I sat on my backpack while the doctor from Aning’s team bandaged my wounds. The injury on my hand was particularly severe; it took three stitches to close it up, which was caused when I was yanked down from the stone beam by a corpse. Although I wasn’t spoiled as a child, I had never done any heavy labor, so I was easily injured by such bumps and scrapes. If it were Panzai, he probably wouldn’t have been affected at all.

The doctor disinfected the wound and advised me not to touch water or use my hand for anything. I nodded in thanks, and he went off to tend to others.

After falling from the stone corridor, Aning and the others were utterly shocked by my “entrance.” At first, Aning didn’t even recognize me (in fact, I was disheveled, so it was quite impressive that she eventually figured out it was me). It wasn’t until Fatty called out to them from the stone beam that she snapped back to reality, looking at me with disbelief and unable to say a word.

The two groups stood frozen for a long time before gradually reacting. I moved a little, anxious to see if the person being carried was my third uncle, but as soon as I moved, everyone around me instinctively stepped back several paces, as if they had seen a ghost. A few even reflexively raised their guns again.

Fatty and Panzai had just relaxed on the beam, but upon seeing this, they quickly raised their guns once more. I hurriedly raised both hands to show I meant no harm, and Aning waved her hand, telling her subordinates, “It’s our people, we’ve worked together, put down your guns.” After repeating this several times, her subordinates reluctantly lowered their guns, but a few foreigners still looked very tense, their eyes fixed on me.

I could see the tension in their faces; they were clearly very agitated, and with just a little more fright, they might collapse. So, I didn’t dare to make any sudden moves and stood there, unsure of what to do.

Aning furrowed her brow, and from her expression, it was evident that she didn’t know we were here. She looked up and asked me, “How did you guys end up here…?”

Fatty chuckled from above, “This is like the Legend of Madam White Snake looking for a partner—those destined to meet will come together from afar, while those without fate will end up naked and huddled together, complaining about each other’s roughness. Do you believe we just happened to pass by?”

As he spoke, Fatty and Panzai jumped down from the stone beam. At that moment, a few people from Aning’s team clearly recognized Fatty and exclaimed in surprise, as his appearance triggered some bad memories for them.

Fatty walked up to us, and perhaps because he had worked with these people before, the atmosphere eased a bit. A few tense individuals finally relaxed and lowered the safeties on their guns, cursing under their breath. One person even muttered to himself, “Well, this is just great—running into bad people in a terrible place.”

I recalled the first time I met Fatty, and I couldn’t help but think that his words were quite fitting, which made me want to laugh.

Fatty shot that person a glare, then greeted a few others he seemed to know. Aning still wanted to ask him questions, but Panzai and I couldn’t hold back any longer and ran towards the foreigner carrying someone on his back, eager to check if it was indeed my third uncle.

The foreigners seemed very concerned about me; whenever I ran over, they would quickly step aside. The foreigner carrying someone on his back, however, didn’t seem afraid at all. When he saw that my target was the person on his back, he put him down on the ground. I rushed over and hurriedly lifted the climbing hat off the person’s head.

Under the climbing hat was a face that looked extremely haggard and unkempt, with a scruffy beard. I barely recognized him at first, only feeling like he resembled my Uncle San. Upon closer inspection, I gasped, almost unable to scream.

Indeed, it was my long-lost Uncle San, that old rascal! After just a few months apart, he seemed to have aged over ten years; his hair had turned gray, and at first glance, he was completely unrecognizable.

To be honest, I wasn’t mentally prepared for this encounter. I thought I would finally see Uncle San in a tomb, where he would reveal everything to me, or that he would appear to rescue me in a moment of danger… But instead, he suddenly showed up in Ah Ning’s group in such a careless manner. I was looking at him clearly, yet I suddenly found it hard to believe.

Had I really seen Uncle San again? Had I found him? I stood there frozen, unsure of how to react, not knowing if I was dreaming or hallucinating.

Uncle San seemed a bit disoriented, squinting his eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he could see me. However, when I called out to him, I noticed a slight reaction from his whole body; his cracked lips moved slightly, as if asking, “Nephew?” But then he fell silent again.

