The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 30: Snake-Eyebrow Copper Fish

As the box lid opened slowly, I could see that the space inside was only as big as the size of my little finger. There was a small copper fish inside, which I took out and examined. It looked very ordinary but the workmanship was quite exquisite, especially the fish's eyebrows which were made to look like snakes. Surprised, I couldn't help but wonder what was so valuable about this thing and why it had been placed in such a protected place.

At this time, Uncle Three suddenly dragged a gas cutter cylinder into the room but he was surprised to find that the box had already been opened. "How did you open it, how did you open it?" He asked.

When I told him about the number, he frowned and said, "Things are getting more and more confusing. It seems that this group of Americans aren't simple grave robbers." He picked up the copper fish, but then his expression suddenly changed and he said, "Isn't this a snake-eyebrow copper fish?"

I could tell with just one glance that he seemed to know something so I hurriedly asked him what it was. He pulled something out of his breast pocket and handed it to me. When I looked at it, I found that it was also an exquisite copper fish. It was about the size of my little finger and its eyebrows were also shaped like two sea snakes. The workmanship was excellent, and every scale had been crafted very delicately. It must have come from the same source as the one in the box. But there was one small defect that the other one didn't have—a lot of fine, white lime-like dirt was stuck in the grooves of the scales. I could tell what it was right away and asked, "Is this a marine treasure?"

I was surprised to see Uncle Three nod. Marine treasures were antiques that were picked up from the sea, usually blue-and-white porcelain wares. It was more convenient to find antiques in the sea than on land since many things lay exposed on top of the seabed. But there were too many microorganisms in the sea so most of the things salvaged from the ocean were covered in a whitish-gray dirt that was hard to wash off and which diminished their value.

I couldn't help but feel confused because, in my memory, Uncle Three wasn't interested in such low-value goods. "Have you ever robbed an undersea tomb?" I asked him.

Uncle Three nodded and said, "Only once, and I really regret it. If I hadn't taken on that job at that time, I probably would've had a lot of children by now."

I was a little familiar with Uncle Three's past. He used to have a lover named Chen Wen-Jin who was considered an outstanding woman among women. I heard that they met while robbing a tomb. She was said to be such a gentle and quiet woman that no one would ever believe that she was from the northern school of grave robbers. Uncle Three had been with her for five years. She would search for dragon acupoints while he would search the surrounding soil for the tomb's location. This teamwork earned them the nickname "The Condor Heroes" among those in the grave-robbing circle.(1)

Later, I heard that she suddenly disappeared. All I knew was that there had been an accident when they were robbing a tomb and she had gone missing. It wasn't suitable for girls to do this kind of work and my family felt regretful that such a horrible thing had happened, but I was only a few years old at the time and didn't understand much of what was going on. I only saw Uncle Three sitting like a piece of wood for a week, always with a sad and broken-hearted expression on his face, before he gradually returned to normal. I couldn't remember clearly what had happened when I was a child but now that Uncle Three seemed like he wanted to talk about it, I knew that I couldn't seem too eager even though I really wanted to know. "What happened at that time, was it in an undersea tomb?" I asked him.

Uncle Three sighed and said "She and I were both still young back then. Several of her classmates were part of an archaeological team and vaguely knew what I did for a living. I didn't bother trying to hide it from them, either. Everyone was very close with each other. Later, they went to Xisha to do some archaeological work on a shipwreck and I followed along. But I didn't expect," he paused, as if he didn't want to remember the incident, "I didn't expect that the sunken thing would be so big."