Ancient tomb excavation traces

The silent forest was piled high with withered leaves, making almost no sound when stepped on. The archer led the way, his torch flickering in a chilly breeze. Then I saw a plume of black smoke rise, floating in the air like a ghost. In the flickering firelight, I vaguely saw something gleaming beneath the fallen leaves. Looking closer, I gasped—it was a centipede.

They hid under the damp fallen leaves, revealing their purplish-red half-bodies. I was bitten by one of these venomous creatures when I was a child, and seeing such a large one now made me tremble with fear. Just then, a moth-like insect suddenly fluttered onto the wound on my right arm, scattering some white powder. I was so frightened that I leaned back and accidentally fell on my bottom.

When Bao Cai saw my disheveled appearance, he mocked me, saying, "Young master, it's just a winged insect, why are you so scared?"

I composed myself and replied, "The insects here are strange and unusual, especially large ones. Aren't you afraid of them?"

Bao Cai said, "Insects and animals are all subjects of my research. I like them so much that I'm not afraid of them at all."

Seeing that he was talking while standing, I laughed and replied, "That's nonsense. Who would run away at the sight of a Gu worm?"

He said, "Can you compare Gu worms to that? They're practically artificially bred weapons. Who would want to deal with them? In our time, those things would have to be eradicated, like eliminating the Four Pests."

Old Tai interjected, "You two are still spouting nonsense at a time like this? I think one of you is almost crippled, and the other's butt is all bruised and battered. Did we do this to you?!"

It's a long story, and it would bring tears to my eyes if I told you. It's a miracle that a newbie like me is still alive, so let's not dwell on those painful memories.

Old Tiao said, "That's true..." He walked beside me and Bao Cai, then pointed ahead and said, "That's where we'll set up camp. I'll treat you with some ancient herbal remedies later."

I said, "There are herbs! Good, let's hurry!" But in my heart, I thought, "The two wounds on my body can't be healed by ordinary herbs. Perhaps by the time the sun rises tomorrow morning, I'll be dead with my eyes closed." This thought made me feel sad.

Upon arriving at Lao Tiao's camp, the archer, fearing the Miao girl might return and inform on them, immediately bound her hands and feet. Seeing her glare fiercely at us, I felt a strange sense of satisfaction; after all, evil deeds get their just desserts.

She noticed me looking at her and gave me a cold glare, muttering to herself. The archer, growing impatient, pulled out a tiny ceramic bottle from his robes and stuffed a dark pill into her mouth, claiming it was an ancestral poison. He said it wouldn't kill her immediately, but she had to take the antidote regularly and couldn't talk too much during that time, or her stomach would cramp. If she tried to escape, she would surely die from intestinal perforation.

The witch cursed and struggled, but it was no use; the archer was unusually cold-blooded towards her. I thought to myself: to deal with a woman more poisonous than arsenic, you really have to fight fire with fire.

Chen Tiao and his group set up camp near a ravine, surrounded by towering trees that cast deep, shadowy shadows. It was a rare spot where one could look up without obstructing the view. I sat leaning against a tree as Lao Tiao applied medicine to me and Bao Cai, while Bao Cai groaned and moaned beside me, making quite a racket.

A cool spring breeze brushed my cheeks. Looking at the silver frost and twinkling stars scattered in the sky, I felt a strong longing for home and couldn't help but sigh: "Oh, bright moon, when will you shine on my return?"

I glanced at the few people chatting by the fire, and while I felt a sense of loneliness, I also felt a certain sense of peace.

There are now eight people in total, including the shrine maiden; four from Chen Yi's side and four from mine. The two short ones thoughtfully prepared two pheasants for us, which was a dream come true for us after not having eaten meat for many days.

Bao Cai and I wolfed down our food. The young Taoist priest said he didn't eat meat, and I thought to myself, "You're not a monk, why are you acting like you don't eat meat?" Despite my attempts to tempt him, he still refused to eat, only picking out a few wild fruits to fill his stomach. Over the past two days, I've noticed a faint sadness between his brows. He sits alone in a corner, gazing at the twinkling stars in the sky, his eyes unfocused.

Perhaps because there were so many people, I no longer felt as afraid of the deep forest. Chen asked us why we came here, and I told him what had happened. He listened with great emotion, saying that he never expected that an art student like me, who opposed tomb raiding, would end up in such a place with Bao Cai. It was quite sad to think about.

I said there was no other way; this was a time of war, and if you wanted to eat, you had to find a way.

Chen Yi said that he wasn't much better off. He was struck by lightning while searching for silk in the courtyard and inexplicably traveled to this era. In the following days, he worked as a laborer and a servant. Later, he couldn't stand being ordered around anymore, so he resolutely left and joined a grave-digging organization with his keen eye for treasures.

