“Is this the tomb door?” Fatty asked. After touching it, he gasped, “It's really the entrance to the tomb!”

“It seems that this may be the original form of Zhang Jialou. The oldest Zhang family tomb may not be a building, but an ordinary tomb. Later, after the wooden structure of the ancient building was erected, it was preserved by future generations as the lowest underground palace. The Zhang family's oldest ancestors are all here!”

“s.h.i.+t, then let's go in. Are we not grave robbers?”

“What, are you afraid?” I asked.

“No, I'm excited.” Fatty said, “How long do you think it's been since any brothers have entered here? If we really go, it'll be a trip down memory lane for them. Although it's not practical, we can have a good time looking at the scenery."

Fatty really had a lot to say, so I told him, “All right, then, 'Officer Mojin'(TN note: think mojin means tomb raider). Please find a way out quickly and let's go first. I'll find a few more tombs for your enjoyment next time."

“No, although I said so, but after this time, I'm really a little over it. I decided to switch to selling Chinese cabbage when I go back."

Before, the ancient building wasn't actually a grave in the formal sense, but entering here felt different. This was the tomb of the Zhang family's ancestors, and it was also the tomb of the old-timers who were much better than us. It was disrespectful to disturb them so we kowtowed in front of the tomb. Then I asked Fatty to take out the cigarettes and do everything to follow the rules.

According to the northern sect's rules, when entering an ancient tomb, one had to burn incense to pay homage and get forgiveness from the tomb owner. This showed that he was poor, his mother was seriously ill, and his wife was forcefully robbed so he had to rely on this windfall to survive.

Fatty certainly spoke more eloquently, saying that the descendants of the Zhang family were unreliable, the GPS was out of power, that we were lost and couldn't find our way out, and so on.

I lost my watch and couldn't see the current time. All I knew was that we had stayed here long enough. If we didn't leave, the above mechanism may really activate so I urged him to finish soon.

Fatty said, “After reciting, we'll smoke the ‘incense'. Little Brother's been here once, and the old ancestors won't mind."

I said, “They don't mind? You'll know later. I can smoke the cigarettes, but you mustn't touch them."

After Fatty came down here, his cough had obviously lessened and I relaxed a little. He was right. Maybe his b.l.o.o.d.y cough will be fine.

Fatty said, “Don't worry, our future is uncertain. I won't joke about my own life. When you smoke, take a big mouthful. I'll just enjoy some secondhand smoke."

I said: “Don't talk nonsense, let me see what you can do.”

After Fatty finished, he pushed the stone door. After pus.h.i.+ng it a few times, however, he found something was blocking it from behind. I looked through the crack and saw a zilai stone (TN note: basically a stone bar, 'zilai' means natural).

“You know how to open this stone door?” I asked.

Fatty nodded and pulled something out of his bag. It was a strange hook and I didn't know where he got it from, probably from one of Granny Huo's team. He inserted the hook behind the door and went to wrap it around the stone.

Zilai Stone was a very famous thing—it could be used to let the stone doors close by themselves when leaving the tomb. At that time, many new archeologists didn't understand the principle of this thing when entering a tomb for the first time and would choose to use violence to forcibly open the door. After they opened it, they would find something strange in the debris, but it was often too late and the entrance of the tomb had been damaged beyond repair. When Little Brother and the others came down, they came in the opposite direction so there was no problem, but now the stone door had automatically closed, and it wasn't so easy to open it.

Fatty didn't seem to be particularly skilled at using this tool either, and he didn't manage to open it after working for half a day. I said: “Brother, you're not very skilled at this!” Fatty scolded: “b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I've been mixed up with you in recent years and haven't had any serious jobs. The people who followed were all masters and I had no chance to practice. You know, before I got mixed up with you, there were so many f.u.c.king imperial tombs for me to rob, and it would have been nice to visit a few."

“So you still have to thank me for giving you a chance to learn more?”

“Bulls.h.i.+t, I've only learned a lot and don't have any money. I'm not a traveler, just hanging out in the tomb when I have nothing to do. I'm also a person who wants to carry out his hard-earned work."

As he spoke, I saw the door open a little more so I leaned against the stone and it finally opened.

A huge stone path appeared in front of us, and it was dark inside. We turned on a flashlight and looked inside. I found that I still wasn't used to calling this a tomb pa.s.sage—it was very different from the ones I had seen before and had no decorations, but was very similar to the stone path I had seen in the mountains before.

Fatty's face was now full of expressions of happiness and excitement. He obviously didn't realize what I was thinking and said to me happily: “The tomb pa.s.sage, d.a.m.n it. It's better than seeing the road in front of my own house.”

“The Zhangs seem to have a good foundation! If the Zhang family's ancient building was the best work of Yangs.h.i.+ Lei, they would have all been stoned here. This project was obviously much more difficult than the building above." I said, “Moreover, with these stones as the foundation at the bottom, the earthquake resistance of the building above is much higher.”

