Chapter 1 Lao Yang Gets Out of Prison

This sentence was only a few short words but it attracted all of my attention.

“I have the fish…”

What fish? Was it the snake-eyebrow copper fish?

Based on the patterns I had seen on the stone carving in that ancient undersea tomb, these strange copper fish should be a set of three that were joined together end to end. I currently had two in my possession but there should be another fish that matched the ones I had. What was the meaning of this strange sentence? Was it implying that the last fish was in this person’s hands?

Since the person who posted this message had this photo and knew about the fish, did that mean that they were one of the missing people from twenty years ago?

I carefully looked through the webpage and saw that it had been published two years ago. It was a good thing the website didn’t shut down; otherwise, this information would have disappeared from the internet long ago. Other than this sentence, there was no signature or contact information anywhere on the page.

I found it a little odd—wasn’t it kind of pointless not to leave your contact information when you were looking for someone?

I tried various searches in Google, hoping to find more information, but this webpage was the only one that had something to do with this matter.

Although I felt depressed, I knew that this was already a great discovery since it showed that at least someone two years ago cared about the things that happened twenty years ago. But who was this person?

Soon, the damn storm finally passed. The day after it did, a Qiongsha-class naval cargo ship came from Qinglan Port in Wenchang. Seeing that we couldn’t wait here any longer, we packed up our bags and prepared to head back.

Before we left, we went to the military hospital to look for A Ning but found that she was already gone. When we asked the doctor where she was, he said that a few days ago, a group of foreigners suddenly came in the middle of the storm and picked her up. The hospital never informed us because the doctor thought that the group of foreigners was with us. Plus, the strong winds had blown the phone lines down and they hadn’t been repaired yet.

I knew deep down in my heart that it must have been A Ning’s support team on the island that took her away. The storm had closed the island over the past few days so we wouldn’t have been able to stop them even if we wanted to.

Fatty cursed and said that she got off lightly but I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. After all, I didn’t know what to do with her—it wasn’t like we could kill her or torture her for a confession so this situation was absolutely perfect. Like this, we could both go our separate ways. It wasn’t like she had done anything life-threatening to us anyways.

But her company’s real reason for entering the undersea tomb wasn’t as simple as saving people so what was it? What happened between them and my Uncle Three? Where was he now? There was no telling when these hidden secrets would emerge from Xisha’s peaceful blue waters.

To make a long story short, we took the Qiongsha-class naval cargo ship back to the mainland. Two days later, at Haikou Airport, I said goodbye to Poker-Face and Fatty and boarded a plane to Hangzhou. It was amazing how smoothly things went in real life—I was back home in Hangzhou in just four hours.

I was so exhausted from those prolonged high-intensity activities that I crawled into bed, covered my head, and went to sleep right away, only waking up once a day to eat. During those times I woke up hungry, I would just take something from the fridge, eat it, and then lay back down. Before I knew it, two weeks had passed. Some of my friends thought that I was dead at home and came to check on me, which was when I realized that I had had enough rest.

I had slept so much that my whole body now felt uncomfortable. I called Wang Meng first and asked him how the shop was doing. Except for there not being any business, everything was normal. In fact, the lack of business was also quite normal—with the boss being away, it would be strange if there was business. Then I called various uncles, aunts, and elders in the family who had dealt with Uncle Three and asked them if they knew of his whereabouts. But none of them knew where he was. In the end, I called Uncle Three’s shop. When one of his assistants answered the phone, I asked him, “Has Third Master Wu come back yet?”

The man hesitated for a moment before saying, “Master Three never came back but there was some weirdo who said he was your brother and insisted that we tell him where you were. I don’t know where he came from, but he looked sketchy and seemed like bad news so I said I’d give you a message. He left a phone number before he left. Do you want it?”

I stood there frozen for a while, finding it kind of strange. I had many acquaintances all over but I could only think of a few who might go to Uncle Three to find me. I thought it over for a moment and then asked him, “How old was this person?”

