by Xu, Lei
The waitress closed her lips and smiled. “My grandfather heard this from his grandfather. I don’t know how far this tale goes back. A celestial god was rumored to have been sent here by the Jade Emperor. He transformed himself into a general, and fought many wars for the king who was ruling at that time. When his mission was successfully completed, his spirit soared back into the heavens, and his body and the weapons he used in battle were buried together in a tomb that is better than that of a king. Of course it had to be—he was after all a celestial god.”
“Since this is well-known, there must certainly be a lot of people going to search for this tomb, aren’t there?” Uncle Three asked nervously. “Has anyone found it yet?”
“Oh, don’t you know? Nobody can reach it now. The year before last during the landslide, that place collapsed into the ruins as well. Guess what fell out of that spot in the mountain?”
“What? Another one of your cooking pots?” Big Kui said.
“Don’t be stupid. If it was an ancient pot, it would have been taken away and nobody would ever talk about it again. I’ll tell you what, but you can’t tell anyone else.” The waitress took a generous swig of her beer and muttered, “Hundreds of human heads were dug out of that spot.”
Chapter Eight
THE VALLEY
Uncle Three frowned. “All heads without bodies?”
The waitress said, “Yes! Isn’t that creepy? Ever since the landslide, not even mules can make it to that place. If you guys want to go there, you’ll have to go on your own. I imagine once you get there, all you’ll be able to do is take a look. A few groups of people have been there before and the most experienced of them just shook their heads when they saw the collapsed hillside.”
Uncle Three looked at Poker-face, who was slouching lazily as though he hadn’t heard a thing. “Before the mountain collapsed, there had to be people who had gone in before, right?” my uncle asked.
“True enough, but I saw them go in for a few days and in the end come back out just as they went in, carrying no new discoveries. They were all happy to leave that place and when they came out, their clothes smelled terrible, like garments worn by beggars. My grandfather said they most likely did not even come close to the tomb. Why do you ask? Do you gentlemen want to try?”
“Having heard what you said, we may as well go take a look. Otherwise, wouldn’t this trip be in vain?” Uncle Three smiled, and did not say any more.
The waitress went back into the kitchen and as she left, Panzi said, “Sounds like that big grave would be in the right place. But like this waitress said, it would be difficult to carry our equipment into the hills.”
“There are ways to rob with equipment, and ways to rob without them. Graves from the Warring States Period are usually straight pits, going up and down with no coffin chamber. I don’t know if this was dug in the same way, but we’ll find out when we’re at the site. As far as how big the grave is, and how deep it goes, I’m afraid this won’t be the same as the ones we’ve robbed before. The heads that were found after the mountain collapsed sound as though they came out of what our ancestors called a Devil Heads’ Pit, a place where humans and animals were sacrificed and then buried along with the deceased.” Uncle Three took out the map, and pointed to the circle.
“You see,” he said, “this is the place, still far away from the tomb we seek. The people who came before us would have stopped here if they followed the essential principles of Feng Shui. Here is the place we are intended to go. Under normal circumstances, the grave would be right below here. But you see, if you walk farther, here is an entrance like the tip of a calabash. If we don’t go in there, it’ll be impossible to find out whether there is a different world inside, which is our true goal. The person who designed this cave must have been extremely familiar with the Feng Shui skill of going for the vital point when attacking a dragon, and intentionally placed a decoy spot here for robbers to dig into. I’m sure that below this false entrance is an empty tomb full of intricately designed traps!” Uncle Three saw from the expressions on our faces how excited his speech was making us and he proudly continued. “If it wasn’t for this map, we would be stuck here even if our ancestors came to help us. Tomorrow we will take only what is necessary, travel light, and try to go into this place. If it really is in fact impassable, we’ll come back to get more equipment.”
We nodded, went to our rooms, and began to assemble what we would need to take with us.
We knew we didn’t need our traditional Luoyang shovels, choosing instead a shovel used for archaeological excavations, which could be lengthened as necessary by screwing sections of steel pipe to the head. This was easier to carry and much less noticeable than the wooden Luoyang shovel.
Since the graves of the Warring States Period typically went as deep as thirty feet or more, we couldn’t pack too little. We each carried one shovel head and ten steel sections to form as long a handle as we might need. Panzi had a short rifle which could hardly be seen when carried under one’s shirt. He stuffed this and several rounds of ammunition into his backpack. I had only a digital camera and a small trowel—it was obvious that I was a grave-robbing intern.
Since the night was quiet and my body was exhausted from our adventures, I slept incredibly well and when I woke up, my joints felt numb and weak. We hastily ate breakfast, bought some packaged dry food, and set off on our journey. The waitress was cheerful and asked a kid from her village to lead us to the site of the collapsed mountain.
We walked for more than two hours when suddenly the kid pointed, announcing, “It’s right here!”
Indeed, the valley ahead of us had obviously been carved out by the landslide and we now stood between two mountain ranges. The valley was very long and looked as though during the rainy season it would become the bed of a river. However, having been covered by debris and parched by several months of drought, only a shallow trickle was visible in the middle of the valley.
