Chapter 53 Chapter 7 Petroglyphs

Just like this, one foot deep and one foot shallow, the further you go in, the dimmer the light becomes, and gradually, the eyes can't see anything.He intuitively knew that there was still a corpse under his feet, but there was nothing unusual about the rest. Niqiongzai seemed to be prepared, took out a flashlight and turned it on, then turned to greet us: "Zhiwu, Xiao Luo, hurry up and follow." Xu Zhiwu and I looked at each other with wry smiles, and hurried to him. I didn't want to say a word, and I didn't wear a mask, for fear that I would inhale a lot of those flesh and blood powder while speaking.Xu Zhiwu was fine, he could still talk to Niqiong, asking what Niqiong brought us in for.

Niqiong smiled mysteriously, and kept dangling on the cave wall with the flashlight on, as if he was looking for something. "When I find it, you'll understand it when you see it," he said. After walking two steps, there was nothing strange on the cave wall.Niqiong said to himself: "It's strange, it's here...why isn't it here...it's really strange." I saw that the cave walls on both sides were all made of yellow-brown thin mud, and I could even see the appearance of the brush when the thin mud was painted.There were so many bones buried in this cave, it was obviously carefully planned by someone.I have read reports before. Some people say that the mummy cave is full of prisoners of war from the Guge Dynasty, and some people say that this may be a sacrificial ceremony.However, Niqiong didn't mention this to us at all. He only casually said that the mummy cave was not what the outside world guessed during the chat, just like no one would have thought that their thirteen households were actually Sheng Sheng, the Minister of Tibet. The descendants of the old Ministry of Thailand are the same.

It was completely dark in the cave, and the beam of Nijun's flashlight brightened.He explained to us apologetically: "I'm really sorry... I clearly remember that it's just a few steps away... When you get old, your memory just isn't good." I didn't speak, just smiled and said it didn't matter.Xu Zhiwu followed closely behind me step by step, not daring to take half a step. "It's okay..." he said with a slightly trembling voice. Niqiong stopped, thought for a while, and said, "Xiao Luo, help me turn on the flashlight. I have to knock on the cave wall to find it myself." He handed over the flashlight as he spoke.

"Here..." Niqiong instructed me to shine the flashlight at the place he pointed, and I did as I said.He tapped lightly on the cave walls on both sides, and the cave walls made a soft, dull "duk-duk" sound—solid, without interlayers.Niqiong continued to knock on other places with a disappointed face, but it was still the same.He didn't make it clear what he was looking for, Xu Zhiwu and I were both confused and looked at his every move in bewilderment. In this way, Niqiong knocked on the cave wall and walked forward about a dozen steps. Where he reached out and knocked, there was a sudden "empty" sound. "Yes!" Niqiong was overjoyed, and beckoned us to hurry over, "Come here quickly, I found something good." He raised his fist and threw it at it while speaking, and a muddy smell came over his face—— Small shattered clods of mud fell from the wall of the cave.

"Come and see, come and come." Niqiong kept stretching his fists and pounding forward, while calling us to see in the flying dust. Really good stuff!When Xu Zhiwu saw it, he immediately shouted excitedly: "God, baby, it's really a baby!" After speaking, he almost put his face on the stone wall to look at it—look at the paintings and petroglyphs exposed where the mud clods fell off. Naturally, I am not as professional as Xu Zhiwu, and I don't understand the meaning of the petroglyphs displayed at the place where the mud clods fell off.I can only feel that the lines of the rock paintings are rough and smooth, and the scenes painted are grand and complex: there are old Tibetan women drinking butter tea while walking; there are young men carrying large and small bags; There are herdsmen who are waving whips and driving cattle and sheep...Looking over again, the scene changed, a Tibetan man wearing a crown was surrounded by many beautiful women, and behind him were densely armed generals and guards. The entourage holding gold, silver and jewelry... All the people on the petroglyphs have the same expression, beaming but a little bit confused, as if they are going to participate in a feast where the owner is unknown; Unanimous, they are all moving forward—as if they are all going deep into the hole.

The artist who painted the rock paintings is very skillful. Everyone, without any scene, can express everyone's expression, mentality, and status with just a few strokes. "This is what I want to show you." Niqiong knocked off all the mud shells outside the petroglyphs, then turned around and said that I took the flashlight in my hand, "Xiao Luo, take a closer look too, I think You may have some opinions." The petroglyphs are about four or five meters long. After the Tibetan man with the crown, another one was created like a comic strip.The characters in the painting are still the same characters, but their movements have changed a bit. The old woman drinking tea bent down and placed the tea bowl on a stone on the side of the road; It seems that they are thinking about what unnecessary burdens to get rid of; the pilgrims shaking the prayer wheel fell to the ground, tears streaming down their faces, as if their wishes were finally fulfilled by the gift of prayer beads; The sheep seemed to no longer need them, and his face was full of joy; the king, sitting on a gorgeous sedan chair, was lifted high by the guards, and he looked back at the people below him—concubines, guards, generals, and entourages , full of pride and pride.Except for the king who turned back, everyone in this painting is still walking in the same way, still walking towards the depths of the cave.

