The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 3: Temple of Seeds

I look at the printed copy of the silk book full of words and then at the expression on Uncle Three's face. It didn't seem like he was joking. Was it possible that Uncle Three had reached such a transcendental level that he could see the image from the words? But no matter how you looked at it, it was impossible for this old and unscrupulous guy who ate, drank, gambled, and whored around to have any kind of immortal roots.

Uncle Three trembled with excitement and said to himself, "Where did these people get such an amazing thing? How come I've never been able to find something like this? This time, I'm really fortunate. It seems like they still don't know what this is. We can overtake them before they even start digging."

I was really confused, "Uncle Three, maybe I'm a little stupid but can you really see the map amidst such tiny words?"

"What do you know? It's called script mapping. In other words, the detailed geographical location of that place is written in these words. Most people wouldn't understand this kind of thing, but fortunately, your Uncle Three here has some experience. In this world, I'm afraid there are no more than ten people besides me who can understand this thing."

My Uncle Three didn't have many skills, but ever since he was a child, he had studied a lot of strange and unorthodox ancient texts and code words. To put it simply, he studied anything that was uncommon. Take, for example, Xixia's Five Illustrations of the Wooden Text and the earliest Jurchen Ya characters.(1) Uncle Three could understand them and talk about them in great detail so it came as no surprise that he knew this thing was script mapping.

But he was the kind of person who liked to take advantage of others, so you had to play dumb in front of him. Otherwise, he'd dismiss you with a single word. So, I put on a naïve expression and asked him, "Oh, does it say go left and then go right and when you see a big tree in front of you, turn right and you'll see a well, at which point you start digging? Is it something like this?"

Uncle Three sighed, "You're such a lousy student. Your comprehension is so bad that it seems our family will be finished with your generation."

I looked at him sighing like that as if he were regretting it from the bottom of his heart and couldn't help but think that it was a little funny. "What are you saying? My dad didn't teach me any of this stuff and it wasn't like I was born knowing it."

He had a smug expression on his face as he started explaining, "This kind of script mapping is actually a kind of secret code. It has a strict format, so as long as you draw what the written text describes according to the format, you'll end up with a complete map. So don't underestimate this silk book even though it only has a few words. You don't know how complicated the information it contains is. For all we know, it might even tell us how many bricks were used in a certain location."

As soon as I heard this, I immediately became interested. Ever since I was a child, my family wouldn't let me go out on any grave robbing expeditions. But this time, I had to get Uncle Three to take me to have a look and snag some treasures so that I could survive my current economic crisis. As I was thinking this, I asked him, "Then can you see whose tomb it's written about, or whether the person was an influential lord?"

Uncle Three wore a pleased smile on his face, "I can't fully understand it now, but this tomb should belong to a nobleman from the State of Lu during the Warring States Period. The fact that his tomb was recorded in this silk book using this secret script mapping technique shows that this person's position should be quite high. Moreover, this tomb is so heavily concealed that it must be worth a visit."

I looked into his eyes shining with excitement and found it a bit strange. This old guy was so lazy that he normally wouldn't even bother to step out of the door of his own house. Did this mean that he wanted to go out and see the tomb for himself this time? It sounded like it would really be a fantastic story for the ages, so I hurriedly asked him, "What? Uncle Three, are you really going to dig this tomb up yourself?"