The square hole is about half a person’s height, roughly shaped, and surrounded by stones the size of watermelons. There are quite a few stones inside as well, indicating that someone has previously blocked this hole. Inside the square hole, it is pitch black, and it’s unclear where it leads, resembling the reservoir culverts we often see in the south.

Among the pile of stones on one side of the square hole, there is a relatively flat stone with some words crudely carved into it. The engraving is very shallow and appears to have been done in a hurry. If it weren’t for the fact that those words are in English letters, they would look very out of place in this royal tomb, and even Shunzi might not have noticed them. Unfortunately, the content of the carving is completely unrecognizable.

I wondered if it was something my third uncle had carved to guide us. However, my third uncle’s English is quite unreliable; it’s not his style to come up with such a code in English.

Fatty curiously walked closer to take a look and suddenly exclaimed, waving at me, “Xiao Wu, these twisted English letters seem familiar. I think we’ve seen them somewhere before.”

I walked over, and just one glance made my heart skip a beat. It wasn’t just a feeling; we had indeed seen these symbols before. They were the same ones that Fatty had spotted on the wall of the pool when we were in the underwater tomb. After seeing this symbol, the Mysterious Oil Bottle had rushed down into that pool, and then he recalled what had happened in the underwater tomb. Why were they suddenly appearing here again?

At that time, I had always thought that this symbol was carved by one of the people my third uncle brought down with Wenjin, but its sudden reappearance here clearly indicated something was amiss.

Looking at the carving marks, it was evident that they had been made haphazardly with a climbing pick, and the marks were so fresh that they must either have been left by my third uncle or by the Mysterious Oil Bottle or An Ning, as only these few people would have had a climbing pick. The person who left this symbol must have already entered the square hole.

At that moment, a thought suddenly struck me: could it be that the English symbol in the underwater tomb was carved by the Mysterious Oil Bottle? That would explain why he recognized it and said, “I’ve been to this place.”

There was indeed a possibility of that, and when he reappeared, I would have to ask him.

Seeing me in a daze, Panzi asked what was going on. I shared with him and Fatty what we had encountered in the underwater tomb, and Panzi also found it intriguing. However, he said, “I’ve been with Third Master for ten years, and I’ve been to at least fifty tombs, some of them quite large. I’ve never seen him leave a code, and Third Master can’t even fully recognize the ABCs, so this definitely isn’t left by him.”

I thought to myself that it must be An Ning or the Mysterious Oil Bottle. I turned to them and said, “Regardless, it seems we’re on the right track. This hole has already been entered by someone, and the entrance to the underground palace should be right below us. Should we go in now?”

“Let’s go!” Fatty immediately replied, “What are we waiting for? There are several groups ahead of us. I’ve always been the vanguard; it’s just my luck to have you unfortunate kids trailing behind. Let’s not waste time; if we wait any longer, they’ll finish their business and come out, and we’ll have no face to compete with them.”

Panzi turned to me and asked, “Don’t worry about us; are you physically up for this?”

I nodded and said, “The Fatty is right; we can’t delay any longer. Anyway, when we encounter the Zongzi, even if I’m not injured, I’m still dead. Now that I am injured, I’ll just die a bit faster, so I’m not afraid.”

The Fatty, already taking off his backpack, clicked his tongue upon hearing this and said, “Can’t you say something more auspicious? Don’t you see where we’re going?”

I glared at him and said, “With you around, even if I put two door gods on my forehead, it wouldn’t help. You should take care of your own hands first.”

We each prepared our gear. Earlier, we had packed in a military style, but now we put the wind lamps and fuel into our bags, took out the cold smoke bombs, glow sticks, and explosives, and secured them to our tactical belts. The Fatty and Panzi each pulled back the bolts of their guns, removed the magazines, and loaded the bullets from the belt into the guns. After fully loading their ammunition, they secured their hunting knives and daggers.

The Type 54 pistol was too long and might not turn around in the square tunnel, so the Fatty handed the gun to Shunzi and took out a climbing pick instead. A few of us tested the brightness of our flashlights. The Fatty took out his gold-finding talisman, held it in his hand, and prayed to the sky.

Shunzi, also an expert with guns, took the weapon, familiarized himself with it with a few clicks, and felt a sense of nostalgia. He then said to us, “Gentlemen, I don’t know much about your line of work, but I want to remind you to be careful of snow worms when drilling holes on Changbai Mountain. If you sense something is off, stuff cotton in your ears first. At this time of year, their heads are still soft and can only drill into your ears. By summer, when their shells harden, they can drill directly into your skin, leaving two little tails sticking out. If you pull on the tails, they’ll break, and the whole worm will be stuck inside. You’ll have to dig out the wound to get it out. Also, these worms can drill into your anus, so be very careful when sitting.”

The Fatty gave Shunzi a disgusted look and instinctively tightened his belt, saying, “So now the worms have that habit too?”

Shunzi replied, “I’m not joking with you. If you get infected, figure out a way to deal with it yourself. Don’t come asking me.”

