12.
After moving the large stones and clearing away some of the rubble, an opening about sixteen inches wide appeared before her in less than two minutes.
Looking at the narrow, deep opening, Chu Kỳ took a deep breath and gripped her phone, preparing to crawl through. Suddenly, a gray shadow flashed into view and vanished.
The comments section erupted.
【Oh my God! I saw something dart past!】
【I saw it too! Chu-jie, don’t go in! Don’t go in!】
【I’m about to piss myself. Just thinking about a cave underground like this makes it hard to breathe.】
【Chu-jie, hurry and seal up that hole! Whatever you do, don’t go in! Chu-jie, hurry and seal up that hole! Whatever you do, don’t go in!】
Unfortunately, Chu Kỳ hadn’t seen anything.
Since the phone was in her hand, the viewers’ angle was much lower than Chu Kỳ’s. She patted her chest a few times, then crouched down, lay flat on the ground, and crawled forward on her elbows, slipping into the cave without hesitation.
The comments section was full of people cursing me and Kiều Mặc Vũ for not saying anything to warn Chu Kỳ.
【Are you trying to watch Chu-jie die in there on purpose?】
Kiều Mặc Vũ glared and hammered away at the keyboard.
【Are you stupid? Even if you die, your Chu-jie won’t!】
【Why say anything? So you can call the tomb-guarding beast over? Did you leave your brains behind?】
Exactly. Tomb-guarding beasts were highly sensitive to sound. The other viewers chimed in, jumping in to berate the people who’d just spoken.
The comments quickly flooded the screen. Chu Kỳ had already crawled inside, and only then did she turn on her phone’s flashlight.
The stone chamber was pitch-black. Chu Kỳ didn’t dare go far; she held her phone out to light a small area ahead, then shakily typed.
【Okay, can I go back out now?】
【Look around, then shine the light a little farther ahead.】
Chu Kỳ took a few more steps, using her phone to light the way. Its beam cut through a patch of darkness, and suddenly a figure appeared in front of her.
The person was curled up on the ground, facing away from the camera. An eagle was embroidered on the back of the jacket.
【Oh my God! I’m going to die!】
【I’ve watched so many horror movies this year, and none of them were as scary as this! You scared me to death!】
【Holy crap, my heart’s about to stop! Aaaah, I’m going to die!】
Tears welling in her eyes, Chu Kỳ covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from crying aloud.
Kiều Mặc Vũ calmly typed a message to comfort her.
【It’s okay. Judging by his clothes, he’s probably just a tomb raider who was buried here.】
【With a tomb-guarding beast here, tomb raiders won’t turn into the walking dead. A dead body isn’t all that scary.】
【I think there’s a piece of paper pinned beneath his back. Try pulling it out and taking a look.】
13.
【Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but why does it look like that body is rising and falling as if it’s breathing?】
【Yeah, when I look at his back, I get that feeling too.】
【Could you all stop scaring people? Master Kiều said tomb raiders don’t turn into the walking dead, so quit frightening Chu-jie!】
That’s right! Are you all trying to scare Chu-jie even more? And what do you mean, “It’s okay”?」
The camera panned down to the ground. What the body was lying on wasn’t a piece of paper but a torn book. At the very bottom, two characters were visible—“Áo Nghĩa.”
Chu Kỳ shakily reached out and pushed the body aside.
But the moment she pushed it, for some reason she let out a horrible scream.
Chu Kỳ screamed shrilly, scrambling and running toward the cave entrance. The tomb-guarding beast’s deep, hoarse roar echoed from afar. Scared out of her wits, Chu Kỳ put every ounce of strength into squeezing through the narrow opening.
Everyone was sweating along with her.
As soon as she squeezed through, she crouched and hurriedly moved the stones back into place, then slumped to the ground, panting and streaming with tears.
【What was that ghost’s name? I couldn’t even make out the writing. Wasn’t going in there a complete waste of time?】
【What kind of snide remark is that? If you were in her shoes, would you be scared? Chu-jie was already incredibly brave to go in there, got it?】
【Easy to talk big when you’re sitting down, you disgusting keyboard warrior!】
Chu Kỳ kept crying.
