Introduction 2

In 1935, in the mountains of Maolan, Guizhou, a Russian geological survey team took a photo in the depths of a karst cave.

The photo showed the fossil of a huge black tree that was embedded in the cave floor. It was about two kilometers long and looked very threatening.

The karst cave had a very high ceiling, so there was a place where the team could take a panoramic view of the whole fossilized tree. But since the photographic pixel technology was inferior at that time, it looked like only a huge pattern similar to black rock paintings showed up on the photo. They almost looked like Nazca Lines.⁽¹⁾

The shamans of the Yi people called this tree the Ancestor of Trees. The location of the cave was later lost, and it’s not known whether it even still exists today. This matter was recorded on the tusi’s grass scrolls in the local tusi museum.

The veins in the black rock were just like dragon veins, which had me wondering if dragon veins were also fossilized things.

There was also a strange incident recorded on the grass scrolls. It was said that the shape of the huge fossilized tree was very special, and after the shaman came back, he could see the shadow of the tree outside of his window suddenly take on this giant’s tree’s shape in the long night.

But every time he opened the window, he found that there wasn’t a single big tree outside that could form this kind of shadow. It was like the giant tree was sentient and had been peeping on him ever since he came out of the cave.

One time, he didn’t immediately push the window open after he saw the shadow of that tree appear. Instead, he looked at it directly and found that the shadow of the tree would twist slightly, almost like an animal.

The shaman was so frightened that he took the people from his tribe and went back to the cave to worship it. It was already spring at this time, and the shaman discovered that there were many small black protrusions on the giant black fossilized tree that looked similar to fossilized buds.

These things definitely weren’t there before, so it seemed that this dead, stone-like tree could still send out fossilized buds.

The shaman killed ten sheep there as a sacrifice, but later, when he returned to the village, he saw the shadow of the tree appear again at night. This time, the tree seemed to be very close. The shaman pushed open the window without catching sight of the tree, but he found that all of his sheep were dead. He realized that the number of sacrifices seemed insufficient, so he joined with other tribes and went to offer sacrifices again.

At this time, a feng shui master was passing by the area and happened to hear about the incident. After following the tribes over to take a look, he said that it wasn’t a tree, but a big fossilized bug from ancient times. So, he put a spirit tablet in the cave that stated that it was a god.

That night, the shadow appeared outside of the window again, but this time, it was in the shape of a person. This person, however, looked very strange because they had a big head, a long slender neck, and a huge beard.

The shaman still didn’t dare to go out, but he saw that the shadow was very close to the window this time. It even reached its hand out and started to open the window. As the shaman huddled in the corner with fright, he saw that the window was opened by a hand that seemed to have a lot of fingers and no bones. In fact, it almost looked like it had at least a dozen fingers.

The shaman only saw the person’s face when the window was opened all the way. The person’s face wasn’t human at all, but the shaman didn’t know what it was. Then, the person began to crawl into the room. At this time, the shaman saw that the person’s face was actually covered in that feng shui master’s skin.

Later, it was said that because that big bug was originally a god, it felt offended by the feng shui master’s tablet and killed him. But the reason why it kept coming to the shaman was because it wasn’t a male god, but a female god. And this female god was looking for the shaman for a special purpose.

<Introduction 1><Table of Contents><Chapter 1>

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TN Notes:

(1) The Nazca Lines in southern Peru are a group of pre-Columbian geoglyphs etched into desert sands. They were created between 500 BC and AD 500. Covering an area of nearly 1,000 sq. kilometers, there are about 300 different figures, including animals and plants. Composed of over 10,000 lines, some of which measure 30 meters wide and stretch more than 9 kilometers, the figures are most visible from the air or nearby hilltops. More info here.