When I and Lao Yang heard this, we both asked him what he was thinking. He scratched his head and said, “I can only make a rough guess that this bronze tree might not be the key. What might be significant are the grooves on the tree. During the sacrificial rites, this thing might have been used to collect some liquid, such as rainwater, blood, or dew.”
Lao Yang asked him, “Is it like how emperors in the past collected dew to brew tea? What was that called, rootless water?”
Mr. Liang used his fountain pen to scrape some black grime from those grooves. After thousands of years, it was still impossible to tell whether these were the dried blood of ancestors or sediment from rainwater. He then looked at the branches and said, “You see, there are also things under these branches that resemble bloodletting troughs, extending all the way to the dual-bodied snake path. This branch must have had a function in the altar. It’s possible that it really is related to blood sacrifices.”
I didn’t quite understand, so I asked Mr. Liang to elaborate on why these grooves were related to the blood sacrifices of that time and how such sacrifices were conducted.
Mr. Liang told me that although the sacrificial rites during the Western Zhou period were not as brutal as those in the Shang dynasty, human sacrifice was unavoidable. The so-called different sacrificial methods were merely different ways of killing the sacrificial victims. For example, for land sacrifices, they would bury a person alive; for fire god sacrifices, they would burn someone to death; for river god sacrifices, they would throw someone into the river.
This towering bronze tree could be a sacrificial object for divine trees like the Fusang tree, or it could be related to the wood god Guma. Typically, such deities required blood sacrifices.
Just now, Uncle Tai’s blood flowed along the bronze branches into the dual-bodied snake on the bronze tree, all the way down. Such a pathway, if it were not pre-designed, could not flow so smoothly. Combined with the knife-like bloodletting troughs on the bronze branches, it became clear that this must have been a sacrificial vessel used for blood sacrifices.
Blood sacrifices, most of the time, involved blood entering the earth. During the sacrifices, the victims were surely nailed to these bronze branches, and their blood would be drawn out, merging into the dual-bodied snake path on the tree. If the blood did not coagulate midway, it would inevitably flow all the way to the roots of this bronze tree, deeply buried beneath the rocks, symbolizing the offering of blood to the gods.
To put it more vividly, the entire tree’s texture resembles the bloodletting troughs in a hospital’s autopsy room. The blood from several corpses on the autopsy tables, regardless of the amount, would eventually flow into these grooves, then into the drainage pipes. However, here, the bloodletting troughs were made into patterns that seemed decorative, which also explains why the grooves between these dual-bodied snakes are so extraordinarily deep.
Such cruel and large-scale sacrifices clearly could not be conducted for long, even by the most powerful nations. Therefore, ancient texts only record them sporadically, and regarding the specifics of the rituals, including how many human sacrifices were needed, everything remains unknown.
I listened to Master Liang’s words, and on one hand, I marveled at the wisdom of the ancients, while on the other hand, I felt a chill in my heart. Such a massive project was actually just a tool for killing; it was truly extremely foolish. Thinking about the countless slaves being impaled on these branches, their blood flowing through the bronze grooves and turning the entire tree into a pillar of blood, I felt as if a bone-chilling cold was seeping out from those grooves.
Feeling a bit uneasy, I said to Lao Yang, “We should move a bit faster. Otherwise, when Uncle Tai’s blood flows down, that God of Wood might think someone is here to offer a sacrifice again. The old man might come out for a stroll and could mistake us for offerings.”
Lao Yang didn’t take Master Liang’s words seriously and replied, “Don’t believe him too much. Back in China at that time, how could there be so many people to kill for fun? I bet these bloodletting things are probably just pig heads or sheep heads. If we climb a bit higher, we might even see some thousand-year-old dried pork hanging. Besides, even if they were people, what of it? When a person dies, the blood coagulates quickly. Don’t worry, it’s so high up here that the blood won’t reach the bottom before it dries. Moreover, with your blood, they wouldn’t even want it. Back then, people had such natural blood—eating pesticide-free food and drinking unpolluted water; it was like farmer’s blood—kind of sweet. But now, if your blood flows out, the old man would definitely get food poisoning from drinking it. So, this is just a trick to fool people.”
Hearing this, I couldn’t help but explode with anger, “Damn it! What’s that supposed to mean? How can my blood be toxic? Can you keep your mouth shut for a second…”
Seeing that I was genuinely angry, Master Liang quickly tried to mediate, “Gentlemen, let’s assess the situation. Given the current circumstances, let’s not joke around. Don’t you think these branches are getting denser? If this keeps up, it will be hard to climb any higher.”