“That corpse— That corpse—it’s still warm!”
“It has a human body temperature!”
【Holy crap! That’s terrifying! Could it be a living person?】
【Absolutely impossible. She’s lost so much blood and has been in the cave so long that her body temperature has dropped. The idea that tomb chambers preserve heat better than the outside is just a myth.】
【Exactly! You must be that doctor, right? That makes a lot of sense.】
By the time Chu Kỳ had calmed down, someone had posted a screenshot.
I took a screenshot of those scattered characters just now: “Nguyên Áo Nghĩa.” Can you make out those three characters, streamer?】
14.
“Nguyên Áo Nghĩa?”
I was still rubbing my chin and thinking when Kiều Mặc Vũ excitedly slapped the table.
“Dịch Nguyên Áo Nghĩa! That’s his book!”
It suddenly clicked.
“It’s him—the Right Minister of State under Emperor Wuzong of Yuan, Bảo Bát!”
Bảo Bát was a remarkable figure of the Yuan dynasty. He was Semu, yet an accomplished scholar, and wrote books including 《Dịch Nguyên Áo Nghĩa》 and 《Chu Dịch Thượng Chiêm》. Of the two, 《Dịch Nguyên Áo Nghĩa》 was the work he cherished most.
There was also a faint red seal in the lower-right corner of that sheet. People who simply collected books wouldn’t stamp their personal seals directly on the cover, so there was an eighty or ninety percent chance this book was one of his grave goods.
Kiều Mặc Vũ breathed a sigh of relief.
“You mean, if it were someone else, we might not be able to find their tomb—but since it’s Bảo Bát, we’ve got a sure thing!”
“The Yuan court promoted Tibetan Buddhism, and the nobility often associated with high-ranking monks, while Taoism was suppressed. But Bảo Bát loved learning, so he and the geomancer Quách Nguyên Định became close friends.”
“Unfortunately, Bảo Bát was stubborn and conservative. Before long, he came to believe his abilities surpassed Quách Nguyên Định’s, and the two fell out. He soon found a burial site for his family. On the surface, the site was high and imposing, like a heavenly steed, and promised blessings for three generations. But in truth, the Po Jun star lay far away, making it a place of great ill fortune for his descendants.”
“Not long after he buried his father, Emperor Wuzong of Yuan died, and Baoba was also sentenced to death by imperial decree.”
“There were so many nobles in the Yuan dynasty, and countless auspicious burial sites, so finding one would be difficult. But a star configuration like his was one of a kind.”
“If we find Baoba’s father’s tomb, he must be nearby.”
After hearing Kiều Mặc Vũ, Chu Kỳ was so excited that even the corners of her lips trembled.
“Master Kiều, what do you mean? You can find me, right? I’m going to be rescued?”
【Boohoo, Kiều Mặc Vũ and Mộ Dung Nguyệt deserve to be enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple!】
【The streamer is my GOAT for rescuing Chu-jie!】
Hearts and fresh flowers sparkled all over the screen. All the fans started frantically sending gifts, praising us to the skies.
Kiều Mặc Vũ nodded calmly.
“Baoba’s tomb is a textbook example of what a geomancer should never do. I know roughly where it is—it’s on the Bá Thượng Grassland northwest of the capital. Tiểu Nguyệt Nguyệt, call the police. We’ll bring them with us when we go.”
15.
When Kiều Mặc Vũ and I came out of the study, she sniffed.
“That smells amazing—once we’ve had dinner, it’ll be the perfect time to set out!”
“Dinner can wait. The Bá Thượng Grassland is at least an hour and a half away by car, and it’s rush hour right now! Hurry up and pack. We need to leave now.”
“But what about my braised lamb ribs? My—my braised lamb ribs—”
I dragged Kiều Mặc Vũ out the door, and on the way I called the local police to report it.
What surprised me, though, was that the police had no intention of coming with us.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Mộ Dung. We’ve received information from a tipster, and we’re now certain Chu Kỳ is in the Đại Hưng district south of the city.”
“We need to focus our forces on rescuing Chu Kỳ, so for now we don’t have enough personnel to accompany you.”
