Chapter 87

The composition of those murals was very peculiar and I figured they had been painted on the ceiling of the South Sea King’s tomb. I hadn’t paid any attention to them before. There were several silver rivers painted on the murals with ships sailing on them. From time to time, there were dragon towers and halls painted above the river, as well as wharf cargo stations. I covered my mouth. At that time, I had been shocked by Uncle Three’s reappearance and made a huge mistake in not noticing that there was something wrong with the walls.

If I had noticed this at the time, I wouldn’t have gone to Yang Daguang’s ancestral grave and could’ve gone directly to the South Sea King’s tomb. I wouldn’t have had to blow the mud up or be beaten by Uncle Two.

But after thinking about it, I realized it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I comforted myself as I connected all the causes and effects. Uncle Two probably realized that I wasn’t in a good state after I didn’t find something strange with the reception room’s walls. Then, I made at least ten wrong decisions right in front of him.

I continued looking through the information. On the seashore by Pingtan Island’s Liushui Town, Uncle Two and the others had found a hole near Xianren Well (1). The hole was the air outlet of an underground river, which led all the way into the underground river system.

I picked up my e-cigarette and noticed that Liu Sang hadn’t been in the team at that time. It seemed that his appearance was related to Uncle Two’s next plan. He probably only went down into the South Sea King’s tomb with us just to get close to his idol.

Before entering the South Sea King’s tomb, Uncle Two had noticed that there was something wrong with the pigment on the reception room’s murals.

The information that followed after that was Uncle Two’s detailed analysis of the murals in the main tomb chamber. His research was much more rigorous than mine and I felt a little uncomfortable when I saw the numerous annotations on the edge of the photos. Because the surrounding environment wasn’t the shop I had been familiar with for so many years, I couldn’t seem to focus enough to read. A strange, cold feeling seemed to penetrate deep into my bones from my little room.

I hid in my bed and curled up in the corner where the bed met the wall like I used to do when I was reading novels as a child. I then stuffed a pillow behind my back and went on reading.

I saw the mural depicting the construction of the South Sea King’s tomb. The mural was full of people in the sky, but Uncle Two had circled a strange figure among them. Not only was this figure different from the many figures in the series of murals, but it was even different from the immortals on the immortal boat in the sky. This person had been scalped and a bunch of holes were made in the exposed skull.

This man wasn’t dressed fancy, but wore ordinary clothes as he directed the workers to build. The immortals were beating drums above as dark clouds gathered. At that time, the South Sea’s King Zhi had obviously scalped his ministers or slaves and done something to their skulls so that they could hear the thunder more clearly. The South Sea King was probably obsessed by that point.

“This South Sea King’s tomb was built by listening to thunder,” I muttered to myself as I looked out the window at the cloudy day outside. If there really was such specific information in the thunder, then what secret was the immortal boat passing down that day?

It was definitely impossible, but I suddenly had an idea. Uncle Three and the others got inspiration from the South Sea King’s tomb. In the end, they listened to thunder everywhere. It wasn’t like I wanted to work recently anyways, so could I also chase thunderclouds? Maybe there was something special there.

Other than being struck by lightning, it wasn’t like there was any special danger in chasing thunderstorms. And the cost was very low, so I could handle it myself.

I suddenly thought of Liu Sang. In addition to listening to thunder and looking for underground tombs, Liu Sang also had a powerful ability: he could chase thunderclouds. Was it as I thought and Uncle Two’s next job for him was to chase thunderclouds?

When I thought of this, I decided to check the weather forecast. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to storm in Hangzhou any time soon. I decided to put the idea aside for now and continue looking through the information. Uncle Two had taken a lot of close-ups of the next mural. I looked carefully and found that I wasn’t supposed to be looking at these close-up details of the mural, but at the numerous pencil marks that were there. These marks were the result of someone carelessly copying the mural.

Uncle Two’s note read: This was the only mural copied back then.

<Chapter 86><Table of Contents><Chapter 88>

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TN Notes:

(1) Xianren= Daoist immortal/celestial being. Here are some pictures. Some other travelers posted reviews/pics here (ignore the weird close-up of that chick’s butt and scroll down).