adminI brushed the snowflakes off my eyes and, for a moment, I didn’t know where I was. I only felt a sharp rock pressing against my back, and Ye Cheng was below me, shouting. I steadied myself and instinctively looked to see what Ye Cheng was afraid of. Looking down carefully, I realized we were leaning against a steep slope of loose rocks, about five or six meters above the bottom. The rope around my waist was caught on a rock ledge, which prevented us from rolling down directly. The bottom of the slope was littered with snow and stones that had slid down with us earlier, and among the snowdrifts, several long, black claws were exposed.
A wave of suffocation washed over me, and I unconsciously pressed my back against the rock behind me. Following the claws, I could see something black, as thick as a barrel, partially hidden in the snow. Its segmented body was covered in scales, with some parts buried in the snow and others exposed. At first glance, I thought it was a hibernating snake, but upon closer inspection, it resembled a centipede.
The creature lay still against the rock, not moving at all; I couldn’t tell if it was dead or alive, nor could I see its head or tail, so I had no idea how long it was. I felt curious; we were already above the snow line, where living creatures are scarce. What exactly was this creature? Looking at those centipede-like claws and its size, I instinctively felt uneasy.
Pan Zi insisted on going down, while Ye Cheng kept shouting. The fat guy also saw the thing below and threw a snowball from beside him at Ye Cheng’s head, softly cursing, “You damn it, keep your voice down! Do you want to wake it up?!”
I glanced around. This seemed to be a small, enclosed valley filled with an avalanche, but the rocks were piled so chaotically that a lot of air pockets had formed. When the fat guy stepped on the fragile snow layer above, it broke, triggering a chain reaction, and suddenly we were all brought down with it.
The snow above kept collapsing. After such a landslide, the surrounding snow often converges like quicksand, quickly burying the collapsed area again. This process is extremely fast. Many high-altitude expedition teams suffer casualties in such situations, with entire teams disappearing in seconds.
Fortunately, the snow beside us was relatively solid, possibly because we were tied together with the rope and pulled down one by one. The surrounding snow had leveled us out, preventing large sections from collapsing.
This was the leeward side, and the wind was noticeably calmer, not as cold as before. I was able to take a few deep breaths and carefully sat up, moving a few steps down. Although the slope was steep, the surface was covered with loose stones, some as big as the front of a truck, others the size of ping-pong balls, making it easy to climb both up and down.
Pan Zi and Men Youping had already untied the rope. Since we were not far from the bottom, the two of them jumped down with a whoosh, rolling to cushion their landing as they reached the bottom of the slope.
The two of them got up cautiously, one in front of the other, and crept toward the black creature. Our hearts were in our throats.
After a few steps, Men Youping and Pan Zi straightened up, clearly relaxing. Pan Zi glanced at Men Youping, shrugged, and gestured for us to come down.
We were puzzled. After the fat man untied the rope, he rolled down, and the muffled oil bottle had already cleared the snow off the stone sculpture. It turned out to be a stone dragon lying on a stone ledge, carved from black stone. The relief sculpture was very vivid; if it were hidden in the snow, it would be hard to notice.
One by one, we made our way down. When Chen Pi Ah Si saw the stone sculpture, his face visibly changed. He stumbled and called for Huaheshang to support him, then walked straight up to the relief sculpture and started to touch it.
This dragon had distinct features compared to other dragons; beneath its body were countless legs resembling those of a centipede. Clearly, this was not a carving from the Central Plains but rather a dragon from nearby nomadic tribes that had undergone some transformation.
The fat man asked me, “Why does this dragon look so ugly, like a worm? It looks extremely sinister, far worse than the dragons on the Palace Museum’s dragon plaques. It can’t be that it was carved badly.”
Huaheshang replied, “Don’t speak carelessly if you don’t understand. This is a centipede dragon, not a coiled dragon. The early dragon sculptures of the Eastern Xia Kingdom were all like this. In ancient China, dragons had very different forms; some even had pig noses, so it’s not surprising.”
The evolution of Chinese dragons has been very lengthy. In the beginning, dragons crawled and were simply represented by placing any beast’s head on a snake’s body; at that time, each tribe had its own dragon totem, which evolved separately, leading to various forms of dragons. Later, with the spread of Han culture and the fusion of diverse cultures, the image of the Han dragon began to blend with those of various ethnic minorities, eventually leading to the unified form of the coiled dragon that we recognize today.
This centipede dragon is a hybrid of a dragon and a centipede, but for some reason, seeing a regular dragon with so many arthropod legs underneath does not convey a sense of majesty; instead, it feels quite uncomfortable and a bit eerie.
