Meng Qianzi’s excitement upon seeing the mountain gallbladder had almost completely disappeared after five minutes.
This wasn’t a product that came with an instruction manual when opened: she truly had no idea what functions or effects this mountain gallbladder possessed, and it wasn’t just her—her great-aunt and even earlier predecessors didn’t know either.
That ancestral grandmother who had suspended the gallbladder was truly peculiar. When others left inheritances, they would meticulously explain to their descendants how many boxes of gold, baskets of silver, or plots of land they owned. But this grandmother? She said nothing at all, leaving only a cryptic verse shrouded in mist, breaking people’s heads trying to decipher it.
Jiang Lian said to her: “The mountain gallbladder controls the water essence. You probably need to take it out to understand how to ‘restrain’ it.”
While his words made sense, the great-aunts had hesitated and argued for a long time just about coming to “take a look.” If she were to recklessly take it away, who knew what kind of uproar it would cause?
Even she vaguely felt that some things were better left undisturbed. Like dominoes—seemingly pushing over just one piece lightly, but who could guarantee that an earth-shattering change wouldn’t occur somewhere far away?
She moved closer to examine it.
She sniffed, but there was no scent.
Wanting to touch it, her hand stretched out several times, only to curl back. Finally resolving herself, she extended just one finger to poke it while keeping her body as far back as possible, in a posture ready to turn and flee at any moment, making Jiang Lian both tense and amused.
Fortunately, after poking it, nothing unusual happened. She only knew it was soft, with a warm, soft feeling.
With this first poke as a foundation, Meng Qianzi grew bolder and dared to touch it with her whole hand, even gauging its weight: about the same as an apple.
Though she had never seen the ancestral tablet, she had heard the Water Ghost describe it as dark brown and hard, with even knife cuts leaving no mark. This mountain gallbladder, however, was translucent white and warm-soft, changing shape slightly with the pressure of her palm, then rebounding gradually like cotton to restore its original form—everything was indeed the opposite.
She called Jiang Lian over, wanting to see if an observer might have a different perspective, but he couldn’t make sense of it either. He even tried to pull at the mountain gallbladder, but the suspending cord seemed to have infinite elasticity, yielding to his pull before slowly retracting.
The two were at a loss, the scene resembling two bewildered children facing a toy they had never seen before, looking at each other, unsure how to proceed.
As they stood confused, a groan-like moan came from behind them.
It was Shen Gun, whose consciousness had finally returned. He groped around, shakily standing up.
Though the stone chamber wasn’t tall, for someone with no martial arts foundation like him, the fall had been truly terrible: without exaggeration, the moment he hit the ground, his vision went black, followed by countless little gold stars dancing—not randomly, but with surprising order, sometimes like tiptoeing, graceful little swans, sometimes like energetic men and sultry women performing a rumba.
His spirit wandered among these stars. He could hear every word of Meng Qianzi and Jiang Lian’s conversation clearly, yet understood none of it.
Having finally recovered, he struggled to stand, his body floating, his steps circling, with no sense of direction. Like a drunkard, he walked forward in a daze, not even noticing the mountain gallbladder, but staring blankly at the rock wall blocking his path: “Eh, what’s this? Withered vines… old trees… dusky crows?”
This comment reminded Meng Qianzi and Jiang Lian: after falling, their attention had been so fixed on the mountain gallbladder that they hadn’t carefully examined this stone chamber.
Like the layer above, this stone chamber’s walls also had countless curling stone hairs and crystal flowers, but with one additional, large and conspicuous feature.
At first glance, it looked like a giant painting hung there, approximately two meters high and over three meters long. But looking carefully, one could tell it wasn’t a painting: it was countless thin, withered vines, curled and entangled, filling this rectangular “frame,” like countless tangled threads, forming no discernible image. It had no relation to “old trees” or “dusky crows”—Shen Gun had probably recited those words out of habit, being so familiar with the poem.