I patted the kid on the head and said, “Go back home to play and thank your sister for us!”
The kid reached out a hand. “Give me three hundred!”
I was puzzled. The kid didn’t say another word but stood with his hand stretched out, his eyes fixed on me. I asked, “What the hell?”
Uncle Three laughed and gave three hundred yuan to the kid. Then he took out a gun, and the boy ran off.
I suddenly realized what happened, and smiled. “The country kids nowadays are such rascals!”
“Men die for birds…” Big Kui misquoted the old saying of “Men die for money, birds die for food.” Panzi aimed a kick at him. “Don’t you have any culture at all? Die for a bird? You’re probably dying for a cock.”
We began to climb. The rocks were more stable than we anticipated and we scaled the slope easily. The place was not nearly as scary as the waitress had described, and we saw none of the hundreds of heads she told us about. Behind the collapsed hills was a large canyon which stretched gradually into trees, and then a dense forest touched the horizon. As we stared at the landscape, we saw an old man getting water at the rivulet that ran through the bottom of the canyon where it touched the ruined hills. I looked closely and thought, shit, isn’t that the damn guide that led us into the cave? The old man saw us and was so startled that he fell into the stream. Then he crawled back out and ran.
Panzi cursed and laughed. He took out his pistol and fired a shot into the sand right in front of the old man’s left leg. The old man jumped with terror and ran in the opposite direction. Panzi fired three consecutive shots, all of which landed right in the old guy’s footprints.
Realizing Panzi was playing with him, the old man knew he had nowhere to run and quickly knelt on the ground. He kowtowed to us as we ran towards him. “Gentlemen, please have mercy! I am an old man who has no way out of my poverty. That was why I tried to deceive you as I did. I never thought you would be such supernatural beings. My horizons are much too narrow!”
He burst into tears and Uncle Three ask
ed him, “Why, I see you have plenty of energy. You really can’t figure out a way to make an honest living?”
“I won’t lie to you. I am very sick. I might seem like I’m in good health, but really I have to take several doses of medicine a day. You see, I am only drawing water to brew my herbal remedy.” He pointed to the bucket that lay overturned beside him.
“Let me ask you, you old cheat. How did you disappear so suddenly in the cave?”
“If I tell you, will you promise not to kill me?” the old man begged.
“Relax. Our society today is governed by law,” Uncle Three said. “You’ll be forgiven if you truthfully account for your crimes. Only resistance will be treated severely.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll confess,” the old man said. “Actually it was no big deal. The cave might seem like a straight tunnel, but in fact there are many hidden alcoves within. If you don’t know they are there, you will never find them. I waited until you were distracted, stood up, and made my way into one of these alcoves. I was supposed to wait for your boat to leave before I came out. Once Donkey Egg heard my whistle, he would pull out a wooden tub, and I would be able to go home. When the mission was successful, the boatman Young Lu would give me my share, which really is never very much.” He gasped as something suddenly came to mind. “Oh yes. Where is Lu? He fell into your hands, didn’t he?”
Panzi drew his hand across his own throat. “He’s already been sent to report to the God of Death.”
The old man’s face looked empty, and then he slapped his thigh. “He deserved to die. I never wanted any part of this business but Young Lu said if I didn’t help him, then he’d do me in. All of you, please understand, I really was tricked into this. Please let me go.”
“Save your old breath,” Uncle Three said. “Where do you live? Why are you getting water here?”
“I live just over there.” The old man pointed to a cave on the edge. “Look at me, I am an old man. I have no land, my son died young, and I don’t even have a house to live in. I am just waiting to die. Oh, have pity on me!”
“So you must be very familiar with the area. Perfect! If you want to stay alive, you’ll have to take us where we want to go.” Uncle Three pointed to the forest.
The old man’s face suddenly took on an expression of distress and concern. “My Great Master, I did not know that you have come to rob the grave. You must not rob that tomb—there are monsters inside!”
Once I heard this, I knew immediately it was some kind of trick. This old man knew a thing or two for sure. Uncle Three asked him, “How do you know? Have you seen them?”
“Aiya! A few years back I brought a group of people in there. They said they were archaeologists but I knew right away they came to rob the tomb. They were different from other people. The small-time thieves that I’d seen before usually began looting as soon as they saw the graves. But these guys paid no attention to any of the graves on the sides, and demanded to be taken to the valley right away. At that time, I was the only person who had been there, and these people were lavish with their money. They gave me ten large bills without hesitation and I couldn’t resist that. I brought them to the woods and took them as far as I had ever been before but they insisted that I take them farther. I refused, and said their ten large bills could not buy my life. They said they would give me ten more, and I said I would not do it for another hundred more. They shook their heads, their expressions changed. One of them took out a gun and pointed it at my head. So I had no choice.”
He scratched his head and continued, “Later they stopped and said they were at the right spot. They were so overjoyed, and started pounding the soil with a pestle, saying there was something right below. We found a place to set up our tents and I drank a bit too much that night. Once I fell asleep I was completely unconscious. But guess what? When I woke up, everyone was gone. All their stuff was still there, and the fire had not been put out. I panicked and began to scream but nobody answered. I knew something dreadful must have happened. I thought, since they were no longer around, I could just slip away. So even though I was badly hungover, I ran.”
