Chapter 62 Gate of Life

Qimen Dunjia originated more than 4,600 years ago, which was almost as long as China’s recorded history. The first person to use Qimen Dunjia was our ancestor the Yellow Emperor⁽¹⁾, who then passed it down from generation to generation. Almost every military strategist or anyone involved in military affairs knew a little bit about it, but in fact, after the Han Dynasty, the Qimen Dunjia was no longer a complete text. This was because after old man Huangshi passed it on to Zhang Liang⁽²⁾, the fucker simplified it so much that later generations basically couldn’t understand it.

My knowledge of Qimen Dunjia mainly came from Uncle Two (not Uncle Three). Although I didn’t know much about it, when Zhang Qiling mentioned it, I at least didn’t look like Fatty, who was staring at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. Qimen Dunjia had 4,320 parts at first, but when it fell into the hands of the Yellow Emperor, he only understood 1,080 parts of it. By the time it reached Zhang Liang, there were 72 parts. Now, only 42 parts had been collected and sorted by my Uncle Two, which was very rare. There were only 18 known parts in the world but my Uncle Three had stumbled across the other parts in a Han tomb.

Although Qimen Dunjia was a mysterious divination method, it was used in the art of war and to also determine one’s fate. Using it, you could arrange troops on the battlefield and boost their fighting spirit. Qimen Dunjia was also called the “Eight Battle Formations” and could be divided into eight gates: Prosperity Gate, Rest Gate, Life Gate, Death Gate, Fear Gate, Injury Gate, Failure Gate, and Pleasure Gate. The Life Gate would lead you to life while the Death Gate would lead you to death. If you entered any of the other gates, you would see all eight gates again and the cycle would repeat over and over again.

When Zhang Qiling found these eight hidden doors, he naturally thought of Qimen Dunjia. But these hidden doors were actually very narrow and could only accommodate one person passing through sideways. Moreover, the area was shrouded in fog and the brick wall with the doors would sometimes rotate. You had to push on the bricks to open the doors, but after entering, the door would automatically close. If he hadn’t started probing along the wall, he wouldn’t have noticed that there was something strange here at all.

Zhang Qiling was a little upset with his own carelessness. He wasn’t a reckless person, but he had been too eager for quick success just now and ended up failing. In this world, strange and ingenious traps were usually small and performed one specific action, but this place was the complete opposite. In other words, this mechanism was large and complex, which made it difficult for him to defend against.

When he walked back to the stele and told the group what he had found, everyone immediately went into an uproar. Not only was Qimen Dunjia generally very difficult to understand and knowledge was limited, but they had just been baptized by the Cultural Revolution. How could they possibly understand it? Chen Wen-Jin pondered over it for a while before suddenly saying, “Wu Sanxing’s behavior just now was very strange. It was almost like he was possessed by a female ghost. Could this ghost be the owner of this tomb, and the hidden door he just entered be the ‘Life Gate’?”

Zhang Qiling looked into her eyes and saw that she seemed to have thought of something. “Did you think of something?” He asked her.

Chen Wen-Jin told him to follow her and then turned and walked in front of the stele. Imitating Uncle Three, she knelt down and began combing her hair. She had a good figure so she looked especially attractive kneeling in such a position. In fact, several of the men in the group stared at her in a daze. After combing her hair a few times and slowly turning her head from left to right, she suddenly trembled and shouted, “I found it!”

After hearing this, everyone immediately gathered around and examined the stele for a long time but they still couldn’t see anything. “No, not like that,” Chen Wen-Jin said. “You can only see it if you do what I did and kneel right here!” Zhang Qiling seemed to understand what she was talking about and immediately knelt down. Chen Wen-Jin pressed down on his shoulder and said, “You’re too tall. You need to bend down a little. And don’t look straight ahead. You have to look to the side, as if you’re looking at your temples.”

Zhang Qiling felt ridiculous but he still followed her example and combed his hair before glancing sideways in a demure manner. At this time, he suddenly saw his reflection on the mirror-like stele, but there were three indistinct fish connected together in a circle where his temple should’ve been. He moved his head again and found that as long as the angle was slightly off, the fish would immediately disappear.

