Chapter 13 Ventilation Shaft

By the time we rushed over, it was already too late—Pan Zi was gone without a trace. We swept our flashlights all around the hole, but the beams couldn’t reach the bottom. There was no telling whether Pan Zi was alive or dead.

I felt the blood rush to my head and moved to jump into the hole, but Fatty was faster than me—he grabbed the rope tied around his leg, pulled out his knife, and jumped into the hole, instantly disappearing into the darkness. I wanted to jump in after him, but Monk Hua stopped me, saying that the hole was too small. If I jumped in, there wouldn’t be enough room to fight that thing below. It might be possible for Fatty to save Pan Zi by himself, but if I jumped in, we’d probably all die.

I sighed in defeat and peered into the hole. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear the sound of Fatty sliding down. As the rope was quickly pulled into the hole, I couldn’t help but feel anxious.

After about a minute, the rope suddenly jerked to a stop and then quivered. Then, we heard Fatty shouting from the depths of the hole, “Pull the rope!”

We quickly grabbed the rope and started pulling desperately. Soon, Fatty appeared dragging a kicking Pan Zi behind him—obviously, the corpse fetus still hadn’t let go.

Chen Pi Ah Si told us to get out of the way, frowned, and then pulled out an iron pellet. Aiming it at Pan Zi’s ankle, he quickly threw it at the corpse fetus’s big head. The corpse fetus screamed and let go, but quickly turned and launched itself at us.

Chen Pi Ah Si didn’t give it a chance—another iron pellet sent it flying backwards, rolling end over end. It quickly righted itself and rushed towards us again, but another iron pellet sent it rolling back down into the hole.

We took the opportunity to pull Pan Zi and Fatty out of the hole, and then immediately retreated, while Monk Hua grabbed a folding shovel and waited next to the opening. Sure enough, within a few seconds, that thing suddenly rushed out again. Monk Hua used the shovel to smack it back down with a “dang” sound, sending it falling into the depths of the hole with a loud scream.

Fatty’s face was pale and he was gasping for breath as he said to Pan Zi, “See? She likes you more. She wants to be your wife.”

Pan Zi was still shaken from the fright just now and merely waved his hand, “Stop talking about it. Consider us even.” Then he turned and asked Monk Hua, “Is this damn hole the corpse fetus’s den? If so, I’ll blow it up and let it reincarnate as soon as possible.”

Monk Hua waved his hand and said, “No, the corpse fetus isn’t an animal, so how can it have a den? But this hole is really strange. When you guys fell in just now, did you see anything?”

“I didn’t bring a flashlight so I couldn’t see anything,” Fatty said. “But I could feel several stone slabs. This hole should be man-made.”

Man-made? Monk Hua seemed a little intrigued by this, and even I turned my attention back to the hole.

The mouth of the hole looked a bit like a well, and was pretty damn deep. I thought it was an abandoned well shaft at first, but that wasn’t the case considering how large the diameter of the hole was—the ancients wouldn’t have dug a well so wide. There were tool marks and traces of chiseling on the edge of the hole, indicating that it was not a naturally formed lava vent. I took a look with my flashlight and found that the corpse fetus was no longer there. I didn’t know if it had been beaten to death by Monk Hua, but it must have fallen deep inside. Although this thing looked scary, it wasn’t very powerful.

The inner wall closer to the opening had been inlaid with some stone slabs, but that didn’t appear to be the case the further you went in. It was also very uneven, like the inner wall of a person’s duodenum.⁽¹⁾ We could feel the wind blowing up from the hole, carrying with it a hint of dampness. We stretched our necks out, but could only see a few meters ahead—the rest of the hole was pitch black, making it impossible to see where it led to.

Fatty looked at it strangely and said, “It’s a bit like a cellar in the northeast. Do you think this is where the craftsmen used to pickle cabbage when they were building this spirit palace?”

Monk Hua ignored him and held his hand over the opening, “The wind is blowing from here, which means this hole isn’t a dead end. It definitely leads somewhere.”

“Could it be the back door to the heavenly palace?” Fatty asked. “Maybe it’s the secret passage between the Three-Headed Dragons that you guys mentioned before?”

“We’ve already determined the Three-Headed Dragon array to be fake,” I said softly. “And even if it were real, the secret passage should be in the underground palace. How can it be here?”

“You don’t understand,” Fatty replied. “This is called a diversion. Didn’t you listen to Chairman Mao? The most dangerous place is the safest place. Maybe this is one of Wangwang’s strategies.”

