Chapter 153: Underwater Drainage Tunnel

The square hole was about waist-high, roughly hewn, with broken stones the size of watermelons piled around it and many inside as well. It was obvious that someone had once blocked this hole. The interior was pitch-black, leading to an unknown place, somewhat like the reservoir culverts we often see in the south.

Among the rubble beside the square hole, there was a relatively flat stone on which a few words had been crudely carved, done in great haste and very shallow. If it weren't for the fact that those words were English letters—so glaringly out of place in such an imperial tomb—Shunzi might not have noticed them. Unfortunately, what was carved couldn't be deciphered at all.

Was it Third Uncle who carved them to guide us? I thought at the time. But Third Uncle's English was terrible; how could a mind like his come up with using English letters as a signal? It really wasn't his style.

Fatty curiously went over to look, then suddenly let out a "Hey!" and waved me over, saying, "Little Wu, these twisted English letters—we seem to have seen them somewhere before."

I also walked over, and as soon as I saw them, my heart skipped a beat.

Not "seem"—we had indeed seen these symbols before. It was when Fatty and I were in the underwater tomb, descending into the stele pool, that Fatty saw them on the pool wall. After seeing this symbol, Poker-face suddenly rushed into the stele pool, and later he recalled what had happened in the underwater tomb. Why had it appeared here again?

At the time, I had always thought that symbol was carved by someone among the group when Third Uncle brought Wenjin and the others down that year. But its sudden appearance here clearly didn't make sense.

Judging by the carving marks, it was made haphazardly with an ice axe, and the marks were so fresh—it could only have been left by Third Uncle, or by Poker-face, or by A Ning. Because among everyone here, only these few would have an ice axe. The person who left this symbol must have already entered the square hole.

At that moment, a thought suddenly struck me: could it be that the English symbol in the underwater tomb was carved by Poker-face? That would explain why, upon seeing this symbol, he realized, "I've been here before." It was indeed possible. When he showed up again, I'd have to ask him.

Panzi saw me staring blankly and asked what was going on. I told them about the symbol Fatty and I had seen in the underwater tomb. Panzi also found it strange, but he said, "I've been with Third Master for ten years. To put it mildly, I've plundered no fewer than fifty tombs, some of them large. I've never seen him leave a signal. Besides, Third Master can't even recognize a-b-c-d. There's no way this was left by Third Master."

I thought to myself that it must have been A Ning or Poker-face, then turned and said to them, "Anyway, it seems we're on the right track. Someone has already entered this hole. The entrance to the underground palace should be down there. Shall we go in now?"

"Let's go!" Fatty immediately said. "What are we waiting for? Several groups are already ahead of us. I've always been the vanguard, but thanks to you unlucky kids, I'm stuck covering the rear. Let's stop dawdling. By the time they finish and come out, we won't have the face to snatch anything from them."

Panzi said to me, "Don't ask us. Are you physically up for it?"

I nodded to indicate I was fine. "Fatty's right. We can't delay anymore. Anyway, if we run into a zombie, even uninjured I'd die; now that I'm injured, I'll just die a bit faster. No big deal."

Fatty was already taking off his backpack. Hearing me, he clicked his tongue: "Can't you say something auspicious for once? Don't you see where we're about to go?"

I glared at him and said, "With you around, even sticking two door gods on my forehead wouldn't help. You'd better take care of your own hand first."

We each prepared our own gear. Earlier we had packed for marching, but now we put the storm lanterns and fuel into our bags, then took out the cold flares, glow sticks, and explosives, attaching them to our combat belts. Fatty and Panzi each pulled back the bolt, removed the magazine, unloaded rounds from the bandolier, loaded the gun, and after fully arming, they sheathed their hunting knives and daggers.

The Type 54 pistol was too long; it might be impossible to turn around in the square hole, so Fatty gave the gun to Shunzi and took out his ice axe. The few of us tested the brightness of our flashlights. Fatty took out his Mochin talisman, held it in his hand, and bowed to the sky.

Shunzi was also a gun expert. He took the gun, familiarized himself with it with a few clicks, showing a sense of nostalgia, and then said to us, "Bosses, I don't understand your trade, but I need to remind you: when drilling holes on Changbai Mountain, be careful of snow mites. If you see signs of trouble, first plug your ears with cotton. In this season, their shells aren't hard yet; they can only burrow into ears. Come summer, when their shells harden, they can drill directly into your skin, leaving only two hind feelers. If you pull the feelers, they break off, and the whole bug breaks off inside. You'll have to cut open the wound to dig it out. Also, they can burrow into your anus, so be very careful when sitting down."

Fatty glanced at Shunzi with disgust and subconsciously tightened his belt, saying, "Now even bugs have that hobby?"

Shunzi said, "I'm not joking with you. If you get hit, figure it out yourself—don't come asking me."

