The Lost Tomb Vol. 3

Chapter 15: Volcanic Crater (Part 1)

Shunzi's voice came from the darkness, "This kind of insect is worshipped as a god here because it can live for a long time. After one of them dies, its body will attract many of its own kind, so we should be very careful as we walk—don't step on any of them."

Then he turned on his flashlight again. As soon as the flashlight came on, the green sea of stars around us immediately disappeared and suddenly became endless darkness once more.

The camouflage coloring of these house centipedes was too amazing—if we hadn't turned off our flashlights just now, we wouldn't have been able to detect them at all. I couldn't help but feel afraid at the thought that if we had accidentally crushed one while climbing just now, not only would it have been disgusting, but we would have probably all died here.

We calmed our racing hearts and continued to climb slowly up the stone steps. As we carefully passed through this section of the hot spring, the number of house centipedes covering the rocks gradually decreased until we couldn't see them anymore. Obviously, as Shunzi said, the ecosystem here in the snow-capped mountains was concentrated around the hot springs.

But the scene just now was really spectacular. If I had the chance, I really wanted to see more of it. It was hard to imagine that such an ugly insect could create such a beautiful sight. This world truly was a strange place.

We were moving relatively fast now that the house centipedes weren't lying all over the rocks, but the darkness above seemed endless—I didn't know when we would be able to make it out of the gap and reach the exit.

As we continued to climb, Fatty asked, "By the way, grandpa, let me ask you something. At the station, you mentioned something about a 'Nine Dragons Carrying the Lord', but I don't I think heard you mention it again. What is it?"

Chen Pi Ah Si stopped to look at him, then at Monk Hua, before motioning for the latter to speak. "We don't know much either," Monk Hua explained. "All our information came from that fish. Nine Dragons Carrying the Lord may be a kind of lost funeral rite. The original text seemed to say that King Wannu's coffin was carried by nine dragons. These dragons guarded his body, so no one could get close to it. But the Jurchen language is so obscure now. Everything I've just mentioned is my own translation, so I don't know if it's accurate."

Then he recited the original text to us. The Jurchen language was so strange and unfamiliar that I didn't understand any of it.

"Wow, if the words on this fish are true, then if we want to open King Wannu's coffin, won't we have to copy Nezha and fight the Dragon King's third son?"(1) Ye Cheng joked.

"Don't worry. I think this Nine Dragons Carrying the Lord's coffin is probably just nine dragons carved on the bottom of the coffin. Think about it," Fatty said, "if there really are dragons, then we'll be rich. We can just catch one of them, bring it back with us, and put it in the Forbidden City. I guarantee there will be a huge crowd. Hell, the ticket sales alone will be worth tens of thousands."

"All you think about is money," I said to him. "If you really want to catch a dragon, you'll have to be Sun Wukong. But I've never seen a Sun Wukong with a figure like yours."

Fatty immediately became furious and started cursing, "So what if I'm fat? I rely on this fat to travel all over the heavens and earth. With just a little shake here, the wind and clouds suddenly change; with a little shake there, the earth quakes and the mountains tremble—ah!"

Before Fatty could finish speaking, a gust of wind suddenly blew down from the cliff above and almost threw him off the step. I quickly grabbed him and pulled him closer to the cliff. Then I turned my head and saw that the gap had finally come to an end and we had almost reached the top of the steps. If we walked a little further, we would find ourselves in a large space, but it was too dark to see anything clearly.

I suddenly became excited, we've arrived!

We all stopped talking and moved closer to the top of the steps, where there was a rock protruding from the cliff. Once we all gathered on it, Monk Hua set off a cold firework and looked at the surrounding area—except for the rock we were standing on, nothing could be seen.

Then, he threw the cold firework over the side of the cliff. As it fell straight down, it became a small dot of light that became smaller and smaller. When it finally hit the ground, it was so small that it could barely be seen.

We couldn't help but feel shocked. What was in front of us? It almost seemed like a huge basin surrounded by cliffs.

"Flare," Chen Pi Ah Si ordered.

Bang! A flare glided in a long arc through the darkness in front of us like a shooting star, going up for about 160 or 170 meters before it began to fall. Then it exploded in a dazzling ball of white light that suddenly lit up the darkness in front of us.

I wanted to lift my binoculars to take a look, but my hand only made it halfway before I suddenly froze in shock. All the sound around me suddenly disappeared and it felt like time had frozen.

Under the dazzling white light, an extremely huge volcanic crater with a diameter of at least three kilometers appeared in front of us. The huge gray basalt basin was like a giant stone bowl, and we were just a bunch of tiny ants standing on its side.

"I never would have thought it would be directly connected to the volcano," someone said from the side. But I couldn't tell who it was since I was so focused on the spectacular sight right in front of me.

If the Nine-Headed Snake Cypress and that ancient bronze tree made me feel like I was seeing a miracle, then this underground volcanic crater was like seeing a trace of the gods.

The basin was full of a large number of dead trees, making it obvious that this volcanic crater had once been exposed to the surface. It must have been an underground forest originally, but because of volcanic eruptions or sudden volcanic activity, all the trees here had died, but their remains still stood in the basin.

"Look over there," someone else said. I couldn't tell who it was, but two flares suddenly shot out and flew over the volcanic crater.

Under the enhanced light, we saw a magnificent building complex appear in the forest at the center of the volcanic basin. But the huge black stone buildings were so dark that it was impossible to see them clearly.

Was that our destination? Was that really King Wannu's tomb? The underground palace of the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds had actually been built in a volcanic crater?
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TN Notes:

(1) Nezha is a protection deity in Chinese religion. His official Taoist name is "Marshal of the Central Altar", but he was then given the title "Third Lotus Prince" after he became a deity. The story goes like this: his friend was almost kidnapped by the East Sea Dragon King Ao Guang, but Nezha fought Ao Guang and injured him severely, causing him to return to the King and beg for someone else to take care of Nezha. The Dragon King sent Ao Bing, his third son, whom Nezha then slew in combat. Rest of the story can be read here.