“I can’t say for sure. He was probably about the same age as you but a little older. He had a crew cut, triangle eyes⁽¹⁾, and a high nose bridge. He was also wearing glasses and had an earring. He looked neither Chinese nor foreign. I’d say he was pretty average.”

“Average?” As I repeated these words, I couldn’t help but think, who the hell is it? I pondered over it some more and suddenly felt my heart jolt. “Did the man have trouble speaking?” I asked him.

“Yes, yes, yes…that guy stuttered a dozen times before he could finish a sentence.”

I suddenly felt overjoyed when I realized that I already knew who the other person was. I hurriedly asked for the phone number and dialed it. It only rang a few times before the call connected and I heard a semi-familiar voice stammer, “Wh-wh-who is it?”

I chuckled and said, “Fuck you, you don’t even recognize my voice now?”

He was silent for a moment and then I heard several excited noises before he shouted, “I-I-I haven’t heard you speak for three years! Of course I wouldn’t be able to recognize your voice! Have you heard yourself? Your voice has really developed.”

I felt a little ache in my heart and wanted to cry, but I started scolding him instead, “You still have the nerve to talk about me? I haven’t heard anything from you in years! I thought you were dead!”

The person on the other end of the line was Lao Yang. I had long forgotten his real name. He and I grew up together and did everything together, just like two peas in a pod. There was even a time when we were almost like the same person. His family was quite poor and he couldn’t find a job after graduating from college so he came to work in my shop. Even though he had a speech impediment, he was especially good at calling tourists into the shop. We shared the same vile habits, managed the shop indiscriminately, and led free and unencumbered lives.

But three years ago, this guy didn’t know what was good for him and ended up going grave robbing in the Qinling Mountains with a cousin from Jiangxi. As a result, he was arrested and his cousin was sentenced to life in prison. He relied on his mouth to portray himself as a promising young man who was deceived by bad company. As a result, he only ended up with a three year sentence. I wanted to go see him at first but this guy was so proud that he refused to even see me. I ended up moving later and lost contact with him so I was surprised to see that he had been released from prison now.

As for why he went grave robbing, it was mostly my fault. Ever since we were kids, I had always bragged in front of him about how great my grandfather was, and I also showed off my grandfather’s treasures in front of him. I figured that was when he got it into his stupid head that he wanted to go grave robbing. This guy had always been very daring—even as a child, when I would come up with ideas to cause trouble, he would be the one to implement them—but I honestly didn’t expect that he would put such a hairbrained idea into action.

We had a lot to say to each other after three years, and once we started talking, we couldn’t shut up. I felt my jaw starting to cramp and my cell phone was hot, but there was still a lot to talk about so I said to him, “Shit, man, are you free tonight? I’ll take you to dinner. Let’s have a good meal and talk over some good drinks.”

Lao Yang was also excited by my suggestion and replied, “Th-th-that sounds good. I haven’t eaten a big piece of meat in three years. Let’s eat something delicious!”

And so it was decided. I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep so I took a shower, tidied up the house, and then went to the restaurant we agreed upon. As I waited for him, I ordered all the big meat dishes on the menu. He finally showed up just before evening fell. When I saw him, I couldn’t help but think, this guy is really abnormal. He spent three years in prison but gained weight.

Although we two old friends had finally met after so long, we killed half a bottle of Wuliangye liquor⁽²⁾ first without saying anything. When I recalled our previous life and looked at the present situation, I couldn’t help but sigh. It wasn’t until we were full of wine and food and turned the dishes on the table upside down that I realized we had nothing to say to each other.

At that time, my mind was so muddled after drinking that I started talking about the crime he committed three years ago. In between the hiccups, I asked him, “Tell me the truth, what the hell did you guys steal back then that caused your cousin from Jiangxi to be sentenced to life in prison?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I immediately regretted them. Why am I even bringing this up? I asked myself. Way to dredge up his sad memories. I’m no good at handling these kinds of situations.