Now that he knew what the so-called “destiny” meant, he couldn’t help but sigh and curse to himself. It seemed that only a woman who loved beauty enough to kneel down in front of this stele to straighten her hair would be able to see this mark, but it wouldn’t work if she was too tall or too short. Thankfully, Chen Wen-Jin had been observing everything carefully; otherwise, a big man like himself wouldn’t have been able to discover this secret no matter how hard he thought about it. (When I heard this, I suddenly wondered if this tomb owner was a pervert.)

Zhang Qiling stared at the fish very carefully and found that the mark was also slowly moving. There appeared to be a mechanism inside this stele that rotated at the same speed as the wall, and the position facing the mark would always be the so-called “door to Heaven”. Thinking of this, he asked Chen Wen-Jin to keep an eye on the mark as he turned on his flashlight and ran to the wall to locate the hidden doors one by one. When he reached the third hidden door and shined his flashlight on it, Chen Wen-Jin saw that the mark on the stele coincided with the spot of light from his flashlight and shouted, “That’s it!”

Everyone cheered, and even Zhang Qiling couldn’t help but clench his hand into a fist. He forcefully pushed the hidden door open and then slid inside, where there was a very narrow passage that led deeper into the tomb. This time, Zhang Qiling was very careful and felt all of the surrounding walls first to ensure that there were no other mechanisms before calling the others over.

The passage was also made of granite slabs. It was only wide enough for one person to walk through at a time so two slightly fatter people wouldn’t be able to walk side-by-side at all. Zhang Qiling walked in front with a flashlight, trying to see what was up ahead. He found that the darkness in front of him, combined with the blue-green color of the granite, created a kind of eerie glow that made the passage seem like it was a road to the underworld. He pulled himself together and walked very carefully through the passage. As soon as he heard any kind of strange noise, he would stop and wait for a long time to see if anything was going to happen. But he had completely become the leader of the group by this time so everyone obeyed him without raising any complaints.

They walked on for the amount of time it would take to smoke half a cigarette. The passage in front and behind them was pitch black, which made Zhang Qiling feel as if they were the only people left in the whole universe. It was an uncomfortable feeling. But at this time, the passage began to slope upward and he found that there was a dim light far in the distance. It was warm and yellow like the light from the setting sun. Zhang Qiling knew that they had finally reached the end of the passage and called out to the others while quickening his pace. That point of light was getting closer and closer, and then suddenly, the floor leveled out and the whole world suddenly seemed to be enveloped in a golden light. He hurriedly blinked his eyes a few times to let his vision adjust and then involuntarily cried out and almost fell to his knees.

In front of them was a huge rectangular room. But rather than describing it as simply big, it was extremely domineering and had such a majestic atmosphere that people couldn’t help but want to kneel as soon as they saw it.

On each side of the room were ten solid golden nanmu pillars that were so wide, three people holding hands wouldn’t be able to wrap their arms around them. They were just like the pillars supporting the sky at the ends of the earth.⁽³⁾ The walls on the left and right sides were about thirty meters long and made of yellow mortar bricks. There were also ten magnificent five-clawed golden dragons ornately carved on the ceiling beams. The ceiling itself, which was almost ten meters high, was inlaid with a fifty-star map. Each star was a resplendent night pearl⁽⁴⁾ the size of a goose egg that was emitting a faint yellow light. In the four corners of the room were big mirrors that reflected this yellow light off of each other. Although the light wasn’t very bright, it was still enough to illuminate the whole space. But what surprised them the most was that there was a huge stone platform in the middle of the room, on top of which sat a large-scale model. Zhang Qiling knew at a glance that it was a model of the palace. Even though it was just a model, it was still very spectacular with its throne hall, artificial rock garden, and flowing water. It basically had everything that should be in such a place.

Zhang Qiling ran over and excitedly circled around the platform several times. After examining it closely, he immediately realized that this was a model of the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds. He didn’t feel any disappointment upon seeing the model, however, because from the very beginning, he didn’t believe that they would find the heavenly palace itself inside this ancient tomb. But the mystery in his heart was even stronger now. It seemed that Wang Zanghai really did build a heavenly palace, but where was it? Was it really in the sky?

This was such an amazing discovery that everyone immediately started yelling and shouting excitedly. Several of the boys even coaxed Huo Ling over and then lifted her onto the stone platform. Huo Ling giggled and got to her feet but then she suddenly screamed and jumped down. “There’s a dead person up there!” She shouted.

