Chapter 152: Boring Cipher

Black Tortoise Rejects Corpse! Bullshit Black Tortoise Rejects Corpse.

Once I figured it out, everything became clear, and I couldn't help but laugh. It was all a misunderstanding. The four characters Third Uncle said weren't those four at all. Because of our preconceived notions about the Book of Burial, as soon as we heard four characters with similar sounds, we forced them to fit. And as I suspected, this code wasn't actually a code. Third Uncle used a very clever method to make this almost straightforward sentence convey something in front of others, but the true meaning could only be understood by me.

It seemed Third Uncle had already thought it through—those who came with me to this imperial tomb weren't necessarily all people he had arranged.

Seeing the drastic change in my expression, they immediately knew I had realized something and quickly asked what I had thought of.

I explained, "We really got it wrong. The main reason Third Uncle's sentence could be understood by 'me' wasn't the commonality between us, but because I grew up in Hangzhou."

They still didn't understand. Fatty asked, "So does this have something to do with Hangzhou's scenery? No way, I've been to Hangzhou before, never heard of a scenic spot called 'Black Tortoise Rejects Corpse'."

Panzi shook his head and said, "You're way off. It definitely has nothing to do with scenery. Growing up in Hangzhou doesn't mean you're familiar with its historical sites. Look at our Third Master—he's lived in Hangzhou for almost ten years, but he only knows West Lake. Last time he took us to Precious Stone Mountain for tea, he even got us lost. By the time it got dark, we ended up at Jade Spring."

I nodded. Indeed, I was the same. Who says dealing in antiques means you have to love historical sites? I haven't visited many places either.

Fatty frowned and said to me, "Not related to scenery either? Then what the hell is it? Just tell me, I'm dying of curiosity." He wiped his sweat as he spoke.

I didn't want to keep them in suspense, so I said, "It's simple. People who grew up in Hangzhou may not be familiar with the sights, but they absolutely understand Hangzhou dialect. That's the key."

They all froze for a long time, clearly beginning to sense something but still not getting it. Fatty asked, "Is it the pronunciation?"

I nodded. Among us, I was the only one fluent in Hangzhou dialect. Panzi had spent years in Changsha; he could speak and understand some Hangzhou dialect, but not deeply. Fatty spoke with a Beijing accent, clearly spent years in Beijing. Shunzi was even worse—he could barely speak Mandarin fluently. If Third Uncle said something in Hangzhou dialect, only I would understand.

Unfortunately, Shunzi, because his Chinese wasn't good, only remembered the pronunciation and didn't catch the tonal changes between the earlier and later parts. So when he repeated it, it became a completely nonsensical sentence.

Panzi slapped his forehead and said, "Damn, I never would have thought of that. Then what does 'Black Tortoise Rejects Corpse' mean in Hangzhou dialect? It sounds hard to pronounce."

I laughed and said, "Just listen to my analysis. Actually, Third Uncle's code wasn't four characters, but six: 'Black Tortoise Rejects Corpse Place.' The first character, 'Xuan,' is pronounced like 'yuan' in the Hangzhou dialect, which sounds similar to 'yan,' meaning 'along.' 'Wu' has the same pronunciation as 'hu,' and in Hangzhou, 'hu' can refer to either a lake or a river. 'Ju' and 'qu,' meaning canal, are homophones. 'Shi,' meaning corpse, is homophonic with 'shui,' meaning water. 'Zhi' and 'zhi,' meaning 'to,' are also homophones. Finally, 'di,' meaning place, and 'di,' meaning bottom, share the same sound. Put it all together, and it becomes: 'Along the river canal, down to the water's bottom!'"

As soon as I finished explaining, everyone let out an "ah" and looked enlightened. Fatty nodded, clearly finding my translation very reasonable with no flaws.

Panzi clicked his tongue and said, "Third Master is Third Master. If Chenpi A'si had heard this, he would never have guessed the meaning. He would have racked his brains trying to figure out 'Black Tortoise Rejects Corpse.'"

"River canal water?" Fatty said after a while. "But there's no river canal here. Could there be a river in an imperial tomb?"

