Underworld - Chapter 3
Ten zhang (approximately 33 meters).
One hundred feet.
Liu Zhihu was smug. He shouted loudly at the people who were standing at the seven-meter-high rectangular pit: "Look! It's one hundred feet! And ten meters! One hundred decimeters! That's why it can only be calculated according to one hundred! It doesn't have a standard. It uses different reference frames to make different scales. Otherwise, it could give a proportion! I can be sure—one hundred meters or one hundred zhang below where I am now, there is an even bigger and deeper tomb! That's the real tomb!"
But he didn't realize that these were his last words.
The narrow chamber was seven meters from the pit, with soil scattered everywhere. The soil was dry, as if it had been exposed to the sun for a long time, and dust would fly up with the slightest movement. The chamber was two meters wide and ten meters long, clearly not a natural formation. On one corner of the chamber wall, eight large, flamboyant characters were carved: "Wang Jia and Wang Mu were here."
Upon seeing these eight large characters and realizing there was no way out, Liu Zhihu suddenly felt a deep sense of fear.
Tomb raiders must be incredibly bold.
Liu Zhihu has robbed countless tombs and encountered countless dangers since he was a child. He has even encountered zombies that have turned into corpses and resurrected zombies.
But the fear back then was not as intense as it is now.
The fear he felt at that moment was even stronger than when he robbed Cao Cao's suspected tomb.
That incident made him the number one tomb raider in Liuzhuang. Of the dozen or so skilled tomb raiders who accompanied him, none survived. Only he not only deciphered or evaded various deadly traps, but also obtained a stone tablet full of irony: "You have all come to the wrong place."
—But he got the answer that was "no mistake".
From the very beginning of that tomb raiding trip, he felt an intense sense of fear. One by one, his companions were killed by stones, arrows, or cut in two by cleavers; some drowned, some were crushed by the walls, and one was even reduced to just his head. But none of that fear was as intense as the fear he felt when he finally obtained the "infallible" item.
But the fear I felt then was far less intense than the fear I feel now.
Could it be that there's a treasure here even better than "Can't Be Wrong"?
—But does fear truly signify an imminent major discovery?
III. The Tomb Owner, A Ding
Fear had turned into a chill. Liu Zhihu was still hesitating whether to go up or not.
Or perhaps the fear stemmed from the rumor that Cai Yin had witnessed Wang Jia and Wang Mu being buried alive.
When something that no one believes actually happens, that terror will undoubtedly turn into real fear.
—But if Wang Jia and Wang Mu can so easily carve "I was here" and disappear, why should I be so timid and hesitant?
Where did they go?
The chill suddenly turned into cold.
He was trembling, and without thinking, he cried out urgently, "Quick—pull me up!"
Those in power, however, were not "fast".
The people above were startled, and like a madman meeting a slow doctor, they stared at each other in disbelief. Then one of them leaned out and asked, "—How…" Before he could finish speaking, he had already fallen down, bringing a layer of dirt with him.
At that very moment, all the lights on the construction site suddenly went out. In the darkness, only Liu Zhihu's mournful cry could be heard: "—take—me…" The sound faded away.
When the lights came on again, the cracks that people had just dug had already closed up.
Two hours later, the crack was dug open again, but Liu Zhihu and the villager who had fallen could no longer be found. The miner's lamp was still on, but it was stuck to the earthen wall as if it were "grown" there, and its edges were covered with rust.
The light shone on the eight large, flamboyant characters, making the clear inscription "Wang Jia and Wang Mu were here" appear even more eerie in the cramped room filled with loose soil.
No one dared to go down there.
Just as the old professor was about to leave, Xiao Ding stopped him; Xiao Ding
---Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [10]: When they tried to go down, five young men suddenly appeared and grabbed them, and then a few people with bruises and swelling were thrown down.
The topsoil was quickly swept away, and the men found fragments of clothing, blood-stained mud, and red and white brain matter in the dirt. But there was no trace of the two men. No bodies, not even a hair.
On the cleaned ground, people found talisman-like characters: the strange situation of the tomb owner, A Ding, alarmed the entire construction site. Before dawn, the area around the tomb was already crowded with people. Dozens of young men from Liuzhuang quickly dug a large circular pit with a diameter of seven meters and a depth of ten meters.
At 9 PM on the 21st, two circular holes, each one meter in diameter, were swept out of the large circular pit. The depth of the holes was unknown, and their location was exactly where the two circles drawn by Liu Zhihu were.
But no one dared to go down anymore.
— Tomb raiders have an innate fear of round holes.
At exactly 7:00 AM on the 22nd, the people of Liuzhuang invited the living deity Hu Tian Hu Di from the mountain god temple to the edge of the large round cave.
Two living immortals stood at the edge of a large round hole, examining it carefully. Hu Tian shook his head, and Hu Di shook his head as well. The two of them only said one sentence: "...Fill it up."
After repeated questioning, the two finally spoke one more sentence.
