Uncle San followed the local people’s directions and walked along a little-known path opened by ancient ancestors in the mountains for about four days. About one-third of this path was carved into the cliffs, and he estimated it had been abandoned for hundreds of years. It was likely once a military trail, but now it was overgrown with moss and vegetation, becoming increasingly rough the deeper he went.

The path continued deep into the forest; the outer section was still frequently used by mountain dwellers, but beyond the area known as the Japanese bandit village, the roads became almost entirely untouched, with collapses and overgrowth making progress nearly impossible.

Driven by his stubbornness, Uncle San persevered through this ancient path and reached the other end of the cliff. From his elevated position, he looked down at the valley recorded in his notes, now beneath him. After twenty years of wind and rain, the traces left by his grandfather and others had long since vanished beneath the dense tree canopy. However, a striking red mound of bare earth in the middle of the valley stood out sharply, clearly indicating that this was the legendary Biaozi Ridge.

At the same time, he noticed something strange standing beneath the canopy on one side of the red mound. Due to its color being similar to the tree canopy, he couldn’t discern what it was from his height.

A vague sense of unease washed over him; this was a rarely visited valley, and there shouldn’t be any signs of human construction or activity here. So he climbed a few steps higher and took out a binoculars smuggled from Russia to take a closer look.

Upon closer inspection, he was stunned to see several military tents scattered beneath the tree canopy near the mound. The tents were camouflaged, making them hard to distinguish from a distance. If it weren’t for Uncle San’s sensitivity to subtle color differences and anomalies, he might have missed them with just a glance.

At that moment, Uncle San felt a wave of confusion wash over him. He thought, “How could there be people in this godforsaken place? And they’ve even set up tents. They can’t be hunters; hunters wouldn’t come this deep and wouldn’t have such good equipment.”

Just as he was pondering this, one of the tents suddenly shook, and a person emerged from inside. Uncle San raised his binoculars to take a look, and his confusion only deepened.

The person who came out had white hair and was dressed in a four-cornered hat with golden threads—it turned out to be a foreigner. At that time, Uncle San couldn’t distinguish between the different European ethnicities, but in an era when China was still closed off, there weren’t many foreigners visiting; most were adventurous Americans. So he assumed this foreigner was American.

He thought to himself, “If there are people here, it must be problematic. Not only are there people, but it’s also a foreigner. What are they doing here? Are the Americans here to cause trouble? Or are they here for the ancient tomb beneath Biaozi Ridge?”

Although it was well-known that foreigners were fond of antiques, they wouldn’t come here to dig themselves. They hadn’t seen the old man’s notes, so how could they know there were tombs underground?

This was simply an unfathomable situation, and Uncle San was utterly perplexed.

He climbed down the cliff with questions in his mind and set down his gear. Lightly, he made his way through the underbrush below and approached the area near the tents. He discovered that the camp of these foreigners was located at the edge of a red earth mound, with about four tents, indicating that there likely weren’t many people. Nearby, a few local porters who looked like Chinese were smoking and resting. He also noticed that a large pit had already been dug into the earth mound, covered by a bamboo frame draped with a green waterproof cloth. Since these things were to the north of his line of sight, he hadn’t seen them while he was on the cliff.

The red earth mound should be the burial mound from years past. The soil here must have been treated with some kind of elixir to prevent plant growth, but now that he was up close, he could see that a lot of weeds had grown, clearly showing that the ancients had underestimated the adaptability of plants.

Upon seeing the trumpet-shaped pit, Uncle San immediately understood that the Americans’ purpose was the same as his: they were excavating an ancient tomb. At that time, Uncle San was still young, and seeing this situation, the only explanation he could come up with was that it might be a Sino-American archaeological team here to conduct excavations. This seemed to be the only reasonable explanation at the time.

If it were the Northern faction, at this point, they would have to consider themselves unlucky, as their rules dictated that they should not compete with officials. If they encountered an archaeological team, what could they do? They couldn’t just go up and kill them. But Uncle San was different; he was unwilling to let others get the better of him. Observing the Americans’ excavation techniques and efforts, he realized that these people lacked the experience of local diggers and were likely using their foreign methods for digging public graves to tackle Chinese ancient tombs. This approach would definitely not allow them to access the ancient tomb. If he could find the right spot and dig a hole, he could stealthily retrieve everything before they entered the tomb.

Uncle San returned to where he had come down and retrieved his equipment. By this time, the sun was setting, and in the twilight, he measured the area around the earth mound with his steps, searching for the most suitable spot to dig.

The process was very complex, and Uncle San did not elaborate on the details; he only told me that he was quite confident at the time, with the only concern being the conditions inside the ancient tomb. The holes dug by his grandfather would not last long; they would certainly collapse after a few rainy seasons. He was unsure how far they had progressed at that time—whether they had already entered the inner chamber of the tomb. If that were the case, rainwater might have accumulated inside the tomb, potentially ruining all the burial items except for those in the coffin. Whether the items in the coffin had suffered damage depended on the quality of the coffin and how well it had been sealed at that time.

After night fell, the foreigners’ camp lit a bonfire, and Uncle San quietly waited until they all fell asleep before carefully using his “cat shovel” to begin digging. The cat shovel is a special type of shovel used by local diggers, making very little noise while digging. However, at that time, the sharpness and sound of a military shovel had already surpassed that of the cat shovel, leading to the latter’s decline in use. Nevertheless, at that moment, the cat shovel was the quietest tool Uncle San could use.

Even so, Uncle San was still very nervous while digging, because he couldn’t use the Luoyang shovel to probe the underground situation (any sound would cause a reaction, and for some reason, the sound of the Luoyang shovel hitting the ground would easily scare off wild birds). Therefore, he wasn’t confident that he could find the outer edge of the ancient tomb in one go.

After digging for about two hours and creating five holes, none of which were in the right place, he gradually narrowed down the search area. When he dug the sixth hole to about 6 meters deep, Uncle San’s shovel finally hit something hard. Just as he leaned in to shine his flashlight on it, he suddenly felt something was off. A slight movement came from beneath the soil, and before he knew it, the entire hole collapsed. He didn’t even have time to scream; his mouth and nose were covered by the dirt, and then he, along with the surrounding soil, fell deep into the ground.