I told him that at least he found a reliable grave-digging team, while the rest of us were just a makeshift group, how could we possibly know anything about it? But Lao Tiao grabbed me and said, "We're not just reliable, we're professional!"

I said, "We haven't been wearing them for very long, and you've only just met them. How do you know if they're professional or not!"

Upon hearing this, Chen Yi looked at me mysteriously and said, "Liu Zi, didn't you feel a sense of familiarity when you saw this archer?"

I said, "He saved me, so he's my benefactor. But we just met, how can we be so close so quickly? I'm not someone you're naturally familiar with."

Upon hearing this, the old man clicked his tongue a few times and said, "He... your ancestor, and you don't even realize it? Don't you think you two are a bit alike?"

The moment I heard him say "ancestor," the water I had just taken a sip of sprayed all over Bao Cai's face. Bao Cai wiped it away with a gloomy expression, and I exclaimed in shock, "Are you kidding me?!" I glanced at the archer who was chatting and laughing with the two short men, and goosebumps rose on my skin.

"Of course! I've been spending time with him for a while now, he's practically your ancestor!" Chen Yi said to me earnestly.

I thought to myself: No way... This... This person is my legendary, awesome ancestor? The highest leader of the Tomb Raiders? Good heavens! The version I heard from my grandfather said he was aloof and arrogant, but now it seems like he's just a complete idiot!

I chuckled dryly, and Chen Yu continued, "Really, don't look down on him. He's the founder of the Tomb Raiders. Historically speaking, if he keeps going like this for another two years, he'll run into Cao Cao, who's fighting against Dong Zhuo. What does that mean? It means that if you follow your ancestor, you can get the rank of Tomb Raider Captain and even meet Cao Cao!"

Seeing Chen Yi's adoring expression, I suddenly felt that the two of them were actually relatives. I carefully observed the ancestor who lived in the same time and space as me not far away, and it felt especially unreal.

I looked closely, and if you were to say we resembled each other, aside from a high nose and two large dimples, there wasn't much else in common, after all, we were separated by sixty-nine generations. But for some reason, ever since I learned his identity, an indescribable warmth welled up in my blood. I silently gazed at my ancestor, dressed in a neat short-sleeved shirt, and the blood ties that separated us by more than eighteen hundred years slowly surfaced, unconsciously giving rise to a faint sense of filial piety towards him.

He is my family, I told myself over and over again. At this moment, in this place, besides my two brothers and the young Taoist priest, I actually encountered my family. This feeling was so subtle that it made my nose tingle.

I straightened myself up. Although I had met the legendary figure, I couldn't kneel before him and say, "I am your grandson from a very, very long time in the future." I sniffed and changed the subject, saying to the old man, "Aren't you planning to go back to the 21st century in two more years?"

Chen Yi said, "Alas, Liu Zi... Time travel is something you can hardly even dream of, let alone going back."

Upon hearing this, I voiced my suspicions: "The stone gate, we must go to the ancient tomb to find that stone gate. We must have traveled here because of it."

Chen Yi looked at me and laughed, "Liu Zi, you believe in these superstitious things now?"

I said, "Believe it or not, seeing is believing. A few days ago, the little Taoist priest and I encountered wild ghosts in the forest. We were making a lot of noise with gongs and drums. Right now, the whole adventure is like leveling up in a game. Nothing is impossible anymore."

Old Man Lao said, "Yes! Since we've all time-traveled, nothing is impossible anymore."

I said, "The Chu tomb we're going to now has the stone gate from when we traveled through it. I saw the gate to hell open, and many hands and women reached out from inside. You should have seen that too, right?"

I looked at Bao Cai and Lao Chou with a serious expression. They both looked at me with great suspicion. Bao Cai said to me, "Besides those seven tomb raiders, I didn't see anything else!"

"How could this be?" I exclaimed, my hair standing on end in utter astonishment. Just then, the old man spoke up, "I didn't see it either, but... I've already been to that Stone Gate Tomb you mentioned..."

"What!" I was completely bewildered. Then Chen told us something unexpected. The story went like this:

The Yuanling area of ​​Wuling County in Jingzhou, where we are now located, once contained numerous ancient tombs from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The late Eastern Han Dynasty, unlike our modern era, did not have such a long gap between itself and the Warring States period, and therefore did not offer a wide range of choices regarding the unearthed tombs and funerary objects. When people encountered bronze artifacts in that era, they would melt them down to recreate weapons and daily necessities for profit. Unlike in our time, a single ancient funerary object was often valued based on its cultural and historical significance, craftsmanship, and material.