But to my surprise, he had a smug expression on his face as soon as he heard my question. He picked at his tooth and then smiled before saying, “What we took out, hehe, was very strange. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s just that even if I did, you wouldn’t know what it is.”

When I saw that he was looking down on me, I immediately became furious, “Forget it, I’m not the same kid I was three years ago. Whether it’s from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, or Qing Dynasties, I’ll know what it is as long as you can describe its shape.”

Lao Yang looked at how serious I was and smiled, “Wh-wh-why are you so angry? You’re being ridiculous bringing up those dynasties!” Then he dipped his chopsticks into the wine and drew a strange shape on the table. “H-h-have you seen something like this?”

I was so drunk that I couldn’t see clearly even after staring at it for a while but it looked like a tree or some kind of pillar. “You bastard, you spent the last three years in prison yet your drawing skills haven’t improved at all,” I scolded him. “What is this thing, a wooden club?!”

“Y-y-you just need to put up with it!” Lao Yang said. “It’s not like you’re amazing at recognizing valuable goods anyways. This sloppy drawing is perfect for you!”

I looked at it carefully but still couldn’t tell what it was so I said to him, “Who in the world could tell what you drew? If I had to call these lines a pattern, I’d say they look like tree branches. Your drawing is so bad that I can’t tell what this is supposed to be!”

Lao Yang smiled smugly, lowered his voice, and said mysteriously, “Y-y-you got it! These are bronze tree branches as thick as your wrist!”

I couldn’t help but let out “Oh” as soon as I heard this. This guy must have been tired of living if he had stolen some bronze wares. He truly did earn his three year prison sentence. “How much does this thing weigh?” I asked him. “Why’d you go for a big object instead of a small one? Were you that eager to go to prison?”

He patted me on the shoulder, peeled a prawn fried with scallions, threw it into his mouth, and said, “You don’t know what happened at that time. The place is different from anything you can imagine. It’s a long story.”

I had done some research on bronze wares, so after pondering over the thing he had drawn, I realized that it looked a little similar to those sacred bronze trees that had been excavated in Sanxingdui not too long ago.

Sanxingdui was an archeological site that had relics of the ancient Shu people. Strictly speaking, such relics didn’t fall within the scope of our antique business since they were too old, too precious, and their value couldn’t be calculated. If Lao Yang really found such things at the place he went to, I didn’t know whether to say he was lucky or unlucky.

I found myself suddenly interested in this thing and asked him what happened at that time. He had also drunk too much and ended up telling me all the details without even bothering to hide anything.

At that time, they had been walking through the Qinling Mountains for more than ten days without finding anything but endless forest. By that point, they were almost out of food and ammunition.

In fact, neither Lao Yang nor his cousin had basic grave-robbing knowledge but they were full of enthusiasm. At this time, his cousin was feeling disheartened and was ready to turn back but Lao Yang insisted on continuing so they kept going.

One particular day, they were trudging through a valley hidden in the mountains. They didn’t know how many times they had seen such valleys over the past few days, but this time, Lao Yang found that the valley here was a little different from the others.

The geographical environment here was very strange—the altitude was very low, the temperature was very high, and there was a vast forest of old banyan trees in the center of the valley. There was no telling how many banyan trees were in that forest, but they were all so huge that ten people holding hands wouldn’t be able to encircle their trunks. The tree canopies covered the sky and blocked out the sun while the roots covered the ground, leaving almost no room to walk.

When Lao Yang’s cousin saw this scene, he felt that something wasn’t quite right. A banyan forest that could grow to such a scale didn’t seem like it could form naturally.

There was an old saying among grave robbers: “A tree would not grow on salted land and a forest would not grow on bare mountains; there had to be sand or mud.” In other words, the places where grass and trees grew abnormally might have problems underground or in the surrounding area. There might even be something like an ancient tomb buried underneath.

