Chapter 224: The Auction That Doesn’t Lie

"Natsume-san, don't shout, I'm right here."

Yuta Onoue took two steps forward with a gloomy look on his face. He kept muttering in his heart:
Are your ancestors here?

That’s not right, I haven’t heard of it!
The name Onoue Koji does sound very much like his ancestor, but his family is clearly from Gunma Prefecture, which is very far away from Nara Prefecture.

Hundreds of years ago, when villages fought each other, there were many countries between them.

Besides, the dialects of the two places are different, how could they be migrated there?
But looking at Kasahara Yuta's serious expression, combined with what he just said...

Yuta Onoue very carefully took the bronze stick handed over by the team members in the pit.

He wants to study it himself.

Seeing this, Yuta Kasahara, who was standing by, also came over and pointed out the details he had just noticed to the captain.

"Professor Onoue, look at the edges of these bronze bookmarks. There are obvious holes. Don't they look like the bamboo slips in China? These holes are used to string ropes."

"Do you think it's possible that this is a bronze tablet?"

"In ancient times, it was used as an important list, such as a family tree or a military roster."

"Kasahara-san, isn't your inference too hasty?"

Yuta Onoue did not agree with this statement and immediately refuted it:

"These two copper sticks are far from Jane."

"And it's engraved with Chinese Qin seal characters. If that's true, then there are ancient people with the same surname as us who were named by the Qin people in the list? Then aren't the Qin people the leaders of our ancestors?"

"Your idea is very dangerous!"

"Careless?" Kasahara Yuta smiled and said, "Please, I have been very restrained."

"No, no, no, you have no self-control at all. All I heard was your imagination..."

The two old men didn't get along when they first entered the archaeological research laboratory, and they have quarreled many times over the years.

Now that we have the chance, we can start a debate right on the spot.

When Ryuji Haneda saw this scene, a sarcastic smile appeared on his lips.

This is what he considers an expert.

He whispered to the senior in the pit:
"Keep digging, don't stop."

"I'll hit the captain in the face later."

"Okay!" Natsume in the pit smiled knowingly. Everyone in the laboratory had been scolded by Yuta Onoue to some extent.

It's worth looking forward to being able to make him suffer a setback.

Two old men were arguing loudly beside the exploration pit; inside the exploration pit, two young men were digging furiously.

Half an hour later, Yuta Onoue felt a little tired from talking, so he turned around to find a bottle of water to drink. He inadvertently saw Ryuji Haneda fiddling with something he had just discovered.

Then, he was completely stunned.

Oh my God, what did we dig up?

Seven or eight more bronze sticks of the same type were dug out, as if to confirm Kasahara Yuta's guess - there really was a bronze tablet.

In addition to these bronze sticks, there are also fragments of bronze ware, fragments of pottery figurines, fragments of chariot and horse parts, and even a small bronze tripod that is relatively intact, so its original appearance can be pieced together on the spot.

"Wow!" Yuta Kasahara also saw this scene and exclaimed in amazement.

Without caring about anything else, he went straight over and picked up the bronze skewer that Ryuji Haneda had placed on the wooden plate.

He said loudly: "It is indeed engraved with Qin seal characters."

“This is a cultural relic from the same period.”

"It seems that my idea is correct. This is a bronze tablet. Let me see what is written on it?"

"Ryozo Kido, Nakamanariki, Fujimoto Tsunayō, Sakashita Kappa, Tomi Kisho, Takeshima Yuta..."

Seeing this, Yuta Onoue was not willing to be outdone, so he wanted to follow suit and learn from Yuta Kasahara to see what was written on these bronze sticks.

But he was not very good at learning Qin Zhuan, and he stumbled for a long time before reading the first word written on it:

"Xu Fu of Qin."

"Eh? Is there anyone here with the last name Qin Zhi?"

“???” Yuta Kasahara looked at Yuta Mukaioe in shock.

The latter noticed his colleague's gaze and suddenly reacted.

He suddenly realized and shouted:
"This is the list of Xu Fu from the Qin Dynasty!"

"That makes perfect sense." Kasahara Yuta said calmly, "I've actually wanted to say that a long time ago, but you're too timid, and I was afraid I'd scare you to death."

"In fact, I have always felt that many of us should be descendants of those boys and girls brought by Xu Fu back then, or at least have some blood relationship with them."

