Daomu Biji

When Lao Itch and I heard what he said, we asked him what he thought of. He scratched his hair and said, "I'm just making a rough guess. This copper tree may not be the key. The important thing may be the ravines on the tree. At that time, during sacrifices, this thing might have been used to collect some liquids, such as rain, blood, or dew."

Lao Itch asked him: "Is it the same thing as the emperor collecting dew to make tea? What is it called, rootless water?"

Master Liang used his pen to hang up some black dirt in the ravines. After thousands of years, he still couldn't tell whether it was the dried blood of his ancestors or the sediment in the rain. He looked at the branches again and said: "Look, there are things like bayonet bleeding slots under these branches, which lead to the cloud and thunder patterns. These branches must also have a function in sacrifices. It is possible that they are really related to blood sacrifices. relation."

We threw Uncle Qin's body off the branch and stayed there for a while without saying anything else. Lao Itchy impatiently urged us to start quickly.

I climbed up and asked Master Liang what he thought of these ravines. Why are these ravines related to the sacrifices of that year, and how were these sacrifices carried out?

Master Liang told me that although the sacrifices in the Western Zhou Dynasty were not as brutal as those in the Shang Dynasty, human sacrifices were unavoidable. The so-called different sacrificial methods were just different ways of killing the human sacrifices. For example, if you offer sacrifices to the land, you bury people alive, if you offer sacrifices to the god of fire, you burn people to death, and if you offer sacrifices to the god of rivers, you throw them into the river.

There is such a huge bronze tree that reaches the sky, and the place of worship may be a sacred tree such as Fuso Ruomu. It may also be Jumang, the god of Simu. Usually, this type of god uses blood sacrifices.

Just now, Uncle Qin's blood flowed along the bronze branches, into the cloud and thunder patterns on the bronze tree, and flowed all the way down. If such a line had not been designed in advance, there would be no way it would run so smoothly. With the addition of the bronze branches, With the traces of bayonets and bleeding troughs on it, it became clear that this must be a sacrificial vessel used for blood sacrifices.

The so-called blood sacrifices are mostly performed with blood entering the ground. When being sacrificed, the sacrifice must be fixed on these bronze branches to draw out the blood from the corpse. The clouds and thunder patterns painted on the tree indicate that if the blood does not condense halfway, it will inevitably flow all the way to the roots of the bronze tree buried deep under the rock, symbolizing the meaning of offering blood to the gods.

To put it more vividly, the texture of the whole tree is like the blood trough in the hospital's autopsy room. No matter how much blood on several corpse beds, it will eventually flow into the blood trough through these gullies, and then flow into the sewer pipes, except here The blood-drawing grooves are made into seemingly decorative patterns, which can also explain why the ravines between these cloud and thunder patterns are so ridiculously deep.

It is obvious that such a cruel and large-scale sacrifice cannot be held for a long time even in a powerful country, so there are only sporadic records in ancient books. As for the specific process of the ceremony and how many sacrifices are required, there is no way to know.

After listening to Master Liang's words, on the one hand I lamented the command of the ancients, and on the other hand I felt a little chilled. It was really stupid that such a huge project was only used as a tool to kill people. Thinking of countless slaves stuck upside down on these branches, and the blood flowing along these bronze gullies, turning the whole tree into a pillar of blood, I felt that there seemed to be a biting cold air seeping out of those gullies.

Feeling a little guilty, I said to Lao Itch: "We'd better walk faster, otherwise when Uncle Qin's blood flows down, the God of Simu may think that someone else has come to sacrifice again. The old man came out for a walk, and said no They can definitely use us as sacrifices."

Lao Itch didn't take Master Liang's words to heart at all, and said to me: "Don't believe him at all. At that time in China, there would be so many people killing you for fun. I think the people here are probably bleeding. If we climb up a little bit more, like pig heads or sheep heads, we might even be able to see thousands of years of pork stuck in the flesh. What’s more, even if it’s a human being, after a person dies, his blood will coagulate quickly, and people won’t look down on him. "In the past, people were so natural. They ate pesticide-free food and drank pollution-free water. The whole thing was farmers' blood - it was a bit sweet, so it was something to fool people."

The tendons on my forehead burst out when I heard this, and I couldn't help but curse: "I'm fucking your ass, you get what you want, why is my blood poisonous? Can you stop fucking talking..."

Master Liang was so angry with me that he hurriedly tried to smooth things over and said: "You two, this is a time to judge the situation. In this situation, don't make wisecracks. Don't you think that these branches are getting denser and denser? If it continues like this, it will Is it difficult to climb up?"

