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We were burning the leaves and branches on the pit, some of which weren't completely dry, so the fire wasn't very big, and there was a lot of smoke.
I covered my nose with a cloth and said, "Is it done now, Third Brother? The fire was pretty big earlier."
After half an hour, the ceramic jar was mostly blackened by the smoke. Yao Wence poked it with a stick, and this time, no "Corpse Horned Beetles" came up.
"It should be effective. Who's going down first?" the elder brother asked in a low voice.
"I will! I'll go!" Third Brother gritted his teeth. "I'll go down and scout the way. What if Second Brother is down there? I might be able to rescue him."
He climbed onto the jar, first using his leg to test the depth.
"Not very deep, seems to be touching the ground."
Suddenly, there was a sound of collapsing stones from below, and Third Brother screamed!
"Grab him! Don't swing around! Third Brother, I've got you! Yunfeng, come help!"
I hurried over and grabbed Third Brother's other arm. The Yao siblings quickly joined in, and we pulled Third Brother, who was hanging by his legs, up.
"What's going on, Third Brother?"
Third Brother was pulled up and, still shaken, said, "That was close. I think I stepped on something that collapsed."
Yao Yuemen shone a flashlight down, but all we could see below the ceramic jar was pitch black.
Third Brother was not convinced and suggested tying a rope and sliding down.
We didn't know how deep it was, so we tied a climbing rope around his waist.
The elder brother and I tightly held onto the rope.
"Third Brother, be careful. If anything seems off, shout, and we'll pull you up immediately!"
Third Brother nodded and, with his headlamp on, began to slide down slowly.
Two meters, three meters, five meters, and soon the rope reached ten meters.
Yao Yuemen furrowed her brow. "Could it be an underground palace? Why is it so deep?"
Finally, when the climbing rope reached eighteen meters, it stopped. Third Brother had reached the bottom.
The elder brother couldn't hold back anymore, after all, it was his younger brother who had gone missing in the pit.
"Just talking and guessing up here, what use is that? If it were a big earthquake in ancient times, sinking eighteen meters wouldn't be impossible!"
"You guys hold the safety rope, I'm going down to find Third Brother," the elder brother said as he took the rope back and started wrapping it around his waist.
"I'm fine, big brother! You all come down and see! Oh my God! I've never seen anything like this!" Third Brother's loud voice came from below.
So, one by one, we started to slide down. I was the third to last, and the Yao siblings were last.
My hands weren't very strong, and the climbing rope was hurting my hands.
The cave was very dark, and halfway down, I looked up.
On the inner wall below the hole, there were a few flat beetles crawling. These were the Corpse Horned Beetles that hadn't been burned to death earlier. When I shined my light on them, they stayed completely still.
I warned the Yao siblings above, then continued sliding down slowly.
Next came Yao Yuemen, and at last, Yao Wence. When Yao Wence came down, he looped the rope around the jar and said we would need it when we returned.
The space below was much larger than above. Not only I, but the Yao siblings and the Sun brothers were all stunned.
It was very dark, so I used my flashlight to shine around.
The surroundings were spacious, and it was made of stone walls. This underground space had obviously been constructed by humans.
Because it was so dark, the flashlight's range was limited. The first to notice something was Third Brother. He suddenly told us to stop, saying there were human bones on the ground ahead.
Bones in a tomb weren't surprising, but what was odd was that the scattered white bones didn't look very old, as they were still quite white. And from a cursory glance, there were leg bones, hand bones, and finger bones, but no skulls.
Yao Yuemen, being braver, crouched down to take a look and said, "These bones are only a few months to half a year old. Not long."
I also found an empty bottle of Farmer's Spring.
There were many strange things, like not seeing any skulls or clothes.
After a brief discussion, we all temporarily agreed with Third Brother's theory. He had guessed that the night we first entered the pit, we found a hole blasted by dynamite in the tomb passage. Initially, we thought it was a wasted trip and that a local tomb raiding group had beaten us to it, taking all the burial items below.
However, it turned out to be the opposite. We found modern towels and other traces of people coming down, but the Western Chamber still had a wealth of burial items, and we filled up seven or eight large sacks. Second Brother had said that the southern tomb raiders had gone vegetarian and kindly left us so much "fat."
Now, after descending here and seeing the bottle of Farmer's Spring and the bones, we guessed that this had something to do with the tomb raiders from a few months ago.
How they died and how they ended up here, we didn't know. The only reasonable explanation was that it was a case of black eating black.
At this point, Yao Yuemen took out a compass from her bag and started fiddling with it.
"Yuemen, what's this?" I asked, not understanding.
"Kid, stop asking questions. Don't distract my sister. You don't know half of it," Yao Wence coldly glared at me.
The compass had two long needles and one short one. Strangely, the short needle kept swaying back and forth on its own, even though no one was moving the compass.
"That way," Yao Yuemen said, pointing northwest.
I didn't understand at the time, but after entering the profession, I can now tell you that this kind of compass is specially made. The short needle is made from a material called "Tian Tie" in ancient times, which is now known as meteorite.
This compass was specifically used by the Fangtou Sect in the South for geomancy and grave selection. It involves complex knowledge of feng shui and magnetic fields, which I can't explain in just a few words.
We followed Yao Yuemen as she led us northwest. Along the way, I noticed several stone oil lamp stands. I secretly guessed that thousands of years ago, the underground here must have been well-lit.
After walking for over ten minutes, we were stopped by a large stone door.
The surface of the stone door was covered with many intricate patterns and inscriptions, most of which we couldn't understand. It seemed as if the carvings on the door belonged to a culture from another world.
In the middle of the door, there were four characters that stood out. Unlike the previous nine-fold script, these seemed to be bird script.
"Do you recognize bird script?" The elder brother casually asked as he saw Yao Yuemen staring blankly at the stone door.
After a long pause, she snapped out of it and nodded with a pale face.
"That's enough. We can't go any further," she said in a grim tone.
The elder brother furrowed his brow. "What do you mean? Are you planning to back out?"
Yao Yuemen nodded with a pale face.
"These four characters... they say 'The Palace of Mustard Seeds.'"
"Behind this stone door, there's a few tons of natural stone. We can't open it with just a few of us."
"You've stumbled upon something extraordinary. This... this is a national-level underground palace."