Ancient tomb excavation traces

After the young Taoist priest told us a few key words about the Miao witch's sleep-talking, the five of us sat together and began to try to decipher their meaning. The more we tried, the more confused we became. For example, one sentence seemed to be the witch begging her grandmother not to kill her father. I immediately thought, who would be so cruel as to kill their own son-in-law? Another sentence seemed to be her venting, saying she didn't want to be a gravedigger. The later sentences were more fragmented, and the young priest didn't understand them either, so we waited for her to wake up.

During this time, I noticed a faint layer of black mist covering the young Taoist's face, which made me very uneasy. However, since he had the jade inside his jacket, I couldn't see what was happening. I could only pull him aside and quietly tell him that I knew what would happen after the black mist spread, and ask him how long he could hold on.

To my surprise, he didn't appreciate it at all, simply replying, "It's alright, I can hold on until we get out." With that, he turned and sat down in a corner, leaving me standing there alone. To be honest, I'd grown accustomed to his calm and collected demeanor, and knew he preferred to keep everything to himself. If I tried to show concern, he'd become uncomfortable. Now, I could only silently observe his expression, praying that he could control the evil spirit within the jade.

A long time had passed, and staying in this place was unpleasant. Opening their eyes revealed dried corpses, closing them showed them as they were in life. The area where they lay was almost entirely filled with these things. Bao Cai said, "Without the Five-Colored Exquisite Heart to control them, the spirits could form an entire army of ghosts. Just how many people were buried here?"

As I listened to what Bao Cai was saying, I suddenly realized that after all that rambling, this last sentence finally hit the nail on the head.

Indeed, the corpses here could form a whole horde of spirits if they were to turn into ghosts. Logically speaking, a witch's tomb shouldn't have so many people buried alive with her, even if she was a member of the royal family as Chen Yu said. It wouldn't warrant such a grand display, given the low status of women in ancient times.

Another point that puzzles me is that most tombs in the Warring States period were rectangular vertical pit wooden coffin tombs, and very few tombs were located inside mountains. What is the deeper symbolism and meaning of this?

This awkward question lingered in my mind. Suddenly, I remembered a book I'd read about rituals, which described a ceremony of making an alliance with the heavens. It said that during these rituals, ancient kings would have a secluded place with auspicious feng shui chosen to facilitate communication with the gods. Judging from the identity of the Chu Kingdom shaman and the scene carved beside the waterfall, the person in robes was the tomb's owner. She possessed the ability to sense the heavens and earth, and thus chose this location for her tomb, hoping to continue praying for the country even in death. I rested my head on my hands, uncertain of the answer, and the more I thought about it, the more confused I became. My thirst for the truth was urging me on. Bao Cai and Chen Tai, on the other hand, had it simpler; they only wanted the funerary objects from the tomb.

This is understandable. When Chen Yi was in the antique business in his early years, he dealt in items circulating among the common people. He had to have a keen eye and skillful methods to find any treasures. Not only did he go through a lot of trouble, but he also spent a lot of money, almost losing everything. Now, they've come to an ancient tomb, where the funerary objects are ancient, have high cultural value, and are in a complete artistic form. For them, one a collector and the other a money lover, it's like a mouse falling into a rice jar.

Watching them chuckle and talk about the funerary objects they had seen earlier, I shook my head helplessly, thinking that I was already covered in injuries, and I shouldn't ask for such wealth. I'd rather go out and dig up some tree roots and wild vegetables.

The young Taoist priest remained silent, sitting to one side. I looked at him, thinking that this might be the ancient figure we would admire a thousand years from now. After glancing at him again, I lay back, gazing at the breathtaking stone curtains and stalagmites, reflecting on my recent experiences. Although I had suffered a lot, life had been quite eventful. I used to think I was too much of an art student, lacking the passion and spirit of a man, but this trip felt like a rebirth.