There was nothing in this tomb pa.s.sage, and there didn't seem to be any mechanism. Fatty said it was to be expected since Little Brother came through here, so some traps may have been destroyed by him long ago. Moreover, Zhang Jialou's setup was particularly strange. It didn't seem to have too many mechanisms and the ones that were used for defense seemed to have only that kind of poisonous gas. However, that was indeed the simplest and most effective anti-theft method I had ever seen. I didn't think there was any defense measure more effective than filling a place with poisonous gas.

We turned on the flashlight and looked around as we walked towards the tomb pa.s.sage. There was nothing wrong with the air and we breathed to our heart's content. The burning sensation of pain in our chests had basically disappeared.

There was no such shadow of miluotuo on the stone wall here and when I touched it, I found it was all volcanic rock. Obviously, this place was built to defend against the miluotuo.

The two drainage ditches on both sides of the stone road connecting the drainage system under the ancient building were very similar to the tomb pa.s.sage in Xisha's underwater tomb. But it seemed that no water had flowed here for many years. Was it possible that the rainfall in Banai had decreased in recent years and the rain was far less abundant than in ancient times? Or was there less groundwater flowing here due to some big project? No matter the reason, it was a very good thing for the protection of Zhang Jialou.

We walked 60 or 70 meters and the pa.s.sage began to turn. There were many caves on both sides, all containing very small coffins. This layout was similar to what we saw upstairs but these coffins were all made of stone and didn't look too luxurious. Obviously, in the early days of the Zhang family, they also complied with the burial customs of that time and mostly used stone coffins.

There were also many characters written on the cliff here. Fatty wanted to see, but I grabbed him.

We couldn't let go of any clues until we found Little Brother, but now that we had found him, there was only one sentence in my mind: I want to say goodbye to Zhang Jialou.

Fatty didn't give up, saying: “Let's take a look, the original origin of the Zhang family must be in these words, and the contents in these coffins must be very old and valuable! Let's just open one at random and take whatever. It's not a waste of time."

“Didn't you say already? How can you suddenly think of this again?"

“It's like a scene that arouses deep feelings.” Fatty said, shaking his head after thinking, “Forget it, it may not be a good thing to have you open the coffin. I'll listen to you and keep walking.”

I said, “Don't be ridiculous! When we get out, I'll give you Uncle Three's property if you want money!”

Fatty said: “Come on, I can't afford that underworld culture! I still want to live as a peddler for a few years."

We walked about 30 meters further and suddenly a row of huge coffins appeared in the middle of the pa.s.sage in front of us. Each coffin was the size of a double-door refrigerator, arranged in a line on the edge of the stone path.

We went up and counted, there were as many as 60 of them. Fatty said: “These are some of the ancestors of the Zhang family who have abnormal body shapes. Look at this one, it's f.u.c.king caught up with j.a.panese sumo wrestlers. A body as good as Little Brother's seems to have been trained day after day."

I said: “These are all joint burial coffins. There are two bodies in them. So it seems that the coffins of the more loving model couples are all here.”

Fatty sighed with emotion after seeing it—if he and Yunyun come to be buried together in the future, the coffin will have to be a little bigger, and it will have to be the size of a chest of drawers. I told him that after he died, Yunyun would be old enough to remarry five or six times, and they'd have to share a big bed. Fatty scolded me for being cra.s.s.

I told him not to think about it. Behind these large coffins was a stone gate with a large black pillar on each side. Judging from its thickness, it seemed to extend from the top and may be the part of the ancient building above that goes deep underground.

The stone door was half open and it was apparent someone had come out of it. When I wanted to go over, Fatty grabbed me and showed me the pillar. There were traces of people being treated and many things had been pasted on it. Unexpectedly, one look showed it was all band-aids. Looking at it this way, it was as if this pillar had been walking and accidentally stepped on a crime boss who violently beat it up. I could even picture it with two eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears.

I climbed up the post to check and found that all the band-aids were stuck to countless small eyes on the surface of the post. This pillar seemed to have been eaten by termites since it was full of small holes. I wanted to tear one off but was stopped by Fatty when he said that there must be a reason for them to put it there so I shouldn't remove it.

We looked at it again, covered all the band-aids with our own military grade ones, and then carefully pushed open the stone gate. At that moment, I saw all the band-aids sucked inwards suddenly, as if there was a pressure change at the mouth of the cave.

Indeed, there was a catch. I didn't know what would have happened if I had taken that band-aid off, maybe there were countless poisonous needles. It suddenly occurred to me that this ancient tomb used air pressure as a power drive mechanism, which was done quite skillfully.

After the stone door was pushed away, we sidled in, holding a flashlight and s.h.i.+ning it at all corners. Inside was a stone chamber.

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