Fatty, unable to remember Wang Zanghai’s name, casually gave him a nickname so ridiculous that I almost burst out laughing. “Please show some respect,” I said to him. “After all, Wang Zanghai is a great master of our profession. If you were to see him, you’d have to call him patriarch. And when did Chairman Mao say that? It was Chu Liuxiang.”⁽²⁾

“Don’t decide who my ancestors are,” Fatty said. “What patriarch? Even if he recognizes me, I won’t recognize him. But let’s stop talking about it. What should we do with this hole? Do you want to go in and take a look? In my opinion, I think this corpse fetus is a disaster waiting to happen. If it made a den in this hole, it may try and attack us again. Let’s go down and kill it.”

Monk Hua shook his head, “No, since the Three-Headed Dragon is fake, there’s no reason to dig through the three mountains. It goes against common sense. They simply didn’t have the manpower or energy to carry out such a huge project. I’m sure building the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds was enough for them. But the fact that this hole is here might reveal some interesting information.”

I saw a glint in his eyes and knew that he had an idea, so I asked him to keep talking. That way, we could all discuss it together.

Monk Hua said, “It’s just a working theory. You guys may not believe it when you hear it.”

“That’s fine,” Fatty said. “Just tell us what it is first. If there are any mistakes, your comrades here will help you correct them.”

Monk Hua laughed and nodded, “Ok, then here goes. Ignoring everything else, it’s very interesting that this hole is here under the spirit palace. If you think about it, it must be here because whoever made it wanted to conceal it. There’s also the fact that we can feel the wind blowing out of it, which means that this is a passage leading to somewhere. If you take a closer look, some of these chisel marks on the wall are reversed, which means that this hole was dug from the inside out. In other words, this is the exit, not the entrance. Based on my experience, these three points seem to indicate that this is either a ventilation shaft or an escape route left by the craftsmen who built the tomb. If they were sealed inside the ancient tomb once it was completed, then they could have used this to make their escape.”

I was surprised, “A ventilation shaft? No way. So you’re telling me there’s still an underground palace below? Even though this isn’t a Three-Headed Dragon, they still built a tomb for the tomb owner’s subordinate?”

Monk Hua shook his head, “It’s unlikely. We didn’t find the entrance to the underground palace under that sealing stone. If there was an entrance, then it would have been there, but since it wasn’t, that means there isn’t an underground palace. This is an indisputable truth. If the entrance is built outside of the designated feng shui area, then it’ll be unfavorable for the tomb owner.”

“This Wangwang guy was so perverse,” Fatty said. “Maybe he just built the entrance somewhere else.”

Monk Hua waved his hand, “You’re overthinking it. Wang Zanghai still had to work within the limitations of that time period. If he didn’t follow the ‘Book of Burial’⁽³⁾ and did whatever he wanted, then there are probably about ten thousand different ways for us to die here.”

I agreed with him. If you didn’t even follow the “Book of Burial”, then there was no need to use feng shui. It was just like Genghis Khan’s tomb—they found a random place, buried him there, and then flattened the ground using a thousand horses. Even to this day, no one had found it. “Since there’s no underground palace below, where do you think this shaft leads?” I asked him.

“We’ll use the exclusion method,” Monk Hua replied. “First, this shaft was built under this fake tomb, so it must have something to do with the craftsmen who built the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds. Second, what might be built nearby that would require a ventilation shaft? There’s no doubt that it can only be the underground palace of the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds! Therefore, my conclusion is that the ventilation shaft leads to the heavenly palace’s underground palace, which is located under the Three Sacred Mountains.”

“How is that possible?” I immediately asked. “It’s too far. If they really wanted to dig a shaft so that they could escape, they didn’t have to dig it here. They could have dug directly through the side of the mountain until they reached the outside. Wouldn’t that have saved them a lot of effort? And how long would it take to dig such a long shaft in the mountains, at least twenty or thirty years? Could people have even completed such a project back then?”

“In ancient times,” Monk Hua explained, “a huge project like the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds would have taken between sixty or seventy years—or even several generations—to complete. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to believe that the craftsmen knew that they would die in the end, so they secretly dug this shaft. As for why they chose to make the exit on another mountain so far away, there must clearly be a reason. We’ll find out if we go down and take a look.”

Ye Cheng, who had been listening quietly this whole time, suddenly asked, “Are you sure about this theory of yours?”

