Chapter 321: Ancient Tomb

The moonlight cast a ghastly white glow on the mountainside; nothing was visible around, but from the dense forest deep in the ravine below the slope came all kinds of strange sounds. This pit stunned Agui and the others. The mountain folk were superstitious and always considered seeing a coffin unlucky. They exchanged glances. Agui, without any particular thought, muttered to himself, "Seeing a coffin in the dead of night, I'll need to wash my eyes when I get back."

Another person crouched down to look and said, "Whose grave is this? Why is it dug so deep in the mountain?"

No one answered him. Yuncai was so scared she hid behind Poker-face.

I could be sure that this was an abandoned grave, not the tomb of a wealthy family. The era should be Ming or Qing, because a coffin of this quality surviving until now in such a rainy region couldn't be too old. Seeing grass growing in the mud inside the coffin, the coffin had been washed out by rain and exposed to the wilderness for at least several years. The remains inside must have been destroyed.

The pit wasn't big. Shining the flashlight around, we couldn't find any trace of Old Pan Ma inside. He was definitely not there, but I felt that this might be where Pan Ma hid things, because it was indeed very suitable for hiding objects. The iron block that Pan Ma's son mentioned might be below.

The dogs were still barking, making people irritable. Agui pulled the dogs away and let them wander around, then picked up some branches to prod inside.

They also didn't dare to go down into the pit. Ordinary people would be wary of coffins, but the dogs' reactions told us there was definitely something in this pit. Searching like this would certainly not find anything.

I looked at the mountain terrain here. Even someone like me who only knows the basics of feng shui could tell that this place was absolutely unsuitable for burial. This was a mountain pass, where all the water from the mountain would converge. If someone were buried here, they would rot within days. This tomb couldn't be the large tomb in Yangjiao Mountain that Fatty speculated; it could only be an ordinary ancient grave in the wild, which should be harmless. So I told Agui to stop messing around, and Poker-face and I went down into the pit to search.

I was quite experienced at going down grave robber tunnels, let alone just flipping through a coffin, especially with Poker-face beside me. But Agui was very surprised, wondering how a city person like me could be so bold. Yuncai just stared wide-eyed, seeming a bit stunned.

The two of us went down into the pit one after the other. Because the pit was on a slope, one side of the pit wall was very shallow and the other very high. We could see the broken wall formed by a landslide. Half of the coffin was embedded in the broken wall, and it was quite large. From the remaining paint, it was an old black wooden coffin, sunk half a foot into the silt at the bottom of the tomb—either the soil here had settled, or this old coffin was unusually heavy.

This crude burial method wasn't something ordinary people could afford. The coffin seemed to be of decent quality; it might have been the purchase of a local landlord from earlier times. The inside of the tomb was already in ruins, covered everywhere with mud.

I don't know if I caught it from Fatty, but seeing the coffin made my heart start racing. I told myself that at this moment I had to act like an amateur, or it would be easy for Agui and the others to suspect me. Poker-face took the flashlight and pushed aside the weeds. After just one look around, we saw some bloody handprints in an inconspicuous place on the coffin. Poker-face asked me to light it for him, reached out and measured against it. The handprint on the coffin should have been made when someone bent over to balance themselves. Poker-face also crouched down, and below was the crack in the coffin. Without a second thought, he reached directly into the crack and started digging in the mud.

Listening to the sound of mud being stirred, I felt a chill down my back. He only groped in the mud a few times before pulling his hand out, holding a thing covered in mud. Shaking off the mud, it was a plastic bag, also with bloodstains on it. But after Poker-face shook it a few times, we found the plastic bag was empty.

"How could this be?" I asked in surprise. "Where's the thing?"

"The bloodstains are fresh. He took the thing away." Poker-face looked around and said calmly, "Not long ago. It must be nearby."

"So he came here to get the thing after being injured?" I breathed a sigh of relief. There was some distance from where he was injured to here. Since he could walk over, his injury couldn't be too serious.

Poker-face felt around again but didn't find anything. We climbed out, and I explained the situation to Agui. An old hunter without a gun, though tough and experienced, could absolutely not escape an attack from a leopard. And strangely, why did he come here after being injured? He should have returned to the village immediately. He had bled so much along the way, then came to take this iron block away. What was the reason? Did he think the iron block would be in danger if left here? We called the dogs back and, using the ancient tomb as the center, several people went in different directions to search. One group went up the mountain, one group went along the mountainside, and the two of us followed Agui and his daughter down into the valley. I asked Yuncai, besides leopards, what else in the forest would attack people?

Yuncai said there used to be a lot, but now they've all been eaten up. In the past there were many pythons, but now they haven't been seen for a long time. As for things that attack people, it could be wild boars. But wild boars are very timid; they only attack when provoked. Old Pan Ma was experienced; it was impossible for him to provoke a wild boar without weapons.

In my heart I thought it was possible, but it still didn't explain why Old Pan Ma came here to take the thing. At this moment I began to suspect faintly—could the danger Old Pan Ma encountered not be an animal? Could it be that the mysterious people who burned the house attacked him? Just as I was pondering, we suddenly heard a burst of urgent barking from the direction of the other group in the distance.