A wave of emotion surged in my heart, a feeling I couldn’t put into words. Seeing this old guy safe and sound instantly relieved me; the anxious feeling of having lost my anchor disappeared. But then a surge of extreme anger rose within me, wanting to go over and push him down and give him a good beating. The two feelings mixed together, and I wasn’t sure what expression was on my face, but it must have looked quite amusing.

The fat guy was arguing with Ah Ning about something, and I didn’t have time to pay attention to that. Panzi looked at Uncle San’s condition and rushed over to shake him several times, then started to unbutton his clothes. I was stunned when I saw that Uncle San’s shirt was covered in a thick, sticky substance. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that his chest was covered in sores, with countless hard-headed centipedes embedded under his skin. It was clear that Uncle San had tried to pull them out, but the centipede tails broke off upon contact, leaving them stuck inside, and the wounds wouldn’t heal, eventually turning into pus.

Panzi grabbed the nearby foreigner, ready to hit him, but was held back by others. While struggling, Panzi shouted, “What the hell did you do to San Ye? How could you let him end up like this?”

Seeing the horrified expression on the foreigner’s face as he looked at the wounds, I realized they were definitely unaware of the situation. However, Uncle San’s condition was too tragic. Trembling, I asked the foreigner, “Where did you find him? How did he end up like this?”

The foreigner looked like he was about to vomit. Turning away, he said, “Right below the coffin pit here. We just discovered him and thought he was dead, but then we found out he was still alive. The team leader said this old man knows a lot and we must take him with us—if I had known he had these things on him, I would never have carried him, not even if I died!”

“It must be you guys!” Panzi shouted angrily from the side. “I’ve seen it in Vietnam; those Vietnamese interrogate prisoners using this trick. They learned it from you Americans. You bastards must have tortured Third Uncle! I’ll kill you all!”

The others had surrounded us, and I waved my hand to calm Panzi down. “It has nothing to do with them. If they were the ones who did it, they wouldn’t be panicking like this, knowing that the dead centipede would attract its kind.”

Aning came over and gasped in shock. He immediately called for the medic, and a few people hurriedly helped to straighten Third Uncle out. Just then, I suddenly felt Third Uncle secretly put something into my pocket. His movement was quick, and for a moment, I felt my pocket shift. I was taken aback, and a thought crossed my mind.

In an instant, my mind buzzed, and I realized: Third Uncle might be awake! My heart was filled with both shock and relief. I was shocked that he was pretending to be unconscious—what could his purpose be? But I was relieved because being able to make such small movements showed that this old guy’s death was still a long way off. I glanced around with my peripheral vision; the others were all shocked by his wounds and didn’t notice. So I continued to support him quietly, but I squeezed his shoulder hard to indicate that I knew there was something in my pocket.

Third Uncle’s gaze became unfocused again. The medic cleaned his wounds with alcohol, then used a heated military knife to cut open the skin, using tweezers to pull out the centipedes inside and letting out the pus. Because it was so cold here, it was easy for things to freeze, so Panzi and I started a smokeless stove, continuously warming up Third Uncle.

There were a total of sixteen wounds. A few of the centipedes were still alive when pulled out and were thrown directly into the fire to be burned. Finally, the wounds were stitched up. Panzi was completely focused on the whole process, and I wanted to give him a hint, but it was impossible. I had something on my mind, but in this situation, leaving suddenly would be inappropriate. I could only wait to find out what Third Uncle had put in my pocket.

After all the issues were finally dealt with, the medic covered him with a blanket and let him rest on the side. Panzi then asked how he was doing. The medic sighed and said, “I’ve done everything I can. Now he has an infected wound. I’ll give him an antibiotic shot in a bit, but he’s already running a bit of a fever. I don’t know if he can hold on until we get out; it depends on his willpower. Don’t disturb him; let him sleep.” Only then did I have an excuse to pull Panzi away. At that moment, I realized that I was also covered in injuries from rolling down and couldn’t even stand up.

