The modern soul enters ancient Egypt
When Ding Wei opened her eyes in the scorching sun, the mechanical female voice announcing the subway station was still lingering in her ears.
She tried to raise her arms to block the glaring light, but found that the rough linen was rubbing against her skin.
The gravel beneath me was scorching hot, and the unique damp smell of the Nile River came towards me wrapped in heat waves.
"Princess Nefertari?" A cry of surprise with an exotic accent exploded above his head.
Three soldiers in linen turbans were pointing bronze spears at her, their bronze skin glistening in the scorching sun.
Ding Wei staggered backward, her heel hitting the stone tablet engraved with scarab patterns, and her knees gave way, causing her to kneel down on the sand.
The soldiers suddenly fell to the ground and kowtowed.
In the distance came the sound of wheels rolling over gravel, and a chariot with a golden snake head crushed the crowd.
The man standing on the shaft wore a blue and gold crown, a lapis lazuli necklace hung in front of his copper-colored chest, and his wrist holding the reins was wrapped in a lion's mane dyed ochre red - this was clearly the statue of Ramses II she had seen in National Geographic magazine.
"God Horus!"
The chariot stopped abruptly five steps away, and the man's deep voice startled the egrets on the river bank.
"The princess who has been missing for three days suddenly appeared in the civilian area. It seems that the guards of Thebes need a new batch of blood."
Ding Wei's throat tightened.
She remembered that historical records stated that Nefertari was Ramses' favorite queen, but at this moment, the way she looked at her like a prey made her feel a chill down her spine.
The soldiers suddenly lifted her arms, and when the thick hemp ropes tightened around her wrists, she caught a glimpse of her falling hair—her original chestnut short hair had turned into ebony-like, waist-length curls.
The diamond-shaped light spots cast by the palace dome moved on the ground.
Ding Wei knelt in the alabaster-paved hall, her forehead resting on the cold tiles.
She could feel Ramses' deerskin sandals resting on the tip of her nose, and the golden lotus at the base of the scepter jingling against the side of her neck.
"Look up." This time it was standard ancient Egyptian.
Ding Wei gritted her teeth and straightened up, meeting the Pharaoh's amber eyes.
There was a fresh scratch under his left eye, as if it had been caused by a falcon. This suddenly reminded her of the historical records that Ramses loved to tame birds of prey.
The young pharaoh suddenly reached out and tore open the fabric on her right shoulder, his fingertips brushing heavily against a spot below her collarbone.
"The scarab birthmark is correct."
When he withdrew his hand, Ding Wei heard the slight sound of the golden beetle waist ornaments colliding.
"But you were clearly dead three days ago when your boat was overturned by the hippopotamus."
A shadow suddenly enveloped the hall.
A white-robed man wearing a jackal-head mask appeared silently, and the golden scale scepter made a harsh scraping sound as it dragged across the ground.
When the high priest Amenhotep took off his mask, Ding Wei was so shocked by the dense tattoos on his face that she held her breath - it was the Eye of Horus tattooed with cinnabar and malachite powder.
"The art of returning the soul to its place?"
The high priest suddenly pointed his staff at her forehead and recited a long spell in ancient language.
Ding Wei felt her temples throbbing, and the rope around her wrist suddenly emitted green smoke, and the air was filled with the smell of burning tamarisk.
Ramses's staff, held between them, interrupted the spell. "That's enough, Amon. She has no dark spots of evil spirits."
When the Pharaoh turned around, the malachite waist pendant brushed against Ding Wei's bleeding knee.
"Take her to bathe and change. I want to see the princess awake in the council chamber before sunset."
When the maid Isis came in with a copper basin, Ding Wei was staring at the paintings on the wall in a trance.
The woman in the painting is wearing her visage and feeding figs to the sacred cat.
The little maid suddenly grabbed her hand, and with her fingertips dipped in olive oil, she drew a simple sun boat pattern on her palm, then pointed at her chest and made a paddling motion.
"Thanks."
Ding Wei spoke fluently in modern Chinese, and then realized that the other party was teaching her sign language.
Isis suddenly fell to her knees in fear, and the rose water in the copper basin soaked the papyrus screen.
Ramses' voice came from behind the shattered screen: "It seems that the princess has not only forgotten the language, but also needs to be re-taught in the most basic etiquette."
General Seti, who was following behind him, held the hilt of the sword and glanced at Ding Wei's wrist which was still bleeding.
The high priest's sneer was like a snake's tongue scratching across the stone wall: "Perhaps we should let the god Anubis judge whether the soul in this body is pure." The scarab brooch on his black robe suddenly turned its compound eyes, and Ding Wei felt something cold crawling up her ankle.
"The meeting room." The sound of the Pharaoh knocking the ground with his scepter shattered the strange atmosphere.
When everyone left, Ding Wei noticed the papyrus scrolls scattered on the low table. Next to a half-finished lotus painting lay a sharpened reed brush and a palette, with ochre and malachite pigments gleaming in the ceramic dish.
Ding Wei stared at the blue-green powder of malachite in the ceramic dish, and suddenly felt a tingling sensation in her fingertips.
The wound that had just been rubbed by the rope oozed blood, which happened to fall onto the unfinished lotus painting.
She suddenly grabbed the reed pen, dipped it in blood and paint, and drew crooked lines on the papyrus.
“Stop!”