The roots of the banyan trees were like snakes that were all intertwined with each other, and the woods were much denser than ordinary forests. Lao Yang was afraid it would be hard to enter, but when he thought about returning empty-handed after all the hardships they had suffered through, he pressed on anyways. His cousin also felt uncomfortable but steeled his heart and followed after him.

They kept walking forward as the sun started to set. As they gradually approached the hinterland of the vast forest, they could hear owls calling to each other and the light became extremely dim. They turned on their flashlights and slowed down so as to avoid getting lost.

At this time, his cousin tripped over something and almost fell down. Lao Yang hurriedly grabbed him, turned around, and saw that there was something sticking out of the ground that was wrapped in the banyan roots at their feet.

They chopped off the roots with a machete until the item was exposed and then they illuminated it with a flashlight. It turned out to be a moss-covered stone figurine dressed in what looked to be pre-Han Dynasty-style clothing. The figurine had very exquisite totem patterns sculpted on it.

The appearance of this stone figurine caused Lao Yang and his cousin to immediately realize that something really did exist in this forest. As it turned out, that old saying was true…

They looked at the area around the stone figurine and soon found that there were many large stone slabs buried under the layers of fallen leaves and mud. They seemed to be the ruins of an ancient road hidden beneath the banyan forest. The stone figurine was located on one side of the ancient road, which seemed to indicate that it was guarding it.

Based on the layout here, it was possible that this road led to an imperial tomb. When we were passing through that small village dozens of miles away, an old man said that there were several Western Jin Dynasty noblemen buried in the mountains here, Lao Yang thought. Could we have finally found one of those tombs after working so hard for so many days?

If that were true, then the suffering they had endured these past few days really was worth it.

He and his cousin discussed it and decided to follow along the ancient road first. If there was an ancient tomb nearby, there should definitely be some traces of it.

They trekked along the ancient road for several hours and entered the center of the endless forest. As they walked, they found many remains of moss-covered stone figurines on both sides of the road. Some had fallen across the road and one in particular was embedded in a tree that had grown around it. There were more and more traces that this was a road leading to a tomb.

Lao Yang and his cousin were secretly excited and quickened their pace, but strangely enough, the further they went along this ancient road, the more densely packed the surrounding aerial roots became. In the end, they had to cut off the roots in order to make a barely passable path through. It almost seemed like the trees here didn’t want strangers to take this road.

They continued like this until after midnight. Even though they were completely exhausted, they could finally see the moonlight shining through the cracks in the trees up ahead. Lao Yang saw this and felt that they might have reached the end of the stone road. They climbed over a large pile of stones, cut off the last aerial root, and finally emerged from the banyan forest.

In the moonlight’s glow, they suddenly saw a huge crater in the form of an inverted pyramid appear in the rock right in front of them. It was as big as a football field and shaped like a giant bucket right in the middle of the forest. The slopes on all four sides had stairs built into them, with a hundred or so steps leading all the way down to the bottom of the crater.

Lao Yang was struck dumb by the sight of it. He never imagined that the end of the stone road would lead to the magnificent relic of an ancient building. He felt his heart beat faster and his legs go weak—he wanted to kneel down and kowtow to this crater.

But this obviously wasn’t an ancient tomb so what kind of place was it? And which dynasty was it from?

Lao Yang’s cousin had quite a bit of experience, so even though he was also very shocked when he saw this scene, he still said to Lao Yang, “This place must have something to do with sacrificial rites. It looks like an altar. Let’s go down and see if there are any grave goods in the sacrificial pit.”

The cloudy white moon was already high in the sky but its light was very dim so they turned on their flashlights to avoid tripping over the snake-like roots and then apprehensively went down the stone steps to the bottom of the crater.

The entire area outside of the crater was covered by the roots of the surrounding banyan trees. If they hadn’t followed the ancient road, they wouldn’t have been able to find it even if they walked right next to it. Moreover, the stone slabs in the crater were cracked to the point that they looked like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and a large number of roots had pushed their way out of the stones and extended into the gaps on the side. The entire ruins had been destroyed beyond recognition.

