Chapter 2358 - 2261: Ge Hong the Man
Chapter 2358: Chapter 2261: Ge Hong the Man
Zhou Shitao’s arrival was sudden. Not only him, but Shi Qingyun and Huang Zhenlong also came along, and at the same time they contacted Xie Daoyuan, who was doing archaeological work out of town. With several big shots gathering together, Huo Sining had no choice but to trot off to the airport to pick them up.
Once they reached the villa, they didn’t even bother with small talk before Huo Sining hurriedly took out the Medicine King Cauldron.
As soon as he saw the Medicine King Cauldron, Zhou Shitao and Shi Qingyun took out magnifying glasses and started feeling their way around the bronze, circling it. When his gaze landed on the script on the cauldron, Zhou Shitao instinctively looked over at Huo Sining.
Huo Sining understood what that look from her master meant, and she instinctively gave Zhou Shitao a slight nod.
Back when her shop first received that wooden chest Old Lady Yan had consigned to her, Huo Sining had taken the Classic of Mountains and Seas from inside the box to consult Zhou Shitao, and had asked him what the origin of those characters actually was.
But at that time, Zhou Shitao had also been completely at a loss, feeling very baffled by those unfamiliar written symbols.
However, although he didn’t know what exactly was recorded in the script on that thread-bound Classic of Mountains and Seas, Zhou Shitao clearly had a good memory. He remembered the characters in that Classic of Mountains and Seas very well, and upon seeing the inscription on this Medicine King Cauldron, he immediately realized that these characters shared the same origin as the script on that Classic of Mountains and Seas.
That was why Zhou Shitao had thrown Huo Sining that questioning look.
After getting Huo Sining’s confirmation, Zhou Shitao didn’t say it out loud, he only felt more certain inwardly, and the gaze he directed at the Medicine King Cauldron carried an extra layer of puzzlement and scrutiny.
Professor Shi had done quite a bit of research on inscriptions, which was why he had come along with Zhou Shitao this time. The moment he saw the Medicine King Cauldron, he instinctively crouched down, his sharp eyes fixed on the characters on the cauldron, his expression solemn as if he were trying to recall something, his brows unconsciously knitting slightly together.
Off to the side, Huang Zhenlong didn’t know much about epigraphy. Seeing Shi Qingyun like this, he couldn’t help asking, "Professor Shi, have you figured anything out?"
Shi Qingyun stroked the Medicine King Cauldron as he said, "Since that Oil Rat claimed that carbon-14 testing shows the cauldron is from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and that it turned up in the Luofu Mountain Ancient Tomb, then eight or nine times out of ten it has a great deal to do with Ge Hong. Of course, that’s just the other party’s side of the story, and the testing was done by an illicit institute, so it can’t be taken as an official result. It still needs to be submitted to the proper authorities for examination before it can count."
When Xie Daoyuan came, he brought Ding Liang with him. Besides that, when Huo Sining drove to the airport to pick them up, Su Qingqing had already learned that several professors were coming to the Magic Capital, so she had gone early to wait at Huo Sining’s villa.
Right now Ding Liang and Su Qingqing were both standing to the side, staring over like curious babies. Hearing what Shi Qingyun said, they both showed blank expressions.
Su Qingqing was never good at hiding what was on her mind, and she couldn’t help speaking up: "Professor, who is Ge Hong?"
Watching his two disciples staring foolishly at Shi Qingyun, then glancing at the composed, clear look on Huo Sining’s face, Xie Daoyuan immediately felt somewhat awkward and exasperated, and at the same time reflected on whether he had been too lax with these two brats, giving them too little homework—otherwise why would they ask such a stupid question.
Professor Xie felt embarrassed, but Shi Qingyun didn’t intentionally ignore Su Qingqing’s question. Instead, he smiled and explained:
"There’s nothing shameful about not knowing who Ge Hong is. It’s perfectly normal that you don’t. For one thing, this person actually doesn’t have much direct overlap with the field of antiquities, and for another, very few artifacts from the Eastern Jin Dynasty survive to the present, and items related to Ge Hong are even fewer."
"The reason for this situation isn’t just that the time span is so long. It’s also because of historical upheavals—repeated dynastic changes, the War of Resistance, and the civil war—which have caused interruptions in our material record of history, leaving many things impossible to verify."
"Ge Hong was a Taoist scholar of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and at the same time a very famous alchemist and medical scientist of his era. These are all relatively modern labels. In essence, he was what people in ancient times called an alchemist."
At the mention of alchemists, Su Qingqing and Ding Liang immediately had a rough idea.
Put simply, it’s similar to a national preceptor’s status—Taoists who specialized in researching elixirs of immortality and the like.
The powerful nobles of ancient times all coveted immortality and were quite fascinated by immortal cultivation, so many specialists in this field appeared back then. These people generally knew some medicine, had some grasp of proto-chemistry, and then studied a bit of the arts of healing; using all that to beguile upper-class nobles, so as to achieve the goal of promotion, wealth, and soaring success.
As for whether there were true alchemists, both Su Qingqing and Ding Liang were inwardly skeptical. If there really were a technique for immortality, Qin Shi Huang would have succeeded long ago, and wouldn’t have let his empire be destroyed in the hands of his second-generation heir.
But what Su Qingqing and Ding Liang didn’t know was that over the past few days, after consulting a great many sources and learning about Ge Hong’s life, Huo Sining had felt both astonished and conflicted. She could sense that there was something very off about this Ge Hong.
If you only looked at his practice of the healing arts, he wasn’t particularly special. But once you connect it with the weirdness of the inscriptions on this Medicine King Cauldron, Huo Sining felt that eight or nine times out of ten Ge Hong knew the secret of the Jiaoren, and that his lifelong obsession with alchemy was very likely centered on researching the Jiaoren’s secret of living for hundreds of years!
Although she still didn’t know what function the inscription on the Medicine King Cauldron actually had, she was sure that this writing, together with the elixirs he was researching, were all related to the Jiaoren clan. She even had a vague suspicion that Ge Hong might have come from Buzhou Mountain, or had some kind of connection with it.
Gu Xu had already failed to obtain any more clues about Buzhou Mountain, but Huo Sining had a faint feeling that if they wanted to unravel this succession of mysteries, Buzhou Mountain might be the key.
"So why, just from seeing this cauldron, do you conclude it’s Ge Hong’s? That goes back to Ge Hong’s life experience."
Shi Qingyun went on:
"Even though there aren’t many materials from the Eastern Jin that can be rigorously studied, we can still find some traces in what does survive."
"Ge Hong was actually a very capable man. In middle age, he was granted high office and generous rewards by Emperor Yuan of Jin and Emperor Xian of Jin, but he refused them all, devoting himself single-mindedly to the study of alchemy."
"Yet not long after declining office, he voluntarily approached the Emperor, saying he wanted to go to Jiaozhi to serve as an official."
"This move of his is quite baffling, but once you look into the records about Jiaozhi, you can understand why he did it."