Chapter 83: Chapter 81: The Incomprehensible Bagua Chart
There’s a hidden compartment at the bottom of this wooden box!
Huo Sining was astounded, she had not at all anticipated that a wooden box picked up casually would conceal such an astonishing secret!
Huo Sining couldn’t help but admire the intricate craftsmanship of the mechanism’s designer, the concealment within the box was extremely well-hidden.
The bottom of this ebony box appeared seamless, as if it were hollowed out from a single piece of ebony with no visible trace, who would guess there was a mechanism hidden underneath?!
Thinking of the mechanism, Huo Sining’s heart uncontrollably started to beat violently.
The effort taken to craft such a clever mechanism indicates that the item hidden within the compartment of the box must be far more valuable than the pair of Mutton Fat Jade bracelets.
As the mechanism slowly operated, a small compartment less than five centimeters revealed itself at the bottom of the box.
Huo Sining hurriedly leaned in to see what was hidden inside the recessed compartment.
As the mechanical clicks ceased, the compartment was completely exposed.
There was a small ring on the barrier of the compartment; Huo Sining reached out to pull it, and a square hollow appeared before her eyes.
Inside the hollow, a piece of parchment folded into a square fit snugly.
Huo Sining was stunned, her mind had envisioned all sorts of jewels and diamonds which vanished in an instant, never had she imagined that such an exquisitely crafted mechanism would contain a piece of parchment!
Huo Sining was almost at a loss whether to laugh or cry, she carefully extracted the parchment from the hollow and slowly unfolded it.
Because it had always been stored inside the ebony box, despite the years that had passed, the parchment was still as good as new, without any trace of oxidation.
The unfolded parchment was roughly a foot in length on each side, covered in a jumble of cryptic symbols that seemed to be a Bagua Chart.
Huo Sining didn’t understand the Art of Zhouyi, and her knowledge was limited to what she had read in Jin Yong novels: “Two Yi birth Four Symbols, Four Symbols birth Bagua.”
She guessed that the drawing was of the Bagua primarily because there was a Tai Chi symbol in the center of the parchment, and encircling it was a wheel composed of eight directions.
Huo Sining stared at the chart for a long while, feeling dizzy and unable to decipher anything substantial.
Next to the parchment were some ancient characters, something about ‘corresponding directions’ and ‘positioning,’ which left Huo Sining completely puzzled.
For the first time, Huo Sining felt scared about her cultural knowledge gap. Looking at the Bagua Chart, she couldn’t understand anything useful despite a long while of study.
In the end, she gave up and put the parchment back into the box, then carefully restored the mechanism.
However, Huo Sining didn’t let it go, she was very skeptical about the Bagua Chart on the parchment.
If it caused the owner of the wooden box to hide it so seriously and cautiously, the chart was very likely concealing some important information!
Huo Sining might not understand Bagua, but that didn’t mean others didn’t.
To understand what was depicted on the parchment, all she needed was to find someone proficient in the Art of Zhouyi.
Of course, Huo Sining wasn’t foolish, she hadn’t told anyone, not even Su Qingqing, because she felt that the contents of the box were significant. Naturally, she wouldn’t naively carry the chart to seek expert advice, as any important secrets within it were likely to be snatched away, and she would have been working in vain.
In the evening, Huo Sining went to the cruise ship pier; before departing, she had researched online and knew that the Yellow River crabs typically moved around in the upper stream of the river.
So, upon reaching the Yellow River, she went against the current until she approached the estuary habitat near Dongjiadu, where she finally spotted the traces of the crabs.
As the tributary was tidal, with the rise and fall of the tide causing the water to alternate directions, the crabs would climb onto the shore at high tide and be swept away by the current at low tide, vanishing without a trace.
Moreover, because this tributary had clear water quality and abundant algae, it provided a rich food source and a favorable environment for the survival and propagation of the crabs—no wonder the locals were able to form a community here.
Huo Sining discovered many caves at the bottom of the underwater rocks, indicating that plenty of the crabs made their homes there.
Just as she was about to reach into one of those holes, a crab calmly emerged from the silt and staggered toward the hole.