Chapter 27 New Mark

I couldn’t remember what the mark in the undersea tomb looked like, but I still remembered those two marks that had been carved at the bottom of the moat and by the entrance to the tunnel. Looking more closely at the mark here, I found that it was completely different from the others.

Pan Zi, Fatty, and Shunzi really weren’t familiar with the English alphabet, so as long as these marks were in English, they wouldn’t be able to recognize the difference. That was why they didn’t bother paying close attention to the other marks just now. But I, as someone who went to college and passed the CET-4 and CET-6,⁽¹⁾ at least knew that this mark was different from the others (no matter how bad my grades were).

I always thought that it was just a simple mark meant to guide us, similar to any other kind of sign that meant, “Go this way”. But if that were the case, the mark shouldn’t have changed. Generally, after entering a tomb passage, a person’s attention would be completely focused on the surrounding environment, and they wouldn’t intentionally change the style of their guiding mark. Moreover, these marks were usually done in a hasty manner, indicating that the person who left them wasn’t very calm at the time, which also ruled out the possibility of them changing the style of the mark on a whim.

There was only one reason for this phenomenon now—these marks had different meanings. While they were used to show the way, they also seemed to be a message from the person who left them.

But this brought up another question: what exactly was the message? This seemingly foreign language wasn’t actually a foreign language, but a word composed of letters from the English alphabet. I really couldn’t tell what language it was, but I was at least certain it wasn’t a language with common similarities to English—like German or French—because the arrangement of the letters was too irregular.

Moreover, after following the marks at the bottom of the moat and the entrance to the tunnel, we didn’t encounter any danger. So, if we assumed that the meaning of that mark was that it was safe to enter, then the meaning of this mark had to be different. We couldn’t discount the possibility that it was a warning, indicating that there was danger in this tomb passage.

After listening to my theory, Fatty and the others also felt that this mark was questionable. Not daring to act rashly, we decided to stop where we were and think it over.

But getting here could already be considered a small breakthrough. In fact, it wasn’t unreasonable to say that we had half-succeeded, so figuring out which tomb passage to take obviously wasn’t important right now. Even if there weren’t any marks to guide the way, there was no reason for us to panic.

But after entering the underground palace—especially the main tomb passage—you had to be very careful in everything you did. This was because as long as there were traps and mechanisms in an ancient tomb, they would definitely be in this part, so it was necessary to be cautious and spend some time here.

“Little Master Three,” Pan Zi suddenly said to me, “you’re the only one here who has a little knowledge of foreign languages. If even you don’t know what this is, then there’s no way for us to know what it means. Is it possible to translate these English letters into Chinese? We won’t know the meaning of the whole phrase, but maybe we can at least guess something?”

Pan Zi didn’t know any English at all, so he was probably thinking that English letters were the same as Chinese characters, with every letter having its own meaning. I was too lazy to educate him, so all I said was, “If you want to guess, then it’s better to guess who left this mark and why. At least that way, we have a better chance of guessing this mark’s meaning.”

“Even though we don’t know who left it behind, didn’t we already decide on their reason for putting it here?” Fatty asked in surprise. “This mark is meant to guide us, right?”

I shook my head, “I also used to think so, but now I’m not so sure. If this mark really was meant for us, then they should have at least used something that we could understand. But the person who carved these marks used such an obscure pattern that it seems like they weren’t left here to help us. We may have just gotten lucky and stumbled across these marks that were left for someone else.”

Pan Zi, after thinking it over for a while, seemed to find this statement reasonable and asked, “Then who were they meant for?”

“A Ning has a lot of people in her team. They may have split up into smaller groups, and this mark is their way of communicating with each other,” Fatty said.

I nodded, indicating that it was a possibility. But we didn’t have any evidence to figure out what the actual situation was, so I immediately added, “There may be other reasons. It’s useless to speculate on it now.”

But the thing that interested me the most was what kind of information was contained in this mark. There was a good chance that it was similar to the marks used on international explorer maps, like the ones that indicated the different levels of danger of some primitive jungle trails. In addition to telling you where you could walk, they could also tell you what to expect on the trail. For example, if there were hippos in the river, there would be a symbol on the map to represent that.

