Chapter 100: Qinling God Tree · Sacrifice

When I heard this, I asked him what he thought. He scratched his head and said, "It's just a guess at the bottom. This copper tree may not be the key. It may be the ravines above the tree. At the time of the sacrifice, this thing might be used to collect some liquids, such as rain, Things like blood or dew. "
Old itch asked him: "Is it like the emperor collecting dew to brew tea leaves? What is it called, no root water?"
Master Liang used his pen to scrape some black deposits in those gullies. After thousands of years, it was impossible to tell whether these were blood dried by ancestors or sediments in rainwater. He looked at the branches again, and said, "Look, there are things like the bayonet bleeding channel under these branches, all the way to the twin snake road. This branch must also be useful in the altar. It is possible that it is really a blood sacrifice. There are relationships."
I did n’t quite understand it, so let Master Liang carefully talk about why these ravines were related to the blood sacrifice of the year, and how did this blood sacrifice proceed.
Master Liang said to me that although the sacrifices in the Western Zhou Dynasty were not as brutal as the Shang dynasty, human animals are inevitable. The so-called different methods of sacrifice are just different ways of killing human animals. Buried alive; sacrifice the of fire and burn people to death; sacrifice the of the river and throw it into the river.
Here is such a huge bronze tree like the sky. The sacrificial tree may be a tree such as hibiscus wakagi, or it may be the Jumang of the simu. Usually this kind of uses blood sacrifice.
Just now, Uncle Tai ’s blood flowed down the bronze branches and into the twin snakes on the bronze tree, all the way down. Such a line, if not designed in advance, could not run so smoothly. In addition to the traces of the blood-slotting grooves on the bronze twigs, the things are very clear. It must be a sacrificial vessel used for blood sacrifices.
The so-called blood sacrifice, most of the time to enter the ground with blood. When being sacrificed, it is necessary to nail the sacrifice to these bronze branches, to draw the blood of the corpse into the twin snakes on the tree. If the blood does not condense halfway, it will inevitably flow all the way to the root of this bronze tree buried deep under the rock, symbolizing the dedication to God with blood.
To put it more succinctly, the pattern of the whole tree is like a blood channel in the anatomy room of the hospital. No matter how much blood is on a few corpses, these gullies finally merge into the blood channel and then flow into the sewer. It's just that the blood channel here is made to look like a decorative pattern, which just explains why the gully between these twin snakes is so outrageously deep.
Such cruel and large-scale sacrifices are obviously not able to be held for a long time even in a powerful country, so ancient books are only sporadic records. As for the specific ritual process, how many animals are needed, everything is not known.
I heard Master Liang's words. On the one hand, I lamented the wisdom of the ancients, on the other hand, I also felt a bit chilly. Such a huge project was actually just a tool for killing people. It was really stupid. Thinking of the countless slaves that were inserted upside down on these branches, the blood followed the bronze trenches to turn the entire tree into a blood column, and I felt the seemingly bitter cold penetrate through those trenches.
Thinking of the dim sum, I said to the old itch: "Let ’s go faster, or wait for Uncle Tai ’s blood to run down, maybe the of Saki thought that someone would come to sacrifice, and the old man came out to walk and said no I will surely treat us as a sacrifice. "
Old Itching did n’t take Master Liang ’s words at heart, and said to me:
Do n’t trust him, there were so many people in China at that time killing you for fun. I think it ’s all about bloodshed here. Let ’s climb up a little bit more, maybe we can still see a few thousand years of dried pork sticks. And no matter how human beings are, after a person dies, the blood will soon congeal. You can rest assured that this is so high, If the blood flow doesn't end, it will dry, let's say, your blood will be ignored by others. In the past, people were so natural, they ate pesticide-free food, and drank non-polluted water. Blood-a little sweet. You are okay now, your blood is bleeding out, and the old people will definitely get food poisoning after drinking it, so it is a fool thing. "
After listening to my forehead, my muscles broke out, and I could n’t help but swear:
I ’m fucking, what ’s the matter, why is my blood poisoned? Can your mother ’s mouth stop?