Surprised, Zhang Qiling immediately jumped up to take a look. In the middle of the model was a circular stone garden made of jade, where a stone seat had been placed. A shrunken, mummified body was sitting on this stone seat in a meditative position. Its clothes had rotted to the point that they were in tatters, exposing a torso that had turned black. This was a very rare “golden body in the lotus position”⁽⁵⁾, which had air-dried naturally. As long as you dipped it in gold-powdered gilding, you could put it in the temple for people to provide offerings to.

The corpse was pointing to the ground with one hand and the sky with the other hand. Like other golden bodies, its hair and nails continued to grow after death, especially its nails which were almost as long as its fingers. It made for a strange sight.

Zhang Qiling jumped in front of the mummy with a single leap and then looked into its mouth without an ounce of hesitation. When he found that there was nothing there, he put his hands under the corpse’s armpits and pressed down. Chen Wen-Jin had also jumped up by this point, but when she saw what he was doing, she hurried over to him and asked softly, “Zhang Qiling, where on earth are you from? Who taught you to be a grave robber?!”

Zhang Qiling glanced at her but didn’t respond. Chen Wen-Jin immediately became angry and grabbed his hand, “You’re clearly a grave robber! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so calm in this ancient tomb. Why did you follow us here?”

Zhang Qiling motioned for her not to speak and then pointed to the mummy and said, “That’s not important right now, look!”

He then took off the mummy’s tattered clothes, revealing a very long scar on the corpse’s stomach that ran from the last rib on the left all the way down to a spot below its naval. He pressed on the mummy’s stomach first and then grabbed Chen Wen-Jin’s hand and pressed it down on the same spot. She shivered—sure enough, something had clearly been hidden in the corpse’s stomach.

Zhang Qiling raised his head, still unsure whether he should take the object out or not. If this person had hidden something in his stomach before he died, then it meant that it was very important to him. Or, it was a way for the deceased to test them. Zhang Qiling had a principle he followed whenever he was in a tomb—he would never destroy a corpse just for the sake of obtaining the contents of the ancient tomb. He struggled with himself for a long time, trying to come to a decision, before he glanced at Chen Wen-Jin again. She was from the northern school of grave robbing and naturally cared about the moral aspects of the profession so she shook her head and said, “You would have to be heartless to take it. You’ll be punished by God.”

Zhang Qiling sighed and decided to give up, taking a step back and kowtowing to the corpse. But when he raised his head, he suddenly found that something was wrong with the body. He examined the corpse all over and suddenly sucked in a sharp breath—it turned out that this mummy now had a strange smile on its face.

<Chapter 61><Table of Contents><Chapter 63>

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TN Notes:

(1) The Yellow Emperor (or Huangdi) is a deity in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and cosmological Five Regions’ Highest Deities. He’s said to have reigned from 2698–2598 BC but it’s not been proven that he actually existed. More info here.

(2) Huangshi is a semi-mythological figure and a Taoist hermit who lived between the Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty. He gave Zhang Liang (a Chinese military strategist and politician who lived in the early Western Han dynasty) a treatise on military strategy called “Huang Shigong San Lue” (The “Three Strategies of Huang Shigong“), that allowed Zhang Liang to transform into an adept statesmen and powerful war strategist.

(3) The Eight Pillars also known as Eight Pillars of the Sky are a concept from Chinese mythology. Located in the eight cardinal directions, they are a group of eight mountains or pillars which have been thought to hold up the sky. The Eight Pillars are a central aspect to Chinese mythology, and also have been used extensively in poetic allusion. Info here.

(4) Night pearls, also called “Yemengzhu”, are a rare form of green fluorite that is naturally luminescent (aka it doesn’t need ultraviolet light to shine), almost as tough as diamonds, and feature prominently in Chinese legends.

(5) The lotus position is the favored position Buddhist monks use when meditating (they also like to die when seated in this position). The monks who die in this position are usually especially enlightened teachers. Their students will wait until the deceased turns into a mummy and then cover the body with gold. Here’s an article of a modern occurrence of this happening. Here’s an article about a 1,000 year old mummy they found in a statue with a CT scan.