Shen Gun blurted out: “A covering! This must be a covering! Look how neat and square it is—there must be something underneath! These withered vines are covering it, hiding something!”
Meng Qianzi’s heart began to race as she walked over in a few steps.
She also felt that, since a mountain gallbladder was suspended here, there had to be some explanation. Perhaps beneath this vine covering was an extensive written record, detailing the origins of the mountain gallbladder and how to control the ancestral tablet.
Shen Gun, with an anxious heart, bent down, sticking out his behind, attempting to lift the lower left corner of the vine covering. His original intention was to gently lift a small edge to see if there were any writings or drawings on the covered rock wall, but these withered vines had been dry and brittle for too many years and couldn’t withstand being lifted. Immediately, with crackling sounds, many fragments of vines broke off and fell.
Shen Gun was startled, a bit at a loss for what to do. Meng Qianzi, however, wasn’t concerned: “They’re already broken and can’t be put back together, so let it be.”
Looking again, there were no traces of writing under the broken corner.
Perhaps this area was just blank space—after all, whether writing or painting, Chinese tradition doesn’t favor cramming the corners.
Seeing that Meng Qianzi didn’t object, Shen Gun carefully held his breath and continued lifting, but another embarrassing situation arose: despite using the lightest force possible, these entangled vine branches were simply too brittle, hardly withstanding any pressure. With rustling sounds, another large patch crumbled off.
This time, a large corner at the lower left was exposed, but the rock wall remained bare, polished extremely smooth. Could the important text be written in the upper right corner of the image?
Shen Gun looked back at Meng Qianzi again: though they were just vine branches, this was Mountain Ghost territory after all, and with things repeatedly breaking in his hands, he needed to gauge the owner’s reaction.
Meng Qianzi’s curiosity grew increasingly intense: What was the logic in carefully crafting a vine covering to conceal a blank rock wall?
She reassured Shen Gun: “It’s fine, not your fault. Let’s lift a bit more and see. If anything happens, I’ll take responsibility.”
Shen Gun exhaled and reached up to lift again. Jiang Lian, seeing his cautious and fearful demeanor, found it quite amusing. He suddenly stepped forward and reached out to pull at those vine branches: “If we want to look, let’s look thoroughly. Why waste time being so hesitant?”
His pull was truly like “breaking down the withered and pulling out the rotten.” In an instant, the crackling sounds of breaking were constant, wood chips flew everywhere, and fine dust was scattered, causing people to cough. Shen Gun felt a pang of distress, like a careful archaeologist who can’t stand outsiders digging and shoveling carelessly, and immediately became anxious, repeatedly shouting: “Stop! Stop!”
Jiang Lian stopped, lightly dusted off his hands, and stepped back.
Looking intently, almost more than half of the vine covering had been torn away, yet the exposed rock wall remained empty—there was no need to remove the rest. This rock wall truly had no content.
Shen Gun’s mind buzzed, his throat extremely dry: how could this be? Such a large area, so conspicuous, clearly meant to express something… No, there must be something he hadn’t considered.
He heard Meng Qianzi’s voice drift into his ears: “It’s empty?”
Then came Jiang Lian’s voice: “Yes, there are just these withered vines, one entangled with another, like knots.”
Knots?
A flash of insight struck Shen Gun’s mind. He hurried forward to look. This “painting” of two by three meters had a “frame,” meaning when initially carved, the painting area was slightly recessed into the rock wall, leaving a long strip-shaped frame around the edges.
He suddenly realized, with such heartache as if a piece of flesh had been carved from him, nearly spitting out a mouthful of old blood, and shouted: “Wrong! We were wrong!”
He turned to look at the two, beating his chest and stamping his feet, first pointing at himself: “I’m a big fool!”
Then he pointed at Meng Qianzi: “You…”
Meng Qianzi rolled her eyes: “Do you want to die?”