“It’s…the Netherworld…” “…a mechanism…”
"Have you encountered a 'trap'? If so, whatever you do, don't dig any further. And whatever you do, don't let anyone go down." Xiao Ding's master repeatedly instructed Professor Yin over the phone, "If you really want to find out, it's best to borrow a camera first, but not the ordinary kind. It has to be a miniature remote sensing camera made of optical fibers. I heard the Cultural Relics Management Office has one; you can try it."
At 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve, a helicopter delivered a "miniature remote sensing camera".
This is an absolutely safe and reliable camera sensor material, known as "Robot". It is a latest scientific research achievement developed by Japan, manufactured in Germany, and certified by the United States. Its full name, if translated into Chinese characters, would be as many as thirty-four characters, but it can be abbreviated to seven characters.
It has three sets of six fiber optic lenses, which inherently possess both transmission and imaging functions. It is waterproof, shockproof, heat-resistant, resistant to electromagnetic interference, and acid and alkali resistant. Initially used only by espionage organizations, it was later used to explore various inaccessible deep underground caves, the craters of extinct volcanoes, the deep sea, mines, etc. Its distinguishing feature is that, in addition to special photosensitive lenses, it also has relatively ordinary camera lenses connected to internal wiring.
Its miniature size is actually not that small. The camera part, equipped with an artificial intelligence computer chip, is indeed no different from an ordinary miniature camcorder. However, the sensor unit consists of more than ten kinds of machines, including a screen, receiver, recorder, searcher, copyer, intensifier, and central computer. This allows it to continue working as long as any fragment larger than 0.25 square centimeters exists in any of the three optical fiber lenses.
Of course, it is also very expensive, costing tens of millions of yuan.
Professor Yin had conducted numerous experiments before the instrument was delivered.
Small animals, tied together with ropes and lowered into a round hole, lived well until pulled out. Once pulled, they immediately died and became cooked, emitting a strange, enticing aroma. A chicken, once tied up, was immediately snatched away by a police dog. By the time people caught the dog, the chicken was already eaten. Hours later, the police dog had lost all its fur, becoming a naked, transparent dog, its internal organs clearly visible.
—The rope turned to ashes. The steel wire rope was also mottled after being tied down. After repeated tests, it was determined that the steel wire rope could withstand tension for half an hour. After half an hour, it would turn to ashes before it could be taken out of the hole.
A regular camera, when lowered to a depth of ten meters, will still have smooth, flat cave walls. Beyond ten meters, nothing can be seen, and the lens will be covered in spots upon exiting. However, after wiping it clean, it can still record video. If it is lowered for half an hour and then taken out, only the lens remains.
The high cost of the miniature remote sensing camera lies solely in the six optical fiber lenses. As long as the lenses are intact, the other components can be easily replaced. Therefore, Professor Yin believes it is worth a try.
At three o'clock in the morning, a remote-controlled car and a miniature remote-sensing camera, inside a metal cage secured by steel cables, were placed into one of the round holes. Special police, armed police, patrol police, and regular police, each fulfilling their duties, blocked anyone except the archaeological team members.
Inside the makeshift observation room, the professor and his assistants were all very nervous.
But the most nervous one was the old professor's "special assistant" Xiao Ding---Magpie Fairy replied [11]: An image appeared on the screen.
—At ten meters, intersecting patterns appear.
—Twenty meters, and we reached the bottom. At the bottom were several stone slabs, their edges edged in dirt. On the ground were footprints and discarded cigarette butts. The stone slabs bore crisscrossing patterns. In the center of these patterns was a talismanic compound character: "The Tomb Master, A Ding." In the open space, there was a small stone staff with small, talismanic characters on it: "The Road to the Underworld."
After replacing the steel cable, remote control car, and metal cage, the miniature remote sensing camera was placed in another hole.
—Ten meters, with six branching sloping tunnels.
Fifteen meters up, on the walls of the main cave, are various kinds of "tomb masters A Dong".
Thirty meters below, there is a large void, with six sloping tunnels branching off in six directions, still descending.
If the remote-controlled car were released, the miniature remote-sensing camera could conduct detection, but Professor Yin had no idea whether the instrument would be damaged due to prolonged exposure. Weighing the pros and cons, he decided to recall it.
But after the steel cable was lifted five meters, it seemed to encounter an immense weight and could not be pulled any further. A miniature remote sensing camera was then pointed upwards, revealing that the once smooth main cave wall was now riddled with pits and covered with various scripts bearing the inscription "Tomb Master A Dong".
The steel cable was very difficult to pull up, which is why the archaeological team could immediately identify the five characters, which ranged from oracle bone script to modern simplified characters, and even Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and various other languages.
The pits and depressions in the characters suddenly turned into deep marks.
In that instant, specks of colored light appeared on the screen, the recessed area suddenly sank and shattered, the miniature remote sensing camera rotated rapidly, and light waves were seen shooting from all directions. The purple light waves flashed across the entire screen like fireworks, becoming increasingly bright and dim.