Thinking in this disjointed way, the Miao witch woke up more than four hours later. When she woke up, she looked around and looked at the five of us, a hint of joy flashing in her eyes.

At this moment, Chen Yi was the most excited. He had always been picking on her before, but after being saved, his attitude changed drastically.

I let her rest for a while, and then I started thinking about how to bring it up. Bao Cai, who was beside me, whispered, "Young master, that barbarian girl has feelings for you. If you ask her, it's like asking her through a thin veil; if we ask her, it's like asking her through a vast ocean."

"Pah! What do you mean we're separated by the sea? I'd say it doesn't matter who asks," Chen Yi retorted, unconvinced.

I was just wondering how to ask when Chen Yi volunteered, so I went along with it and let him ask it himself.

Chen Yi readily agreed at first, but when he suddenly faced the woman he admired, he became coy and said, "I didn't quite get my words out..." He then nudged Bao Cai and said, "You're usually the most talkative, you go ask her!"

Bao Cai, who had always wanted to stay out of it, became unhappy when this was mentioned and started shouting. Just as the three of us were shoving each other, the Miao witch and Chu Ba looked at us suspiciously. Chen Yi, seeing the awkward atmosphere, quickly put his mind to it, forced a smile, and said, "Miss, you've taken good care of us along the way, and we still don't know your name..."

The Miao girl glanced at him, then whispered, "Lan Quexi."

"Oh, so it's Miss Lan." Chen Yi said in surprise. Seeing that Lan Quexi wasn't as cold as before, he got up and sat down next to her, revealing that businessman's smile, looking like he was going to play his usual trick.

Just as he was trying to unravel the mystery in his own way, the young Taoist priest in the corner spoke up, getting straight to the point: "Miss Lan, why do you know the structure of the ancient tomb? What else do you know?"

When Lan Quexi was asked these questions, a trace of unspeakable sorrow flashed across her face. She looked up and around at her surroundings, then smiled bitterly and said, "You probably can't imagine that this will be where I live from now on..."

"What? Here?" Bao Cai exclaimed in surprise, "Then you've become the Little Dragon Girl of the Ancient Tomb Sect?"

As soon as he said that, Chen Yu slapped him on the forehead and said, "Don't talk nonsense, how would she know about Little Dragon Girl?"

Bao Cai, seeing that he had been beaten again, was furious and started cursing. Chen Yu covered his mouth and asked Lan Quexi, "Miss Lan, what exactly happened? Liu Zi said that when you were outside, you were with six strange-faced men, who seemed to be guarding this Chu tomb. But why did those people want to take your life?"

I almost forgot about this if Chen Yi hadn't brought it up. Indeed, she was clearly in cahoots with the Gu tamer back then, but the plot took a turn for the worse. If she doesn't tell us the truth, it's hard for us to figure it out.

Lan Quexi smiled faintly and said sadly, "Because they hate me, they hate my grandmother."

"What kind of person was your grandmother? You dreamt that she killed your father," Chen Yi asked, seeing some progress.

Lan Quexi lowered her head, looking very listless. She said blankly, "That's right, she killed my father..." As she said the word "father," two lines of tears slid down her cheeks.

Looking at her, Chen Yi and I exchanged glances. Perhaps the questions we asked were too complex, and we had been too abrupt, which is why she was lost in thought for a long time.

In the brief moment of our silence, she wiped away her tears, looked straight ahead, and said, "We've all died before, there's no need to hide anything from you anymore..."

I was surprised by what she said, but suddenly I saw hope. My heart was pounding, as if she was about to tell me a shocking secret.

Before she spoke, she sighed deeply. This time, she was calmer than when Chen Yi asked her the last time. However, she had thought about it for a long time before she was willing to tell us everything.

These things are basically about her, and although they are somewhat disorganized, they are key to objectively unraveling the past of the owner of the Chu tomb.

