Professor Sun finished speaking and immediately stood up, ushering us toward the door. I thought the old man was acting strangely; he'd seemed perfectly fine when we first entered, but now his mood had soured so quickly. From what he said initially, it sounded like he was prepared to tell us everything, but then, having somehow discerned the true nature of my identity and that of Big Gold Tooth, he became severe and sharp-tongued. Perhaps he suspected we were frauds trying to swindle him.

By my usual temperament, if things had reached this point, I would have stood up and walked out without needing to be pushed. But this time, the matter was far too serious—it might very well concern life and death, and beyond just the Fatty and me, the lives of Professor Chen and Shirley Yang could also be at stake.

I spoke to Professor Sun: “Professor, Professor, will you at least listen to my final words? I don't know how you sensed the scent of earth on us, but this man with the gold tooth and I are truly not in the business of dealing antiques. For a long time, we worked for an archaeology team. Have you heard of Professor Chen Jiuren from Beijing? We worked under him.”

Hearing the name Chen Jiuren, Professor Sun paused slightly and asked, “Old Chen? You mean you two worked on his archaeological team?”

I quickly nodded in affirmation: “Yes, I imagine you two are titans in the field of archaeology. In our little archaeological circle, if anyone hears the names of you two elders, they’d jump out of their skin from shock…”

Professor Chen’s expression softened a bit, and he waved his hand dismissively: “Stop flattering me, boy. I know exactly what my capabilities are. Since you know Old Chen, you stay; the other two should step out for a while.”

Hearing the implication in Professor Sun’s tone—that there was a chance—I sent Big Gold Tooth and Old Liu out first, leaving me alone with Professor Sun for a private discussion.

After Big Gold Tooth and the others left, Professor Sun bolted the door and asked me a few questions about Professor Chen. I briefly recounted how I had accompanied Professor Chen and others to the Xinjiang desert in search of the ancient city of Jingjue.

After listening, Professor Sun sighed and said, “Old Chen and I are old acquaintances. I’ve heard whispers about the accident in the desert. Hmph, it would have been a miracle if his old bones hadn't been buried in the sand. I wanted to visit him in Beijing, but I heard he went to America for medical treatment. I don’t know if I will ever see him again in this lifetime. Old Chen did me a great kindness back then. Since you are an acquaintance of his, I will no longer hide certain things from you.”

This was the very sentence I had been waiting for. I quickly asked, “The bruise that suddenly appeared on my back looks exactly like an eyeball, and I think it’s connected to the ancient city of Jingjue we found deep in the desert. Those people of the Ghost Cave Clan in the Jingjue Kingdom worshiped the power of the eye. I feel like I’ve been afflicted by some kind of curse, but then I heard it’s not an eye, but a character. So I beg you to explain what this character actually means, so I can be mentally prepared. Of course, I’m someone who has cheated death seven or eight times already; I don't place much value on my own safety. But Professor Chen seems to be developing similar symptoms, and he is what worries me the most.”

Professor Sun looked at me and said, “It’s not that I am unwilling to tell you; these facts truly cannot be spoken. Knowing them would only harm you. However, I can tell you clearly that the mark on your back is definitely not some baseless curse or anything similar. It will not affect your health, so you can put your mind at ease.”

I grew more anxious as I listened. This was tantamount to saying nothing at all! However, the fact that he said it wasn't a curse lessened my psychological burden considerably. Yet, the more he refused to speak, the more I needed to know. What information, dating back thousands of years, could possibly be so sensitive that it could not be revealed today, especially when this character had manifested on my own body?

Under my persistent questioning, Professor Sun finally disclosed some details to me:

Professor Sun had spent many years researching ancient sites along the Yellow River basin and was an expert in ancient paleography, skilled in deciphering and translating ancient cryptic scripts.

In ancient times, when Cangjie created characters, the advent of writing ended humanity’s era of knotted ropes for record-keeping. Writing captured vast amounts of information, encompassing the mysteries of everything in nature. Today, there are four primary tones in spoken Chinese: level, rising, falling, and entering.

However, in the earliest eras, there were actually eight tones for written characters, containing an unimaginable wealth of information. This extra information was monopolized by the ruling class, and the other four tones evolved into a secret language, specifically used to record significant events that could not be revealed to ordinary people.

Many tortoise shells and bamboo slips unearthed in later periods bore ancient characters resembling oracle bone script, yet no one could decipher them. Some claimed it was "heavenly script," an unreadable script, but this was a distortion. Heavenly script was merely an ancient form of encrypted information; it had literal characters, but without the key to decryption, one could not understand it even if it lay right before them. Professor Sun had dedicated his life to these indecipherable "heavenly scripts," but progress was consistently slow, practically torturous. Despite exhausting his intellect, he had achieved little.

It wasn't until 1978 that archaeologists excavated a Tang Dynasty tomb in the Micang Mountains. This tomb had been plundered multiple times, showing six or seven robber tunnels. The occupant's remains had long since decayed, the tomb chamber had collapsed, and most grave goods had been stolen, with the remainder being severely corroded.

From all indications, the tomb's owner was Li Chunfeng, the Taishi Ling (Grand Astrologer), who was in charge of astronomy, calendrics, Yin-Yang, and divination arts in the imperial court. The Tang Dynasty represented a zenith in Chinese civilization across technology, culture, and economy. Li Chunfeng, a renowned "scientist" of great prestige during that time, should have had many artifacts and documents of immense research value in his tomb, but their destruction was a tremendous loss, a fact that deeply saddened all the archaeologists present.