When we arrived here, we found that the mark had suddenly changed, so it was important to figure out its meaning. I couldn’t help but feel a little depressed at the thought that it might be a warning that there were zombies in this tomb passage.

I suddenly thought of those “Caution: Bears” stickers you’d see on off-road vehicles.⁽²⁾ Maybe the person who left this mark also had a stylish way of doing things, and this mark actually meant “Caution: Zombies”. Then I thought that if I could get out of here alive, maybe I should put one on my Jinbei to show others my personality.

Pan Zi, not knowing that my thoughts had taken a wild turn, suddenly said to me, “No, that’s not right. I don’t think this mark is a warning that there’s danger ahead. Just think about it—if there was any danger in the tomb passage, you’d have to you walk through it to know. There’s no reason for them to come back and carve this mark after they’ve already passed through. In other words, this mark was carved here when that person was about to enter this tomb passage, indicating to those that came after him that he had gone in this direction. As for what’s inside, he didn’t know at the time he carved it. This kind of thing is known as ‘tracking language’.”

I hadn’t heard of such a thing before, and apparently neither had Fatty, because he asked, “What’s tracking language?”

“Before I went to fight the Vietnamese monkeys,” Pan Zi replied, “I did a lot of training as a soldier. Since it was in the jungle, I learned a lot about rescue operations as well. ‘Tracking language’ is used to mark the routes you’ve taken once you find yourself lost and in a dangerous situation. But there are special rules on how to use it. The rescue team will know based on the marks you left behind what you did in that area. For example, there’s a mark for when you’re running out of food, a mark for when you’re completely out of food, and a mark for when someone in your team dies. As the rescue team follows your marks, they’ll know what your current situation is. And if things get extremely bad, they can use these marks as a basis to improve their rescue strategy. Some say it was invented by the Americans when they were fighting against the Vietnamese.”

“So if you’ve learned it, does that mean you can understand what this mark says?” Fatty asked.

Pan Zi shook his head, “I’m only saying it’s a possibility. This mark is completely different from what I learned at that time. I don’t recognize it at all, but I believe it’s a kind of tracking language. There’s no need to decipher it. For all we know, the change in this mark is just to say that he twisted his ankle here.”

Fatty sighed, “This situation isn’t good. If it really is a ‘tracking language’, then that means that the person who left this mark wasn’t sure that he would succeed, so he was leaving information for the group that came behind him. In other words, he wasn’t confident that he could make it out alive this time.”

“Exactly!” Pan Zi said. “That’s why it’s useless to sit here and guess its meaning. Since this mark wasn’t meant for us, I think we should just act like we didn’t see it. Our main goal right now is to find Master Three. Since he didn’t leave this mark here, that means he didn’t necessarily take this path. Even if we follow it, there’s no guarantee that everything will go smoothly. We should go our own way. We’ve robbed a lot of tombs before, so it’s not like we’ve never encountered this kind of situation before. We can explore a tomb passage without any help.”

This line of thinking suited Fatty just fine, and he quickly nodded in agreement, “Old Pan, you’ve finally said something reasonable. Why don’t we split up into two groups—you and Young Wu can go that way, while Young Shunzi and I will go this way. Let’s see who’s lucky. It’s a straight path anyway, so if you reach the end and notice that something’s wrong, all you have to do is turn back. The other group that took the right path can just wait for the others outside the coffin hall. We can’t sit around here hesitating.”

I didn’t think it was a good idea, “What you said is right, but I’m afraid the main tomb passage won’t be that easy. Look at these stone slabs on the ground—they’re a little over a meter thick, which means that this passage is likely filled with mechanisms such as arrows and trap doors. The two teams might die before they ever reach the end of the passages. If we separate now, we’ll probably never see each other again.”

“If you’re going to think like that, then you shouldn’t have come here at all,” Fatty said mockingly. “If you’re so content with life, what are you doing down here? Now that we’re already in the underground palace, we shouldn’t let fear stop us.”

Did you think I wanted to come here? I thought to myself. I’ve always wanted to be a rich, ordinary citizen. I don’t know what kind of luck I’ve had this year, but I keep running into zombies. I’m not afraid of them now, but why are you suddenly calling me out for being cautious?

