They say that eight or nine out of ten things in life don’t go as planned. Shen Gun, with his exceptionally carefree and thick-skinned nature, had managed to reduce his disappointments to just one or two out of ten.
And among these one or two disappointments, there was one that particularly bothered him.
Traveling north and south, pursuing and investigating supernatural phenomena for over twenty years, he had amassed broad knowledge. He could talk endlessly about any strange occurrence—yet, he remained an ordinary person, possessing no innate special abilities.
For instance, he knew that the resentful energy of the dead could ring special bells, but he couldn’t understand the bell language at all.
Another example: he could explain how to breed, plant, and neutralize gu poison with great authority, but he couldn’t do any of these things himself.
Heaven hadn’t blessed him with this gift. There was no way around it. Genius consists of 99% perspiration and 1% talent. Perspiration is easy to come by—stand under the hot sun for half a day and you can collect a bucket of sweat. But inborn talent? You can envy it to death, but you can’t steal or seize it.
So, Shen Gun gradually established a guiding principle: if he couldn’t become such a person, he would at least insert himself into their world.
Therefore, he decided to befriend Yin Erma.
He bought some corn, cornmeal, a string of garlic bulbs, and red chili peppers from Old Shuantou, then cheerfully went to visit Yin Erma.
The houses here were all simple. Some were brick-built, but more were made of yellow mud-packed walls, surrounded by small yards enclosed with fences or wooden barriers. The fence gaps were sparse, offering no obstacle to hens or yellow dogs coming and going.
Yin Erma was already up, gargling in his fenced yard. Looking up, he saw the visitor festooned with garlic bulbs and red peppers, and smiled so broadly he couldn’t close his mouth. Startled, he swallowed the water he had intended to spit out.
He asked: “Who are you?”
Shen Gun said, “Mr. Yin, hello. I’ve come to sincerely make friends with you.”
When it came to making friends, Shen Gun always went straight to the point without any pretense. Years ago, he had been amazed by Wan Fenghuo’s information network. After learning that Wan Fenghuo was eating at a dan dan noodle stall in Chongqing, he approached him with a sack on his back and said: “Let’s be friends, shall we?”
Wan Fenghuo gave him two yuan. Afterward, Wan Fenghuo recalled: “I thought he was a beggar. These days, even beggars have such innovative opening lines…”
In his entire life, Yin Erma had probably never been respectfully addressed as “Mister.” He was stunned for a moment, then asked again: “Who are you?”
“My background is rather complex. Simply put, I’m currently conducting cultural research on Laozi leaving Hangu Pass. I’ve been investigating rural areas around here for several weeks.”
Saying this, he pushed up the glasses on his nose, then rummaged through his bag.
Here, a note must be inserted. Previously, Shen Gun had carried his belongings in a jute sack, as he always needed to carry numerous handwritten notes.
However, more than two years ago, by coincidence, he had stayed with a good friend, Brother Mao, and compiled his twenty-plus years of observations and insights into a book. The jute sack thus lost its necessity. Now his luggage was a non-woven cloth souvenir bag from an ancient town, printed on the front with “More leisurely than Lijiang, more pleasant than Dali,” and on the back with “Welcome to the Ancient Town.”
From his bag, he took out a moderately thick book with a white cover. The title was “Shen Gun Speaks,” with the subtitle “Twenty Years of Witnessed Wonders and Dangers.”
He said, “This is a book I wrote. Please feel free to critique it.”
The book had no ISBN or publisher. Those familiar with the situation knew that Shen Gun had “crowdfunded” the printing and binding from friends. The first print run was about ten copies. Except for one, he kept with himself for reference, all others were for private distribution.
But Yin Erma didn’t know this.
This person, draped with garlic and red peppers, was an author who was conducting “cultural research.” Yin Erma felt somewhat honored by his humble home being graced by such a visitor.
He enthusiastically unhooked the latch of his fence gate: “Please come in, please come in.”
Shen Gun was quite pleased.
Reading more and appearing cultured was indeed important—it made one welcome everywhere.
Yin Erma’s breakfast was simple: porridge with dried sweet potato strips from the previous year. With Shen Gun’s arrival, he stuffed two more ears of corn into the stove where the fire hadn’t yet died out.
