They are together, but their positions are different...
The first year in Beiling Village was a year in which hopes were ignited and dashed countless times.
The villagers are self-sufficient, happy and live their ordinary lives unaffected. We also persuade them that there is nothing wrong with staying here.
If I stay here, I won't have to do research anymore. No matter how good my research is, I won't be able to publish it. The so-called academic pursuits and fame will all become a thing of the past. I will just wait for the sun and moon to dry up my life and live a mediocre life.
But what if I don't stay? I can't leave anyway.
Not long after, Lin Hanzhen discovered that Zhao Hao, who was the most emotional at the time, became the first person in the team to accept reality.
While Wen Duo was secretly exploring the mountains and forests and still refused to give up looking for a way out, Na Zhao actually started openly dating Wu Heng and was discussing marriage, intending to stay in Beiling Village for the rest of his life.
Lin Hanzhen's heart is full of contradictions.
On the one hand, the conditions in Beiling Village were harsh and she didn't want to stay there for long; but on the other hand, only by being trapped here could she stay with Wen Duo openly.
Even for Wen Duo, finding a way out is still the top priority, but he is also concerned about her safety. He said that he brought Comrade Xiaolin out, so of course he must bring her back safely.
And so, by the second year, everyone except Wen Duo had given up hope.
Lin Hanzhen wanted to persuade him, but she didn't know where to start. She knew that Wen Duo had great ambitions and was ambitious. To let him live out his life in this remote village would be worse than killing him.
Her hidden thoughts were discovered by Wu Heng, who was also a woman.
Wu Heng explained that according to the custom in Beiling Village, after a man and a woman marry, the man must follow the woman wherever she goes. She had already planned to marry Na Zhaohuan, and even if the road opened up in the future, Na Zhaohuan would never leave. If she disobeyed, both humans and gods would be killed.
Lin Hanzhen almost overlooked the warmth of mutual help in daily life. If such a village wants to maintain itself from generation to generation, it needs to intermarry with outsiders, but what they are protecting must not be known by outsiders, so they will set very harsh rules and force others to abide by them. If they do not abide by them, they will be severely punished by being out of civilization.
Wu Heng meant that if Lin Hanzhen married Wen Duo, he could not leave as long as she did not leave.
Because of her words, Lin Hanzhen became distracted.
The education she received since she was a child taught her to be an obedient, sensible and disciplined woman. Now she is trapped in the mountains. Let alone completing the entire pre-marriage process, she can't even tell her parents.
Everything she was going through now was challenging everything she had experienced in the past, making her feel deeply troubled even though she was isolated from the world.
One day, as usual, she waited until the villagers fell asleep, then carried a wooden bucket to take a bath in the mountain spring.
The witches had invited her to join them, but Lin Hanzhen didn't dare. The witches had plump figures, and when they played in the water, their clear singing and laughter could be heard from far away. They were not afraid of being seen because others didn't dare to look either.
In contrast, she lived with her parents and grandparents when she was growing up. Every time she had a meal, she could only move her chopsticks after the elders did. If the elders put down their chopsticks, she had to put down her chopsticks as well.
Because she was never full, her body became a little skinny, and she felt inferior and embarrassed when she was with the other witches.
Wen Duo also had a share of this inferiority complex. When he was in school, he was exposed to Western ideas and admired the freedom and openness of foreign countries. Look at the beauties in Western paintings, which one is not plump and attractive?
So Wen Duo probably doesn't like her for this reason.
But this night, as soon as she entered the water, she heard rustling sounds in the woods near the spring. Among the shadows, it seemed as if a pair of sneaky eyes were staring at her sinisterly.
Lin Hanzhen was so frightened that her face turned pale. She shrank into the water and didn't dare to come out. She didn't even dare to go near the stone to get her clothes.
While she prayed that Wen Duo would come to save her, she also didn't want her body to be seen by any man.
Finally, Wen Duo came. He shouted, and the woods instantly returned to silence.
Lin Hanzhen was so frozen by the mountain spring water that she couldn't speak. Wen Duo thought she had drowned, so he immediately jumped into the water and brought her ashore.
She hugged him and cried, both because of fear and grievance, and because she finally gave herself to him.
The "hero saves the beauty" drama is an endless topic among men and women in love. Even if Wen Duo has no intention, he can't just sit back and watch when a woman cries in his arms.
That night, Lin Hanzhen confessed her love to him and expressed her long-standing love to him with tears in her eyes.
Wen Duo kissed her, agreed to be with her, and comforted her by saying that the conditions in the village were not good and the wedding would have to wait until they got out.
"Getting out" was his obsession, and Lin Hanzhen couldn't change it, but being able to indulge in the response he gave made her feel extremely happy.
After they got together, they moved into the same house.
When moving, in addition to daily necessities, Wen Duo discovered that Lin Hanzhen had recorded the conversations with the witches, and Lin Hanzhen also discovered that Wen Duo had drawn images of many ancient sites in Beiling Village.
——During the year when they couldn't go out, they both agreed not to stop their research.
When the clues obtained were pieced together, the information about the ancient tomb in the village that the witches refused to reveal gradually surfaced.
Based on the patterns on the ruins, the characters on the stele at the entrance of the village and the traces of gunpowder on the cliff, it can be judged that Beiling Village and the ancient tomb were most likely built during the Tang and Song dynasties.
"Do you remember this?" Wen Duo took out a piece of broken porcelain found in Mutao Village.
"Porcelain?" Lin Hanzhen stroked the porcelain fragment. Compared to the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty was the golden age of porcelain. "Is it a Song Dynasty tomb?"
"It's likely. Actually, I have another guess."
