Chapter 67: Treading Upon the Moonlight

When he stepped out of Huyang Station, Heifu felt that he must look exactly like one of those "infantry figurines" from the Terracotta Army of the First Emperor's mausoleum in later ages.

A station was a basic public-order unit, so it kept arms and stored the five types of weapons.

In the small storehouse in the front courtyard of Huyang Station, two sets of armor were kept ready. Considering that Gongshi Quji had said those grave robbers all carried blades, numbered at least four, and might even have bows and arrows, Heifu decided it would be safer to put on a set of armor.

Once Dongmen Bao and Li Xian helped him strap on the leather armor, Heifu finally understood why this thing was so expensive.

The set they had at the station was only the crudest front-body armor, worth a few hundred coins at most. It protected only the chest and abdomen and had to be tied over the shoulders and around the waist with straps, like putting on a cooking apron in his previous life.

He looked down and saw that the armor was made from a whole oxhide cut into large and small plates. Each plate had small holes drilled into it, and strong, fine silk cords laced them all together, with armor nails in some places… Although its defensive power was limited, it was fortunately not very heavy and did not hinder movement.

As for Heifu's weapon, it had also changed from the nine-inch little short sword that had accompanied him for several months to a two-foot sword. Old Man Pu said this had been left behind by the previous station chief and now belonged to Heifu. The wooden grip was wound with copper wire to prevent slipping, and the bronze blade had a few small nicks, but nothing that mattered — it was more than enough to stab into a human body.

Constable Dongmen Bao chose a pair of hand-axes, each a foot and a half long. He liked to fight at close quarters, and he also liked to hurl an axe from several paces away to take a life — though he had never actually killed anyone, he always practiced on tree stumps in his spare time. Tonight was his chance to show his skill.

As for the remaining set of armor, Dongmen Bao refused it. Muttering, "A real man ought to take a few wounds and earn some scars," he shoved the armor at Li Xian with a face full of disdain.

Li Xian, however, was very cautious. He properly put on the armor and chose a long spear about nine feet in length. In his view, when catching criminals, not everyone should use short weapons; long and short should complement each other.

Little Tao, needless to say, carried a modest bow with a draw weight of probably only eight dou, and a quiver on his back holding seven or eight arrows…

Heifu slung his sword over his back and asked, "Will bows and arrows work well at night?"

Little Tao replied that since those men were digging up a grave at night, they would certainly have lit torches. As long as there was a point of light, within twenty paces, he could hit a target at night just as well!

"Good. Long and short supporting each other, bows and arrows at the rear — we are well enough prepared."

Heifu picked up a small leather-covered wooden shield, led the group out of Huyang Station, and told Old Man Pu to watch the station house carefully. Then, looking up at the now completely pitch-black night sky, he pointed southwest and said, "Move out!"

In the howling cold wind, Heifu felt as if he had returned to his internship in his previous life, going out on night duty with his seniors…

But this time, he was no longer the greenhorn fresh out of the police academy; he was the chief of a station.

In the distance, the rolling hills along the edge of Cloud Dream Marsh resembled the ridged back of a crocodile. In the mountain forests, the leaves had long since fallen, and bare branches shivered in the wind. Across vast expanses of rice paddies, much of the snow had melted; all was silent and deserted, not even a wild beast in sight. The road before them was likewise empty, without a single human figure.

Only the four men from Huyang Station came forth, armored and bearing sharp weapons.

Heifu walked at the very front, the wind whipping the headscarf on his head into a wild dance.

Little Tao was at the rear, hugging his bow and keeping his head down, worrying that with this wind speed, his arrows would be useless and he would not be able to help the station chief.

They were still far from the grave-robbing site. Dongmen Bao and Li Xian were in the middle, one on the left and one on the right, each holding a burning stick of firewood as a torch for light, which stood out dazzlingly bright in the pitch-black night.

Seen from afar, that pair of torches looked like the night-shining eyes of a fierce beast, swaying and flickering…

The four of them strode swiftly onward, like a Heavenly Hound that hates evil, catching the scent of criminals, letting out a long howl at the bright, pure moon above, and then racing off toward the southwest, treading upon the moonlight…

…

The period from 11 p. m. to 1 a. m., among the twelve double-hours of the Qin state, was called "the Stillness of Men." As the name implies, almost everyone at this hour was fast asleep, oblivious to the outside world.

But on a patch of wasteland ten li southwest of Huyang Station, lying between Little Qing Hamlet and Zhaoyang Hamlet, several torches were lit during the Stillness of Men…

In the torchlight, six figures appeared in the night. Their ages ranged from old to young: the oldest looked about fifty, his hair streaked with white; the youngest was only thirteen or fourteen, with skinny, scrawny arms.

