This sentence was only a few short words but it attracted all of my attention.

“I have the fish…”

What fish? Was it the snake-eyebrow copper fish?

Based on the patterns I had seen on the stone carving in that ancient undersea tomb, these strange copper fish should be a set of three that were joined together end to end. I currently had two in my possession but there should be another fish that matched the ones I had. What was the meaning of this strange sentence? Was it implying that the last fish was in this person’s hands?

Since the person who posted this message had this photo and knew about the fish, did that mean that they were one of the missing people from twenty years ago?

I carefully looked through the webpage and saw that it had been published two years ago. It was a good thing the website didn’t shut down; otherwise, this information would have disappeared from the internet long ago. Other than this sentence, there was no signature or contact information anywhere on the page.

I found it a little odd—wasn’t it kind of pointless not to leave your contact information when you were looking for someone?

I tried various searches in Google, hoping to find more information, but this webpage was the only one that had something to do with this matter.

Although I felt depressed, I knew that this was already a great discovery since it showed that at least someone two years ago cared about the things that happened twenty years ago. But who was this person?

Soon, the damn storm finally passed. The day after it did, a Qiongsha-class naval cargo ship came from Qinglan Port in Wenchang. Seeing that we couldn’t wait here any longer, we packed up our bags and prepared to head back.

Before we left, we went to the military hospital to look for A Ning but found that she was already gone. When we asked the doctor where she was, he said that a few days ago, a group of foreigners suddenly came in the middle of the storm and picked her up. The hospital never informed us because the doctor thought that the group of foreigners was with us. Plus, the strong winds had blown the phone lines down and they hadn’t been repaired yet.

I knew deep down in my heart that it must have been A Ning’s support team on the island that took her away. The storm had closed the island over the past few days so we wouldn’t have been able to stop them even if we wanted to.

Fatty cursed and said that she got off lightly but I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. After all, I didn’t know what to do with her—it wasn’t like we could kill her or torture her for a confession so this situation was absolutely perfect. Like this, we could both go our separate ways. It wasn’t like she had done anything life-threatening to us anyways.

But her company’s real reason for entering the undersea tomb wasn’t as simple as saving people so what was it? What happened between them and my Uncle Three? Where was he now? There was no telling when these hidden secrets would emerge from Xisha’s peaceful blue waters.

To make a long story short, we took the Qiongsha-class naval cargo ship back to the mainland. Two days later, at Haikou Airport, I said goodbye to Poker-Face and Fatty and boarded a plane to Hangzhou. It was amazing how smoothly things went in real life—I was back home in Hangzhou in just four hours.

I was so exhausted from those prolonged high-intensity activities that I crawled into bed, covered my head, and went to sleep right away, only waking up once a day to eat. During those times I woke up hungry, I would just take something from the fridge, eat it, and then lay back down. Before I knew it, two weeks had passed. Some of my friends thought that I was dead at home and came to check on me, which was when I realized that I had had enough rest.

I had slept so much that my whole body now felt uncomfortable. I called Wang Meng first and asked him how the shop was doing. Except for there not being any business, everything was normal. In fact, the lack of business was also quite normal—with the boss being away, it would be strange if there was business. Then I called various uncles, aunts, and elders in the family who had dealt with Uncle Three and asked them if they knew of his whereabouts. But none of them knew where he was. In the end, I called Uncle Three’s shop. When one of his assistants answered the phone, I asked him, “Has Third Master Wu come back yet?”

The man hesitated for a moment before saying, “Master Three never came back but there was some weirdo who said he was your brother and insisted that we tell him where you were. I don’t know where he came from, but he looked sketchy and seemed like bad news so I said I’d give you a message. He left a phone number before he left. Do you want it?”

I stood there frozen for a while, finding it kind of strange. I had many acquaintances all over but I could only think of a few who might go to Uncle Three to find me. I thought it over for a moment and then asked him, “How old was this person?”

“I can’t say for sure. He was probably about the same age as you but a little older. He had a crew cut, triangle eyes(1), and a high nose bridge. He was also wearing glasses and had an earring. He looked neither Chinese nor foreign. I’d say he was pretty average.”

“Average?” As I repeated these words, I couldn’t help but think, who the hell is it? I pondered over it some more and suddenly felt my heart jolt. “Did the man have trouble speaking?” I asked him.

“Yes, yes, yes…that guy stuttered a dozen times before he could finish a sentence.”

I suddenly felt overjoyed when I realized that I already knew who the other person was. I hurriedly asked for the phone number and dialed it. It only rang a few times before the call connected and I heard a semi-familiar voice stammer, “Wh-wh-who is it?”

I chuckled and said, “Fuck you, you don’t even recognize my voice now?”

He was silent for a moment and then I heard several excited noises before he shouted, “I-I-I haven’t heard you speak for three years! Of course I wouldn’t be able to recognize your voice! Have you heard yourself? Your voice has really developed.”

I felt a little ache in my heart and wanted to cry, but I started scolding him instead, “You still have the nerve to talk about me? I haven’t heard anything from you in years! I thought you were dead!”

The person on the other end of the line was Lao Yang. I had long forgotten his real name. He and I grew up together and did everything together, just like two peas in a pod. There was even a time when we were almost like the same person. His family was quite poor and he couldn’t find a job after graduating from college so he came to work in my shop. Even though he had a speech impediment, he was especially good at calling tourists into the shop. We shared the same vile habits, managed the shop indiscriminately, and led free and unencumbered lives.

But three years ago, this guy didn’t know what was good for him and ended up going grave robbing in the Qinling Mountains with a cousin from Jiangxi. As a result, he was arrested and his cousin was sentenced to life in prison. He relied on his mouth to portray himself as a promising young man who was deceived by bad company. As a result, he only ended up with a three year sentence. I wanted to go see him at first but this guy was so proud that he refused to even see me. I ended up moving later and lost contact with him so I was surprised to see that he had been released from prison now.

As for why he went grave robbing, it was mostly my fault. Ever since we were kids, I had always bragged in front of him about how great my grandfather was, and I also showed off my grandfather’s treasures in front of him. I figured that was when he got it into his stupid head that he wanted to go grave robbing. This guy had always been very daring—even as a child, when I would come up with ideas to cause trouble, he would be the one to implement them—but I honestly didn’t expect that he would put such a hairbrained idea into action.

We had a lot to say to each other after three years, and once we started talking, we couldn’t shut up. I felt my jaw starting to cramp and my cell phone was hot, but there was still a lot to talk about so I said to him, “Shit, man, are you free tonight? I’ll take you to dinner. Let’s have a good meal and talk over some good drinks.”

Lao Yang was also excited by my suggestion and replied, “Th-th-that sounds good. I haven’t eaten a big piece of meat in three years. Let’s eat something delicious!”

And so it was decided. I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep so I took a shower, tidied up the house, and then went to the restaurant we agreed upon. As I waited for him, I ordered all the big meat dishes on the menu. He finally showed up just before evening fell. When I saw him, I couldn’t help but think, this guy is really abnormal. He spent three years in prison but gained weight.