We felt a chill in our lower bodies and nodded. The Fatty took the lead and crawled into the square tunnel. We followed one after another, entering the ultimate unknown world underground.

Inside the square tunnel, we had to crouch down to walk. The tunnel was excavated in parallel, and we looked around as we moved. Because of the low height, we were moving very slowly. The rock floor here was very solid, and judging by the chisel marks, this tunnel was clearly dug using the most primitive methods. I wondered how long it took to build such a large-scale imperial tomb. It must have taken at least twenty years, right? Many emperors started working on their tombs as soon as they ascended the throne. Twenty years to excavate this tunnel seemed quite difficult; it seemed that the people who escaped back then must have been a large group.

The further we went in, the more traces we saw of people who had been there. There were multiple footprints from climbing shoes, but no sign of snow worms. However, I noticed some strange side tunnels at the top of the tunnel.

These tunnels were not large, only able to accommodate one person, and they curved at 180 degrees. After going straight up for a while, they would make a big turn downward, forming a curve like the number ‘9’. There seemed to be one of these tunnels every ten meters or so.

Since I entered this line of work, I have crawled through holes countless times, yet I have never seen a structure like this. From the perspective of construction accounting, the volume of work required to create these holes is almost equivalent to that of digging an entire tunnel. Therefore, there must be a compelling reason for these holes to exist; otherwise, it would be uneconomical. However, I really cannot see the value of these holes.

Later, Panzi said to me, “Young Master San, have you noticed that this tunnel looks a bit familiar?”

“Familiar?” I paused and turned to ask him why he thought so.

Panzi replied, “When we were at Guazi Temple in Shandong, the corpse hole we passed through, wasn’t the entrance tunnel similar to this one? That old man hid in the hole above to harm us, right?”

When he said this, I looked closely at the top of the hole. Back in Shandong, I was so scared that I didn’t pay much attention to the top of the corpse hole and the water thief hole, and now I couldn’t compare. However, since Panzi mentioned it, there must be some truth to it. I was curious and asked him, “Are you sure?”

Panzi was not entirely sure; he said, “We only learned from that old man’s words that there was a hole above. When we passed through, it was pitch black, and we didn’t notice anything.”

I stopped and carefully examined these side holes, and I quickly understood their purpose. I said, “That corpse hole was also a water thief hole, right?”

Panzi nodded in agreement. I continued, “These side holes are actually for breathing. You see, when water fills this drainage channel, the curved structure of the side holes retains air within them. Thus, you can swim for a while, then stick your head into a side hole to take a breath before continuing.”

Panzi exclaimed in surprise, “What a clever method! So, this drainage channel was indeed underwater back then?”

I replied, “Pretty much. It seems that the water thief hole at Guazi Temple might have also been dug by Wang Canghai’s people.” But then I realized that this didn’t quite add up. That thief hole was ancient; Uncle San speculated it was dug during the Warring States period, possibly when King Shāng of Lu went into the mountains to build his tomb. Could it be that Wang Canghai saw it later and borrowed the techniques of the ancients? That was indeed quite possible.

We walked for a long time, and I had no idea how far we had come. The drainage channel gradually widened, and we finally saw an exit. We crawled out, and in front of us was a very deep irrigation ditch, about ten meters deep and five to six meters wide, with no water left in it.

I examined the situation of the irrigation ditch and said, “This is a water diversion channel. The water from the city moat is diverted here to ensure that the water remains fresh and does not stink, while also preventing backflow.”

On both sides of the ditch were embankments wide enough for a person to walk on, with a stone bridge built over it. We carefully made our way across and reached the other side of the river. The fat guy asked how we would proceed now.

I said, “This channel is connected to the outside channel; it should count as one channel. We’ll follow the water.”

Panzi squatted down to look at the flow marks and pointed to one side, “Over there.”

We continued forward, and before long, we spotted a very regular square hole in the stone wall next to the embankment.

The胖子 lit a cold firework and threw it outside, illuminating the black stone slabs on the ground outside the square hole, which were clearly the sealing stones of the underground palace. The胖子 squeezed out and continuously lit many cold fireworks to throw around, then greeted us, prompting us to crawl out from the tunnel.

The place we emerged into was a tomb chamber built of black rock, not very high, but spacious enough for a person to barely stand upright. The walls of the tomb were neatly lined with many jars, likely used for burial offerings, each about half a person’s height. Roughly estimating, there were over a thousand jars, suggesting that the Emperor Wan Nu might have been a heavy drinker.

On the black walls, there were some simple relief sculptures depicting scenes of the emperor hosting banquets. The reliefs were not well-preserved, possibly due to the connection of this place to the outside world. Although the volcanic gases here were not as deadly as Panzi claimed, their corrosiveness was certainly stronger than ordinary air. The fact that the murals had survived at all was a miracle, but unfortunately, the preserved images could only be seen in a general sense.

On the left and right walls of the tomb chamber, there were stone gates, behind which lay dark, gloomy passageways. A cold wind blew out from inside, and the胖子 picked up two cold fireworks, throwing one inside without seeing the end.