Monk Hua paused before saying, “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure, but I think it’s worth a try. At least, it’s better than making another trip once we get out of here. Right now, all the signs are pointing to this shaft. If I’m wrong and some other place is below, then it’s still not a bad thing to enter. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of ventilation shaft, so there shouldn’t be any danger. No one would place traps on their own escape route.”

After thinking about it, I had to admit that Monk Hua’s theory was very appealing. First, the feng shui here was so confusing that I couldn’t understand it even after Chen Pi Ah Si and the others tried to explain it. It wasn’t like I was interested in whether the feng shui here was good or bad anyways. Second, I didn’t know how far A Ning and her group had gone while we wasted a lot of time here. We still didn’t know why Uncle Three had arranged this expedition, but if we lost everything because of this little side trip, I would feel really guilty the next time I saw him.

On the other hand, we still had to take into consideration the fact that Shunzi probably knew what we were doing now. He was standing silently off to the side, but he definitely wasn’t stupid. I had noticed that his hand never strayed more than two feet away from his knife, which showed that he was already wary of us. Once we returned to the village, there was no telling what he would do. In fact, it was quite possible that he would sell us out. Chen Pi Ah Si must have already taken this into consideration, so if we had to go back down the mountain, I was certain the first thing he would do before entering the village was to either kill Shunzi or buy him off with a lot of money. But if we had to hire another guide, there was no guarantee that we’d be able to find one. Who would be willing to go with us after we came back the first time without our guide? Plus, there probably weren’t many people in the village who could take people up to the snowy mountains.

We discussed our options, weighing them again and again, but nobody could come to an agreement. Ye Cheng was afraid of the corpse fetus and strongly disapproved of going in, Pan Zi looked a little leery at the thought of going back down there, and Fatty and I were willing to give it a try. In the end, Monk Hua went to ask Chen Pi Ah Si for instructions, “Boss, what should we do?”

Chen Pi Ah Si had been sitting there listening to us with his eyes closed. Monk Hua asked him several times, but for some reason, the old man didn’t react at all. It was almost like he was asleep.

Fatty, unable to stand it any longer, patted him and said, “Grandpa, you should say something. Now isn’t the time to act cool.” Chen Pi Ah Si swayed under the force of Fatty’s touch, but still didn’t open his eyes.

As soon as Monk Hua saw this, his expression changed and he ran up and grabbed the old man’s hand. Seeing his face turn pale, Fatty ran over and placed his hand on the old man’s neck. After a few seconds, his expression also changed and he said, “Shit, he’s dead!”

We all froze when we heard this. What? Dead? How was that possible? Wasn’t he fine just a few minutes ago?

But after looking at Fatty’s expression, the sweat on Monk Hua’s forehead, and the unresponsive Chen Pi Ah Si, we all realized that something was wrong and immediately gathered around.

The old man’s body was stiff, and he was sitting there motionless with his eyes closed, just like an ice sculpture.

I touched his wrist, but I couldn’t feel a pulse at all. All I felt was that his skin was rough, dry, and extremely cold. In addition, the flesh inside seemed to have stiffened.

I was horrified—was he really dead? While he sat there listening to us studying the hole, did his heart slowly stop beating?

Although this cause of death fit in line with hypothermia, it took at least twenty minutes of being exposed to low temperatures for hypothermia to really kill you. We had only been sitting for less than five minutes, so how could he suddenly die like that? It didn’t make any sense.

I still had a glimmer of hope that Fatty was his usual unreliable self. Maybe he had touched Chen Pi Ah Si’s neck inattentively and made a hasty judgement in calling his death? Or maybe the old man was just in shock? After all, we had run too fast just now, so it wouldn’t be surprising for a ninety-year-old man to be affected.

Monk Hua lifted the old man’s eyes eyelids and shined a flashlight into his eyes. His expression became more and more ugly with each passing second until he eventually looked back at Ye Cheng and shook his head.

Monk Hua had some medical knowledge, so when we saw him shake his head, we immediately sucked in a sharp breath. There was no mistaking it—Chen Pi Ah Si was really dead.

“What happened?” Pan Zi asked softly. “How did he die?”

Instead of responding, Monk Hua sighed and suddenly sank to the ground with a gloomy expression on his face. I didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t know himself or if he just didn’t want to say. Fatty patted Pan Zi on the back and said, “When you’re that old, you can die from just about anything.”

I couldn’t help but sigh. As expected, it was too much for an old man in his nineties to come here. This kind of thing could reasonably be considered an accident. Chen Pi Ah Si probably never imagined that he would die like this, but such was his karma.