Although we two old friends had finally met after so long, we killed half a bottle of Wuliangye liquor(2) first without saying anything. When I recalled our previous life and looked at the present situation, I couldn’t help but sigh. It wasn’t until we were full of wine and food and turned the dishes on the table upside down that I realized we had nothing to say to each other.

At that time, my mind was so muddled after drinking that I started talking about the crime he committed three years ago. In between the hiccups, I asked him, “Tell me the truth, what the hell did you guys steal back then that caused your cousin from Jiangxi to be sentenced to life in prison?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I immediately regretted them. Why am I even bringing this up? I asked myself. Way to dredge up his sad memories. I’m no good at handling these kinds of situations.

But to my surprise, he had a smug expression on his face as soon as he heard my question. He picked at his tooth and then smiled before saying, “What we took out, hehe, was very strange. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s just that even if I did, you wouldn’t know what it is.”

When I saw that he was looking down on me, I immediately became furious, “Forget it, I’m not the same kid I was three years ago. Whether it’s from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, or Qing Dynasties, I’ll know what it is as long as you can describe its shape.”

Lao Yang looked at how serious I was and smiled, “Wh-wh-why are you so angry? You’re being ridiculous bringing up those dynasties!” Then he dipped his chopsticks into the wine and drew a strange shape on the table. “H-h-have you seen something like this?”

I was so drunk that I couldn’t see clearly even after staring at it for a while but it looked like a tree or some kind of pillar. “You bastard, you spent the last three years in prison yet your drawing skills haven’t improved at all,” I scolded him. “What is this thing, a wooden club?!”

“Y-y-you just need to put up with it!” Lao Yang said. “It’s not like you’re amazing at recognizing valuable goods anyways. This sloppy drawing is perfect for you!”

I looked at it carefully but still couldn’t tell what it was so I said to him, “Who in the world could tell what you drew? If I had to call these lines a pattern, I’d say they look like tree branches. Your drawing is so bad that I can’t tell what this is supposed to be!”

Lao Yang smiled smugly, lowered his voice, and said mysteriously, “Y-y-you got it! These are bronze tree branches as thick as your wrist!”

I couldn’t help but let out an “Oh” as soon as I heard this. This guy must have been tired of living if he had stolen some bronze wares. He truly did earn his three year prison sentence. “How much does this thing weigh?” I asked him. “Why’d you go for a big object instead of a small one? Were you that eager to go to prison?”

He patted me on the shoulder, peeled a prawn fried with scallions, threw it into his mouth, and said, “You don’t know what happened at that time. The place is different from anything you can imagine. It’s a long story.”

I had done some research on bronze wares, so after pondering over the thing he had drawn, I realized that it looked a little similar to those sacred bronze trees that had been excavated in Sanxingdui not too long ago.

Sanxingdui was an archeological site that had relics of the ancient Shu people. Strictly speaking, such relics didn’t fall within the scope of our antique business since they were too old, too precious, and their value couldn’t be calculated. If Lao Yang really found such things at the place he went to, I didn’t know whether to say he was lucky or unlucky.

I found myself suddenly interested in this thing and asked him what happened at that time. He had also drunk too much and ended up telling me all the details without even bothering to hide anything.

At that time, they had been walking through the Qinling Mountains for more than ten days without finding anything but endless forest. By that point, they were almost out of food and ammunition.

In fact, neither Lao Yang nor his cousin had basic grave-robbing knowledge but they were full of enthusiasm. At this time, his cousin was feeling disheartened and was ready to turn back but Lao Yang insisted on continuing so they kept going.

One particular day, they were trudging through a valley hidden in the mountains. They didn’t know how many times they had seen such valleys over the past few days, but this time, Lao Yang found that the valley here was a little different from the others.

The geographical environment here was very strange—the altitude was very low, the temperature was very high, and there was a vast forest of old banyan trees in the center of the valley. There was no telling how many banyan trees were in that forest, but they were all so huge that ten people holding hands wouldn’t be able to encircle their trunks. The tree canopies covered the sky and blocked out the sun while the roots covered the ground, leaving almost no room to walk.

When Lao Yang’s cousin saw this scene, he felt that something wasn’t quite right. A banyan forest that could grow to such a scale didn’t seem like it could form naturally.

There was an old saying among grave robbers: “A tree would not grow on salted land and a forest would not grow on bare mountains; there had to be sand or mud.” In other words, the places where grass and trees grew abnormally might have problems underground or in the surrounding area. There might even be something like an ancient tomb buried underneath.

The roots of the banyan trees were like snakes that were all intertwined with each other, and the woods were much denser than ordinary forests. Lao Yang was afraid it would be hard to enter, but when he thought about returning empty-handed after all the hardships they had suffered through, he pressed on anyways. His cousin also felt uncomfortable but steeled his heart and followed after him.

They kept walking forward as the sun started to set. As they gradually approached the hinterland of the vast forest, they could hear owls calling to each other and the light became extremely dim. They turned on their flashlights and slowed down so as to avoid getting lost.

At this time, his cousin tripped over something and almost fell down. Lao Yang hurriedly grabbed him, turned around, and saw that there was something sticking out of the ground that was wrapped in the banyan roots at their feet.

They chopped off the roots with a machete until the item was exposed and then they illuminated it with a flashlight. It turned out to be a moss-covered stone figurine dressed in what looked to be pre-Han Dynasty-style clothing. The figurine had very exquisite totem patterns sculpted on it.

The appearance of this stone figurine caused Lao Yang and his cousin to immediately realize that something really did exist in this forest. As it turned out, that old saying was true…

They looked at the area around the stone figurine and soon found that there were many large stone slabs buried under the layers of fallen leaves and mud. They seemed to be the ruins of an ancient road hidden beneath the banyan forest. The stone figurine was located on one side of the ancient road, which seemed to indicate that it was guarding it.

Based on the layout here, it was possible that this road led to an imperial tomb. When we were passing through that small village dozens of miles away, an old man said that there were several Western Jin Dynasty noblemen buried in the mountains here, Lao Yang thought. Could we have finally found one of those tombs after working so hard for so many days?

If that were true, then the suffering they had endured these past few days really was worth it.

He and his cousin discussed it and decided to follow along the ancient road first. If there was an ancient tomb nearby, there should definitely be some traces of it.

They trekked along the ancient road for several hours and entered the center of the endless forest. As they walked, they found many remains of moss-covered stone figurines on both sides of the road. Some had fallen across the road and one in particular was embedded in a tree that had grown around it. There were more and more traces that this was a road leading to a tomb.

Lao Yang and his cousin were secretly excited and quickened their pace, but strangely enough, the further they went along this ancient road, the more densely packed the surrounding aerial roots became. In the end, they had to cut off the roots in order to make a barely passable path through. It almost seemed like the trees here didn’t want strangers to take this road.

They continued like this until after midnight. Even though they were completely exhausted, they could finally see the moonlight shining through the cracks in the trees up ahead. Lao Yang saw this and felt that they might have reached the end of the stone road. They climbed over a large pile of stones, cut off the last aerial root, and finally emerged from the banyan forest.

