Chapter 91: The Lost Pearl of the Mohist School

  After finishing dinner, Ju An went online again and opened QQ. As soon as he did, a message came in - it turned out that the vast literary ocean had passed his authentication.

  I took a glance at his avatar and it was still black, so I casually sent a message: "I'm the one who sent you bamboo slips, hi."

  Just wanted to take a look at the webpage, who knew that the vast ocean of texts would return with a message: "Hello, I showed your thing to my teacher and he took a look. He said the text is from the Warring States period, specifically Mozi's works, talking about ghosts and gods. The level of forgery is very high, not a single character is wrong. However, the bamboo slips and leather straps look too new. It's already a miracle that bamboo slips can be preserved to this day, it's impossible for them to be so new. If they were real, calling them national treasures wouldn't be an exaggeration."

  "I also got it by chance, thought it looked good so I bought it, didn't think it was real, just thought it looked interesting."

  "Hao Han Wen Hai posted again: "I think you only took a small part of the bamboo slips, if possible, can you take a full picture for me? My teacher is interested in this, he said that now very few people can write such formal ancient texts, the person who forged it must be an expert or have a deep foundation in ancient literature, otherwise, most people wouldn't be able to write those 10-20 characters fully".

  "Alright, I'll go take a photo now." Before he could finish speaking, Haohan Wenhai replied again: "My teacher is also here, let's all chat together." After saying that, he clicked on something and everyone entered the discussion group.

  Just as I was about to leave, I saw another old cow's avatar head also came in, and then sent a message: "Young man, can you let me see the whole thing?"

  "I'll go take a picture right away," Ju An replied. Then he got up, picked up the camera and entered the space, placed the bamboo slips on the ground outside, spread them out and took several photos, then put them back on the table in the room.

  Connected the camera to the computer, selected a clear photo and sent it to both of them. After receiving it, Old Niu said "thank you", then replied after a while: "Originally Mozi had 71 volumes, now there are 33 volumes existing in the world. This volume has been obtained, roughly expounding Mozi's thoughts. Mozi believed in ghosts and gods, he acknowledged that heaven has will and ghosts and gods also exist, and took heaven's will as the ultimate basis for all his thoughts".

  If he hadn't obtained this pearl himself, he wouldn't have believed that such a miraculous thing existed in the world. If the original owner of this pearl was indeed Mozi, then it's no wonder he believed in ghosts and gods. The question now is whether this pearl really belongs to Mozi or not. The old man said that only 33 pieces of Mozi's works survived, what if there are some unpublished works among the seven or eight bamboo slips on the space table? That would be troublesome. Following the principle of "one less thing is better than one more", Ju An decided to muddle through for now.

  Then the old man said with a garrulous tone: "You can see this bamboo slip and buy it, which means you still have some interest in our ancient culture. If you need to, if there are any characters you don't recognize on it, you can ask my student or directly ask me."

  "These characters I don't recognize some of them."

  The old cow head image replied, "The ancients' words were not many, and it wasn't until the Qin Shi Huang era that characters were unified. During the Warring States period, each state had its own distinct characters. So I say that this person who forged it is a master, using the script of Lu State, and writing with great purity and grandeur. I sent the character to an old friend who practices calligraphy, and after he saw it, he said that the character was written in a truly ancient and elegant style, with a bit of the air of a master of a generation. He wanted to see more, so I took the liberty of coming to ask you, sir, to release a complete version."

  "Living in peace, I hurriedly hit back: 'Old gentleman, the two words "gentleman" are not worthy of me. My surname is Ju, you can just call me Xiao Ju, I'm only in my twenties and don't deserve to be called "Mr."'"

  The old cow head image followed with praise: "A young man in his 20s is still interested in traditional culture, it's not bad. Now who still looks at these things, they all dance and go online. You can see this bamboo slip, just buy it to prove that you have a heart, regardless of whether it's true or false."

  "I'd like to know if you have any works on this subject, something like a dictionary. I don't recognize a single character on this bamboo slip, and I'd like to learn about them so I can better understand traditional culture."

  The old cow head continued: "In that case, I'll pass on a book I wrote, the online version. The bookseller put it online for sale for several years and only sold a few copies, so I'll send one to you, Xiao Ju. Wait for me while I ask my granddaughter to help me find it. At my age, everything is slow, not like young people. It took me over a year to learn how to type, Xiao Ju, wait."

  "My teacher is over 80 years old and was once an expert in the field of ancient script research for the country."

  It's amazing to see an 80-year-old man learning to type and surf the internet, it's really impressive. I sincerely said: "An old man in his eighties is still learning, this spirit is tough enough, it makes me feel ashamed."

  "It's just a waste of time, find something to do, so as not to get senile dementia. Found it, I'll send it over." After finishing speaking, he sent a file to Ju An, who took a look and saw that it was only a few dozen megabytes in size, and clicked accept.

