Fatty continued, "In the legend of the Mute Emperor, when the expert gave him those spells, he said, ‘Don’t open your eyes.’ We’ve already learned from the murals that you’ll die if the eyes open, so it’s not wrong to compare them to the legend. These experts must have participated in the construction of this king's tomb, so the legend of the Mute Emperor may not be groundless. The legend also mentioned a spell where ‘paper men become soldiers’, so we need to be on guard.”

I remembered that the legend had said these paper men and horses were blind, which was why they had lost to the real soldiers.

"If there really are paper men, they would’ve been burned long ago,” I said to him. “But even if they didn’t burn after all these years, paper can't stand the test of time. It will definitely crumble to powder. Since there were ceramic statues in the other tomb passage, there should at least be golden nanmu (1) statues inside the tomb chamber."

"Shit, you never thought the eyes from the legend would be the eyes painted on the mural,” Fatty said. “This paper may also be painted on the mural. Maybe there are other strange things, too. Are you going through menopause or something? You haven’t listened to a thing we’ve said."

After thinking about it, I decided Fatty was right to call me out. I really hadn’t been listening to people recently and I didn’t know why.

The tomb chamber behind the gate must’ve been filled with mud, and considering how someone’s hair had been mixed in it, I was afraid a corpse was leaning against the gate.

The South Sea King had limited financial resources, so it wouldn’t have been easy to build this tomb. Based on the location and contents of the burial pit, we should expect to see a six- or seven-meter tomb chamber in front of us once the gate was opened. There should be side chambers on the left and right sides, along with a tomb corridor leading to a sealed gravestone. The main tomb should be behind this gravestone, with two side chambers and a back chamber situated around it.If my theory was correct, then the scale was much smaller than I had originally thought. Although this was a region where Han culture had mixed in, Minyue’s witchcraft customs were still the mainstream. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for their sacrificial grave goods to be full of all kinds of strange and mysterious things.

At this time, I had two theories. One was that mud had poured into the tomb when Uncle Three had caused some damage while stealing the sarcophagus. If a lot of sacrificial victims had been buried in the tomb chamber, then they had probably been pushed to the gate by the influx of mud. If so, there might not be one corpse in front of the gate, but a lot.

And this tomb gate was still sealed, indicating that Uncle Three had used a different entrance. Although none of us had said it aloud, we were trapped in this ancient tomb and surrounded by rocks and several layers of mud. Where exactly did Uncle Three come down from? If we found it, maybe we could use it to escape this place.

Uncle Three had always preferred to drill holes directly into the back chamber because that was where the large and precious grave goods usually were. For a long time, the value of large grave goods reached a price that small pieces simply couldn’t match. I remembered that for nearly fifteen years, bronze-inscribed pieces and other items that came from the back chambers of ordinary tombs—i.e., those not belonging to royal or noble families—were worth more than the funerary objects from the main coffin.

Of course, this was because they were whole pieces. This happened because old grave robbers often only stole the main coffin, which resulted in it becoming severely damaged. Another reason was that if it was a large, well-preserved tomb like a "huangchangticou" (2), it was considered a serious crime to take anything from the main coffin. It didn’t matter how many people were involved. Anyone who bought or sold these items was considered an accomplice and arrested on the spot. I remembered that a lot of people in Sichuan were getting arrested back in the day. Even though the items had only passed through their hands, they all had to serve more than two years.

When I thought of this, I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I thought of how the burial pit had been sealed and wondered where the mud had come from.

Did the burial pit have a grave robbers’ tunnel that led directly to the back chamber? Could the mud in the burial pit have come from the main tomb?If so, Uncle Three must’ve destroyed the main tomb’s outer wall, which caused the mud to flow in. I couldn’t even imagine how he did it in those days.

As Fatty continued to draw on the floor, I saw him mark a certain section, "We came down from the mudflat. When this tomb was built, it wasn’t a mudflat, but a stone mountain. There must’ve been an underground river between the stone mountains here that connected inland. This is where the underground river flowed into the sea. Now that the water level is high and the sea water comes in with the tide, this underground river gets topped off with sea water and mud. To make a hole from the underground river to the South Sea King’s tomb, you need—"

"To dig a well shaped like a seven," I said. This was a huge project that would require a well to be dug above the underground river’s water level. The well would have to be dug horizontally and then vertically, which would also explain why the tomb hadn’t completely flooded. This well must’ve been dug relatively high, so even when the water level was at its highest, it may have just barely passed the wellhead. As a result, not much mud poured into the wellhead. This ancient tomb’s drainage system also seemed very complicated, which helped it stay relatively dry up to this point.

I touched the back of my neck. When the three of us were walking in the mountains in Fujian, I had a very interesting idea. I had the vague sense that there was a huge underground water network under all the mountains in southern Fujian. If there was an underground river here, did that mean I had guessed right? Was there something at the center of this water network?

Fatty seemed to read my mind and asked me, "What are you thinking?"

I was just about to answer him when Poker-Face covered my mouth and pulled me aside. I calmly looked at where I had been standing just now, only to see something coming from the other side of the gap in the tomb gate. It had almost hit my ass just now. I thought it was the probe, but when I looked carefully, I realized that it was two long, sharp fingernails.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Nanmu is basically a Chinese cedar or Chinese giant redwood. It’s a precious wood that’s unique to China and South Asia, and was historically used for boat building, architectural woodworking, furniture, and sculptural carving in China. The highest grade of nanmu wood has a bright golden color. More info here

(2) A Huangchangticou is a special type of ancient royal burial that emerged in the Spring and Autumn Period and took prevalence in the Han Dynasty. "Huangchang" refers to the yellow core of the cypress wood, while "ticou" refers to the structure of the tomb (mainly the heads of the wood facing the outer coffin). More info here (the pg. 614 one, paragraphs on the left side of the page).