Five people took turns working together, starting from a hidden spot they found. They first dug a pit underground that could accommodate all five of them, connected to the surface by only a small hole for one person to enter and exit. The entrance was covered with a dustpan and topped with soil, making it look unremarkable; only when stepped on would one realize there was actually a pit here.

The location they chose for the pit was very clever, dug on the side of a ridge, which significantly reduced the chances of being discovered. They would often move about in town, collecting small tools and dry rations, and every night, they would carefully transport supplies into the pit. Soon, they had stockpiled enough living essentials to last them a month. To address the issue of waste disposal, they dug two smaller holes on either side of the pit, each about six or seven meters deep, blocked with thatch balls, which served as temporary toilets.

Zhang Haike told me that the Zhang family had a special training regimen that included fasting from the very beginning, allowing them to eat very little daily while still maintaining robust physical strength, which also helped control bowel movements. Living underground for long periods without seeing the sun, they could regulate their bowel output and frequency, sometimes going five to six days without the urge to relieve themselves, and at times even staying underground for thirty days without any signs of needing to go. Originally, they dug the pit in the ridge, so even if there was a slight odor, it wouldn’t matter much. However, just to be safe, they strictly controlled their food intake, only maintaining basic physical strength.

When I heard this, I felt that the Zhang family had it really tough. If they went thirty days without a bowel movement, wouldn’t that lead to severe constipation? How did the young man manage before? His body’s detoxification process must have been a complete mess!

Once their tools and supplies were ready, they began executing their plan to dig underground. The most troublesome aspect of this work was the amount of soil they had to remove, as digging would produce a large volume of waste soil that needed to be transported outside the pit. Although they could reduce some of the waste soil by compacting the walls of the pit, the scale of this excavation project was simply too enormous. Therefore, every night was the most painful time, as they had to think of every possible way to get the waste soil out.

They continued digging, and by the time they reached the bottom of the grave, nearly two weeks had passed. With only ten days left before they had to return home for the New Year, they had to complete everything within this timeframe, making it extremely urgent. For Zhang Haike, it was the first time he realized that being a tomb raider was incredibly challenging. Throughout all the training he had undergone, his elders often told him, “In many cases, luck is the fundamental factor that determines everything.” He deeply understood that some things could fail regardless of how strong or hardworking you were; ultimately, what could lead to success was only luck.

In the first two days of these ten days, they began to dig a tunnel downwards. They worked tirelessly through the nights without eating or drinking, finally reaching the top of the ancient tomb. When their shovels hit the blue brick slab, everyone couldn’t help but let out a long sigh. This sigh was neither of joy nor of frustration, but rather a sense of helplessness and reflection on the hard work they had put in for so long. They slept on the blue brick for three hours, then immediately began to pry open the blue bricks and blue stone slabs to prepare for entering the tomb chamber. At this moment, they made a very, very serious mistake.

The structure of this ancient tomb consisted of a blue stone slab about eight zhang wide at the top, with blue bricks underneath. The blue stone slab was a long strip of stone, about one person long and half a person wide. They used a crowbar to try to pry up a piece of the blue stone slab and then used the skills they had learned to open the blue bricks. At that time, none of them had reached the level of the “Menyouping,” who could pull out the blue bricks with just two fingers, so they still cautiously used sticks to pry open gaps and then smashed the blue bricks piece by piece.

All the blue bricks were stacked on the tomb’s roof using a leverage method; if one was extracted incorrectly, it could cause the entire roof to collapse. Under such circumstances, they had to be extremely careful in their work, and finally, they cleared out a barely passable opening. However, this opening was too small for Zhang Haike and the others to enter; only the smallest among them, Menyouping, could fit through. Zhang Haike felt a bit worried, after all, Menyouping was still very young.

However, if someone could observe from the inside during the next phase of their work, it would save them a lot of trouble. Given that time was pressing and there were no other options, they had no choice but to lower Menyouping down.

The conditions inside the ancient tomb were very good; there was no standing water in the tomb chamber, and it was very dry and cool. Once inside, Menyouping not only did not smell any rotten odors from the tomb, but instead detected a strange fragrance of sandalwood.

As Menyouping descended into the tomb and lit a torch to look around, he discovered that this ancient tomb was quite unusual. He found that the entire tomb was actually upside down, with murals of the Nine Heavens Xuan Nu covering the ground, while the ceiling had nothing but a row of uneven blue bricks. When Menyouping turned around and surveyed the tomb chamber, he realized what had happened. The ceiling was filled with many, many objects, all of which he had seen at the bottom of the tomb before.