Chapter 67: Raging Sea: Predicament

When he said that, I immediately thought back to something that had happened a few weeks earlier.

Back then, we were getting ready to raid the Lu King's Palace. After passing through the corpse hole, we caught a huge corpse beetle. Hanging from the tail of that insect was a bell just like this one, and inside it was a giant green centipede. When it crawled and made the bell ring, it produced a sound like people whispering, eerie and seemingly imbued with a mysterious power. We were almost spellbound by it, but luckily Poker-face kept his wits and kicked us into the water, snapping us back to our senses.

Third Uncle later examined the thing and said it dated back to before the Warring States period. He couldn't pinpoint the exact dynasty, but at the time the situation was urgent, so I didn't think much of it. What happened afterward in the Lu King's Palace was like a nightmare; it was a miracle I didn't go crazy, let alone remember any of that.

But if I had to identify it now, I wouldn't dare to be certain, because back then in the corpse hole it was just like now—lit only by a few miner's lamps. The bell was taken down but soon crushed under Panzi's foot. It's impossible to make a direct comparison now, so I can only rely on vague impressions.

If it really was the same kind of bell we saw in the corpse hole, then Fatty touching it just now would have been disastrous. Back then, just one nearly drove us all out of our minds. Here there are at least forty of them; if just a slight tremor set them off, I have no idea what would happen.

Poker-face saw that I remembered and said, "There must be something else strange about that corpse hole. The piled-up corpse ground was originally a huge burial chamber, I just don't know how it ended up connected to Wang Zanghai."

Fatty had heard us talk about this before and knew the origin of the bells. He asked, puzzled, "Are you sure you didn't mistake it? How could a thing from before the Warring States period show up here again? That's way too coincidental. Is it possible that this Wang Zanghai was also a grave robber?"

When he said that, both Poker-face and I were taken aback.

"Now that you mention it, it's possible," Poker-face considered. "No one knows what he did in his early years, and he was an expert in feng shui. If he robbed tombs, he would have been more than capable. But as I recall, his family was quite prominent—several generations of feng shui masters, well-off and never lacking food or clothing. It's unlikely he would stoop to such a lowly line of work."

Poker-face said "lowly" without changing his expression, seemingly not realizing he was including us in that category. I said, "I don't think that's likely. A grave robber would always leave some kind of mark in his own tomb so that later generations entering could avoid trouble. Did you see anything like that here?"

Poker-face shook his head. "I paid attention just now, and there really isn't any sign of it."

His expertise in this area was unfathomable; if he said there wasn't any, I knew there really wasn't. I said, "Then how do you explain this thing being here? Could it be that he was a collector of antiques and brought his favorite pieces for burial?"

"We haven't seen any other antiques along the way. That theory doesn't hold water either. I think there might be another possibility," Fatty said, looking pleased with himself. "Actually, besides grave robbers, there's another type of person who often runs into ancient tombs. Do you know who?"

I caught on immediately. "You mean when he was working on construction projects and dug these things up at the site?"

Fatty nodded. "This guy was basically the biggest contractor of his time. It's very likely he ran into such situations. If we go back and check the records, we can find out whether he ever went to Guazimiao in Shandong back then."

Fatty's reasoning made sense, and I had to admire him again. But we absolutely couldn't touch these things now. I guessed that A Ning must have touched this coral tree, causing all these bells to ring at once and driving her insane. I just didn't know what kind of visions those bells produced in her mind to have such a powerful effect.

People are easily suggestible to begin with, and now in this ancient tomb with its mysterious atmosphere, anyone with slightly fragile nerves would go mad on their own. I even thought that Poker-face's amnesia might have been caused by these things, because I noticed that the bell strings were tied to the coral tree with copper wire very precisely. Coral is naturally hollow and transmits sound extremely well. Placed here like a musical instrument, it could produce thousands of different sounds, and it's possible that one of them could make a person forget everything.

But these ideas of mine were a bit far-fetched, and I was too embarrassed to voice them. The three of us stood there for a moment, then Fatty said, "Looks like that's all there is to this hole. The real mystery is these bells. Should we call it quits?"

I didn't see any monsters or ghosts in the cave, so I felt much more relaxed. It didn't really matter whether we left now or not, but looking at my watch, low tide was almost upon us, and there was no point staying here. The four of us started backing out.

As I walked, I was thinking. I still had two questions. First, when Poker-face entered this wall hole twenty years ago, he was led in by Third Uncle. Where are the others who fainted with him? Did Third Uncle move them out?

Second, when Poker-face went in back then, he smelled a very peculiar fragrance, but now it was gone. Could that mean that twenty years ago, there was something else in this cave?

I would have to find Third Uncle to get the answers to these questions.

