Chapter 23 Meaningless Code

Black Tortoise Rejects the Corpse—what bullshit!

After I figured it out, everything suddenly became clear and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was all a complete misunderstanding. That wasn’t what Uncle Three said at all. Because of our previous knowledge of the “Book of Burial”, as soon as we heard these words with a similar pronunciation, we automatically assumed that they were a phrase from the text. But it was just as I expected—the secret code actually wasn’t a code at all. Uncle Three had used a very ingenious method to make his message seem straightforward when said in front of other people, but only I would know its true meaning.

It seemed that Uncle Three had long predicted that all the people who came with me to this tomb may not have been part of his plan.

Seeing the drastic change in my expression, the other three immediately knew that I had figured it out and started bombarding me with questions.

“We really were thinking about it wrong,” I explained. “The most important reason why Uncle Three said that ‘I’ would understand this phrase wasn’t because I had something in common with him, but because I grew up in Hangzhou.”

The others still didn’t understand. “So, this has something to do with the scenery in Hangzhou?” Fatty asked. “No, that can’t be right. I’ve been to Hangzhou before and have never heard of a scenic spot called ‘Black Tortoise Rejects the Corpse’.”

Pan Zi shook his head and said, “How’d you come to that conclusion? It shouldn’t have anything to do with the scenery. People who grew up in Hangzhou may not necessarily be familiar with the tourist spots there. Just look at our Master Three. He’s lived in Hangzhou for almost ten years but is only familiar with West Lake. Last time a few of us went to visit, he took us to drink tea on Baoshi Mountain⁽¹⁾ and even got lost. We walked around in circles until it got dark, eventually ending up at Yuquan Spring.”⁽²⁾

I nodded. I was exactly the same. People might think that antique dealers loved historical sites, but I actually hadn’t visited many of them at all.

Fatty frowned, “So it has nothing to do with the scenery? Then what the hell is it? You’d better hurry up and tell us. This is stressing me out.” As he spoke, he wiped a few beads of sweat from his face.

I didn’t mean to leave them in suspense, so I quickly responded, “It’s very simple. Although I grew up in Hangzhou, I may not be familiar with the scenery but I can definitely understand the local dialect. This is the key.”

They all sat there stunned for a long time, obviously starting to get a grasp on it but still not fully understanding. “Is it the pronunciation?” Fatty eventually asked.

I nodded. Among our small group here, I was the only one proficient in the Hangzhou dialect. Even though Pan Zi was always in Changsha, he could still speak and understand the Hangzhou dialect, but it wasn’t enough to have a deep understanding like I did. Fatty spoke in the Beijing dialect, so it was easy to tell that he spent all of his time in Beijing. Shunzi wasn’t even worth mentioning—he couldn’t even speak Mandarin well. If Uncle Three said that phrase in the Hangzhou dialect, then only I could truly understand it.

Unfortunately, because of his poor Chinese, Shunzi only remembered the general pronunciation of the words and didn’t recognize the change in tone of each individual word. As a result, the phrase became distorted when it was relayed to us.

Pan Zi smacked himself on the head, “Fuck me, I never would have thought of that. So what does ‘Black Tortoise Rejects the Corpse’ mean in the Hangzhou dialect? It seems like it’ll be difficult to figure out what the proper pronunciation should be.”

I smiled, “Just listen to my analysis. The phrase Uncle Three told Shunzi actually isn’t ‘Black Tortoise Rejects the Corpse’ but ‘the place where the Black Tortoise Rejects the Corpse’. The pronunciation of ‘black’ (or ‘xuan’) is the same as ‘circle’ (or ‘yuan’) in the Hangzhou dialect, but it’s also similar to ‘walk along’ (or ‘yan’). The  pronunciation of ‘tortoise’ (or ‘wu’) is the same as ‘lake’ (or ‘hu’), but in Hangzhou, it can also sometimes sound like ‘river’ (or ‘he’). ‘Reject’ (or ‘ju’) and ‘canal’ (or ‘qu’) also have the same pronunciation. ‘Corpse’ (or ‘shi’) has the same pronunciation as ‘water’ (or ‘shui’) while the remaining words are homonyms.⁽³⁾ So, once you put everything together, the real message is: follow the water at the bottom of the river canal!”

