Chapter 34 first quarter

Qinglu Tea Farm, a little-known small state-run tea farm in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, mainly produces Qingfeng, Que Tong, and Biluochun, which are of average quality. Xia Xiubai appeared here because this was his hometown, and Xia Mingruo was there on business, so when the two met at the gate of the teahouse, both of them thought it was inconceivable. Old Huang threw himself into Xia Xiubai's arms with a whimper, and Xia Xiubai rubbed the cat and sighed, "Meeting your son in a foreign land is so-called great joy, but what can you dig here? Oh, yes, your mother made you a new coat. Woolen, handsome."

Xia Mingruo thought to himself, since I am not allowed to wear the new coat, I hang it in the closet all day long, let alone handsome, it is useless. He explained that the hills of the tea farm were divided into two parts by the Qinglu River, a tributary of the Yangtze River. On the hill to the north of the river bend, a Neolithic village site was recently discovered, which needs to be excavated urgently. However, the local county government has limited manpower and financial resources, and they don't pay much attention to it, so they are unable to organize an archaeological team. It happened that Xia Mingruo's team was wandering nearby, so the superior simply sent them to take a look.

Xia Xiubai said very disapprovingly: "What's so interesting, I really don't understand you, you always treat the stoves and cesspit of the ancients as treasures." Xia Mingruo said: "Hey, the county magistrate here also said the same thing." Xia Xiubai said: "If I have this spare time..." Xia Mingruo flew over to cover his mouth, Li Changsheng walked past with his disciples and grandchildren smiling, and said hello, "Xiubai? Coincidentally, how are you!" Xia Xiubai smiled and said, "Everything is fine, Mr. Li, you have worked hard."

The two watched the archaeological team go away, Xia Xiubai asked, "Where do you live?" Xia Mingruo pointed to a large house with blue tiles and white walls on the top of the hill: "The county cultural center arranged it. It is said that it is the closest to the ruins, and the owner is also very welcoming." Xia Xiubai looked around for a long time, then turned around with a helpless look on his face: "Tell them, is it actually our old house?" "How dare you!" Xia Mingruo said, "It's not like you don't know that there are often weird things in the old house. It's okay to say that it's someone else's house. If you let them know that it's mine, they'll dig it up the first day? Like a pangolin."

The father and son sighed for a while, and each carried their luggage up the mountain.At this time, the plum blossom has just entered, the weather is cool, the hills are filled with rain and mist, and the fragrance is overwhelming, and the green tea trees are neatly arranged in rows, stretching out of sight. Xia Xiubai told his son that there was a letter from his hometown a few days ago, saying that several tea farms he knew were contracted one after another.The Xia family wanted to contract the tea plantation, but they still have lingering fears about what happened in the past few years. They were afraid that they would make some mistakes and their tails would be cut off, so they asked Xia Xiubai to come back to discuss and discuss things, and play along the way.Xia Xiubai was a well-known veteran in the factory, so he immediately ran over after handing over a sick note.

The manager of the tea shop, Wang Yuexiang, is Xia Xiubai's sister-in-law. She was talking with the archaeological team. When she saw her uncle from afar, she broke away and shouted, "Youngest! Come here! I'm waiting for you to kill the chicken!" Xia Xiubai quickly gestured and said, "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Wang Yuexiang's voice was loud, echoes echoed all over the mountains and plains: "Why didn't Yuhuan come?" Xia Mingruo jumped to her side a few times, and deliberately raised his voice and said, "Hello, auntie, the scenery in your place is really pleasant."

