The bubbles rose evenly to the surface, quickly and with a tendency to expand outward, as if there were a huge creature beneath the pool, constantly gasping for air. The three of us became vigilant, raising our guns and pressing our backs tightly against the wall. I was already feeling a bit overwhelmed with tension, my palms sweaty, unsure of what the outcome would be. The bubbles continued to surface for about five minutes when suddenly a baffling muffled sound came from the bottom of the pool.

At the same time, the water level in the pool began to drop, and dozens of whirlpools gradually appeared on the surface, splashing water as if a dozen toilets were being flushed simultaneously. The coffin-like basin began to spin wildly with the current, like a top. In an instant, the water level dropped by two or three meters. I was perplexed and quickly shone my flashlight into the pool, only to see a stone staircase appear on the inner wall of the pool, spiraling downwards, seemingly leading straight to the bottom.

The water was moving very quickly, and before I could observe it closely, it had already disappeared into the pitch-black depths, with only the roar of the whirlpools continuing to echo. I swept the flashlight around and discovered that the pool was bowl-shaped, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, reaching a depth of over ten meters. The flashlight’s penetration power was insufficient, and combined with the swirling mist below, the bottom of the pool was hidden in a hazy darkness, making it impossible to see clearly.

I remembered that we had a deep-water lamp with strong penetration. I wondered if it would work against the mist, so I hurriedly called them to turn it on and adjusted the brightness to maximum, shining it down from three different directions simultaneously.

Although it didn’t illuminate the area completely, the appearance of the bottom was barely outlined. It was a circular plane with a diameter of ten meters, covered in carvings. I couldn’t make out the specific patterns, but I could confirm that there were several large holes on it, resembling openings for drainage.

At the center of the pool’s bottom was a mass of water vapor, with dark shadows swirling within. The fat guy had sharp eyes and pondered for a moment before saying, “Did you notice that in the middle of the bottom, there seems to be a stone tablet?”

I followed his gaze and could only see an outline. The fat guy continued, “This stone staircase goes down like this; who knows where it leads? There might be other passages below. Let’s go down and take a look!” With that, he jumped onto the stone steps.

This ancient tomb was eerily strange, and I did not agree with his reckless decision to go down. I shouted, “Don’t rush! It’s too dangerous to go down like this; we should at least wait for the mist to clear!”

The fat guy had already taken several steps down and said, “It’s fine, I’m just going down to take a look. If it’s not safe, I’ll come back.”

Knowing his temperament, I didn’t stop him. I watched as he descended about two levels, seemingly bumping into something. He squatted down to take a look, and after just a few seconds, he looked up and shouted, “Damn it, there’s actually foreign writing here!”

I was taken aback by this statement. How could there be foreign writing in a Ming Dynasty tomb? What kind of absurdity was this? I shouted, “What the hell are you talking about? How could there be foreign writing in an ancient tomb? You must have misinterpreted the patterns!”

The fat guy angrily retorted, “Although my foreign language isn’t good, I know my ABCs! You underestimate me! If you don’t believe me, come down and see for yourself!”

I said, “What does it say up there? Can you read it to me?”

The fat guy was infuriated and shouted, “If I could read it, I wouldn’t need you to come down!”

I hadn’t planned to go down, but with things turning out this way, I had no choice. I sighed and jumped down to the stone step, which was only half a meter long and seemed to be made of a solid piece of green granite. One end was embedded in the wall of the pool. I stomped on it a few times, and it felt very stable; there was no danger of it collapsing. At that moment, the silent oil bottle also jumped down, and we walked towards the fat guy one after the other.

The fat guy stood on that step like a wall. He pointed at the wall of the pool and said, “Look here! If this isn’t in English, I’ll turn the character for ‘Wang’ upside down!”

I looked and saw that someone had indeed chiseled a few letters into it. The markings looked neither new nor old, which made me think it could have been carved by my uncle and his group about 20 years ago. I couldn’t help but be surprised. Did my uncle’s group come to this place while he was sleeping? Could their disappearance be related to this strange pool?

The fat guy saw that I was in a daze and slapped me hard. “So, is it or isn’t it? Hurry up and say!”

I nodded hurriedly and said, “Yes, yes, I apologize. It really is English.”

The fat guy became pleased with himself and slapped his thigh, saying, “I was wondering why this was so strange. We’ve been searching for this broken fight for so long and haven’t found even a slightly good piece. Turns out the foreign brothers got here first. Back when the Eight-Nation Alliance came, they didn’t leave us anything either. This time, I guess there’s nothing left.”

I thought for a moment and said, “It’s not just the foreigners; Chinese people can write in foreign scripts too. When it comes to carving, it takes much less time to carve foreign letters than Chinese ones. These letters are all abbreviations; I think it might be a marker. It looks like it was carved in a hurry, perhaps something urgent happened while they were going down, or someone was urging them. They might have chiseled a few letters here to leave a mark for those coming after.”

The fat guy said, “Now that you mention it, that makes sense. What do you think they went down there for? Could there be some treasure?”

I knew he was drifting off to another thought and chose to ignore him. The fat guy chased after me and said, “Anyway, we have plenty of time. Why not go down and take a look? We might find some bronze artifacts to use as tools. Wouldn’t that be killing two birds with one stone?”

I looked down. I wasn’t interested in treasure; I didn’t want to earn money that I couldn’t enjoy spending. However, if I could find out the whereabouts of Wenjin and the others down there, it would be worth checking out. Just as I was hesitating about whether to continue, I suddenly heard the silent oil bottle say, “I think I’ve been here before!”