Chapter 486: The Underground Palace of the Ancient Tower

"Is this thing a tomb door?" Fatty said, touching it and sucking in a breath of cold air. "It really is a tomb door!"

"Looks like this might be the original form of the Zhang family ancient building. The oldest Zhang family mass burial tomb. It probably wasn't in the shape of a building, but an ordinary ancient tomb. Later, when the wooden structure of the ancient building was built above, this area was preserved by later generations as the underground palace at the very bottom of the ancient building. All the Zhang family's old ancestors are here!"

"Damn, so if we go in, that's like robbing a tomb?"

"What, are you scared?" I asked.

"No, I'm excited," Fatty said. "Think about it, how long has it been since we guys entered a real tomb? If we're really here to rob a tomb, it's like revisiting old grounds, even if it's not practical. But in terms of atmosphere, we can have a good time!"

I thought to myself that Fatty always had something to say, so I told him, "Alright then, 'Touching Gold Captain,' you go first. Hurry up and find a way out. Next time I'll find you some real tombs to have your fun."

"No, I say that with my mouth, but after this experience, I'm really scared. I've decided to go back and change careers to selling cabbages."

The earlier ancient building wasn't a tomb in the strict sense, but entering here felt different. This was the tomb of the Zhang family ancestors, older predecessors much more formidable than us. Disturbing them was a great disrespect. We kowtowed before the tomb door. Then I asked Fatty to take out cigarettes; we still had to follow the rules.

According to the old Northern school rules, when entering an ancient tomb, you had to light incense and pay respects, explaining that you were a poor wretch, with a mother gravely ill and a wife taken by force, and had to rely on this windfall to survive, seeking the tomb owner's forgiveness.

Fatty, of course, made even more grandiose claims, saying things like the Zhang family's descendants were unreliable, the GPS battery died, they were lost and couldn't find the way, and other nonsense.

I had lost my watch and couldn't tell the time, only knowing we had already spent too long inside. If we didn't get out soon, the mechanisms above might actually activate, so I urged him to finish quickly.

Fatty said, "After I recite, let's smoke the 'incense.' Xiao Ge has been here once, so the ancestors probably won't mind."

I said, "Whether they mind or not, you'll know soon. I can smoke the cigarettes, but you absolutely cannot touch them."

After Fatty came down, his coughing noticeably decreased, and I relaxed a bit. Fatty was right; maybe once he coughed up all his blood, he'd be fine.

Fatty said, "Don't worry, our future is uncertain now. I won't joke with my life. When you smoke, take big puffs; I'll get by with a few drags of secondhand smoke."

I said, "Enough nonsense, let me see your skills."

After Fatty finished, he went to push the stone door. He pushed a few times and found something blocking it from behind. Looking through the crack, I saw a self-closing stone.

"How are you going to open this stone door?" I asked. Fatty nodded. He took something out of his bag. It was a strange hook, I don't know where he got it; probably from Old Mrs. Huo's team. He inserted the hook behind the tomb door and started working on the self-closing stone.

The self-closing stone was a very famous item—when leaving an ancient tomb, it could be used to let the stone door close automatically. Many new archaeological team members, on their first entry into an ancient tomb, didn't understand how it worked and would resort to brute force to open the tomb door. After opening it once, they would discover the trick, but often it was too late. The tomb door would be damaged beyond repair. When Xiao Ge and the others came down, they went in reverse, no problem, but now the stone door had closed automatically, and the self-closing stone was stuck. Opening it wouldn't be easy.

Fatty didn't seem very skilled with the tool either; after fiddling for a long time, he couldn't get it open. I said, "Bro, your skills aren't very smooth!" Fatty cursed, "Damn it, hanging out with you guys these past few years, I haven't entered a single proper tomb. The people I've been with are all top-notch experts; I never got a chance to practice. You know, before I hooked up with you, where the hell would I run into so many imperial mausoleums? Digging a few dirt pits was good enough."

"So you're saying we should thank you for broadening your horizons?"

"Bullshit, just broadening horizons with no money. I'm not a traveler. Wandering around ancient tombs for nothing—I've got to meet my performance targets too."

As he spoke, the door suddenly loosened. I leaned against it and pushed, and finally the door opened.

A huge stone passage appeared before us, pitch black inside. We turned on our flashlights and vied to peer inside. I found I still wasn't used to calling this a tomb passage—it was very different from any tomb passage I'd seen before, with no decorations, quite similar to the stone passages I'd seen in the mountains.

Fatty now had a face full of a mix of happiness and excitement; he clearly wasn't aware of my thoughts. He said happily, "A tomb passage, damn, feels more familiar than the road in front of my own house." "The Zhang family seems to have some substance! If the Zhang Family Ancient Building above is Yangshi Lei's greatest work, then this was all carved out of stone. This project is clearly much harder than the Zhang Family Ancient Building itself." I said. "Plus, with these stones as the foundation under the ancient building, its earthquake resistance would be much higher."

