[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-grave-robbers-chronicles":3,"chapter-the-grave-robbers-chronicles-the-grave-robbers-chronicles-chapter-356":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Grave Robbers' Chronicles",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},16213,44,"Chapter 356: What Was Dug Up","the-grave-robbers-chronicles-chapter-356",356,"\u003Cp>I felt baffled and immediately leaned over, moving Fatty's foot aside for a closer look. Sure enough, part of the incense ash had settled into the tiny cracks on the stone surface, forming some lines. And it was obvious that these lines were very smooth, not the natural grain of the stone itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I do rubbing for a living and knew this was a rubbing technique—using fine powder to reveal shallow marks on the ground, similar to the spy-show trick of rubbing a pencil over a note to reveal writing on the page beneath. Clearly, someone had carved something into the rock face in front of this shrine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Excited, I immediately knocked over the incense burner, dumping all the ash onto the ground and rock face, and began spreading it with both hands. Soon, more subtle lines began to appear on the ground and rock wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"This is…\" Fatty also noticed the anomaly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It must have been carved by the workmen who dug this cave,\" I said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I think Secretary Lei has manifested pretty quickly!\" Fatty said. \"More efficient than us mortals.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Don't jump to conclusions,\" I said, smoothing out all the ash evenly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He crouched down to help, and Poker-face joined in as well. We spread the incense ash over a large area. Soon, a patch of crooked writing appeared before us.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Each character was about the size of a Chinese chess piece, all in traditional script, carved extremely sloppily—some almost illegible—but there were quite a few, thirty or forty, varying in size.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the handwriting, it seemed to be the work of one person.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The characters were Chinese, but some I had never seen before; they must have been dialect pronunciations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fatty asked in confusion, \"Did the workmen from before also discuss things on this rock face, like us?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I shook my head and said no. The writing was consecutive—obviously the carver had written a whole passage. But the incisions were very shallow, just like ours, probably scratched onto the rock with a simple stone, not using carving tools.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What kind of person, for what purpose, would write these words in front of this idol? No way to know, but the key must lie in the text.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I examined it. The text was read vertically. Excluding the ones I couldn't recognize, I carefully identified each character one by one, then carved them again on the side with a stone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a very simple passage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>November, the seventh day again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>East wall: from the left, seven feet, there are sixteen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>West wall: from the left, three feet, there are seven.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>North wall: from the left, five feet, there are ten.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>South wall: from the left, six feet, there are four.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Count carefully; must be excavated within three days to resume work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Is this… a record of mining measurements?\" I hesitated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The overall tone seemed like a message—a foreman leaving some hints for others before leaving, along with an instruction: count carefully. It read like a superior writing to a subordinate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"East, south, west, north?\" Fatty looked around. \"Is it a record of the jade vein distribution?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I shook my head. The direction of jade veins is entirely natural, with no pattern at all. Specifying \"from the left X feet\" on a single cross-section was useless. \"Has sixteen,\" \"has seven,\" \"has ten,\" \"has four\"—it seemed like a count mark; he was counting something on the wall. I looked at the east wall; there was nothing on it—only the natural wrinkles of jade veins and rock. The dark jade veins were as complex as blood vessels in rock, impossible to represent with such a small number as \"sixteen.\" And finally, he had a line: \"Must be excavated within three days to resume work,\" as if the things represented by \"sixteen\" and \"seven\" were obstructing further mining.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What was it? Could it be extremely hard rock crystals in the vein? But rock crystals are incredibly tough and weigh hundreds of tons—how could they be dug out in three days?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We all stood up and walked to the far left of the east cave wall, measured off seven feet with our fingers, and looked to see what was there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seven feet away, it was still the rock surface, covered in countless dark green traces—nothing at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fatty and I looked at each other. Actually, we had examined the rock surface here very carefully; even without doing this, we knew nothing was visible on the surface.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Could the thing he wrote about have already been dug out?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was possible, but after thinking again, a very strange thought came to my mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I went back to the shrine, gathered the incense ash from the ground, put it back in the burner, then took it to that rock face, grabbed a handful, and smeared it on the surface.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first nothing appeared, but after rubbing a few circles, sure enough, lines emerged—like the outline of something.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Hey?\" Fatty exclaimed in surprise. \"How did you know?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That message was too vague—a summary-type final note. They would definitely have left marks on the rock face too,\" I said, continuing to rub.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon, an irregular polygonal outline appeared on the stone. I took off my high-power exploration lamp, turned it on. The outline was very clear, like when you sketch a rough shape with short straight lines in a draft.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, we couldn't see any shape connected to that outline in the rock's veins—it seemed drawn randomly on the wall, maybe as a cutting reference.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But even so, I felt a chill run through me. Many fragments in my mind began spontaneously combining in various ways. I already knew inside that there must be something in this rock wall, otherwise this outline wouldn't have been carved here. They wanted to dig something out, so they made a rough mark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Why couldn't we see it? Could the method be wrong?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thinking about it, I asked: \"Does any of you know if there was any special process when they mined the jade?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fatty shook his head and said: \"Wasn't it just using explosives?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Poker-face, however, said: \"First they burned it with fire, then splashed cold water on it to make the stone crack naturally.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Splash water? Let's go! Get some water!\" I said immediately, not really knowing what I was trying to prove, but I had a strong gut feeling that we had hit something crucial.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I rushed to another cave, tied knots in the legs of the wetsuit I had taken off, filled them with water, carried them back, and together with Fatty, we splashed it onto the rock wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We splashed a dozen times like this, and the color of the rock deepened as the water seeped in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stepping back several paces to look, after the water had been splashed, the jade vein parts on the rock surface had become blurred, while the other parts had become smooth and translucent. It turned out that these stones were also jade, just with different concentrations, so they were overshadowed by the dark green jadeite and looked like ordinary rock.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the same time, we saw a faint shadow emerging from within that rock wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the silhouette of a person.\u003C\u002Fp>",1202,"2026-05-28T17:14:01.101Z","2026-06-01T04:28:20.357Z",1,"deepseek-v4-flash","2fd3fb7f7168f5ebb1c8927e39a037b0b8fb87be0042b776ca2c050fd2aafbe8","the-grave-robbers-chronicles-chapter-357","the-grave-robbers-chronicles-chapter-355",513,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-grave-robbers-chronicles-cover.jpg"]