I said, "Definitely not in the tomb itself. There could be springs, but not a river, because the water level of a river can't be controlled. Too high and it floods; too low and it breaks the feng shui. Also, a river would expose the tomb's location. The 'river canal' mentioned here probably refers to this moat."

Panzi's face twitched with excitement. "So we stumbled onto the right path by accident?"

"That's not certain," I shook my head. I had never entered an imperial tomb before and didn't know what it was like inside. But based on the current signs and all the information I'd seen before, my analysis made sense.

"If the river is the moat, then the canal could be that—" Fatty stood up and looked at the sacrificial canal lined with stone figurines. It matched Third Uncle's code perfectly. We all turned to look, our hearts racing.

"But," Panzi said uncertainly, "there's no water in that canal."

I shook my head. "Third Uncle hadn't entered this imperial tomb yet when he said that. He must have gotten the hint from some other source, maybe an ancient text or map. And the person who made that map or text probably never imagined that one day the moat would be completely dry."

The rocks lining the moat walls showed signs of corrosion. There must have been water here originally. But over the millennia, the source—either an underground river or a hot spring—might have dried up. Without replenishment, the water gradually seeped into the ground until nothing was left.

Fatty couldn't contain himself. With a click, he pulled back the bolt on his gun and jerked his neck at us. "Comrades, it's rare that our personal interests and collective interests are perfectly aligned. What are we waiting for? Let's go together."

This time, we couldn't find a reason to argue with Fatty's proposal. But setting off immediately was way too hasty. Panzi pulled him down and said, "Now that we have a lead, there's no rush. Look at Young Master Wu—he's badly injured and hasn't recovered. Do you want to go alone, or leave him here to die?"

Fatty paused and thought about it—that made sense. But he was burning with desire. He patted Shunzi and said, "Then you and I go scout ahead first. Early bird gets the worm. Let them rest here. I guarantee I'll get you at least as much as that Third Master promised."

Who would have thought Shunzi also shook his head. "Boss, my job is to take him," pointing at me, "to your Third Master. After that, it's none of my business whether you live or die. But right now, I have to watch him."

I laughed and said to Fatty, "Now you see who the VIP is around here?"

Fatty spat in annoyance. "Fine, you all rest here. I'm going alone. Let's see if you get jealous when I bring back treasures. But I'm warning you—what I find is mine. No sharing. None of you gets any!" With that, he picked up his gun and started off.

But after a few steps, he suddenly stopped, hesitated, then turned and came back. We all burst out laughing and asked him what was wrong, did he chicken out?

Fatty snorted and kicked his backpack aside. He sat down across from the hurricane lamp and said, "Chicken out? You really think I'm going? I'm not that stupid. If I bring out loot, you three will gang up on me. A lone tiger can't fight a pack of wolves. You'd take advantage, maybe even kill me for my valuables. I'm not making that stupid deal."

Panzi, who had been annoyed with Fatty, took the chance to mock him. "That's the thief's conscience. Don't think everyone is like you."

Afraid they'd start a real fight, I interrupted, "Enough, stop it. It must be midnight by now. Even though we can't see the sky, we need to get some rest."

Panzi checked his watch and nodded. He turned up the lamp, warming the area, then pulled out an inflatable sleeping bag, blew it up, and crawled in. The others did the same.

Fatty lit a cigarette and said he couldn't sleep, so he'd take the first watch. I glanced at him and said, "Don't sneak off in the middle of the night to look for stuff. Once we're inside the underground palace, you can take whatever you want. But for now, keep it together. Don't let me down."

Fatty got angry and asked, "Do you really think I'm that kind of person? I'm keeping watch; I'll keep us safe."

We were all exhausted from the journey. Counting from when we reached the snow peak—it was already evening. Entering the palace inside the ice cap, we had been going for almost ten hours. That's like a full day of intense physical labor: rock climbing, sprinting, long jumps, and failed long jumps that ended with falling down stairs. Just thinking about it tired me. As soon as I got into the sleeping bag, I quickly fell asleep.

I slept very soundly. Since I was injured, I wasn't assigned a watch shift. When I woke up, it was still pitch black around. The lamp had dimmed a lot. The person on watch had changed to Panzi, who was leaning against a rock smoking. Beside him, Fatty's snoring sounded like thunder. I checked my watch; I had only slept five hours. But when you're badly injured, sleep quality is usually good because the body is busy repairing itself, so you're basically half-unconscious. When you wake up, your mind is clear, but your body feels even more tired—my back and waist ached terribly.