In the third painting in the past, it became very simple. There are only people in the whole painting, and all the tea bowls, stones, burdens, prayer wheels, cattle, sheep, gold, silver and soft sedan chairs are not there.The people who had appeared in the previous two pictures and countless densely packed people whose expressions could not be seen clearly and whose identities could not be distinguished all suddenly appeared, followed closely behind the king, and walked towards a radiant abyss. In the fourth picture, an empty city, ruins, desolate and far away, appearing extremely silent in the evening mist.

The petroglyphs came to an abrupt end here. I don't understand why, this painting seems to tell a story: a place where everyone lives and works in peace and contentment, there is a wise king, and then for some reason, pilgrims no longer pilgrimage, pedestrians no longer rush, herdsmen no longer graze, all People abandoned what they were doing, and followed the crowned leader to a place that was radiant but not clear, and then the city they lived in was turned into ruins. This... this... Thinking of this, I couldn't help being taken aback. Could this be telling the story of the Guge Dynasty?Didn't the Guge Dynasty disappear overnight like the mysterious Mayan civilization?

"Have you finished watching?" Niqiong asked us with a smile. I nodded, Xu Zhiwu was so excited that he completely forgot that we were still stepping on thick human bones, and said loudly: "I want to live here, and I want to copy this painting as it is!" "That's a good idea, but I'm afraid you don't have the guts to stay here." Niqiong said as he walked out, "Let's go, we'd better go back first. We'll discuss it later." Xu Zhiwu was splashed with cold water by Ni Qiong, but his interest remained undiminished, and he excitedly followed Ni Qiong and said: "Ni Qiong, this painting records a complete story, telling the reason why a city became ruins... I suspect This is Guge's story."

I silently followed and walked out, the bones under my feet made me really not have the courage to speak.So when I heard that Xu Zhiwu's conjecture was the same as mine, I didn't express anything. Niqiong affirmed what Xu Zhiwu said, saying that he also thought so. Getting out of the cave is much easier. We walked out in ten minutes. As soon as we got out of the cave, Niqiong said, "Hurry up and ask Tajie to cover the rock paintings in the cave with thin mud, otherwise it will cause serious accidents." More trouble." I kept silent in the cave, and when I got out of the mummy cave, I hurriedly made up what I hadn’t said, and first stated that my guess about the rock paintings was the same as Xu Zhiwu’s, and then asked Niqiong why he knew there were rock paintings in the cave.It seems that he already knew.

Niqiong also answered very frankly and honestly: "Yes, of course I knew it a long time ago, otherwise I would have brought you to see it. And I put the mud shell on it... But these can't be seen by outsiders, in case you have the guts It would be troublesome for big tourists to come in and see it, so I asked Tajie to cover it with mud.” "Could it be that there is a secret to this rock painting?" I thought to myself, "otherwise, why should it be covered up so that no outsiders can see it?" "Niqiong, you know the secret of this painting." Xu Zhiwu stated the facts with certainty. "..." Niqiong was silent for the first time, and didn't answer his question, and walked back at a faster pace. Xu Zhiwu looked at me helplessly and shrugged. Niqiong spoke politely and cautiously. Since he didn't want to talk, we naturally had to ask questions without interest, so we suppressed our inner curiosity and found other irrelevant topics for small talk until we returned to his home. Niqiong first asked his wife Tenzin Zongji to tell Taj that the rock paintings in the mummy cave should be covered with mud immediately, and then he sat down to talk with us. After chatting for a while, Xu Zhiwu still couldn't hold back, and took the initiative to bring up the matter of the rock paintings, "Niqiong, I really want to know one thing, how much do you know. The rock paintings in the mummy cave must have secrets. So what's the secret?" When Niqiong heard this, he was taken aback for a moment, probably because he didn't expect Xu Zhiwu to ask so deeply.He lowered his head and thought for a while, then said: "Yes, there is indeed a secret... If I guessed correctly, it records the sudden disappearance of the Guge Dynasty. Guge didn't disappear, and its subjects didn't die either. , but went to another place with their king." At this point, he changed his subject, "I took you to see it, and I also wanted to hear your opinions...but..." After Niqiong paused for a while, Xu Zhiwu immediately asked impatiently, "But what?"