Chapter 17 Palace Hall Entrance (Part 1)

Shunzi was taken aback when he heard this and obviously didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t the only one—none of us knew what Chen Pi Ah Si was up to.

For a moment, I even thought that Chen Pi Ah Si was trying to separate us so that he could kill Shunzi to silence him. But when I thought about it again, I realized that I was wrong. For one thing, he was over ninety years old—even if he launched a sneak attack, he probably wouldn’t be able to kill a retired soldier in his prime. For another thing, we still needed Shunzi to guide us back down the mountain, so it didn’t make sense to kill him now.

I didn’t understand what Chen Pi Ah Si was planning, so I simply patted Shunzi on the back and told him to be careful.

Shunzi, obviously not knowing how to feel about this, took one last look at me and then followed Chen Pi Ah Si.

The rest of us turned around and continued running along the spirit path. Fortunately, we had discarded a lot of our equipment; otherwise, none of us would have been able to endure such intense exercise.

There were a total of six stone gates on the spirit path, which represented the six realms of rebirth in Han Buddhism.⁽¹⁾ Although the Jurchens practiced shamanism, traces of Han designs could be seen everywhere.

I ran so fast that I felt a little dizzy, and the exposed parts of my skin began to itch—all clear signs that the air around me was really bad.

Before I knew it, some crumbling black eaves and broken walls began to appear in our flashlights’ glow, and we soon arrived in front of the altar at the end of the spirit path. Behind the altar, at the top of sixty dilapidated stone steps, was the main entrance to the imperial tomb.

In the traditional concept of burials, tombs and mausoleums were often lumped together, but they were actually two different things. Mausoleums were structures above ground that were used for sacrificial and interment ceremonies, while tombs referred to underground palaces.

Mausoleums and tombs didn’t necessarily have to be located in the same place. In fact, many were separated by thousands of kilometers. For example, Genghis Khan’s mausoleum was located in the middle of the Ordos grassland in Inner Mongolia, but the coffin in the mausoleum only had camel hair that was said to contain Genghis Khan’s soul. No one knew where in the grassland his body and grave goods had been hidden.⁽²⁾

The Heavenly Palace on the Clouds had a three-story structure: the first level was the aboveground palace we saw in the shadow paintings in the undersea tomb, which was a symbolic spirit palace; the second level was the underground imperial tomb; and the third level was the underground tomb where the king was interred. Together, these three levels reflected the Buddhist concept of “three thousand worlds”,⁽³⁾ and symbolized the change in King Wannu’s identity after rebirth—whether he became a god, a human, or a hungry ghost.

The architectural style of the whole imperial tomb was very similar to that of a Ming palace. When viewed from the cliff, it not only looked huge and majestic, but the extensive use of that black stone also made it seem a little strange and mysterious. But as soon as we entered the tomb, this feeling disappeared—what we saw was nothing more than desolation and ruin. If not for some of those large, temple-like palace halls still standing there, we would have been really disappointed.

There was no air circulation here, let alone wind or sunlight, so the buildings here should have been well-preserved. How could they be so dilapidated?

We climbed up those huge steps wide enough to fit ten carriages side-by-side and then walked through the main entrance of the imperial tomb. The huge doors had already collapsed, their nail-covered door panels lying on the ground. Without an ounce of hesitation, we stepped on them and made our way inside.

After the main entrance was the door to the palace hall. In the “Book of Burial”, there was a section on imperial tombs that said the Nine-Tailed Immortal’s carriage would enter the underworld through the doors of the four palace halls. The place we had just entered was the first of these four halls. By this time, I could already feel an uncomfortable burning sensation in my nose and mouth, so I told the others to hurry.

The hall was about the size of two basketball courts, with bronze carriages on either side. Further back along the left and right walls were two black, dust-covered statues that seemed to be shamanistic totems. The statues looked very sinister, with cold expressions and angry eyes. The support beams and pillars holding up that part of the ceiling had collapsed, so a bunch of tiles were scattered all over the floor. Fortunately, it didn’t rain here; otherwise, the whole place would have been flooded.

Seeing that there was nothing particularly eye-catching, we started to walk down the hall towards the center of the imperial tomb. But after walking a few steps, Fatty suddenly slipped on something and fell flat on his back with a loud yelp. He landed hard on the broken tiles, clenching his teeth tightly to try and suppress the pain.

