Chapter 1303: Historian Chen Mo

11 Apr, 2025

Chapter 1303: Historian Chen Mo

Time and space were changing, like the wings of the Jade Cicada, flickering.

Within one of the flickering spots was the Heaven Awaken Continent in another time and space.

Great Ling Dynasty.

Outside the Hall of History, it was deep into the night and autumn was thick.

Within the Hall of History, Chen Mo's brush-wielding hand hung above the bamboo scroll, the ink forming small ripples on the inkstone.

Outside the window, the autumn cicadas chirped. The light from the bronze lamp on the table caused the books in the room to glow with an old yellow color, like old tea that had been soaked in time.

He stared at the newly sent Records of the Rivers and Canals and was commenting, but the tip of his brush stopped on a line of records.

"In the ninth year of Yuanguang, Wang Yan of the River Dike Commandery recruited people to fill their holes…"

As Chen Mo's brush paused, the ink fell, forming a blob of ink on the bamboo scroll.

Just like his current state of mind.

This was the thirty-fifth time he had found something wrong with the records.

On the bamboo scroll was clearly written, "In the ninth year of Yuanguang, Wang Yan of the River Dike Commandery recruited people to fill their holes." But last year, he saw in the remnant tombstone in Chenliu Prefecture that it was carved, "In the ninth year of Yuanguang, Li Ping of the River Dike Commandery dug canals and drained the water."

The two names appeared alternately in different history books, like overlapping bubbles in the river, causing his eyes to hurt.

What was even weirder was that in the third year of Yuanguang, the Book of Grand Historian and Ancient Han Rites were three feet apart, like the same river had been split into two parallel waterways.

"Sir, are you researching the river again?"

The official on night duty carried a newly collected bamboo scroll in, the candle flame swaying past the ink marks on his sleeves.

"The Minister of Imperial Household said a few days ago that the water officials would be in charge of the river and canals. We only need to record the documents of the Imperial Court." Chen Mo didn't raise his head, his fingertips caressing the bamboo scroll.

There were marks of different depths on the bamboo scroll.

The official smiled, put down the scroll, and left.

Looking at the other's back, after a while … Chen Mo was about to continue, but he couldn't put down the brush in his hand. In the end, he sighed.

He turned around and found a scroll of parchment from the mountain of records.

It was the Strange Records of the Great Spiritual Disaster.

After unfolding it, Chen Mo looked at the lines formed by the ink on the parchment. Finally, his gaze stopped on a line of words.

"In the seventy-ninth year of the Spirit Residence, the Crimson Star."

Looking at these cinnabar characters, Chen Mo fell into deep thought.

This was the last time he found a mistake in the historical record.

In the seventy-ninth year of the Spirit Residence, more than five hundred years had passed since then. He had checked the history books, but there had been no mention of such a thing in the seventy-ninth year of the Spirit Residence.

The musty smell of the parchment mixed with the scent of pine smoke and ink entered his nose. The copper clock of the Museum of History ticked as if it was cutting time into equal pieces.

Chen Mo suddenly recalled another strange thing he had discovered in the Scripture Pavilion three years ago.

At that time, he was revising the Biography of King Mu of Zhou when he found half a piece of silk from the summer and winter period between the gaps of the bamboo slips. On it was written in tadpole characters:

"In the age of quail fire, the rivers run dry and the mountains collapse. The ancestors have all disappeared in the Black and Yellow."

In the earlier tortoiseshell inscriptions of the Spirit Channel Clan, the same disaster was repeated nine times in different languages.

It was as if the same song had been sung by people from different eras, but the lyrics had changed over time.

However, most of the historical records were consistent, and there were no signs of any disasters.

It was as if someone had played a joke on the future generations in history.

His thoughts fluctuated.

After a long time, Chen Mo rubbed his eyebrows, got up and walked to the window. He looked at the snow outside and murmured.

"What is the truth of history?"

Chen Mo was silent.

Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, ten years had passed.

In these ten years, Chen Mo was still a historian, and he was not old. His white hair and wrinkles had far surpassed his peers.

Because in these ten years, he could not help but look for answers in the vast number of ancient books.

Thus, in the Biography of Chen Wu, he found a record that "the Emperor and Queen gave the Elixir of Longevity, and it bloomed once every three thousand and three hundred years." The same story in the Jin Taikang Di Ji became "the Emperor of the East gave the Elixir of Longevity, and it bloomed once every five hundred years."

The Commentary on the Water Scripture of the Southeast Dynasty and the Jiudi Zhi of the 19th Dynasty of Earth and Heaven recorded the location of the same mountain thousands of miles apart. However, they both mentioned that there was a stone box engraved with a perpetual calendar in the belly of the mountain.

The most shocking thing was that when he arranged the time of each dynasty's destruction according to the sixty years, he found that every one thousand and eight hundred years, there would be a coincidence of "five stars aligned and the Emperor died".

He had told his colleagues, but they seemed to have been possessed and said that he had been possessed.

Even the scholars of the academy slapped the historical map he had arranged and scolded him.

"The history books are the mirror of the dynasty. How can you use such nonsense to confuse the public?"

Only his wife would look at the layers of time on his desk and whisper when she was changing his clothes in the middle of the night.

"I once saw you pick up half an oracle bone in the abandoned garden. The cracks on it were actually the same as the patterns on the jade that was unearthed from the Imperial Tomb last year."

"Maybe the stories in this world are just replays of old songs."

"I know your dreams. If you have made up your mind, I will support you."

Her words made Chen Mo think back to when they first met. The wooden hairpin that she stuck to the side seemed to have changed the same as the rings of the withered tree that he had seen when he was young.

Thus, Chen Mo was confused.

He also thought that he was crazy.

Thus, he lay on the bed in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. He looked at the night sky and the roof. In his mind, he thought of a sentence that his teacher had said when he first entered the Academy of History 20 years ago.

"The brush of history should be like the lantern of the river, illuminating the stone in the mud."

At that time, he did not understand. Now that he thought back to the contradictions in the books, he realized that there were layers of water plants buried under the stone, entangling the lantern that illuminated the river.

Thus, in the winter of that year, Chen Mo resigned from his position and took a box of rubbings on his journey.

This was the thought that had always existed in his heart all these years.

Many years of doubt, his teacher's words, and his wife's support made him determined.

Time was like a song. Even this song was played in a loop.

In the song, Chen Mo had found a painting that was about to disappear in a cave at the foot of Kunlun Mountain. The flood totem on it was the same as the one in the Book of the Latter.

In the genealogy of the Northern Sea fishing village, he had also seen records of the year when the eye of the sea hung upside down. There was a legend of an ancestor fleeing on a giant boat.

However, this was a full three thousand years away from what was recorded in the Great Spirit Scripture.

Although the theories of destruction, reincarnation, and disaster were incomplete, they had been organized in countless ways into the records that he had brought with him.

Until he dug out half of a stone tablet from the quicksand of the Southern Region. After he translated the words on it, it was almost the same as the Great Spirit Sacrificial Incantation.

At this moment, Chen Mo had some understanding.

"If there were really the destruction of different civilizations, then they were all similar elegies written under the same starry sky."

Thus, in the thirteenth year of his journey, Chen Mo ended his journey and began his return journey.

However, he was already prematurely aged. Now that he was old, he fell ill on the way back and could not return to the capital.

He could only lie on the simple wooden couch at the post station, bleeding and looking weakly at the books he had pulled out and sorted along the way.

"Map of Reincarnation of Civilizations"

.....

And…