As soon as I finished explaining, they all made a noise like they understood and their confused expressions suddenly cleared up. Fatty even started nodding. It seemed that my interpretation was very logical and didn’t have any flaws.

Pan Zi clicked his tongue and mumbled to himself, “That’s Master Three for you. If Chen Pi Ah Si heard this sentence, he never would have guessed that this is what it meant. He probably would have been wracking his brain trying to figure out the meaning behind ‘Black Tortoise Rejects the Corpse’.”

Fatty thought it over for a while and then asked, “River canal water? But there’s no canal here. Could there be a river in the imperial tomb?”

“Of course not,” I said. “There can be a spring in the tomb, but not a river. This is because the water level of a river can’t be controlled—if the water is too high, it will flood, and if it’s too low, it will ruin the feng shui and expose the tomb’s location. The river mentioned in the message must refer to this moat.”

Pan Zi’s face trembled with excitement, “So we got on the right path by mistake?”

I shook my head, “It’s hard to say.” After all, we hadn’t entered the imperial tomb yet, so I didn’t know what the situation was like inside. But based on the signs in front of us and all the information I had, my analysis still seemed reasonable.

“If the river is the moat, then the canal must be that fucking ditch we saw just now…” Fatty stood up and looked towards the burial ditch full of stone statues—it really did seem to fit in line with Uncle Three’s secret code. We all turned to look at it, our hearts beating faster.

“But,” Pan Zi was still a little uncertain, “there’s no water in that ditch.”

I shook my head, “Uncle Three hadn’t entered the imperial tomb at that time, so he must have been going off of a clue he got from somewhere else, maybe an ancient book or a map. At that time, the people who made such maps or texts probably didn’t expect that there wouldn’t be any water in the moat.”

There were traces of corrosion on the rocks along the moat walls, indicating that there must have been water in this river at one time. But after thousands of years, the source of the river—either a hot spring or an underground river—must have dried up. With the water in the river no longer being replenished, the remaining water gradually seeped into the ground until there was nothing left.

Fatty, unable to hold back anymore, pulled the bolt of the gun back with a “click” and then cocked his head at us, “Comrades, it’s rare that our personal interests align with the interests of the revolution. What are we waiting for? Let’s fucking go!”

This time, we couldn’t find any reason to refuse Fatty’s proposal, but he was obviously too impatient to get going. Pan Zi pulled him back and said, “Now that we have a clue, there’s no need to rush. Look at Little Master Three—he suffered such a heavy injury and hasn’t recovered yet. Do you want to go alone, or should we leave him here to die?”

Fatty froze, thought it over, and seemed to agree that Pan Zi was right, but he was too excited to just sit here and do nothing. He patted Shunzi on the shoulder and said, “Then the two of us will go explore first while you guys rest here. The early bird gets the worm and all that jazz. Shunzi, I guarantee you’ll get no less than what old Master Three initially offered you.”

But to our surprise, Shunzi also shook his head and said, “Boss, my job is to take him”—he pointed to me—“to your Master Three. Once that’s done, your life or death means nothing to me. But right now, I have to look after him.”

I laughed and said to Fatty, “Now you know who’s the big shot here.”

Fatty snorted and said unhappily, “Fine, you guys rest here and I’ll go by myself. When I come back with some treasures, we’ll see how jealous you are. But before I leave, I have something unpleasant to say—whatever I find is mine; I won’t share anything with you all!” Then he picked up his gun and left.

But after taking a few steps, he suddenly stopped and paused before turning around and walking back to us. We all laughed and asked him what he was doing—was he too afraid to go?