I rubbed my face and crawled out of the sleeping bag, stretching my limbs and telling Panzi to get some sleep, saying I'd keep watch for a while. Panzi said it wasn't necessary—he had gotten used to it in Vietnam; if he wasn't in a bed, he couldn't sleep more than three hours a day.

I ignored him, sat down on a rock on the other side, and asked for a cigarette to smoke, inhaling to clear my head.

We were silent for a while, then suddenly Panzi asked me if I could guess how Third Uncle was doing now, whether anything might have happened to him. Seeing the genuine concern and worry on his face, I felt a twinge of emotion. Logically, someone like Panzi, who had been through battlefields, accustomed to gunfire and farewells between life and death, shouldn't have such deep feelings. But in fact, Panzi's loyalty and trust in that old man made me, his own nephew, feel ashamed. I didn't know what had happened between Panzi and Third Uncle before, but if I had the chance, I really needed to ask him.

I comforted him, "Don't worry, that old fox would never treat himself badly. Someone like him is tough; if something were going to happen, it wouldn't wait until now. For now, we just need to take care of ourselves. At this stage, we are the ones others should worry about, because we still don't know anything."

Panzi nodded, sighed, and said a bit regretfully, "Too bad my brain isn't sharp enough; I never understand what Third Master does. Otherwise, with this kind of dangerous stuff, he wouldn't have to do it himself—I could go in his place."

I smiled bitterly to myself, thinking that what Third Uncle did wasn't necessarily very dangerous. On the contrary, I felt that we were the ones in the most danger, always following behind Third Uncle, guessing his intentions, and being led around by the nose. If this continued, no matter how good our luck was, one day we would get caught.

Take this time for example. From the fact that Third Uncle could give us clues about the entrance to the underground palace in advance, it seemed he had something on him that let him know the structure of the underground palace beforehand. "Follow the river channel to the bottom" was classical Chinese—Third Uncle didn't speak like that; that phrase must have come from an ancient book. And from what Shunzi said, it seemed Third Uncle had entered the snowy mountains alone, so he obviously hadn't fallen into A Ning's hands. If he had successfully entered this crater, then he was probably already inside the underground palace of the imperial tomb.

What could be inferred was that this "thing" that let him know the structure of the underground palace beforehand was probably the goal of his trip to Xisha a few months ago. It could also explain why A Ning's company had appeared here. Their target probably wasn't the underwater tomb either, but this Cloud Summit Palace. Cooperating with Third Uncle to go to Xisha was just to find clues about this underground imperial tomb under Changbai Mountains in the underwater tomb.

And A Ning—during the long time she was separated from us in the underwater ancient tomb, while we were exhausted and driven crazy by the traps and mechanisms, what did that woman do in the rear hall? Did she, like Third Uncle, get the key to the underground imperial tomb here? We had no way of knowing. But the well-equipped corpses we saw in the front hall earlier proved that A Ning's team had reached here before us. According to Shunzi, there was no way a team as large as theirs could have passed the border, yet they came through unscathed, indicating they must know a secret path that no one else knew.

This at least proved that A Ning and her people also knew things we didn't.

This was the absolute difference between us and them. We were completely "ignorant." What awaited us in the underground palace was something we couldn't even estimate. This was actually the worst situation, and yet we had to keep moving forward, unable to choose to retreat—this was the worst of the worst.

I didn't tell them any of this, because for Panzi, Third Uncle was everything—he had to do whatever Third Uncle asked him to do without worrying about motives. For Shunzi, he was completely an outsider—this was just a business deal, and he only cared about the final result. As for Fatty, it was even simpler: he came for the "Jia Lama" 【the share of the loot】, and the stuff in the tomb was what mattered. Our Third Uncle was just a synonym for trouble to him. All this analysis seemed to be useful only to me; I was the only one caught in a fog.

Everyone else lived so simply. For the first time, I felt a little envious.