Master Liang thought that I was really hot, and he was busy playing the rounds and said, "Two people, this situation is being judged. Now, let's not talk ridiculously in this situation. You don't think that these branches are getting more and more dense. Keep going like this. Is it hard to climb up? "
Old itch said: "Here are some sparse and dense, it's easy to climb if it's dense, but you want to be more sparse and better. It's better that each one is more than two meters apart. We are stacking arhats at these dozens of meters. ? "
I said to the old itch: "Don't make a conclusion first, I think something is wrong, you hit the flashlight."
When we came up, the torch was still used for lighting, because the flashlight in Uncle Tai ’s bag was not full of power, and we did n’t want to waste it, but now I want to see what ’s far away, which ca n’t be done with a torch .
Old itch hit the flashlight, concentrated the light beam, and shot it upwards. I saw that the bronze branches on the top of our heads have a gradually increasing trend. Up to seven or eight meters, they are already as dense as thorns. Continue to go up, only Hanging upside down, and then climbing up on the pointed ends of these branches, and doing so is much more dangerous than climbing against a copper tree.
Until now, we will have to break even if there is Longtan Tiger Cave in front. The old itch made us stay in place. We climbed out of the branches first, and then dropped the rope found by Uncle Tai from above. Master Liang and I grabbed the rope with one hand and climbed up.
Looking up again, the situation here is no longer like what we see below, the bronze branches are almost so dense that there is no place to intervene. I crawled for a while, and I wondered why Uncle Tay would fall down. Looking at this trend, I might not even find the place where I stepped on my feet. As long as I do n’t pay attention to it, or give the kind of passing wind above, I ’m not sure. Just go with Uncle Tai.
Old itch was crawling fast at this time. I had no strength to call him. I could only calm down. On the one hand, I would not let myself fall behind. On the other hand, I must always remind myself to be careful about missteps. At the same time, the torch can not be used at this time, because there is no extra hands to take it, I can only extinguish it and insert it into my waist.
Because this section was too dangerous, almost no one spoke. Soon, under the illumination of the flashlight, I found that the rock walls around the bronze tree also began to change. Natural stalactites and some dissolved rock curtains appeared. In view of the scope of artificial excavation, the above section is already a naturally formed cave.
Through this period, the rock walls began to shrink. I also found that on both sides of the rock walls, some caves of different sizes began to appear. They were not deep. I could see the bottom. There were a few caves that seemed to have something to illuminate the flashlight. A certain reaction will occur. These phenomena make me gradually feel uneasy, but the rock wall is tens of meters away from us. I do n’t believe there are any variables that can directly affect us from the opposite side.
I attracted attention to the cave on the side. I did n’t find that the old itch and Master Liang who had climbed in front had stopped. I did n’t react until I hit Master Liang ’s butt. I looked up and saw that there was a lot of This kind of masked monkey is exactly the same as the one we just encountered below.
Looked closely again, but found that these monkeys were dead, the body was blown up by the hot air blowing into the body, weirdly twisted, hands and feet stuck in the dense branches, did not fall below. There are dozens of such dry corpses, and the strange mask did not fall off with the collapse of the corpse, still staring at us silently, as if it would be resurrected at any time.
We slowed down and carefully observed these strange things.
The monkey's body seems to have a skin disease. Most of the hair has fallen off, showing a gray color. It looks somewhat similar to human skin, but when you look closely, you find that there are very obvious lesions. These monkeys are about as tall as a 15- to 16-year-old child (of course not Yao Ming), maybe a little taller. In this case, my sense of height almost fails.
The mask on the face of the monkey looks like a stone texture and is perfectly polished. I even suspect that it may be made of porcelain. From the junction of the mask and the head of the monkey, the mask seems to be burned into the meat or used What means grows directly with the face.
Most of the dead bodies are complete, and only a few have only one limb, presumably because the body is too old and the body has dried too much, resulting in natural fragmentation.
Master Liang let us not climb first, pointing to a corpse and said: "Wait a minute, I think these monkeys have a strange posture. I seem to have seen it somewhere. Wait for me to take a closer look."
The old itch said to him: "As long as you are in trouble, you have to look at everything. Be careful. Wait a moment. The monkey below thinks you have a strange posture."
Master Liang ignored the old itch, carefully approached the nearest mummy, and took his mask. The dry facial skin immediately cracked, and Master Liang easily tore off the mask. He leaned into the corpse's face and looked at it. He turned to us and said, "Two-bit, this-it doesn't seem to be a monkey, this is a Zhang-face."