And Third Uncle had vanished. Who knows when I would find him—maybe he would never show up again, and these questions would become eternal mysteries.

If what Fatty said was true, that Third Uncle was haunted by the vengeful spirits in this tomb, then where could he have gone? When he saw the photo of Poker-face, he said, "I understand." What exactly did he understand? Thinking about it, I felt that the whole thing was still missing something. If I just had one more clue, I could connect everything. And my intuition told me that the missing piece had to do with the Lu King's Palace.

As I was thinking, the four of us had already come out of the low passage. Fatty put A Ning down on the ground and said, "It should be about time now. We need to make a move."

I reminded myself that escaping was still the top priority, so I pulled my thoughts together and started giving instructions. Since I had never actually opened the top of a Ming tomb before, I wasn't very confident—I'd just have to take it step by step.

After I finished, the three of us put the plan into action. Fatty had been itching to get to work. He grabbed his tool and started chiseling into a pillar. But he underestimated the toughness of golden nanmu wood. After a few strikes, he was already panting heavily, and he had only managed to chip off a tiny bit.

Seeing that something was wrong, he said, "Xiao Wu, this pillar is way too solid. If we do it like this, it'll take a week just to build the ladder."

I said, "Don't rush. Once you chip off the outer layer, the inside will be easier to handle."

Fatty was half-doubtful, but he took his tool and put all his strength into it. He barely made some progress. After a few more strikes, he had peeled back the iron-hard outer wood layer and carved out a space big enough for one foot.

Now I knew that the cave was a dead end—the seawater would only seep down through the brick cracks, so there was no need to worry about whirlpools. I grabbed a tool and went to help Fatty. But after just two swings, I realized this was really a job for him. Not only was he strong, but he had great endurance. After all the ordeal, he was still full of energy, showing no signs of fatigue. Meanwhile, I was right beside him, working for the same amount of time, and my arms were so tired I could hardly lift them.

We worked like crazy. Three hours later, we finally finished cutting footholds into one pillar. The lower part was relatively easy, but when we got higher, we had to climb up using the footholds we had already made, hanging in midair where we couldn't put much force into our swings. In the end, we only managed to carve shallow depressions that could hold just the front part of a foot. But despite all that, we got it done.

We took off our pants and shirts. Since they were diving suits, very elastic, we cut them into strips and tied them into a rope. We made a loop like Mexican tree climbers and wrapped it around the pillar, with the three of us pulling in three different directions to tighten the rope. Then we started climbing.

I don't know how we made it up. Every inch felt like dying again. Fatty was so exhausted he kept yelling, "Why are you two coming up? I can just chisel the top myself. When the water comes, you can float. This rope is cutting me like a piece of braised pork. Xiao Wu, you'd better get down, or I won't be able to hold on!"

I said, "You think I want to come up? I just don't want to see you die. There might be a false ceiling up there. If you start chiseling and trigger a collapse of quicksand, the whole room will be buried."

I was telling the truth. A quicksand layer in a tomb wall is one of the most common anti-tomb-raiding measures. As I mentioned before, it's quite effective. If a large tomb has a quicksand layer, to get in safely you have to dig a sand-release shaft below and drain the quicksand first. Sometimes emptying one wall can take days, which shows how massive the amount of quicksand can be. We didn't have the conditions for that. If we really encountered such a tomb, we'd have to find another way.

If it wasn't quicksand up there but strong acid or fire oil, that would be even worse.

Fatty had robbed many tombs, so he knew I wasn't lying. He waved his hand to signal, "Then let's keep climbing."

We gritted our teeth and spent another half hour reaching the very top. Once Fatty steadied himself, he was almost at the point of collapse. He hugged the pillar without moving and said, "Damn it. If I have to go through this again, I'll be done for."

I told him to catch his breath first; I still needed him for chiseling the bricks later. I carefully tapped the top of the vault. Poker-face signaled me to stop, then pressed his fingers against the top, felt it, and said, "It's solid."

Fatty heard this, and he truly dared not rest. Without further ado, he began to chisel the white plaster on the ceiling. He dared not use too much force, because after all, the rope was not sturdy; if it broke, everyone would fall and be seriously injured.

We all reached out and placed our hands on his shoulders, so that if the rope broke, we could still pull him and prevent him from falling directly from a height of ten meters. However, he was covered in oily sweat; I estimated that if he really fell, we wouldn't be able to catch him even if we tried.

The white plaster was very brittle; he chiseled a few times and a large piece peeled off, revealing the blue bricks underneath. Fatty took one look and suddenly shouted in alarm, then hurriedly told me to feel them. I reached out with force and touched them—I was dumbfounded.

Between these bricks, there was actually iron slurry poured in.