After the medic bandaged my wounds, he went to check on the others. Aning’s team had about sixteen or seventeen people, and the cold smoke from the fire was gradually extinguishing. It was too dark around us to count clearly. The fat guy was pulled aside by Aning, who was saying something continuously, but I couldn’t see what was happening there. I wanted to pull Panzi to a place without people, but he seemed a bit dazed, just sitting beside Third Uncle and unable to react.

I was really annoyed; at a critical moment, I couldn’t be of any help and had to find a way to avoid the people around me. A-Ning’s group was divided into two teams: one group was resting due to injuries, while the other descended into the coffin pit. These people didn’t seem to harbor any ill will towards me, possibly because the Fatty knew them. However, perhaps due to my earlier action of repelling the centipede, wherever I went, they all regarded me with strange looks. The circular tomb chamber was so spacious that there was no place to hide.

I steeled myself and walked over to the corpse of the fetus I had trampled, pretending to crouch down to examine it, which finally kept people from gathering around me. The corpse looked like a giant mantis shrimp, its features blurred by my stomp. Just looking at it made my scalp tingle, but I couldn’t worry about that now. I fished something out of my pocket and found a small note. Looking back to see that no one was behind me, I nervously unfolded it. It contained several lines of text, and I was taken aback; the first half of the writing didn’t resemble my uncle’s handwriting. Judging by the form of the writing, it seemed to be from the Mysterious Oil Bottle. It read:

“I’ve gone down. That’s it, you should hurry back. Going any further is beyond what you can handle. Everything you want to know is in the copper fish with the snake-eyed pattern.”

The signature shocked me even more—it was the strange symbol we had seen… This was indeed left by the Mysterious Oil Bottle. What did it mean?

Below that was my uncle’s very hasty handwriting, which looked like it had been scratched out with a nail, but it was still legible, and he had only written one line:

“We are only one step away from the truth. Give the copper fish to Old Four below A-Ning and let him decipher it. It’s okay; the most crucial information is with me. They wouldn’t dare do anything to us.”

Clearly, when my uncle got here, he must have discovered this note from the Mysterious Oil Bottle somewhere, and it was definitely meant for us. It seemed the Mysterious Oil Bottle wanted to stop us from going down, and from the note, it appeared there was some passage he went to—a very dangerous place. My uncle clearly didn’t appreciate this warning. This was really dangerous; what on earth did that old guy want? What crucial information did my uncle still have? Since the Mysterious Oil Bottle didn’t want us to go down, who was the note meant for? Was it meant for himself?

My mind suddenly wandered. Actually, during this time, I felt more clues emerging, but because the previous mysteries were so chaotic, any new thoughts became particularly confusing.

I recalled the markings in the underwater tomb; when the Mysterious Oil Bottle saw this, he must have realized he had been there before. Now, he carved the markings—did he know he would lose his memory? So he left his own marks in advance, so that when he returned next time, he could rely on them to remember?

It was all too chaotic, and my head started to ache again. At that moment, A-Ning and the Fatty called out to me, startling me. I turned around and saw them beckoning me over. So I decided not to think about it anymore, folded the note, stuffed it back into my pocket, and walked over.

A-Ning handed me a jug of water, and after taking a sip, she said, “I talked with Mr. Wang, and we are officially preparing to cooperate. What do you think?”

Cooperation? I saw the shape of her chest through her tight-fitting clothes, which reminded me of what happened on the boat, making me a bit hesitant to meet her gaze. I recalled the warnings from the “Dumb Oil Bottle” and my uncle’s words, and I genuinely didn’t know how to respond.

When I found my uncle, I felt a sense of relief, which also had a selfish element to it—at least I could get out. What I truly wanted was to escape this place. But just as my uncle said, we seemed to be very close to the truth. It appeared that my uncle had his own mysteries; if I could help him get out, he might be just as clueless as I was. If we could forget all this, that would be fine, but if not, with my uncle’s character, he would undoubtedly want to come back for another round. Could I just stand by and do nothing?

After some thought, I gritted my teeth and said, “What kind of cooperation are you talking about? Be honest, I really need to think it over if I’m going to work with you.”