Shen Gun adapted quickly, shifting his finger toward Jiang Lian: “You’re the second fool!”
Jiang Lian replied: “First, explain yourself clearly, then you can label me whatever you want.”
Shen Gun gritted his teeth: Fine, he would explain clearly and let these two know what a grave error they had made unintentionally.
He pointed to the frame: “We all made the mistake of presumption and preconception, similar to ‘darkness under the lamp.’ Seeing these dense vine branches, we assumed it was a cover with something hidden underneath.”
“But in fact, there’s nothing underneath, which doesn’t make sense, because this frame was deliberately carved out. This means this painting area is indeed conveying some kind of information, but where is that information?”
“It’s the vine branches themselves! It’s them!”
“I didn’t realize it at first, but then I heard two words: ‘knots’—what do knots remind you of? Aren’t these entangled vine branches forming many knots? It’s quipu! This is quipu!”
Meng Qianzi’s heart jolted: “Quipu?”
“Yes,” Shen Gun was almost in tears. He sniffled, his voice nearly breaking with emotion, “I know history teachers, when mentioning quipu, would mock ancient people for being too stupid: tying one knot for buying a cow, two knots for borrowing money, three knots for making a friend, and after a year, looking at all these knots and forgetting what they meant.”
“But think carefully, were ancient people really that stupid? The Yellow Emperor invented the south-pointing chariot, Leizu raised silkworms and extracted silk, and Fu Xi created the Taiji and Eight Trigrams—modern people still can’t fully understand those trigram principles. Would they be so foolish as to record things with just one or two knots?”
“Quipu must have had a complex system of knotting techniques that we simply don’t understand. Those vine branches just now, there were many of them, at least a hundred, entangled and knotted. I dare say it must have been a lengthy narrative describing something important to us.”
“If it wasn’t important, it wouldn’t be placed in such a secluded cliff, requiring not just descending nine mountain levels but also fighting a tongue and going down another level. But little Lian-Lian with his crab-foot cat paws!”
He pointed at Jiang Lian, his finger trembling with excitement: “Why did you pull so forcefully? We could have just lifted a bit more to see… We could have preserved a large portion, but now there’s only this little bit left…”
At this point, he covered his chest, experiencing heart-wrenching pain.
So that was it. It sounded quite logical. Jiang Lian was silent for a moment: “The characters for ‘gallbladder’ and ‘spirit’ outside this peak were created by Cangjie. How is it that inside, we find quipu instead?”
If memory serves, wasn’t quipu even older than Cangjie’s character creation?
Shen Gun was furious with him, but when it came to “academic” matters, he couldn’t help but answer: “It depends on the actual situation. New things replacing old ones always take a considerable amount of time. It’s like now, even though smartphones are popular, old button phones haven’t been completely replaced—Cangjie was a historian during the Yellow Emperor’s time, and information spread very slowly in ancient times. Quipu wouldn’t have been immediately eliminated; it continued to be used for a period.”
Jiang Lian made an “oh” sound and casually apologized: “Then I was too rash.”
He added: “But anyway… we can’t understand Cangjie’s characters, let alone quipu.”
What kind of attitude was that? The implication being: since we can’t understand it anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s destroyed?
Shen Gun was so angry he nearly fainted, but wrack his brains as he might, he couldn’t find stronger words to condemn Jiang Lian. He could only appeal to Meng Qianzi: “Miss Meng, listen to this, what kind of talk is that? As a lotus petal, saying such things—expel him! He must be expelled immediately!”
Meng Qianzi glared at Jiang Lian: “Not knowing is one thing, but now that you know, you still make such dismissive remarks.”
Jiang Lian fell silent.
After a while, he began clearing his throat, a deliberately affected cough. One cough wasn’t enough, so he coughed again.
Meng Qianzi found it strange and glanced at him.