In the moonlight’s glow, they suddenly saw a huge crater in the form of an inverted pyramid appear in the rock right in front of them. It was as big as a football field and shaped like a giant bucket right in the middle of the forest. The slopes on all four sides had stairs built into them, with a hundred or so steps leading all the way down to the bottom of the crater.

Lao Yang was struck dumb by the sight of it. He never imagined that the end of the stone road would lead to the magnificent relic of an ancient building. He felt his heart beat faster and his legs go weak—he wanted to kneel down and kowtow to this crater.

But this obviously wasn’t an ancient tomb so what kind of place was it? And which dynasty was it from?

Lao Yang’s cousin had quite a bit of experience, so even though he was also very shocked when he saw this scene, he still said to Lao Yang, “This place must have something to do with sacrificial rites. It looks like an altar. Let’s go down and see if there are any grave goods in the sacrificial pit.”

The cloudy white moon was already high in the sky but its light was very dim so they turned on their flashlights to avoid tripping over the snake-like roots and then apprehensively went down the stone steps to the bottom of the crater.

The entire area outside of the crater was covered by the roots of the surrounding banyan trees. If they hadn’t followed the ancient road, they wouldn’t have been able to find it even if they walked right next to it. Moreover, the stone slabs in the crater were cracked to the point that they looked like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and a large number of roots had pushed their way out of the stones and extended into the gaps on the side. The entire ruins had been destroyed beyond recognition.

The bottom of the crater was also covered in a thick layer of weeds half as tall as a person, with only a few places showing traces of the bluish-green slate below.

They used their machetes to cut through the tall weeds and quickly moved forward, soon coming to the center of the altar.

There was an earthen well encircled by stones in the center of the altar. It looked to be about ten meters deep, and when they shined their flashlights into it, they found that the bottom was full of grass. They used ropes to climb down to the bottom and then searched everywhere. When they saw nothing, they pulled out their Luoyang shovels and started digging.

They hammered the first shovel down to a depth of fifteen meters but didn’t see the bottom. Lao Yang pulled it out, knocked out a clump of mud, and found that carbon ash was mixed in with the mud—it seemed that a lot of things had been burned down here. They also found a few pieces of pottery and jade among the ashes.

The carbon ash in the mud was actually the remains of offerings that had been burned for the dead, but the pottery and jade hadn’t been completely destroyed by the fire at that time. It appeared that this earthen well was the place where sacrificial offerings were burned for the dead, and it had been used more than once.

Lao Yang couldn’t hold back his excitement at this time. Historically, a large number of exquisite bronze and jade objects were often burned when offering sacrifices, so if they could dig one or two of these items up, they could make a fortune.

They picked up their shovels and started digging. After tirelessly working in turn for a while, they managed to deepen the bottom of the well by about seven meters. They dug up such a large number of jade fragments and pottery shards that they couldn’t even count them all. There were jade fragments, jade discs, earthenware jars, and earthenware teapots—just about everything you could imagine. It wasn’t long before there was a pile of these things stacked up on one side.

Lao Yang and his cousin were disappointed to find that most of these jade and pottery pieces were damaged, which meant that they were of little value on the market. But the most disappointing thing was that there weren’t any bronze wares like they had been hoping for.

Despite this, they didn’t give up and kept digging. They soon dug to a depth of about ten meters but they still didn’t find anything good. Digging a vertical pit for more than ten meters was already pushing the limit so they had to stop. After all, if they dug any further, they had to consider the possibility of their grave robbers’ tunnel collapsing.

Lao Yang’s cousin was a cautious man. He said that since they had found nothing after digging for so long, then this altar probably didn’t use bronze wares when offering sacrifices. They might as well stop digging, pick out something from among the pile of broken pieces they had already dug up, and head back. They were just unlucky this time.

But Lao Yang was unwilling to give up. No matter what his cousin said, he still had to keep digging. He asked his cousin to go up while he continued digging for about two hours by himself. It wasn’t until he reached a depth of more than fourteen meters that his shovel suddenly hit a piece of metal with a loud clang.

Lao Yang and his cousin glanced at each other and then leaned down to take a closer look. In the center of the well, a dark green object was sticking out of the ground.

Sure enough, there were bronze wares here. Lao Yang’s heart thumped and his hands trembled. His cousin gave a cheer, dropped his shovel, and then jumped into the well. The two men immediately began unearthing the object with their hands.

Soon, a strange thing appeared in front of them—it was a bronze stick but they couldn’t tell what it was for sure. As they removed the carbon ash from its surface, a delicate tree branch cast in bronze appeared in front of them.

The two of them immediately felt overjoyed. They had never seen anything like this before but they knew it had to be worth a lot of money. They quickly tried to dig it out, but they couldn’t find the bottom even after digging down a few meters with their bare hands. When they realized that they couldn’t pull it out, they grabbed their shovels and started digging again. They dug about six or seven more meters but still didn’t reach the bottom of this bronze branch.

At this time, Lao Yang started to think that it was strange. His experience in selling antiques told him that there were very few bronze wares that were more than three meters high, but based on his conservative estimate, this thing in front of him must be at least twenty meters high, which was very unusual. How much more of this bronze branch was buried under the mud here?

Their grave robbers’ tunnel was nearly twenty meters deep by this point and would definitely collapse if they dug any more, but the thought of going back empty-handed was really unpleasant. The two of them stood there in confusion, not knowing what to do.

In the end, his cousin found another way—he walked about a meter away from the bronze branch, positioned the head of the Luoyang shovel so that it was at an oblique angle to the branch, and started hammering it into the ground, adding threaded steel pipes as he went. When he reached a depth of about ten meters, the hammering sound against the steel pipes suddenly became dull and he found that he couldn’t go any deeper.

When Lao Yang told me this, I found that his expression was a little unnatural. He lit a cigarette and took a deep breath before saying, “In other words, the part of the bronze branch under the mud was about ten meters long, which means that its total length was at least thirty meters. Even if we managed to dig such a big thing out, we couldn’t have taken it back.”

I was stunned when I heard this and couldn’t help but feel that he was exaggerating a bit. The largest bronze ware in China was the Simuwu ding that had been unearthed in the Houjiazhuang royal burial site in Wuguan Village, Anyang, Henan Province.(3) It was only a little more than one meter high, but at that time, it took nearly two or three hundred people working together at the same time to cast it. But in order to cast a bronze tree more than thirty meters high, it would have taken tens of thousands of people.

I found it hard to refute him after listening to everything he had said so I simply asked, “What happened after that? Did you continue digging?”

“No,” Lao Yang said. “I wanted to keep digging but my cousin suddenly said that it might be a sacred thing or it might really be growing out of the ground so we shouldn’t dig it up. Later, I thought it would be too unsafe to keep digging so I gave up—but don’t you think it’s strange? I bet this tree branch was part of a big bronze piece, and the part below may be even bigger. If we really dug it out, I bet it would shock the whole world.”

“So if you didn’t take the bronze tree out, how did you get caught?” I wondered.

