Chapter 140: Pictures and Words_1

Jiang Yu was puzzled, "I remember the Neanderthals were ancient Homo sapiens from Europe, so how did they get here?"

The ever unobtrusive Professor Jiang explained, "This is not surprising. The 'Xuchang Ren' who lived at the Xuchang City Lingjing Site more than a hundred thousand years ago are the descendants of ancient humans in China and the Neanderthals."

"Although transportation was very inconvenient during the ancient Homo sapiens period, it seems that it did not stop their migration. Many races that now seem far apart had blood ties in ancient times."

Wu Zheng also explained, "Modern humans on the Eurasian continent all have 1% to 4% Neanderthal genes."

"The bodies found in the 'Heifang Site' have DNA highly matching that of the Neanderthals, resembling direct descendants of the Neanderthals."

Jiang Yu, looking at the very empty rear hall from which the bodies had already been moved elsewhere, pinched his chin and said, "I had thought that they would be descendants of the Western Xia Dangxiang people."

After all, the writing used by both was very similar.

Pei Yunqi said, "The Dangxiang were a branch of the Qiang Tribe. It is said that the Qiang came from the west to the Central Plains. It is estimated that the ancestors of the Dangxiang people had profound cultural exchanges with the ancestors from the 'Heifang Relic Site'."

Wu Zheng pointed to one side of the wall and said, "Look over here."

Only then did Jiang Yu notice the faded and peeling murals on the wall.

The first mural on the right depicted a group of people descending from a mountain, the second showed a rectangle above their heads, containing something that seemed to glow, along with a muscular person.

The third mural showed a group of people searching for something, and it seemed like someone had died in the fourth mural, with the others around them looking mournful.

The lines of these four murals were simple, but they were very expressive, and Jiang Yu felt he could basically understand the meaning behind them.

Nevertheless, Professor Jiang still explained, "The first painting says they came from the foot of a snowy mountain; they started out divided into three groups..."

Jiang Yu was surprised, "How can you tell it's a snowy mountain? And that they split into three groups?"

Professor Jiang, pointing at the mural, said, "Isn't it obvious? Look, this line represents the snow line, while the horizontal bars denote ice and snow.

"Also look, these people are clearly walking in three different directions; hence, we deduce that it means they split into three groups at the start. The people here are one of those groups."

"I..." Jiang Yu marveled, truly feeling that professions might as well be different worlds. He had not expected that archaeology professionals could discover so much information from these details.

Yet what Jiang Yu hadn't anticipated, and what was even more terrifying, came next. Professor Jiang pointed at a few dots at the top of the mural and said, "Based on the position of the star patterns, the place they started from should be in the middle of the Tianshan mountain range."

Jiang Yu looked at the irregular spots, wondering how on earth that conclusion was drawn.

Professor Jiang seemed to understand Jiang Yu's confusion and further explained, "In the absence of maps, ancient people placed great importance on the accuracy of star patterns.

"Just by referencing star charts, you can generally infer the approximate location they meant to express.

"Of course, with the passage of time, the positions of the stars may change slightly, but according to the rules of change, we can deduce the corresponding locations and it is not difficult to restore the star patterns from hundreds of years ago."

He continued to explain, "The second painting's rectangle represents the 'Dark Forest.' The whole painting signifies that their goal was to find the 'Dark Forest.'

"The two abstract figures inside the 'Dark Forest' represent treasure and a method to become stronger, or say, that there was a very powerful person in the 'Dark Forest.'

"The third and fourth murals suggest that they searched for a long time and a generation died without finding it.

"The author of this painting must have been an ancient person. We speculate it was probably the second generation that settled here. They feared future generations might forget their purpose, so they painted these four murals to constantly remind their descendants.

"The person who died in the front hall could well be the last member of this group."

"Otherwise, if it was migration, it wouldn't make sense.

"After all, just over twenty years ago, herders in the vicinity still saw them. If it was a tribe of dozens of people migrating, it definitely wouldn't escape the local government's notice, but we haven't found any relevant records in the area."

It's possible that until the last person remained, they were still searching for 'Black Square,' but unfortunately, 'Black Square' had long been buried under the sands.

Jiang Yu said, "That leftover document is more important than we thought, perhaps it contains the way to open 'Black Square'."

He then asked, "Can you tell from these wall paintings why they were searching for 'Black Square'?"

Professor Jiang shook his head. "There's no description relating to that, but we speculate that since they clearly knew of the existence of 'Black Square,' they must have either seen 'Black Square' or heard related legends.

"The former is more likely, we've consulted local scholars, and there are no legends about 'Black Square' in the Xinjiang Region.

"Perhaps someone in the tribe had come into contact with 'Black Square' and obtained great benefits, prompting the entire tribe to search for 'Black Square'."

Jiang Yu nodded slowly, finding Professor Jiang's speculation quite plausible. He continued, "What do you plan to do next with these clues?"

Wu Zheng reported back, "We're preparing to split into two teams: one team will continue deciphering the 'Heifang Cloth Manuscript,' while the other will try to find their place of origin, hoping to uncover more clues there."

Jiang Yu nodded in agreement with their plan.

Wu Zheng also took Jiang Yu to see the water source of the tribe, which lies in another direction from the front hall, leading down into a passage.

The passage was longer and went straight to an underground river.

The fish that the tribe consumed were actually caught from the underground river.

The underground river must have an aboveground section somewhere, otherwise there wouldn't be any fish.

That evening, Jiang Yu stayed at the campsite. After sunset, the temperature here dropped quickly. Although it was early summer, the temperature at night would still be in the single digits.

Standing outside his tent, Jiang Yu watched as the wind "whistling" billowed the tent and listened to the sound of the wind scouring the erosion rocks in the distance, he always had a feeling that he was in a different world.

"Team Leader Jiang, are you looking for me?" The speaker was Pei Yunqi, wearing black frame glasses.

Jiang Yu said with a smile, "Yes, come in and we'll talk."

He poured a glass of water for Pei Yunqi. "This afternoon, I heard from Wu Zheng that Professor Pei is not only well-versed in Classical Chinese but also has researched cuneiform and hieroglyphics?"

Pei Yunqi adjusted his glasses and replied, "I dare not claim to be a researcher—just a little bit of understanding, a little bit."

Jiang Yu responded with a smile, "You're too modest. I would like Professor Pei to share some knowledge about script with me."

When he had seen the 'Heifang Cloth Manuscript,' he suddenly realized there was a significant flaw in his upcoming plan, so he needed to talk to an expert.

Pei Yunqi took a sip of water, "There are actually two types of writing systems: one is ideographic, and the other is alphabetic.

"The evolution of writing is closely related to people's living environments.

"For instance, in the Nile River Valley, there's a type of reed that simply needs to be laid flat to serve as a natural writing material. Therefore, Egyptian hieroglyphics are very detailed, with each character essentially painting a picture.

"The Yellow River region didn't have such conditions. We could only inscribe on tortoise shells and bronzeware, so it had to be very concise."