The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 184: Hidden Tomb

Legend had it that when Huang Chao [1] besieged Chenzhou, he killed and ground up the army for provisions, and openly ate human flesh. Was the stone plate in front of us the meat grinder of that year?

I couldn't remember whether there was any special relationship between Huang Chao and Yinchuan, but a stone mill should have upper and lower parts that rotate. There was only one stone plate here, so how could it be called a mill?

I told Longtao to stop bullshitting, but he said that a two-layer stone grinder was too inefficient. Human flesh was placed on top of this stone plate, and then beat with a hammer. After breaking the meat up, it would be embedded in these tiny holes, and the constantly beaten meat would become minced meat. The bottom of the stone plate was probably empty, so the minced meat would be pressed down into the holes from the surface and squeezed out of the holes below. In this way, blood wouldn't be wasted.

I looked down at my feet and wondered if the concrete building below was a storage bin for minced meat.

What was being fed? Minced meat was generally used to feed cubs, so was it the baby fox of that fox man?

I thought Longtao seemed to know a lot, so I asked him where he got all this knowledge. He said that he had participated in four very famous grave robberies, and he also got along well with the older generation. Some of those in the circle he had worked for liked to collect this kind of thing. They no longer cared to collect objects from certain dynasties, or even certain objects, but preferred to collect objects from certain people. [2]

Among them was someone who liked to collect artifacts related to Huang Chao. Not only did they collect physical objects, but they also gathered various references and stories. He heard about this kind of human flesh grinder when he was having a chat with them in their home.

This was a little beyond my expectations. I went to ask Che Zhong, but he didn't have Longtao's knowledge of the subject. He just touched the small holes and said that wondering what this thing was would be meaningless.

It cost a lot to hire Che Zhong. There were three types of masters in this business: some were on-site appraisers, some helped you locate and scout holes, and some helped you solve difficult and complicated problems.

The first two were knowledgeable and skilled based on their past experiences, while the latter used their own brainpower. This kind of master often wasn't interested in what it was or why it was like this. They would only ask you what your goal was, and then tell you what to do to achieve it.

Che Zhong was this kind of master, but he had a bad reputation in the business, because he liked to sleep with his boss's wife, and also charged a high price. I wasn't worried about it, though, since I didn't have time to care about money right now.

He conferred with Longtao, and then said to me: "That cement iron door is explosion-proof. We can't go in that way. The explosives we bought in the county aren't powerful enough. We'll work from this stone plate, and have Longtao try to blow it up first."

When I nodded, Longtao began to deploy the explosives. His goal was to find several key positions on these holes and detonate from there, thus blowing up the stone plate. The stone plate had already been damaged by these small holes, and was held together very loosely. As long as the blasting points were chosen well, it could be blown into bits with one shot.

Che Zhong grabbed me by the shoulder, and pulled me aside to say, "You have to give me more money, twice as much."

Why? I was angry, and said to myself, no wonder people say your character is bad. How could you increase the price right before the battle?

"This place is different from what you said. If I tell the truth about this place, these two people won't go down no matter how much money you give them. If you give me a raise, I'll help you keep it a secret. It's still a good deal for you; otherwise, you'll have to go back!"

I frowned and asked, "What's the truth?"

"Stop pretending."Che Zhong said. "You don't know what's going on here? Little Master Three, you're basically considered a direct descendant of Master Three. Let's not pretend here. This place is just a fake skin."

I had heard the term "fake skin" before. It was used to describe the best way to hide a tomb. Based on common sense, as long as a tomb existed, the probability of it being found would become higher and higher with the passage of time, and it was basically unguarded for people like us. Suppose I found an ancient tomb, but didn't want to rob it for the time being. It would be too troublesome and almost impossible to keep it for my private use.

Therefore, most of the players in the grave robbery business were quick, accurate, and ruthless. The destruction of ancient tombs and the loss of cultural relics during excavation were due to the fact that there was only once chance to excavate an ancient tomb. As a result, you usually took as much as you could during this fixed period of time, since you couldn't tell how many trips you would be able to make.

But there were also people who ran counter to this. To put it bluntly, those who got out of the trade were unwilling to rob the tomb, or give it to others for nothing, so they would make a fake skin over the tomb.

There were many kinds of fake skin, but the most common way was to buy the land, and build houses and temples with high walls and big courtyards. As the saying went, they hid it in plain sight. But this also had a drawback, because these people often had a reputation in the circle. When someone heard about who was doing what where, they immediately wanted to go there. There were all kinds of strange people in this trade, so even if you sealed every side of the tomb with stakes, there were some people who could still dig their way in.

Truthfully, however, there was no way to tell whether the tomb would really be valuable, or whether there were any good things in it, so putting up this kind of fake skin was too costly and impractical.

Later, someone invented a method that required you to dig a pond on the surface of the tomb and fill it with water to destroy all the surrounding surface structures, or to add another layer of soil to the original low-lying surface to cover the original soil layer.

The latter was a very large project, and would often be used for ancient tombs. They would spend a year or two covering the original layer of soil with soil that had gravel mixed in, because it would make the area seem unsuitable for burial. At the same time, the changes in the surrounding soil layer would also change the surrounding feng shui patterns, so it would be difficult for individual grave robbers to act.

Che Zhong told me that there were many old dynastic tombs in Yinchuan, and there were Xixia imperial tombs near the Helan Mountains. Apart from those protected ones, there were also many imperial level tombs that hadn't been found yet.

This fake skin had a concrete structure, and was made by modern people, but it probably wasn't the army; otherwise, we would have been shot full of holes by now. Plus, if it was the army, they would have just directly built a base here. Only idiots would dig up a tomb under a military base.

But the scale of this fake skin was too large, and the construction was very professional. It was obvious that it had been built to standard, and wasn't done by petty thieves.

"The cement is yellow, which shows that it's old. And the texture is very strange. There's basically no water here, and the quality of this cement should be from some time before liberation." Che Zhong continued: "Little Master Three, this fake skin must have been done by the army, but it wasn't the army of this era. It was the previous government's army. This project should have been done before they went to Taiwan. To put in so much effort to conceal this during their retreat in the chaos of war, it must not be a small tomb, or even an ordinary imperial tomb. It must be something extremely unusual."

I wasn't sure if it was really an ancient tomb, but I tricked them into coming here, so I didn't deny it. I simply added, "But it's obvious that someone knew about this place's existence after liberation." 

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Notes:

[1] Leader of peasant uprising 875-884 in late Tang.

[2] For example, some people liked to collect all kinds of things from the Ming Dynasty. Some people liked to collect jars no matter what dynasty they were from as long as they were jars.