My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

Night fog blankets the buildings of the CBD, and starlight falls upon the mountain ridges guarding Nanshan.

At 5 a.m., the city's morning rush hour had not yet begun. The few figures on the early morning subway hurried by like passersby in the background of a faded photograph.

The doorbell of a 24-hour coffee shop at the interchange station of subway lines 5 and 8 rang softly. A waiter handed a brown paper bag containing two warm lattes and two sandwiches to a young man carrying a backpack, a long nylon bag, and trekking poles.

The waiter had folded the opening of the brown paper bag containing the sandwiches into thirds and secured it with a staple, beneath which was a long strip of thermal paper. A line of text on the thermal paper caught the young man's attention:

It is recommended to consume before 8:35 AM.

At 8:35 a.m., Xiang Nanfeng sat in the empty carriage of Line 8. He stared at the line of words on the thermal paper, sometimes lost in thought, sometimes in a daze: By now, they should have already crossed the ridge of Bijia Mountain and entered the belly of Shounan Mountain, right? By then, the rising sun would have cleaved through the morning mist in the deep mountains, and the pool would have reflected layers of golden light. The secret of Miaoyao Pagoda should have surfaced by then, right?

At 5:33 a.m., Xiang Nanfeng pushed open the door of No. 90 Loubei Ding, Loujia Village. Dang Xingyang was getting up and putting on his shoes, rubbing his sleepy eyes, and shivering in the cold morning air.

"Have a meal."

Xiang Nanfeng casually tossed the two bags containing coffee and sandwiches onto the table.

"Is that all, bro?"

"How much more do you want to eat while hiking? Eating too much will make you feel unwell. Let's have something better tonight when we get back."

"Yes, I'll listen to you, I'll listen to everything you say."

They traveled for half a day without saying a word. The path from the back of Loujia Village to the half-stone tablet at the scree beach was much shorter than the path from Shitou Village. Xiang Nanfeng had traveled this path many times before, and with the help of satellite positioning and a professional navigation device, the two found the half-stone tablet just after 11 a.m.

"Is this the half of the stone tablet you mentioned?"

"Yes, that's it. What's wrong?"

"It's amazing how you noticed it. Although the surface is quite flat and the shape is a bit square, it's not as eye-catching as you described."

"Alright, let's eat first, then get back to work."

Xiang Nanfeng gestured for Dang Xingyang to sit on the broken stone tablet to eat, while he himself held a loaf of bread in one hand and a cup of hot milk in the other, taking a bite of bread and a sip of milk, his legs and eyes never idle. He paced back and forth on the gravel beach, looking around.

To the east of the broken stone tablet, on the gravel beach, lies a grayish-white boulder, about four or five meters square and more than half a person tall. The surface of the boulder is pitted, as if it had been gnawed by insects. If you pick up a sharp, long pebble from the riverbank and knock it, you can hear a clear, hard echo.

It was a piece of limestone that had been tempered by time but had not collapsed. One day, it collapsed from the mountain to the bottom of the valley. Another day, it was carried here by the rapids and abandoned here.

One can imagine that it once stood in the middle of the stream. Today, this boulder is like an ancient seal embedded in the muddy, ink-like tidal flats. And beside the boulder, three or four meters away, a large tree, protected by the boulder, has taken root and grown into a mature tree amidst the hard rubble.

The grayish-brown bark is covered with deep, vertical cracks, and the dense evergreen canopy is like a giant, open umbrella. Looking up, some purplish-black fruits, like miniature grapes, hang forlornly on the treetops and branches, a memory of a bountiful year, a lingering shadow of autumn.

In the gentle breeze, they occasionally emitted ethereal, sand-like sounds. Xiang Nanfeng approached the tree trunk, stood on tiptoe, and plucked an oval leaf from the lowest branch. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled patterns that revealed the distinct three veins emerging from the base. Then he rubbed the leaf between his hands. The instant the leaf crumbled, a crisp, camphor scent filled the air.

It can withstand dampness and also endure the passage of time:

"It's a camphor tree, a fragrant camphor tree."

Xiang Nanfeng has an idea.

After the two finished their lunch, they collected the trash and put it back in one backpack. Then, Xiang Nanfeng opened another backpack and took out several tool bags.

"What is this?"

"Here, see for yourself how to use it."

Xiang Nanfeng opened one of the tool bags, handed Dang Xingyang an instruction manual for a hand-cranked winch crane, and then reassembled the crane that had been disassembled in advance.

"Brother, this thing can be pulled, but where are you planning to put it?"

