That night, he had a dream: the coffin was filled with a large clump of ice—ice so cold that he began shivering violently, as if he’d fallen into a frosted cave. Suddenly, someone thumped urgently on the door of his home, waking him up. He opened the door to find someone in need of another coffin. One of the villagers had died in the night.
It was rare for two jobs to follow so closely together. The carpenter was overjoyed, but out of respect, he plastered a mournful look on his face. As he made a show of grief, he waved his arms and happened to hit the nearly finished coffin. The neighbor handed over a deposit and left him to get on with the new order.
The sun wasn’t fully overhead when his work was interrupted again. There had been another death and another coffin was needed. It seemed odd. There were only a handful of deaths in the village every year, and now there had been two in a matter of hours.
The coffin maker thought something must be wrong, then recalled his dream of the night before. He wondered if he could have caused these deaths by hitting the coffin? To find out, he slapped the half-finished coffin again. Before nightfall, there had been a third death.
He was both anxious and delighted—anxious because he had no idea what was going on, and delighted because he’d never need to worry about his business again. He was on the road to riches. It didn’t matter to him that people he knew were dying. Soon he was doing so well he could barely keep up with demand.
His workshop was now completely devoted to making coffins. He discovered another secret: the harder he hit the special coffin, which he ended up keeping for himself, the farther away the death would be. That was when he decided to buy up all the nearby coffin businesses. Now that he had a monopoly, he just had to hit the side of that half-finished coffin and the money would start rolling in.
He didn’t dare do this too often—who knew what was really going on?
The secret never left his lips, but secrets have a way of being discovered. Eventually, the villagers grew suspicious and started whispering about what he was up to. There was no proof, of course, so they could hardly report him to the police, but everyone started looking at him as if he were the god of death himself, and they stayed as far from him as they could. He never found a woman willing to marry him.
Not long before our visit, the coffin maker had died at home. By the time his body was discovered, it already stank to high heaven. His shop was empty—he’d sold all his coffins. The only one left was the half-finished one. The villagers had heard the rumors and were all terrified, but the village council had to take action. After all, they couldn’t very well leave him to rot in his own house; it was summer, and a body might spread disease. Several brave villagers carried the corpse over to the unfinished coffin that remained.
When they shifted the coffin into position, they saw that it had been resting over a crack in the ground. It looked like a deep crevice, and when some of the men stuck their hands in, they felt an icy wind. Curious, they pried up the floor tiles around the area, revealing a cave beneath the floor.
The leader of the local brigade volunteered to go investigate. They lowered him in a basket, but a short while later, he was frantically tugging at the rope to be hauled back up again. When he surfaced, he was quaking with fear. It took a while for him to calm down and tell the others about the brick-lined room he had seen belowground. The room had a stone bed, on which was a stone box covered in strange writing.
He had opened the box to find that it contained six red-jade animals, strange beasts he couldn’t identify. Searching the room, he noticed another level going below, but it was pitch-dark, and he’d been too frightened to go any deeper.
The soldiers followed proper procedure and reported the incident right away. Professor Qiu and his team were called to investigate.
The village was abuzz with excitement and rumors. Everyone wanted to see exactly what was going on. To maintain order, the professor told the soldiers to keep gawkers well away from the workshop and the underground cave. He didn’t know what was down there and wasn’t about to risk it getting damaged. The soldiers set up a checkpoint at the village entrance, which is why Julie and I got stopped.
“Sir,” I said, knowing I’d have to come up with a reason for him to let us pass, “Ms. Yang and I are close associates of Professor Qiu. We have urgent information for him. Can you please help us get to him?”
The soldier looked at us warily, clearly suspicious. But before he could decide anything, a woman rushed up from the village.
“Professor Qiu is dead! The professor’s dead!” she shouted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Julie and I stared at one another, our brains buzzing.
The woman proceeded to tell the soldier what had happened. Professor Qiu and another archaeologist had been lowered into the cave in a basket. After more than an hour, the soldiers shouted down but got no reply. Worried there had been an accident, the soldiers determined they should investigate, but certain this was the road to death, if not hell itself, no one volunteered to go underground. The soldier at this checkpoint, who happened to be the brigade leader, was the same one who’d gone into the cave earlier, so the village elder sent the woman to fetch him.
Sensing an opportunity, Julie shot me a glance. “Professor Qiu may not be dead,” she said. “He may just need help.”
“That’s right,” I said, knowing it was up to Julie and me to get the two men back.
I grabbed the soldier’s hand. “Sir, it’s an honor to shake your hand. You were the first hero to brave the dangers of the cave. Now it’s our turn.” The soldier puffed up visibly at my words, and I continued on. “I know what these caves are like. You’ve already been down into its freezing depths once. And since Professor Qiu is a friend of ours, Ms. Yang and I will go down again on your behalf. That way, we’ll get to save an old friend and follow your brave example.”
He smiled but shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t want to let you in,” he replied. “It’s just that we’ve been given orders. No strangers are to be allowed. Sorry.”