Lao Itch said: "This place is originally sparse and dense. It is easier to climb when it is denser. Do you want to make it as sparse as possible? The best result is that each branch is more than two meters apart. We are here dozens of meters high. Stacking Arhats?”

I said to Lao Chu: "Don't jump to conclusions yet. I think something is wrong. Turn on your flashlight."

When we came up, we still used torches for lighting, because the flashlight in Uncle Qin's bag didn't have enough power, and we didn't want to waste it. But now I want to see things in the distance clearly, and I can't do it with a torch. of.

Lao Itch turned on the flashlight, concentrated the beam, and shined it upwards. He saw that above our heads, the bronze branches were gradually getting denser and denser. Seven or eight meters up, they were already as dense as thorns. We had to keep going up. The only way is to hang upside down first, and then climb up on the tips of these branches. This is much more dangerous than climbing against the copper tree.

Now, even if there is a dragon's pond and a tiger's den ahead, we have to break into it. Lao Itch asked us to stay where we are and not move. He climbed out of the branch first, then found the rope from Uncle Qin and threw it down. Master Liang and I grabbed it with one hand. Holding the rope, he climbed up.

Looking up further, the situation here was no longer like the one we got stuck below. The bronze branches were so dense that Wuchu couldn't intervene. I climbed for a while and thought to myself, no wonder Uncle Qin fell down. If he goes up again, I'm afraid he won't be able to climb up again. It's hard to find a place to step on. If you're not careful, or get blown by the wind from above, you might just go down to accompany Uncle Qin.

Lao Itch was crawling very fast at this time. I no longer had the strength to stop him, so I could only gather my energy. On the one hand, I would not let myself fall behind, and on the other hand, I would always remind myself to be careful of making mistakes. At the same time, the torch cannot be used at this time, because there are no extra hands to hold it, so I can only extinguish it and insert it into my waist.

Because this section was too dangerous, almost no one spoke. Soon, under the light of a flashlight, I found that the rock walls around the bronze tree began to change, and natural bell-shaped stone cones and some dissolved rock curtains appeared. Obviously, here It has gone beyond the scope of artificial excavation, and the above section is already a naturally formed cave.

As we passed this section, the rock wall began to shrink. I also found that some caves of different sizes began to appear on the rock walls on both sides. They were not deep and I could see to the bottom. There seemed to be something in a few of the caves. I used my flashlight to illuminate them. There will be certain reactions, and these phenomena gradually made me feel uneasy. However, the rock wall is only tens of meters away from us. I don't believe that there are some variables that can directly affect us from the opposite side.

I drew my attention to the cave on the side and didn't notice that Lao Chi and Master Liang who were climbing in front had stopped. I didn't react until I bumped into Master Liang's butt. When I looked up, I saw many of those things appearing above. A masked monkey, exactly like the one we just encountered below.

Upon closer inspection, I found that these monkeys were already dead. The hot wind blowing down from above had blown their corpses into corpses, and they were weirdly twisted. Their hands and feet were stuck in the dense branches to prevent them from falling below. There are dozens of such mummies, and the strange masks did not fall off as the corpses shriveled, but still stared at us silently, as if they would be resurrected at any time.

We slowed down and observed these strange things carefully.

The monkey's body seemed to have a skin disease, and most of its hair fell off, giving it a grayish-white color. It looked somewhat similar to human skin, but when I looked at it myself, I found that there were very obvious disease spots. Judging from the body shape, , these monkeys are about as tall as a Shiwuliu child (certainly not Yao Ming), maybe a little taller, in which case my sense of height is almost lost.

The mask on the monkey's face seems to be made of stone and is polished so perfectly. I even suspect it may be made of porcelain. Judging from the joint between the mask and the monkey's head, it seems that the mask is burned into the flesh, or made of some kind of bloody material. The method is directly related to the face.

Most of the mummies are complete, and only a few have only one limb left. Probably because they were too old and the corpses were dried too much, causing them to naturally fragment.

Master Liang told us not to climb yet. He pointed at a mummy and said, "Wait a minute. I think the posture of these monkeys is a bit weird. I seem to have seen it somewhere. Let me take a closer look."

Lao Itch said to him: "It's just you who are troublesome. You have to look at everything. Be careful. The monkey down there will think your posture is weird later."

Master Liang ignored the old itch and carefully climbed up to the nearest mummy and put its mask on. The skin on Qiancang's face cracked immediately. Master Liang easily tore off the mask and took a closer look at the mummy's face. , turned to us and said: "Two... people, this... doesn't seem to be a monkey, this is... a human face."