  Unexpectedly, this old man's mentality is so good, living a carefree life. He couldn't help but praise: "Mr. elderly's mentality is truly admirable".

  The old cow head replied: "Having lived for over 80 years, what bitterness haven't I experienced? What things haven't I gone through? During special times, I was put in a cowshed and struggled against, thinking about it now, I'm at peace with it."

  After chatting with everyone for a while, Ju An apologized and said he had something to attend to and left.

  Opening the compressed file sent by the old man in the notebook, it was a book that talked about the commonly used characters of various countries during the Warring States period. After taking a look, I decided to take a look at what was written on the other few bamboo slips in the space.

  Entered the room, flipped through the things on the table, found a bamboo slip with the least amount of writing, took it out, sat down on the bed, spread out the bamboo slips, and prepared to translate them one by one according to the book given by the old master to see what was written on the bamboo slips.

  Every time I see a character, I use the screenshot tool to take a screenshot of the representative modern meaning, and then arrange it in the order of bamboo slips.

  The whole process took about 30 or 40 minutes, including the time spent searching for the words. By the time I finished finding the last word, it was already dawn. I quickly got up and took care of Bean Grass and Snowflake, then drove the two horses into the horse herd. Just as I met Nancy walking by, she smiled at me and said: "Snowflake is pregnant with a foal now, be more careful when you take her out next time."

  Ju An immediately touched Xue Hua's horseback and asked happily: "Really? I couldn't tell, are you sure?"

  Nancy nodded and said, "Yes, what Thomas found yesterday was no mistake. In addition, several mares have also given birth to foals. By this time next year, the ranch will have its own little horses. From my observation, most of them are descendants of Bean Grass, only two mares are carrying the offspring of that horse." She pointed to another sorrel horse.

  Jū ān qí guài dào: "Mù chǎng bú shì qián hòu yī gòng jìn le sān pǐ **me, nà pǐ zěn me bù chēng zhí a".

  Translation:

  "Isn't the ranch supposed to have three horses in total? Why isn't that one competent?"

  Pointing to a pinto horse eating grass alone outside the herd, Nancy said with a smile: "That horse was kicked out by two male horses in the bean grass isolated horse group. Now it's lonely and single. If you get close to the mother horse bean grass or another male horse, they will bite and kick it. Thomas is going to castrate it after a while. Anyway, it can't be used as a ** anymore, so it might as well become a pasture horse."

  Jū ān kě lián de kàn le kàn nà pǐ mǎ, xīn li xiǎng dào: kě lián de jiā huo, bèi qún zhǔ tī chū qún qù, hái yào zuò tài jiān, āi. Kàn zhe mǎ qún lǐ gāo jiàng zhe nǎo dài de dòu cǎo, jū ān bù jìn àn zàn le yī jù, zhēn shì ge hǎo xiǎo huǒ zi ā.

  After chatting with Nancy, I went back upstairs to take a bath and sleep. Having been tired for the whole night, as soon as my head touched the pillow, I started snoring loudly. I slept soundly until 5 o'clock in the afternoon before getting up.

  Went to the bathroom to tidy up, went to the space to take a look at Wu Song and Teddy, found that the two guys were playing happily, so I didn't bother them. Came out of the space and returned to bed, carefully looked through the things I had tidied up last night.

  After understanding the meaning, a cold sweat broke out on Ju An's back. The least of these bamboo slips recorded nothing but the pearl on Ju An's neck.

  According to the meaning, Mozi obtained a sacred stone from ancient times. Through this stone, he could reach the immortal realm, where a primordial tree grew with a jade trunk. Isn't that the big tree in his own space? It is also recorded that the big tree would continuously shed tears and bear fruit. When the fruit ripened, it would turn dark red. After eating it, one could get close to all beasts. Young beasts raised within the immortal realm would have majestic bodies and be exceptionally intelligent. Mozi took a child into the immortal realm, but not long after exiting, the child died. Then, Mozi built a house under the big tree and constructed an earthen enclosure to study and research.

  Later Mohist masters kept this pearl as Mozi's token, which was passed down through generations of masters. After Mozi's death, a pattern of a large tree house appeared on the pearl. For several generations, each master wore this pearl and required himself to live very simply, which seemed a bit self-torturing to some people. Until the decline of Mohism in the Han Dynasty, the last master wrote this bamboo slip and then took the pearl with him when he was buried. In order not to let anyone else get this pearl, the master sank himself into the Yellow River.

  Jū ān's speculation might be that the Yellow River changed its course several times, and the original riverbed became land, so this pearl was unintentionally dug up, according to Jū ān it was probably during the late Qing dynasty, before finally falling into his own hands.

  It's lucky that it wasn't this article being taken at the time, if this one had gotten out and compared to the pearl on my neck, I might have lost my head.