Chapter 12 Astrolabe

With that said, Uncle Three took out two crumpled photos from his torn bag and handed them to me.

I knew that they must be photos of the pill furnace that Qiu Dekao had probably given to him. Considering how complicated this matter was, it was probably difficult to give a clear explanation without them. That was why Uncle Three was showing them to me now.

I took the photos and looked at them, noticing that the first one was of a giant pill furnace displayed in a museum. When Uncle Three was talking about it just now, I didn’t realize that it was as tall as a person. Needless to say, something that big really would have been impossible to smuggle out of the country.

The second picture showed the bottom of the pill furnace, which was covered in decorative patterns. A fist-sized bronze beast looking up towards the sky had been carved in the very center, looking very formidable. In terms of workmanship, it was top-class.

“This is the restored furnace at the museum, and the other one is the inside of the furnace,” Uncle Three explained to me. “The mechanism Xie Lianhuan found on the bottom was a very clever water inlet, which was used to add liquids to the furnace during the alchemical process. Liquids were first poured into the sides of the furnace, which were hollow. The alchemist would then turn the furnace lid until the decorative pattern on it was in a certain position, activating the mechanism on the bottom. The liquid in the furnace walls would then flow out through the skyward-looking beast’s mouth and into the center of the furnace, eliminating the need to open the furnace lid.”

I nodded in amazement, but this kind of mechanism really wasn’t all that special in China. Why did he say that it was the key to unlocking the silk book of the Warring States Period?

Uncle Three went on to say that the important thing here wasn’t the purpose of the mechanism, but the way it operated. Then he took out a magnifying glass and told me to take a closer look at the pattern on the bottom of this pill furnace.

The photo was very small, but when I carefully examined it, I could see that a bunch of tiny dots were placed around the skyward-looking beast. There were so many of them densely packed together that they could almost be mistaken for rust.

“This is…?” I asked, still not understanding what he was getting at.

“It’s understandable if you don’t know. Those dots on the bottom of the furnace are an ancient star map.”

“Ancient star map?” I paused. “Is it a map that shows the location of the stars in the sky?”

Uncle Three nodded, and then took out a photo of the pattern that had been deciphered from the silk book of the Warring States Period. “This is the most ingenious part of this mechanism. Since the bottom of the furnace is an ancient star map, when the furnace lid is rotated to the correct angle, the curved lines that make up the pattern on it will align with the six stars on the star map on the bottom and the mechanism will activate.”

I immediately thought of something, and then it dawned on me, “The two patterns align. So does that mean that the strange lines on the silk book are actually part of an astrolabe?”⁽¹⁾

Uncle Three nodded, “That’s right.”

The astrolabe was a tool for observing the stars. They were usually used because there were tens of thousands of stars in the sky, and they moved as the seasons changed, which made it very difficult to find the specific ones you needed each time. The lines on an astrolabe corresponded to the arrangement of stars, so as long as you oriented the astrolabe with the Big Dipper and turned the rule and rete according to the seasonal scale, those specific lines would coincide with the stars you were looking for.

I couldn’t help but gasp, that makes so much sense! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it just now! During the Warring States Period, the methods for observing the stars were actually quite developed. People at that time believed that the movement of the celestial bodies represented the movement of all things in the world, so if they had a thorough understanding of it, they could gain some insights into the secrets of heaven. These heavenly secrets often heralded changes in the country, as well as major wars and catastrophes, so they couldn’t be revealed to just anyone. That was probably why Tie Mian Xiansheng hid his own astrological observations in the silk book.

Considering how a star map was also found on the pill furnace, maybe the celestial phenomenon it depicted had its own special meaning, which attracted many people’s attention at that time. It seemed plausible.

Uncle Three nodded, “You’ve certainly learned a few things over the years. That’s right, after the furnace pieces were shipped to the United States, Qiu Dekao immediately discovered this secret. Like you, his thoughts also turned to astrological observations.”

This was a very exciting discovery. One could even say that it was the first of its kind in archaeological history. With it, Qiu Dekao became famous once more, but by this time, he didn’t care anymore—he was completely obsessed with finding the meaning behind the stars’ arrangement on the astrolabe. Based on how the pattern had been so carefully hidden, the arrangement of the stars obviously foreshadowed something serious, which couldn’t be known by others.

After superimposing the star map from the silk book with the one on the bottom of the astrolabe, he identified the six constellations, and then checked the ancient texts to find out what the meaning behind this star map was in astrology.”

However, ancient Chinese astrology was almost in the same class as feng shui—it was extremely complicated, some aspects were actually harder to understand than some feng shui principles, and there was almost no systematic data on it. It was impossible to figure out what heavenly secret was concealed in this encoded star map.

At that time, the only way to unravel this secret was to find an expert in the field, but they couldn’t find anyone in the United States. So, Qiu Dekao called on Xie Lianhuan again and asked him to search for an expert in China.