"It's just that my opinion will hurt your fragile self-esteem."

Yuta Kasahara said something sarcastic, but Yuta Onoue rarely reacted.

He hasn't recovered from the shock yet.

Did you dig up the list of Xu Fu of the Qin Dynasty? Was it the list of his subordinates, or his family tree? Or the list of his slaves?
Why are these things here in Nara, right beneath the ruins of the Kofun period?
Could it be that this was a large tomb during the Kofu period, built by Xu Fu's descendants around the tomb of their ancestors?

Is there anything else underneath?

and also……

There were too many questions that needed to be explained, and Onoue Yuta couldn't figure them out in a short period of time. He stood there blankly, like someone with Alzheimer's disease, holding the bronze sign with "Xu Fu of Qin" written on it.

When Yuta Kasahara saw him like this, he felt that he had won unfairly.

Boring, this was not the victory he wanted.

He turned to look at the two young men who were still digging the soil, and gave instructions:
"Natsume-san, Haneda-san, please stop for a moment."

"This site may be the biggest discovery of our archaeology research room this year. We must conduct a thorough investigation to determine what kind of site it is before conducting detailed excavations."

"If we dig aimlessly like this, we'll easily miss something."

"Yes, Mr. Kasahara is right!" Yuta Onoue finally reacted and agreed, "Let's clean up the things we dug out first. We need to have a meeting."

"Row!"

Ryuji Haneda immediately agreed with the professor's opinion.

Because he just took a look and found that all the more important surnames had been dug out.

The list he gave to Zhang Yang was not written randomly.

The descendants corresponding to each of the names mentioned above all have a certain status in today's Japanese archaeological or cultural circles.

The worst are professional scholars like Yuta Kasahara.

From a third party's perspective, this may seem a little contrived, but there is an explanation that satisfies everyone:
The people on the list are the ones who came from the Qin Dynasty to open up this barbarian land. It's reasonable that their descendants are smarter, right?

After all, civilization started early.

Just like the African blacks and the American whites. Although the bloodline theory is a bit superstitious, in Japan, in the eyes of these old guys, the bloodline theory is still very popular.

Even on the way to the meeting, Yuta Kasahara had already started chatting with Yuta Onoue:

"I never thought that our ancestors were the first civilized people to come here."

"Do you think our ancestors also didn't like each other? Is that why we are born to dislike each other?"

……

Half a month later, a press conference was held at the University of Tokyo to showcase the interim results of the excavation of the ancient ruins from the Yayoi period in Nara.

At the meeting, Yuta Kasahara, the head of the excavation committee, briefly explained the current results to the public:
“本次考古发掘，目前共发现公元前2世纪的各类青铜器37件、陶器18件、铁器5件、骨器57件、木质工具113件。”

"The most representative cultural relic is the Qin Xu Fu Register."

"This is an inscribed book written between the end of the 2nd century BC and the beginning of the 1st century BC, and it is written in the Qin seal script that was promoted after the unification of China by the First Emperor of Qin."

"The content mainly records that after Xu Fu sailed east, he changed his descendants' names to local names in order to integrate into the local ethnic group."

"There are currently 29 surnames involved. The specific surnames will be displayed to the public after the press conference. Everyone is welcome to check them out."

"More related excavation research is still in progress, please continue to pay attention..."

The content of this press conference did not reach Qingzhou until three days later.

After Zhang Yang finished reading it, he handed it to the two girls beside him.

At the same time, I asked Zhu Ruyan on the other side:
"Do they really regard Xu Fu as their ancestor? Why do they feel like we have helped them a lot?"

"Would you like to find an opportunity to address this matter?"

Although the things he made were regarded as real by experts and scholars and were displayed, Zhang Yang felt a sense of accomplishment.

I even added more than two million recognition points at once, and it felt like I couldn’t spend it all.

But I still feel a little uncomfortable when I think that these things will be put into their museums and used to prove that their culture can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty.

Before that, they lived a peaceful life until the 6th century AD, when Chinese characters were introduced to them and they had their own written language.

This moves the time forward 700 years.

After hearing Zhang Yang's words, Zhu Ruyan covered her mouth and laughed:
"Why do I feel that you are mean and evil, Zhang Yang?"

"But you still don't understand the little life. If you order them now, the achievement exhibition will immediately become an apology meeting. Carry forward the spirit of craftsmanship and say a private Marseille, and this matter will be easily covered up."

