Chapter Eighty-Six: A Knockoff First Emperor’s Mausoleum?

The farther we went, the more wrong it felt. What exactly was wrong? The stone around us had begun to change. Here and there stood gigantic blocks of rock, rectangular in shape, tilted and askew, and what had supposedly been a lake had become a river within barely five hundred meters. The water was deep and bitterly cold. Because we were underground, there were still plenty of icicles hanging above our heads, each one like a sharpened blade. The stones on either side were glazed with ice as well, making the footing treacherous.

Every one of those rocks looked man-made, and sure enough, after another hundred meters, something astonishing appeared: embankments began to line both sides of the underground river, the sort people often call raised banks, narrowing the waterway to less than two meters across. That was far beyond anything we had expected.

Then, after another fifty meters, the river split. Those embankments divided the underground current into several smaller streams, each bending away in different directions. When you lifted your head then, wherever the lamp swept, there was green everywhere, flickering and glimmering, painting even our faces in a green sheen.

“Will-o'-the-wisps?” Coming to a place like this, my first thought was that we had run into ghosts.

“It’s fluorite,” the Fat One said. “Quit scaring yourself all the time. Everyone’s house has this stuff!”

And his family really did. Less than fifty kilometers from my home there was a fluorite mine, though mine was too grand a word for it; it had been abandoned long ago, opened by some long-forgotten dynasty. When I was little, my mother once brought me back a sack of it from there as a toy. You just picked it up off the ground. It was worthless now.

Master Zha looked up at the green glow overhead, his fingers constantly shifting into different arrangements as if calculating something. Then he took out his compass, turned in place once, and said to us, “It’s a star map. We’ve probably stumbled straight into the main burial chamber by accident.”

He went on, “This is likely modeled after the Mausoleum of the First Emperor. The historical records say: the imperial tomb pierced three groundwater layers, bronze was cast beneath to receive the coffin, and palaces, halls, officials, rare instruments, and strange treasures were moved in and stored full within. Mercury was used to represent the rivers, the Yangtze, and the seas, with mechanisms circulating it. Above was a complete heaven, below a complete geography, and candles made from the fat of merfolk that would burn for a very long time. Look here: we’ve essentially passed through the three groundwater layers already. The river outside, plus the one in the tunnel, plus this one—just enough to make three. It’s said the First Emperor used mercury to create the rivers of the Great Qin Empire. I’d wager this underground river was modeled on that too. And the ceiling of his subterranean palace was supposedly made of jewels, containing a thousand and eight star charts. Look at the fluorite here—it matches almost perfectly.”

The Fat One sounded faintly disappointed. “So in the end it’s just a knockoff First Emperor’s tomb?”

“Even if it’s a knockoff, it’s a pretty convincing one. A first-rate imitation, the real deal in terms of quality.” I pointed at the glowing stones above us. “Would ordinary people have been able to build something this grand?”

At that, the Fat One instantly came alive, his eyes shining. “Then we’re rich?”

“No question about it. We’re absolutely getting rich!”

The two of us traded lines back and forth, and Master Zha remained rather calm. “According to the records, the First Emperor’s tomb was full of mechanisms. If they copied those too, then we’re in trouble.”

“Master Zha, don’t go scaring people. In a place like this, at most it’s a cave that’s been remodeled. Where would all these mechanisms come from?” As he spoke, the Fat One even stamped hard a couple of times to show how safe it was.

I said, “Still, there’s one good thing. Since this place looks man-made, if someone could come in, there has to be a way out.”

“Not necessarily. Tombs on this scale were usually sealed shut. There’d be a passage leading to the tomb path, and only then the main chamber. After the burial, according to old custom, the tomb path would be sealed. In all these years the passage would likely have collapsed anyway. We’ve gone straight into the main chamber. If we want out now, the only way is to find the tomb path.” Master Zha looked around at the empty expanse, not even a coffin in sight, and could not help feeling uncertain. “I think this place was likely finished, but no one ever came to occupy it. In that case, the tomb path may never have been sealed.”

“If there’s nothing here, then it’s just an empty shell. Fine—let the Fat One leave a souvenir, and we’ll find our way back.” With that, the fellow opened his trousers and started urinating.

“Have some shame!” I shot him a contemptuous look. “Don’t you know the downstream of this river leads back to where we are? Tomorrow you might end up drinking your own piss!”

The three of us had to keep moving. There was still so much unknown ahead, and there were only about two hours left before dawn. If we stayed out any later, we might be discovered.

We followed the riverbed. The place really wasn’t large—at most half a football field—only there were no stalactites here, just emptiness, easy to sweep over at a glance. We circled the area three full times, and still there was not even a shadow of the so-called tomb path. Three dispirited men could only think wistfully of the warm quilts waiting for them at home.

