Chapter 241: Two Dragons Playing with a Pearl

While I was still studying those ever-burning lamps, He Yu had already moved a significant distance ahead. I wasn’t worried about him going off alone because the situation here was quite different from many we had encountered before. The ever-burning lamps hanging on the walls provided a wide field of vision, so even if He Yu walked far ahead, I could easily keep track of his position.

After running ahead for a bit, he doubled back. “I feel like this tomb passage is a little strange. It’s curved. Was it designed this way to bypass the mountain rock?”

He gave us a rough description of this horizontal stretch of the passage. In short, the two ends curved symmetrically around the center, and the bends were designed so naturally that the entire passage lay before us like a winding river. However, such a layout did not actually conform to the standard requirements for an imperial mausoleum.

As far back as several thousand years ago, ancient emperors had a specific set of rules for constructing tombs. It was only during periods of war, when dynasties changed too rapidly and many rulers were dragged off the throne shortly after ascending, that these tomb construction methods could no longer strictly follow standard systems and specifications. For example, in the late Northern Song Dynasty, many officials’ tombs began to imitate the layout of imperial mausoleums. Later on, one could even find the “Heavenly Treasure Fire Dragon Glazed Ceiling” (a Song Dynasty anti-theft mechanism) inside the burial chambers of the Jurchen Jin people.

But I had truly never seen a deliberately curved tomb passage in any ancient text, nor did it fit the style of any specific dynasty. Most tomb passages, whether vertical shafts or sloping ramps, were at the very least straight without exception. The King of Gune, who was buried here, had appeared out of nowhere. He left not a single trace in official histories, yet appeared frequently in unofficial histories and county annals. He must have been quite a figure in his day, so I didn’t believe for a second that this curved passage was without a deeper meaning.

Old Qian rubbed his chin. “A passage like this… it reminds me of a very specific layout.”

He Yu and I both looked at him.

“The tombs in a Dragon-Trapping Marsh lack water. They are sunken in the middle and high on all four sides to create that ‘trapped’ effect. But this layout requires two dragons to act as a suppression, forming a ‘Two Dragons Playing with a Pearl^[1]‘ formation.” Old Qian led us forward another ten meters or so to the end of the passage. “If this passage is one of the dragons of the Dragon-Trapping Marsh, then there should be another animal funerary pit behind this wall, directly opposite the one we saw earlier.”

He Yu asked, “Why would it have to be set behind the wall at the end of the passage?”

Old Qian gave a low chuckle. “Two circular funerary pits, one at the head and one at the tail, sandwiching a symmetrically curved passage in the middle… don’t you think that resembles a familiar pattern?”

It clicked for me instantly. Damn it, it forms a Bagua diagram! No wonder the middle passage was shaped like that. According to what Old Qian said about forming the Two Dragons Playing with a Pearl to suppress the Dragon-Trapping Marsh, there had to be more than just the one animal funerary pit we saw when we entered. There had to be at least four. That way, they could make up two dragons and form two complete, symmetrical Bagua patterns. But the Bagua is a Taoist symbol. Could it be that the King of Gune was a Taoist priest?

Seeing that we had reached the end of the passage, I said we should stop overthinking it. It wasn’t as if the mounds of these funerary pits were all self-contained. If they really didn’t connect to one another, we were still a hundred thousand li^[2] away from the King of Gune’s actual Underworld Hall. We should all look around for another path leading deeper into the tomb.

He Yu set Han Zhuo down on the ground. Now that the ever-burning lamps in the passage were lit, none of us were afraid anymore. Old Qian and He Yu began to confidently scatter to search for a passage.

I leaned my rifle against the tomb wall and knelt down to check Han Zhuo’s dislocated wrist. My own wrist had been dislocated before, so I had specifically asked Chen Canghai about the technique for resetting a joint. I hadn’t expected the opportunity to practice it would come so soon.

I felt Han Zhuo’s wrist to confirm the location of the dislocation. Supporting his arm with one hand and stabilizing his wrist with the other, I gave it a sudden, sharp lift in a specific direction. The pain from my rough resetting technique made Han Zhuo shudder violently, and he instantly showed signs of coming around. I quickly propped him up from the ground, called his name a couple of times, and gave him a few sips of water. I didn’t know how long the guy had been thirsty, but after drinking, he pretty much regained consciousness.

He looked up at me for a long moment. “Where is this?”

I gave him a brief summary of how we had carried him in just now. I also kindly reminded him that we weren’t far from the tomb entrance above; if he didn’t want to go down with us, he could go back up by himself and wait for rescue. We were a very loosely organized group, and we certainly wouldn’t force an injured man to take risks.

Han Zhuo snatched the backpack containing the Nine-Ring Jade Casket out of my hands, looking at me as if I were a thief. “Why did you save me?”

I stood up from the ground with my rifle, catching the implication behind his words. “I saved you because I couldn’t bear to leave you outside to be carried off and eaten by wild wolves! You don’t actually think I saved you for that thing in your bag, do you? Get one thing straight: back then, I was trying to get rid of that casket, not chasing it around. Now that I can dump it back on you, I couldn’t be happier, alright?”

Han Zhuo opened the bag to check the jade casket. Only then did he pull the zipper shut with relief, rubbing his wrist. “I don’t believe you.”

His words nearly made me choke on my own spit. I’d heard this guy spent all his time trailing around after Han Cheng in the business world, and clearly his brain had been corrupted by capitalism. He saw everything in terms of self-interest. Couldn’t he see that a fine, upstanding socialist youth like me would never put profit before principle?

I stopped paying attention to him and walked ahead with my rifle. “I’ve said my piece. Believe it or don’t, I don’t give a damn.”

I had only walked a few steps forward when I saw He Yu and Old Qian huddled together, rear ends stuck up in the air as they stared intently at something on the bluestone floor. As I walked over, He Yu quickly beckoned me to come look.

“Old Qian says there’s something wrong with these floor tiles.”

I leaned in to look. Carved into the tiles Old Qian pointed out was a complete Fuxi Bagua^[3] diagram. The center of the diagram aligned precisely with a seam between the tiles. Finding a complete Bagua diagram here was quite rare. Positioned at the exact center of the entire tomb passage, the diagram was neatly bisected by the floor seam. Even someone who knew nothing about the Bagua could tell at a glance that there was definitely something hidden underneath.

“You think this is the mechanism leading to the Underworld Hall?” I asked.

Old Qian gave the two floor tiles a push, but they fit together seamlessly. “I’m not sure, but the Fuxi Bagua appearing here is definitely abnormal. In this entire tomb passage, these are the only tiles with a Bagua diagram.”

I motioned for Old Qian to make some room. Rolling my sleeves up to my elbows, I got into position and dropped flat over the two tiles, leaning down to listen for any sound beneath them. After about ten seconds, I shook my head and climbed back up. I hadn’t heard any gears or axles operating, which meant there was no water below the tiles. Without water, there was no natural kinetic energy, ruling out the possibility of automated mechanisms.