Chapter 88: Crawl

Liang Shiye immediately put down the food in his hand and briefly told us the backgrounds of these two men. The two bosses from Guangdong, the one surnamed Wang was called Wang Qi, and the one surnamed Li was called Li Pipa. Both were from Foshan and had great reputations in the local antiques world. We already knew Li Pipa's background—his ancestor was a Tietou Xiaoqi, and his family fortune came entirely from half a book that recorded a large number of ancient tomb locations. The reason I knew this was because Lao Yang and I had once eavesdropped on his conversation, but everything he said was his one-sided story, and we had no way of knowing how much of it was exaggerated. Now hearing Liang Shiye speak of it, his words were definite and much more credible. As for Wang Qi's family background, it was not as illustrious as Li Pipa's, but it was more real. His ancestor's profession was called Chaofeng. What is Chaofeng? Chaofeng refers to the clerks who worked in pawnshops, sitting on a high counter, judging the value and authenticity of an item in a short time—that was their job. Among them, the one responsible for high-level item appraisal and daily administrative affairs was called the Grand Chaofeng. A Grand Chaofeng of a large pawnshop could be said to be the person who had seen the most treasures in the world—he had seen all sorts of bizarre things. Wang Qi's ancestor was a famous Grand Chaofeng named Wang Xianchu. In his later years, he wrote a notebook called 'Gu Yu Zhai Qi Jie Yu Lu'. This book could be called a strange tome, recording the unusual items he encountered in his life, with detailed notes on the owners' explanations and his judgments, which had strong cross-reference value for archaeological work. Wang Qi himself was not highly educated, but he had an excellent memory. He had read the contents of this 'Gu Yu Zhai Qi Jie Yu Lu' many times and had unconsciously memorized it all. As it happened, at a street exchange fair, he saw a white jade lion that closely resembled a kind of hidden-head box recorded in 'Gu Yu Zhai Qi Jie Yu Lu'. In front of everyone, following the record in the book, he put the white jade lion into tea water. Before long, the lion actually opened its mouth and spat out a gold leaf. From then on, Wang Qi's fame skyrocketed, and it got out of control.

As for when these two got together, Liang Shiye couldn't say either—he had only heard it was because of a woman. These rich people never lack romantic entanglements, and as their advisor, he didn't feel it was appropriate to ask. Hearing this, I asked Liang Shiye, why did the two of them come here in person this time? These people are used to living in comfort; how can they stand such hardship? Lao Yang said: 'What's so hard to understand? It's called idle money burning the brain, caused by having too much money. These rich people, when they have too much money, they don't know who they are anymore, and they all have to go find their life's meaning. Some people have millions at home and still go out begging—it's not

Advisor Liang chuckled and said, "I thought so too at first, but later I realized that wasn't the case. This time, the two of them are very determined. Based on my estimate, there may be hidden circumstances involved. I think it might have something to do with the 'enormous benefit' this young master mentioned."

Seeing Advisor Liang bring this up, I took the opportunity to ask Old Yang, "Hey, we're at this point now, just tell me—what exactly is in this tomb? What is this huge benefit?"

Old Yang said to me, "I really can't tell you. If I did, even if you were already at the pit entrance, you'd turn back. But this matter is definitely good for you. Honestly, just trust me this once."

I felt this sounded very strange. How could there be a huge benefit that I would want to avoid? That would be like saying ice is hot. Since Old Yang insisted on not telling me, I didn't push him. We finished breakfast, picked up some branches scattered on the pebble beach, wrapped clothes around one end, poured liquor over them, and lit them to use as torches. But we only had one bottle of liquor, so we could only make one.

These branches had been carried downstream by the current and stranded on the pebble beach, perfect for our use. I shouldered my backpack, took off my shirt and tied it around my waist, tightened my shoelaces. The three of us each prepared and began attempting to climb down. Ironically, among the three, I was probably the fittest, so I took the torch. Back in the Lu King's Palace, I was completely dead weight, so how did I end up with such a heavy responsibility this time? I didn't know myself. Still, I had no complaints about the situation. Step by step, we slowly lowered ourselves down the cliff, crawling toward the pitch-black cave bottom. The climb was arduous; several times I nearly slipped off the cliff, but overall Old Yang was right—it was steep but not hard to climb. With courage and care, even a young girl could make it down. It just took more time. Halfway down, Advisor Liang's legs were shaking uncontrollably. Clearly, he wasn't used to climbing. Seeing how weak he was, I said, "If you can't handle it, wait for us up top. We'll be out soon, and we won't short you anything." He flatly refused, probably afraid we wouldn't come back, insisting on sticking with us. To accommodate him, we had to stop and start repeatedly. It took about the time it takes to smoke most of a pack of cigarettes before my feet finally touched the long-missed ground.

