I don't know if Qu Ruilin wanted to embarrass me in public or if he really believed me, but after listening to Song Laosan's advice, he started assembling the Luoyang shovel.

Ma Zhenhong, who was buried in Li Fan's tomb, was considered a master tomb raider, but Qu Ruilin's skills were far superior to his.

When Ma Zhenhong was drilling, he needed to use a flashlight to constantly shine on the hole to ensure that the probe was straight, while Qu Ruilin was like a machine, rotating the shovel head very precisely and steadily.

Monkey watched Qu Ruilin's retreating figure and said to me in a low voice, "Young Master Duan, it seems this pretty boy isn't a first-time tomb raider, otherwise he wouldn't be so skilled."

I share the same view as the monkey: "It's good that he has experience. If this person is really a half-baked amateur, the tunnel he digs will easily collapse."

As the Luoyang shovel continued to penetrate deeper, pillars of earth were soon brought out of the ground.

When they reached a depth of about five meters, Qu Ruilin suddenly paused: "There's a tomb underground!"

Song Laosan immediately perked up: "Ruilin, the soil on the ground hasn't changed at all, are you sure?"

"The feel is different."

As Qu Ruilin spoke, he pressed his palm down, a hint of doubt flashing in his eyes: "It's connected."

Wei Shengnan stepped forward: "No obstacles, you stormed straight into the tomb?"

Qu Ruilin lifted the Luoyang shovel in his hand, poured out the soil column inside, took out a bell that looked like a spinning top from his waist pouch, and let the string down: "What we dug out is large-patterned soil, which means that the tomb chamber below is an earthen tomb chamber, and it was only reinforced by ramming, without a layer of sand and gravel or a brick and stone tomb roof."

"Impossible! Since the Demon Monk's Tomb was built using Li Chunfeng's blueprints, how could it be so simple?"

Song Laosan pondered for a moment: "Could it be that we've stumbled upon an ancient Indian tomb by accident?"

“Ancient India did not have the custom of burial during the Tang Dynasty.” I blurted out: “In the second volume of the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, Xuanzang recorded the funeral customs of this place: When the deceased was dying, they wailed and wept, tore their clothes and pulled out their hair, and beat their foreheads and chests. There were three kinds of funeral rites: the first was cremation, where firewood was piled up and burned; the second was water burial, where the body was submerged and floated in the water; and the third was burial in the wild, where the body was abandoned in the forest to be fed to wild animals.”

“Perhaps this tomb isn’t from the Tang Dynasty, or maybe there’s some kind of underground cave?” Song Laosan said, but then realized his theory was flawed: “If it really is an underground cave, there shouldn’t be a layer of rammed earth!”

The monkey urged, "Hey, you've said so much, why don't you just open it and take a look!"

"Now that Duan Shenxing has found this place, and Brother Lin is certain there's a problem down there, let's investigate!"

Wei Shengnan made the decision and said to me and Qu Ruilin, "I'd appreciate it if you two could locate and open the acupoints!"

I heard Wei Shengnan call me by my name but call Qu Ruilin "brother." Thinking about what happened to me last night, I felt a little awkward, but I still took out the incense burner and other things I had prepared from my travel bag and prepared to set up an altar for worship.

While I was making preparations, Qu Ruilin also used a Luoyang shovel to determine the boundaries of the ancient tomb.

He looked at the boundary marked on the ground and frowned, saying, "This tomb is less than three meters long and wide. It's such a small, single-chamber earthen tomb, without even a tomb passage. It can only fit a coffin. According to the tomb structure of the Tang Dynasty, it is at most the tomb of an eighth-rank official."

“The existence of underground tombs here is highly unusual. Only by opening them can the truth be revealed!” Wei Shengnan looked at me: “Let’s open the tomb!”

I unfolded the folded altar, lit a piece of yellow paper, and solemnly chanted: "Dragons without proper stars cannot be observed, burial sites without proper forms cannot be peaceful, waters without proper flow cannot meander, and sands without proper names cannot be connected. Heaven and earth are natural, impurities dissipate, evil spirits are driven away, demons are bound, and countless ghosts are delivered!"

After I finished speaking, I picked up four incense sticks, placed them on the yellow paper, and lit them.