Fatty snorted, shrugged his backpack off, and sat down on the other side of the lantern, “Who’s afraid? I see how eager you guys are for me to go, but I’m not that stupid. As soon as I find something, the three of you will probably come and take it from me, like a pack of wolves ganging up on a fierce tiger. You’ll probably wait for the right moment to take advantage of me, or even kill me just to get it. But I won’t fall for something stupid like that.”

Pan Zi saw how upset Fatty was and couldn’t help but take the opportunity to taunt him, “That’s what you would call a vile character. But not everyone is like you.”

I was afraid that Fatty would get angry and start arguing with him, so I quickly interrupted them, “Alright, that’s enough. Even though we can’t see the sky here, it’s around midnight right now. We should hurry and get some rest.”

Pan Zi looked at his watch and nodded. Then he turned up the lantern to warm our surroundings and pulled out our inflatable sleeping bags. Once they were blown up, we all got ready to fall asleep.

Fatty lit a cigarette, saying that he couldn’t sleep so he would take the first watch. I glanced at him and told him not to go searching for treasure in the middle of the night. He could take whatever he wanted from the underground palace once we got there, but for right now, he needed to take it easy and listen to me.

“Do you really think I’m that kind of person?” Fatty asked indignantly. “I’ll keep watch and make sure everyone stays safe.”

The whole journey had been very tiring. It was already evening by the time we reached the top of the mountain and then it took almost ten hours to reach the spirit palace in the glacial ice. This was equivalent to a day and a night of hard physical labor, from rock climbing, running, long jumping, and falling from a great height. I was so tired that I ended up falling asleep as soon as I got into my sleeping bag.

I slept soundly, both because I was wounded and because the others didn’t wake me up to keep watch. By the time I woke up again, it was still dark all around, and the lantern was a lot dimmer. Pan Zi was the one keeping watch now. He was leaning against a rock and smoking a cigarette while Fatty snored thunderously close by.

I looked at my watch and saw that I had only slept for five hours, but because of my serious injuries, the quality of my sleep ended up being pretty good. My body had been undergoing a state of intense repair, so I had basically entered a kind of semi-comatose state. When I woke up, my mind felt completely refreshed, but my body was even more tired and my back ached something fierce.

I rubbed my face and crawled out of my sleeping bag, stretching my arms and legs to get the blood flowing. Then I told Pan Zi to get some sleep; I would keep watch for a while. But Pan Zi refused, saying that after serving in Vietnam, he couldn’t sleep more than three hours if he wasn’t in a proper bed.

Not bothering to argue with him, I sat down on the other side of the rock and smoked a cigarette while I waited for my brain to wake up.

We remained silent for a while, until Pan Zi suddenly asked me how I thought Uncle Three was doing right now and whether I thought something had happened to him.

I glanced at him and felt deeply moved—based on his expression, he was clearly really worried about my Uncle Three. Generally, people like Pan Zi who had experienced war were used to seeing bullets and death, so they didn’t have such deep feelings for others. But in fact, Pan Zi’s loyalty and trust in the old man made me—his nephew—suddenly feel ashamed. I didn’t know what had happened between the two of them, but I decided to ask my uncle whenever I had the chance.

“Don’t worry,” I comforted him, “that old fox will never let himself be treated badly. His life wasn’t easy, so he knows how to handle any problems that might pop up. We just need to focus on taking care of ourselves right now. At this stage, we should be the ones making others worried since we don’t know anything about what’s going on yet.”

Pan Zi nodded and sighed, before saying with some annoyance, “It’s a pity I’m not that smart. I can never understand what Master Three is up to. If I did, I could just go myself instead of having him do such dangerous things.”

I smiled bitterly to myself, thinking that what Uncle Three was doing wasn’t necessarily that dangerous. On the contrary, it seemed like what we were doing was the most dangerous—always following after Uncle Three, guessing the purpose of his actions, and being led around by the nose. No matter how lucky we were, if this continued, we’d eventually fall into a trap.