After chatting about other things for a while, Panzi asked if I was feeling okay. I took stock: after sleeping, my body had improved a lot; I could probably manage to walk without needing support, though obviously I still couldn't fight. Panzi said it would be better to rest a bit more, since it was rare to have such quiet here, and it seemed safe. Once we entered the underground palace, there probably wouldn't be another chance like this.

I thought that made sense and wanted to get back into the sleeping bag for some more sleep, but I couldn't fall asleep. Beside me, Fatty was incessantly talking in his sleep in a dialect I couldn't understand, as if he was haggling with someone. When he got most excited, Panzi would throw a rock at him. When hit, Fatty would immediately calm down, but after a while he'd start again, very noisy. When I was tired, I couldn't hear any of this, but now trying to sleep, it was driving me crazy.

I kept my eyes closed and endured another two hours. Panzi picked a rock that was too big and hit Fatty awake. This time, no one could sleep. When Fatty started yelling, he woke Shunzi up too.

We packed up our things, ate some dry rations casually, and walked back to the sacrificial channel in the center of the river. The rotting black stone figurines still stood there silently, a long line extending into the endless darkness on both sides.

I was helped down into the sacrificial channel and suddenly found myself among the figurines. From above, looking down on the figurines, the feeling wasn't very strong. But once down there, the figurines became as tall as I was, and the crisscrossing dark shadows around me stirred a strong unease in my heart.

Fatty shone his flashlight in both directions along the channel and asked me, "Your Third Master told us to follow the water, but there's no water here now. Which way should we go?"

I looked at Panzi. During the Sino-Vietnamese War, he had participated in special warfare, so he should have some knowledge about this kind of thing.

Panzi approached a figurine, touched the cracks on it, and pointed in the direction the figurine faced. "Look at the water flow marks on the stone. That direction should be downstream."

Fatty leaned in but couldn't see anything conclusive. He said distrustfully, "People's lives are at stake. Don't talk nonsense."

Panzi ignored him, told us to be careful, and we began to follow the channel into the darkness of the moat.

I had no concept of the length of the moat. When we were on the cliff and looked with a flare, the entire imperial city was a distant view; we could only see the tops of the buildings, and the moat was obscured by the dense dead forest around it. And when we were on the bridge above, the flashlight wasn't strong enough to illuminate everything in the darkness. So we walked straight along the sacrificial channel for half an hour, in the utter silence of the moat bottom, yet we still hadn't reached the end.

The sacrificial channel was uneven. In several sections, the figurines were severely shattered, as if something huge had stepped on them. That hard, unknown stone was crushed to pieces. I even noticed that occasionally, figurine heads and limbs appeared under the channel, as if there was another layer of such things buried beneath the channel's soil.

Or perhaps this channel was originally meant to be buried, but for some reason, the work stopped, leaving so many figurines unburied.

It grew darker and darker. At first, the flashlight reflected a little off the river wall on one side, giving us a reference point. But as we walked, even the towering river wall disappeared, and it was pitch black all around. We couldn't help slowing down. Panzi warned us to stay alert and not to lose focus.

At that moment, Fatty, who was walking in front, stopped. We were about to move forward when we saw him make a gesture for us to stop.

I walked up beside him and followed his flashlight beam. The end of the sacrificial channel had been reached; the line of figurines had disappeared. Before us was a huge stone river wall, probably the other side of the moat. On the wall seemed to be carved a huge thing like the Leshan Giant Buddha, but since the flashlight couldn't illuminate the whole thing, I didn't know what it was. I could only see at the base of the wall a square hole covered with rubble. Now quite a few stones had been moved away, revealing a pitch-black opening.

This was the same as the drainage tunnel we had entered earlier. This hole was also one of the passages secretly dug by the craftsmen who built the tomb—it was their only escape route after the underground palace was sealed.

"Another reverse-tunnel?" Panzi exclaimed in surprise. "How could the entrance be here? That's impossible."

"Why is it impossible?" Fatty asked. "It's not like you built it."

Panzi said, "This place was underwater back then. Do you think all those craftsmen were fish?"

I waved my hand for them to stop arguing. At that moment, Shunzi said, "Hey, come look, there's something here."

So saying, he shone his flashlight over. We looked and saw that on the stone beside the square hole, someone had carved a few characters.