Therefore, considering various practical factors and the ease with which funerary objects could be traded in secret, the Tomb Raiders chose to stay in a fixed area, that is, in the same place for a long time. My ancestor's subordinates, who were like junior Taoist priests, would find the location, and then he would lead two agile grave-digging experts to search for funerary objects.

The tomb that Lao Tiao helped to excavate was 170 kilometers away from the Chu tomb we were looking for. In ancient times, this journey would have taken several days on foot without rest.

This differs from my initial analysis. First, there are indeed two tombs, but they are not in the same place as I thought. The mistake was that I kept believing I was going to the tomb where Shimen is located, but I didn't realize I was actually going to the tomb of Liuhua and Tieniu's ancestors.

In other words, the stone gate we encountered in modern times was the one that Chen Tai and those seven tomb raiders had been to. Old Tai and my ancestor barely survived inside, and although they managed to escape, Luo Laosan, who was specifically used by the tomb raiders to locate the burial sites, suddenly died. Strangely, after his death, he turned into a rotting living person.

Old Jiao said his face, eyes, and even the smell of his body were strikingly similar to the seven tomb raiders we encountered in modern times. In other words, something in that Chu tomb turned them into that person, but they didn't discover the source of their trouble at the time. The tomb we're going to now is the one where Ge Yun and his companions encountered danger. What they have in common is that they are both tombs from the Chu Kingdom period, and both can create the strange phenomenon of the dead coming back to life.

After Luo Laosan's sudden transformation, the ancestor and Chen Yi found a dismembered corpse in the Shimen Tomb. The person's finger bones were very long. Based on the bamboo slips and a seven-stringed zither found in his main coffin, this person was Wu Xia, a famous man from the Chu state during the Warring States period.

My ancestors found it strange because during the Warring States period, musicians, also known as Lingren, had a very low social status, almost equivalent to slaves. However, they found many rare treasures in the tomb, such as exquisitely carved bronze square mirrors, jade pendants, and decorative objects that were only found in the palace.

To unravel the mystery, my ancestor and Chen Yi explored the inscriptions on the bamboo slips, which revealed a key detail: "flying birds" and "swimming fish." This was a common motif on the tomb door, and it appeared most frequently in Wu Xia's tomb. Bao Cai even remarked that it resembled an "alien." My ancestor translated the inscriptions, which roughly meant: "The flying bird and the swimming fish, one in the sky, one in the water, cannot be together. They are like us, separated by too many realities. But do not feel lonely; wait for me. When I return to the heavens in perfect bliss, I will surely be with you."

Based on these words, I can infer that they were spoken by a woman to a man in a sorrowful tone, and it is quite obvious that this woman was of very high status. Since the bamboo slip was recorded in that woman's voice, it is possible that the stone gate tomb was built by her.

Old Tai said it should be, but they had only looked at the bamboo slips out of curiosity and gotten some of the poison attached to them. The poison wasn't fatal, but it could cause excruciating pain at times. Old Tai and my ancestor were quite puzzled at the time. They continued reading, and the bamboo slips stated that if anyone wanted the antidote, they needed to go to the Chu tomb where she was located and rebury her body. In other words, they needed to bring the woman to the tomb where Wu Xia was located so that they could be reunited.

Upon hearing Chen Yi's words, I instantly understood why they had come here. What's remarkable is that after the death of Luo Laosan, who was in charge of locating the burial site, it was my ancestor who led the three of them to this place. He, like the young Taoist priest, could locate burial sites using feng shui energy.

However, our routes were different. We started from the central route, which is why we encountered the Miao people guarding the area. They, on the other hand, entered from the right-hand forest and encountered hidden traps within the vast forest. The existence of these anti-tomb-robbing devices made me admire the person who designed this tomb. I was also very curious as to why that woman could possess such a meticulously designed tomb, and what about those who came back to life?

As I thought about it, a scene suddenly flashed into my mind: under the shade of green trees, beside peach blossoms, amidst the swirling mist, an ancient woman in a robe was playing the zither with her jade-like fingers and singing softly by the lake... In that instant, my heart was struck like a thunderbolt, and I couldn't help but wonder: Could it be that the woman I saw in my illusion was the owner of that Chu tomb?

I was extremely surprised, recalling the silk that Chen Yi had once seen emitting red light, which merged with the "flying birds and swimming fish" pattern on the stone gate.

I anxiously asked Lao Tiao and the others if they had seen the red light. Lao Tiao said no, and asked if I had been hit in the head at that time.

His answer shocked me. When I pieced everything together, I felt like I had seen some truths that others couldn't. This left me extremely puzzled, and I couldn't help but wonder: Why did I see these things? Was I possessed, or did I gain some kind of superpower?