The three of us worked together to pry open the floor tiles beneath the screen wall, revealing the steps leading down below.

The monkey looked at the stairs and smiled, "Young Master Duan, we've been wandering around this tomb for almost two hours now. Since the entrance is below the screen wall, are we almost at the main burial chamber?"

I stood in front of the entrance, looking at the walls on both sides, and felt a little awkward: "Perhaps so. We accidentally entered the underground river and avoided many traps in the tomb passage by chance. However, along the way, something has always been missing."

"What's missing?"

"mural!"

I pointed out the crux of the problem: "Apart from the very beginning of entering the Zewang Tomb, we haven't seen any other murals! According to the normal characteristics of Jin tombs, high-ranking tombs would use brick carvings in the tomb passage leading to the burial chamber, depicting gate towers, lattice doors, windows, tables and chairs, screens, lamps, flower pots, etc., and there would also be guardian lions. For a tomb of the scale of Hushahu, there would most likely also be bodyguard figurines, and even burial pits!"

Song Laosan nodded: "So you're analyzing that this isn't a tomb chamber?"

"If we're lucky, it'll just be the tomb passage leading to the burial chamber."

I pointed to the passage from which the group had just escaped: "Since this tomb can use an underground river as a transportation channel, it can be inferred that a large amount of materials were used during its construction, and its scale is probably larger than we imagined. Let's go in and take a look. I hope my guess is wrong."

"I'll go first!"

The monkey adjusted the height of its headlamp and was the first to enter the tunnel. As soon as it went in, a voice came out: "Young Master Duan, your jinx seems to have come true!"

Seeing the monkey standing motionless on the stairs, I pressed on, "What's going on inside?"

The monkey's voice became somewhat unnatural: "Well... I can't say for sure, you should come down and see for yourself."

The entrance was only half a meter wide. I walked down and squeezed next to the monkey, and I froze on the spot.

In front of the entrance is a one-meter-wide alley, and the corner is ten meters away.

What shocked us was the existence of a mercury river in this alley, filled with small boats painted in various colors and made of some unknown material.

On each of the small boats, a little baby with rosy cheeks sat cross-legged.

These little children all looked to be two or three years old. Because they had been injected with a large amount of mercury, their bodies had not decomposed, but were rather shriveled, as if they were asleep.

Song Laosan squeezed in at this moment: "There's so much mercury here! Luckily we got gas masks, otherwise we would have been knocked unconscious by the fumes with just medical masks!"

From the Stele Forest to here, a large amount of mercury has been found in the Ze Wang Tomb. From this, I concluded that A Shi Yi was a person who was accustomed to using mercury. Such a method of theft prevention would have been impossible to solve in ancient times.

Mercury is a common and ruthless anti-theft mechanism in ancient tombs, and how to defend against it is an essential skill for tomb raiders. Therefore, I did not share Song Laosan's optimism: "Not just any gas mask can prevent mercury poisoning, and once the concentration of toxic vapor reaches 20%, any filter canister will be useless. The masks that come with our rat suits use multi-functional filter cloth, which is not very effective. Everyone needs to get through here as soon as possible!"

The monkey made a move to take a step: "What are we waiting for! Let's hurry up and go!"

"Wait! We don't know what's under this mercury. What if there are razor blades or something? It would be troublesome if it pierced our skin!"

I reached out and grabbed the monkey, pointing to a small boat ahead: "Use the grappling hook to pull the small boat over, and then we'll wade across using these boats!"

Monkey, usually a carefree person, has always loved children. He took out his grappling hook and said to me, "Young Master Duan, these children were killed in this place before they even experienced this world. Why don't we take them out and give them a proper burial? That way, these children won't have lived in vain, and we can also accumulate some good karma for ourselves."

"Impossible. There are eighteen boys and girls here. We can't take so many people with us. Besides, their bodies are filled with mercury, and it's dangerous to come into contact with them."

I gently shook my head, and while the monkeys were dragging the small boats, I began to recite the Taoist classic "Taishang Jiuku Jing" (Scripture of the Supreme Being Who Saves from Suffering) to pray for the children's salvation: "At that time, the Heavenly Venerable Who Saves from Suffering pervades the ten directions, and constantly uses his divine power to save all sentient beings from their delusions. Sentient beings are unaware of this, like blind people seeing the sun and moon..."

While I was reciting the scriptures, the monkey used its grappling hook and zipline to drag over the nearest few small boats, waved them at the little babies on them, and then picked them up and put them aside.

Immediately afterwards, we stepped onto the small boats. I tapped them and discovered that the boats were made of metal. Because their density is lower than that of mercury, they were able to float.

The mercury here is only a dozen centimeters high, but in ancient times when refining was difficult, this was an extremely large undertaking. If it weren't for royalty and nobility, it would have been impossible to gather so much mercury.

We stepped onto the small boat and began to wade through the mercury, and as we moved forward, we could clearly feel something beneath the mercury.

These small boats were made of metal, and although mercury is liquid, it is still metal, so we had a lot of trouble moving around. After walking about six or seven meters, I started to feel dizzy, and Song Laosan and Monkey next to me also started coughing.

Seeing that both of them were showing symptoms of acute mercury poisoning, I shook my head and said, "The concentration of toxic gas here is higher than I thought. We need to speed things up, or we won't be able to get out!"

The monkey, leaning against the wall, asked me with difficulty, "Young Master Duan, I feel my throat is swollen, and there's a bloody taste in my mouth. Have I been poisoned?"

I licked the roof of my mouth and found that my oral mucosa had peeled off: "These are symptoms of acute mercury poisoning. The bloody taste in your mouth is from respiratory bleeding. If it progresses further, it will cause shock due to liver and kidney damage. If we hadn't been wearing gas masks, we probably wouldn't have made it by the time we lifted the stone slab!"

As I was talking, I finally reached the corner of the alley.

Ahead lay another river of mercury, now devoid of small boats, replaced by swarms of spears.

These spears were fixed to the ground haphazardly, facing different directions, like a giant hedgehog lying in our path.

"Cough cough!"

Old Song clutched his chest and coughed, looking at the stone gate behind the spear with a troubled expression: "Damn it, how are we going to get through this?"

I took my foot out of the small boat and tentatively dipped it into the mercury to make sure I was on solid ground before I said, "Monkey, bring a few more small boats over and lay them on top of these spears to make a path!"

"Um, I... Pfft!"

Just as the monkey was about to reply, it suddenly shuddered and spat out a mouthful of blood onto its mask.