Shen Gun sat cross-legged on the kang bed, first talking about Hangu Pass—how the pass commanded the central plains, the distant sighting of auspicious purple qi coming from the east, and the old man on the blue ox leaving the pass.
Yin Erma smiled innocently, stuffing tobacco leaves into his brass pipe, saying: “I know, I know. I’ve heard these stories since childhood.”
The pipe lit, he took a couple of puffs, holding the stem and gesturing in circles toward the outside: “This village is called Yin Family Village. If we trace our ancestry seriously, we are all descendants of Yin Xi, who guarded Hangu Pass back then.”
After a moment’s thought, he added: “We all have the surname Yin.”
Shen Gun felt a stirring in his heart.
“I heard that when Laozi left Hangu Pass, he gave Yin Xi a five-thousand-character scroll of the ‘Dao De Jing.'”
Yin Erma nodded: “Yes, yes. When the county officials came to promote it, they said the same thing—a famous work.”
From the stove, the aroma of roasting corn emerged, like tiny hands luring saliva to flow.
This Yin Erma seemed to know and agree with everything, yielding no useful information. Shen Gun’s eyes darted about as he decided to cast a brick to attract jade.
“But few people know that at that time, Laozi also gave Yin Xi a scroll containing seven evil bamboo slips.”
Yin Erma suddenly raised his head.
His eyes widened, filled with infinite surprise and joy: “You know about the seven evil bamboo slips too?”
Shen Gun knew this move had been correct: “Yes, I know about them.”
Yin Erma was so excited that he didn’t know what to do with himself until a burning smell came from the corn in the stove.
He scrambled off the kang in a panic, bearing the heat and blowing air as he extracted the corn from the stove. He tore off the outer leaves, placed the corn on a white enamel plate, and brought it over. Then he bustled around his cupboard, producing a plate of pickled peanuts and a small bottle of white liquor with two small cups, which he filled to the brim.
The reception standards had been raised a notch—it seemed they were set for a long talk.
“Mr. Shen, please tell me more about the seven evil bamboo slips?”
So Shen Gun said more, about the world’s earliest seven murder cases, the Phoenix Luan Clasp used for sealing, and how Yin Xi worried about the seven evil bamboo slips being unsealed, while Laozi guaranteed: “No one in this world can unlock them.”
He stopped there.
Yin Erma was just getting interested: “That’s all?”
Shen Gun said: “That’s all. Then Laozi rode his blue ox out of the pass. After leaving, there was no news of him. No one knows where he went.”
Yin Erma picked up the small wine cup and downed it in one gulp. His alcohol tolerance must have been low; just one cup in, his face was already flushed.
Shen Gun quickly refilled his cup: the more he drank, the better—alcohol brings out the truth.
Yin Erma said, “There’s still the second half of the story. You don’t know it, do you? Of course, you don’t know it.”
He climbed down from the bed, bent over, and rummaged beneath the kang, pulling out a cloth bundle with a red floral pattern. He gestured to Shen Gun: “Look, open it and see.”
Through the cloth, Shen Gun felt something hard.
Unwrapping layer by layer, he discovered several wide wooden slips, but none were complete. They had been burned. Dense, seal-style characters covered them. The slips should have been connected with hemp rope, but it had rotted away, leaving only the rope ends in the wood.
Shen Gun was surprised: “The seven evil bamboo slips?”
On second thought, that didn’t seem right—the number didn’t match.
Yin Erma chuckled: “These aren’t evil slips, just ordinary bamboo books. But they’re old. I won’t deceive you—if I were to sell them, forget tractors, I could get several large trucks in exchange.”
With that, he downed another cup of wine in one gulp.
Shen Gun hurriedly refilled it.
Yin Erma picked up one slip to show Shen Gun: “See this blackened end? That’s from burning. These things were salvaged from a fire. Have you heard of the burning of books and the burying of scholars? The burning of books and burying of scholars—Emperor Qin Shi Huang did that.”
Shen Gun’s heart pounded with excitement. This trip wasn’t in vain after all.
