Chapter 79: Original work? Journey to the West original manuscript?
It is "colleagues" rather than "peers", a noun rather than a verb.
Jia Wenyan hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded.
Although she knew in her heart why she nodded, it was not because she was really confident, but because she knew that in the short term there was no way for them to prevent the embroidery from being weathered when it was unearthed.
Or in other words, an embroidery scroll that has been buried underground for hundreds of years, even without considering the impact after being unearthed, is unlikely to be intact.
Jia Wenyan used one "reason" after another to convince herself.
She watched with great nervousness as the archaeological team members excavated the site bit by bit.
Unlike Jia Wenyan and Xu Yonghe, the two insiders, the staff of the archaeological team only knew that the ancestors of Yong'an Pawnshop had left a hint that an embroidered pattern was buried in the corner of the yard of Yong'an Pawnshop.
Although this was just a word of mouth, due to the history of Yong'an Pawnshop and Xu Yonghe's status in the circle, the staff of the archaeological team were still very alert.
After all, this is Xian'an. It is not surprising that there are so many good things buried under the ground of an antique-level cultural relics shop.
To be honest, if it weren't for the background of Yong'an Pawnshop itself, the archaeological team in Xian'an City might even have thought about whether to raze the entire Yong'an Pawnshop and start excavation.
In their eyes, the possibility of an SSR being revealed in Yong'an is significantly higher than in other regions.
Other tombs may have a value ladder, but the items that can be pawned in Yong'an are obviously not cheap goods.
Moreover, according to Xu Yonghe, this is a secret code deliberately passed down by the ancestors of Yong'an.
The value of this thing can definitely be described as a "treasure".
Although this kind of cultural relic clearly has the meaning of a "family heirloom", according to the law it will only belong to the heir of Yong'an Pawnshop, that is, Xu Yonghe.
But as an archaeologist, who wouldn’t want to see the cultural relics that were buried separately as heirlooms in Yong’an?
They even suspected that there might be some "rare items" such as a whole box of gold bars in it.
However, it didn't take long before, as they dug step by step, they dug out that hint of rust in a nearly five-meter-deep pit accompanied by an impenetrable crisp sound.
At the excavator's shout, all the staff on site rushed to the pit entrance as soon as possible.
"It's a bronze artifact. It looks like a bronze box that is about one cubic meter in size."
"Quickly send the crane over here."
"A one cubic meter bronze box? Isn't it an embroidery painting?"
Jia Wenyan looked in Xu Yonghe's direction in confusion.
As an insider, according to the spirits of the artifacts, what is buried underground in Yong'an should be a scroll of embroidery painting.
She could understand why people of that era chose to use bronze as an outer layer of protection for burials, but wouldn't a one-cubic-meter bronze box be a little too big?
One cubic meter. Based on the thickness of the cloth, how big a painting would have to be to require such a big box?
That was an embroidery painting from hundreds of years ago.
Hundreds of years ago... Although Donghuang's textile technology originated very early.
But it was really unlikely that anyone would produce such a large piece of embroidery cloth in that era.
Even if there are more "protective layers" in here, it is impossible to use such a large box.
Although the cost of embroidery paintings themselves cannot compare with gold, silver and jade ornaments, paintings are not patchwork quilts.
Logically speaking, no one would use a patchwork approach to put together a painting.
What's more, Jia Wenyan remembered that there should be only one spirit weapon in it.
Could it be that...
Jia Wenyan: "Master's wife, this isn't... an entire Journey to the West embroidery, is it?"
Jia Wenyan counted on her fingers and figured out that although the story of Journey to the West was long, it would not be impossible to make it a reality if the original author had only described the key scenes in each chapter.
The scrolls are bound into books and form a complete embroidered version of "Journey to the West".
If such a work is well-made, it is indeed qualified to be a secondary creation and to derive its own spirit.
When Jia Wenyan thought of this, she hurried forward as well.
Others may need a long time to mine, but for Jia Wenyan, she can communicate with it by awakening the spirit of the weapon.
Even though this artifact spirit may have lost its powerful ability after being buried for a long time due to the aging of the embroidery itself, since it is just dormant, it should be able to have a conversation with her, or even for a period of time.
At worst, she could at least use the power of the Golden Eyes of Time to detect the image of the other party's spirit.
However, who would have thought that when she began to try to use her spiritual power, what she saw was not the "human-shaped spirit" she had expected, but a whole group of very vague energy bodies.
Its energy was far greater than any other spirit weapon she had seen so far.
She made a simple comparison of the injured weapon spirits she had encountered in the past, using the state of the red jade when she was repairing it as a reference.