Xia Xiubai followed closely, full of enthusiasm: "Hi, big sister, it's the first time we meet, my surname is Xia." Wang Yuexiang was stunned for a long time, Xia Mingruo winked at her desperately, Wang Yuexiang thought to herself, what the hell are these father and son doing?Li Changsheng asked: "Xiu Bai, why did you come?" Xia Xiubai said that he came to buy tea, but old man Li said "Oh" twice, but he didn't realize that he was fooling. Xia Xiubai is called a "stubborn master" in Beijing dialect. He doesn't do serious things, and his education level is not high, but he knows a little bit from all over the world, and he is not that generous. Instead, he is arty and particularly pretentious. Knowing Li Changsheng's way, Li Changsheng stopped him and talked about everything from the Three Emperors and Five Emperors to Sino-Soviet diplomacy.With Xia Xiubai here, the students can listen to less nagging, and everyone is happy.

The rain is getting heavier, and the ordinary farmers are busy planting seedlings, and the tea farm is not idle. They go to work every morning at five o'clock and come back after dark, because after the rainy season, it will be midsummer, and the tea leaves will become thick and thick. Old tea is not worth picking, and the season of good tea is over. The rainy day is also the most unsuitable time for archaeological excavations. If you insist on working during this season, that is performance art, called the dance of mud and water, soul and model workers. They are not allowed to go to the ground, so this is not considered.

The rain continued unabated the next day, so everyone discussed it, or should we take a look first?It's not an option to stay at the elder's house drinking tea and gossiping all the time.Li Changsheng ordered Xia Mingruo and Xiao Shi to look for overshoes and bamboo hats. Xiao Shi quietly asked Xia Mingruo: "Did you hear any strange noises last night? It was on the ceiling." Xia Mingruo gave him a meaningful look, and replied, "Yes, but it should be due to the thermal expansion and contraction of building materials or the running of mice." "How can it be?" Xiao Shi said, "Why do I sound like a whisper, you think there must be ghosts?"

"Shi Weidong, when I looked at you, I thought of a sentence—compared with the power of thousands of years of belief, the education of atheism pales. If you live in a room and hear a sound in the middle of the night, you will call it a ghost. You are an archaeologist. Is the correct attitude of a worker? Shame on you!" Xiao Shi said: "Fuck you, don't believe Xia." Xia Mingruo sent Xiao Shi to look for shoes in the warehouse of the tea farm not far away, and ran to the tea garden in the rain to meet Wang Yuexiang, who was busy picking tea, and said angrily, "What? Will you admit me today?"