The bottom of the crater was also covered in a thick layer of weeds half as tall as a person, with only a few places showing traces of the bluish-green slate below.

They used their machetes to cut through the tall weeds and quickly moved forward, soon coming to the center of the altar.

There was an earthen well encircled by stones in the center of the altar. It looked to be about ten meters deep, and when they shined their flashlights into it, they found that the bottom was full of grass. They used ropes to climb down to the bottom and then searched everywhere. When they saw nothing, they pulled out their Luoyang shovels and started digging.

They hammered the first shovel down to a depth of fifteen meters but didn’t see the bottom. Lao Yang pulled it out, knocked out a clump of mud, and found that carbon ash was mixed in with the mud—it seemed that a lot of things had been burned down here. They also found a few pieces of pottery and jade among the ashes.

The carbon ash in the mud was actually the remains of offerings that had been burned for the dead, but the pottery and jade hadn’t been completely destroyed by the fire at that time. It appeared that this earthen well was the place where sacrificial offerings were burned for the dead, and it had been used more than once.

Lao Yang couldn’t hold back his excitement at this time. Historically, a large number of exquisite bronze and jade objects were often burned when offering sacrifices, so if they could dig one or two of these items up, they could make a fortune.

They picked up their shovels and started digging. After tirelessly working in turn for a while, they managed to deepen the bottom of the well by about seven meters. They dug up such a large number of jade fragments and pottery shards that they couldn’t even count them all. There were jade fragments, jade discs, earthenware jars, and earthenware teapots—just about everything you could imagine. It wasn’t long before there was a pile of these things stacked up on one side.

Lao Yang and his cousin were disappointed to find that most of these jade and pottery pieces were damaged, which meant that they were of little value on the market. But the most disappointing thing was that there weren’t any bronze wares like they had been hoping for.

Despite this, they didn’t give up and kept digging. They soon dug to a depth of about ten meters but they still didn’t find anything good. Digging a vertical pit for more than ten meters was already pushing the limit so they had to stop. After all, if they dug any further, they had to consider the possibility of their grave robbers’ tunnel collapsing.

Lao Yang’s cousin was a cautious man. He said that since they had found nothing after digging for so long, then this altar probably didn’t use bronze wares when offering sacrifices. They might as well stop digging, pick out something from among the pile of broken pieces they had already dug up, and head back. They were just unlucky this time.

But Lao Yang was unwilling to give up. No matter what his cousin said, he still had to keep digging. He asked his cousin to go up while he continued digging for about two hours by himself. It wasn’t until he reached a depth of more than fourteen meters that his shovel suddenly hit a piece of metal with a loud clang.

Lao Yang and his cousin glanced at each other and then leaned down to take a closer look. In the center of the well, a dark green object was sticking out of the ground.

Sure enough, there were bronze wares here. Lao Yang’s heart thumped and his hands trembled. His cousin gave a cheer, dropped his shovel, and then jumped into the well. The two men immediately began unearthing the object with their hands.

Soon, a strange thing appeared in front of them—it was a bronze stick but they couldn’t tell what it was for sure. As they removed the carbon ash from its surface, a delicate tree branch cast in bronze appeared in front of them.

The two of them immediately felt overjoyed. They had never seen anything like this before but they knew it had to be worth a lot of money. They quickly tried to dig it out, but they couldn’t find the bottom even after digging down a few meters with their bare hands. When they realized that they couldn’t pull it out, they grabbed their shovels and started digging again. They dug about six or seven more meters but still didn’t reach the bottom of this bronze branch.

At this time, Lao Yang started to think that it was strange. His experience in selling antiques told him that there were very few bronze wares that were more than three meters high, but based on his conservative estimate, this thing in front of him must be at least twenty meters high, which was very unusual. How much more of this bronze branch was buried under the mud here?

Their grave robbers’ tunnel was nearly twenty meters deep by this point and would definitely collapse if they dug any more, but the thought of going back empty-handed was really unpleasant. The two of them stood there in confusion, not knowing what to do.

