The City of Sand

by Tianxia Bachang

  The man was named Sun, a renowned feng shui master. My grandfather had passed him on the road, and Master Sun had sensed a dark energy coming off him. He explained all this later—how he’d known immediately that Guohua was up to no good and had guessed that he must be heading to this burial site to despoil it. So he’d turned around and kept an eye on him.

  Master Sun clutched my grandfather’s wrist, snarling, “Thief! I have only one question for you: aren’t you afraid of heaven’s retribution?”

  Scared out of his wits, my grandfather knelt and begged for Master Sun’s forgiveness.

  The older man raised him to his feet. “You might be walking down a bad path,” he said, “but you’ve done no great wrong yet. It’s not too late to mend your ways. I can help, if you like, but you’ll have to become my disciple. And you’ll need to give up your opium pipe.”

  Guohua thought for a while. Giving up opium seemed impossible, but he might as well agree for now. So he knelt and kowtowed to Master Sun eight times for luck.

  Master Sun urged his new disciple to help him put the lid back on the coffin. It wasn’t natural that this woman’s corpse was so well-preserved. Could it be that this graveyard was a breeding ground for the undead? They quickly nailed the coffin tightly shut, then marked crisscrossing lines in black ink over its entire surface. The lines would act as a giant black net, preventing what was inside from breaking free.

  Next, Master Sun told my grandfather to gather some dried branches. When they had enough kindling, they set the brightly painted coffin on fire. It burned with such black, evil-smelling smoke, they knew it must have contained something foul. My grandfather lingered, hoping to pick the valuables out of the ashes, but Master Sun didn’t take his eyes off him, and finally he had to give up and follow his new boss home.

  The first thing Master Sun did was mix some secret herbs to rid my grandfather of his addiction. Over the next few weeks, he taught Guohua the basics of feng shui divination, until Guohua was able to run a stall in the nearby city, telling fortunes for a small fee. He married a local girl and, grateful to Master Sun for setting his life back in order, never misbehaved again.

  After some years, Master Sun got pneumonia and never recovered. On his deathbed, he beckoned my grandfather to lean close and said, “You’ve been my loyal disciple all this while, and I still haven’t managed to teach you everything I know. But here. I have an ancient book: The Sixteen Mysteries of Yin-Yang Feng Shui. There’s only half of it left—someone ripped away the final chapters before I got to it—but there’s plenty of knowledge in it, grave-craft and all sorts of useful things. Keep it in remembrance of me.” And with that, he let out a last breath and expired.

  Hu Guohua buried his master and devoted the rest of his life to studying that book. He learned a lot of secrets and was able to make a good living telling wealthy folk from the city where the best places were to situate their family graves, what days were most suited for wedding banquets, and other such auspicious tips. He also had a son—Hu Yunxuan, my father. Although a fervent rebel in his student days, Yunxuan eventually settled down into a plodding existence as a low-level policeman, married my mother, and had me.

  My grandfather isn’t with us anymore. Just before he died, he secretly slipped that old feng shui book to me, saying not to let my father know. My father didn’t approve of my dabbling in the supernatural. I studied the book in secret and became an expert on its teachings by the time I was a teenager. I knew that this knowledge had mostly vanished from the world, and that my grandfather had left me a rare gift. The Sixteen Mysteries of Yin-Yang Feng Shui, I was sure, would help me break out of my dull, small-town life and put me on the path toward adventure.

  The summer I turned seventeen, I went with my best friend, Wang Kaixuan, in search of the catacombs of Wild Man Valley. There was no guarantee they were actually there, but now and then antiques would show up in the river that runs through our village, and someone would say, “These didn’t sprout from the water. They must have washed down from the hills.” The story was that Liao nobles and their fortunes were buried up there, but so many ghost stories surrounded the area that no one dared go in search of the treasure.

  We were scared too, of course, but I believed the knowledge I’d gained from my grandfather would keep us safe. Having studied his book thoroughly, I was determined to be one of the good ones—a gold hunter. People these days confuse gold hunting with grave robbing, but everything in the world has two sides, so good things can turn bad and bad things can turn to good. Gold hunting is the good side.

  Look at it this way: upper-class graves are full of valuable objects. Can those things really be said to belong to the resident of each tomb? Isn’t it more likely that these aristocrats looted them from the people, and we’re simply taking back what belongs to us? After all, there’s no point in leaving these things to molder in the ground, next to a pile of dry bones sunk into eternal sleep.