Xia Mingruo said: "Oh, Auntie, we really have to deal with difficulties. Please quickly help me find seven or eight sets of coir raincoats and bamboo hats, overshoes and so on." Wang Yuexiang said that they were all in the attic, and the ladder was in the hall, so she went to get it by herself.Xia Mingruo said: "It's not a problem for you to keep keeping the house-protecting fairy cards left by your ancestors in the attic." Wang Yuexiang said: "Don't mention it, those cards and seats were apparently taken to the 'Four Olds' during the 'Cultural Revolution', but somehow they were sent back. I heard that on the day the spirit cards were taken, there was a The rebels drowned suddenly in the river, and another drowned the next day, and another drowned the next day. They were terrified. Your uncle was afraid that people would say that we sabotaged the revolution, so he had to hide, and he has been hiding until now. " She talked with her mouth, but her work didn't stop.The twenty or so people in their tea farm are almost all female workers, and all of them are skilled workers. They are used to tying blades on the index fingers of both hands, and the picking speed is much faster than ordinary tea workers. Xia Mingruo saw through the rain curtain a worker not far away who seemed to be a young man. Wang Yuexiang said, "You don't remember him? He is my nephew Wang Xin. You played together when you were young. He has been outside for a few years." I didn't mix well, I just came to the tea house." Xia Mingruo scratched his head and thought about it, "I really don't remember much." At this time, Xiao Shilong shouted from the top of the mountain: "Don't believe it—! There is only tea in the warehouse—where did you get the shoes—?" Xia Mingruo shouted: "Here we come." Wang Yuexiang said: "Go quickly, don't get caught in the rain." Xia Mingruo walked a few steps, then looked back at Wang Xin a few more times. The attic was tidied up by Wang Yuexiang. Xiao Shi helped Xia Mingruo hold the oil lamp. He looked around and saw the tablets and portraits of the ancestors of the Xia family lined up on two walls, and said with emotion: "It's such a big family, why is the surname Xia? " Xia Mingruo said, "Coincidence." Lao Huang jumped up to the attic lightly, meowed a few times to the ranking, rested for a while, scratched his ears and scratched his cheeks, and meowed a few more times.Xiao Shi felt a chill down his back, and couldn't help asking: "Is Lao Huang talking to someone?" "Old Huang, don't make trouble!" Xia Mingruo scolded, and said with contempt for Xiao Shi, "You are only on the same level as it." The two of them took the rain gear and came down. As soon as everyone was dressed and walked out, Xia Mingruo heard someone calling him, and when he looked back, he was a plain-looking young man with pimples all over his face. Xia Mingruo said, "Wang Xin, what's the matter?" Wang Xin ran over: "Are you going to that ancient tomb? Auntie asked me to come and show you the way." "It's not an ancient tomb, it's a village site." Li Changsheng, the team leader, corrected, "Thank you, young man, for taking up your time." Wang Xin seemed to be a very introverted person. He lowered his head a little shyly, showing discomfort to the old man's politeness. A group of more than ten people came to the ruins under the heavy rain for performance art, and found that it was a high ground only a few hundred steps away from the river, three or four meters above the surrounding ground, and about 25 meters above the river bed.The top of the highland is fairly flat, covered with shrubs and weeds, and the total area is about 10,000 square meters from the discovery of stone tools.It is not uncommon to see flat land in the mountains. If the local cultural center hadn't found out, no one would have guessed that there are cultural relics tens of thousands of years old underneath. There are only two staff members in the local county cultural center. The curator, Lao Wang, is in his fifties; the librarian, Xiao Song, is in his early twenties.Although the two men were incapable of digging, they obviously still had pursuits. Not only did they clear a lot of vegetation by hand, but they also drove hundreds of wooden stakes on the ground, marking out the exploration plan one by one.Li Changsheng patted the old and the young on the shoulder and encouraged them to say "hard work, hard work", and the two men muttered and complained that a bunch of bureaucrats did not support cultural undertakings. Ruins dug out.Hearing that Li Changsheng's students rushed to shake hands with them, they said that the tiger-wolf spirit of archaeologists in the new era is really touching. The rain was getting heavier and heavier, Xia Mingruo persuaded Li Changsheng: "Let's go back and come back when the weather clears. Anyway, no one will steal the ruins here." Li Changsheng looked around and said: "Back to the mountain and face to the water, with the left arch and the right guard, there may indeed be an ancient tomb in this place." He just said it casually, and no one knew that it would become a fact later. The next day it was still raining heavily, and the radio said that the rain would stop in the afternoon, but