Chapter 134: Fetal Cave Spirit Palace

We packed up our gear, put out the smokeless stove and stowed it away, folded up all the picks and shovels. As if by unspoken agreement, everyone moved quickly and soon everything was ready, and we gathered around the breach we had dug.

This was typical behavior when people share a common goal. Actually, it was childish thinking—packing faster had nothing to do with getting down sooner, since none of us had ever touched an imperial mausoleum; no matter what, we'd have to go through a learning process. But at the time, we just felt we couldn't let others get ahead of us.

And so a ridiculous scene unfolded: once we all gathered around the breach, suddenly no one knew what to do. It was like a group of people spending ages discussing where to go for fun, only to realize after deciding that none of them knew the way. We looked at each other, all a bit dumbfounded.

I looked into the hole and did a quick analysis in my mind. Everything else was manageable, but there was one fatal problem: our position was directly above an abyss, with a vertical drop of over a hundred meters and a horizontal distance of more than twenty meters to the fetal cave where the spirit palace was located. Although we had enough rope, we couldn't cross that twenty-meter horizontal gap—swinging wouldn't work.

Chenpi A'si behind us saw our predicament, sneered, and said, "A bunch of useless lot." Then he stood up and told us to move aside.

I chuckled to myself. Old man Chenpi A'si couldn't help acting his age. We had always followed his lead, but after Fatty showed off his skills just now, he was inevitably displeased. Seeing us like this, he couldn't resist lashing out to reclaim his status—this was a common mentality among old people.

We made a gap for him. Monk Hua gave a self-deprecating laugh and said, "Old master, we little ones were just too excited—we've never seen such a grand spectacle. So, how do you think we should… handle this tomb?"

Chenpi A'si, supported by Ye Cheng, crouched down and looked into the broken hole. He said, "All variations follow the same principle—caution comes first. Let's have someone climb onto these wooden pillars supporting the ice dome, crawl along them to the top of the cave, then use ropes to descend onto the tiled roof of the suspended structure outside."

We looked at the ice-covered wooden pillars. Each pillar was over a hundred meters long—definitely not a single tree trunk; they must have been joined together with wooden wedges. Such a structure could handle compression, but we didn't know if it could withstand tension. If not, we were done for. If one pillar collapsed, it would inevitably hit others as it fell, possibly bringing down the entire ice dome. This method was still very risky.

But at the time, everyone was eager to get down and didn't think much about these things. Besides, there didn't seem to be any better alternatives.

The only one here suited for scouting the way was Panzi. The others were unqualified in terms of skill and weight, so Panzi had to take on the main burden.

We tied a butterfly-knot rope around his waist, and he only carried some light equipment. Panzi looked a bit excited. Chenpi A'si passed him a mouthful of liquor to calm him down and said, "Don't let excitement cloud your head. Our target isn't here. Keep your eyes wide open when you go down."

Panzi nodded, took a deep breath, then carefully climbed into the ice shaft. He used a grappling hook to loop around one of the wooden pillars, swung over like a special forces soldier on a rope, and quickly climbed onto the pillar.

As soon as he stepped on it, the wooden pillar emitted a series of very unsettling cracking sounds from the ice. We all held our breath instantly. Panzi's face turned pale and he froze, afraid the pillar would break apart.

Fortunately, after waiting for over ten minutes, the cracking sounds from the pillar stopped. Everything returned to calm, and the forces rebalanced.

I thought, maybe I was overthinking. The ice dome above was so heavy, the pressure between the pillars was enormous. We were like ants—it should be fine.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Scared like that, we sobered up a bit, and that inexplicable excitement subsided somewhat.

Panzi moved forward, even more cautiously, almost dancing a painfully slow dance. Our hearts beat with his steps. After much difficulty, he finally reached the cliff rock at the end of the pillar. A hundred meters below was the cave entrance.

The light from our flashlights shone down but was too diffuse. Panzi took out five or six glow sticks and dropped them one by one.

In the darkness, several streaks of light fell straight down. Some vanished like meteors into the depths of the abyss; others, after falling a dozen meters, hit the tiled roof, bounced a few times, and came to a stop. At the same time, the chemical inside the glow sticks reacted from the violent shaking, growing brighter and vaguely illuminating the inside of the ice dome.

Then Panzi dropped a rope, letting it hang down to the tiled roof below, and quickly slid down. Watching Panzi land steadily on the roof, we finally relaxed. Panzi made a few gestures at us, indicating that the process was safe.