Lao Yang replied, “It’s supposed to be sparse and dense here; the denser it is, the easier it is to climb. Are you suggesting it should be sparser? Ideally, each branch should be over two meters apart while we stack ourselves up here dozens of meters in the air?”
I said to Lao Yang, “Don’t jump to conclusions just yet. I think something’s off. Turn on the flashlight.”
When we came up, we were still using torches for illumination because the flashlight in Uncle Tai’s bag didn’t have enough power, and we didn’t want to waste it. However, now I needed to see clearly in the distance, which couldn’t be done with a torch.
Lao Yang turned on the flashlight and focused the beam upwards. To our surprise, we saw that the bronze branches above us were becoming increasingly dense. About seven or eight meters up, they were as thick as thorns. To continue climbing, we would have to hang upside down and step on the pointed ends of these branches, which was far more dangerous than climbing close to the bronze tree.
At this point, even if there were a dragon’s den or a tiger’s lair ahead, we had to venture in. Lao Yang told us to stay put and not move, while he climbed out onto the branches first. Then he threw down the rope he found near Uncle Tai. Master Liang and I grabbed the rope and began to climb up.
Looking up further, the scene here was no longer as we saw below; the bronze branches were so densely packed that there seemed to be no room to maneuver. I climbed for a while and thought to myself, no wonder Uncle Tai fell; at this rate, it would be difficult to find a place to step on. If I wasn’t careful, or if a gust of wind came from above, I might end up joining Uncle Tai down below.
At this moment, Lao Yang was climbing quickly, and I no longer had the strength to call out to him. I could only focus my mind on not falling behind while constantly reminding myself to be cautious. At the same time, I couldn’t use the torch because I didn’t have an extra hand to hold it. I had to extinguish it and tuck it into my waistband.
This section was so perilous that almost no one spoke. Soon, under the beam of the flashlight, I noticed changes in the rock walls surrounding the bronze trees. Natural stalactites and some dissolved rock curtains appeared, indicating that we had moved beyond the area of human excavation; this upper section was naturally formed rock caves.
As we passed through this area, the rock walls began to narrow. I also discovered that small caves of varying sizes had started to appear on both sides, none of which were deep enough to obscure the bottom. In some of these caves, there seemed to be something inside that reacted to the flashlight beam. These phenomena gradually made me feel uneasy, but since the rock walls were still dozens of meters away, I didn’t believe anything could directly affect us from across.
I was distracted by the caves nearby and didn’t notice that Lao Yang and Master Liang had stopped climbing ahead until I bumped into Master Liang’s backside and looked up. Above us, there were many of those monkeys wearing masks, just like the ones we had encountered below.
Upon closer inspection, I realized these monkeys were already dead. Their bodies had been dried out by the hot wind blowing down from above, grotesquely twisted, with their limbs stuck in the dense branches, preventing them from falling. There were dozens of such mummified corpses, and the eerie masks had not fallen off with the desiccation of the bodies; they continued to stare at us silently, as if they might come back to life at any moment.
We slowed our pace and carefully observed these strange entities. The monkeys’ bodies seemed to have a skin disease; most of their fur had fallen out, revealing a grayish-white color that somewhat resembled human skin. However, upon closer examination, there were very obvious lesions. Judging by their size, these monkeys were about as tall as a fifteen or sixteen-year-old child (though certainly not as tall as Yao Ming), perhaps even slightly taller. In this situation, my sense of height was nearly impaired.
The masks on the monkeys’ faces appeared to be made of stone, polished to perfection. I even suspected they might be made of porcelain. From the junction of the masks and the monkeys’ heads, it seemed as if the masks had been burned into the flesh or somehow gruesomely fused with their faces.
Most of the mummies were quite intact, with only a few reduced to a single limb. This was likely due to the extreme age of the corpses, which had dried out too much, leading to natural fragmentation.
The cool master pointed at a dry corpse and said, “Wait a minute, I think the poses of these monkeys look a bit strange. I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere before; let me take a closer look.” Lao Yang replied, “You’re such a bother, always wanting to look at everything. Be careful, or the monkeys below might think your pose is strange.” The cool master ignored Lao Yang and cautiously crawled closer to the nearest dry corpse. He grabbed its mask, and the dry skin on its face immediately cracked. The cool master easily tore off the mask. He leaned in to take a closer look at the corpse’s face and turned to us, saying, “Um… guys, this doesn’t seem to be a monkey. This is a… human face!”
