Chapter 154: Monkey Head Burn

Panzi saw that I didn't look well and told me to rest. I really couldn't take it anymore, so I sat down on a wine vat to catch my breath. The others reorganized their gear. Shunzi had never been in a place like this before; he picked up a cold firework and looked around curiously. He said, "You really don't know until you come—there's actually a place like this buried in the Changbai Mountains. This trip has opened my eyes."

"Keep going and you'll see things you've never seen before," Panzi said on the side. "I figure that either the treasures the Great Jin looted from the Northern and Southern Song, plus the annual tribute from the Southern Song, ended up in Genghis Khan's hands, or they're definitely here." "Don't get your hopes up too high," Fatty said. "Most of the Southern Song's tribute was silk and satin. Those things don't hold up well and are hard to sell. Even if there is any left, it's probably mostly rotted. Let's not fixate on what's in the underground palace; let's consider the immediate gains." He then went over to study the wine vats, trying to move one to see what was written on the bottom.

I said to him, "Those vats are too crude. Don't bother with them. Even if you gave them away for pickling vegetables or selling offal, nobody would want them."

Fatty said, "Who says I'm after the vat? Don't think your Grandpa Fatty only cares about tomb goods." He used his dagger to break the seal on one vat, and a strange aroma drifted out—neither fragrant nor foul, but quite pleasant after a while. He had no idea what kind of wine it was.

I'd read about aged wine stored in ancient tombs in plenty of texts, but this was the first time I'd seen it with my own eyes. Curious, I leaned in for a look.

The wine was black and pure, with most of the moisture already gone. Only half a vat remained. Anyone who knew liquor would recognize this as a sign of well-aged wine—that half vat was the essence. It was tempting, but still, it had been stored for far too long. I had no idea what the original shelf life was.

I recalled that the oldest Chinese wine was unearthed in 1980 from a late Shang dynasty tomb in Henan, now housed in the Palace Museum, dating back about 3,000 years. Word had it that when the jar was opened, the aroma knocked several people out. I wondered if those folks ever got a taste, so I'd have some frame of reference.

Fatty dipped his knife in to try a sip. I grabbed him: "Do you have a death wish? That's expired food—you'll get food poisoning."

Fatty said, "You don't understand. Cellared wine can last thousands of years without going bad. I heard that eating the lees from a thousand-year-old brew might even grant immortality. Our ancestors who robbed tombs sometimes went just for that wine. A taste won't hurt—at worst, I'll get diarrhea."

Before he finished, Panzi came over and kicked the vat over with a clang. The black wine and the lees at the bottom spilled all over the floor. A thick, strange fragrance hit us. Fatty was about to explode, but Panzi said to him, "Don't get mad yet. Take a look at what's in the lees."

Fatty and I turned to look. Inside the black, muddy lees were many dark red, flocculent clumps, like shredded cheap quilts. We'd seen stuff like this often in waterlogged coffins.

Fatty poked at it with his dagger, and his expression changed. I leaned in, and instantly my scalp went numb. A violent wave of nausea hit me, and I almost threw up. Those red clumps were the remains of an infant's body that hadn't fully dissolved. The flesh had completely melted into the wine, but the skin and bones remained, forming a tangle like torn cotton.

Panzi looked at us, stunned, then crouched down and said, "This wine is called 'Monkey Head Brew.' That's not a human—it's an unborn monkey. It's a liquor from Guangxi. Probably came from the Southern Song's tribute cellars when the Great Jin was still at its peak." He patted Fatty, used his dagger to lift the clump of "cotton," and made a gesture inviting him to help himself. "I don't know if it grants immortality, but I've heard it's good for boosting virility. Don't be shy."

Fatty grimaced in disgust, knocked the stuff off with his knife, cursed, and asked Panzi, "How do you know all this? Have you drank that shit before?"

"I saw this kind of jar once at Nangong in Shanxi. Da Kui and another one of our guys took one out. I felt it wasn't right, so I didn't touch it, but they didn't care. They drank it down to the bottom and found what was underneath. Later, Da Kui ended up in the hospital for two months because of it." Mentioning Da Kui made Panzi a bit sentimental. "I've treated you guys pretty well. If I wanted to mess with you, I'd have waited until you took a sip before I kicked the jar over. Then you'd really be in trouble."

Fatty's face twitched. He wanted to lash out but had no excuse, and the sight was hilarious.

By then the cold fireworks had gone out one after another, and darkness closed in. We turned on our flashlights again, and the atmosphere around us suddenly became oppressive.

After resting a bit, we set off again. Fatty retrieved his precious rifle and worked the bolt—a habitual gesture for anyone with a gun to boost their courage. He looked at the two tomb passages on either side and asked quietly, "Which way?"

We all hesitated. Then Shunzi pointed to the left. "This side seems safer."

Usually, Panzi or I would answer in this situation, but Shunzi had suddenly butted in. Fatty looked puzzled. "Why?"

Shunzi shone his flashlight at the ground near the left passage entrance. We saw a Western symbol carved in a very hidden spot on one side. "I spotted it just now. I think someone is guiding you," he told us.