novelsite Chapter 51 Black Blood Bodhisattva
Chapter 51 Black Blood Bodhisattva
Humans and upright apes stood on opposite sides of the rift, each holding a weapon, but the weapons were not pointed at each other—the rift itself.
They are trying to repair the cracks.
The sixth image ends abruptly here, with the lower half being blank.
It's not a blank space that's been destroyed; it's a blank space that was never etched in the first place.
The previous inscription stopped here.
Lu Cheng's finger traced the edge of the sixth blank page.
"When they carved the sixth piece, the war was still going on. Or rather, they didn't know how the war would end, so they left it blank."
The water dragon emerged from the cave, covered in mud, with a stone shard hanging from its large fangs.
It spat the stone fragments at Lu Cheng's feet, then lay down and pawed at Lu Cheng's boots with its front paws, as if to say:
All the stones have been handed in today, but what about the soup?
Lu Cheng picked up the stone shard and turned it over.
The word "wait" is engraved on it.
On the last image of the last relief of the pre-civilization, the word "wait" was carved.
They knew that later digs would come here.
They are waiting for someone to fill in the lower half of the sixth painting.
……
Meanwhile, in Taro Tanuki Country, Kyoto.
After arranging the concentric circles and the words "You choose who's inside and who's outside," the upright ape arranged a new line of words.
This time there are even fewer characters, only three.
"Wait there."
After it finished writing those three words, it raised its head and looked at Masa outside the bamboo fence with its clear black and white eyes.
Then it lowered its head and placed another line of small words below "You wait," the handwriting lighter than all the previous ones, the pebbles placed very shallowly, as if afraid of crushing the sand.
"We'll wait too."
……
September of the year 5914 in the Blue Star calendar, the fifty-third day since the arrival of alien creatures.
Li Wei spent six days in the Lesotho Mountains and finally figured out where the title "Black Blood Bodhisattva" came from.
It wasn't the disaster victims who started it; the upright apes themselves taught it.
He discovered this was purely accidental.
That afternoon, the Stone Whisperer distributed food to the disaster victims inside the tent.
Those were corn and dried beans collected from abandoned villages at the foot of the mountain, packed in bags sewn from cloth woven by upright apes, one bag for each household, no more and no less.
After the distribution was complete, the Stone Whisperer squatted in the center of the tent and drew a picture on the stone slab with pebbles.
A simple line drawing of a little person with a halo above their head.
The little man has a black dot painted on his chest—representing black blood.
The disaster victims knelt down and kowtowed, chanting "Black Blood Bodhisattva".
Li Wei squatted outside the tent, almost spilling the corn porridge in his hand.
The upright apes taught humans to worship themselves.
That night, he climbed to the highest point on the mountain behind the disaster camp in the dark and used his binoculars to scan the entire valley by moonlight.
The seven refugee camps in the Rasot Mountains are located on terraces on both sides of the valley, with a stone platform in the center of each camp.
On the platform was a stone slab with a concentric circle pattern carved on it—exactly the same pattern that the upright ape in Kyoto, Taro Tanuki Country had arranged.
The core is that of an upright ape, and the outer core is that of a human.
Seven camps, seven concentric circular platforms, and seven upright apes known as the "Stone Whisperers".
During the day, they distribute grain, repair irrigation ditches, and build houses. At night, they squat beside the stone platform and write words on the stone slab with pebbles.
The disaster victims sat around them, learning to write by following their example.
It's not about learning human writing, but about learning the symbol system of upright apes.
A circle enclosing a square, and a square containing an even smaller circle.
Li Wei had seen this symbol in Botswana, in the report of Masa in the Kingdom of Taro, and on the pre-civilized stone walls beneath the Kingdom of Winner Monkey.
The 50,000 disaster victims in Rasok are now learning it.
This is not coexistence, this is missionary work.
Livy's ninth telegram was sent from the edge of the Lesotho mountains and was longer than any of the previous ones.
The last paragraph reads:
"Governor, the false men of Vakanda have learned war, and the false men of Rasotho have learned religion. They don't kill; they make humans willingly become them. Fifty thousand refugees are turning from humans into followers of the upright apes. Black blood hasn't flowed into their veins, but the symbols of the upright apes have already entered their brains. If this is coexistence, the result won't be humans and upright apes sitting at the same table, but humans kneeling before the platform of the upright apes."
The Winners' Kingdom, the government.
When Lu Cheng received the telegram, he was squatting in the square of the government building watching the water dragon beast change of the guard.
Over the past six days, the water dragon beast that dug out the pre-civilization stone wall has increased its depth from 94 meters to 103 meters.
It encountered a layer of basalt in the middle, and it pried it open with its large fangs for two days.
The excavated stone fragments were piled up into a small mountain, from which geologists pieced together the lower half of the sixth relief—humans and upright apes stood on opposite sides of the crack, their weapons not pointed at each other, but at something above the crack.
The creature's form finally became clear: it wasn't a giant millipede, nor an anomalocaris, but a much larger upright ape.
Or rather, it's something in the shape of an upright ape, but the proportions are wrong.
It has a larger head, longer limbs, and seven fingers instead of five.
Carrie squatted down next to him, holding two bowls of soup in her hands.
One bowl was given to Lu Cheng, and the other to the Water Dragon Beast.
The water dragon emerged from the cave, covered in mud, with a palm-sized stone shard hanging from its large fangs.
It spat the stone shards at Lu Cheng's feet, then buried its face in the soup bowl and slurped it down with a loud slurping sound.
Lu Cheng picked up the stone shard and turned it over.
It has one word engraved on it: "God".
"In the lower half of the sixth relief, humans and upright apes are fighting against something. They call that thing God." Lu Cheng put the stone slab together with the relief rubbings he had previously pieced together.
"Pre-civilization humans and upright apes coexisted for three thousand years, from initial encounters to cooperation, to sharing, to fighting side by side. Together they fought against a seven-fingered upright ape they called 'God.' Then they broke apart, went to war, and perished together. Finally, they carved all of this in stone and buried it underground. On the lower half of the sixth painting, they carved the word 'God,' and then stopped. They are telling us—what ultimately caused their breakup was not each other, but that 'God.'"
Carrie looked at the outline of the seven-fingered upright ape on the rubbing: "What is that 'god'?"
"I don't know, but the false people of Rasotho are turning humans into believers through religion. They are teaching humans to worship themselves—the Black-blooded Bodhisattva. Black-blooded is the blood of the upright ape, and Bodhisattva is the god of humankind. They have combined the two words to create a new god."
After finishing the soup, the water dragon beast licked the bottom of the bowl clean and looked up at Lu Cheng.
There was no reverence for God in its eyes, only anticipation for the next bowl of soup.
……
Meanwhile, in the foggy city of New York.
David crouched in the tunnel at the bottom of the Taywus River, in front of him was a rusted iron plate that the water dragon had just dug out.
Copper pipes were riveted to the iron plate, and the copper pipes were engraved with the symbol of an upright ape.
The Minister of the Navy stood behind him, holding a translated symbol chart.
"Prime Minister, the symbols on the copper pipe have been deciphered; it's a recipe."
"recipe?"
"The recipe for the food of the upright ape consists of the liver of the Tyrrell fish, the eggs of the giant dragonfly, and some kind of underground tuber... There is a note at the end of the recipe—"
The Navy Minister's voice became strange.
The note states: "This formula can reduce the rejection reaction of black blood to red blood. After consumption, humans and upright apes can briefly share a table, with the effect lasting for about two hours."