Seeing my expression, she laughed and shook her head, “Well, I didn’t have time to say goodbye on the island. Thank you for saving me. There were reasons for my actions at sea… I never intended to harm you.”

I recalled the events in the underwater tomb and sighed, thinking to myself that I would be a fool to believe her. I lit a cigarette and said, “If you really want to cooperate, then tell me what’s going on. What exactly are you looking for at the bottom of the sea? Why did you come here?”

The fat guy chimed in, “Yeah, it’s better to be open about things if we want to work together.”

Aning showed a surprised expression, “You don’t know? Your uncle didn’t tell you? You all… ran around recklessly without knowing anything?”

I forced a bitter smile, thinking that if my uncle had shared the details with me, I wouldn’t have cared about his life or death. I shook my head, “He didn’t say anything. I’ve been flying blind.”

Aning furrowed her brows and looked at me for a long time, seemingly realizing I wasn’t lying. She said, “No wonder. I always thought you were a particularly formidable character. I couldn’t tell at all that you were lying. It turns out you really don’t know anything.”

At that moment, I suddenly felt something was off. Why was this woman suddenly looking to cooperate with us? They had so many people, plenty of resources, and there were only three of us—why would they want to team up with us? Even if it was because I could fend off the “Yao Yan,” they could just tie me up if they wanted. Could it be— I glanced around— that their situation was dire, or was there some unavoidable reason for this?

Aning seemed to guess my thoughts from my expression and didn’t point it out. She sighed, “Actually, we little players don’t know much either; we’re just working for the boss.” Saying this, she invited us to sit down and called over another foreigner. Aning introduced him to me, saying this foreigner was named Kirk, a sinologist specializing in Dongxia. He knew the most about the whole situation, so I could ask him anything. The foreigner shook my hand and said, “We were supposed to keep everything strictly confidential, but given the current situation… feel free to ask whatever you want.”

I felt a sudden jolt in my heart.

He continued, “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the purpose of our boss. To be honest, I’m just a team leader. An Ning and I only know that we need to enter a place, retrieve something, and then we’re done. As for what the higher-ups want with those items, I really don’t know. So, we can say that we have two main objectives in the underwater tomb. One is a jade seal, which you Chinese call the ‘Ghost Seal.’ I’ve heard it can summon the armies of the underworld. The other is the schematic of the tomb’s mechanisms. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get either of them. In the end, it was only after An Ning stepped in that we were able to retrieve something we were supposed to have.”

“Ghost Seal?” I almost jumped up when I heard this. “Are you talking about the Ghost Seal of King Lu Shang? In the underwater tomb?” When we mentioned the Ghost Seal, the胖子 (the Fatty) also showed interest and leaned in. An Ning seemed to dislike the Fatty but had no choice.

Kirk nodded and said, “Yes, I believe you know some of this. After the tomb of King Lu Shang was looted by the Wang Zang pirates, they replaced the Ghost Seal with a copper fish with snake-like eyebrows. We always thought the Ghost Seal was taken to their own grave, but we could never find it. As for the schematic of the tomb’s mechanisms, it’s likely in the hands of your third uncle. We still don’t know how many tricks that old fox has played on us, but we have to cooperate with him; his information is much more accurate than ours.”

I nodded and smiled wryly; I could relate to that. The Fatty chimed in, “So what did An Ning bring out during her trip to the underwater site with us?”

Kirk opened his mouth to answer, but An Ning stopped him, saying, “Say what you should say, but don’t say too much.”

The Fatty retorted angrily, “What do you mean by that?”

Kirk seemed to not care about An Ning’s warning and laughed, “Even if you don’t tell them now, you’ll eventually have to reveal it. Besides, even if you have those things now, they won’t be of any use.”

An Ning glanced at us, stamped her foot, and seemed quite unwilling: “The things I went through so much trouble to get really ended up being a bargain for you.”

