Cangmang Asks the Way 1: Guardian of the Lamp

It was 8:00 AM on the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month. In Xiqiao Village, the atmosphere at the Cang family's old house was solemn and heavy.

Cang Liuqing stood before her grandfather, Cang Houde, holding a specially made confidential document bag in her hands. Her face was bare of makeup, bearing only the faint weariness of a sleepless night, but her eyes shone with an astonishing brightness.

"Grandpa, what my great-grandfather guarded for forty-eight years, I will take over today and hand it over to the country." Her voice was solemn and firm.

Cang Houde sat in the rattan chair, his back ramrod straight. This 83-year-old man seemed to have aged ten years overnight after experiencing a life-or-death crisis last night and a family confession this morning, but in his cloudy eyes there was an unprecedented sense of relief and clarity.

With trembling hands, he took out the dark gold copper coin from his pocket for the last time.

The copper coin gleamed with a dim luster in the morning light, the non-Chinese characters engraved on the edge seeming to bear the weight of half a century. The old man's thumb stroked the coin's surface again and again, as if bidding a final farewell to his father and to that era of bloodshed and fire.

The main room was completely silent; everyone held their breath.

Cang Tianci stood by the door, quietly watching this scene. His gaze fell on his grandfather's hand, on the copper coin, and on his sister Cang Liuqing's face. The Hidden Dragon Technique flowed smoothly within his body, and the Heart Lamp burned brightly in his sea of ​​consciousness.

He suddenly understood why he had rushed towards the thief without hesitation last night, and why he had risked his life to protect the copper coin.

That wasn't a momentary impulse, but an instinct flowing in our blood—the instinct to protect.

Cang Houde stared at the copper coin for a full minute. Then, he took a deep breath, carefully placed the coin into the file bag, and gently placed the yellowed notebook on top of it.

The notebook's cover was worn so badly that the writing was illegible, but when the pages were opened, rows of neat handwriting were clearly visible—the evidence of crimes recorded by my great-grandfather Cangyunshan with his life, and the witness of forty-eight years of silent protection.

Cang Houde personally sealed the document bag and handed it to Cang Liuqing.

His hands were trembling, but the handover was unusually steady.

"Liu Qing, this is for you. Your great-grandfather is watching from heaven, and so am I. You must be strong-willed and upright." He held his granddaughter's hand tightly, emphasizing each word, "This is the root of our Cang family. Wherever you go, you must never forget it."

Cang Liuqing took the document bag with both hands, hugged it tightly to her chest, and tears welled up instantly: "Grandpa, don't worry. I will definitely hand it over to the right person myself, and use the law and the truth to comfort Great-Grandpa's spirit in heaven, so that our family's forty-eight years of protection will not have been in vain."

She turned around and looked at everyone in the main room, finally focusing her gaze on Cang Lifeng and Cang Tianci: "Lifeng, Tianci, the path that Great-Grandfather and Grandfather upheld for their entire lives, now it is our generation's turn to complete it."

Cang Lifeng nodded emphatically.

Cang Tianci didn't speak, but walked to his grandfather's side and steadily supported the old man's slightly trembling arm. The boy who had experienced a life-or-death ordeal last night seemed to have internalized something new in a single day.

Cang Houde looked at his youngest grandson, a hint of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.

Outside the window, the sun was shining brightly, and the sky after the snow was a clear, deep blue.

At the entrance to the compound, Mountain Eagle and four other plainclothes officers were already in position. They wore inconspicuous dark down jackets, their stances seemingly casual, but in reality, they blocked all possible angles. A black SUV, modified with bulletproof features, was parked at the alley entrance, its engine humming softly, ready to go at any moment.

Cang Liuqing carefully placed the document bag close to his body, zipped up his down jacket, and nodded to Shanying. Shanying gestured, and two team members went out first to confirm the route, while the other two stood guard on either side of Cang Liuqing.

"Grandpa, Dad, Mom, I'm leaving." Cang Liuqing took one last look at her family, then turned and walked out of the main room. Her steps were steady, and her back was straight.

Supported by Cang Tianci, Cang Houde walked unsteadily to the door and watched his granddaughter get into the car. The SUV drove silently out of the alley, merged into the traffic on the highway outside the village, and soon disappeared around the bend in the mountain road.

The old man stared at the direction where the car disappeared for a long time, until it was no longer visible, before letting out a long, deep breath, as if he had finally unloaded the burden he had carried all his life.

It was 10:00 AM on the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month. The underground vault of the People's Bank of China in the southern part of the city.

The heavy alloy explosion-proof door slid open slowly, driven by a hydraulic system, revealing a space illuminated by cool white lights, as bright as day. The air was filled with the distinctive coolness of a precision air conditioning system maintaining constant temperature and humidity, mingled with a faint smell of rust-preventing oil. Everything here—from the walls to the floor to the ceiling—was covered in a silver-gray specialty metal, cold and solemn, forming a stark contrast to the warmth of the charcoal fire in the old houses of Xiqiao Village.