Indeed, Jiang Lian was coughing, but it was unhurried, his eyes, brows, and the corners of his lips soaked in a smile, leisurely, unperturbed, with a hint of slyness, as if waiting for someone to uncover something.
Meng Qianzi suddenly realized: “You!”
Jiang Lian looked at her, smiling and nodding: “Yes, me.”
Meng Qianzi burst into giggles.
Shen Gun’s heart was so pained it was bitter, and hearing these two carrying on with their “you and I” back and forth made him want to explode with anger. But then Meng Qianzi pushed him on the back: “Quick, go beg Jiang Lian. This quipu can still be restored.”
Restored?
Shen Gun didn’t believe it: “Unless he can make time flow backward, how can it be restored?”
Meng Qianzi replied: “Time reversal is hopeless, but if you know what ‘pasting spirit eyes’ is…”
She only said half the sentence, leaving the rest for him to figure out.
Sure enough, Shen Gun froze for a moment, presumably understanding the concept of pasting spirit eyes. He excitedly howled, rushing forward to hug Jiang Lian. He wanted to pat his back but remembered his injury, so he just held his arms up, jumping and shouting: “Little Lian-Lian, do you know how to paste spirit eyes?”
Jiang Lian said, “A little bit.”
Shen Gun only heard the word “know”: “Little Lian-Lian, you’ve saved your big brother.”
Jiang Lian also smiled, and in the end, felt touched: he had never seen someone like Shen Gun, who could be furious one second and ecstatically happy the next, not directing it at anyone, not for money or personal gain, but simply because “this thing is rare and has research value,” even though he couldn’t understand it at all.
Oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions still had traces to follow and could be derived, but quipu…
Even if he drew it exactly as it was, how would one interpret it?
But he didn’t discourage Shen Gun’s enthusiasm. He patted his back and pointed to the mountain gallbladder: “Alright, forget about the quipu for now. There’s something more important over there. Go use your intuition to sense whether it’s real or fake.”
Before he finished speaking, Shen Gun’s eyes lit up. He pushed Jiang Lian away with such force that he staggered and rushed straight toward the mountain gallbladder.
Jiang Lian was speechless, the hand that had been patting Shen Gun’s back hadn’t even had time to lower. He could only use the momentum to dust off his clothes. Having already seen enough of the mountain gallbladder, he didn’t want to join in the excitement again. Glancing at Meng Qianzi, he asked: “Let me ask, you’re not planning to take the gallbladder this time, right? If you wanted to, how would you do it? With a knife?”
That suspending cord seemed to have infinite elasticity, impossible to pull apart, no matter how hard one tried. But he intuitively felt that even using a knife to cut it might not work.
Meng Qianzi gave him a sidelong glance: “You think a knife would work?”
Saying this, she raised her right foot, gesturing for him to look at the golden bell on her ankle: “The Beast-Subduing Golden Bell has nine types of symbols, one of which is called ‘Gallbladder Severance.’ I suspect that to take the mountain gallbladder, we’d need to rely on this symbol…”
As she was speaking, Shen Gun called out loudly from the other side: “Miss Meng, this mountain gallbladder… can I touch it?”
His hand hanging at his side excitedly rubbed against his pants, just waiting for her approval.
Meng Qianzi said, “Yes, I’ve tried it, there’s no problem. If you like, you can even pull on it.”
Shen Gun sniffled, wiping his right palm on his pants once more before carefully extending his hand to cradle the mountain gallbladder.
Meng Qianzi found him truly amusing and was about to say something when something completely unexpected happened.
The mountain gallbladder, like a ripe melon falling from its stem or fruit leaving its branch, made a soft “pop” sound. The suspending cord fully retracted, merging into the gallbladder, which then gently fell into Shen Gun’s palm.
Shen Gun didn’t understand what had happened. He turned around, happily showing it to her: “Miss Meng, this mountain gallbladder of your family is so magical. I didn’t even touch it yet, and it fell into my hand on its own.”