Incidentes misteriosos que involucran a estudiantes universitarias

Capítulo 8

I glanced at everyone present; it seemed that more than just the two who had spoken up wanted to go. As long as this great mystery remained unsolved, it felt as if a mountain was pressing down on everyone's hearts, making it impossible to breathe freely.

"I'll go to Mount Tai alone." I stood up from my chair, looked at my friends with their somber faces, and felt a surge of warm enthusiasm for our shared ideals. I even cupped my hands in a gesture of respect, just like the ancients.

"It was a bit presumptuous of me to suddenly invite everyone from all over the country to gather here. Fortunately, it seems that everyone feels the same way I do. I was worried that you might think that whether this mystery can be solved or not has no impact on your current lives, and that I was making too much of a fuss."

Lu Yun glanced at me sideways. On any other day, that glance would have been alluring and captivating, making my heart flutter, but now it was tinged with desolation: "How could something like this have no impact? At least for me, if I don't figure this out, I'm afraid my cultivation will never be able to advance any further."

Judging from Lu Yun's appearance, he's not just failing to improve, he's clearly regressed. I felt apologetic and said, "Then I shouldn't have invited you."

“Such things, once they come, they come; there’s no room for avoidance. In my practice, this is called a calamity. If this mystery can eventually be solved, and the secrets of this world can be known, the benefits I will receive will be unimaginable to those who haven’t experienced it. Master Minghui, although you practice Buddhism and Buddhist principles, I’m afraid you’re facing the same challenge as me.”

Minghui nodded.

This spiritual aspect is something I find difficult to understand.

Liang Yingwu glanced at Minghui and Lu Yun, and said with a wry smile, "I'm pretty much the same. If I don't solve this mystery, I'm afraid I won't be interested in any research in the future. If humans are really just toys, then what need is there for scientific spirit in toys?"

Upon hearing Liang Yingwu's words, Ye Tianjin chuckled softly. It seemed that his thoughts were similar to Liang Yingwu's.

Shui Sheng looked puzzled and asked me, "Actually, if this mystery isn't solved, it will cast a long shadow over people like us. I think you must have thought of that, so why did you insist on going to Mount Tai alone to investigate?"

"Mount Tai is just one clue. I believe that if this mystery can truly be solved, it will require the concerted efforts of everyone." As I said this, I wasn't very confident. Realizing who was present, I suddenly rallied myself: "Before us, others already knew about this mystery. I believe that for thousands of years, many people have silently tried to solve it. For example, the Hindu god from over two thousand years ago—of course, it's certainly not a god; and Zhang Ming, whom I met once. Their explorations must have yielded results, and some may have even solved the mystery. I would like to ask everyone to use their strengths to gather these clues."

"I understand. I'll search through the ancient books and secret texts that might contain clues." Empress Wei said with a smile on her face: "Many earth-shattering secrets that were buried in the tomb have been brought back to light by people like us."

“I will try to get the full support of Organization X. Maybe we can find some clues in our dusty archives. Our scholars will also conduct research on various possibilities, but it will probably be difficult to draw a scientific conclusion,” Liang Yingwu said.

“Then I’ll go and look through the records of our lineage. Although illusion magic has a history of thousands of years, there aren’t many books on it. Most of what’s left are various exploration notes.” Lu Yun said thoughtfully, “Hmm… perhaps we can ask Sir D for help. He was also very disappointed that he couldn’t see you last time.”

I was taken aback and asked, "Is that the Sir D from Nepal, the convener of the Asian Inhuman Gathering?"

The reason I almost lost my life in the recent "Ghost Flag Incident" was because Lu Yun went to Nepal to attend the triennial Asian Inhuman Gathering and couldn't immediately decipher the death omen in the tomb passage for me.

"Yes, for so many years he and his predecessors have hosted inhuman gatherings, and his influence in the Asian underworld is deeply entrenched. His reaction to this matter should be the same as ours. With his help, we might be able to find that Zhang Ming."

Liang Yingwu and Empress Wei both nodded slightly, seemingly already aware of the potential power of this mysterious Sir D.

I turned to Minghui and said, “I think another possible clue is human religion. Legend has it that before the Mahabalipuram ruins were swallowed by the sea, the elders of that tribe had contact with Shakyamuni, who was practicing asceticism. I wonder if it is recorded in Buddhist scriptures.”

Minghui nodded: "I think so too. I will look up relevant Buddhist scriptures, including some ancient Indian scriptures."

"I know you have studied other religions besides Buddhism, such as the Roman Catholic Church and Islam. Could you perhaps..."

Minghui looked troubled: "Although I am doing some cross-verification between various religions and Buddhism, as far as I know, apart from the Quran, most of the other Islamic doctrines have been lost in the wars. The Vatican does have many secret texts hidden in the Vatican, but how can I be allowed to look them up?"

Lu Yun interjected, "Sir D might be more familiar with the Vatican. There are also regular secret meetings in Europe similar to the Asian Inhuman Gathering, and some of the participants have deep ties with the Vatican. As the convener of this grand event in Asia, Sir D has also had contact with them."