Years ago, Lan Quexi's father was a somewhat well-known tomb raider named Cao Qiuji (Lan Quexi took her mother's surname). During one of his tomb raiding expeditions, he obtained several silk scrolls from a Chu noble's tomb. Some of the scrolls described the location of a Chu royal tomb, while others recounted the extraordinary life of the tomb's occupant, describing it in a very fantastical and even slightly frightening way.

However, for tomb raiders, encountering a royal tomb is extremely rare. Cao Qiuji ignored the mystical descriptions and warnings on the silk scroll and, following its instructions, arrived with his companions at a riverbed riddled with traps. That riverbed was where I reunited with Chen Yi, and it was there that Cao Qiuji encountered danger.

The person guarding the ancient tomb at that time was Lan Quexi's mother. After she encountered the dying Cao Qiuji, she did not take the opportunity to kill him, but hid him in a cave and took good care of him.

As time went by, the two gradually developed feelings for each other and became inseparable. However, the Miao people who guarded the ancient tomb in the deep mountains did not accept outsiders. Lan Quexi's mother, Lan Yuyuan, was also a woman of strong character. After everyone objected, she secretly pledged her life to Cao Qiuji and lived with him in the cave for six years.

During this time, the couple lived a relatively comfortable life, with two children, a Miao girl and her brother Lan Youyu. Cao Qiuji would often tell them about people and things in the outside world, which gave them beautiful fantasies about the world they had never seen.

But fate played a cruel trick on them. When Lan Quexi was seven years old, she and her brother were forcibly taken back to the Miao village by their grandmother, who wanted them to learn from a young age how the Miao witches made poisons and controlled gu.

Cao Qiuji initially objected, simply because he didn't want his children to learn anything evil from a young age. However, he gradually discovered that things were far more complicated than he had imagined. Through questioning Lan Yuyuan, he finally learned the identity of the Miao people living deep in the mountains and the future whereabouts of his two children. He lamented that his children's fate was to be trapped in the ancient tomb of Chu, and tried to lead them away from this place, but he failed. On the first day of their escape, he was captured by his own people and killed by Lan Quexi's grandmother using Gu poison, dying a tragic death in front of his children.

Afterwards, Lan Quexi's mother cried out about the sins she had committed, and then followed her husband in death, leaving her children to face a cruel grandmother. From a young age, they were taught to guard the graves of their ancestors and not to disobey, or they would suffer the same fate as their deceased father.

On one hand, she yearns for the outside world, but on the other hand, she is bound by clan rules. Lan Youyu and Lan Quexi live in dire straits.

However, despite the hardships of life, Lan Youyu was very sensible from a young age and always protected his younger sister. On the anniversary of his parents' death, he took Lan Quexi to the cave where they used to live. And one day, they discovered the Warring States period silk scroll left by their father.

Lan Youyu was different from other Miao boys from a young age. When Cao Qiuji was around, he often taught him some ancient characters to pass the time. Over time, he learned many of them and found joy in it.

After translating the contents of the silk scroll, he became increasingly resistant to the mission of guarding the tomb. Lan Quexi learned of the contents of the silk scroll. Although she was also unwilling, she could only persuade her brother, because she often dreamed of their tragically deceased father and feared that her brother would follow this path of no return. So she kept telling him to suppress his inner dissatisfaction.

However, the beginning of things, like a circle, seemed preordained... Lan Youyu's ending was tragic, and I seemed to understand why Lan Quexi was outwardly cold but inwardly warm. Having endured too much hardship and tasted too many joys and sorrows, even the most clever, kind, and warm-hearted person would become hostile towards the people and things of the world. Looking at her now, I felt pity and admiration, because deep down she had always resisted her fate. This kind of resistance to fate is not something all ancient girls possess. At this moment, I was grateful that I had pulled her into the treacherous waterway, igniting the spark of hope in her, freeing her from repression, and allowing her to truly face herself.

But why was her grandmother so cruel, and why were the Miao people in the deep mountains so determined to guard the ancient tomb? Perhaps only the silk scroll found by Cao Qiuji can provide the answers...