Pan Zi was of the same mind as me, and said to Fatty, “No, Little Master Three is right. I’ll give you another reason why we should be careful—A Ning’s team must be nearby. We not only need to guard against zombies, but people as well. And two guns are always better than one. Besides, if one team disappears and doesn’t come back, what is the other team supposed to do? We’d better stick together. That way, we can coordinate with each other.”

Shunzi, who had remained silent this whole time, also spoke up, “No matter what you decide, I must deliver Boss Wu to his uncle. I’m following him.”

Fatty raised his hands in defeat, “You guys have created some kind of cult of personality⁽³⁾ and fucking isolated me. Fine, let’s just call it my bad luck; we’ll do whatever you say. The worst that can happen is that we’ll all die together.”

“Then let’s follow this mark first,” Pan Zi said. “If it’s not right, we can just turn back. Everything will be fine as long as we’re careful.”

We all nodded in agreement. Deep down in my heart, I already knew that no matter what conclusions we came to, we had already reached the point where it was pointless. Right now, which way to go and how to get there all depended on luck.

As we all stood up, Pan Zi pulled out a folding walking stick similar to the ones used by blind people, and tapped it on the ground as we walked in the direction the mark was indicating.

We walked very carefully the whole way. In fact, I was already very tired of these kinds of places where we couldn’t walk carelessly, but there was nothing we could do about it. Now that we were here, we couldn’t make a wrong step; otherwise, all the hardships we went through before would have been in vain.

I thought we would spend at least half an hour in this tomb passage, but to my surprise, it was actually extremely short. After walking less than two hundred meters, it suddenly widened and a huge jade door appeared at the end.

I knew at first glance that this was the door to the coffin hall, because they wouldn’t have used such good stone to make an ordinary door at the end of a tomb passage. The lower part of the door had been blasted through, revealing a big hole. Someone had obviously already entered, but I didn’t know if it was A Ning’s team or someone else.

I was secretly relieved—so we were still on the right track after all. Beyond the door was the core part of the underground palace, which immediately brought to mind many classic tomb structures. Although this was the imperial tomb of the Eastern Xia Dynasty, it had been built by a Han person, so it probably wasn’t much different from the tombs in the Central Plains. What would we see after entering? I couldn’t help but feel excited as I wondered what King Wannu’s coffin looked like, and whether there were other coffins buried with him.

There was a good chance that the jade door leading to the tomb chamber would have a mechanism in it. Usually, the stone walls on both sides were hollow and filled with poisonous talcum powder. There was often no way to crack this mechanism, because once the tomb chamber was sealed, there were no plans to open it again. Even the craftsman who designed the door wouldn’t be able to enter after it was closed.

But since the door already had a hole blown in it, it was safe to assume that the mechanism had also been destroyed. With no need to worry about it now, we quickly bent down and filed into the tomb chamber. Deciding to be cautious, Fatty set off a cold firework to increase our lighting so that we could see the layout of the tomb chamber more clearly.

But as soon as the cold firework was lit, we saw a shocking scene appear in front of us. None of us thought that we would see such a scene in our lifetime, and almost all of us stood there frozen, unable to move.

<Chapter 26><Table of Contents><Chapter 28>

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TN Notes:

(1) The College English Test, better known as CET, is a national English as a foreign language test in China. It examines the English proficiency of undergraduate and postgraduate students in China, and includes two levels: CET-4 and CET-6.

(2) “Caution: Bears” is the name of a popular travel souvenir in Hokkaido, Japan. It was originally a warning sign stuck on poles and fences, because bears frequently appear in Hokkaido, and there have been many incidents of them attacking humans and causing casualties. Then it became a kind of souvenir design that went on clothes, car stickers, food packaging, etc. In China, some people would put the sticker on their car to show that they’re bad drivers and don’t concentrate on the road. I only found info on the Japanese wiki page (here) but here’s a pic of the most famous sticker:

(3) Cult of personality (aka personality cult) is excessive public admiration for or devotion to a famous person, especially a political leader. There’s even a song.

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Syrights asked for the pics of the marks in the comments on the last chapter so I found them in the drama and added them below the TN Notes section on the last chapter if you guys want to go back and view them. Quality isn’t great but I did the best I could given the fact that their flashlights were in the way