My grandfather was illiterate; later, he joined a literacy class. Back then, all he knew was how to pan for gold, and learning to read nearly wore him out. Fortunately, it was because he gained some education that he was able to record some of his experiences. In Biaoziling, Changsha, that old third is my grandfather. All these things were recorded by him, word by word, in his old, worn notebook. My grandmother was an educated woman, a lady from a distinguished family, and it was these stories of his that attracted her. In the end, my grandfather married into the family in Hangzhou and settled down here.

That notebook is considered a family heirloom. After that incident, my grandfather’s nose was completely ruined, so later he trained a dog to sniff the earth, earning him the nickname “Dog King.” This is a true story—anyone in Changsha who has worked as a tomb raider in the old days knows this name.

As for how my grandfather survived afterward, and what eventually happened to my second uncle, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, my grandfather never would tell me. In my memory, I never saw a one-eyed, one-armed second uncle, so I guess things didn’t end well. Whenever this topic came up, my grandfather would cry and say, “That’s not a story for children.” No matter how we asked or pleaded, he wouldn’t reveal a single word. Eventually, as we grew older, we gradually lost the curiosity of childhood.

At dusk, the shop closed for the day—another boring day with nothing gained. I sent the assistants home. At that moment, a text message came in.

“9 o’clock, chicken-eye yellow sand.”

It was from my third uncle. This was a code, meaning new goods had arrived. Immediately after, another message: “Dragon’s ridge, come quickly.”

My eyes lit up. {Third uncle} has an exceptionally sharp eye—“dragon’s ridge” means there’s something really good. If even he thinks it’s valuable, I definitely want to see it.

I locked up the shop, got into my beat-up Jinbei van, and headed straight to third uncle’s place. On one hand, I wanted to see what this so-called treasure was; on the other, I wanted him to take a look at the pattern I photographed today from that silk manuscript. After all, he’s the only one of our generation still in touch with the tomb raider world.

As soon as I pulled up downstairs, I heard him shouting from above: “You little bastard, I told you to hurry up! You dawdled for half a day—what’s the damn point of coming now?”

I cursed, “Come on, at least save the good stuff for me! You sell things way too fast.”

Just as I was speaking, I saw a young man coming out of his front door, carrying something long on his back, tightly wrapped in cloth. At a glance, I could tell it was an ancient weapon. This kind of thing is really valuable—if sold well, the price could multiply many times over.

I pointed at the young man. My third uncle nodded and made a helpless gesture. I felt a wave of despair—was my little stall really going to go bankrupt this year?

I went upstairs, made myself a cup of coffee, and told third uncle about the old man with the gold tooth snooping around today. I thought he’d be on my side, but unexpectedly, he seemed like a different person—silent, not saying a word. He just printed out the photos from my digital camera, put them under the lamp, and as soon as he looked, I saw third uncle’s expression change.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is there something strange about this?”

He frowned and said, “No way, this looks like a map of an ancient tomb!”

Chapter Three: Guazi Temple

I looked at the printout of the silk manuscript, covered in writing, then at third uncle’s expression. He didn’t seem to be joking. Could it be that third uncle had reached the point where he could see pictures in the text? He never seemed like the mystical type—he spent his days eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling.

{Third uncle} was so excited he was trembling, muttering to himself, “Where did these people get such good stuff? Why do I never come across things like this? This is really fate. Looks like they still don’t know what this is. We can get ahead of them and pan this batch of sand first.”

I was completely confused. “{Third uncle}, maybe I’m a bit slow, but can you really see a map in such tiny writing?”

“You don’t get it. This is called a ‘character map’—it describes the detailed geographical location in words. If it were anyone else, they really wouldn’t understand it. Luckily, your third uncle has some experience. In this world, besides me, there are probably no more than ten people who can read this stuff.”

My third uncle doesn’t have many other skills, but since childhood he’s been obsessed with studying all sorts of rare and unorthodox ancient scripts and codes. To sum it up, whatever is obscure, he studies it. Things like the Western Xia’s Five Wood Book diagrams, the earliest Jurchen tooth script—he can talk about them in detail. So it’s not surprising he knows about this so-called character map.

But he’s the type who likes to play dumb when he gets the upper hand, so you have to act clueless in front of him, or he’ll just brush you off with a word. So I put on a naive expression and asked, “Oh, so does it say something like ‘go left, then go right, see a big tree and turn right, see a well and climb down’?”

{Third uncle} sighed, “You’re hopeless. With your lack of smarts, looks like our family line is going to end with your generation.”