However, Xie Lianhuan failed to complete the task this time—in that era, those who knew a little about the “Book of Changes”⁽²⁾ or feng shui had all be sent to cowsheds,⁽³⁾ and those who slipped through the net were too afraid to open their mouths. Xie Lianhuan had to ask around in secret, which was very inconvenient.

The search went on for two years without any results. Research continued in the United States during that time, but they didn’t make any progress either.

Out of desperation, Qiu Dekao suddenly came up with another idea and turned his attention back to the silk books of the Warring States Period. He speculated that since this silk book had a star map, maybe the other silk books from that era had similar secrets.

So, he began buying up all the silk books of the Lu Kingdom in China. At the same time, he remembered my grandpa, who had initially sold him the silk book of the Warring States Period. Based on his experience, grave robbers usually liked to take all the treasure from a tomb, leaving nothing behind. There was no way this was the only volume, so if Grandpa stole one, he must have taken the whole collection and the rest were probably still in his hands.

At that time, the relationship between Xie Lianhuan and Qiu Dekao was very good, and the unscrupulous guy agreed to help Qiu Dekao get more information from my grandpa. Unfortunately, my grandpa was so tight-lipped that Xie Lianhuan couldn’t get anything from him. Feeling desperate, Xie Lianhuan decided to turn to Uncle Three. At that time, Uncle Three was interested in the stories in Grandpa’s journal, so as soon as he got drunk, he ended up revealing everything about how Grandpa got the silk book of the Warring States Period.

When I heard this, I couldn’t help but say, “Uncle Three, are you telling me that you’re the one who gave the foreigner the information about the blood corpse tomb?”

Uncle Three gave a wry smile and shook his head, “I drank so much at that time that once I was sober, I couldn’t remember a word I said. It was only when the foreigner told me about it that I remembered what I had done. I can’t tell you how much I regret it.”

I returned his wry smile with one of my own. The whole thing was really dramatic, but once I thought about it, I wondered if Qiu Dekao chose Xie Lianhuan at that time because he knew about the relationship between the Wu and Xie families. Maybe this was just part of his long-term plan. The secretive way this foreigner operated was truly frightening.

After Qiu Dekao got the information, he decided to dig up the blood corpse tomb again. Unfortunately, Xie Lianhuan didn’t know how to rob graves, and they couldn’t find anyone else to do it. But at that time, the relationship between China and the United States began to pick up. Feeling that the situation would change, Qiu Dekao patiently waited for an opportunity to present itself. When it did, he gathered a group of archaeologists, hastily returned to China, and began implementing his plan. That was where Uncle Three’s story came in.

It’s not too difficult to guess what happened next. After Uncle Three escaped from the tomb that night, Qiu Dekao went in the next afternoon. Needless to say, this incident turned into a full-blown disaster. When they opened the trapdoor at the bottom of the coffin, the corpse-eater king killed almost everyone who was in the tomb at that time.

Fortunately, Xie Lianhuan had hired a man who was very resourceful—he detonated the explosives at the most dangerous time, completely blowing up the inner chamber. Qiu Dekao and Xie Lianhuan were in the outer chamber at that time, so they were able to escape with their lives, but unfortunately, that man and all the others were buried in the ancient tomb.

The scene was absolutely horrific. Qiu Dekao, who witnessed it with his own eyes, nearly lost his mind from the shock of it. His decades-long understanding of China completely crumbled to dust in an instant. After returning to Changsha, he immediately returned to the United States, where he fell seriously ill and almost went insane. The research on the silk books of the Warring States Period also came to an abrupt halt.

However, we know that this was only temporary. One year later, the second era of marine archaeology emerged, and the wheel of fate began to turn faster and faster, pushing everyone towards what lay beneath Xisha’s waters.

<Chapter 11><Table of Contents><Chapter 13>

****

TN Notes:

(1) An astrolabe is an ancient astronomical instrument that was a handheld model of the universe. It consists of rotating discs and rulers to show the positions of astronomical objects at any given time throughout the year. Here’s a beginner’s guide on them. There are several parts to it, but the straight bar across the main face is called the “rule” and the rotating disc overlaying the plate is called the “rete”. The rete has many cutouts that allow you to see the plate beneath, while the remaining shapes create points representing the locations of the brightest stars in the sky. Within the rete is a ring shape that represents the ecliptic plane, often divided into the months of the year or signs of the zodiac.

(2) The “Book of Changes” (or I Ching) is an ancient Chinese divination text and among the oldest of the Chinese Classics. It’s used in a type of divination called cleromancy (It’s like casting lots. Think along the lines of rolling dice), which uses apparently random numbers. Info here.

(3) The Cultural Revolution consisted of many different smaller sub-campaigns that affected all of China, one of which was the Monsters and Demons campaign that ran from 1966 to 1967. The campaign’s name refers to metaphors such as “cow demons and snake spirits” that were used to demonize one’s political opponent during the Cultural Revolution. Once someone was labeled as a “cow demon”, they were to be imprisoned in a cowshed, storehouse, or dark room, only to be let out for re-education and party meetings. These illegal prisons were generally called “cowsheds”. Info here.