“Fat One, you used to do this sort of thing. In your line, how do you get out?”

He gave me a helpless look. “Young Master Xia, in our line we drill first and then hollow out the nest. This time we came straight into the nest and have to find a hole to get out. Besides, every damn thing around here is stone. Even if you gave me a better tool, it’d be useless. And another thing: I’ve never hollowed out such a high-class nest before. This is a knockoff of the First Emperor’s tomb, for heaven’s sake. Why didn’t they just throw in some terracotta warriors while they were at it?”

“Stop sighing. There’s always a way out.” Master Zha comforted us. “Since someone opened this place before us and yet there’s no coffin in sight, there must have been an entrance left behind. Otherwise, if they sealed it shut, how would the coffin have ever gotten in?”

“Where’s this opening, then? Master Zha, this place is barely the size of a hand, and we’ve already gone around it several times. There isn’t even a blade of grass here.”

“One place has been overlooked!” I suddenly remembered the Fat One’s earlier piss. “The river below. We missed that.”

At my words, both of them reacted at once. The three of us hurriedly lowered our heads and began searching along the water. Our mining lamps were fairly bright, but for some reason the river always looked pitch-black when we shone them on it; we couldn’t see the bottom. I picked up a stone and tossed it in, intending to test the depth, but instead there came a dull thud. My whole body jerked. “There’s something in this water!”

If there was ever a question of which one of us should go in, there was hardly any need to choose. Master Zha and I both looked at the Fat One. In weather this cold, naturally the one with the most fat would suffer least from the chill.

He seemed to see through our thoughts and hastily said, “Don’t look at me. Fat people are actually the ones most afraid of the cold!”

“The piss was yours, damn it. And now you want us to go down?”

The Fat One had nothing to say to that. While taking off his clothes, he muttered, “I said I didn’t want to go, but you insisted. If I freeze to death in a moment, let’s see who’ll go scrape up your junk for you.”

For safety’s sake, I still tied a rope around the Fat One. Shivering all over, he stood at the bank and even started doing stretches.

I gave him a kick in the backside, and with an “Ah!” he splashed into the water. I knew he could swim, and sure enough, the moment he hit the water he took a breath, dove under, kicked twice, and vanished.

It was only two or three seconds later that I heard another dull thud. Before long the Fat One surfaced, clutching his head and cursing, “Xia Laoliu, damn your mother, down there it’s all black as night—almost smashed me to death!”

By then he was standing in the water, the level just over his neck, about one and a half meters deep by the look of it. He groped around a while longer, then said, “There’s something here. Long and narrow. No idea if it’s stone.”

Still talking to himself, he added, “Doesn’t seem like stone. Feels like wood. Damn it, could it be a coffin?”

Master Zha tensed. “Are you sure it’s a coffin?”

The Fat One paced back and forth in the water, measuring it with his arms. “Wide in front, narrow in back, slick with a layer of mud. Ow—something seems to have stabbed my foot!” As he spoke, he bent down to feel around. Hooking the thing with his toes, he lifted it up. When he brought it to the surface, good heavens—it was a glittering gold hairpin!

The Fat One quickly bit it between his teeth, then took it out to look. His mouth was so wide with laughter he could hardly close it. “Gentlemen, we’ve made it! We’ve made it rich! It’s gold—this is gold!”

Just as the Fat One was about to laugh himself into a fit, Master Zha suddenly shouted, “Get out of there now!”

The Fat One looked at him disdainfully. “It’s fine, Master Zha. With gold in hand I’m not cold anymore. Let me search a little longer!”

At that moment, Master Zha snatched the rope from my hand and shouted, “No time! Look behind you!”

The placid water suddenly surged with several swift currents, shooting toward the Fat One from both sides of the river channel. Heaven only knew what they were. The Fat One seemed to notice as well, but by the time he came to his senses and tried to climb out, it was already too late.

“Ow, something’s biting me!” I saw the Fat One thrashing in the water, and then the surface burst into a cloud of red mist. After that, his entire body went pitching down into the river. Master Zha and I, one in front and one behind, pulled on the rope with all our might. It took nearly every ounce of strength we had to drag the Fat One back to the surface.

The moment he broke through the water, he shouted, “Something bit me!”

His weight was enormous, and in the water it felt as though the two of us were dragging a boulder. Fortunately, the Fat One’s reflexes were quick. Using the buoyancy of the water, he kicked hard and managed to catch hold of the stone bank. Dragging and hauling together, we finally got him onto land.

Once ashore, we checked him over. Good lord—the Fat One was missing a chunk of flesh from his calf, about the size of a fingernail. The wound looked as though it had been gouged out by a blade, and the muscle beneath was clearly visible.