"That's great. And Shui Sheng, you need to lend a hand too. Are you still able to go back now?"

This intelligent race deep in the ocean follows a developmental path drastically different from that of terrestrial humans, and their racial history is far longer. For humans, thousands of years ago is a distant memory, but for them, it's merely a few generations ago. Although their technology is less advanced than humans', their understanding of this planet Earth is, in some ways, far more profound.

But Shui Sheng has now become human. Although she still retains some of her original abilities, will she be able to withstand the enormous water pressure of the deep sea and return to her tribe?

When I asked that, Su Ying glanced at Shui Sheng with concern.

Shui Sheng gently patted Su Ying's shoulder and said to me, "It's okay, as long as it's not a long stay, I can handle it."

"That's good. You know the ocean best. There's something you should also find out: was there anything unusual about the Java Trench before the major earthquake last year?"

Liang Yingwu's spirits lifted, and he said, "Yes, that's crucial. That beam of high-energy particles won't appear out of thin air."

Shui Sheng nodded.

Ye Tianjin and Ye Tong weren't assigned any tasks, but since they were involved in this matter themselves, that's why I invited them along.

Although it was just a small gathering of a few people, the energy it generated was enormous. After tonight, the religious world, China's vast secret research institutions, the Asian underworld, and the intelligent races of the deep sea will all mobilize. Very few things can cause such a widespread upheaval.

I made a promise with them that a month later, no matter how much progress we made, we would meet here again to exchange the clues we had collected and discuss them together.

When we parted, Queen Wei kept me in suspense. He said that of the two items he had retrieved from the underwater temple in Mahabalipuram, the skull was normal, but the crystal ball was quite special. He would bring both items to the gathering next month and then show me the crystal ball's magic.

The look on his face when he said that reminded me of his older brother. In that instant, I felt that we were already very good friends.

Ye Tong had been insisting on going to Mount Tai with me, and I agreed. However, she couldn't get time off work right away. Her industry requires fixed working hours, unlike mine. This is good, otherwise having her around would have been too much of a headache, with her constantly chattering.

I seem to have an unshakeable prejudice against Ye Tong, and deep down I feel that this little girl will never amount to anything. This time, she provided crucial help, yet I still hold the same old view.

I think I might be a bit of a chauvinist. But why do I feel so much respect for Lu Yun, who is much younger than me?

Tianwai Village is located at the southern foot of Mount Tai. At 6:20 a.m. on April 19th, I walked out of Tai'an Railway Station. I filled my stomach at a breakfast stall outside the station, found a small hotel, checked in, and finally arrived at Tianwai Village at nearly 9 a.m.

With more than ten days to go before the May Day holiday, there are already quite a few tour groups, which shows how crowded this foremost of the Five Sacred Mountains will be. Tianwai Village is the most concentrated area of vendors on the southern slope of Mount Tai. With tourists flocking to Mount Tai all year round, this small village has become an indispensable part of the local economy.

I wandered among the various vendors and shops. Many places sold rubbings. According to regulations, the inscriptions on Mount Tai are protected and cannot be rubbed casually. However, since the Qin Dynasty's Fengshan ceremony, Mount Tai has countless historical sites, making it impossible to regulate them all. Except for some larger steles and stone carvings that are difficult to rub, rubbings can generally be found in this Tianwai Village.

I flipped through all the thick stacks of rubbings. The shopkeeper was starting to wonder what this person was up to. If he wasn't really interested in buying, he had been waiting for so long; if he was, he was just quickly flipping through each one.

"These are all good things, but they've been tightening regulations more and more in the last two years. If you come back this time next year, you might not be able to see them anymore."

"Is that all?" I straightened my back; it was starting to ache from bending over for so long.

"That's not enough! Such beautiful calligraphy! What kind of calligraphy do you want? Tell me and I'll help you choose."

"I don't need words, do you have any pictures? Some rather unusual ones."

"Why would I make a rubbing if there are no words on it? The kind you're talking about doesn't have any."

“But a friend of mine told me that he saw a rubbing of an inscription like this in Tianwai Village a couple of years ago.”

"I've seen it, that's strange, hmm..."

I didn't know what the old man was hesitating about. After thinking for a moment, I reached into my pocket and took out a fifty-yuan note to give him. I originally only intended to give him twenty, but since I had a fifty, I had no choice but to give it to him.

The old man took the money with a beaming smile: "You know, rivals are always at odds. I can tell you about a place, but I can't say for sure if they have what you're looking for. However, their rubbings are different from ours."

"How are they different?"

"Mount Tai has 156 peaks, 138 cliffs, and 130 valley streams. While the inscriptions are mainly concentrated along a few main routes, there are also many wild steles on the peaks. Some people like to go into the mountains to find these wild steles for rubbings, unrestricted by regulations, and have found quite a few over the years, resulting in some rather unique pieces. But the truly good steles, the fine calligraphy, and the works of famous calligraphers aren't scattered in the wild; the most are found along the Jade Emperor Peak route..."