However, the clearance work had to continue. As they dug deeper, a huge surprise emerged from the decayed coffin: the archaeologists discovered a hidden compartment in the coffin lid above the deceased's head.

A compartment in the coffin lid was something nobody had anticipated—even the most experienced experts had never encountered such a feature. With extreme care, they opened the compartment. Inside was a package wrapped in cowhide, further encased in oilcloth and red lacquer, revealing an object: a flawless white jade box, entirely overlaid with gilded silver. The stone box was engraved with the pattern of a winged spiritual beast, and the lock on the lid was pure gold.

Because it was hidden in the coffin lid’s cavity, it had managed to evade the tomb robbers over the centuries, preserving it until the present day.

Experienced experts immediately recognized it as an item belonging to the Tang imperial family, possibly a gift bestowed upon Li Chunfeng by the Emperor. The fact that he had placed it in such a clandestine compartment spoke volumes about its importance. The jade box was immediately transported back to the main camp of the archaeological team.

Inside the box, crafted from a single piece of mutton-fat jade, they found many crucial items. Among them was a piece of longgu (a type of tortoise plastron) inscribed entirely with "Heavenly Script," which was named the Longgu Yiwen Pu (Strange Script Register on Dragon Bone). Beside it lay a pure gold plate, small in size, with beast-head shapes at the four corners. Both sides were densely cast with characters—some familiar, some unrecognizable—and it appeared to be some kind of chart, subsequently named the Shoujiao Miwen Jinban (Beast Horn Obscure Text Gold Plate).

Professor Sun and other paleography experts were tasked with deciphering the secrets of this dragon bone and the gold plate. Upon receiving the assignment, Professor Sun locked himself in his research room and began working relentlessly, forgetting to eat or sleep.

Professor Sun had encountered this "Longgu Yiwen Pu" many times before; he could recall the ancient characters upon it with his eyes closed. Yet, he could never analyze what script these were, what they meant, or what information was recorded in this bizarre writing.

This so-called "Heavenly Script" presented a major hurdle for researchers of ancient Chinese characters. Without crossing this threshold, no progress could be made; but once a breakthrough occurred, the other difficulties might fall into place. However, this obstacle was immense.

Some scholars argued that the "Heavenly Script" was the writing of a civilization that had vanished, but this theory easily refuted itself. Some ancient characters unearthed alongside the "Heavenly Script" were easily interpreted and, through Carbon-14 dating, proved to be from the same Yin-Shang period, certainly not relics of a prehistoric civilization.

After a full month of rigorous deduction and study, Professor Sun finally unlocked the "Mystery of the Heavenly Script." By cross-referencing it with the Shoujiao Miwen Jinban unearthed from Li Chunfeng's tomb, he discovered that the ancient records on the dragon bone, written in "Heavenly Script," were a form of encrypted writing.

Li Chunfeng had already deciphered this ancient encrypted script during the Tang Dynasty. To commend his achievement, the Emperor commissioned a gold plaque as an award for Li Chunfeng to commemorate the event. The characters and symbols on this gold plaque were Li Chunfeng's corresponding decryption key for the Heavenly Script.

In essence, the Heavenly Script was quite simple: it used the phonetic notations of the four secret tones, rather than actual characters, inscribed on the dragon bone. Only those few who could pronounce these secret sounds could understand the content of the writing.

Li Chunfeng had found the way to unlock heavenly secrets and crack the mystery of the Heavenly Script by drawing inspiration from the Ba Jing Zhushu Xiangkao (Detailed Examination of the Commentary on the Eight Classics). Inspired by this "Beast Horn Obscure Text Gold Plate," Professor Sun figured out how to interpret the Heavenly Script, causing a revolutionary sensation in the archaeological community. A wealth of ancient secret texts was decoded, revealing staggering information that necessitated the rewriting of many established historical conclusions.

Considering various factors, the senior leadership issued the following directive regarding the information Professor Sun had decrypted: Handle it with caution; do not disclose it to the public until a definitive conclusion is reached.

Professor Sun then told me: “To say that the mark on your back is an ancient encrypted character would be inaccurate. This symbol is not one of the characters from the Heavenly Script. I only saw this symbol on a tortoise shell unearthed in Gutian. It symbolizes something very specific, something for which the people of that time lacked a precise term. I think ‘pictogram-speech’ (tuyan) is a more fitting term. A tuyan is a symbolic sign, but I don't yet know the precise meaning of this one. It appeared mixed within the encrypted Heavenly Script texts. On one piece of dragon carapace unearthed in Gutian, a section of the Heavenly Script seemed to record a history of disaster. Because it had just been excavated and time was critical, I only managed a superficial look and didn't have time to analyze exactly what this symbol meant. Unexpectedly, the military plane transporting the finds crashed en route. Those secrets, I fear, will forever remain unknown.”

I asked Professor Sun, “For something so important, surely you kept a rubbing or some other record? Although you believe the mark on my back isn't a curse or anything similar, I still find this whole affair incredibly strange. If I don’t know the full story, I will never feel at ease. Please, tell me what the text inscribed on that bone fragment generally said. Does it have anything to do with the Ghost Cave in Xinjiang? I swear to Chairman Mao, I won’t leak a single character.”

Professor Sun suddenly sprang up nervously: “I cannot say it. Once spoken, it will shake the heavens and earth!”