who knew that instead of stopping, it turned into a thunderstorm.From the Xia's house, the flat ground of the ruins could be vaguely seen. Li Changsheng stood at the gate and looked up for a day, fearing that something might happen.Xia Xiubai drank tea like a god, and even said: "Don't worry, it's easier to dig out when the water is soaked." Li Changsheng grabbed Wang Yuexiang and asked her if there would be a landslide there, but Wang Yuexiang couldn't guarantee it, so he sent his nephew to see it early the next morning.After a long time, Wang Xin came back and said that a small piece had really collapsed, and he also picked up a strange thing on the river beach.When everyone saw the bronze mirror in his hand, they all screamed as if they had seen a ghost. "This is from the Warring States period." Li Changsheng held up a magnifying glass and looked at it inch by inch. "You see, this craft is called wrong gold and silver, which only appeared in the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, but the shape of this mirror is from the state of Chu during the Warring States period. It is called wrong gold and silver. Fengniaoyunlei Bronze mirror with patterns. The local area belonged to Yue State in ancient times, so don’t underestimate this mirror, it was also an imported product at that time.” He turned the mirror over: "It's a pity that there is some rust, but it's not serious, it just needs professional treatment." Xia Xiubai said excitedly, "Show me! Show me!" Li Changsheng handed it to him and told him to be careful. Xia Xiubai snatched the mirror, using an excuse to find a place with good lighting so he could slip away alone, Xia Mingruo followed and said in a low voice, "What? Want to drop your bag?" Xia Xiubai said, "What are you doing? Don't ask too many questions, children." Xia Mingruo said: "Dad, be more honest. Old Li still thinks you are a cultural person when everyone is watching." "Turn your elbows out." Xia Xiubai said angrily. "I'm doing this for your own good." Xia Mingruo said, "This one is going to be shot. You're not that old bachelor Yu Wenji, you still have my mother and me." He forcibly took back the bronze mirror and handed it to Li Changsheng. Li Changsheng said, "Don't look at it anymore?" and then got together with the students to study it.It took a full hour or two before they came to their senses and asked why a bronze mirror of the Warring States period appeared in the wilderness for no reason?There must be something weird about that place!So I rushed to that area in a hurry, and when I arrived, I found that there was nothing abnormal except for a little landslide on the edge. Later, I wanted to search the river beach below, but the water was too big to go down, and I couldn't find the source of the bronze mirror after countless rounds.After lunch, the rain subsided, and they dragged Wang Xin back. Wang Xin pointed to a piece of mud and said that the mirror he saw there was only half exposed, and the color was sooty. He thought it was the lid of a pot.It has been raining continuously for half a month, and the water level of the Qinglu River has been much higher than usual, and the flow rate is also larger than usual. The turbid yellow water is rushing downstream in rolls, and the momentum is so loud that it makes people feel a little creepy. Li Changsheng and others squatted by the river, puzzled. In the end, Xia Mingruo was careful, and found a small hole on the high ground where the rainwater poured into it. The diameter was only more than ten centimeters, and it was hidden deep in the grass.They used the hole as the center of the circle to estimate the range, and they went down to Luoyang with shovels, and it didn't take long before they found the seal of the ancient tomb. So a group of students began to bury the teacher and apprentice at the Tai County Cultural Center, saying what is called a real cow. A real cow can find Neolithic sites ten meters below the surface, but they can't find Warring States tombs three meters below the surface. Everyone asked Li Changsheng what to do with the Warring States tomb, and Li Changsheng asked Lao Wang, "What do you think?" Curator Wang said decisively: "Dig!" Li Changsheng waved his hands and said, "Don't be restless. If the work of archaeology is not prudent, it will be a real sabotage." He saw Xia Mingruo and Xiao Shi still tirelessly touching the river, so he called out: "Come up quickly, the water!" Big, don't get washed away!" Unexpectedly, those two boys suddenly shouted: "There is more! There is more!" Li Changsheng asked: "What else?" The two lifted something the size of a TV from the water and shouted, "Amazing! This time it's a big one!" Seeing that it was getting dark, Li Changsheng commanded: "Everyone come up! Go back to the tea house! Bring your things!" The tea farm often had power outages, and today was no exception. Wang Yuexiang waited for them at the door with a flashlight. Everyone didn't care about getting wet or eating, and quickly formed a circle under the oil lamp.The object was not light, but the hard shell on the outside was the most important thing. Li Changsheng scratched off a corner with his hands and found that the inside