"It will take a while to ferment."

"Then how long do we have to wait?" Shen Yiyi asked unsatisfactorily after watching the video of the press conference.

Because she also knows a little about East Asian history, her feelings are similar to Zhang Yang's.

I thought it would cause an argument and become a controversial topic, but I didn't expect it to be used as a cultural relic to prove the historical era. It's a bit disgusting.

"Can we please not quarrel first? It's so joyful, there's no fun at all."

"Yiyi, you think it's boring? In fact, we've already started arguing!" Zhu Ruyan suddenly changed the topic.

Then I took the phone and found a few videos again.

"That was the official video just now, and this one was taken by Ryuji Haneda at their excavation site."

"Good fellow!" Zhang Yang sighed after just one look: "Are you protesting now?"

In the video, a lot of white banners were erected opposite the archaeological site, with all kinds of incomprehensible slogans written in large black letters on them.

Right below the banner, there was an old man with a white ribbon with a slogan tied on his forehead. He was beating a drum and leading the people around him to shout loudly.

"What does this say?"

Zhang Yang asked Zhu Ruyan on the other side for help. He couldn't understand the promotional slogans and was very anxious.

"It probably means that we need cultural confidence, that Japanese civilization is a local civilization, and we should resist the idea of ​​foreign civilization. We suggest that the archaeological process be made public and that fraud be avoided..."

"By the way, Haneda Ryuji said that some extreme people believed that their archaeological team was a spy who received money from China and deliberately fabricated such an archaeological site."

"Their archaeological team leader must be so depressed. Iron-blooded War Wolf was wrongly accused of being a spy. He was so angry that he was admitted to the hospital. Otherwise, the team leader would have come to the press conference to explain the situation."

"and then?"

"And that's all." Zhu Ruyan spread her hands and said, "Isn't that enough?"

"I think this is already funny enough. Ryuji Haneda from the University of Tokyo said that every time he goes out, he laughs until his stomach hurts when he sees those uncles playing the drums."

"Especially, he was responsible for reporting the situation on the scene to the captain in the hospital in real time. The captain had always been advocating that the culture of living a simple life has a long history, but he didn't expect to be severely slapped in the face by cultural relics."

"I'm currently studying Records of the Grand Historian in the hospital."

"This is good!" Shen Yiyi smiled and gave a thumbs up.

"Okay, that's enough of this matter. Let's talk about going to Hong Kong?"

The purpose of Zhu Ruyan's coming here, in addition to showing the video to Zhang Yang, was mainly to discuss the auction that was about to be held in Hong Kong.

Originally, only Zhang Yang and Zheng Xiangqian were there to act as babysitters.

But now, Li Zi plans to auction off the Tibetan Buddhist cultural relics left by her father, and they have already been shipped to Hong Kong.

So things are a lot more complicated than before.

Zhu Ruyan wanted to confirm again whether Zhang Yang still had time to help her. If not, could he recommend another suitable scapegoat?

"I really won't have time then." As Zhang Yang spoke, he gently squeezed Zhu Ruyan's hand beside him.

Going to Hong Kong, her business is more important.

"The preview of Buddhist antiques happens to conflict with your auction, and I have to be there to keep an eye on it. If anyone wants to buy it, I have to help keep an eye on it to make sure it's not swapped out without you noticing."

"But I have found the perfect babysitter for you."

"Dengdengdengdeng..."

Zhang Yang made a gesture to welcome Shen Yiyi.

"Junior?" Zhu Ruyan suddenly had a lot of question marks on her head. She looked at Shen Yiyi and asked, "Can you... do it?"

"I'm not questioning your ability. I'm just worried that you're not very sensitive to money. You look like a little princess who has never had to worry about food and clothing since childhood. If you bid too high a price, you'll lose the handling fee."

"I can't do it, but my grandpa can."

"Even my grandpa couldn't do it, but my current grandma can!"

"Don't worry, Senior Sister. I'll make the trip to Hong Kong this time."

Shen Yiyi's words were very firm.

She has figured it out. This time she must not let Li Zi and Zhang Yang just get along.

What if Xiao Zhang Yang is already there when I come back?
Grandpa Lu also acknowledged her vigilance and offered to go along and provide support.

But what Grandpa Lu didn’t say was that he had never participated in an auction outside, and he really wanted to see what a real auction was like!

(End of this chapter)