"Just place it there!" Xiang Nanfeng pointed to the boulder they had just seen. "I checked that rock; the core is limestone, with a small amount of dolomite as a byproduct. It's extremely hard. It'll definitely hold up. We'll drill holes on the upper side later and install three anchor points, and it'll be done."

"Okay. You install the crane, and I'll drill the holes. Tell me where to drill the expansion bolts, and I'll drill the holes."

"it is good."

Xiang Nanfeng responded, glanced around, walked to the side of the boulder facing the camphor tree, then squatted down and looked it over from all angles. He took out a marker and drew three dots on the upper side of the boulder, aligning them with the positions of the three screw holes on the crane's mounting plate.

"Just hit these three places."

"Okay, how deep?"

7 centimeters.

"it is good."

After finishing their conversation, the two stopped wasting time and got to work. Dang Xingyang took out a hand drill from another tool bag, attached a pre-prepared stone drill bit, measured the depth, and installed the drill bit limiter.

Just as he finished preparing for his work, Xiang Nanfeng had already assembled the crane. He used the water cup he had just used to drink water to fill a cup with water from the stream, and then came back to help Dang Xingyang drip water above the borehole.

With a flurry of activity, two neatly drilled holes appeared on the side of the boulder. Xiang Nanfeng had already found a suitable flat, round pebble on the gravel beach. As soon as Dang Xingyang finished drilling, he hammered the bolts into the holes. Then, he replaced the drill bit on the hand drill with a matching M12 socket wrench, first securing the bolts, and then connecting the assembled crane to the mounting holes on the back plate and the expansion bolts in sequence. A powerful tool capable of moving the stone tablet was now installed.

"Hey, awesome! No problems, absolutely sturdy! This crane is really skillful!"

Dang Xingyang braced himself on the crane with both hands, jumped up, and pressed his entire body weight onto the crane. He did this three times, but the crane didn't budge. Then he turned the crane's crank and, seeing that it moved freely, gave Nanfeng a thumbs-up. Meanwhile, Nanfeng had returned to the half-section of the stone tablet. He opened his entrenching tool, lay prone on the rubble, and was using it to dig a horizontal groove in the gravel beneath the tablet.

This task was much easier than drilling holes in the limestone. He dug in front, while Dang Xingyang pushed the rubble he dug out away from behind to keep the path of the rubble clear.

The two worked together seamlessly, and within three to five minutes they had dug a groove under the stone tablet. Then they did the same thing, moving to the perpendicular direction of the first groove and digging another groove.

Dang Xingyang took out a 20mm thick steel climbing rope from his backpack and handed it to Xiang Nanfeng, who then went back and forth, using the groove dug under the stone tablet to tie the climbing rope to the stone tablet. Finally, he tied a lock knot at the point where the stone tablet was closest to the crane, completely securing the stone tablet.

"Okay, no problem, very sturdy!"

Xiang Nanfeng gripped both sides of the rope knot with both hands and tested it with all his might to ensure that the knot was strong and securely fastened. Finally, he connected the crane's steel hook to the rope knot and shouted "Pull!" With his hand gesture, Dang Xingyang cranked the crane's handle, and the steel cable connecting the crane and the half-stone tablet gradually tightened.

"It moved! It moved! No problem!"

The stone tablet was easily dragged across the pebble beach. This 2600-pound hand-cranked crane utilizes the principle of gear rotation and pulley combination. By reducing the rotation speed and amplifying the torque, it can generate a drag force of 1100 kilograms in the horizontal direction, making dragging half of the stone tablet a piece of cake.

While Dang Xingyang was drilling the hole, Xiang Nanfeng had already leveled the gravel path leading to the boulder while the water dripped. In less than two minutes, the half-section of the stone tablet, which was more than ten meters away from the boulder, was dragged to the side of the boulder by a crane.

"Okay, I'll take it apart, you climb the tree."

At Xiang Nanfeng's command, Dang Xingyang cheerfully replied, "That's right, you can't do this job!"

Dang Xingyang had loved climbing trees since he was a child, and he got scolded a lot for it when he was young. The camphor tree in front of him was about a meter thick, just the right size to hug up. He quickly climbed up to a thick branch more than three meters high, and stopped at the direction of Xiang Nanfeng.

"Okay, this is fine. Here you go!"

Xiang Nanfeng found another climbing rope and threw the end of it onto a tree. Using this climbing rope, the two of them carried the hand drill and the crane up one after the other.

Drilling holes in a tree is much easier than drilling holes in a rock. In less than a minute, all three holes for securing the crane's backplate were drilled. Dang Xingyang then installed the extra-long self-tapping screws, securing the crane in place. Afterward, Xiang Nanfeng double-checked that everything was secure, gave an OK sign, and Dang Xingyang in the tree began cranking the handle.