"What is it?"
"The Tang Dynasty had a relatively complete territory. Although wars broke out, they were concentrated in the north. With the transition between the two Song dynasties, the wars spread all the way to the south. Isn't Longji Mountain located at the junction of the north and the south?"
What Wen Duo said about the differences in the territorial boundaries between the Tang and Song dynasties seemed to have nothing to do with the dating of ancient tombs, but Lin Hanzhen and he were from the same major, so he could understand the connection after a little thought.
"Those with tombs guarded by someone are either from prominent families or those who have made outstanding contributions to the country and its people, whose descendants voluntarily guard their tombs... If such a person had been born in the Tang Dynasty, being buried in the heart of the country would have been of little significance. If they had been born in the Song Dynasty, Longji Mountain would not be the heartland, but... the border."
Wen Duo gave Lin Hanzhen an approving look at his inference.
There is a saying in the archaeological world that you can only dig up what you want to dig up.
Many times, the inferences about the ruins are based on some imagination, and only after the excavation is completed can the previous speculations be confirmed or overturned.
At this point, Wen Duo's idea of excavating ancient tombs had reached its peak.
But as soon as he expressed his idea, he was opposed by Lin Hanzhen.
She said that the country has regulations that if an ancient tomb is in an intact condition, it cannot be excavated without authorization; if it must be excavated, the situation must be reported to the higher authorities for a decision.
Wen Duo called her pedantic. The national regulations targeted imperial tombs. Beiling Village was remote, so it was likely not even a royal mausoleum, let alone an imperial tomb. Furthermore, no information could be sent out, and there was no way to report the situation.
Lin Hanzhen also said that when they were stranded here, the villagers gave them their own houses to live in and also sent them a lot of food and fruits and vegetables. If they forcibly excavated the ancient tombs, wouldn’t it be equivalent to digging up the villagers’ ancestral graves?
Wen Duo coaxed her, saying that as long as the value of the ancient tomb was proven after excavation, he could apply to give the villagers appropriate compensation and improve their living conditions.
After arguing for a long time, Lin Hanzhen still disagreed, but Wen Duo insisted.
Although they did not reach a conclusion, the process of the argument was heard by the Zhao.
Na Zhao did not dare to hide such a big thing and immediately told Wu Heng, who had become his wife.
Wu Heng knew from the beginning that the archaeological team had not come here just to take a look and leave. Their real purpose must be the ancient tomb that they had guarded for generations.
"Ahuan, what do you think?" she asked her husband.
"I don't agree with Wen Duo." Na Zhao felt a little ashamed, as he and Wen Duo were colleagues.
"Because you are already one of us?"
"Because it's useless. We can't get out anyway, so what's the point of excavating? What's the point of researching? Spending all our time and energy on it, and in the end, it's all for nothing."
"Ahuan, if one day the road is open, will you leave?"
"Didn't I promise you? I won't leave."
"Tell me why."
"The reason is that the road is blocked, which isn't a very difficult problem to solve. As long as our family, colleagues, and friends are willing to look for it, after a year, there will be some news, right? But there isn't."
"Are you discouraged?"
"I'm not Wen Duo. I can't see far into the future. I only want what's in front of me. It's useless for anyone to tell me what will happen in the future. Who can tell which will come first, the future or the unexpected?"
In fact, at this time, Wu Heng was already pregnant.
As the actual leader of Beiling Village, she decided to talk to Lin Hanzhen first.
On a moonlit night, Lin Hanzhen was invited to the village ancestral hall and saw a man tied up and thrown to the ground by the witches.
"It's you?" Lin Hanzhen recognized those sneaky eyes.
"We've caught him, and he can't move." Wu Heng handed her a knife. "You decide whether to gouge out his eyes."
Lin Hanzhen was frightened and took a step back. How could she have tortured anyone?
Seeing her cowardice, the man immediately shouted, "Witch, be wise! They are outsiders and must have ulterior motives. I followed her to see what she was doing!"
Wu Heng sneered, "Where in our tribe's rules does it allow men to peek at women bathing? Besides, whether they have ulterior motives is a matter for the witches to consider, not yours!"
Men in the village had a low status, so when he heard the witch cite the clan rules, he immediately knelt down and kowtowed: "Please forgive me, witch! Please forgive me, witch! I will never do that again!"
Wu Heng looked at Lin Hanzhen, implying that she was the victim and it was her turn to decide.
Lin Hanzhen thought, if this happened outside, and a woman was peeped at by a man, how could they publicly judge her? Not forcing her to marry that man was considered a conscientious act by her parents.
"Let's follow the tribe's rules." She also learned to bow, and for the first time she felt that staying here was not so bad.
"Come! Hang him up for me!" Wu Heng gave the order and hung the man upside down on a tree beside the mountain spring pool so that the spring water could illuminate his filthy heart.
After watching this trial, Lin Hanzhen couldn't help but feel sad.
She was not stupid and could hear the hidden meaning in Wu Heng's words.
In the village, it is not a fault for a woman to be looked at by a man, nor is it a fault for her to like a man. Only those who violate clan rules, disobey the witch, and try to find excuses to disguise themselves and deceive others will be punished.
Now Wen Duo is determined to excavate the ancient tomb, under the pretext that only after the excavation can he use modern means to protect the ancestral heritage more scientifically.
Lin Hanzhen does not support the excavation, but she also loves Wen Duo. Given her standpoint, which side will she stand on?
After Wu Heng executed the man, she turned to look at Lin Hanzhen with expectation in her eyes.
Lin Hanzhen thought that Wu Heng might have already known what Wen Duo was secretly planning.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