Then the energy ball at this moment has at least ten times the energy of the ruby.
Logically speaking, energy of this magnitude should be more than enough for the spirit to maintain its form.
And if she remembered correctly, there should be no way to maintain the accumulation of energy before the weapon spirit formed a whole.
This is also the reason why most weapon spirits will gradually dissipate after the main body is damaged. But the energy in front of him not only did not dissipate, but even continued to burst out with a thriving vitality.
Jia Wenyan couldn't figure out the reason.
She could only wait with the surrounding staff for the crane to lift the bronze box... or box in front of them from the pit.
"Ms. Xu, Dean Jia, who of you will open the ..."
After the bronze box landed on the ground, the leader of the archaeological team immediately turned the topic to the woman who was at the scene.
Although these were things dug out by their archaeological team, according to the law they are the heritage of the Yong'an Pawnshop.
This is Xu Yonghe's personal property. Even though he is not a technical technician, he has Jia Wenyan as his "apprentice".
Whether to make it public or not ultimately depends on the opinions of the two people.
Since Xu Yonghe chose to start excavation at this time, he naturally had no intention of hiding it from others.
Xu Yonghe: "Wen Yan, are you ready?"
"Understood. Captain Lin, let's get ready to unpack."
After Jia Wenyan finished speaking, she put on her protective gear and tightened her right hand which was holding the toolbox.
After all, it was an old object that was hundreds of years old, and opening the bronze box was much more difficult than they had imagined.
The one cubic meter bronze box was already a very heavy thing, and it was also covered with various rust after being buried for many years.
At this moment, the interfaces of the box have long been stuck together by various rust stains.
They also thought about drastic demolition, but not to mention that they didn't know what was inside.
Just this bronze box that has been buried for hundreds of years is an absolute archaeological relic.
At that moment, all the archaeologists gathered around the bronze box, after taking photos and recording them, began to clean up and analyze the remaining patterns on the bronze artifact.
On the super-large jack platform, archaeologists are constantly conducting multi-faceted analyses of the "hanging" bronze box.
Although these lines have long lost their once clearly visible shapes after hundreds of years, people can still perceive the general meaning of these patterns from their outlines.
But it is obvious that the current information is not enough for them to analyze everything.
At least before they knew what was inside the box, all they could see were five long stripes on the side of the top box.
From their perspective, five long strips of lines of varying lengths, widths and thicknesses were all neatly arranged on the right side of the bronze box like the spines of a book page.
If nothing unexpected happens, it should be a document engraved on a bronze box.
But the question is, if this is a five-sided document, why did the maker of the box leave irregular "strips" of different shapes on the edge of the document?
They have postulated that the differences in the patterns were the result of corrosion and wear after being buried for many years.
But before they could figure out the reason, the atmosphere on site entered the next stage as the rust on the sealed area was cleaned.
Instantly, everyone at the scene held their breath as the crane worked.
They wanted to see what this cultural relic, which represented the top collection of Yong'an, was made of.
However, not long after, the next second when the lid of the bronze box was lifted up by the crane.
Everyone at the scene, under the protection of goggles, saw with their own eyes the 50-centimeter-thick silk cloth debris inside the box.
"Is this... cloth?"
"No, it's gold thread."
Captain Lin: "Golden thread?"
Upon hearing this, everyone at the scene looked at Xu Yonghe, who was leaning on the work desk alone in the back row, with confusion.
Captain Lin: "Ms. Xu, do you mean that everything in here is gold thread?"
"Yes, to be precise, it is a set of pictures and original books embroidered with gold thread."
"I once heard my ancestors mention this, saying that Yong'an Pawnshop received a particularly representative work by a famous author."
"However, the papermaking technology at that time was not very advanced, and the original manuscript had been more or less damaged over the years."
"So Yong'an's ancestors came up with a solution: to preserve the entire book by embroidering it with gold thread."
"And it's not just the manuscripts. Our ancestors at that time also embroidered illustrations based on the scenes depicted in the manuscripts."
Captain Lin: "So the book you are talking about is..."
Xu Yonghe: "Journey to the West... is what we at Yongan are working on right now."
Captain Lin: "You mean, the original version of Journey to the West is embroidered inside this pile of silk cloth in front of you?"
"Yes, but I don't know it very clearly. But in my impression, among the Yong'an Pawnshops, only Journey to the West should meet the standard of such thick and multi-layered silk cloth."
"But I always thought it was just a joke."
"But you'd better not hold your hopes too high, because if the description of the elders at home is correct, the pile of embroidery should only have completed the embroidery of the manuscript, and there should not be many illustrations."
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