My grandfather had also died suddenly like this. We were in the middle of eating at that time. One minute he asked me to pour him some wine, and the next minute he was gone. My father said that many grave robbers suffered a certain degree of heart damage because they were exposed to a lot of bad air in tombs during their early years. As a result, most of them died like this when they were old. But considering their profession, this was the most comfortable way to die.

We were all feeling a little lost at this time. On the one hand, Chen Pi Ah Si was their boss, so it didn’t make sense for Ye Cheng and Monk Hua to stay here now that he was dead. On the other hand, we had successfully made it here, and relatively smoothly at that. But with Chen Pi Ah Si dead and Poker-Face gone, the thought of Fatty or Pan Zi leading us made me feel nervous.

As these thoughts were racing through my mind, Chen Pi Ah Si’s whole body suddenly shuddered. I was startled, thinking that it was a postmortem spasm, but then his two hands wrapped around my throat and he suddenly straightened and opened his eyes.

We were all shocked by the sudden movement. Ye Cheng slipped and fell about five or six meters down the slope, while Fatty and Pan Zi hurriedly took a few steps back. “It’s a moving corpse!” Fatty shouted.

I quickly tried to break away, but I didn’t expect the old man’s withered, twig-like hands to be so strong. They were like a vise grip around my throat, preventing me from moving. As I coughed and gagged for air, I managed to shout, “Get…the hoof! Quickly now!”

Before the words had even left my mouth, Chen Pi Ah Si suddenly loosened his grip and pushed me away with a curse, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Already feeling confused, I quickly tried to retreat behind Fatty, but he wouldn’t let me get behind him. Then a thought suddenly popped into my head, wait, can moving corpses still talk? Looking at Chen Pi Ah Si again, it was obvious to see that he was breathing again and his vitality had returned.

We all looked at him in confusion, not sure what had happened just now. Fatty blatantly stared at him with a puzzled look on his face, but it seemed that Chen Pi Ah Si had truly returned to normal. It was almost like his pulse had never stopped beating and everything we had seen just now was all an illusion.

Monk Hua stood there frozen in shock for a long time before he finally came back to his senses and asked, “Boss, are you alright? Just now, you were…”

Chen Pi Ah Si didn’t seem to realize that he had just died. He gave Monk Hua an inscrutable look, lit a cigarette, and said, “What?”

Monk Hua became even more flustered seeing Chen Pi Ah Si’s expression, and obviously didn’t know what to say.

Chen Pi Ah Si gave him a cold look and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t die so easily.”

I saw that Chen Pi Ah Si’s behavior and manner of speaking were the same as before, so it didn’t seem like he had been possessed by a ghost. Then I suddenly wondered if he had just been messing with us. But why would he do that? He was too old to be playing such tricks.

No one had been able to react in that brief moment when Chen Pi Ah Si had suddenly “resurrected”, but based on his appearance now, we couldn’t knock him down and dissect him to see what was going on. I gradually started to wonder if Monk Hua and Fatty had made a mistake just now. It was generally difficult to feel the elderly’s pulse, so maybe these two barefoot doctors⁽⁴⁾ didn’t find the right place. Plus, Chen Pi Ah Si was old, so it was normal for him to be in a daze for a while.

We all looked doubtful, but there was nothing we could do to prove our suspicions.

Although Monk Hua was surprised at first, after he realized that Chen Pi Ah Si was fine, he told the old man what we had been discussing just now. Chen Pi Ah Si looked at the hole and thought for a while before saying, “It makes sense. It’s worth a try.”

<Chapter 12><Table of Contents><Chapter 14>

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TN Notes:

(1) The first part of the small intestine. It connects to the stomach and helps to further digest food coming from the stomach. Le visual of the bumpy inside:

(2) Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China, which he led as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Chu Liuxiang is the fictional protagonist of the wuxia novel series “Chu Liuxiang Series” by Taiwanese writer Gu Long. He steals from the rich to help the poor and upholds justice in the jianghu (martial artists’ community).  

(3) Written in the 4^th or 5^th century by the Taoist mystic Guo Pu. The work was a commentary on the now-lost “Classic of Burial”. The “Book of Burial’s” principles relating the flow of qi to the appropriateness of a tomb’s location were influential on the development of feng shui.

(4) Barefoot doctors were healthcare providers who underwent basic medical training and worked in rural villages in China. They included farmers, folk healers, rural healthcare providers, and recent middle or secondary school graduates who received minimal basic medical and paramedical education.