Chapter 9: Seven Stars: Ancient Tomb

That phone must have been dropped not long ago. I picked it up and saw it was stained with blood, which made me uneasy: "Looks like we're not the only group here—someone's been injured. That phone sure didn't fall from the sky."

I opened the phone's contacts and saw only a few numbers, all overseas calls, with no other information. Third Uncle said, "No matter what, we can't go looking for them. We need to keep moving." I looked around but found no other clues, so we had to press on. Still, seeing such a modern item out in the middle of nowhere felt strange, so I asked the old man if anyone else had been in these woods recently besides us.

The old man laughed: "A group of about a dozen came in two weeks ago and haven't come out yet. This place is treacherous, masters. We can still turn back now."

"Isn't it just a monster?" Da Kui said. "Let me tell you, our young master here can make even a thousand-year-old zombie bow to him. With him around, no demon or fiend stands a chance, right?" He asked Poker-face, but Poker-face didn't react at all, as if Da Kui were invisible. Da Kui was put off but had no choice. We trudged along until the sky darkened, and just before four in the afternoon, we finally reached our destination.

We saw over a dozen military tents that were still in good shape. The canvas was high quality, and though covered in rotting leaves, the inside was dry and clean. There were plenty of daily supplies inside; we rummaged through them and found scattered gear, but no human remains. The old man hadn't lied.

We even found a generator and a few cans of gasoline, the engine wrapped in oily cloth, though most parts were badly corroded. Fatty and Da Kui tried to start it, but nothing happened. The gasoline, however, was still okay. I flipped through the items and noticed all the labels had been torn off—even the tent and backpack brand tags were missing. Strange, I thought. Looks like these people didn't want anyone to know where they came from.

We lit a fire at the camp and had a simple dinner. The old man ate while warily scanning the surroundings, afraid a monster might suddenly rush out and hang him too. The compressed food tasted terrible; I barely managed a few sips of water.

Poker-face ate while studying the map. He pointed to a spot marked with that strange fox face: "We're definitely here."

We all gathered around. He continued, "This is the sacrificial site. Below should be the altar. The sacrificial victims are probably buried underneath."

Third Uncle crouched down, scooped up some dirt, and sniffed it. He shook his head, took a few steps, scooped again, and said, "It's buried too deep. We need to take a few core samples."

We connected the steel rods and attached the auger head. Third Uncle stomped a few marks into the ground to indicate where to drill. Da Kui fixed the head, then started hammering with a short-handled mallet. Third Uncle kept a hand on the rod, feeling the conditions below. After thirteen sections had been driven in, Third Uncle suddenly said, "Got it!"

We pulled the auger sections up one by one. The last one brought up a load of soil. Da Kui detached the head and brought it to the fire for us to see. Third Uncle and I both turned pale. Even Poker-face let out an "ah." The soil looked as if it had been soaked in blood, dripping a liquid like fresh gore.

Third Uncle sniffed it and frowned. Both he and I had read accounts of blood corpses, but my grandfather's notes didn't give a clear picture of how it really was. Still, since the mud had blood in it, the tomb below must be extraordinary.

I looked at Third Uncle, waiting for his decision. He thought for a moment, lit a cigarette, and said, "No matter what, let's dig it open first."

Panzi and Da Kui didn't stop. Da Kui took a few more cores and handed all the heads to Third Uncle. Third Uncle sniffed each one, then used a trowel to connect the boreholes on the ground. I watched them work to locate the tomb. In no time, they'd sketched the approximate outline of the underground tomb. Measuring and locating graves was basic for grave robbers. Generally, the surface shape matches the tomb below—few grave robbers get it wrong. But looking at the outline, something felt off. Most Warring States tombs had no underground palace, but this one clearly did, and it even had a brick ceiling—highly unusual.

Third Uncle measured with his fingers and roughly pinpointed the coffin's position: "Below is a brick ceiling. My auger can't punch through, so I can only guess based on experience. This underground chamber is too strange. I don't know which bricks are thin, so I'll follow the method for Song dynasty tombs and start by breaking through the back wall. If that doesn't work, we'll have to start over, so we need to be quick."