But we were unwilling to give up at that time so we dug a few more holes in other places and finally found some complete kitchen utensils,” he said. “After we left the Qinling Mountains, we wanted to find a place to sell the goods but my cousin had been restless ever since he saw that thing. Once we made it back to the city, he started telling everyone about the bronze tree branch. Qinling is a place that has hated grave robbing since ancient times, and any news about it puts people on edge. When we went to the antique shop to sell the goods, a few people heard my cousin spouting that nonsense, realized who we were, and reported us! But fortunately, the policeman who caught me was from the same hometown. Seeing that I was still young, they let me push on with my defense that I was an impressionable youth, and they sentenced me to three years for being duped. My cousin would have only gotten four or five years, but for some reason, he went crazy and told them all about the grave-robbing jobs he had done before. He wound up with a life sentence and was lucky he didn’t get a death sentence.”

“Man, you really have some bad luck,” I said to him. “You worked so hard but didn’t get to sell anything for profit. How many times have I told you? Don’t sell stolen goods on the spot. You’re going against the locals by engaging in this kind of business. In today’s world, we call that retribution.”

Lao Yang smiled mysteriously and said, “I-I did gain some profit actually. Look, have you ever seen something like this?” As he spoke, he pointed to his earring.

I leaned over to take a look, unable to tear my eyes away. Then I grabbed him by the ear and pulled him closer so that I could examine it closely. As soon as I did, I couldn’t help but gasp. The earring was square-shaped and only the size of the tip of my pinky finger. Others might have thought it came from a pair of cheap earrings from a roadside stand, but after taking a closer look, I found that it was actually a hexagonal bell.

Other than its small size, its shape and color were somewhat similar to the bells I had seen in the corpse cave and underwater tomb. The pattern on this one, however, seemed to be slightly different.

I immediately sobered up and asked him, “Where did you get this thing?”

His face twisted in pain from my tight grip and he said furiously, “Y-y-you’ve drunk too much! You know I-I-I hate it when people touch my ears. If you g-g-grab me again, I’ll get angry!”

As soon as I heard this, I realized that I really had drunk too much so I quickly let go.

He rubbed his red ear and said with a grimace, “Shit, can’t you be more gentle? You don’t have to get so excited whenever you see something good. Oh, my poor ear.”

I was no longer in the mood to argue with him and simply said, “Hurry up and tell me. What’s the deal with this thing? Where did you find it?”

He smiled and said smugly, “You haven’t seen anything like it before, have you? I bet you’re super jealous. I picked it up off of a zombie in the sacrificial pit. What do you think? High-quality green and black bronze wares are far different from those fakes you sell.”

The more I listened, the more confused I became, “Zombie? Didn’t you say you just dug up some kitchen utensils? Why is there suddenly a zombie?”

Lao Yang thought that I was envious of him and became more and more arrogant. “The zombie was wrapped in rattan rope like a cocoon,” he said to me. “I dug it up when I was digging up other spots in the crater. It was probably someone with a relatively high status who was offered up as a human sacrifice. Th-th-the zombie was wearing this thing on its ear. I liked the way it looked so I took it. But why are you so tense? D-d-does this thing have a history or something? Is it worth anything?”

My mind was a jumbled mess as all kinds of thoughts started popping up one right after another. I frowned while thinking to myself, what the hell is that place? If this bell appeared there, does that mean that the stone crater he mentioned has something to do with what I’ve experienced before?

Lao Yang finally realized that something was wrong and asked me, “What’s wrong? Why is your face scrunched up like that? You don’t have to act like this just because I found something good. If you really like it, I’ll give it to you.”

“No,” I said to him, “to tell you the truth, your earring is no ordinary thing. Although I don’t know its origin, I’ve seen something like it in other places. This is what happened—”

I quickly told him about the Seven Star Lu Palace and the undersea tomb, focusing mainly on the bells. As he listened with a blank expression, his face turned pale and then took on a green tinge.

After a long time, he sighed and said, “Fuck me. I thought my three years in prison would be enough for me to brag for the rest of my life. But compared to what you’ve gone through, that’s nothing. If you got caught doing these things, you’d definitely be put in front of a firing squad.”

When I saw how he was looking at me with an envious expression on his face, I immediately said, “What’s there to compare? If I had known that grave robbing was like this, I wouldn’t have gone to those places even on pain of death.” I pointed to his ear and added, “But your bell is weird. This type of bell is normally pretty dangerous since it can bewitch people’s minds as long as it makes a noise. How can you wear it and not be affected?”

“It’s not as dangerous as you think. Here, I’ll take it off and show it to you!” With that said, he took the earring off and handed it to me.

As soon I looked at the earring under the light and smelled it, I knew right away what was going on—it had been filled with rosin to prevent it from ringing. I turned it over and carefully examined it from all sides. The more I looked at it, the more I felt that it was similar to the ones I had seen in those ancient tombs.

Lao Yang saw how carefully I was examining it and thought that I liked it, so after putting the earring back on, he said to me, “If you really like it, there are still a lot of untouched zombies in that place. I marked its location so we can go and take a look. Who knows, there might be other treasures there.” After saying this, he looked around, lowered his voice, and said in a mysterious tone, “To tell you the truth, brother, my situation isn’t looking too good right now. I’m planning on going back there in a few days.”

Thinking he was joking, I replied, “Forget it. I don’t want to go to jail with you. You’d better not think about it either. These days, it’s better to live a stable and peaceful life!”

Lao Yang leaned closer to me and whispered solemnly, “D-don’t say that. Think about it. You have a family to s-s-support you no matter what you do but I’ve already wasted three years and have nothing. I-I can’t just sit around and do nothing. I’ve got to come up with some imprudent ideas!”

When I saw how serious he was and that he didn’t seem to be joking, I immediately swore, “Shit, keep dreaming. It looks like those three years in prison were all in vain. Let me tell you something. If you get out and commit another crime, you’ll wind up in prison again. But this will be your second offense so the punishment will be more severe. If you’re not careful, you may even get the death penalty.”

“If I’m really that unlucky, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Lao Yang said. “I don’t have a choice either; my situation is desperate right now. But I’ve already thought things through. I’ll stay in Hangzhou for a while first, and then I’ll head to the Qinling Mountains. But I somehow have to get more than a hundred thousand yuan before I leave. That’s mainly why I came to you. I was hoping you’d come with me, brother, and give me some tips on how to sell the goods we find.”

I looked at his gloomy expression and said angrily, “What do you mean you have no choice? You’re just short of money. Tell me how much you need and I’ll lend it to you with a five percent discount on the fixed interest rate the Bank of China is charging.”

Lao Yang gave me a shove before saying contemptuously, “Forget it. I don’t know how much money you have but it should be easy for you to scrounge up a hundred thousand. Hell, you might even be able to get an additional eighty thousand. But do you have more than that? Really, why are you pretending to be rich?”

I cursed, “If you’re looking down on a hundred and eighty thousand yuan, what the fuck are you planning on doing? Are you trying to hook up with a celebrity or something? Do you have nothing better to do? You just got out but now you’re already scheming. Grow up already.”

Lao Yang didn’t like hearing this and waved his hand with a curse, “What I want to do is none of your business. If you don’t have any money, then you don’t have any money, but don’t lecture me! You know what? Forget it. We finally got to meet again, and whether you help me or not isn’t important. Let’s stop talking about these depressing things.” Then he poured me a drink.

