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墨書 Inktalez
My athletic talent has always garnered some recognition. During the school sports meets, I was the main contributor to my class's scores. To be frank, the points I earned each year could change the overall ranking of our grade in the school sports competition. My favorite sport is soccer, and I have always been a key player on the school's soccer team. Naturally, I brought these excellent athletic skills to college, especially my endurance and resilience in long-distance running, which surely caught the attention of the Archaeology team that needed skilled professionals.
Girls in the Archaeology Department are a rare resource, and those who venture into fieldwork are even scarcer. In the test pit I was excavating, there were only three of us, one of whom was a senior. This meant that my workload, along with another senior's, naturally increased. Fortunately for me, as a first-time participant in field archaeology, my curiosity overcame my fatigue, especially when the first cultural relic was unearthed; that sense of accomplishment made me forget my exhaustion.
This archaeological project lasted several months and yielded a large number of ironware, bronze artifacts, and some complete pottery and jars. At the same time, this ancient town was confirmed to be a post station on the Silk Road. However, there were no new discoveries regarding the massive tripod-shaped bronze vessel; it seemed that was the only one in this ancient town.
As this archaeological work came to an end, I returned to school. The greatest gain from this archaeological activity was that my initiative received widespread recognition. In the remaining years of college, I was continuously assigned to various archaeology teams. My university life was almost spent among different archaeology teams.
The archaeological report became my thesis, and afterward, I stayed at school as a teaching assistant in JD's archaeology team.
Perhaps due to the acknowledgment of my initiative, I found myself almost constantly on field archaeology sites or conducting surveys. However, I had no time to delve deeply into the study of archaeology. Moreover, my first archaeological activity seemed to end just like that; I hadn't even seen that archaeological report.
That's how it goes—when you try to forget something that is destined to be a pain in your life, it will appear before you at unexpected moments.
At that time, I was in the Three Gorges Region with several experienced archaeology team members and a group of students, collecting and organizing data on local ancient sites. Since the verification work for the Three Gorges Dam had concluded, many ancient sites in this area would soon be submerged underwater. This period represented one of the last opportunities for archaeology in the Three Gorges Region. Just then, a phone call redirected me to Xinjiang.
Upon landing in Korla, a military jeep took me out of the city. In the front seat were two soldiers, including a driver—both polite yet silent; they didn't say a word throughout the journey. I sat in the back seat next to my colleague who came to pick me up, Song Guilong. He was the captain from our previous archaeological activity in Gansu. He greeted me politely and then self-importantly asked about my project's progress in the Three Gorges area. However, when I asked him about the purpose of my summons here, he smiled and shook his head.
"You'll find out when we get there," was all I got as an answer.
I was extremely dissatisfied with his response but was even more puzzled by the two soldiers present. The driver was somewhat understandable because for certain archaeological tasks—especially those conducted in harsh environments—we often receive assistance from military units through local government or higher authorities. But the officer sitting next to the driver had accompanied Song Guilong and me since we arrived; he merely smiled and shook hands with me when introduced by Song Guilong. Yet he remained close by throughout our journey, smiling at me with an inexplicable sense of pressure.
The angle of the rearview mirror was subtle; he could see our expressions and movements in the back seat without turning around. Of course, this angle also allowed me to observe his expression clearly; he kept smiling at me through the rearview mirror—very friendly yet insincere.
My conversation with Song Guilong always revolved around the Three Gorges and some other Archaeological Projects. He even made a few private jokes, yet he never mentioned the purpose of this trip. I wasn't foolish; it didn't take long for me to realize that the main task of this officer was to supervise us. This made me feel a bit uneasy and intensely curious about my assignment. After all, I was still young at that time, lacking a proper understanding of danger, which might have been a characteristic or flaw of mine.
The journey was long. The Military Jeep left Korla and took a National Highway heading towards Urumqi. I had spent many years in field archaeology but had rarely visited such arid places. Especially in the past two years, I had been engaged in rescue archaeology work in the Three Gorges Region. The humid and hot environment of the Three Gorges was in stark contrast to the dry heat of Xinjiang. This Military Jeep was not an old model; it had a wider body, a sandy yellow exterior, and produced much less noise while being faster. All four windows were rolled down, and the dry wind blew against my face, offering no sense of refreshment. The air I inhaled felt like it was on fire, and with every breath, I could feel moisture being drawn from my body. Despite the unbearable heat, not a single drop of sweat trickled down my face or body. In such a dry environment, sweat evaporated before it could form droplets.
Song Guilong seemed to have anticipated this; shortly after leaving the city in the Military Jeep, he handed me a bottle of water. "It takes three to five days to adapt to this environment; these first few days are the hardest. Once you get through them, it will be fine," he said with a smile as he patted my shoulder.
Those of us who work in field archaeology share a noticeable characteristic: we tend to have darker skin, especially our faces, which lack delicacy due to years of exposure to wind and sun. Looking at Song Guilong's bronze-colored face made me feel like I could call myself fair-skinned, even though my own face had darkened considerably over the years. As I took a sip of water and looked at him, smiling and nodding in thanks, I suddenly thought that his complexion likely indicated he had been here for quite some time.
In recent years, most of my archaeological work had taken place in China's Southwest Region; this was not due to personal interest or expertise but rather because of assignments from my university and the Cultural Relics Administration. I had traveled to many places during these years, but my experience with archaeology along the Silk Road was limited to one occasion during my studies; since then, I had not been involved there again. Later on, I stayed at school and joined numerous archaeological teams, growing from an unknown team member into a leader capable of conducting independent archaeological projects while also gaining access to some confidential matters. However, archaeological work in Xinjiang remained a blank spot for me; even as someone who had speaking rights at major archaeological conferences, I knew nothing about any archaeological activities happening there.
I had seen Song Guilong a few times over the years, but those encounters were always brief during significant events at universities or cultural relic departments. During our hurried exchanges, I remembered that he seemed to be conducting geological surveys around Xi'an and was likely assisting the Xi'an Geological Exploration Bureau; some people from our department had also been seconded there. Of course, this was all information he revealed; looking back now, it seemed like a smokescreen—he must have been here all along and likely had others with him as well. In my mind, I quietly sorted through those colleagues whom I hadn't seen often over the years but whose complexions were notably darker.
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