When I saw the shop owner start promoting his rubbings of ancient inscriptions again, I quickly told him to stop, asked him for directions to the shop that specialized in rubbings of wild inscriptions, and then hurried there.

It was a small shop, with all sorts of rubbings hanging on the walls. The shopkeeper was an elderly man. I told him that a friend had recommended this place, saying I could see some different kinds of rubbings.

The old man smiled and pointed to the items hanging on the surrounding walls, saying, "These are all treasures my son found in the mountains. Look, they're different from other families', aren't they?" As he spoke, he pulled out a large stack of items from under the counter and placed them in front of me.

Any enthusiast of epigraphy would have pounced on these unfamiliar rubbings like a gold rush. But I didn't even have time to decipher the inscriptions; I quickly scanned them but still couldn't find what I was looking for.

"Are there any inscriptions, not just words, but pictures on the stone tablets?"

"A diagram?" The old man frowned.

"Oh, why don't you just ask my son? This is it. He's the one who found the rubbings for the monument." The old man pointed to a man who had just walked in from outside the shop.

I gestured and then drew the approximate shape of the picture on the paper, temporarily using circles to represent the symbols. When I was halfway through drawing, the man raised his eyebrows and said, "I know, yes, yes."

"Ha," I couldn't help but laugh: "Let me see it."

"There is such a stele, but there are no rubbings."

"How could there not be? A friend of mine has seen it."

"I've seen it before, it's with me? That was a few years ago. I found this stele and thought it was quite strange, so I made a few rubbings. But no one bought them for a long time, so I never made any more rubbings. I don't know where the original rubbings are now."

"Could you take me to see the place?"

The man looked at me and said, "It's not easy to get to that place."

"I'll offer you three hundred to be my guide, okay?"

"Three hundred? That's a bit low. Give me another hundred and I'll go with you once."

"Okay. Shall we go now?"

"So soon? It's a bit late today. How about tomorrow? We'll have to get up very early. The mountain road is difficult to travel; it's not the same road you take to get up here. You need to be prepared."

The next morning at five o'clock, I waited for the motorcycle that was there to pick me up at the hotel entrance. The man's surname was Wu, and he sped off like a whirlwind.

At the foot of Mount Tai.

Here on the western slope, motorcycles drive along a small path into the mountains, where the road becomes narrower and steeper the further in you go. No tourists enter Mount Tai from here, and of course, there's no toll booth.

Xiao Wu stopped by a patch of grass, pushed his motorcycle deeper into the grass, and laid it down. It was only a little past seven o'clock; he would have to walk the rest of the way.

"Stay close, don't get lost. If you go any further in, your phone will stop working, and it will be a real problem if you get lost."

"Is the satellite signal bad here?" I parted the grass and followed Xiao Wu. It wasn't really a road, more like a path.

"The peak we're going to is called Suspended Edge Peak, and it's really hard to climb. The sunny side is a cliff, so you can only go up from the shady side. Even compasses spin randomly there. A few years ago, a geologist came and said that the geomagnetic field was a bit abnormal. Fortunately, it doesn't affect people much, except that you can't make phone calls. I heard that in some mountainous areas with strong geomagnetism, people get dizzy and disoriented when they go in, and they never come out again."

"This peak is probably too difficult to climb; there aren't any inscriptions on it. By the way, don't push yourself too hard later. If you can't manage, just say so and I'll give you a hand. This mountain path is tough for a city dweller like you."

"Why isn't there a monument? Isn't that what we came to see?"

"That one, let's just call it a strange monument."

As Xiao Wu and I walked and talked, we soon turned into talking and climbing, using both our hands and feet to climb up the slopes, clinging to the trees. By then, we couldn't see any paths anymore, and there wasn't even a clean place to put our feet. Luckily, I was wearing jeans, or they would have been worn out.

I have good physical strength and experience in wilderness survival. Although I was panting heavily, I still attracted a surprised look from Xiao Wu, who was also panting.

At 11:00, we stopped for lunch at a slightly gentler spot. I had brought wet wipes, and it took me three to get my hands back to their original color. Xiao Wu just wiped them briefly and started eating his bread.

"You can actually climb, huh?" he chuckled.

"It's alright, but not as good as you."

“How can that be the same? I roam around the mountains all year round. There aren’t many people in the mountains who can keep up with my stamina. It’s rare to find someone like you in the city.”

"I train a lot usually. We're almost there."

"Yes, it'll be another hour or so to reach the top. That rock is at the top."

I noticed that he first described it as a "strange stele," and then said it was a stone. Wasn't it a square stone stele? Anyway, we were almost there, so there wasn't much point in asking any more questions.

At 12:30, my jeans were almost unrecognizable, my hands were scraped by leaves and sharp rocks, and I'm sure my face was covered in grime.

"We've arrived," Xiao Wu said.

I was taken aback. We've arrived already?

"Didn't you just say it was at the summit?"

"This is the summit."

"You'd have to climb up there..." I stopped myself halfway through my sentence. It turned out that the boulder in front of me wasn't a mountain peak, but the "strange stele" or "stone" that Xiao Wu had mentioned.