I found it a little odd—with the ground like this, it would make more sense to stumble rather than slip. Fatty also seemed to find it strange because he stood up, clutched his butt, and walked back to see what he had slipped on.

There was only a trace to show where he had fallen, but nothing to indicate what he had slipped on just now. He examined the spot and moved several of the tiles out of the way, but there was nothing there.

“Maybe it was a ghost?” Pan Zi asked him.

Fatty shook his head and then suddenly seemed to feel something. Motioning for us to wait, he squatted down and looked at the sole of his boot.

We all gathered around to look and found that there was actually a shell casing stuck in the tread of his hiking boot.

Everyone’s expressions immediately changed. Pan Zi quickly grabbed the casing and tried to smell it, but then he remembered that he was wearing a gas mask and squeezed it between his fingers instead. “It’s warm,” he said. “The damned thing was fired not too long ago.”

I was stunned, “Someone got here first?” Were A Ning and the others so amazing that they could beat us here?

But why fire their guns?

“Light a fire. Let’s look around and see what else is here,” Pan Zi said.

Monk Hua immediately set off a cold firework, increasing the source of light in the hall. We quickly spread out and looked around, soon discovering a vertical line of bullet holes going up one of the pillars.

“It looks like something came down this pillar, and the bullets followed it down.”

Pan Zi went up, looked at the bullet holes, and prodded them with his finger before shaking his head, “No, on the contrary, looking at the displacement of the bullets, the muzzle was moving up the pillar.”

Fatty shined his flashlight on the bullet holes, moving it up bit by bit until we finally saw the ceiling beam high overhead. That was when we noticed a black shadow hanging from the beam.

Based on the way it was hanging there so limply, it was definitely a dead person. I figured it was probably someone from A Ning’s team, especially because I could see an old Type-56 rifle slung over their shoulder.

We were all startled, unable to comprehend how this person had died on the beam. Directing our flashlights towards the corpse’s face, we found that it was actually a man with a small orinasal gas mask⁽⁴⁾ on his face (this thing was very advanced, very lightweight, and more effective than ours. I had only ever heard about it and never thought that I would see it in person). Based on his facial features, he appeared to be of Slavic descent. I didn’t know how he died, and it was difficult to see his expression because of the gas mask, but we could see that his eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets.

His body was suspended from the beam by something, but the distance was too far to see if it was a rope.

Most of us wanted to climb up and check it out, but Pan Zi quickly stopped us, saying that something must be wrong considering how this man had died so strangely. At the same time, Fatty nudged me and pointed to another spot on the beam, “Guys, there’s more than one.”

When we all turned to look, we saw that there were six or seven bodies hanging from other parts of the beam, dangling in the air like a bunch of hanged ghosts.

These people were all wearing monochrome mountaineering suits, and carrying Type-56 domestic rifles. I couldn’t help but find the situation strange—Type-56 rifles were very destructive. With this thing in hand, you could take a zombie down in less than a dozen bullets, so what exactly killed them? And even if there was a shootout here, how could these bodies end up on the beams overhead?

The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. I knew it wasn’t suitable to stay here for long, so I told the others that we should hurry through the hall; this place was too strange.

But when I turned around, I found that Fatty was gone. I swept my flashlight around and found that he was standing on the nearby statue, trying to climb up to the ceiling beam.

<Chapter 16><Table of Contents><Chapter 18>

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TN Notes:

(1) Buddhist cosmology typically identifies six realms of rebirth and existence: gods, demi-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells. These six realms are where sentient beings are reincarnated according to their karmas linked to their acts of previous lives. Info here.

(2) As Genghis Khan lay on his deathbed, a shamanic priest came to him to perform the rites of cindariin hurrcag — the ritual to capture a fragment of the soul for posterity in this world. The shaman plucked a white hair from the forehead of a camel and placed it in the Khan’s mouth; the hair absorbed the Khan’s last breath, and with it, a part of his soul. Info on the mausoleum here.

(3) According to this, the Buddhist concept of “three thousand worlds in a single moment of life” is an analytical explanation of how differences in values, sense of purpose, and view of happiness appear as differences in one’s environment. It’s a teaching that expounds how the quality of one’s environment is determined in response to what one considers happiness to be and the kinds of desires one holds. Kind of goes hand in hand with the “six realms of rebirth” mentioned earlier.

(4) An orinasal mask is a breathing mask that covers the mouth and the nose only. It may carry a filter for ambient air, or be supplied from a user-carried breathing gas supply or a remote gas supply using a supply hose.