The heavy, blast-proof door slowly opened, revealing a brightly lit space inside. This place, normally used to store the bank's top secrets and valuables, was now filled with a group of special people.

Shen Moyuan stood at the very front, dressed in a neat Zhongshan suit, his hair combed meticulously. His hands trembled slightly, not from the cold, but from excitement—after waiting for forty-eight years, he was finally about to see what his teacher had protected with his life.

Chen Mo stood beside him, his expression serious. Cang Liuqing stood behind them, holding a file folder. Several cultural relics experts and state security officers were also present.

In the center of the vault, a specially made explosion-proof safe was opened, inside which lay a dark brown metal box—the box was clearly marked with the number "23" and Japanese sealing marks.

The box wasn't large, about the size of a suitcase, but it was unusually heavy. The lock on the lid was complex and precise, with a hidden lotus-shaped groove above the keyhole.

"It's this... Forty-eight years... Teacher..." Shen Moyuan murmured, tears welling up in his eyes.

Chen Mo gestured for Cang Liuqing to step forward.

Cang Liuqing took a deep breath, walked to the safe, and took out the dark gold copper coin from the file bag. The coin gleamed with a dim luster under the light, and the engravings on its edges were clearly visible.

She aligned the copper coin with the lotus-shaped groove above the keyhole of box number 23 and slowly inserted it.

"Click".

A crisp sound of a mechanism turning rang out, particularly clear in the silent vault.

Immediately afterwards, a series of complex mechanical sounds came from inside the lid, as if a long-dormant mechanism had been awakened. A dozen seconds later, the lid popped open a crack with a "snap".

Everyone held their breath.

With trembling hands, Shen Moyuan slowly lifted the lid of the box.

Inside the box, several items were neatly stacked:

At the top is a scroll of Tang Dynasty sutra carefully wrapped in silk. The pages of the sutra have yellowed, but the characters are still clear and new.

Next to it is a small gilded Buddha statue from the Northern Wei Dynasty, with a simple and solemn shape, still shining brightly after a thousand years; below the Buddha statue is a stack of yellowed documents, the top one being a hand-drawn map of the distribution of hidden cultural relics, marked with densely packed location codes.

Suddenly, Cang Liuqing gently placed the notebook that her grandfather had written by hand into the box, making it instantly heavier.

Shen Moyuan carefully picked up the notebook from the box. On the cover, written in neat calligraphy, were the words:

"Sealed on August 12, 1945. What is contained here is all of Chinese bloodline, how can we allow Japanese invaders to defile it? I will protect it with my broken body, so that future generations may preserve it intact."

—Cangyun Mountain's Last Words

He turned to the first page, and the teacher's familiar handwriting came into view:

"Today, the 'Golden Lily' unit forcibly conscripted me to examine a fragment of the Tang Dynasty 'Tao Te Ching' looted from Baiyun Temple. I pretended not to recognize it, secretly made a copy of the text, and hid it in my sleeve..."

Line by line, page by page, it records the crimes of the Japanese army, the loss of national treasures, and also the forbearance and perseverance of a Chinese scholar in a den of wolves.

"Teacher...you didn't wait in vain...forty-eight years...your student...your student has finally brought back what you protected..." Shen Moyuan sobbed uncontrollably.

Cang Liuqing stood to the side, tears streaming down her face again. Looking at the artifacts in the box, at her great-grandfather's last words, she felt a surge of pride.

Chen Mo walked to Shen Moyuan's side and said in a deep voice, "Professor Shen, based on this evidence, we will formally request the state to re-evaluate and commend Mr. Cangyunshan's historical contributions. He is not only not a traitor, but also a hero who protected national cultural relics."

Shen Moyuan nodded emphatically, wiping away his tears, his gaze hardening once more: "Captain Chen, I am willing to act as a witness, providing all necessary testimony and information. The teacher's reputation must be restored! The provenance of these artifacts must also be made public!"

"We will handle it." Chen Mo turned to Cang Liuqing. "Comrade Liuqing, you, Lifeng, and Tianci are all excellent. Your Cang family, for forty-eight years and three generations, has guarded secrets that you shouldn't have had to keep, and you've also upheld the bottom line that you should have upheld."

Cang Liuqing straightened his back: "Captain Chen, this is what we should do."

Chen Mo nodded, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the vault: "Everything that happened here today is temporarily classified as top secret. The artifacts and documents in box number 23 will be jointly taken over by the National Security and Cultural Relics departments for further research and protection. As for the copper coins and Mr. Cangyunshan's notebook, they will be archived as key historical evidence."

He paused, his voice growing even more serious: "But everyone must understand, this isn't over yet. Although Nakamura Hiroshi has left, the organization behind him won't give up. What they want isn't just the copper coins, but the secret in Box 23—those maps showing the distribution of hidden artifacts, which may point to even more looted artifacts that haven't yet been discovered."

"What we need to do next is to follow these clues and find those national treasures that are still hidden in the shadows, one by one."

A solemn atmosphere filled the vault. Everyone understood that this was not merely a handover of cultural relics, but the beginning of a cultural preservation battle that transcended time and space.