Chapter Forty-Five: The Trap

Fatty’s skill was perfectly demonstrated in this tomb shaft—he distributed the force evenly to the surrounding soil with just the right touch. Soil has gaps between the grains; it can be compressed. The blasting-style tomb shaft takes advantage of this property. By mastering the right amount of force and directing the release precisely, a flawless passage is created.

After four or five minutes, when the smell of gunpowder finally dissipated inside, someone brought over a small cage with two chicks tied inside. They lowered it down the shaft on a rope, waited two minutes, then pulled it back up. The chicks were still alive, flapping their wings. Everyone let out a sigh of relief, and several laborers immediately began stripping off their clothes and shoes, rubbing their hands in anticipation.

Old Man Liu tapped his pipe and said, “This is an ancient Han tomb. Dig in small sections, or if this collapses and word gets out, I’ll lose face.”

By now I thought Fatty and I were in the clear, but unexpectedly Old Man Liu glanced at me and said, “The newcomers should get some experience. There’s a saying: ‘A teacher leads you in the door, but you must cultivate yourself.’ Since you’re Little Stone’s friend, Stone will go with you to open the way. Don’t say I never gave you a chance.”

At this, a flurry of murmurs broke out. “Wow, this kid’s lucky, Old Liu’s picked him himself.” “Are you stupid? Don’t you know what kind of man he is? I bet this isn’t as easy as it looks—they need a pathfinder, a scapegoat.” “Shh, keep it down. If Old Liu hears you, you’re dead.”

I looked at Fatty. He smiled at me, but I knew from that smile that there was no way to refuse—he needed to clear his name, and this was the price. It was plain to see what Old Man Liu intended. The dangerous jobs went to the outsiders; only after someone had set off the mines could the rest safely proceed.

“Old Liu, you must think highly of my friend, but isn’t it risky to send a newcomer on such an important job? If something goes wrong, selling us both wouldn’t cover the losses. How about this: I’ll go down first and bring up a sample for you to inspect. If it’s a big find, you can send others down. How does that sound?”

Old Man Liu slowly rose from his huanghuali armchair, walked over to stand before us, and said to Fatty, “Little Stone, there are laws for a nation and rules for our trade. You didn’t bring your friend here at my invitation, did you?”

Fatty replied, “No, I brought him.”

Old Man Liu continued, “Good. Since you admit it, let me ask you: does it matter to me what kind of man your friend is? Is our business the kind you can talk about in daylight?”

Fatty answered honestly, “No, it’s not.”

“Very good!” Old Man Liu circled behind me and went on, “Then, if he turns out to be a mole, are you ready to answer for the lives of all my brothers here? Everyone in this trade starts at the bottom—I was no exception. If you haven’t gotten your hands dirty, how can you call yourself one of us? We’ve all rolled in the mud, but he’s still clean. Maybe you don’t mind, but I do. Either this pit was dug for the both of you, or you both go down together and get your hands bloody. Make your choice.”

Two black gun barrels were pointed at my head again. I glanced at Fatty; the same was true for him. So this was what they called “earning one’s place.” I began to regret ever coming—it had nothing to do with me in the first place.

Summoning my courage, I clasped my fists as I’d seen wandering heroes do in the village film shows, and declared, “Old Liu, I’ll go. Thank you for the chance. Please light the way—I’ll take the first step.”

Old Man Liu nodded at my retreating back, satisfied. “This kid’s got potential.”

The tomb shaft had to be crawled headfirst—there was no room to turn around. They tied a rope to my ankles so they could pull me out if anything went wrong. I had a miner’s lamp on my head. The tunnel was Fatty’s work, sized for his own build, and I was unused to moving through the earth like a rat. The air here was heavy with a strange smell—the scent of the dead.

Fatty must have been right behind me; I could sense him. Climbing down wasn’t difficult, and in less than five minutes I reached the bottom. According to our plan, I was to start digging upward from here. I had a small folding shovel, supposedly German-made, sharper than a knife. I needed to dig out a space about wide enough for two people to serve as a staging area, where we could bag the dirt and haul it out by rope.

Fatty had brought several cement sacks. According to Old Man Liu’s estimate, another meter and a half up from here would reach the main burial chamber. This was the most dangerous part. The Han tomb was built entirely of wood, with beams laid crosswise. The wood, buried for centuries, could be rotten. If we struck a support, the whole thing could collapse—tens of thousands of tons, and if we were buried here, no one would ever know.

Even at such a moment, Fatty couldn’t resist teasing me. “You learn fast, don’t you?”

“It’s my own fault. I really shouldn’t have come, should I?”

“No use thinking about it now. We’re here. Even when hunting tigers, you need your brothers. You came for my sake.”

“Fatty, promise me something.”

“Hm?”

“Let’s quit after this job. This isn’t a proper life. Come south with me—if I have food, you’ll never go hungry.”

“All right!”

We fell silent, focusing on the task at hand. When my folding shovel struck something, a piece of wood, stained black by the earth, emerged. The blade went right into it.

I asked Fatty, “Is this it? Have we reached the chamber?”

Fatty tapped it and said, “Yes, but this board is thick. How do we get through?”

“You don’t know?” I was surprised. Wasn’t he supposed to be a veteran?

Fatty wiped his nose with his dirty hand. “First time I’ve seen this design. I always dig down from the top, but the old man insisted we go up from below. There’s no leverage down here. I have no idea what he’s thinking.”

I brushed off the mud from the board, and my fingernail caught a seam. “There’s a gap here. Want to try wedging the shovel in and see?”

Fatty glanced at it. “All right. You move back.”

“Damn, it’s sturdy!” Fatty tried to pry it open, but the board didn’t budge. Determined, he braced the shovel handle against his chest, pressed his feet against the earthen wall, and heaved. His face turned red, his neck bulged, and his teeth ground together with a grating sound. I could only hear the folding shovel vibrating, and Fatty gritting his teeth, straining with all his might.

“If it’s not working, let’s try something else,” I urged, worried he’d hurt himself. In this confined space, we’d run out of air quickly, and our only ventilation was a thin water hose connected to a farmer’s blower.

No sooner had I finished speaking than there was a dull “bang.” Suddenly, soil rained down on my head, and I saw the board had given way. Then I felt the ground tremble—the earth beneath my feet began to shake. More dirt poured in from all sides. I looked back—Fatty’s tunnel was disappearing.

In the chaos, a hand grabbed my shoulder. Fatty, incredibly, was above me, already scrambling into the gap he’d made in the board. I reached up; with a burst of strength, he yanked me in after him. The whole process took barely ten seconds. I watched as the soil below surged up like a flood, and in an instant, the gap Fatty had pried open was filled with dirt. All I could hear was the constant hiss of shifting earth.

Fatty crouched, frozen, scanning the space. When the sound died away, he lowered his head and muttered, “It’s collapsed.”

We were five meters underground. I didn’t know if he meant the tunnel or the burial chamber had collapsed. All I knew was that we were trapped, with no way out.

I tried to reassure him. “They’re still up there—they won’t just leave us for dead, right?”

“Whether they help or not is up to the boss. Who knows how long it’ll be before they dig us out. To him, our lives aren’t worth as much as what’s down here. Whether we live or die doesn’t matter. This is a sand pit—they did it on purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

Fatty gave a bitter laugh. “A Han tomb built in drifting sand. I realized it when I was drilling the pilot hole. Of course he knew. Someone had to go down to release the sand—otherwise, no one could get in or out. Now do you understand?”