Looking at the coffins from ground level wasn't as spectacular as from above, but it was far from pleasant. The coffins were crudely nailed together from simple planks, vaguely shaped like Han Chinese coffins—narrow at one end and wide at the other—but far cruder. Having been in this damp, sunless cave for years, they had turned a moldy black, and the air was thick with mustiness.

I helped Advisor Liang down from the cliff. He stumbled and fell onto a coffin, crushing a hole through the rotted wood. I grabbed him just before he sank into it. Once steady, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "I must look ridiculous to you. Since childhood, I've been weak and sickly, fainting at the slightest draft. With a constitution like mine, I doubt I'll ever do this tomb-raiding business again."

I said to him, "No worries. Different strokes for different folks. If you were like Indiana Jones, the rest of us would be out of work." I raised the torch to illuminate our surroundings and see which way to go.

A narrow path ran straight ahead between the coffins, but the torchlight only reached a dozen meters or so. Farther than that, we couldn't see. But from up on the cliff, we'd noted that this path led straight to the flat area. I figured we just needed to go forward to reach it. The smell here was awful; I worried about poisoning from prolonged exposure, so I immediately urged them to move.

Advisor Liang was too exhausted. Seeing me want to go right away, he grabbed my arm and said, "No... I can't... I really can't go on. Let me catch my breath here, and let's take a look—is this really a cave burial? I... I feel like something's off?" Hearing this, I turned to look at the coffin beside us. We all leaned toward the hole he'd made, but the torchlight wasn't focused enough to see inside clearly. I asked him, "What seems off? From the pictures I've seen of cave burials online, the coffins look just like this. What's wrong?"

He said to me, "The coffins themselves are the same as in cave burials, but you only know half the story. See, there are no wooden frames around these coffins. The Miao people always separate their coffins with cross-shaped frames, with different shapes for men and women. Here, they're piled up like shipping containers. That doesn't make sense."

I didn't have a clear picture from what he said, so I asked him, if this wasn't a cave burial, what was it? Advisor Liang replied, "Hard to tell just by looking. To know for sure, we'd have to open one of these coffins."

Old Yang laughed and said, "Easy for you to say. Opening a coffin is no small matter. If we dig up a zombie, and we don't have a black donkey's hoof, and you can't move well, we might all three end up dead here. Besides, these coffins definitely don't contain any grave goods; opening them would be pointless."

I agreed with Old Yang. Opening coffins was out of the question. The priority was getting into the tomb. We could look into this side business later if we had the chance. If not, so be it—we didn't have to solve every mystery. So I said to Advisor Liang, "Let's leave the coffins alone for now. If you need to rest, rest properly. In a place like this, it's best to touch as little as possible. Old Yang's right—we don't have the gear, and this is someone else's turf. Better to be cautious."

My words made Advisor Liang uneasy. He'd probably heard plenty of zombie stories before. He nodded and said, "Alright, I'll listen to you two young masters. Let's rest a bit, then keep moving forward."

I saw the torch was burning quickly and wouldn't last long. I got anxious. If the torch went out here, making new lighting would be very difficult. In the worst case, we'd have to feel our way through the coffins. So I didn't let them rest long—just a few squats and I urged them to move on.

We walked along the path, past row after row of coffins. The cave floor was dirt, which surprised me. Walking on it felt unstable. Thinking that these black stains might be a mixture of dead bodies and rotted coffins gave me a chill through my soles. After a while, the torch flame shrank, and the light narrowed. We quickened our pace, almost jogging. As I ran, I began to wonder: from the cliff, the distance looked to be only about two hundred meters. Even the slowest walker could cover it in five minutes. Why hadn't we seen the pit after nearly fifteen minutes? Could we have taken a wrong turn in the darkness?

We ran forward for the time it takes to smoke a cigarette, but it was still the same. All we could see ahead and behind were coffins, and further off was nothing but a blur of black. I cursed under my breath—we had miscalculated. I hadn't expected that once we came down here, the view would be so obstructed by the coffins that everywhere looked the same. Now I had no idea which corner we had run into.

At that moment, Liang Shive couldn't go on any longer. He grabbed me and gasped for air, saying, "Xiao Wu, don't… run, it's no… use. We might have fallen into a trap."