Yin Erma raised his cup: “So I said you don’t know. Back then, that book burning collected all books under heaven. In less than thirty years, except for those allowed by the Emperor, all other books were burned completely. Many classics were lost forever—let me tell you, culture is fragile. It can disappear just like that.”
“Then how were these wooden slips… preserved?”
According to Yin Erma, in those days, his ancestor from the Yin family held a minor position in the government.
At that time, Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s book-burning decree stated that, except for certain specified books, all others had to be surrendered to the government for burning. As it happened, that Yin ancestor was assigned the responsibility for this task.
One can imagine him dutifully destroying the books, and then, when no one was watching, rescuing these few slips he deemed especially important, especially important to the Yin family.
Yin Erma pointed to those wooden slips: “This section talks about the Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform. By the way, do you know why our village is called ‘Laozi’s Resting Place’?”
“Why?”
“It continues from where you left off. Yin Xi was worried about the seven evil bamboo slips being unsealed, while Laozi guaranteed that no one in this world could unlock them.”
He slapped the edge of the table like a storyteller striking a rhythm block. Shen Gun cooperatively poured another cup of wine.
“Mr. Shen, you’re a cultured person. You should know that nothing in this world is absolute.
Laozi was a clever man. He wrote a book thousands of years ago. Could he not understand this principle?
So, when Laozi left Hangu Pass and reached our Yin Family Village, the more he pondered, the more uneasy he felt. He dismounted from his ox and asked a passerby to help fetch Yin Xi.
This Yin Xi, though an official, was a devotee of Laozi. Upon hearing Laozi’s summons, he hurriedly came.
Laozi told him that the world is unpredictable and the future uncertain. Looking at the present world, he dared say ‘no one can unlock them,’ but what about a hundred years later? A thousand years later?
You must know that Yin Xi was someone who ‘mastered the calendar, was skilled in astronomy, and practiced the art of star divination.’ So Laozi and Yin Xi discussed building a star-observing platform.
This platform isn’t the large earthen mound for watching stars that you might imagine. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s on the hillside slope, very inconspicuous. At first glance, it looks like just a roadside stone.
But back then, Yin Xi went deep into the mountains and collected numerous stones until he finally found this peculiar stone. After determining the location in this area, he set it down. The stone’s surface resembles the Eight Trigrams, like two fish with tails joined. One half is slightly concave—precisely because it’s concave, it can hold water.
Speaking of this water, there are specific requirements. Though the water may sometimes look dirty, it only accumulates ‘rootless water’ that falls from the sky, like rainwater or snow. Moreover, it never dries up in summer or freezes in winter.
Laozi entrusted Yin Xi to arrange for someone to check this Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform every night. He said if nothing could be seen, that would be good. But if one day, stars appeared on the Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform, that would be terrible. And the worst would be…”
At this point, Yin Erma paused, took a few peanuts to accompany his wine, and composed himself.
Shen Gun couldn’t contain himself: “What would be the worst?”
“The worst would be when those stars align as the seven stars of the Big Dipper and continue to shine brightly.”
The Big Dipper? What’s so terrible about that? Shen Gun couldn’t understand. Privately, he thought the Big Dipper was quite lovable, shaped like a ladle. When surviving in the wild, one could even use the Big Dipper to identify directions.
Yin Erma seemed to sense his confusion and gently tapped the table with his finger: “Mr. Shen, the Southern Dipper governs life, while the Northern Dipper governs death. These seven evil bamboo slips all contain inauspicious, deadly energy…”
The Northern Dipper governs death… the seven stars of the Big Dipper…
Suddenly, an idea emerged in Shen Gun’s mind.
In primitive society, due to extremely low social productivity, humans had the most primitive nature worship, such as worshipping wind, thunder, lightning, and other natural forces.
Among these, one of the most important was star worship.
Could the connection between the seven evil bamboo slips and the Big Dipper’s seven stars be related to the most primitive star worship?
And the seven evil bamboo slips needed to be restrained by the Phoenix Luan Clasp. Phoenix, Male Phoenix, and Luan were auspicious mythical birds used as totems, representing primitive mythical bird worship.
The more he listened, the more it seemed like two forces balancing each other.