We felt a chill in our lower bodies and all nodded. Fatty then took the lead, leaned in, and crawled into the square hole. We followed closely behind, entering one by one, beginning our advance into the ultimate unknown world underground.

Inside the square hole, we had to walk bent over. The tunnel was dug horizontally, and we looked around as we went. Because the height was too low, we moved slowly. The rock floor here was very solid. Judging by the chisel marks, this passage had clearly been dug using the most primitive methods. I wondered how long it took to build such a large imperial tomb. At least twenty years, right? Many emperors started building their tombs as soon as they ascended the throne. Even twenty years would be barely enough to dig this tunnel. It seemed that the people who fled back then were a very large group. The farther we went, the more traces of previous visitors we saw—hiking boot prints in more than one place. There were no snow mites, but I noticed some strange branching holes on the ceiling of the tunnel.

These holes were not large; they could only accommodate one person. The holes curved 180 degrees: going straight up for a stretch, then making a sharp downward turn, forming a curved pipe shaped like the number "9." Such holes appeared about every ten meters.

Since I got into this line of work, I've crawled through holes countless times, but I had never seen such a structure. From an engineering cost perspective, drilling these holes would require almost as much work as drilling the entire tunnel. So there must be an absolute reason for them; otherwise it would be uneconomical. Yet I really couldn't see what value these holes had.

Panzi said to me from behind, "Third Young Master, have you noticed that this tunnel looks a bit

"Familiar?" I paused, turning to ask him why he would say that.

Panzi said, "When we were at Shandong Guazi Temple, the corpse cave we went through, the tunnel into the cave, wasn't it the same? Didn't that old man hide in the cave above to harm us?"

Hearing that, I looked more carefully at the top of the cave. Back in Shandong, I was so panicked I didn't pay much attention to the top of the corpse cave's water thief tunnel, and now I can't compare. But since Shunzi says so, it should be correct. Still curious, I asked him, "Are you sure?"

Panzi wasn't sure either, saying, "We only knew there was a hole above because that old man told us. When we passed through, it was pitch black, we didn't notice."

I stopped, carefully examined these branching tunnels, and immediately understood their purpose. "Was that corpse cave also a water thief tunnel back then?"

Panzi nodded and said yes. I said, "These branching tunnels are actually for breathing. You see, when water fills this drainage channel, because of the curved structure of the branches, air is trapped in them. This way, you just swim a section, then stick your head into a branch to breathe, and then continue forward."

Panzi exclaimed in surprise, "What a clever method! So you're saying this drainage channel was indeed underwater back then?"

I said, "Probably. Looks like that water thief tunnel at Guazi Temple might also have been dug by Wang Zanghai's people." But then I thought again, that tunnel was so ancient—Third Uncle deduced it was from the Warring States period, possibly dug when King Lu Shang entered the mountains to build his tomb. Could it be that Wang Zanghai saw it later and borrowed the ancient technique? That's also quite possible.

After walking for a long time, I don't know how far, the drainage channel gradually widened, and we finally saw the exit. We climbed out, and in front of us was an extremely deep canal, about ten meters deep and five or six meters wide. The canal had no water in it.

I looked at how the canal was built and said, "This is a diversion canal. The moat water is channeled out from here, keeping it as flowing water so it won't stink, and also preventing backflow of the water level."

Both sides of the canal had narrow paths for one person to walk. Above, there was a stone bridge. We carefully crossed over to the other bank. Fatty asked, "Where to now?" I said, "This canal connects with the canal outside; they should be the same one. We'll follow the water."

Panzi squatted down to check the traces of water flow and pointed to one side. "That way."

We continued forward. Before long, on the stone wall beside the path ahead, there appeared a square hole that was very regular in shape.

Fatty lit a cold flare and threw it out, illuminating the black stone slabs on the ground outside the square hole. Clearly, these were the tomb's sealing stones. Fatty crawled out, lit several more cold flares and threw them around, then signaled us. Only then did we climb out of the tunnel.

The place they emerged from was a tomb chamber built of black rock, not tall, barely enough for a person to stand upright, but very spacious. Around the chamber were neatly arranged many clay jars, possibly wine jars used for burial sacrifice, each about half a person's height. Roughly estimated, there were over a thousand jars. It seemed Emperor Wan Nu might have been a drunkard.

On the four black walls, there were some simple relief carvings depicting scenes of the emperor hosting a banquet. The reliefs were not well preserved, possibly because the area was connected to the outside world. Although the volcanic gases here were not as lethal as Panzi had claimed, they were certainly more corrosive than ordinary air. The fact that the murals here had survived was already a miracle. Unfortunately, the surviving images could only be seen in outline.

On the left and right walls of the tomb chamber, there were two stone gates, behind which were pitch-black corridors. A chilling wind blew out from within. Fatty picked up two cold flares, threw one into each corridor, but could not see the end of either.