I was getting angry. I’d tried bribery and flattery, and neither had worked. Now I was going to play dirty. I grabbed the end of the soldier’s wooden club and scowled at him. “Listen, Ms. Yang is a special representative from America. If you get in our way, she’ll get in touch with her embassy, and next thing you know, your brigade will be disbanded. You think you’re so important? Look at her—she’s getting impatient. I can see it in her face. I’m only telling you all this for your own good, because you seem like a nice guy. Now will you let us in?”
The soldier was clearly having second thoughts. After a moment, he meekly led the way.
I gave Mr. Liu’s great-nephew a couple of yuan and told him to return to Gulan and buy himself a treat.
Julie and I didn’t dare delay. We hurried after the soldier into Stone Tablet Village, which was in a little basin surrounded by higher ground. This was an excellent place to be situated—in dry weather, the pressure was different enough in the valley that it rained anyway, and when the Yellow River flooded, the hills kept the water out. The population was five or six hundred, and as we looked down at their houses, everything appeared neat and orderly.
Not far ahead we spotted the giant stone tablet, the writing on it long worn away. At its foot was a headless beast of some sort. Even as Julie and I rushed by on our way to rescue Professor Qiu, we couldn’t help stopping to take a closer look, but there was no way to tell its origin.
“It doesn’t seem to be a tombstone,” Julie said. “Have you seen anything like it before?”
“Never!”
I looked around as I kept walking. This was a quiet spot with mild weather, perfect for a village, yet the surrounding hills were jagged and disorderly, not suitable for burials. I didn’t think there’d be an ancient tomb here. Even if there was, it surely wouldn’t belong to an aristocrat. But the so
ldier had said the first level of this underground cave had brick-lined walls and a stone bed. What lay below it?
All our hopes were resting on Professor Qiu. There could be a dragon’s nest down there and we’d still have to get him out. Julie and I hurried on.
The soldier led us to a workshop on the east side of the village. An inscription hung over the door, and a swarm of villagers were gathered near the shop, gawking at the fuss. Even if they were eager to see what was happening, I doubted any of them would dare step through that door. Everyone was afraid of ghosts, discussing fervently whether this cave led to the dragon palace beneath the Yellow River, and whether this disturbance would anger the Dragon King and prompt him to flood the valley—or, if the cave was a portal to hell, whether it was better to seal it tight at night to keep hungry spirits from creeping up from the underworld. A man who turned out to be the local elementary schoolteacher had an even more persuasive theory: “All of you are wrong. This is all just superstition. Listen, didn’t they say there’s cold air coming up from the opening? Obviously the hole leads to the South Pole. Ice is going to start falling through from the other side of the world, and it’ll drown all you idiots.”
As the wheels turned in every villager’s brain, Julie and I followed the soldier into the workshop, where he introduced us to the village elder and his fellow brigade members. He announced that Julie and I would be going into the hole.
The village elder hugged me tightly. “You are welcome. We hope you will find the two archaeologists alive. If it weren’t for all the stories about the coffin maker and his strange power, the villagers would be less afraid. Even our local soldiers aren’t trained to carry out such a mission.”
I understood what he was saying—he wanted to push all the responsibility onto me. I wasn’t going to waste time arguing, so I brushed past him and looked at the underground cave. The fissure was wide, and it was dark in there. I didn’t have any equipment with me and didn’t see how Julie and I were going to do this by ourselves. We needed help.
Including the leader of the soldiers, there were eight men now standing here with their clubs, rifles, and blazing torches. I stood before them and said, “Please listen! Two of our colleagues are in trouble. I know you are anxious about what lurks below, but we need your help. This is probably some ancient ruin, not a pathway to hell. And you won’t be working for free—I’m offering you a hundred yuan each, plus an extra hundred if you get the archaeologists out. Are you on board?”
The soldiers had been unwilling to risk their lives, but upon hearing that they might earn two hundred yuan each, they perked up. Standing straight, faces growing determined, they answered yes resoundingly.
Money had won the day. I got them to bring all the rifles they had, while the village elder got us some candles and flashlights. Everyone also got a whistle made from local tree bark.
Julie nudged me. “Don’t forget, there are at least two levels we need to descend, but what if it goes even farther down than that? Professor Qiu might have ventured deep, and who knows what he encountered. Let’s cover our mouths and noses with damp towels and make sure we have torches with us. If the torches go out, we have to leave at once.”
I nodded in agreement, then told everyone to follow Julie’s instructions. Three soldiers were left at the surface to raise and lower the basket, while the village elder and his council would guard the front door, not letting any other villagers in.
When everything seemed ready and I was just about to be lowered, a commotion started at the door. A blind man barged in. He wore dark glasses, had a scraggly beard, and was clutching a tattered old book and brandishing a bamboo walking stick. “Who’s in charge here?” he hollered. “I need to talk to whoever’s in charge.”
“Didn’t I tell you to keep everyone out?” I shouted at the village elder. “How did he get in? Send him away. We’re wasting time.”
The blind man hurled himself into the room and lashed out in the direction of my voice, whacking me with his stick. “What a rude young man! I’ll forgive you, though, as I’m here to save your life.”
