After hearing my words, a glimmer of hope finally rose in Xu Le's eyes: "Since you are so familiar with Qing Dynasty tombs, can you roughly deduce the location of the Mute's Courtyard? That way, we only need to excavate the location of the Mute's Courtyard, right?"
“If we go through the tomb passage, we will face many problems. In comparison, I would prefer to dig a tomb passage that leads directly to the main burial chamber, which would save the most time and avoid trouble. Now it seems that this shortcut is not possible, and the Mute Courtyard is our only way out.”
I nodded, then turned my gaze to one of the Wei family bodyguards: "Among the supplies we're carrying, are there any explosives?"
"No! Although we are on a private plane, we still need to go through airport security. Explosives are something that cannot be brought on a civilian plane under any circumstances."
The Wei family bodyguard paused for a moment, then took out a satellite phone and said, "If needed, I'll have someone prepare it now and send it to us as soon as possible."
"Contact Song Laosan, send him our location, and tell him to bring explosives over. Hopefully, we can make it in time."
I tossed a sentence to the Wei family bodyguard, then drew the military dagger from my waist, walked to an open area, carved the outline of a door in the ground, and then looked at the open space in front of me, my mind racing.
At this moment, I have put myself in the shoes of the tomb's designer.
In my imagination, countless buildings have already sprung up.
High pavilions, long corridors, and courtyards are all in front of you.
I walked a distance along the open ground and pointed to the ground, saying to the monkey, "Make a 'plum blossom' pattern here, with a probe hole every fifteen centimeters, to see if there are any blue bricks underneath."
"Okay!"
The monkey, holding a Luoyang shovel, quickly drilled several test holes in the ground as I requested: "Young Master Duan, you found the perfect spot! These few shovelfuls have all dug up blue bricks!"
I marked a spot on my feet: "This is the blue brick archway. Keep digging south from here, and record the depth of each borehole. Let me know if there are any changes."
Upon hearing this, the monkey pulled out a red rope from its backpack, tied it to the shovel handle, and continued its surveying journey ahead.
After traveling a dozen meters, the monkey paused: "Young Master Duan, the altitude has changed. I've sunk half a meter down here."
"It didn't sink half a meter, it just means you dug down to the ground of the mute's courtyard."
I walked over and made another mark: "The blue brick archway is an arched gate that was built up. Even if it was hit by a flash flood, it would at most collapse, but it wouldn't be washed away. So the remains are piled up together."
"Hey, you're amazing!"
Xu Le was stunned by my words: "You're amazing! You can see everything underground just by standing on the ground where there's nothing there. Do you have some kind of third eye?"
I smiled and looked at her: "What, does someone in your Hu family's shamanic tradition have the ability to see the heavens?"
"To be precise, the spirit mediums themselves have no magical power. We, as incense attendants, are just a medium. However, after being chosen, some people do possess some of the special abilities of the spirits! Take Hu Tiangang, whom we worship, for example. He has nine kinds of magical arts, but there are at least a hundred incense attendants who worship him. So at most, only nine people can possess one of his abilities! As for Grandma Ma's great-grandfather, she only has one incense attendant, so her ability is also strong."
Xu Le paused for a moment: "Our branch of Hu Tiangang doesn't have the Heavenly Eye! I heard that some of Hu Tiankai's incense boys have this ability. They can not only see what's behind obstacles, but also see things that normal people can't see."
I casually asked, "Things that ordinary people can't see? Are they ghosts?"
"It's hard to explain to you, but a true shaman is definitely not one of those charlatans who make a big fuss just to make money."
Xu Le paused for a moment: "Perhaps you will have the opportunity to see it in the next few days."
"If things are as I imagine, I'd rather I couldn't see anything at all."
I walked about ten meters forward from where the monkey had last dug with its shovel: "Everyone come and lend a hand. We need to dig here and see if we can find any trace of the screen wall."
As soon as he finished speaking, Manjing and the other two bodyguards all walked to the designated position and began digging with entrenching tools.
With the combined efforts of the six of us, a deep pit was quickly dug out of the ground.
"when!"
Manjing swung his shovel, felt resistance, and cleared the ground: "Brother, we've hit a rock."
Holding an entrenching tool, I continued digging in the soil beside me: "Keep expanding, clear out this area, and pay special attention to the stones with patterns."
We've been working on this for so long, it's already past 11 o'clock, and we only have less than two hours left before the deadline Xu Le mentioned.
Everyone present knew the importance of this matter, and even the old man worked hard without the slightest complaint.
The location I chose was about three and a half square meters away from the blue brick archway, which is where the screen wall is located.
After digging for about five minutes, one of the Wei family bodyguards turned to me and said, "Mr. Duan, I've found something!"
I used my flashlight to search around and saw a corner protruding from the sand. I quickly walked over and said, "This tomb actually has a screen wall made of white jade. Although the quality is average, the scale is much higher than I imagined. This is not a good sign. Let's continue digging and see how much of this screen wall remains."
With the combined efforts of several of us, the sand in front of us was cleared away again.
A screen wall, also known as a mirror wall, is a wall used in traditional Chinese architecture to block the view, much like a large screen.
When this courtyard was damaged, the screen wall was already broken, and only some scattered fragments could be found.
I pulled out a slightly larger piece of the screen wall, rinsed it with drinking water from the kettle, and after seeing the pattern on it, my face turned extremely ugly: "This is really messed up!"
Xu Le became anxious: "What happened?"
"The carvings on this are not dragons, but phoenixes, which means that a woman was buried in this tomb."
I turned to look at Xu Le: "Can a female corpse create a zombie?"
"Zombies don't seem to have a gender distinction, do they?"
Xu Le looked at me blankly: "My elders have never told me any of this!"
"Whether it works or not, we have no choice but to bite the bullet and go for it."
I shifted my gaze from the jade stone: "Since a screen wall was once erected here, there must be traces on the ground. Keep searching."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com