After hanging up, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“The Đại Hưng district and Bá Thượng Grassland are at opposite ends of the city. Why would Chu Kỳ be over there?”
“Could we have looked in the wrong place?”
“That can’t be right. How could there be a Yuan dynasty tomb in Đại Hưng? The police must have gotten bad information.”
Exactly. We had Yuan dynasty coins, fragments of Dịch Nguyên Áo Nghĩa, and Chu Kỳ had said she was on a grassland. There wasn’t even a single grassland in Đại Hưng!
The police had to be mistaken.
I’d just breathed a sigh of relief when I thought of the kidnappers, and unease crept back in.
“If the police aren’t coming, what do we do if we run into those kidnappers?”
Kiều Mặc Vũ waved a hand.
“They’re just a bunch of petty thieves. They won’t be hard to deal with. Besides, there are plenty of ancient tombs over there. If we can’t beat them, we can always let a few jiangshi loose. What’s there to be afraid of?”
At six in the evening, traffic in the capital was at a standstill. By the time we reached the outskirts of the Bá Thượng Grassland, night had already fallen.
“It’s only eight now, an hour before the Hour of the Pig. We should still have time.”
Kiều Mặc Vũ glanced at her phone, then took out a compass. She looked up to check the stars while using the compass to search for the location.
Fortunately, the weather was beautiful today. The sky was cloudless, and the stars were clearly visible.
The rest of us put on our gear and walked by flashlight for about half an hour.
At last, Kiều Mặc Vũ reached a grassy, slightly sloping hillside and made calculations with her fingers.
“It’s here!”
16.
I took out my phone and reconnected to the livestream.
As soon as it opened, I saw Chu Kỳ leaning close to the screen, visibly excited.
“Mộ Dung Nguyệt, where are you guys?”
I turned the camera toward the field.
“Don’t worry. We’ve found the location. Just shout, and we’ll be able to find you.”
【Oh my God! I’m freaking out. The moment we witness a miracle is finally here.】
【For real! Chu-jie is finally getting rescued!】
【You used artifact appraisal and astrology to save Chu-jie. You’re a goddess, streamer!】
The comments section started sending gifts again. Chu Kỳ opened her mouth to catch her breath and was about to speak when, a second later, her eyes widened, her face turned deathly pale, and she looked utterly disturbed.
“What’s wrong, Chu Kỳ?”
Chu Kỳ didn’t answer. Her soaked hair clung to her face, her lips trembled, and she stared at the screen in a panic.
After a long while, she finally took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse beyond measure.
“The weather where you are is so nice, and the stars are so bright—”
I looked suspiciously at the starry sky overhead.
“What’s wrong? Is something the matter?”
Chu Kỳ stared as if she could bore a hole through the screen, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“But it’s raining where I am.”
The tomb-raider tunnel wasn’t a straight underground passage; it sloped gently. Chu Kỳ turned the camera toward the entrance. Rain poured down outside, streaming in through the opening and running down the slope like a creek.
【Holy crap! What’s going on? Did the streamer get the location wrong?】
【I’m in Đại Hưng. It was raining here ten minutes ago, and it was coming down hard!】
【Oh my God, so Chu-jie is in Đại Hưng too? She’s not on the Bá Thượng Grassland at all! Damn it, what kind of master is she? I donated so much because of her!】
【Mộ Dung Nguyệt is a scammer! Give my money back!】
17.
The viewers were getting worked up, while I was left in a daze.
Why would Chu Kỳ be in Đại Hưng?
The next second, Chu Kỳ let out a piercing scream from the other side of the screen.
I looked at the screen and saw the stone wall opposite her shake violently, followed by several loud crashes.
Then the stone wall in front of Chu Kỳ was smashed open, leaving a hole nearly waist-high, and a man with his head wrapped in cloth crawled out.
The robber snatched the “National Treasure of the Great Yuan” from Chu Kỳ’s hand, then went back into the tunnel without a word.
The embroidered eagle on the back of his shirt flashed into view.
Was that the corpse from the ancient tomb just now?
Everyone in the comments section was stunned into silence.