I was already a little drunk, so when I saw that he was looking down on me, I immediately became furious, “Listen here, Lao Yang. Don’t fucking underestimate me. I’ve saved up some spare money over the past few years. Tell me the truth, how much money do you really need? I’ll give it to you right away!”

He looked at me with a serious expression on his face—it seemed that the alcohol had finally caught up to him—stood up, raised four fingers, and waved them in front of my face. “I need this much. If you can get me this much money, I’ll let you ride me like an ox.”

“Four hundred thousand?” I asked. Generally speaking, it wasn’t a large sum. Although it seemed like a lot, it really wasn’t. “No problem. I’ll get it right away. I have it at home!”

But to my surprise, he shook his head and said, “Add another zero!”

“Four million?!” I felt my jaw drop and my body suddenly became cold. “God damn, color me impressed. What the hell are you planning on doing with so much money?”

Lao Yang sighed and said, “Don’t ask so many questions. In short, I need that much money. Do you think you can scrounge that much up?”

Four million wasn’t a small sum of money. Although it was said that broken porcelain ware could be sold at auctions for tens of millions, that was mostly just hype. In truth, the purchasing power of the market was limited. The items dug up from tombs were only the first link in the chain when it came to selling cultural relics, and the profit wasn’t very high. You might be secretly happy if you earned a hundred thousand but I honestly didn’t have four million on hand.

Lao Yang saw my slack expression and knew that I was intimidated. He filled my glass with more alcohol and said, “I knew it. You can’t do it, right? If I only needed four hundred thousand, would I really need to come to you?”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I replied. “I’ll get the money for you. There are quite a few rich people in this business so I should be able to get the amount you need. But first, you have to tell me what you need so much money for.”

Lao Yang tilted his head and clicked his tongue before asking, “How much can you get and who are you going to get it from? What, do you have some friends that I don’t know about? No one among your friends has that much money. Besides, I can’t tell you what you want to know. But with four million yuan, I can solve this life-or-death problem I’m facing.”

I had to admit that he was right—Lao Yang was the one who had introduced me to many of my friends, and few of them could lend me any money. Moreover, if I asked my old man, the miser just might kill me. It seemed that this situation was more difficult than I had initially thought.

Lao Yang patted me and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Old Wu, let’s stop talking about borrowing money and focus on other ways. Our best option is for you to suffer a little and accompany your brother to that place. It’s not like it’s your first time anyways so don’t worry so much. If you think about it, it’s not a big deal. This really can’t be called grave robbing. We’ll just go to the burial pit and you can pick and choose which items are valuable for me. It’s just like picking up seashells at the ocean; there’s nothing illegal about it. Think of it as you going on a nice trip. There are beautiful mountains and rivers there, as well as curvy mountain girls. You haven’t met anyone yet, right? Go there and take a look. Maybe you can marry a Dai girl and bring her back home.”

I was in no mood to listen to his nonsense and just shook my head, “That’s easy for you to say. Do you really think there are relics in that place that are worth four million yuan? If you want that much money with one job, you have to find something from the Han Dynasty. But those tombs have already been dug up long ago. It sounds like this trip is going to be a waste of time and money.”

“Oh, so you think I’m stupid and haven’t thought of this?” Lao Yang asked patiently. “Let me tell you. I don’t plan on going back to the sacrificial pit this time. When I was with my cousin last time, he told me that there was probably a large imperial mausoleum near the sacrificial pit. This time, I’m aiming for that. Aren’t you good at feng shui? Let’s go and take a look. I think you’ll definitely be able to find it!”

I didn’t want to keep talking about it, so all I said was, “Go find someone else. I don’t want to go to any ancient tombs.”

Lao Yang gave me a shove, “Old Wu, you’re not being very brotherly. Think about how good a deal this is. First, you get to help me. Second, you get to investigate the matter involving your Uncle Three. There’s some connection between this matter and your Uncle Three. Even if you don’t come for my sake, why don’t you go and take a look for your own sake?”

What he said reminded me of the earring, and I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable again. But he was right—the incident involving Uncle Three’s disappearance was confusing and there were few clues. Moreover, this kind of bell had appeared in both the Temple of Seeds’ corpse cave and the underwater tomb, which meant that it had to be important. If I didn’t seize this opportunity, there was a chance it would be even more difficult to discover anything.

But after thinking about my previous two experiences, my legs started to feel a little weak and I felt scared in my heart. That, coupled with all the hard work we would have to do climbing a mountain, had me feeling really reluctant to go.

I hesitated for a few minutes, thought it over again, and realized that if I didn’t go, with my character, there was a chance I would really come to regret it in the future. Plus, it was rare for Lao Yang to beg me like this. If I refused him again, it wouldn’t be easy to meet each other in the future. It would be better to agree first and look at the situation once we got there. If it was really impossible, I could always just change my mind and back out.

According to “Ba-Zi”, those of us who had Taiji in our lives were immensely curious when it came to things we didn’t know about.(3) As a result, even though I found myself giving in to Lao Yang’s request, I immediately felt calm in my heart.

Now that my mind was made up, I said to Lao Yang, “Well, when you put it like that, brother, I guess I’ll go with you. But you have to give me this earring first. I’ll go and see what dynasty it’s from and whether it’s valuable or not. If it’s not worth anything, then that means that this place isn’t worth visiting and you’ll have to come up with another plan.”

As soon as Lao Yang heard that I was willing to help him, he became overjoyed and nodded, “Ok, whatever you say! You can have it!”

“But let me warn you,” I said in a stern voice. “After we get there, you have to listen to everything I say. Even if you need to fart, you have to let me know first. Do you understand?”

This guy had already stopped listening and was lost in thoughts of the Qinling Mountains. He poured me more alcohol and started buttering me up by saying, “Of course, of course. As long as you can scrounge up four million, I’ll consider you my second father. Not only will I obey you when you tell me not to fart, but I’ll also eat it if you want me to!”

While drunk off of the alcohol, we went ahead and planned everything out. Then we started talking about women, showed off in front of each other, and drank until midnight, at which point we crawled under the table and passed out.

Over the next month, we both had things to deal with. All of the equipment that had been bought before I went to Shandong last time ended up buried there so we had to buy the equipment again. I wrote Lao Yang a list based on my previous two experiences and asked him to take care of it.

After that, I took advantage of my contacts and got some army medicine. When I went to Shandong before, the weight of our water bottles was too heavy, which consumed too much unnecessary physical strength. There were many mountains and streams in the Qinling Mountains so we didn’t need to bring too much water, but it was still necessary to prepare some medicines to treat diarrhea. Our city stomachs definitely wouldn’t be able to adapt to the natural water in the mountain streams.

Once I was done giving out my instructions, I flew to Jinan first and went to Yingxiongshan Market to find Lao Hai and show him Fatty’s fish-eye stone.

When Lao Hai saw what I had brought, his happy smile turned a little awkward, “Sir, I sell antiques here. You should take this to a jewelry store and let them appraise it for you.”