(I found this situation very strange. Why were An Ning and the others cooperating so much? Later, when I talked about this with my third uncle, he said that at that time, An Ning and her group were actually at their wits’ end. They had no choice but to cooperate with you; after all, they were amateurs. No matter how good their technology and equipment were, they couldn’t compare to me, a half-baked local expert. But she was also very clever; she was actually eager to tell you everything but still wanted to pry some information from you in return. That’s what you call an old hand. Luckily, I had no intention of telling you anything, or you would have definitely given her the whole set, and my third uncle’s plan would have been ruined.)

As he spoke, he pulled out a stack of items from his pocket and handed them to me. I thought he might take out some kind of valuable artifact, but when I took a look, it turned out to be a stack of photographs, all depicting murals. I flipped through them one by one, and she reminded me not to mess up the order. I carefully examined a few and found that I had never seen these murals before. I asked, “Where did you take these?”

Kirk replied, “These were taken during the time you all went underwater together, from the main burial chamber. These are narrative murals, very crucial. You can take a look and see what they depict.”

I counted and found a total of fifteen murals, each showing different scenes that are clearly interconnected, yet there is no necessary narrative link between the murals. I saw depictions of climbing snowy mountains, overlooking hills, rock climbing, and soldiers in battle. Each mural does not have any inherent connection to the others.

Kirk noticed my expression and realized I didn’t understand, so he took out one to show me, saying, “Look at this one; what do you see?”

The image depicted several people dressed like the Jurchens, binding a Han person. I said, “Isn’t this capturing a prisoner on the battlefield?”

“You could say that, but can you guess who this prisoner is?” Kirk said with a mysterious smile.

I looked closely at the mural photo and was surprised to find that the prisoner resembled the image of Wang Zanghai from the porcelain painting. I exclaimed, “Is this Wang Zanghai? The Jurchens are capturing him?”

Kirk replied, “Yes, this is the first mural, and this image indicates something. It suggests that Wang Zanghai’s construction here might have been forced; he was taken captive.”

I suddenly saw a hint and looked at the other murals, saying, “What about these photos?”

“They all depict events that Wang Zanghai experienced after being captured by the Dongxia people. Although we can’t fully decipher them, we can make educated guesses based on the earlier images.”

I examined one of the murals closely and suddenly noticed something wrong: “This one…”

Kirk glanced at it and nodded, “You have a keen eye; this one is also crucial. Did you notice? This is the royal tomb in the volcanic crater. When Wang Zanghai was captured, this royal tomb already existed and was quite dilapidated.”

I gasped, could it be that the royal tomb above us was not built by him?

Kirk said, “We’ve studied it; the overall style of the royal tomb is from the Yin and Shang periods, but he was forced to modify it to a Ming style. The Dongxia people didn’t bring him here to build a royal tomb; they brought him to renovate it because the tomb had been in use for too many years and could no longer be utilized.”

“Then the underground palace and such were already there?” the fat man asked.

Kirk nodded slightly, “We relied on these photos to find the old path leading here, but there are still some photos we can’t understand, like this one.”

That mural depicted countless evil spirits emerging from the stones; it was the third to last. Another one surprisingly illustrated a mass of black, soft-bodied creatures climbing up a massive cliff, with someone pouring something down from above.

I felt tense as I looked at it, then relaxed, just as I was about to sit down to examine it closely. At that moment, Aning suddenly extended her hand to me, saying, “Alright, we’ve finished discussing our matters. You can look at the photos anytime, but now you should tell us something too.”

“Tell what?” I asked, confused.

“I’ve laid everything out about myself; you need to share about your dealings with Wu Sanxing,” Aning looked at me, “You wouldn’t be stingier than me, a woman, would you?”

I thought to myself, what the hell are you talking about? What you said is the same as saying nothing; you didn’t even mention the key points. Do you really think I’m that clueless Wu Xie from before? So I turned my mind around and asked her, “Is there someone here called Wu Lao Si?”

An Ning nodded, looking puzzled, “Why? Do you know him?”

I pulled out two copper fish from my pocket and waved them in front of them: “Everything you need to know is inside these. If Wu Lao Si is still alive, let him come out!”

In that instant, I saw Kirk almost fall to the ground, and An Ning’s eyes went wide as she stammered, “Heavens! You actually have two… fish…” As I moved my arm, their eyes followed my motion.