The high priest's scepter came whistling and slashing, but was stopped in mid-air by Ramses who raised his hand.
Ding Wei bit her lower lip and drew the sun and waves, and added a egret flapping its wings next to it.
When she juxtaposed the matchbox-style buildings, which symbolize modern skyscrapers, with the pyramids, General Seti suddenly gasped.
The tip of the reed pen suddenly turned to his chest and drew a small heart.
This is the way of showing kindness that she learned when she was teaching hearing-impaired children in an orphanage.
The painted lotus was suddenly dyed red by the blood beads. Ding Wei used the last of her strength to draw a human figure with arms outstretched, and then slumped down on the stone bench.
Silence enveloped the hall like the mists of the Nile.
Amenhotep's Adam's apple rolled twice under his mask, and the scales on top of the scepter tilted slightly towards the feather of truth.
Ramses leaned over and supported himself on the stone table, and the gold chain hanging from the crown brushed across the back of Ding Wei's hand.
He stared at the painting that mixed hieroglyphs and modern symbols for a long time, and suddenly scraped off a smear of wet blue paint with his fingernails.
"This is not hieroglyphic script."
The Pharaoh raised his blue-stained fingertips to the sunlight.
"But the path of the solar boat through the waters of chaos is very accurately drawn."
As he turned around, his gold beetle waist ornament hit the corner of the table, causing tiny ripples in the paint dish.
Isis suddenly rushed to the stone table and made a scooping motion with her hands.
When she raised the pottery jar to Ding Wei's lips, her dark brown pupils flickered with the warmth of candlelight.
Ding Wei swallowed from her hand, tasting the sweet aroma of dates and honey mixed with the fishy smell of clay.
The young maid secretly slipped the fig into her paint-stained palm and quickly drew a crescent shape on the edge of the stone table with her fingertips.
Ramses untied the lion's mane knot from his wrist and threw it to the general. "Send someone to light tamarisk branches outside the princess's chamber."
His eyes remained fixed on the painting as he spoke, his thumb unconsciously stroking the lapis lazuli seal at his waist.
"Send her the star charts that the Hittite envoys sent as tribute before sunset."
The scarab on the high priest's black robe suddenly began to buzz.
Amenhotep picked up the blood-stained papyrus with his scepter, and the six golden scarab legs suddenly unfolded and swallowed the paper into its hollow abdomen.
"This isn't a way of communication that mortals can understand."
His voice was like a stone tablet polished by sandpaper: "Wang Ruo believes in heresy..."
"You personally confirmed her death three days ago."
Ramses suddenly grabbed the ceramic dish of paint, and a cascade of blue-green powder poured down onto the black and white checkerboard tiles.
"Now she can use blood to draw the trajectory of Amun's daily rebirth, and you call this heresy?"
The crisp sound of breaking pottery made Isis tremble.
Ding Wei took the opportunity to press the fig core into the wet paint, and used the juice to draw a simple calendar on the edge of the stone bench.
As she pointed at today's sun symbol and shook her head, General Seti suddenly knelt on one knee and said, "King, the counting method this woman uses is very similar to the markings carved into the rock walls by miners in the Sinai Peninsula."
When dusk covered the hall with purple gauze, Ding Wei was finally allowed to return to the bedroom.
Isis walked in front holding a hippopotamus oil lamp, and the light cast their shadows on the wall painted with gods.
When passing the kitchen, the little maid suddenly bent down and pretended to adjust her sandals, and stuffed a piece of roast duck wrapped in palm leaves into Ding Wei's palm.
Ramses stood in the shadow of the terrace, watching Ding Wei's strange way of saluting the roast duck with clasped hands.
As the night breeze blew the princess's curly hair, he noticed that she was using a reed dipped in water to trace the simplest hieroglyphic symbols over and over on the terrace flagstones.
The moonlight illuminated the scattered star maps at her feet, and the positions of the stars marked by the Hittites had been changed into strange geometric shapes.
"King, do you want to send someone to keep an eye on it?" Seti's voice came from behind the pillar.
Ramses stroked the scarab pattern on the lapis lazuli seal and suddenly remembered the painting that was swallowed by the golden beetle.
The blood-stained lotus unfolds its petals in memory, overlapping with the pale corpse fished out of the Nile three days ago.
He untied the golden chain behind the crown and threw the seal ring engraved with "Sword of Ramses" to the general.
"Have the scribe prepare thirty blank rolls of papyrus."
When the Pharaoh turned around, the malachite waist pendant glowed blue in the moonlight.
"Tomorrow morning when the sun boat rises, I want to see the princess draw more..."
He paused for a moment, looking at the huddled figure on the terrace: "Foreign symbols."
Isis squatted in the spice pile behind the kitchen, tracing on the back of the pottery with charcoal in the moonlight.
She carefully copied every unfamiliar symbol Ding Wei had written on the slate until she heard the ringing of the patrol soldier's bell.
When she hid the pottery shards in the straw basket filled with garlic, she did not notice a pair of eyes covered with spider webs in the dark.
Ding Wei stared at the moon's shadow swaying in the bowl of water and drew ripples with her reed.
She deliberately mixed modern English letters with the hieroglyphics, and when she wrote the third twisted "A", she suddenly heard a slight rustling sound coming from behind the clay pot.
Under the linen cloak sent by Isis, half of a papyrus scroll with a crescent mark on it was vaguely visible.
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