“This fish-eye stone is also an antique,” I said to him. “It’s at least four or five hundred years old.”

Still smiling, he said, “I also know that what you’ve brought is definitely good. This pearl would be considered a treasure if it had been set in a hairpin or sewn onto a hat, but how am I supposed to sell it when it’s an uncut stone? People won’t believe you when you say it’s an antique. How about this—I’ll get you a jade hairpin, we’ll set this pearl in it, and then we’ll see if it can be sold. I’ll go ahead and give you a deposit first and you can leave this thing with me. Anyone who knows anything about goods will naturally pay a good price for it.”

He was so sincere and I didn’t have time to haggle over this matter with him so I decided to do as he said. I took his deposit of two hundred and fifty thousand yuan and flew back to Hangzhou in disappointment. Next, I took the earring that Lao Yang gave me and went to ask a friend of my grandfather’s where the bell earring had come from and whether it was worth the long, torturous journey to Shaanxi.

This grandpa’s surname was Qi, and he was part of the first generation of antique dealers in Hangzhou. He was now regarded as a master of Chinese studies and held the position of visiting professor at several universities. He specialized in ethnic minorities and had done a considerable amount of research on them. When I presented the bell to him, I could tell right away that all of his attention became focused on it and the hand with which he held it started to tremble a little bit.

After Grandpa Qi took the bell, he examined it for three hours. Then he flipped through about six or seven books as thick as a brick and raised his head. I was on the brink of sleep waiting for him to say something when he suddenly looked at me and sighed, “I’m so ashamed. I’ve been studying ethnic minorities for so long but I’ve never seen anything like this before. Young Xie, please tell me where you got this thing.”

I didn’t dare go into too much detail in front of an elder so I made up a random story using some of the key points Lao Yang had told me. But when I saw how his eyes lit up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this thing wasn’t as simple as I had originally thought. “Grandpa, what’s going on? Is there something wrong with this thing?” I asked him.

Grandpa Qi sighed again and said that according to his research, the craftsmanship of this bell could be traced back to the period between the Xia and Western Zhou Dynasties. The pattern on it— called the double-bodied human-faced snake—probably came from an ancient country called the “She Kingdom”, which existed somewhere between what is now the Shaanxi and Hubei provinces. But this country suddenly disappeared two thousand years ago.

The history of this country was limited, with only bits and pieces of information appearing in many ancient records. It seemed that it went through a period of sudden prosperity in the early Western Zhou Dynasty but then it suddenly disappeared in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In just a matter of ten to twenty years, it seemed to have quickly disappeared into the primitive forests.

The She Kingdom existed in many myths and legends. There were even a lot of records of it in the “Classic of Mountains and Seas”, but it was referred to in those records as the “Serpent Kingdom outside of Sichuan”. This was probably because the word for “serpent” was pronounced the same as “she”. This kingdom regarded the double-bodied human-faced snake as a god so many of their decorations had a pattern of a snake with two bodies on them.

Nowadays, most people who studied the history of this country believed that this She Kingdom was descended from a country that had split from the mysterious ancient kingdom of Huaxu. Its origin possibly dated back to the period of matriarchal societies, and it was said to have adopted the double-bodied human-faced snake as its totem. This was mainly because the ancient kingdom of Huaxu had a legend about Fuxi, who was said to have the body of a snake and the face of a human.

Because these materials were all from ancient books and unearthed documents, this country’s existence had always been controversial in academic circles. While this bell may not be known in the antique market, it was an invaluable treasure to some people who specialized in this subject.

I couldn’t help but feel worried as soon as I heard that this thing was so obscure. If that were the case, then even if we could find the ancient tomb and bring other things out, there was a chance we wouldn’t get a high price for them. If so, then I was afraid the trip would be a huge waste of time, money, and effort.

Grandpa Qi looked at my expression and asked me what was wrong. I knew that he was an old businessman so I told him about my situation.

The old man thought about it for a moment and then scolded me. He then patted me on the shoulder and said that if I wanted to sell this thing, he could help me find a good buyer. It definitely wouldn’t be difficult to get four million yuan but I couldn’t tell anyone else about this matter.

After listening to him, I immediately had a general idea of what was going on. Shit, I thought to myself, this old codger seems to be engaged in the underworld business. He’s probably still doing those pre-liberation business deals in private. But I was so relieved that he was willing to act as an intermediary that I just nodded and thanked him.

When I left, I took a lot of information about the She Kingdom with me. I flipped through the materials while sitting in a taxi and saw that there were a lot of pictures of murals, some of which were very strange. They showed a large number of people kneeling in front of a tree and praying to it. There were several notes on the margins stating that this was the most important sacrificial rite in the She Kingdom—offering up sacrifices to a “Serpent God Tree”. Legend had it that this tree could satisfy any request as long as you offered it blood. In essence, it was a kind of wishing tree.

I found that the shape of this tree was very similar to the picture Lao Yang had drawn for me back at the restaurant. Did that mean that the bronze tree he had dug up was the She Kingdom’s totem, the Serpent God Tree?

A bunch of the murals had patterns of human-faced snakes on them, which made it obvious that this was the most important feature of the She Kingdom. I thought back to those bells we had found in the Temple of Seeds’ corpse cave and the underwater tomb, but I couldn’t remember whether they had double-bodied human-faced snake patterns on them or not. Based on their appearance, however, the bells in these three places must have come from the same source, which meant that this mysterious She Kingdom may be the key.

Two days later, on a long-distance sleeper bus to Xi’an, Lao Yang and I were sitting on two beds adjacent to each other, eating melon seeds and chatting away.

I had originally planned on flying directly to Xi’an, but I didn’t have Uncle Three’s skills at getting a large bag of contraband past airport security so I had to take a bus instead. In the end, I had no other choice but to take a privately contracted bus.

In order to save on transit fees, the bus periodically got on and off the freeway and wound its way through mountain valleys. The trip was boring so Lao Yang and I just talked at random. I told him that there might be a Han tomb in that place or a Tang tomb in this place. Lao Yang was so eager that he said he wished he could get off the bus halfway and start digging.

While we were chatting, Lao Yang asked me if we should go to other places besides the crater he had visited three years ago. It wasn’t easy to enter the mountains, so if there was the opportunity to bring more goods out, we definitely shouldn’t waste it. It would be even better if we could find other tombs nearby.

I had actually planned to do this from the start. The surrounding area likely fell within the scope of the ancient serpent kingdom, so there should be some other relics in addition to the sacrificial pit and the nearby ancient tomb. If we could just find one or two tombs and take some items with us, it would help me with what I was looking for. I was thinking this in my heart but I didn’t say it aloud. Instead, I said jokingly, “Don’t be greedy. You probably don’t even remember the fucking way back. I’m ready to see what you’ll do if you can’t find the sacrificial pit.”

Lao Yang smiled at me mischievously and said that he had left a mark there long ago, but I just laughed at him, “It’s been three years. What kind of mark would still be there after three years in the deep mountains?”

He burst out laughing and said, “Just you wait and see. Not only will my mark last for three years, but it’ll still be there after thirty years!”