Soon, the steel cable tightened, and the stone tablet began to tilt. As the tablet gradually tilted, became vertical, and suspended in mid-air, the branches of the camphor tree used to secure the crane began to creak. The south wind quickly adjusted the tablet's orientation from below, then kicked the prepared stepping stones into place.

"Okay, no problem, put it in, slowly!"

With the command given below, the ropes above slowly released and gradually loosened. The half-stone tablet landed steadily again, and this time, the inscription beneath it finally faced upwards. After countless years, all the secrets would finally see the light of day again. Leaving aside how Dang Xingyang disassembled the machine in the tree, climbed down, and packed up his tools, let's just talk about Xiang Nanfeng. He circled the stone tablet three times, staring intently at the inscription, but still couldn't immediately decipher its top, bottom, left, and right sides:

Oh my god, how could this happen!

Xiang Nanfeng had initially thought that the lower half of the stone tablet on the mountain, exposed to the air year-round, would be the most susceptible to weathering and water erosion, while the upper half, having fallen into the valley long ago, should be better preserved due to the natural erosion process. However, a closer look revealed a truly disappointing state of preservation.

"See? I told you so! The bottom half is still firmly planted in place, and the words are illegible. This top half fell from such a height and was washed so far by the water. How could it possibly be intact and have clear writing? So, which half is better?"

"Ugh, they're all pretty much the same. This is it, this is it."

"Still can't recognize him?"

The light in Xiang Nanfeng's eyes suddenly dimmed, just like the sky above the empty valley that happened to be blocked by a cloud.

From the moment he first saw the half-stone tablet after trekking through mountains and rivers with Grandpa Zheng's guidance, Xiang Nanfeng was convinced that the inscription beneath it must hold some kind of evidence that would finally reveal the truth. He had waited so long, planned so long, even just waiting a week for the crane to arrive, only to have it all come to nothing. The exhaustion of the past few days suddenly overwhelmed him like a thousand arrows piercing his heart; he was so tired that he felt he didn't even have the strength to lift a hand.

His hope was drained, and he stared at the blurry, pitted half of the stone tablet, unable to utter a word for a long time.

"Forget it, bro, let's take the picture first. Didn't you take a picture of that half? Put both halves together, and you'll definitely have a solution when we get back!"

As Dang Xingyang spoke, he handed the camera to Xiang Nanfeng and returned to the spot where the first half of the stone tablet had been to quickly pack up his tools. Several tool bags and their backpacks remained there. Since the various tools were taking up their weight allowance, Xiang Nanfeng hadn't planned to spend the night in the mountains this time. Therefore, according to their plan, they should descend from here before 1 p.m., so they could avoid walking at night and be out of the mountains around 6 p.m.

Xiang Nanfeng took the camera and, forcing himself to kneel, pressed it against the cold, damp gravel. He picked up a smooth, flat stone, which resembled a natural stone axe, and it felt remarkably comfortable in his hand. Xiang Nanfeng gripped the stone axe with his fingertips and scraped the moss off the surface of the monument. Green velvet fell in rustling sounds, but what was revealed was not a clear inscription, but rather deeper indentations and dark brown water stains.

Xiang Nanfeng recognized a large "木" (wood) character. The left and right strokes of this "木" character were just two shallow, long indentations, and it was really hard to see clearly without careful examination. The remaining "十" (ten) character was clearly visible, standing alone in the middle, like a rotten, collapsing cross, gnawed away by time until only bones remained.

He removed the lens cap, blew on it, and began to frame the broken stele and the seal script characters with disappointment. He would sometimes move forward, his knees sinking into the gravel, and sometimes step back, holding his breath. But just as he was accepting reality and resigned to his fate, Dang Xingyang suddenly stood up and cried out in surprise:

"Brother, brother, come quick!"

The sound wasn't loud, but in the deserted valley, it resonated powerfully and echoed endlessly.

"Brother, come quick and look, what is this!"

"What? What is it?"

Xiang Nanfeng turned his head and saw Dang Xingyang walking quickly toward him, holding a small blue object in his hand.

"What are you holding?"

"A bottle cap, it looks like a mineral water bottle cap?"

"This is?"

"On the ground, brother, in the rubble! I found it in the rubble!"

"What? In the rubble somewhere?"

"There it is!"

Dang Xingyang pointed with his hand, and Nanfeng followed—he was truly shocked: the direction Dang Xingyang was pointing was not elsewhere, but exactly where the half of the stone tablet had been overturned earlier.