The village elder rushed over to me. “Mr. Hu, this is a famous fortune-teller in our province,” he said to me. “Last year, my wife was bewitched by a fox spirit, and this gentleman lifted the spell and saved her life. You should listen to what he has to say. He’s never wrong.”
“I don’t have time for this!” I roared. “I thought they’d gotten rid of all you village charlatans. Get out of my way.”
The blind man’s lips twisted into a sneer. “I was once the personal seer for the commander in chief of Jiangxi, back before you were ever born,” he railed at me. “I’m not going to stand by while you get innocent people to risk their lives for nothing. Be warned, if I told you what awaited you in that hole, you would be quaking.”
I was ready to shove him into the hole myself, but he seemed to have the respect of the villagers, and I didn’t want to offend anyone. “Go on, then, tell me,” I snapped. “If I don’t get frightened, will you stay out of my way?”
“I can’t reveal what awaits you below, but if you enter this cave, you must bring me with you. Without my guidance, you’ll go in vertical but come out horizontal.”
Julie had been listening quietly, but now she stepped boldly up to the blind man. “Do you think there’s an ancient tomb down there, and that if we bring you with us you’ll be able to help yourself to a treasure or two? If you say another word, I’ll have you chased out of here.”
The blind man was startled, and he lowered his voice. “Ah, so the young lady is in the profession. Could you both be gold hunters? All right, seeing as we’re all in the same business, I won’t keep you in the dark any longer. I was known in the field, long ago. Lost my sight reverse dipping in Yunnan. Now I’m old, wandering these villages and telling fortunes to feed myself. Why not bring me along? Share the wealth? I’ll just use it to buy myself a coffin.”
Julie looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She glanced at me, and I shook my head. This guy was probably more trouble than he was worth, and besides, this cave didn’t look like an ancient tomb. Even if it was, why should we cut him in?
Though he couldn’t see us, the blind man seemed to know exactly what we were thinking. “I have a copy of Duozi’s Visual Map. It’s yours if you share the treasure with me,” he told us.
“I’ve heard of this document,” I said. “A map of meridians. I believe there’s only one copy in the world. If you really have such a precious item, why not sell it instead of begging us to let you tag along? Do you think we’re idiots? It’s probably a bad egg.” That’s gold-hunting slang for counterfeit treasure.
“No matter what, I’m older than you. You ought to treat me with more respect. Do you want all these people to think you don’t know how to behave? Ever since ancient times, feng shui has been a closely held secret. No one but a true member of the gold-hunting order should be allowed to look at these mysteries. How could I just hand this knowledge over to a civilian? Make your decision.”
We had delayed far too long already. “Fine, whatever you say. Even if there aren’t any grave goods down there, I’ll buy your Duozi’s Visual Map with my own money. But you can’t come down with us. Help me out here instead, and say something to these soldiers to calm their nerves and give them courage.”
The blind man obligingly called the soldiers over. “Gentlemen, this is no ordinary cave,” he told them. “Back in the day, when First Emperor Qin was visiting, he found the pill of immortality in this underground cavern. It was he who put up the stone tablet outside your village. Later on, the Western Chu warlord Xiang Yu and Emperor Liu Bang of Han both used this cave as a refuge in wartime. They were successful, for they absorbed the energies of the cave. Brothers, I say you have the strength of tigers. Get to the bottom of the mysterious cave and your lives will soar hereafter.”
This see
med enough to galvanize the men. I cut off the blind fortune-teller before he could say anything too ridiculous, and we started our descent: me and the leader of the soldiers in the first basket, then the next four men, and finally Julie.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The leader and I each held a lit torch and a rifle. Looking up, I saw the opening twenty or so meters above us. It looked like a natural formation, with no sign of human interference. We were in a broad tunnel, about seven meters high and ten meters wide, paved with long stone slabs. The walls were covered in beads of moisture, and cold and dampness penetrated my bones.
Gulan was generally a dry area, so for the soil to be damp only twenty meters down must have had something to do with Stone Tablet Village’s unusual geography. Because it was in a valley, and the rainy season was so long, more water accumulated here than in the surrounding areas. If there had ever been an ancient tomb here, it would probably have been ruined long ago.
We could see the contours of our surroundings clearly. In addition to the fissure we’d descended into, there were also numerous cracks opening off the tunnel, as if this were an earthquake zone. Luckily, though the passageway was simply constructed, it also looked extremely sturdy, with no sign that it might collapse.
The leader pointed up ahead, saying that was where he’d seen the stone platform with the box on it. The village council was holding on to it for safekeeping.
“What happened when you went farther in?” I asked.
The leader shook his head. “There was another hole in the floor. It looked deep, and when I shined my flashlight in, I couldn’t see anything at all. The wind that rose out of it gave me goose bumps. I didn’t dare look, just grabbed the stone box and ran. Oh yes, I heard water down there.”
As all seven of us made our way to the stone-lined room, we called Professor Qiu’s name. There were distant echoes and the dripping of water, but no other stirrings.
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