In the end, his cousin found another way—he walked about a meter away from the bronze branch, positioned the head of the Luoyang shovel so that it was at an oblique angle to the branch, and started hammering it into the ground, adding threaded steel pipes as he went. When he reached a depth of about ten meters, the hammering sound against the steel pipes suddenly became dull and he found that he couldn’t go any deeper.

When Lao Yang told me this, I found that his expression was a little unnatural. He lit a cigarette and took a deep breath before saying, “In other words, the part of the bronze branch under the mud was about ten meters long, which means that its total length was at least thirty meters. Even if we managed to dig such a big thing out, we couldn’t have taken it back.”

I was stunned when I heard this and couldn’t help but feel that he was exaggerating a bit. The largest bronze ware in China was the Simuwu ding that had been unearthed in the Houjiazhuang royal burial site in Wuguan Village, Anyang, Henan Province.⁽³⁾ It was only a little more than one meter high, but at that time, it took nearly two or three hundred people working together at the same time to cast it. But in order to cast a bronze tree more than thirty meters high, it would have taken tens of thousands of people.

I found it hard to refute him after listening to everything he had said so I simply asked, “What happened after that? Did you continue digging?”

“No,” Lao Yang said. “I wanted to keep digging but my cousin suddenly said that it might be a sacred thing or it might really be growing out of the ground so we shouldn’t dig it up. Later, I thought it would be too unsafe to keep digging so I gave up—but don’t you think it’s strange? I bet this tree branch was part of a big bronze piece, and the part below may be even bigger. If we really dug it out, I bet it would shock the whole world.”

“So if you didn’t take the bronze tree out, how did you get caught?” I wondered.

“It sounds a little strange when I say it, but we were unwilling to give up at that time so we dug a few more holes in other places and finally found some complete kitchen utensils,” he said. “After we left the Qinling Mountains, we wanted to find a place to sell the goods but my cousin had been restless ever since he saw that thing. Once we made it back to the city, he started telling everyone about the bronze tree branch. Qinling is a place that has hated grave robbing since ancient times, and any news about it puts people on edge. When we went to the antique shop to sell the goods, a few people heard my cousin spouting that nonsense, realized who we were, and reported us! But fortunately, the policeman who caught me was from the same hometown. Seeing that I was still young, they let me push on with my defense that I was an impressionable youth, and they sentenced me to three years for being duped. My cousin would have only gotten four or five years, but for some reason, he went crazy and told them all about the grave-robbing jobs he had done before. He wound up with a life sentence and was lucky he didn’t get a death sentence.”

“Man, you really have some bad luck,” I said to him. “You worked so hard but didn’t get to sell anything for profit. How many times have I told you? Don’t sell stolen goods on the spot. You’re going against the locals by engaging in this kind of business. In today’s world, we call that retribution.”

Lao Yang smiled mysteriously and said, “I-I did gain some profit actually. Look, have you ever seen something like this?” As he spoke, he pointed to his earring.

<Vol. 1 Chapter 75><Table of Contents><Chapter 2>

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TN Notes:

(1) Triangle eyes are called that because the drooping eye lid has a slant which cuts off the true shape of the eye. The eyelid itself can create a sharp triangle or a soft triangle. A person with triangle eyes is said to have a harsher appearance overall as the shape of the eye will affect their entire face.

(2) Wuliangye (Five Grains Liquor) is a Chinese baijiu liquor made from proso millet, maize, glutinous rice, long-grain rice, and wheat.

(3) The Simuwu ding is a rectangular bronze ding (an ancient cooking cauldron with two looped handles and three or four legs that was often used as a sacrificial vessel) of the ancient Shang dynasty. It is the heaviest piece of bronze ware to survive from anywhere in the ancient world and was unearthed in 1939. Info/pics here.

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Shew, I’m KO’ed. And the next chapter is almost as long. Looks like the licensed version is still putting dialogue when there’s not but at least they didn’t leave out as much as last volume (so far…).