  During the long trek over the hills into Wild Man Valley, I told Kai what we might expect. He was my oldest friend, but we’d never really talked about gold hunting before. My father didn’t like the subject, insisting I should study hard and go to a good university instead of fooling around with what he called “this nonsense.” But I felt I was ready to turn my secret knowledge into action.

  Truth be told, Kaixuan didn’t seem to be paying much attention to me. We were on a steep path, and he was breathing hard, his round face alarmingly red. His friends called him Kai. Both of us had on large rucksacks containing everything we’d need for our expedition, but his seemed in danger of actually dragging him backward.

  “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  “Of course,” Kai grunted, struggling to get the words through his throat. “You said the Hu family has been doing this for generations, and you, Hu Tianyi, are not a grave robber.”

  “What’s the difference?” I quizzed him.

  He grimaced and shook his head. “I forget.”

  “ ‘Gold hunting is a gentlemanly pursuit, and should only be undertaken with care,’ ” I lectured, quoting my grandfather’s words from memory. “ ‘Amateurs might gouge great scars into the earth, scrabbling for pennies and leaving only carnage behind. We hold ourselves to a higher standard, opening tombs of the highest quality, and only with the consent of the deceased.’ ”

  Despite his agony, Kai burst out laughing. “That’s a good one! I’ll be sure to ask each corpse for permission.”

  I swatted his arm. “You really weren’t paying attention. Didn’t you hear me say we have to light a candle in each room?”

  “Sure. Otherwise how would we see what we’re doing?”

  “No, idiot. We have flashlights for that. The candles—”

  “Then why am I carrying this rucksack full of them?”

  “I’m telling you. And I’ve got the water and ropes, which are heavier. Listen, you have to place a candle in the southeastern corner of the burial chamber. Then you help yourself to the jewels—they’ll be stuffed in mouths and hands, or placed over the chest—but very gently, and always being sure to leave one or two behind. If there’s any objection from the deceased, the candle goes out. If that happens, you replace everything, kowtow three times, and run as quickly as you can.”

  “These people died like a thousand years ago. Why wouldn’t their spirits be reincarnated like everyone else’s?” Kai asked. “Why hang around in a dingy, musty tomb?”

  “Who knows? Maybe these are the ones that couldn’t give up their worldly possessions.”

  We squabbled as we continued our way to the top of the hill. We’d set off early that morning, telling our parents we were going on a hike. There has to be some advantage to living in the middle of nowhere—a tiny village in the Liaoning hills, hundreds of miles from the nearest city—and for us, it was that the Liao tombs were within walking distance. We might even be the first gold hunters to discover them—maybe then my dad would have to start taking me seriously. I was co
nfident that as long as we located the cave, I’d be able to sniff out what lay hidden in it. Part of my knowledge came from my grandfather’s book, but most came from listening to his stories when I was little.

  Our feet crunched over layers of dry leaves, surrounded on all sides by tall, thin trees—pine, birch, and poplar, growing so close hardly any light filtered through. I began using a stick to probe the ground—there was always the danger that leaves were concealing a hole or a marshy patch that might swallow us up. All around was a faint scent of decay.

  At the top of the ridge, overlooking Wild Man Valley, the trees began to thin out, leaving only scrubby grass and bushes, primeval forest ceding ground to Mongolian plains. Suddenly, we could see the wide sky and the huge red orb dipping below the far hills. The whole vista was full of puffy crimson clouds, dense as an oil painting, as if the sun were bleeding.

  “What a sight,” Kai said, mopping his brow. “At least we haven’t come here for nothing.”

  I pulled out my compass and quickly did an eight-symbol reading, using the octagonal bagua to map out the valley’s shape. Everything was right, as predicted in The Sixteen Mysteries of Yin-Yang Feng Shui—there were definitely noble tombs. Now all we had to do was wait—the book said when the moon reached its zenith, it would shine directly onto their location.

  Flopping down next to our rucksacks, we watched the color leach from the sky, moving again only when it was completely dark. I kept one eye on the moon and the other on my compass, and it wasn’t long before I’d pinpointed the cave. Of course, these hills were dotted with all kinds of burial sites, but if we wanted the most important one, it was just beneath our feet. We pulled our shovels from our rucksacks and began digging.

