I quickly pulled the胖子 (Fatty) back and turned to look at Wen Jin. She was busy with a colleague, unpacking the equipment that had been sent down from the rope ladder, and hadn’t noticed Fatty’s actions. I asked the colleague, “Why are you coming down? Aren’t you supposed to take care of my third uncle?” He grinned and replied, “The Third Master has someone to look after him. I came down to see if there’s anything I can help with.”

Seeing his expression, I felt something was off and thought to myself, this is bad. This group of scoundrels is a bunch of rabble, and rabble are best at scattering when danger arises and turning against each other when there’s a benefit to be had. This guy’s expression seemed to have some ulterior motive.

Soon, three more people climbed down. Looking at the massive circular tomb chamber, their eyes lit up with excitement. My third uncle had deceived them before they set out, saying how rich this place was, and although they were terrified on the way here, they forgot everything upon seeing the tomb chamber. Even though they were all novice grave robbers, the greed for ancient tombs was greater than ours. When Wen Jin climbed down the rope ladder and saw the situation, her expression turned unfriendly. She whispered to me, “Let them be. These people are desperate and only pretend to be polite to ‘your third uncle’; they’re only after wealth. They all have weapons, and turning against them would be very detrimental to us. If they find anything, just give it to them; we can’t stop them anyway.”

I thought about it and realized she was right. My third uncle couldn’t move easily right now, and even if he could intimidate these people, it wouldn’t help. As a mere third master, I would get no respect from this group; they would just mock me, and I couldn’t do anything to them. Reflecting on my past glory in Changsha, I realized I had indeed been riding on my third uncle’s coattails.

I felt a bit depressed; instead, we were at the mercy of these people. I sensed that they might ruin our big plans. Fatty was very sensitive to this and had already become tense, gripping his shotgun tightly and signaling us to move faster to shake them off.

After all the dangers we had faced along the way, I found it ironic that the biggest threat came from our own people. Moreover, if these people were greedy enough, they might even take our lives. For them, having never experienced wealth in their lives, any talk of morality or virtue was nonsense; this was indeed a huge concern for us.

The “Dumb Oil Bottle” also came down with equipment, and we ignored those people, beginning to feel our way forward. The “non” shaped passage quickly came to an end, revealing a cave in front of us. At the end of the passage, there were stairs spiraling down along the cave wall.

The miner’s lamp was insufficient here, but my third uncle had a lot of backup equipment. Fatty immediately fired a flare. My third uncle had equipped several types of flares, and Fatty used a low-altitude flare designed for caves. It had a short range, and the fireball burst into the darkness shortly after being fired, illuminating the cave brightly. Fatty fired two more rounds to light up the surrounding corners. This was a bit extravagant, but we had never been so well-equipped before; since we were at the final stage, we might as well make use of it.

The fat man dropped the shell casing and prepared to load another round, but Wen Jin pressed him down: “No matter how rich you are, you can’t use it like this. It’s already bright enough; if it gets any brighter, we won’t be able to see. Be careful not to burn our eyes.”

Only then did the fat man relent. We waited for the brightest phase to pass, and as the light dimmed, the surroundings gradually became clear.

This was indeed the deepest part beneath the city of Tamutu. The cave was not naturally formed but was excavated by someone. It was very high, and we couldn’t see the top of the cave, but we could see that the walls were shaped like tiered seats in a stadium, each tier filled with black, bulky statues, densely packed, one circle after another, with no empty spaces.

Because the statues were black, we still couldn’t make out the details. I felt like I had never seen anything like this before. Were they secret statues or totems unique to the royal family, invisible and unattainable to outsiders?

I recalled the corpse storage pavilion in the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace, which had a similar layout. I began to feel that these statues might not be stone; they could be specially treated corpses. Perhaps this was a royal burial cave where lower-ranking royals were naturally dried and buried.

As the flare dropped lower, I noticed signs of human activity below. I saw a round stone disk at the very bottom, surrounded by dozens of uniquely shaped and varying-sized bronze vessels, all of which were quite peculiar. Looking at the rock walls, there were no obvious paths to continue forward; we had indeed reached the end of our journey, and all the clues should be unraveled here.

The fat man was in awe. It was hard to describe how deep this place was. The Wangmu clan would be better referred to as the Mole clan; they really loved digging holes. They had actually excavated such a deep place beneath the royal city—what was their purpose?

Wen Jin said, “This might be a sacred place of the Wangmu Kingdom, a site for secret activities of the royal family of the West Queen Mother. They might hold some extremely confidential ceremonies here or engage in certain religious practices.”

The fat man exclaimed, “Damn, this sacred place is so shabby; it’s really disappointing. These Wangmu people are quite foolish. What are these bronze vessels, and what about these stone carvings? What on earth! Xiao Wu, look at what these stone carvings are!”

The fat man was startled, and I was taken aback by his reaction. At that moment, the flare had fallen to the ground and was still burning, but the illumination range had significantly decreased. I raised the mining lamp to shine it, and upon closer inspection, I almost shouted out—those “stone carvings” surrounding the cave walls were not stone carvings at all; they were rows of royal figurines!

I couldn’t help but gasp in shock, memories of the Seven Stars Lu Wang Palace flooding back, while the muffled cave bottle emitted a groan, clearly stimulated, its brow furrowing tightly.

Indeed, these points were all connected. The presence of so many jade figurines here—did each one contain a living corpse?

The fat man, being bold, immediately clung to the wall and crawled up to a tier. I was afraid he would get into trouble, so I pulled him back and said that to get to the bottom layer, there was no need to exert so much effort.

We gathered our thoughts and quickly descended the stone steps. At the last step, the chubby guy jumped up and approached a jade figurine. He shone his mining lamp on it, revealing a corpse inside—completely desiccated. The gaps were too narrow to see the details clearly, but one by one, he illuminated each jade figurine, and every one contained a corpse.

“It seems the big sister was right. This really could be their cultivation place,” the chubby guy said. “Damn it, are these dry, shriveled things really the immortals under the Queen Mother of the West in Chinese mythology? That seems way off.”

“However, these jade figurines are a bit different from those in the Lu Wang Palace,” I said. “The jade figurines in the Lu Wang Palace had living corpses inside, but these seem to have all turned into mummies.”

“That’s because of time. This cave should have been excavated during the peak of the Queen Mother of the West’s reign, which was about five thousand years ago. After such a long time, anything that contained moisture would have been dried out by the wind.”

The chubby guy reached out to touch the black jade figurine’s outer shell, but the oil lamp grabbed his hand, warning him to be careful. I said, “It’s better not to touch this too much. Didn’t the little brother say that if the timing is wrong, the jade figurines could be quite dangerous once they shed their shells?”

The chubby guy grumbled, “I just want to touch it a little, let me have some memories, okay?”

I thought to myself that he shouldn’t forget the pain just because he was feeling better. I figured it was pointless to say anything, so I ignored him. Meanwhile, Wenjin had been attracted by something else and walked towards an area filled with bronze vessels.

I followed her and was astonished to find that these bronze vessels were incredibly massive. Standing below them, they were even taller than I was, and their shapes were peculiar; I couldn’t name a single one. However, it was clear that each bronze vessel had its own purpose. I noticed the astonishing decay and obvious signs of use on them, indicating that this was not a place merely for display. If this cave was indeed used by the Queen Mother of the West’s clan for cultivation or religious rituals, then these items must also be related to those practices.

At that moment, I heard Wenjin murmur, “Heavens, this is the alchemy chamber of the Queen Mother of the West; it really exists.”