In this bitter cold, they had all wrapped themselves in thick, good clothes to hide their own ragged garments. Yet these clothes were all covered in mud and filth, and one look told you they had most likely been dug out of the earth…

Only the youngest boy was afraid of things that dead people had worn; he would rather keep his sleeves short and tied, shivering violently in the cold wind.

The leader of these six was the very man who had earlier made the handover with the hamlet gatekeeper at Zhaoyang Hamlet — the red-faced, short-bearded "Chang."

Chang was still wearing the deep robe dug out from a tomb. Although centuries had passed and the garment had shrunk considerably, it could still be worn to keep out the cold. He thrust the three iron spades into the ground and said with a laugh:

"We've eaten, we've drunk, and I've got the tools ready. Gentlemen, it's time to work!"

As a habitual grave robber, Chang looked down on the Zhaoyang Hamlet gatekeeper's timidity, but he knew in his heart that the gatekeeper's warning was no lie. Time was running out. The great tomb beneath this earthen mound had to be opened tonight, and the grave goods had to be taken out before dawn!

He raised his head to study the cloudless night sky, gauging the moon's position.

"It's just past the Stillness of Men now. By Cockcrow — 1 to 3 a. m. — we must have dug through to the tomb's outer chamber. By the Peaceful Dawn — 3 to 5 a. m. — we must have moved the grave goods out! Take as much as we can carry!"

He had arranged with the Zhaoyang Hamlet gatekeeper that at the Peaceful Dawn, the gatekeeper would drive his own oxcart over to meet them and help move the stolen goods…

At Chang's shouted orders, the other five picked up their tools — iron spades for shoveling soil, or bronze lei-plows for driving deep into the earth to probe the depth of the coffin chamber.

Chang himself unscrewed the flask of wine he had bought at a high price, took a sip, and stood guard over the group's weapons.

In truth, those weapons had also been dug out of various tombs as grave goods. Some were bronze swords and bronze dagger-axes. Although their wooden parts had rotted away over the centuries, once the green patina was wiped off, the blades and axe-heads were still as good as new.

What was more, Chang was actually holding a crossbow! He had bought this at a high price from the Chu side with the money from selling earlier stolen goods, because in Qin, crossbows were simply not allowed to circulate in the marketplace…

Time passed bit by bit. After probing over the previous few days, they had accurately located the burial chamber.

These tombs of the Chu nobility all shared a common feature: a high earthen mound was piled atop the grave, called the "sealing earth," which the locals in their common speech called a "great mound."

The higher the sealing earth, the higher the rank, depending on the noble's status. But with the passage of time and the changes of the world, many grave mounds had become overgrown with dead grass and trees, so that they looked no different from naturally formed earthen hills.

Only grave robbers who had mastered the tomb-spotting techniques in the Day Book could, by relying on their understanding of orientation and testing the soil, determine whether it was a grave or not.

Chang was a man with this skill. As for the great tomb before him, he estimated that its sealing earth was the highest of any noble tomb he had seen in Anlu! It was several dozen paces in both length and breadth — a specification befitting at least a Chu county duke!

Over the past month, they had first dug open the smaller accompanying graves that were easier to excavate, obtaining quite a few clothes and weapons, but not many of the most valuable bronze vessels.

But Chang knew that inside this great tomb, there were bound to be even better things.

However, the higher the tomb's rank, the farther the coffin chamber was from the surface. It had taken many days, and they had worn out two iron spades, just to barely dig open the entire sealing-earth mound. After Chang had located the opening position of the burial pit, the group began slowly digging a robber's tunnel into the exposed ground. They had just managed to break through the tunnel and reveal the tomb-pit steps when a heavy snow fell from the sky, forcing them to stop for the time being.

The rammed-earth soil had originally been hard to dig, but tonight, most of the snow had melted, making the soil wetter and looser. Every shovelful brought up a bit of water. Gradually, the steps of the tomb pit were exposed level by level. Chang held a torch close and counted carefully — there were actually a full fifteen levels!

"The largest county-duke tomb I ever dug up in Xinshi County only had twelve levels of steps…"

Chang had heard that there were Chu royal tombs over in the Yi Circuit of Nan Commandery with twenty levels of steps; those of prime-minister rank had eighteen, and county-duke rank had twelve.

He stood stunned for a moment. The tomb before him was of a higher specification than a county duke or enfeoffed lord, yet lower than a prime minister. Who could it be?

Before Chang could figure it out, the men digging the soil suddenly let out a collective cry of alarm! They all threw down their tools and retreated backward.

At the end of the steps, a stone-carved guardian beast with two dragon-shaped heads and deer antlers growing from each head crouched at the entrance to the tomb chamber, its eyes bulging, its teeth bared, glaring at the grave robbers with a face full of ferocity!

(End of chapter)