Many years ago, I was in the third grade at the First Primary School of Changshou Road, Shanghai. I wrote a question-setting essay in Chinese class - a dream when I grew up? Some people wrote about scientists, engineers, PLAs and even policemen... and I am an archaeologist.

This is my childhood dream.

In the composition, I wrote that none of my classmates from scientists, engineers, PLA and even police had realized my dreams. Of course, I have not become an archaeologist, and I have never even touched the door.

The childhood dreams of most people are destined to fail. Unfortunately, this is the iron law of life.

After going to middle school, I dreamed of becoming a painter again. As a result, before going to the Academy of Fine Arts exam, I gave up because of my fear of failure, which made me regret it all my life. I don’t know what else I can become? My dream seems out of reach. I am about to gain a mediocre and confused life, just like the people around me.

During the years of adolescence, when I was in the darkest mood, I found the antidote to save myself, which was reading and writing. Every day I went to the library and read one book after another. I also used the limited money I had to buy books, including a set of documentary literature on Chinese archaeology and tomb robbery - first the tragedy of the archaeological excavation of Dingling by Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, and then the legend of the stolen Dongling of the Qing Dynasty. During the Republic of China, Emperor Tongzhi's Huiling was stolen, and the tomb robber opened his coffin and found that he died young.

The emperor had long become a pile of dead bones, but the queen's body was as intact as before, as if she had just fallen asleep, with a shiny and natural face and elastic skin. Soon, another group of gangsters broke into the underground palace and cut open the 20-year-old queen's abdomen in a daze, searching for the little gold she swallowed when she committed suicide more than 60 years ago. A few days later, another group of tomb robbers entered the underground palace and found that the naked queen had long hair was disheveled, her face was as bright as a living, without a painful expression, but her intestines were flowing all over the floor...

Although this story is not true or false, it has always been lingering in my mind. If I were asked to rewrite it, would it be a love story? Or a tomb robber legend?

On Christmas 2000, on Christmas, I made a bet with a female netizen in a chat room. As for the bet, I had long forgotten it. But for this bet, I thought of the story of the Queen Tongzhi who was robbed by tombs. By chance, I wrote my first book by mistake - she was born in the 19th century and was insulted in the 20th century. The waves lasted for a hundred years until the 21st century. The Internet issued two keywords "She is in the underground palace" and "returned me to the head". The next year, this book was published, which is probably the first long suspense thriller novel on the Chinese Internet.

Then, I gradually became the person you know.

But I have never forgotten the excitement when I first conceived "Virus", as if I was in the Qing Dynasty's cemetery palace. The queen stood behind the computer screen, with long hair disguised and her eyes resentful... Her surname was Arut, and she had no name in history (Empress Dowager Cixi did not leave her name). I gave her a name: Arut Xiaozhi.

Xiaozhi, Ye Xiao and others have been with us for a long time, and many years have passed in a flash.

In the spring of 2015, on a drizzling afternoon, I was driven and stuck in a small road in the downtown Shanghai. On the right was a securities company, and there were two stone sculptures squatting at the gate. This was not a very common stone lion, but a divine beast with a kirin-like appearance, with a pair of deer antlers on each head - isn't this the tomb-guard beast in the ancient tomb?

At that moment of spring, three Chinese characters flashed through my mind—

Tomb-suppressing beast!

What a heart-wrenching name, it seems that back to the first year of the 21st century, the rushing era when dreams began to sprout, connected the Chinese history that has never been interrupted for three thousand years and the secrets in ancient tombs.

I excavated hundreds of pictures of tomb-suppressing beasts, including cultural relics that were freshly unearthed at the archaeological site, national treasures that were so grand in museums, and antiques that were priceless in auction house manuals.

In order to let more tomb-guarding beasts see the light of day again, I spent nearly two years downloading hundreds of archaeological reports (enough to accurately reach every centimeter, every bone, every longitude and longitude), interpreting countless epitaphs, collecting a large number of historical documents and academic papers all night, and even discovering a little prince of the Tang Dynasty buried in the White Deer Plain...

The tomb-controlling beasts are real.

This is an unquestionable conclusion. They have hideous faces, but they never betray them. They not only protect the tomb owners, but also protect Chinese civilization.

Some people say that the Chinese are a nation without faith, a moral bottom line, and a spirit of perseverance. They are wrong! I know that the Chinese have faith, and this belief is history. The tradition of writing history since Confucius, from "Shangshu", "Spring and Autumn Annals", "Zuo Zhuan" to Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", the twenty-four histories of 40 million words.

What the tomb-controlling beasts are always protecting the faith of the Chinese!

The secret behind the tomb-suppressing beast is the secret between me and you. Whether you believe it or not, I am here, neither sad nor happy, neither increasing nor decreasing, staring into your eyes, telling you the story of the tomb-suppressing beast, and accompanying you through countless long nights.

On the first day of 2017, I officially wrote the first chapter of the novel "The Tomb-Suppressing Beast" series-

In the first year of the 20th century, many major events occurred on the earth: the Boer War was in full swing, the Indian famine starved millions to death, the Second Olympic Games in Paris, Nietzsche and Wilde died...

In the Shenzhou of Chi County, Dongfang, Swedish Sven Heding discovered the Loulan ruins in Lop Nur; Wang Taoist priest opened the Sutra Cave in Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, and the Eight-Nation Alliance broke the Beijing City. Our story begins here...

The railway came through the wall, and went to the railway station in Daqianmen, looking at the Forbidden City from afar. Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi collapsed one after another. Puyi ascended the throne at the age of three years, and Emperor Xuantong in three years, and overturned the ship in the 300th Qing Dynasty. The emperor's head was not killed, and he repeated the mistakes of Chinese history for three thousand years. He has made civilization progress! Although the statistics of 397 emperors in the 83 dynasties in China are inaccurate, the last emperor has a tragic fate but no dispute. He was displaced throughout his life, became an emperor of the Republic of China, became a Japanese puppet, and was captured by the Soviet Union. He eventually died of illness in Beijing in 1967 as a citizen of the Republic of China, without hesitation.

This is the history that our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers have witnessed with their own eyes.

In another fifty years, that is, today in the 21st century, there will be no "Ye Jing, the people are rare, Sha Zilong closed the door and stabbed sixty-four guns in one go; then, leaning on the gun, looking at the stars in the sky, remembering the majesty of the wilderness in the wilderness forest. He sighed, slowly touched the cool and slippery gun body with his fingers, and smiled slightly: 'Don't pass it! Don't pass it!'"

This is not only a story of the tomb-suppressing beast, but also a story of the Chinese story of the 20th century, and even a story of the entire human race for five thousand years. And how much I like the protagonist of this story - a young man born in the ancient cemetery palace, carrying a deep hatred of blood and hiding secrets for three thousand years, was destined to be displaced throughout his life, the waves and clouds are treacherous, turning the tide and the building is about to collapse!
Chapter completed!