was sealed with wax. After peeling off the wax again, the black and red surface was exposed, and he realized that it was lacquerware. Xia Xiubai urged aside, "Take it off and have a look, don't be reluctant." It was rare for Li Changsheng to agree. He squinted his old eyes and operated it for more than an hour before everyone was lucky enough to witness the true face of the Lushan Mountain Painted Tiger-shaped Box of the Warring States Painted Music and Dance Troupe. The box is only the size of a teacup when it is peeled off. The ancients were really idle, wrapping it layer after layer. Since it is a box, it can be opened.Li Changsheng carefully scraped off the wax seal, took the lid of the box with one hand, and the body of the box with the other, and opened a crack slightly with force.Everyone was very excited, and held up the oil lamp to light it. Unexpectedly, the old man glanced into the crack, and then suddenly closed the box again, with a strange smile on his face. "What's wrong?" Xia Mingruo asked. "Interesting, interesting," said the old man, "get the wax and seal the box again!" "What's the matter, teacher?" Everyone was anxious. Unexpectedly, the old man was determined to show off, and he kept asking for wax.Xia Mingruo found a few candles and handed them to him, and the old man sealed the box tightly by himself, and said, "Don't open it at will, it's a very delicate and dangerous thing, it's very valuable for research, it's better The best way is to keep it as it is.” He greeted: "Let's go, let's eat quickly, wash up and sleep after eating, don't be curious." How could it be possible not to be curious? Xia Mingruo and the others sat with the box for half the night and engaged in fierce ideological struggles. They were forced to sleep by Wang Yuexiang at two or three o'clock in the morning. Wang Yuexiang immediately locked the box together with the bronze mirror from last time. Entered the tea farm accountant's safe. Early the next morning, Li Changsheng announced that he was going to the county to report the situation. He only brought Lao Wang, the curator of the county cultural center, and the rest stayed where they were and waited for them to come back. Lao Li and Lao Wang have been discussing for one night. Lao Wang means to excavate the Warring States tomb immediately, and to excavate it before the Neolithic cultural site.Because according to the situation at the scene, it is only a matter of time before the tomb is exposed. Maybe it will rain for a few days and the entire tomb will collapse together.Besides, because of previous work mistakes, he didn't know exactly how many cultural relics were washed into the Qinglu River, and he must not cause any losses to the country. Li Changsheng knew that what he said was reasonable, but the excavation of ancient tombs could not be decided by just one or two people, it had to be demonstrated. Time was running out, so they took the bus that only had one class a day and went to the county seat.When they arrived at the county seat, they first went to see the deputy county magistrate in charge of culture. The deputy county magistrate took them very seriously and took them to see the county magistrate.The high-ranking county magistrate during the "Cultural Revolution" was not interested in ancient cultural sites. He was very happy when he heard that there was a tomb, and immediately swiped his pen and said: "Dig it!" Li said: "Wait for me! Let's contact the province immediately and ask the expert team to come down first." Later they waited for the expert team in the county, and then I won't go into details, but said that the tea farm is here. The old accountant in the tea farm is almost sixty years old, and he is also deeply myopic. Since he locked two treasures in the safe, he can't eat or sleep. Holding the safe key is like carrying a soldering iron, and he is restless.Wang Yuexiang couldn't stand it anymore and said, "Give me the key!" She is a woman's family, and she always locks valuables in the chest of drawers, and then locks the door, which is also the habit of rural people, guarding against gentlemen rather than villains, so the key was stolen after only one night.When everyone found it and went to check, the safe was locked well, but the tiger-shaped lacquer box and bronze mirror inside were missing. Wang Yuexiang was so frightened that she squatted down and fell to the ground, shouting: "Report the crime, report it quickly!" Xia Xiubai and Xia Mingruo looked at her with helpless and funny expressions, and said, "Report the crime? You don't regret it?" Wang Yuexiang scolded: "You father and son are really not good people. It's okay to be nervous at ordinary times, but you are still making fun of me at this time!" Xiao Shi was also very flustered, and asked Xia Mingruo, "What? Do you have a clue?" Xia Mingruo said: "Then there's no need to ask. If Wang Xin didn't get it, I'll take my mother's surname!" Xia Xiubai hurriedly said that I also have my mother's surname, and my mother's surname is Bai. The name "Bai Xiubai" is really enough to make people feel ashamed for half a lifetime. Wang Yuexiang didn't believe it: "Wang Xin is such a good boy, it's impossible to do this."