The young woman pressed her lips together in a smile. “Listen to you! My grandfather also heard it from his grandfather. No one even knows when this legend started. They say the immortal was sent down by the Jade Emperor, turned into a great general, and helped the emperor of that time fight wars. When his mission was complete, he ascended to heaven. His mortal body and the treasured weapons he used in battle were buried together. That tomb is even grander than an emperor’s—otherwise, how could he be called an immortal?”

“Since you put it that way, I bet a lot of people have tried to find this tomb?” Uncle Samuel asked nervously. “Has anyone ever found it?”

“Oh, you don’t know. That place—nowadays, you can’t even get in at all. The year before last, when there was a landslide, that area collapsed too. Guess what came out of the mountain?”

“What, probably some kind of cauldron or something,” Frank Carter said.

“No way! If it really was a cauldron, someone would’ve hauled it away long ago. Let me tell you, but don’t tell anyone else,” the young woman took a sip of beer and said, “they dug up over a hundred human heads from that place!”

Chapter Eight: The Valley

Uncle Samuel frowned. “Just the heads? No bodies?”

The young woman said, “Yeah, isn’t that creepy? Ever since the landslide, there’s no way in—not even mules can get through. If you want to go there, you’ll have to climb on foot, step by step. Even if you make it, all you can do is look. A few groups have gone there before, but when the old men saw how the mountain had collapsed, they just shook their heads.”

Uncle Samuel glanced at Silent William, who looked lazy and completely unbothered, then asked the waitress, “Before the landslide, people must have gone in, right?”

“They did, but I saw them go in for a few days and come out just like that, empty-handed. They went in all happy, but when they came out, their clothes looked like beggars’, and they stank to high heaven. My grandfather said maybe they didn’t even find the tomb. So, are you all thinking of giving it a try?”

“Of course! Since we’re here, we have to take a look. Otherwise, it’d be a wasted trip.” Uncle Samuel chuckled and didn’t say more.

The waitress went to the kitchen to hurry the food, and Peter Clark said, “Looks like the big tomb we’re after is definitely there, but from what that girl said, it’ll be hard to get all our gear into the mountains.”

“If you have equipment, there’s a way to use it; if you don’t, there’s a way to manage without. These Warring States tombs are usually just vertical pits, straight up and down, no burial chambers. I don’t know if this one’s the same—we’ll have to see for ourselves how big it is and how deep it’s buried. It’s probably different from the ones we’ve raided before. Those heads that came out of the mountain—that’s what our ancestors called a ‘ghost head pit.’ It must have been a sacrificial pit for human offerings.” Uncle Samuel took out a map and pointed to a circle on it. “Look, this is the place. It’s still a ways from the main tomb. The people who came before, if they were following the geomancers’ rules, would have stopped here. This is the dragon’s head. Usually, the tomb would be right underneath, but look—if you go a bit further in, there’s a gourd-shaped entrance. If you don’t go in, you’d never know there’s another world inside. That’s the real dragon’s head. Whoever designed this tomb really knew their feng shui, and set a trap here on purpose. If I’m right, under this fake dragon’s head is a decoy tomb full of traps!” Uncle Samuel saw we were all listening intently and continued proudly, “Without this map, even our ancestors would’ve been fooled. Tomorrow, we’ll just take what we absolutely need, travel light, and scout the place first. If it’s impossible, we’ll come back for the rest.”

We all nodded in agreement, had another drink, and went back to our rooms.

Then it was time to pack our gear. These days, of course, we don’t use the traditional Luoyang shovel anymore. Uncle Samuel took out an archaeological probe shovel, which is made of steel tubes that screw together—you can use as many sections as you need. It’s much more discreet than the old wooden-handled Luoyang shovel. Warring States tombs are usually more than ten meters deep, so you can’t do without it. When packed up, each person carried ten tubes and a shovel head. Peter Clark had a short-barreled rifle, usually wrapped up tight in a leather case, but now he’d taken it out. This gun is much shorter than the double-barreled shotguns you get on the black market, so you can hide it under your clothes and no one will notice. He stuffed it, along with a few rounds of ammo, into his backpack. Uncle Samuel said that once you’re down there, you can’t even turn around with a double-barreled shotgun. Peter Clark’s short gun is much more practical. I packed a digital camera and a trowel—didn’t really have much else to bring, since I’m just an apprentice grave robber anyway.

The night passed uneventfully. After a day of travel, I slept like a log. When I woke up, my joints felt like jelly. We hurried through breakfast, packed some dry food, and set out. The young woman was quite helpful—she got a kid from her village to guide us. After more than two hours of mountain roads, the naked little kid pointed ahead: “It’s right there!” I looked, and sure enough, it was obvious that the mountain ahead had been gouged out by a mudslide. We were standing between two mountain ridges. The valley was long—during the rainy season, it must be a river, but after the mudslide and months of drought, only a shallow stream remained in the middle.