For example, this time, judging from the clue that Uncle Three gave us regarding the entrance to the underground palace, it seemed that he had something which enabled him to know the structure of the underground palace in advance. The phrase “follow the water at the bottom of the river canal” sounded like it was classical Chinese. Uncle Three never spoke like this, which meant that the phrase must have come from an ancient text. And as for what Shunzi said about Uncle Three entering the mountain alone…this made it obvious that he hadn’t fallen into A Ning’s hands. If he successfully entered this volcanic crater, then he might already be in the imperial tomb’s underground palace.

Presumably, this “thing” that enabled him to know the structure of the underground palace in advance was the real reason for his visit to Xisha a few months ago, and could also explain why A Ning’s company had appeared here at this time—their goal wasn’t the undersea tomb, but the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds. They had cooperated with Uncle Three to conduct the Xisha expedition because they were looking for clues to the imperial tomb located under Changbai Mountain.

I remembered that when we were in the undersea tomb, A Ning had been separated from us for a long time. What did that woman do in the rear hall when we exhausted ourselves trying to avoid those traps? Did she also find a clue to the location of the imperial tomb, just like my Uncle Three? There was no way to know for sure, but the well-equipped corpses we saw in the front hall before clearly proved that A Ning and her team had arrived here before us. According to Shunzi, such a huge team wouldn’t have been able to pass by the border guards unscathed, but seeing how they had managed to enter this place, it seemed they knew of a secret entrance.

This at least proved that A Ning and the others knew things that we didn’t.

This was the difference between us and them—we were completely ignorant and had no idea what was waiting for us in the underground palace. It was already a bad situation, but the fact that we still had to keep moving forward without the option of retreat just made it so much worse.

I didn’t bother mentioning this to the others. For Pan Zi, Uncle Three was everything—he did whatever Uncle Three wanted him to do, regardless of the motivation. For Shunzi, Uncle Three was a complete outsider—this was just a business deal, and all he cared about was the final result. Fatty, on the other hand, was much simpler—he came because of the “lama mediator” and only cared about the treasures in the tomb. For him, Uncle Three was just synonymous with trouble. While the results of my analysis seemed to be useful only to me, I was the only one left feeling confused.

For the first time, I felt a little envious that everyone else could live such simple lives.

After chatting for a while, Pan Zi eventually asked me how I was feeling. I thought about it and found that I really did feel a lot better after sleeping. I should be able to walk just fine without any support, but I obviously wouldn’t be any help in a fight. Pan Zi told me that it was better to get some rest while I could. It was rare to find a place as calm and safe as this, and there probably wouldn’t be any opportunities to rest once we entered the underground palace.

Thinking that he was right, I went back to my sleeping bag and tried to fall asleep again. But as I lay there, I found that it was impossible—off to the side, Fatty kept talking in his sleep in a strange dialect I wasn’t familiar with, as if he was trying to haggle with someone. When he started talking more excitedly, Pan Zi threw a small rock at him and he immediately quieted down. But after a while, it would start back up again, just as noisy as before. I didn’t notice it before because I was so tired, but now that I was trying to fall back asleep, I found it really annoying.

I lay there with my eyes closed, enduring it for two long hours until Pan Zi threw a rock that was too big—Fatty woke up with a shout loud enough to wake us all up, even Shunzi. Knowing that it would be impossible to go back to sleep, we decided to head out.

After gathering our things together and eating some dry rations, we walked back to the burial ditch we found before. The eroded black statues still stood there silently, lined up in a long line that stretched into the endless darkness on both sides.

After the others helped lower me down into the burial ditch, I started to walk among the statues. I didn’t feel anything special when I was looking down at them from above, but now that I was standing in front of them and could see that they were the same height as me, their shadowy figures suddenly made me feel really uneasy.

Fatty shined his flashlight in both directions and said, “Your Uncle Three told us to follow the water, but there’s no water here now. Where should we go?”

I looked at Pan Zi. During the Sino-Vietnamese War⁽⁴⁾, he had participated in special warfare operations, so I figured he had some understanding of this kind of thing.