I didn’t understand what he was talking about so I just chose to ignore him. After chatting for a while longer, I became drowsy and fell asleep.

When we arrived in Xi’an, we spent the night in a small guest house and ate the local pickled vegetables, fried rice, and hibiscus soup for dinner. Then we strolled around the night market until after midnight. Lao Yang remembered how good the fried rice tasted earlier and kicked up a fuss until I agreed to go to a night food stall with him. We found a random stall by the side of the road, sat down, ordered two bottles of beer, and drank while we ate. At this time, I wasn’t worried about being cautious with my words since I was convinced that the people here wouldn’t be able to understand our southern dialect. As a result, we talked freely about our planned grave-robbing adventure tomorrow. But as we were chatting away, I suddenly heard an old man sitting nearby say, “Are you two planning on doing business in some local products?”

We were chatting so enthusiastically that his words caught us by surprise. But his accent was so heavy that we couldn’t understand what he was trying to say at all. “Huh? What?” Lao Yang asked him.

Seeing that we couldn’t understand him, the old man switched to heavily accented Mandarin and asked us, “I said, are you two planning on doing business here? Are you here to dig for some local products?”

I didn’t understand what he meant by “local products”. Plus, people in the south were usually indifferent to strangers. With the exception of salespeople, few would go up and casually start a conversation with people at roadside stalls. I didn’t know how to react for a moment, but fortunately, Lao Yang reacted quickly and copied the old man’s accent, “W-w-we’re here to travel. We’re not interested in any local products. A-a-are you trying to sell us some local products, old man?”

The old man laughed, waved his hand at us, and went back to his seat. As the two of us sat there puzzled, we heard the old man whisper to his tablemates, “It’s alright, it’s alright. Just two greenhorns going out into the hills. They don’t know a thing. Just ignore them.”

When Lao Yang heard this, his expression changed slightly and he whispered that we should leave. I found it a little odd, but seeing that he was so nervous, I simply dropped ten yuan on the table and left the roadside stall with him. When we rounded the first street corner, I asked Lao Yang, “Why did you want to leave? We were only halfway through our wine.”

Lao Yang furtively glanced behind us before saying, “Th-that old man just now told his tablemates that we were g-greenhorns going out into the hills. When I was in prison, I heard a few people involved in the business say that ‘going out into the hills’ is the local slang for robbing tombs here. ‘Greenhorns’ means that we’re not people in the business. This group smells fishy; I’m afraid they’re also here to rob tombs. They must have heard us talking about grave robbing just now and came over to see what we knew.”

I laughed, “It’s not like we had to leave. No matter what happens, we can just deal with it appropriately. What could they possibly do to us in a public place with so many people?”

Lao Yang patted me on the shoulder, saying that I didn’t understand and that it was too difficult to explain what went on in the underworld. He figured everything we said just now had been overheard by those people, but he didn’t know how much they had actually understood. Good tombs were already hard enough to come by now, but if they were eyeing us, things might just become even more difficult.

I knew he must have heard some wild and exaggerated stories from his cellmates when he was in prison so I didn’t bother arguing with him. Instead, I simply nodded and went back to the guest house with him.

The next day, we got up before seven o’clock and set off for the largest dragon vein in China, each carrying fifteen kilograms of equipment and dry food on us.

I had been to Qinling several times before, but each time I came, I was always walking around with a tour guide. I could never quite figure out how they walked along these roads without getting lost. This time, however, I had to follow Lao Yang. He had also been in a tour group when he came here three years ago, so we were going to follow that same route. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to recognize the way.

We got on a bus that drove along the Xibao Freeway for about three hours before arriving at Changyang Mountain in Baoji City, Shaanxi Province. Then it turned and headed for the source of the Jialing River.

I was used to traveling on straight roads but the winding mountain roads here had a small turn every five seconds and a big turn every ten seconds. I leaned my head on the seat in front of me, feeling like my insides were churning. Lao Yang was in an even worse state than me—he hadn’t been in a vehicle for three years so he was already feeling motion sick, but these roads made it so much worse. He was covered in a cold sweat and looked like he was on the verge of puking his guts out. “I’m old, so old. Everything is useless when you’re old,” he lamented. “Wh-when I took this road three years ago, I was able to flirt with the girls next to me but now I c-can’t even open my eyes.”

I cursed, “Shit, quit spouting so much nonsense. If you don’t want to take the highway, the only way left is these winding mountain roads. It’s useless to regret it now.”

Lao Yang waved his hand at me and told me not to talk to him since he didn’t feel well.

At this time, I suddenly heard the sound of an explosion off in the distance. The shockwave made the bus windows rattle and caused a commotion among the passengers. I looked out the window and saw a cloud of dust filling the sky on the opposite mountain. Lao Yang jumped in fright and asked me, “Wh-what’s going on? I-is it an earthquake?”

There was a middle-aged man sitting in front of us who looked like a local. When he heard Lao Yang say this, he turned around and said with a smile, “If you two don’t know, then you must not be from around here. That’s someone blowing up a tomb. There are always two or three explosions a day during this time of the year.”

I was surprised, “Who would be so bold as to rob a tomb in broad daylight?”

He grinned, revealing a row of yellow teeth, “Although the Jialing River runs through the middle of these two mountains, the one on the opposite side is different from this one. We have winding mountain roads over here but there’s no such thing on the opposite side. Even if you were to call the police now, it would take them at least a day and a night to get there. Unless they can grow wings and fly, they can only watch helplessly from afar.”

I nodded, feeling a little speechless. “Does that really happen?” I eventually asked.

The man looked at the place where the explosion occurred and said with a smile, “This is also a special feature of our area, especially during this season. In fact, a group was caught two days ago. But there are fewer and fewer ancient tombs now so the grave robbers have been repeatedly plundering the same ones for a couple of years. There may still be some deep in the mountains but it’s too difficult to get there. In the end, the government has no other choice but to let it slide. Anyways, based on the sounds of the explosion just now, it seems like they used too many explosives.”

“Oh,” was all I said as I turned to look out of the window again. This seemed to be one of the numerous branches of the Qinling Mountains. I could see a vast forest spread out in front of me but it was impossible to see what was happening under the dense tree canopy.

Before setting off on this adventure, I did some research. The Qinling Mountain range in Shaanxi looked like a wasp’s waist, with the eastern and western sides divided into several smaller mountain ranges. The mountains were interspersed with valleys, and there were many rivers that cut deep into the mountains. The four-hundred-kilometer Qinchuan region had been a famous gathering place of cultural relics and historical sites since ancient times, especially the northern slope, where there were many imperial tombs. There were also countless tombs of high officials, nobles, wealthy people, and members of the gentry so it was always a place where grave robbers would flock to. I just never imagined that grave robbers would blatantly blow up tombs here before they even entered the depths of the Qinling Mountains. It looked like finding one or two tombs to rob definitely wasn’t going to be an easy task.

The local was very enthusiastic and didn’t want to stop talking now that the topic had been brought up. He handed me a cigarette and asked, “Are you two kids here to travel? Where are you planning on going?”

“We want to visit Mount Taibai,” I replied.

