Passing on the Skills

"It also held the warmth of civilizations around the globe, a wish to protect that spanned mountains and seas." Hu Fei patted Aga on the shoulder and said, "From now on, you must pass the stories of Qiang Watchtowers and Qiang embroidery on to more people, so the mountain village will always have 'steadfast watchtowers and fragrant Qiang embroidery'!" That winter solstice, Muhammad returned to Chen Jialuo's Tomb in Hangzhou with a Qiang-cloth handkerchief and a tapestry of Qiang embroidery depicting watchtowers. Beside the Silk Road Heritage Stele, another new token was added-the watchtower motifs embroidered on the handkerchief intertwined with tokens such as Qiang wool yarn, red rammed earth from Hua'an, and powdered Shaoxing wine starter, like a Panorama of Global Civilizational Protection and Coexistence. Watching a replay of the Qiang Village Pattern Festival through his AR glasses, Di Yun said with a smile, "From Hua'an to the Qiang village, our heritage really has woven the world into a 'Network of Pattern Protection and Faith'!" Muhammad opened the Global Pattern Digital Platform. On the screen, a video was playing of Aga leading the village children in learning embroidery in front of a watchtower, with a caption that read, "We are all 'Watchtower Guardians' of the Qiang village, and guardians of global patterns too!" West Lake's winter snow fell on the Qiang-cloth handkerchief. In the distance, Leifeng Pagoda stood amid the snow, bearing witness to this passing on of heritage that spanned mountains and seas, linking protection and faith. Muhammad knew that wherever the next stop might be, the moral principles of A Deadly Secret, the keen spirit of the Hu Family Saber Technique, and the warmth of global patterns would, like Qiang watchtowers and Qiang embroidery, forever protect home and faith, forever guide the way toward the intermingling and coexistence of human civilization, nature, and cultures, and continue writing new cultural chapters that would never end. Record of the Blood-Weeping Blade · A Sequel to Book and Sword (Twenty-Six) Half a year after "ice-pattern carving" was incorporated into the Global Patterns Digital Alliance, Hu Yue discovered a yellowed, thread-bound journal in a hidden layer of the Burmese Steel Dagger's sheath while sorting through ancestral belongings-it was the Snow Mountain Silk Road Caravan Journal left by his ancestor Hu Fei during the Qianlong era. Besides recording the caravan's experiences avoiding avalanches and defending against bandits in the snowy mountains, the journal contained drawings of a peculiar set of symbols: beside crack patterns resembling "ice-pattern carving" were annotations reading "head south to Yumen" and "circle north around Qilian." Hu Yue took the journal to Karim, tracing the symbols with his fingertips, his eyes filled with astonishment. "So our ancestor had ties to the Silk Road long ago. These 'ice-pattern symbols' were actually navigation markers for caravans in the snowy mountains!" That deep winter, Karim and Hu Yue brought the journal, the Black Iron Dagger, and the Burmese Steel Dagger to the Dunhuang Research Academy. With the help of experts in ancient texts, the two finally unraveled the journal's secret-during the Qianlong era, Hu Fei had escorted a Silk Road caravan across the snowy mountains. To help later caravans avoid dangerous routes, he had worked with artisans of the Snow Mountain Tribe to turn the techniques of "ice-pattern carving" into navigational symbols: Three-Pronged Ice Patterns indicated an avalanche risk at a fork in the road, Ring-Shaped Ice Patterns signified a safe campsite, and Straight-Line Ice Patterns pointed toward water sources. These symbols were carved into rocks and ice walls in the snowy mountains, becoming a Snow Mountain Guide for Silk Road caravans. But as the caravan routes changed, the symbols were gradually forgotten, leaving only scattered traces in the designs of "ice-pattern carving." "These symbols are a link between the snowy mountains and the Silk Road. We have to bring them back to life!" Holding the Black Iron Dagger, Karim immediately found common ground with Hu Yue, and they decided to launch the Snow Mountain Silk Road Pattern Restoration Project. Following the route recorded in the journal, the two retraced the Snow Mountain Silk Road-before an ice wall five thousand meters above sea level, Hu Yue used his ancestral carving knife to reproduce the Three-Pronged Ice Patterns,