After hearing Huaheshang’s introduction, the fat man laughed and said, “Scarface, I didn’t expect you to be quite literary. So, this stone should be from the Eastern Xia Kingdom?”
Huaheshang looked at the sculpture, then glanced up at the slope above, puzzled. “That’s right, but where did this carved dragon stone come from?”
By this time, it was getting dark. We each turned on our flashlights and began to clear the snow off the stone, discovering that it was nearly a five-meter-high, three-meter-wide massive slab, leaning against a pile of scattered stones. The stone was extremely flat and black, clearly different from the other stones in the area.
I examined the fracture marks on the stone and said, “It might have fallen from above. Fourth Uncle was right; the place we’re heading to is still up there. Look at the asymmetrical shape of this dragon; it resembles the dual dragons playing with a pearl. There should be another side to this sculpture, typically carved on a stone gate, with one on each side.”
Chen Pi Ah Si coughed weakly and said, “Nonsense! You’re just half-informed and spouting off. What stone gate? This is a sealing stone inside a tomb passage.”
As he spoke, he pointed to the dragon’s mouth. Huaheshang immediately went over, reached into the dragon’s mouth, and pulled out a thick black iron chain, about the size of a wrist. The fat man exclaimed, “Oh no, you pulled out the dragon’s intestines!”
Chen Pi Ah Si replied, “This is a horse chain used to move the sealing stone when the tomb was sealed; this side is the inner side.”
I blushed at what I said, looking around and said, “Ah, it really is, I must have seen it wrong, but how could the sealing stone appear here?” The monk Hua tugged hard at the iron chain, but the stone remained motionless. A trace of doubt flashed across Chen Pi A Si’s face as he shook his head and looked up. I sighed inwardly, knowing what he was worried about. If this sealing stone had collapsed from above, it would mean that the tomb passage above was severely damaged. Even if we found it, could we still get in?
The wind and snow were raging above us, and it was already dark, almost night. I glanced at my watch, unsure of how long this blizzard would last. Finding this stone carving boosted our confidence in locating the heavenly palace, but I didn’t know whether to feel happy or frustrated. The monk Hua took a photo of the stone carving, and Chen Pi A Si seemed to regain his spirit, suggesting that we take care of our belongings first and rest a bit since this place was a good shelter from the wind. We decided to organize our gear, while the monk Hua went to tend to the injured soldier. As I was rummaging through our supplies, he came over to tell me there was a bit of trouble—Shun Zi was basically unresponsive.
We laid Shun Zi down and shook his head; he could only respond sluggishly with a faint “en,” clearly in a state of confusion, indicating he was suffering from hypothermia. “We need to start a fire; otherwise, he won’t last long,” Pan Zi said as he approached. “If he falls asleep, he won’t wake up.” I looked around and found no firewood at all; starting a fire would probably require burning the sled. But we needed a lot of gear to climb the snow mountain, and without the sled, we probably wouldn’t be able to proceed down the path.
The monk Hua looked at Chen Pi A Si, clearly hesitant to make a decision on his own. The latter’s face was very pale; I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or something else. He frowned and said, “Let’s not let him die for now; I still have questions for him.” I breathed a sigh of relief as the monk Hua began unloading the gear from the sled, preparing to pull out some wooden planks for firewood. However, the sled was already soaked with snow, and I wasn’t sure if it would catch fire. Just as I was worrying, I suddenly caught a whiff of sulfur.
I didn’t know where the smell was coming from, and my heart skipped a beat. I told the monk Hua to stay still and stood up to sniff carefully. The others also caught the scent and stopped what they were doing. The fat guy took a deep breath and said, “Comrades, it seems to smell like hot springs!” Chen Pi A Si signaled to Ye Cheng and Lang Feng to go out and look for it. The fat guy shouldered his backpack and said he wanted to go too, but all three were stopped by Pan Zi. The fat guy asked, “What’s going on?” Pan Zi pointed with his chin at the muffled oil bottle and said, “What’s the rush? Don’t forget we have experts here.”
At that moment, the muffled oil bottle had already bent down and was feeling the stones beneath with his unusually long fingers. Suddenly, he frowned and exclaimed, “Hmm?” as he turned to the side of the coiling dragon sealing stone.
We arrived in front of the coiling dragon stone, where there had been no smell just a moment ago; now the scent of sulfur was quite pronounced. The muffled oil bottle touched the dragon’s head, looked behind the stone, placed his hand on the dragon’s head and pressed down, saying, “Strange, there’s nothing behind the dragon’s head.”