My third uncle and the others had been digging grave tunnels for over a decade, so they were extremely fast. Three cyclone shovels flew up and down, and in no time they'd gone seven or eight meters deep. Since we were out in the wilderness, there was no need to hide the soil; we just tossed it out. Soon, Da Kui called up from below: "Done!"

Da Kui had widened the bottom of the tunnel and cleared a large section of brick wall. We shone our miner's lamps and climbed down. Poker-face saw Da Kui about to knock on the bricks and quickly grabbed his hand. "Don't touch anything." Poker-face's eyes were sharp as knives, startling Da Kui. He extended two fingers and ran them along the mortar lines, feeling the wall for a long time before stopping. "There's a booby-trapped layer inside. When you move the bricks, you have to pull them outward—never push them inward, and never smash them!"

Panzi felt the wall and said, "How is that possible? There's not even a crack. How can we pull these bricks out?" Poker-face ignored him. He found one brick, suddenly exerted force, and pulled it straight out of the wall. Clay bricks are incredibly sturdy. Pulling one out with just two fingers took immense strength. Those two fingers were truly extraordinary.

He carefully placed the brick on the ground and pointed behind it. We saw a dark red wax wall. "This wall is all alum acid used in alchemy. If we break it, the strong organic acid will splash onto us instantly and burn us down to the skin."

I swallowed hard. Suddenly I thought of the skinless monster my grandfather saw, and I was shocked. Could it be that it wasn't a blood corpse but Great-Grandfather drenched in alum acid? Then those shots Grandfather fired—could they have hit Great-Grandfather?

Poker-face had Fatty and Da Kui dig a five-meter straight shaft below, then took a syringe needle and a plastic tube from his bag. He connected the tube to the needle and put the other end into the shaft. Panzi lit a fire starter and heated the needle red-hot. Poker-face carefully inserted it into the wax wall. Immediately, red alum acid flowed through the tube and into the shaft.

Soon, the dark red wax wall turned white, indicating everything inside had drained. Poker-face nodded and said, "All clear!" We started moving bricks immediately. Soon, we opened a hole big enough for a person to pass through. Third Uncle tossed a fire starter inside and used the light to examine the interior.

We had broken in from the north side of the tomb. The floor was paved with large stone slabs carved with ancient script. The slabs were arranged like a Bagua pattern, larger at the outer edges and smaller toward the center. Around the tomb sat eight ever-burning lamps, now extinguished. In the middle was a four-legged square cauldron, and above it the ceiling was carved with sun, moon, and stars. On the south side, directly opposite us, sat a stone coffin. Behind the coffin was a passage sloping downward, leading who knows where.

Third Uncle poked his head in, sniffed, then waved us in. We entered one by one.

Third Uncle looked at the characters on the floor and said to Poker-face, "Little brother, take a look at these characters. Can you tell who's buried here?"

Poker-face shook his head and said nothing.

We lit several fire starters and tossed them into the ever-burning lamps, lighting up the entire chamber. I recalled the monster at the end of Grandfather's notes, and how he kept mentioning hearing a strange "clucking" sound, which gave me the creeps. Just then, Panzi climbed onto the cauldron to see what was inside. Suddenly he cheered: "Third Master, there's treasure in here!"

We all climbed up and saw a headless dried corpse inside the cauldron, its clothes rotted away. The corpse still wore some jade ornaments. Panzi, without any hesitation, took them off and put them on his own hands.

"This should be the torso left over after a human sacrifice. They cut off the head to offer to heaven and placed the body here to offer to the spirits. These were probably war prisoners; slaves couldn't afford ornaments."

Panzi jumped into the cauldron to see what else was down there. Poker-face tried to stop him but was too late. He glanced back at the stone coffin—luckily no reaction. Third Uncle cursed: "You fool! This cauldron is for offerings. Do you want to become an offering yourself?"

Panzi laughed: "Third Master, I'm not Da Kui. Don't scare me." He pulled out a large jade vase from inside. "Look, there's a lot of good stuff. Should we turn the cauldron over and see what else is underneath?"

"Don't be stupid! Get out of there!" Third Uncle said. He saw that Poker-face had gone pale, his eyes fixed on the stone coffin, and knew something was wrong.

Just then, I heard a "clucking" sound. I turned to listen, and a chill ran down my spine. The sound wasn't coming from the coffin—it was coming from Poker-face himself.