1673 Chapter 62

1. A Fish That Slipped Through the Net

Their initial journey was particularly tedious. They started from Changbai Mountain, traveled to Shandong, and then took a boat from Shandong all the way to Shanghai. Zhang Haike’s reasoning was that places like Luoyang were traditional burial grounds with a high concentration of tomb raiders. Although he might not be at a disadvantage when fighting these seasoned criminals, they were ruthless and had a history of violence, and now, in an era dominated by firearms, the Zhang family children would likely have little chance against these experienced foes.

For them, entering such areas posed too great a risk. There were only two of them, one of whom was just thirteen years old. They had limited funds and provisions, so it would be better to live frugally and search for some shallowly buried tombs in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, hoping for a stroke of luck.

They lingered in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, such as Shanghai, for a long time, and even dug a few tombs, but found them so barren that it was disheartening; they could hardly retrieve anything of value. They moved from Shanghai to Hangzhou and then to Jiangsu, where they discovered a few larger tombs near Xuzhou. However, upon entering, they found that they had already been completely looted, leaving nothing behind but broken tiles, which were worthless as tokens.

By this time, they had traveled through much of China and spent nearly all their money, relying on petty thefts to survive, such as stealing vegetables from gardens. They were in a dire situation, and Zhang Haike felt that if they continued to waste time like this, they would surely fail to complete the wild release test by the end of the year.

So, after some discussion, they decided to continue westward, aiming to reach those old burial grounds and cultural provinces, where they might find some fish that had slipped through the net.

However, their plan did not come to fruition. During their journey westward, they fortuitously encountered another group of Zhang family members who were also on a wild release, consisting of three children around fifteen years old.

This group, like them, had traveled halfway across China without success. Although there were many ancient tombs in Shaanxi, looting was rampant, and many tombs no longer contained anything of value. Some tombs had been looted hundreds of times, crowded with people like a hornet’s nest; under such circumstances, it was unlikely to find any good items.

Moreover, it was difficult for them to identify tombs that had not been looted, as this required a lot of luck. As the five of them pondered by the side of a cell, time had passed, and if they did not return before the end of the year, it would not only be embarrassing for themselves but also a failure in their exam, bringing shame to their parents.

Thus, the five decided to take a risk and do something extremely dangerous—they resolved to loot a particularly special tomb. They didn’t need to search for it; it was right there, but no one had ever managed to loot it.

This decision became the catalyst for many events that followed.

At that time, they were unaware of which province they were in; they only knew there was a very large village called Ma’an Village. The ancestral tomb of Ma’an Village was located on a hill behind it. At that time, Ma’an Village had a successful armed group, formed by a wealthy man in the village who had gathered a motley crew of soldiers and deserters from various battles. These individuals were seasoned fighters; although they were not effective in combat, they were skilled enough, and they guarded most of the area around Ma’an Village.

At that time, their idea was to find a way to sneak to the back mountain of Maan Village, which was actually a very dangerous move because it was a graveyard under guard. Moreover, these graves were not large in scale; it was just a small mound of earth, making it very difficult to operate on top of it.

A few of them ran to the vicinity of Maan Village, pretending to be children playing, and carefully gathered intelligence about the enemy. They discovered that it was impossible to reach the grave mound in the fastest way. The best approach was to dig a small pit in the forest and tunnel down to the foot of the mountain, then go directly into the mountain to excavate a few ancestral graves. Their goal was quite simple: the graves in Maan Village were divided into three tiers, with the outermost graves appearing very new, comprising a total of seven recently made graves.

They learned that Maan Village had been established for thirty-six generations. If the back mountain had always been the site of ancestral graves, according to burial customs, there should be a very large group of tombs. However, this mound of earth was not large, which meant there wasn’t much space to accommodate the burials of as many as thirty-six generations. Therefore, the location of the earliest and most valuable ancient tomb must be quite peculiar.