We got excited again. Next was Monk Hua, and then one by one we carefully followed suit, descending

Seven flashlights shone in all directions, revealing that the sloped cliff inside this ice dome was nearly vertical at about 30 degrees. The cave was very deep, and the palace extended straight into the mountain's interior, with no end in sight. The mountain peak almost touched the top of the mausoleum. The tiled roof we stood on was the outermost layer of an elevated "main hall." The eaves had flying rafters carved with phoenix and dragon heads, and the ridge ends were adorned with chiwen ornaments for warding off evil. The yellow tiles and red beams exuded an imperial aura. We stood crookedly on top, feeling a bit like the scene from Stephen Chow's "The Duel of the Imperial Doom."

Fatty wanted to lift a tile to take a look, but found that the tiles and beams were frozen solid and couldn't be pried off. He had to give up. We then, one by one, carefully grabbed the dragon heads on the flying eaves and used ropes to descend to the porch outside the main gate of the "Mausoleum."

The porch was like an altar platform, its elevated floor paved with stone slabs. Years of cold had made the stone brittle; it crackled underfoot and could break at any moment. This should have been the end of the mountain plank road built back then, but now the plank road had been dismantled. On one side was an abyss of pitch-black nothingness, and on the left and right were a row of bronze tripods covered with ice shavings, inside which were black, unknown ancient ashes.

The style of the bronze vessels and the palace had a very distinct Han Chinese influence. It seemed that no matter where Wang Zanghai contracted projects, his designs could not transcend the limitations of his own ethnicity and era. Or perhaps, given the strength of the Dongxia kingdom at that time, they could only plunder Han Chinese goods from the border to make do.

On the other side was the gate of the spirit hall. In front of the gate stood a stele with a tortoise pedestal but no inscription. Behind the stele was the white jade gate of the mausoleum. The gate was very large, almost three people tall and two people wide. The stone gate was carved with many human-faced strange birds dancing among the clouds; I couldn't name them. Above the gate, the bronze door knocker was a tiger head. The seams and hinges had been doused with water, so now the two door panels were frozen into a single piece. Standing there looking up at the ice dome, faint light filtered down from above. My eyes seemed covered with a layer of fog; everything I saw looked much older. This feeling was hard to express in words.

Monk Hua wanted to take some photos here first. We took the opportunity to catch our breath and look around. Ye Cheng walked around and, after seeing the cliff below, sighed, "I really don't understand why this Emperor Wan Nu insisted on building his tomb in such a godforsaken place. Wouldn't flat ground be better? Isn't this just making things difficult for people?"

I said, "The thoughts of an emperor are different from ordinary people. Maybe it has something to do with their religion. Look at Tibet—many temples are built in places that people simply cannot reach, all to be closer to the celestial spirits. We mortals can't understand this."

Fatty shook his head in disagreement. "I think the reason it's built here is simple: he didn't want anyone to come up. There must be something valuable inside this imperial tomb. This old bastard Emperor Wan Nu hoarded it like a treasure, wouldn't give it to anyone even after death. This time we need to teach him a lesson." Saying this, he and Lang Feng took out crowbars and went to pry open the gate.

I found this amusing. Fatty is a straightforward guy. If he were the emperor, I wonder where he would set up his own tomb.

Behind the white jade stone gate there was no self-locking stone. Using a crowbar to wedge it in, the ice on the hinges on both sides cracked. We used chisels to smash the ice in the gaps, and only then could we push the door open a crack. A puff of black gas rushed out. We quickly dodged. Monk Hua said it was nothing—it was just moisture-proof lacquer stuck to the back of the door, now frozen into powder.

The gate opened a crack but wouldn't move any further, as if the hinges were rusted tight. Shining a flashlight inside, we could see nothing in the empty spirit hall; the darkness seemed to absorb light.

Ye Cheng couldn't wait to go in, but Fatty stopped him. He turned to ask Poker-face, "Little brother, take a look first—could there be any hidden traps or mechanisms in this place?"

Poker-face touched the door, then looked at the relief carvings. After a long look, he shook his head and said he wasn't sure. "Follow behind me. Don't speak."

That what this man said must be heeded had become our consensus. Fatty and I nodded vigorously. Everyone pulled out their self-defense items.

Poker-face sidestepped, stepped over the knee-high threshold, and took the lead as he walked inside. We followed closely. As we crossed the threshold and stepped into the darkness within, at that moment I suddenly felt an extreme strangeness assaulting me.

I suddenly thought: in nearly a thousand years, we might be the first people to set foot here. What had happened in this huge, unobserved palace over that millennium?