There was nothing in the tomb passage, and it seemed there would be no traps. Fatty said he couldn't care less. Since Xiao Ge came from here, any traps might have been destroyed by him already. Moreover, the Zhang Family Ancient Building's design philosophy was very strange. It seemed to have very few traps; the only defensive mechanism seemed to be that poisonous gas. But that was indeed the simplest and most effective anti-theft method I had ever seen—I guess no defense is more effective than filling a place with poison gas.

We turned on our flashlights, looking around as we walked into the tomb passage. The air remained fine. We breathed freely, and the burning pain in our chests had mostly disappeared.

On the stone walls here, there was no trace of those Milotuo. I touched it and found it was volcanic rock. Clearly, this place was built specifically to defend against Milotuo.

On both sides of the stone passage were two drainage ditches, very similar to the tomb passages in the Xisha ancient tomb, connecting to the drainage system beneath the ancient building. But it seemed no water had flowed here for many years. Had the rainfall in Banai decreased recently, much less than in ancient times? Or was the groundwater flowing here reduced due to some major project? Regardless of the reason, it was actually a very good thing for the preservation of the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

We walked about sixty or seventy meters, and the tomb passage began to curve. On both sides appeared many stone niches, each containing very small coffins. The layout was similar to what we had seen upstairs. But these coffins were all made of stone, not particularly luxurious. Clearly, in the early days, the Zhang family followed the prevailing burial customs of the time, mostly using stone outer coffins.

The stone walls here also had many inscriptions. Fatty wanted to look, but I pulled him back.

Before finding Xiao Ge, we couldn't ignore any clues, but now we had already found him. At this moment, there was only one sentence in my mind: I wanted to say bye-bye to the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

Fatty hadn't given up yet, saying, "Let's take a look along the way. The origins of the Zhang family must be in these inscriptions, and the things in these coffins must be very old and quite valuable! If we open just one and take something, it won't be for nothing!"

"Didn't you say you were scared? Why are you thinking about that again?"

"The scene stirs the heart," Fatty said, then shook his head. "Forget it, with you here, opening a coffin might not be a good thing. I'll listen to you and keep moving."

I said, "Stop talking nonsense! Once we get out, if you want money, I'll even give you Third Uncle's business!"

Fatty said, "Come on, that kind of underworld culture I can't afford! Fatty still likes the life of a trader who does one job and lives well for a few years."

We walked another thirty meters or so, and suddenly a row of huge coffins appeared in the center of the passage ahead. Each coffin was as big as a double-door refrigerator, arranged in a single line along the edge of the stone passage.

We went up and counted; there were as many as sixty. Fatty said, "These must be the ancestors of the Zhang Family Ancient Building with unusually large builds. Look at their sizes, they're as big as Japanese sumo wrestlers. With Xiao Ge having such a good figure, it seems he trained hard to get it."

I said, "These are all joint burial coffins, each containing two bodies. So it seems the loving model couples' joint burial coffins are all here."

After seeing this, Fatty sighed deeply—if he and Yun Cai were to be buried together in the future, the coffin would definitely have to be even bigger. It would need to be as large as a five-drawer cabinet. I told him that after he died, Yun Cai would still be young enough to remarry five or six times, so their joint burial would require a large communal bed. Fatty called me dirty-minded for saying that.

I told him to stop thinking about it. Behind these large coffins there was another stone door, with a large black pillar on each side. Judging by their thickness, they seemed to extend down from above and might be part of the ancient building's structure that went deep underground.

The stone door was half-open, clearly someone had come out from inside. I wanted to go over, but Fatty pulled me back and made me look at the pillars. The pillars showed signs of having been handled, with many things stuck to them. Looking closely, they were all adhesive tape. From this angle, it looked as if the pillar had accidentally stepped on some mafia boss while walking and had been severely beaten, all it lacked was a pair of tearful eyes drawn on it.

I climbed up the pillar to inspect and found that the tape was covering countless small holes on the surface. The pillar looked as if it had been infested by termites, full of tiny holes. I wanted to tear off a piece to see, but Fatty stopped me. He said that since the younger guy and the others had taped them up, there must be a reason, and I shouldn't mess with it.

We looked it over again, re-sticking all the taped areas with the military tape we had brought, and only then carefully pushed open the stone door. The moment we pushed the door open, I saw all the tape suddenly suck inward, as if there was some change in air pressure at the entrance.

There was indeed something suspicious. I wondered what would have happened if we hadn't taped it up—maybe countless poison darts would have shot out. It suddenly occurred to me that this ancient tomb could use air pressure as a power source to drive mechanisms, and such mechanisms could be quite ingenious.

After the stone door was pushed open, we sidled in, raising our flashlights to shine into every corner. Inside was a stone chamber.