The steel wire rope, the metal cage, and the remote-controlled car all suddenly turned to dust.
On the screen, there was a brilliant purple light.
It was pitch black.
— Less than twenty minutes!
※※※※※
“The tomb’s owner, A Ding? — A Ding?” Wang Jia was taken aback, seemingly lost in thought.
"A-Ding?" Wang Mu was also stunned. "—Who is A-Ding? Which A-Ding?"
Wang Mu looked at the rock face. The surface was smooth, and five compound characters, resembling talismans, were deeply engraved, as if carved by a finger. The edges were the same color as the rock surface, clearly indicating that they were not newly written. Moreover, no human could carve like that—unless one possessed a martial arts skill like the Vajra Finger in a wuxia novel, it would be impossible to make the characters on the rock surface appear both smooth, rounded, and deeply engraved.
"Isn't Xiao Ding's older brother also named A Ding?" Wang Mu suddenly remembered Xiao Ding. Wang Jia pondered, "Hmm. I wonder what this A Ding would think if he saw these words."
Wang Mu scoffed, "So what? At worst, he can get angry and push Biardin aside, taking his place—after all, the dead don't come back to life. Even emperors dream of resting in a tomb like this."
Wang Jia was startled. "A tomb—are we really in a tomb?" He suddenly showed a deep fear, so much so that his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "Amu! Have you thought about it—we've been going down!"
"The exit is also down there. We can't possibly walk out from the bottom; this isn't like climbing a mountain or taking an elevator."
"I think we should go back to where we were. After all, it's closer to the ground there."
"--go back?"
“Yes. Let’s go back. I remember when we bought this map, the seller said it was from the Yellow Emperor’s era. If this tomb really is from the Yellow Emperor’s era, that would be terrible. Maybe this place was originally a mountain—didn’t we say we have an ancient buried mountain here?—this road might have been the exit at first, but over time, after being covered by silt, the exit could only become the ‘entrance’.”
Wang Mu was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "We also recognize the characters from the Yellow Emperor's era?"
Wang Jia was taken aback. "Yes. This kind of character was most common during the Eastern Han Dynasty. Talismanic compound characters first flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and were only accepted starting in the Song Dynasty. This kind of character..." Wang Mu interrupted, "So, it couldn't be during the Yellow Emperor's era. They didn't have the manpower and resources for this then. Large-scale tombs only appeared after Qin Shi Huang. Besides, I always feel that since we're here, we might as well make the best of it. What difference does it make whether we live or die? At worst, we'll go to the underworld and be reincarnated a few years later. Those little white dots are further down. If they can go there, why can't we? On the map, that's indeed an exit. If there were an elevator there, wouldn't we be able to go up in no time? — It's not like there weren't skilled craftsmen in ancient times. Haven't you heard about what happened to the people of Liuzhuang when they tried to rob Cao Cao's suspected tomb?"
Wang Jia nodded. "I've heard of it. There was a person who went in and was locked in an iron cage. The ground cracked open, and the iron cage kept sinking. When the cage came up again, there was only a head left inside."
Wang Mu said, "That's right. Being able to go up and down is also a kind of mechanism found in ancient tombs. What if there's such a mechanism installed at the exit? Wouldn't that be no different from an elevator?"
"What if we're left with only a head too?"
"That's still better than just wandering around here, right? This isn't a department store, what's there to see?"
That makes sense. Since the worst that could happen is death, what are they afraid of?
So the two continued walking forward. They walked and stopped, and after turning several large and small bends, they could still see the road winding downwards. However, every now and then, the five talisman-like characters for "Tomb Master A Ding" would appear.
---Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [12]: Wang Mu stopped, “It’s far away!” He looked at the map, put it away, and said, “Aren’t you tired? If you’re tired, let’s take a nap and then we can go again. It would be even better if we couldn’t wake up.”
Wang Jia was indeed exhausted. He lay down on the ground. "Sleep! Anyone who doesn't sleep is a dog!"
Wang Mu also lay down. "Look at you, you're almost as thin as a dried-up corpse! And look at me, I'm calm and collected like a living god, and I even seem to have gained weight."
Wang Jia looked at Wang Mu.
"Hmm. Good improvement. Glowing blue like a wolf."
A moment later, the two were fast asleep.
In this respect, one can't help but admire them. They were the kind of optimistic people who believed that even if the sky fell, someone taller would hold it up. They were carefree and didn't worry about anything, occasionally experiencing moments of needless anxiety, but most of the time they were laughing and joking. Moreover, since they weren't like outing travelers focused solely on escaping, nor like tomb raiders dealing with tomb traps, and they hadn't encountered any real danger, could freely see things, weren't afraid of the cold or thirst, and possessed a fearless spirit that transcended life and death, what reason did they have to remain pessimistic?
Pessimists will always be pessimistic, while optimists' pessimism is only temporary. They are inherently optimists, and they have blood ties and family ties, so they don't see the coldness and cunning of the world. It's hard to make them pessimistic.