Zhang Haike had many thoughts at that time. The ruins themselves had passages, which were obviously more convenient than digging them out himself. Since the “Menyu Ping” was so familiar with this place and mentioned that he was present at the scene back then, it was likely that the mud in this passage was cleared by him.

This passage could only be entered by children, but it was unrealistic for him alone to clear all this dirt. There should have been more than just him among the Zhang family’s children who cleared the passage with him. However, this was against the clan rules of the Zhang family; allowing such young children to work underground was inherently unreasonable.

Earlier, Menyu Ping had said that his father was not their so-called father. This statement seemed devoid of emotion, suggesting that perhaps he was one of those illegitimate children whose biological parents died in the tomb, used forcibly to carry out these dark and grim tasks.

In the profession of tomb raiding, regardless of how skilled one is, there are always casualties, and the Zhang family was no exception. The children of these people lived in a completely different state of existence than their parents.

To be honest, Zhang Haike had never cared about the fate of these children. These poor kids lived in an independent courtyard, cared for by others, completely isolated and unable to interact with the outside world. Each generation of the Zhang family had a group of such children. Some Zhang family members without descendants would adopt a few of them as their own. Perhaps Menyu Ping was one of those adopted by his so-called father, but was instead trained by him to perform these tasks in the ancient tombs, to enter those small spaces that adults could not access and retrieve funerary items.

In darkness and coldness, an eight or nine-year-old child had to confront these realities; it was no wonder he had such a personality.

In any case, they could not pass through this passage. There was another earthen theft tunnel nearby, which should have been dug later for adult use. These two passages should lead to the same place.

Zhang Haike shone his flashlight and walked toward it, realizing they were indeed quite similar, and then led the way into the larger theft tunnel to crawl forward.

Zhang Haike said to me, “This was a preconceived mistake. We crawled nearly a hundred meters before seeing an exit. After we got out, we realized that these two theft tunnels led to two different places, and we had become separated from Menyu Ping.”

After they crawled out of the theft tunnel, they entered the second temporary checkpoint, which was the fourth room they reached. Compared to the previous one, this place was much simpler and clearly looked like a small land temple.

The space was small, with a layer of yellow earth about half a palm deep on the ground. When they scraped away the yellow earth, they could see the blue brick floor beneath.

There were Buddha statues on all four sides of the temple: one side had a statue of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, the left and right sides had local earth gods, and the other side was the temple door. The door had been breached, and mud had flowed in to form a steep slope. However, because such temples were quite sturdy, the mud only blocked the entrance and did not collapse the temple. On either side of the door, there was a statue, likely of Taoist deities. It seemed that the Chinese worship all kinds of gods, leading to a chaotic pantheon.

Inside this small land temple, many items were hung from the ceiling, densely packed, while the ground was cluttered with water jars and some miscellaneous items for resting. There was also clean water in the jars, the source of which was unknown.

A few people quickly rinsed off and sat down on benches to rest. Zhang Haike noticed something drawn on the ground nearby. Looking at the marks around the benches, it was clear that someone had been sitting here resting and had casually sketched something on the ground with a stick or some other object.

Upon closer inspection, Zhang Haike realized it was a map of the ancient city, with clearly marked areas that had and had not been explored. What surprised him was that the person who drew the map had added a boundary around the entire city, which now resembled the shape of a scorpion.

In the unexplored area, a stone was placed at one point, indicating that this was the destination they needed to reach. This was the second resting spot they had found; moving through the ancient city had been arduous, and many places they encountered had signs of tremors, indicating they were in a high seismic activity zone. However, they had yet to experience anything related to this speculation since entering.

“The deeper we go, the farther we are from the exit, and the more dangerous it becomes,” one of the Zhang family children suddenly said. “I find it strange that if this place is so valuable, why not just take down the vestiges above? Our Zhang family is so powerful; those deserters are definitely no match for us. We could easily oust the local aristocracy and take their place, doing whatever we want.”

“By your logic, the Zhang family might as well become bandits,” Zhang Haike replied.

“Have any of you felt something strange on your bodies?” another person asked. The group turned to see him scratching his hands, which were covered in red rashes.

He scratched at the rashes and looked over at the water vat. “The water is problematic,” he said.

“It’s not the water; I’ve checked it,” another person replied, his expression turning serious. “It’s the mud; there’s something wrong with this mud.”

Zhang Haike remained silent, returning to the spot where they had washed off the mud. He dipped a bit and held it to his nose to smell it carefully. “There’s mercury in the mud,” he said.

The Zhang family child had brought along some detoxifying items, and they quickly took out small bottles to apply to themselves. One of them said, “Isn’t this an ancient city? Why is there mercury, which is often found in ancient tombs, mixed in with the mud?”

Everyone began to feel puzzled. Suddenly, the person who had first complained of itching collapsed on the ground. The child beside him rushed to help him up, only to see him trembling uncontrollably; the rashes on his hands had not diminished but had worsened instead.

“Why is he reacting so strongly when none of us are affected?” the person helping him asked.

Zhang Haike inserted his finger into the man’s throat and forcefully scraped, causing the mud to be vomited out. “He swallowed some mud; give him a few sips of egg white water to help cleanse his system.”

Perhaps this Zhang family child was not a good swimmer and had swallowed some mud when he came down. To avoid embarrassment, he had held back from vomiting it up, which was fortunate since he managed to swallow it.

The smell of the mud was already extremely unpleasant, and the vomit mixed with stomach acid made several faces turn a bit green. One person went to give him egg white water, while Zhang Haike immediately began to shovel the dirt on the ground to cover the mess. Suddenly, he noticed that the vomited mud was actually moving on its own.