Pan Zi approached a statue, touched the cracks on it, and then pointed in the direction the statue was facing. “Based on the traces of water flow on the stone, downstream is that way.”

Fatty leaned over and took a look, but couldn’t understand how Pan Zi came to that conclusion. “Human lives are at stake,” he said distrustfully. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

Pan Zi ignored him and told us to be careful. Then we all started walking along the ditch, headed towards the dark depths of the moat.

I had no idea how long the moat was. When we fired those flares from the cliff before, the whole imperial city was just a place far off in the distance. We had only been able to vaguely see the top of the buildings, while this moat was blocked from view by the dense forest of dead trees surrounding it. And when we were crossing the bridge, the light from our flashlights wasn’t strong enough to illuminate everything in the darkness. But even after walking straight along the silent burial ditch for half an hour, we still didn’t reach the end.

The bottom of the burial ditch was uneven, and there were several sections where the statues were badly broken, as if something huge had stepped on them. It was surprising to see that hard, mysterious rock cracked and shattered into little pieces. As we walked, I also saw a bunch of limbs and heads sticking out of the bottom of the ditch from time to time, as if there was another layer of statues buried underneath.

Or, maybe the whole ditch was supposed to be buried originally, but the project was stopped for some reason so there were still a bunch of statues that weren’t buried.

It became darker and darker as we continued moving forward. Originally, the moat wall could still be seen in the light of our flashlights, so we could use it as a kind of reference point, but as we went further along, even the towering walls could no longer be seen. With darkness surroundings us, we couldn’t help but slow down. Pan Zi reminded us to stay sharp and not get distracted.

At this time, Fatty, who was walking in front of us, suddenly froze and motioned for us to stop.

I walked over to him and followed the direction of his flashlight, only to find that we had finally reached the end of the burial ditch. The line of statues had disappeared, and in front of us was a large stone wall, upon which something large seemed to have been carved.  It looked similar to the Leshan Giant Buddha statue,⁽⁵⁾ but our flashlights couldn’t reach that far, so I couldn’t tell what it really was. All I could see was a square hole at the base of the wall that had initially been covered by rubble at some point. But after looking closely, I found that most of the rubble had been removed, revealing a dark hole.

Like the shaft we went through before, this hole must have also been one of the passages secretly excavated by the craftsmen who built the tomb back then. This would have been the only way for them to escape after the underground palace was sealed off.

“Another tunnel?” Pan Zi was surprised. “But why is the opening here? That’s impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?” Fatty asked. “You didn’t dig it.”

“This place was underwater back then,” Pan Zi explained. “Do you think those craftsmen were all fish?”

I waved my hand, silently telling them not to argue, when Shunzi suddenly spoke up, “Hey, come check this out. There’s something over here.”

As he spoke, he moved his flashlight over to illuminate it. We all turned to look and found that someone had carved a few words on the rock next to the square opening.

<Chapter 22><Table of Contents><Chapter 24>

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TN Notes:

(1) Baoshi Mountain is a tourist spot in Hangzhou that overlooks West Lake. Here’s the trip advisor page and here’s a tourist site page.  

(2) As one of the three famous springs of the West Lake, Yuquan (or Jade Spring) has always been a famous place for drinking tea and enjoying the scenery. It’s located in Hangzhou Botanical Garden. Here’s the travel page. Here’s the rough distance between the mountain and the botanical garden:

  

(3) I threw in the towel for the remaining few words and just summed them up as homonyms, which are words that can have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings.

(4) The Sino-Vietnamese War was a border war fought between China and Vietnam from Feb. 17, 1979 to March 16, 1979. China launched an offensive in response to Vietnam’s actions against the Khmer Rouge in 1978, which ended the rule of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge.

(5) The Leshan Giant Buddha is a 71-meter-tall stone statue, built between 713 and 803. It is carved out of a cliff face of Cretaceous red bed sandstones that lies at the confluence of the Min River and Dadu River in the southern part of Sichuan Province in China, near the city of Leshan.