As the monkey followed the points I marked and drilled forward to the second probe hole, it suddenly paused: "Young Master Duan, we've encountered something tough."

I got up and walked over: "How deep?"

"About one and a half meters!"

The monkey twirled the handle of the Luoyang shovel: "Isn't it a bit too shallow?"

I'm not interested in this depth: "Pull it up and let me see. I have a feeling you've probably just hit a rock."

"It doesn't feel like a stone. This thing doesn't feel as hard as a stone to my touch."

The monkey continued digging for a while, then lifted the shovel up.

Seeing this, I turned on my flashlight and shone it on the column of earth that the shovel had brought up.

"It's blue brick."

Seeing the debris in the soil, the monkey licked its lips and asked, "There's no rammed earth above the blue bricks. Could it be that we've dug up the top of the tomb?"

"No way."

I poked at the blue bricks in the soil with my knife, thought for a moment and said, "You stay here and clear the edge, I'll go take a look around. I think this place has probably been flooded before."

I threw a sentence at the monkey, then picked up my flashlight and walked deeper into the valley.

Perhaps worried that something might happen to me if I were alone, Xu Le followed me: "What are you looking for?"

"It's not certain yet, it's just a guess."

I shook my head slightly, and then began searching along the valley.

After walking about ten meters, the valley ahead becomes steeper, forming a slope of about 45 degrees.

I walked down the slope and started digging at the soil piled on top with my hands.

After digging about 30 centimeters, I felt a rock below.

Upon pulling it out, it turned out to be a badly worn blue brick.

Further down, there are quite a few more of these blue bricks.

I tossed the blue brick in my hand aside and clapped my hands: "We can go back now."

Xu Le was somewhat disappointed: "Is this all the bricks you're looking for?"

"I was just confirming my conjecture. The feng shui of that place was good. If it were paired with a large river, it would not only become a dragon but also a jiao (a type of dragon). No ordinary person would be hiding in such a place! Since there are man-made objects like blue bricks underground, it means there is definitely a tomb there! Such a large tomb without any above-ground structures means it was destroyed by a flash flood."

I climbed up the hillside and retraced my steps: "The above-ground structures of this tomb were not only destroyed, but also covered by silt and sand. So the brick my friend just dug up was not from the underground structure, but from the former above-ground structure."

Xu Le asked with some concern, "If the above-ground structures were all destroyed, will the tombs below also collapse?"

“Such large tombs all have strict waterproofing and earthquake resistance measures. Moreover, that tomb was not built on a river. It was probably destroyed by a mudslide from the mountain. The flash floods flowed away with the river. The terrain there does not retain water, so there shouldn’t be a big problem.”

I paused for a moment: "The problem now is that the original above-ground buildings have been destroyed, and there must be a lot of rubble and rocks under the soil. This will have a great impact on our subsequent positioning and excavation, and that is the most fatal thing."

When I returned to the site, the monkey had already drilled seven or eight test holes.

I looked at the earthen pillars scattered on the ground, walked over and asked, "How are they?"

"Don't even mention it, it was a complete mess."

The monkey stopped what it was doing, sighed, and said, "I don't know what's going on down there. The shovel can only go down two meters before it can't move anymore. It's either rocks or bricks. I've put the shovel down around all the obstacles, but there's resistance everywhere!"

I've already guessed what's going on: "The hard object you've dug up is just the above-ground structure of the tomb. When the above-ground structure was built here, it's very likely that it was paved with bluestone slabs or bricks."

The monkey said with some ambiguity, "This is not a good sign. The soil layers below are very complex, with several layers of various soils piled up. Even if I outline it, without any reference, we don't know where to start."

"Let's make a slanted hole."

I glanced at my watch: "It's almost ten o'clock now, and there's less than an hour left before the time to exhume the body. There's definitely no time to dig up the ground. First, draw out the outline, and I'll see what's going on here."

After listening to me, the monkey continued drilling the probe hole.

The soil along the river is relatively soft, which makes the monkeys work very efficiently.

In less than half an hour, the ground here was covered with dozens of probe holes.

The monkey broke off a few branches and stuck them in a row along the river: "Young Master Duan, the above-ground structures of this tomb are much larger than I imagined. It was built entirely along the river, with bluestone slabs paving all the way to where it connects with the mountains behind it, without leaving any gaps!"

"The scale of this tomb is indeed outrageously large."

I saw that the monkey's branches had almost enclosed the open area in front of us. He pointed to the dry riverbed and said, "According to the construction style of this tomb, there was a river in front and a layer of bluestone slabs in the back. This shows that the designer not only considered theft prevention, but also the possibility of flash floods! So the tomb below should not have been affected. Let's dig along the riverbed and make a sloping tunnel down."

Will this work?

The old man reminded them, "This is all sandy land. Even digging a hole on flat ground could cause it to collapse. What if someone gets buried inside if we dig a hole at an angle?"

"So you guys are lucky! There aren't many people in the whole of Northeast China who would dare to dig a tunnel in the sand."

The monkey took out digging tools from his backpack and waved to Manjing and the other two bodyguards, saying, "Go into the woods and find branches as thick as an arm, the long ones should be a meter long and the short ones half a meter long. There's no limit to the number, the more the better!"

When I heard the monkey say that, I already guessed what he meant: "You want to build a cross-shaped beam?"

The so-called "rice-shaped beam" refers to tree branches that are made to resemble umbrellas to support the tomb robbers' tunnels. A crossbeam is also placed on top of every two rice-shaped beams to prevent the tunnels from collapsing.

This thing sounds simple, but it's actually very difficult to do. When setting up the cross beams, even if the load-bearing point of one beam is not set up properly, the tunnel may collapse.

"The sand here is too soft. If we want to dig a hole at an angle, the cross-shaped beam is the only feasible solution."

The monkey nodded, but also expressed some concern: "If we're digging holes while raising the beams, the progress will definitely be slowed down. I don't know if we'll be able to make it in time."

"Let's do our best and leave the rest to fate! There are only two tombs in this area, so we have no other choice."

I turned around and waved to Xu Le and the old man, saying, "Let's help out and get the materials together as soon as possible."