The old man narrowed his eyes as if he was recalling some hideous memory, and said, “I had only run a few steps when I heard someone calling me. I saw a woman from the expedition waving at me and I began to curse and complain about everyone running away so early in the morning. Then suddenly I saw the tree behind her opening its mouth and waving its branches like claws. I looked up into the tree, and hell, dead bodies were hanging all over it. My eyeballs almost bulged out of their sockets and I was so scared I peed my pants. I ran all day and all night before I got back to the village. You see, that was definitely a demon tree. If I hadn’t grown up eating human carrion, my soul would have been pulled out of my body by those monsters.”
Uncle Three sighed. “You were indeed nourished by corpses!” He waved his hand and in response, Panzi tied the old man up. We could save ourselves a lot of grief in figuring out the lay of the land with this old scoundrel leading the way, and now he couldn’t refuse if he wanted to.
According to what the old geezer told us, it would take a day to get to the place where the expedition had disappeared. Big Kui began to clear a pathway, and we marched on. As we walked, we consulted our map, hoping that by using this, along with the old man’s guidance, we would reach our destination before nightfall.
We walked for half a day. At first we chatted as we went, but later the vibrant green of the forest created waves of visual restlessness. Things began to look vague and unclear and we yawned without stopping as if we wanted to fall asleep. All of a sudden, the old man stopped.
Panzi cursed and asked, “What game are you playing at now?”
The old man looked at the bushes on the side of the path, his voice shaking, “What…what…is that?”
We turned around and looked. Something was flashing in the thicket of leaves and branches and as we came closer, we saw it was a cell phone.
Chapter Nine
THE ANCIENT TOMB
That cell phone had obviously been dropped only a short time before, since it was still flashing a signal. When I picked it up, I saw bloodstains on its keyboard and felt less than delighted by my discovery. “This cell phone definitely did not fall from the sky. It appears we’re not the only group of people here. And it looks as if someone has been injured.”
I opened the cell phone’s list of contacts, and saw that the phone numbers were all foreign ones. There were no names with any of the numbers and when I tried to call one of them, there was no reception. Uncle Three said, “Well, we certainly can’t go off to find them now, wherever they might be. It’s more important to hurry forward.”
I glanced around and saw no other trace of people. I had no choice but to continue on the road, but finding such a modern object in this wilderness disturbed me. I asked the old man if anyone besides us had recently entered the forest.
The old man laughed. “There was a group of people here two weeks ago, about a dozen of them, but they still have not come back out yet. This place is really dangerous. It’s not too late to turn back now.”
“Who cares if we find monsters—let alone whatever devils and demons might be here,” Big Kui said. “Tell you what, our young master here made a thousand-year-old zombie kowtow to him. Am I right?” he asked Poker-face, who ignored him as though he were empty air. Rejected, Big Kui fell into a bad mood, but there was nothing he could do about it.
We walked steadily and quietly, reaching our destination by late afternoon, just as the sky began to darken.
There were nearly a dozen military tents, all still intact; although they were covered with rotting leaves, inside they were still very dry and clean, with a lot of useful supplies. We found equipment scattered about, even an electric generator and a few gallons of gasoline. The motor had been wrapped in oilcloth but most of the parts were in bad shape. Big Kui tried to start it up with no success, but at least no water had gotten into the cans of gasoline, so that w
as still useful.
As I looked at the equipment I saw that all of the labels had been removed—even the trademarks on the tents and backpacks had been torn off. I thought, how strange is this? It looks like these people did not want anybody to know where they had come from.
We made a fire at the campsite and cooked a simple supper. As we ate, the old man looked around warily as though he was afraid that monsters would rush out at any moment and string him up to die on a tree.
Poker-face looked at the map as he ate. He pointed to the spot where there was the drawing of the strange fox face and said, “We’re definitely here now.”
We all crowded around him as he explained, “This is the place of worship. There ought to be a worship platform beneath the ground where we sit. The items that were buried along with the deceased might be right below us.”
Uncle Three squatted, grabbed a handful of soil, put it under his nose, and sniffed. He shook his head, walked a few steps, and grabbed another handful. He said, “If it’s here, it’s buried too deep for me to be able to detect its presence. We’ll have to dig a bit to find out.”
We screwed the steel pipes together, connecting them to the shovel heads. Uncle Three stamped a few footprints on the ground to indicate where we should swing our shovels. Big Kui poised the head of his shovel and tapped it into the soil with a short-handled hammer to begin his excavation. As he tapped, Uncle Three touched the metal pipes connected to the shovel head with his hand to get a feel of activity in the place underground. After a total of thirteen taps, Uncle Three suddenly said, “That’s it!”
We pulled the shovel up section by section. Big Kui detached the shovel head that had brought a batch of soil to the surface. He came to the edge of the fire so we could all take a look. Uncle Three and I stared, and our faces turned white at the same time. Even Poker-face cried out. The soil looked as though it had been soaked in blood, and a bloodlike liquid dripped onto the ground.