My entire concept has been completely overturned. This ancient building not only has a location that seems off, but its structure is also quite bizarre. Behind the door leading to the back, there is a corridor that goes underground. Could it be that the entire large residence behind is built underground? The designer clearly did something deliberately; the actual length of the back hall might be different from the length of the rooms inside. When others come in and see this door, they might think it’s the back door, but in reality, it’s still some distance away from the true back door, with a hidden corridor in between.

The main entrance is at ground level, while the other parts are built underground. Is this still considered a residence? It’s more like a rat’s nest. The designer really has an incredible imagination.

Suddenly, I recalled a saying my uncle told me a long time ago: building villas in the deep mountains is either for overseas Chinese or tomb raiders. Is this considered deep in the mountains? Could this ancient house in the mountains be a fake building for tomb raiding? It’s similar to the stories of people building pig pens over ancient tombs to cover up their tomb raiding activities.

On the surface, it fits this notion perfectly. Going down the corridor might lead to an ancient tomb they are currently digging, and these iron figurines are burial items excavated from the tomb.

But upon further reflection, I know that it’s impossible. I understand the temperament of tomb raiders; even the most capable and eccentric of them wouldn’t construct such a sturdy corridor just for tomb raiding! This is clearly a permanent stone street built by very experienced craftsmen, not something done on a whim.

Moreover, why build a Han-style building in a Yao village? The existence of a fake building is meant to conceal and divert attention from tomb raiding activities. Constructing a Han-style building in a Yao village would only make it more conspicuous.

Following this line of thought, the best and most efficient method would be to build a Yao-style stilt house here, and then at night, dig a hole downwards. Constructing such a tall and solid Han-style ancient building would likely take far more time and money than the value of raiding an ancient tomb. It’s too ostentatious and completely unnecessary.

If this theory were to hold any water, there would only be one possibility: that the things below are of incredibly high value and extremely difficult to access, requiring perhaps twenty or thirty years of effort. But I can also be fairly certain that there can’t be a large tomb down there because this area is situated in a low-lying mountainous region, and all the underground water flows here, making it impossible to construct a large burial site.

From what I’ve learned about architecture, I can also confirm one thing: this building seems to have been purposefully constructed for some special use, with all its features serving that purpose. I currently don’t know what that purpose is, so I can’t make a judgment, but the core of that purpose should be underground.

I glanced at the oxygen meter; there wasn’t much left—at most, I could last another fifteen minutes. There was no time to waste. Looking again at the corridor, it didn’t seem very deep. After just a few steps, it slowed down, revealing a ground of blue bricks.

The blue light did not reappear, and there was no sense of danger. I thought, even if there were water ghosts, they didn’t seem to have any malice and appeared to be deliberately guiding me step by step. If they really wanted my life, I probably would have been dead long ago.

My previous experiences made me feel a bit useless, so I steadied myself and cautiously opened that door, swimming toward the pitch-black depths below.

I reached the bottom, shone my flashlight, and immediately gasped. Below was a brick-built basement, small and extremely narrow, with an exaggerated length that made it impossible for me to see the other end.

On both sides of the brick chamber stood numerous iron shelves, each holding countless iron figures lying flat. It resembled a dragon’s lair, with the iron statues displayed like freshly fired porcelain, and under the yellow light of the flashlight, they appeared almost like corpses, evoking the feeling of a hidden underground chamber in a grand cathedral abroad. A rough estimate suggested there were at least six hundred figures.

Could this have once been a factory for casting iron figures? The sediment in this place had diminished significantly, and many rust spots had developed scales, resembling decayed black bodies.

As I moved further in, I noticed that the poses of the iron figures were all different. More eerily, none of the iron figures had right hands; all the right hands were destroyed, with irregular tear marks that seemed to be man-made.

The extreme panic I had felt earlier had numbed me; I remained alert to my surroundings, continuing to crawl along the ground. Upon reaching the end of the room, I found not the underground courtyard I had imagined, but rather a solid wall, with only a well visible on the brick floor at the end.

Digging a well in a basement, especially in water-rich Guangxi, seemed like a sign of madness. Looking closer, I noticed that there were steps beside the well, designed for climbing, and I immediately understood that something lay below.

At that moment, my earlier assumptions began to waver. This looked too much like signs of a fake building for tomb robbing! Perhaps there really was an ancient tomb down there, or maybe there was some eccentric old fellow who spent a fortune building a super luxurious house for tomb raiding, even more extravagant than the tomb below, wanting to make the house as distinctive as possible to attract attention.

Maybe there really was an imperial mausoleum built in an area with abundant underground water; after all, people even built in the sea! Why shouldn’t someone be submerged in water?

I directed my flashlight into the well. If this was a tunnel for robbing, such a structure would confirm that the ancient tomb was very difficult to access, requiring the construction of a corridor for large machinery and many people to work simultaneously. The tomb must be beneath someone else’s house, forcing them to take a roundabout approach rather than going straight down. This suggested that this group was not entirely composed of professional tomb raiders; they were likely a large and mixed crew, reminiscent of the past tomb-raiding warlords.

The warlords had immense power locally; no one dared to oppose them if they wanted to build a house in the Yao village. At the same time, relations with the Yao and Miao people were quite tense. If the Yao people found out they were robbing tombs in the village, ethnic conflicts could easily escalate.

On one hand, they needed to act quickly; on the other, they had to hide. If the tomb below was massive, they might indeed build a corridor to save time, facilitating the movement of personnel in and out. Comparing this to the couplet above, the master of the Zhang family had military achievements, making this possibility quite plausible.

Feeling quite clever for my deductions, I looked down the well, deep and inscrutable. Unable to descend while carrying my oxygen tank, I prepared to withdraw.

At that moment, a green light suddenly illuminated the depths of the well.

I felt a jolt in my heart—something was coming! This time, the light was very close to the well opening, only two or three meters away. I wanted to shine my flashlight on it, but before I could make a move, that green light moved first, rushing towards me in an instant.

I immediately raised my military knife, thinking, “This is getting serious!” But the green light was too fast, zipping past my ear like a shooting star.

In that fleeting moment, I saw nothing, but I quickly concluded that it wasn’t a ghostly water spirit; it looked more like an animal emitting green light.

I hurriedly turned around and saw the green light flash into a nearby iron frame, where it extinguished instantly. When I shone my flashlight on it, it flashed back to life, as if responding to the light from my flashlight.

Finally, I saw the true form of that thing. It resembled an enormous, gray creature, like a four-legged lizard, about the length of my arm, lying on the head of an iron statue. It seemed to be tied to something, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was a flashlight, glowing with that eerie green light.