ll be willing to tell you."

I asked Old Liu to wait for me in the dining hall for a moment while I prepared. I was going to accompany him to visit Professor Sun on the second floor. First, I returned to my room to explain the entire situation to Big Gold Tooth and Fatty.

I instructed Fatty to stay in the room and continue guarding the Wen Xiang Yu raw stone. I asked Big Gold Tooth to come with me; having been a merchant for many years, he was eloquent and far more experienced than I in social dealings.

We changed our clothes, found Old Liu waiting in the dining hall, and I told him, "Master Liu, it feels inappropriate to visit empty-handed, but it’s getting late, and finding pastries or fruit will be difficult…"

Old Liu waved his hand dismissively. "No need, on my account. But you two deal in antiques, right? Remember this: under no circumstances mention that to Professor Sun. He has a bad temper and deeply dislikes people in your line of work."

Big Gold Tooth and I immediately promised to keep absolutely silent on the matter. We agreed on a cover story: we were in Gutian on a business trip. Because a red patch resembling oracle bone script had appeared on our backs, we’d heard that Professor Sun was knowledgeable about oracle bone script, and we hoped to consult him politely to see if it was a skin condition or something else entirely.

With our plan settled, Old Liu led us up to the second floor to knock on Professor Sun’s door. After we stated our purpose, Professor Sun invited us inside.

Professor Sun looked nearly sixty, exceedingly thin, with dark, leathery skin and a slightly hunched back—probably the result of years spent crouching in excavation pits. His face was a roadmap of wrinkles, and he was quite bald on top, with only a sparse fringe of hair remaining around the edges, which he refused to shave off, instead combing it into a spiraling sweep across one side. Despite his aged appearance, his eyes were piercingly bright; he wore no glasses. Apart from his hairstyle, he looked no different from a farmer who toiled in the fields year-round.

He was a completely different type from Professor Chen, whom I knew. Though both were professors, they were worlds apart. Professor Chen was the quintessential academic, a refined scholar who belonged in an office. This Professor Sun, however, seemed to be the practical type forged by long-term, frontline fieldwork.

Professor Sun listened to my account and then stared intently at the bruise on my back for a long time, repeatedly muttering, "Strange." I asked him what exactly was growing on my back and if it was life-threatening.

Professor Sun stated, "It truly does resemble a symbol. On the largest and most complete tortoise plastron excavated in Gutian two years ago, there were one hundred and twelve characters carved on it, resembling oracle bone script, but not quite oracle bone script. This symbol, which looks like an eyeball, appeared repeatedly—seven times—among those one hundred and twelve characters."

Fatty and I both had these dark red patches growing on our backs. Although we followed Old Liu here to visit Professor Sun, we were essentially grasping at straws. We had been half-believing Old Liu, but now, seeing Professor Sun confirm that the shape of this red patch resembled an ancient character, we urgently begged him to tell us what character it was.

Professor Sun shook his head. "The red mark on your skin merely resembles the ancient text from the excavation, but it has absolutely no direct connection. All those artifacts were destroyed in the plane crash two years ago. Coincidences happen frequently in this world; some beans can even grow to look strikingly like a human head, but between a bean and a human head, there is no connection other than similarity."

Big Gold Tooth and I pleaded, soft-talking and flattering him endlessly, desperate to know the content of those ancient writings carved on the tortoise shells. If I knew the details, I could figure out if there was any connection myself.

Professor Sun refused to divulge another syllable. Finally, he issued us an eviction notice: "Stop pretending in front of me. Both of you carry the distinct smell of damp earth. Having worked at the grassroots level for so long, I can tell exactly what you two do with my eyes closed. There are only three types of people who smell like that: farmers, and the other two are either tomb raiders or antique dealers. Frankly, you don’t look like farmers. I have no good feelings toward you right now. I don’t know where you got this character—this symbol—and tried to pass it off as a red patch to trick information out of me. I advise you to stop dreaming. I will only say two last things to you. First: Do not make a scene. The information contained in these ancient characters is a state secret, and no ordinary person has the right to know it. Second: This is a personal piece of advice for you both—do not, under any circumstances, attempt to approach the information within these characters. This is the secret of Heaven itself, and Heaven’s secrets must not be revealed. Otherwise, anyone who becomes entangled with these writings will surely invite disaster."