As luck would have it, a mountain breeze swept by and extinguished the flames of the yellow paper.

Only three sticks of incense in my hand were lit.

Seeing this, I recited the incantation again. This time, although there was no wind, only three incense sticks in my hand were lit.

Moreover, two of the three incense sticks still wouldn't go out no matter what.

According to folk customs, you can't blow on incense with your mouth when you light it, so I could only shake my wrist to try and extinguish it with the help of the wind.

In the blink of an eye, the unlit incense stick broke on the spot, and the flames of the remaining two incense sticks burned for several seconds before going out, and they were shorter than the middle one.

Seeing that I hadn't put the incense sticks into the incense burner yet, the monkey came over and asked, "Young Master Duan, what's wrong?"

"I have an incense stick in my hand, but I just can't light it!"

As I examined the incense stick closely, a bad feeling crept into my heart: "People are afraid of three long and two short, and incense is afraid of two short and one long. This incense has failed to light twice already. According to the rules, this tomb cannot be opened."

The monkey grinned and said, "It's just a formality, who cares what it looks like, just stick it in!"

Qu Ruilin spoke first: "No! This is the rule passed down from the ancestors of the four sects! It must not be broken!"

"That's right, we are inheriting the mantle of our ancestors, and we must uphold the traditions!"

Seeing Qu Ruilin's agitation, Song Laosan echoed him, then before Wei Shengnan could speak, he changed the subject, saying, "But rules are rules, people are flexible! Shenxing, you know the Wei family's situation! Can't you think of a way to work things out?"

I found this place not through geomancy, but by sheer chance, thanks to the ghost temple. Thinking of what happened the night before, my youthful arrogance hardened my heart: "Rooster blood, black crow feathers, rhinoceros horn, ancient ash, fish-head stone! Let's set up an exorcism altar! If there's a problem, we'll break it today!"

"Everything is ready!"

As expected of someone in logistics, Song Laosan walked right up to me with his bag: "The 'Eternal Ash' was caught from the incense burner at the temple, and the rhinoceros horn was bought from an antique shop. They're all genuine!"

I took the things that Song Laosan handed me, placed them on the edge of the altar, and lit another piece of yellow paper.

After the yellow paper was lit, another gust of wind blew in, but the flames on the offering table burned straight up.

This time, I finally lit four incense sticks and placed them in the incense burner: "Everyone, gather some firewood and light eight bonfires according to the Bagua directions. Qu Ruilin, we can start the construction!"

Qu Ruilin didn't waste any words and immediately put the shovel down at the determined location.

Once the eight bonfires were lit, Qu Ruilin's tunnel had been dug very deep, and he had Xu Hu and the others suspend him with ropes so that he could start digging headfirst.

The thing that ordinary tomb raiders fear most when they are working is being discovered to have dug a hole and stolen soil.

The quality of a tomb raider's methods can be discerned simply by observing the amount of soil they leave behind.

A true expert, when digging a vertical tunnel, will lay a canvas on top, then make holes in the canvas, pile the excavated soil on the canvas, and after finishing the work, simply lift the four corners of the canvas and pour the soil directly into the hole to backfill it, cleanly and efficiently, leaving no trace.

But Qu Ruilin dug a vertical tunnel, yet no soil was ever brought up.

I've heard of such things before. A very small number of expert tomb raiders can compact the soil when digging a tomb, leaving it inside the tunnel. It seems that Qu Ruilin's methods are even more sophisticated than I imagined.

The monkey looked at the steadily lit incense sticks, walked over and handed me a cigarette: "Young Master Duan, is there really a problem with this place?"

I vaguely replied, "Perhaps. Haruki Murakami once said that death is not the opposite of life, but rather exists as a part of life. When a person dies, it doesn't necessarily mean they are gone."

The monkey looked at the surrounding fire and muttered, "I don't know what Haruki Murakami said, but our village secretary did say that arson is a life sentence. I hope India doesn't have forest rangers."

Just then, Xu Hu, who was some distance away, saw the bell on the rope shaking rapidly and shouted, "The tunnel has been dug! Pull him up!"

I heard that the tomb passage had been opened up, so I hurried forward. But as soon as I got close to the tomb robbers, I suddenly felt a piercing pain on the spot on my arm where the teeth marks were.