IN THE DEPTHS OF TIME COLONEL JING’S MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE

My name is Jing. I grew up as the child of a family from Hong Kong. I am currently 53 years old. When the event I am going to tell you about happened, however, I was only 35 years old.

I studied history and archaeology at the University of Hong Kong. In those years, my interest in past civilizations drove me to pursue ancient structures, writings, and archaeological finds. During my years at university, I learned that understanding a civilization was not possible simply by looking at great structures. Sometimes a broken vessel, sometimes a few marks carved into stone, and sometimes a small object buried beneath the earth could provide more information about the people who used it than great structures could.

However, after my university education ended, my life was not spent solely at excavation sites.

To advance my military career, I joined the People’s Liberation Army National Defence University in mainland China. My education there was quite different from what I had learned at the University of Hong Kong. While in history and archaeology I tried to understand what had happened in the past, in military training I was learning to assess the situation before me, make quick decisions, and take responsibility for the consequences of the decisions I made.

Following my successes, on the recommendation of my commanders, I transferred to the People’s Liberation Army Nanjing Military Command College to receive advanced military training. After completing my training in leadership and strategic thinking, I served both at the United Nations and in other major international organizations.

Thus, a large part of my life was spent going from one country to another. Some of the places where I served were safe regions. In others, every decision we made could have serious consequences. I saw different countries, different societies, and different conditions. Sometimes my military knowledge was useful, sometimes my education in history and archaeology. Most of the time, however, I kept the two completely separate from each other.

During a military assignment, instead of thinking about the history of a structure I encountered, I would first look at whether it was safe. When I was at an excavation site, if I did not need to act like a soldier, I would wonder which period the stones and writings I saw might belong to. I never imagined that these two sides of my life would one day come together inside the same cave.

By the time I was thirty-five, I considered myself quite experienced when it came to the events I might encounter. I had been in different regions of the world, worked on dangerous assignments, and faced unexpected situations. When a problem arose somewhere, I was accustomed to first assessing the surroundings, sorting through the information we had, and then making a decision.

Later I learned that considering oneself experienced did not mean that the world had nothing left to show them.

The event I am going to tell you about was different from all of these. This event, known to no one except those who were there that day, remained one of the events I could never forget throughout my life. For years I did not write it in any report. I did not add it to the records I kept during my assignments. I did not tell the authorities about it.

You will understand the reason for this in the following chapters.

After retiring, I decided to write about what we had experienced. Although years have passed, I still remember some moments clearly. I have not forgotten the two circles carved into the wall of a cave, the temple we saw beyond the darkness, and the events we experienced within a few hours, which lasted much longer for us.

I also remember the faces of the people who were with me that day. Sometimes, years later, a person remembers not the details of major events, but the expression they saw on the face of the person beside them during the event more clearly. The astonishment on my soldier’s face when the two circles on the cave wall moved, the archaeologist’s look at the moment he realized we had gone into the past, and the fact that no one spoke immediately when we realized we had returned to our own time are still clear in my mind even today.

It all began when we set out for a brief reconnaissance during an assignment. This reconnaissance, which should have been routine, turned into a journey in which we found ourselves amid danger and uncertainty.Now I will tell you what happened that day.