He nodded and said, “You guys can’t go far without following a tour group. There are many twists and turns on this mountain so you can get lost if you don’t know the way. Do you want me to be your guide? I live in a village on the edge of a protected area just two mountains over. You’ll see when we get there. If you want to have a good time, it’s necessary to find a tour guide.”

As soon as I heard this, I realized that the guy might be a shady tour guide. The mountain folk here were formidable and just as likely to take us into a ravine and stab us than actually show us around. I hurriedly shook my head and said, “No need, no need. We’ve made our own arrangements.”

“Don’t shake your head just yet,” the man said. “This place is far different from any other place you’ve been to before. There are many dense forests in the mountains here. You guys will be in danger if you want to rush deep into the mountains by yourself. Take some time and think it over carefully. I’m considered to be a famous guide in these parts. I’m not trying to scare you guys for the fun of it.”

I felt that what he said was sincere, and it wasn’t good to refuse right away, so I told him that our main reason for coming here was to visit the ethnic minority villages in the mountains. We planned to stay at the foot of the mountain for a few days so we didn’t need a guide right away. But when we were ready to leave for the mountains, we would definitely go and see him.

The man immediately said, “It’s better to come to an agreement now than try to do it on your own. Out of everyone in the village, I’m the one who has taken this route the most. If you want to go to the nearest Yao village, you’ll have to cross this mountain.” As he spoke, he pointed to a seemingly endless mountain range stretching off into the distance. “It’s called Snake Head Mountain. Its highest peak is more than a thousand meters above sea level, and the whole mountain looks like a python’s head. That’s why it’s called Snake Head Mountain. If any traveler—no matter which direction they’re coming from—wants to go to an authentic ethnic minority village, they’ll have to cross that mountain. Many people have died there. In fact, there were several students from an art college who went in to sketch last year but never came back. So, do you really not want to hire a guide?”

I looked to where he was pointing and saw Snake Head Mountain stretching across the horizon as far as the eye could see. The mountain was covered in greenery while its peak soared into the clouds. Because of the climate, the rest of the mountain range was shrouded in clouds and mist so I couldn’t see what it really looked like. Only the side facing the Jialing River could barely be seen, but unfortunately, all I could see were sheer cliffs. They were so steep that I didn’t think even the monkeys here could climb them.

Those lines “Clouds envelop the Qinling Mountains, and I do not know where my home is; The snow covers Languan Pass and the horses will go no further” really were true. As I looked at the scenery in front of me, I clicked my tongue in thought. Could I really survive climbing this mountain?

After driving for another hour, we finally reached the foot of Mount Taibai. When Lao Yang and I stumbled off the bus, the sketchy tour guide insisted on guiding us to a hotel. I knew that since we were in his territory, I couldn’t keep refusing him, so we went ahead and followed him. When he took us to a small hotel that wasn’t expensive, I realized that this man really was genuine.

After we got settled, he cupped his hands in front of his chest as a sign of respect and said his goodbyes. He also gave us his phone number before we left and said that whenever we were ready to enter the mountains, we should call him and he would guide us.

The proprietress of the hotel was very friendly and even cooked dinner for us. We weren’t comfortable eating with her family in the living room so Lao Yang and I went back to our room. We leaned against the windowsill and looked at the map of the local area while eating.

The sketchy tour guide was right—to enter the primitive forests of the Qinling Mountains from this side, we needed to climb over a mountain that was more than a thousand meters above sea level. This was something I hadn’t expected at all. With our current experience, going into the mountains by ourselves was tantamount to death. But if we asked that tour guide to take us in, he would definitely have to take us out. Making him wait for a day or two wasn’t a big deal but we would probably be in the mountains for at least a week, which was bound to make him suspicious.

When Lao Yang was here last time, his cousin had found a veteran grave robber to lead the way. But now that his cousin was stuck in jail, there was no way to find that guy. Lao Yang didn’t expect that he would wind up coming here again so he didn’t bother memorizing the route, which meant that there was no way to rely on him this time. I asked the proprietress if there was another way around but she said that there wasn’t. Whenever the villagers went to the market, they also had to pass through the mountain but she had never heard them mention any shortcuts. It looked like we were going to have a bit of trouble crossing this mountain.

As I was in the middle of trying to figure out what to do, Lao Yang patted me on the shoulder and said softly, “Old Wu, l-l-look. Do you see that man down there?”

I glanced out of the window, only to see five people standing in the hotel’s courtyard below. I looked carefully and found that one of them was the old man we had met at the roadside stall in Xi’an.

Why are these people here? I wondered. Is what Lao Yang said true and they’re also here to rob tombs?

Lao Yang drew the curtains until only a small gap was left and then said quietly, “These guys are also carrying a lot of equipment, just like us. Do you think they heard us talking in Xi’an and decided to follow us, wait for an opportunity, and then take all the treasure for themselves?”

I shook my head and watched as the proprietress came out and greeted them with a smile. “It doesn’t seem like it,” I said to him. “Look at how hospitable she’s being. I bet these people stay here often and are regular customers. There aren’t many inns or hotels around here so it’s probably a coincidence that we’re staying in the same place.” If Lao Yang was right and they had also come here to rob graves, then this must be their base. Every time they came to do work in these parts, they probably ended up staying here.

Lao Yang was still worried, “That’s not good. They already heard our conversation in Xi’an so if they see us here, it’s hard to guarantee that they won’t mess with us. Should we leave tonight?”

After thinking about it, I felt that this was not actually a problem but more of an opportunity. I shook my head and said, “No, these people are like flies to honey; they must have come here for a reason. Since we don’t have any experience, we might as well follow them instead of running around blindly. First, we can see if there’s any treasure here. Second, we can follow them over the mountain.”

“These people are all thugs,” Lao Yang argued. “Killing someone means nothing to them. If they find out we’re following them, they might just kill us on the spot. Isn’t it too risky?”

I laughed at him before saying mockingly, “When did you become such a worrywart? This is an old forest deep in the mountains. It’ll be easy to hide ourselves. And it’s not like we’re idiots. We can just run if we’re discovered. If you’re really that worried, why don’t we follow them for a bit to see how alert they are? If it doesn’t work out, we can just stop following them. We have nothing to lose, right?”

After listening to what I said, Lao Yang couldn’t come up with any more arguments and just nodded in agreement. We immediately started getting everything ready so that we wouldn’t be in such a rush in the morning. I figured the next few days might not be easy so I set an alarm clock to wake us up early and then told Lao Yang to stop what he was doing and go to bed. We both needed to be well-rested for tomorrow.

I was so exhausted after such a long journey that I didn’t hear the alarm clock go off and ended up sleeping until noon. When I opened my eyes and saw that the sun was high in the sky, I leaped up from the bed and hurriedly woke Lao Yang up. We went down to ask the proprietress where those people had gone and found that they had already left. They were headed toward Snake Head Mountain and hadn’t left too long ago.

The two of us quickly bought some baked sesame cakes to eat along the way and then rushed into the mountains after them. After running for about fifteen minutes, we finally caught up with them at the entrance to the scenic spot at the foot of the mountain.