Old Man was thin and shriveled, like a skeleton. All his peers and the next generation had died, and Elder hardly moved at all, spending his days sitting in front of the house, living as if just waiting for death. So, no one knew his origins.

Old Man's eyesight was poor. It was said that when he used to rob graves, he was exposed to corpse fumes, so most of the time, his eyes couldn't open.

But as soon as he was brought to the stone platform, everyone saw that this Old Fella's eyes suddenly opened wide. Before anyone else could speak, he was already sitting up straight, as if he had sensed something.

Then the Village Chief said, “The Elder, you are knowledgeable and experienced. Take a look and tell us what this is. Is this thing a blessing or a curse?”

Old Man nodded and was helped down to the ground, but the first thing he looked at was not the stone platform, but the surrounding mountains.

After looking around, his expression became very strange. He muttered to himself, “How could it be like this?” Only then did he look at the stone platform, but after just one glance, he immediately turned his eyes away, shouting that it was blinding.

At that time, many people were present, all looking at the stone platform. No one felt any light coming from it, only Old Man kept saying it was blinding, shielding his eyes with his hand, making everyone else break out in cold sweat.

The Village Chief found someone to get a pair of round sunglasses and put them on Old Man, so Old Man could finally open his eyes. He circled the stone platform, constantly shielding his eyes with his hand, as if the light was still very strong.

After he finished looking, his expression became even stranger, and he said again, “How could it be here?”

The Village Chief asked, what exactly is this thing?

Old Fella waved his hand, signaling not to ask, and shakily took out a strange abacus from his coat. Other people's abacuses were square, but his was round. He flicked the beads a few times, his face darkened, and he turned to suddenly say something to the Village Chief.

He said, “Put me on top of this stone platform.”

Everyone found it strange, but seeing Old Man's expression, pale as death, no one dared to ask. So a few young men lifted Old Man onto the stone platform.

After Old Fella got on the stone platform, he sat cross-legged and said nothing more, as if he was resting with his eyes closed.

He sat there for almost a whole day. A group of people waited and watched nearby. As time passed, some grew impatient and gradually left. As evening fell, almost everyone had left.

The Village Chief saw that there was no telling how long he would sit, so he left a few workers to keep watch and went home himself. At that time, warlords were fighting everywhere—today this village was under your control, tomorrow under his—so being Village Chief was a busy job. He got home and was busy until very late, so he didn’t return to the Yellow Sand Yard.

Unexpectedly, before dawn the next day, the workers who had stayed there ran to Village Chief's house and woke him up. When Village Chief asked what was going on, the workers said, “That Old Man is gone!”

Upon further questioning, he learned that after everyone left, that Old Man had sat on the stone platform without moving at all. The young men nearby were gambling and drinking. Later, when it was completely dark and there were no lights by the Yellow River, they saw nothing and fell asleep against the sand. When they woke up, dawn was breaking. They got up and saw the stone platform was empty—there was no sign of Old Man.

When Village Chief heard this, he immediately took some people and ran back to the Yellow River Eye. Sure enough, Old Fella was gone. At first, they thought he had gone home, so they sent people to look for him, but after searching everywhere, they couldn’t find him. Then, a few sharp-eyed people suddenly shouted, “Inside!”

Everyone looked and saw that inside the semi-transparent stone platform, at some unknown time, a thin, black shadow had appeared! The two shadows were embracing each other, looking extremely eerie!

The villagers were terrified and didn’t dare go near the stone platform again.

Later, a nearby warlord heard about this and sent a squad of soldiers to try to dig out the stone platform. Unexpectedly, after just a few digs, water started gushing out from under the platform—rushing out rapidly and ice-cold. The onlookers scrambled to escape up the bank of the Yellow River Eye. Soon, the gushing water filled the entire Yellow River Eye, and the stone platform and the black shadow inside were once again hidden in the depths of this cut-off lake.

That night, many villagers dreamed of Old Man, who was gesturing to them, as if saying sixty-one, sixty-one. But at the time, no one knew what sixty-one meant. All they knew was that from then on, that Old Fella never appeared in the village again, as if he had really gone into the stone platform.

That stone platform was definitely a single piece, not even a crack. How did Old Man get inside? What was the other shadow in the platform? What was the stone platform for? Why did it appear at the bottom of the Yellow River? No one could say.

Very soon, sixty-one years passed.

Part One: The River-Sealing Seal

Chapter One: The Beginning of the Story