  As the earth piled up around us, Kai grew anxious. “Tianyi, what if we see a ghost?”

  “That’s just superstition,” I reassured him.

  “But the candles?”

  “Here’s the scientific explanation: the candles are to make sure the air is good. You know how poisonous gases can build up underground? If the flame goes out, there’s definitely not enough oxygen, and we know to get out as soon as we can.”

  His fears allayed, Kai dug in with gusto, no doubt motivated by thoughts of coffins stuffed with jewels. As for me, I was nervous too—my grandfather had definitely alluded to seeing what he called unclean beings—but we’d deal with anything of that nature when we came to it.

  Soon we had a hole about the size of a bucket, wide enough for a skinny body like mine, though a tight fit for Kai, who was bigger than I was. Our shovels began hitting empty air. I shined my flashlight into the blackness reaching far down below. I could just make out the walls, which didn’t look like they’d been carved out by human hands—more by some giant beast with extremely sharp claws.

  Nothing for it but to jump in. There was some danger, of course—tombs of this era had sophisticated security, not like crude Tang dynasty safeguards with their falling rocks and trip wires. These Liao graves were more likely to have jars of dragon oil that roared to life when exposed to air and engulfed intruders in flame. I hoped my gold-hunter’s knowledge would allow me to spot anything like that.

  Kai landed with a thump beside me, the soft earth providing a gentle landing. I already had my flashlight out, and was examining the small chamber we found ourselves in. It was mostly empty, except for some animal skins hung on the walls and three lumps in one corner. I had to stifle a cry when I realized the lumps were dead bodies, so far gone their skin was black and clinging to their bones, ants crawling in and out of their eye sockets.

  Kai’s jaw dropped. “Tianyi. Are these the wild men?”

  I shook my head. “Whoever heard of a savage wearing clothes?”

  The coats that wrapped the bodies could only be a few decades old. I plucked a metallic button off a collar and examined it. A military emblem, but not all the symbols were familiar. Then, in a flash, I realized who they were—and also where the stories about wild men in the valley had come from. These were Japanese soldiers.

  I told Kai, who seemed bewildered. “But why?” he muttered. “Why would they be here? I thought the devils went home after they surrendered.”

  My history was a bit hazy, but I did remember what else happened in 1945, just before the Japanese surrendered: the Soviets bombed the invading Japanese forces in Northeast China, and the surviving soldiers scattered into the forests. These soldiers must have stumbled onto this cave and hidden out, maybe growing old here, certainly dying. While they were alive, their clothes must have grown tattered and their beards long, so any villagers sighting them would have thought these were wild men of the woods.

  One mystery solved, and it was barely past midnight! Not bad, but there’d be nothing here for us. We’d need to head farther in. First we reached into our rucksacks for our masks, which hung neatly from our ears, covering our mouth and nose completely. It’s unseemly to leave living breath inside a grave, or even worse, to accidentally breathe life into a corpse.

  A low tunnel led to more rooms, though there was no sign that the Japanese soldiers had made it this far. We pressed on through these bubbles of air in the soft, dark earth, some empty, some holding less-important tombs—concubines or servants, buried with their lord.

  Finally, we came to the main burial chamber, at least a hundred feet square, with a courtyard before it, as if this were a regular home. There was no platform for the tomb, only a shallow indentation with the coffin sunk into it: a tomb within a tomb. The walls were tiled and painted over with a series of scenes, the colors as vivid as the day they were created. Some showed hunting scenes, others some kind of banquet. All of them featured a man in a fox-fur coat. This must be the lord whose grave we were visiting.

  We quickly explored the surrounding rooms, marveling at the riches within. There were anterooms to the left and right, each crammed with porcelain urns and other ceramics. To the rear were the skeletons of four horses—buried with the man whose chariot they’d pulled—and a few suits of armor. Finally, we got down to business. I lit a candle in the southeast corner of the room, pulling out my compass for verification, then knelt before the sunken coffin.

  It was a sizable box of rosewood inlaid with gold decorations. I touched it reverently. The wood was heavier than what regular people could have afforded, made from the very core of a tree. Carefully, I pushed a chisel into the line where the lid fit on, and Kai did the same on the other side. With a creak, the smallest gap appeared. We did the same all down the sides, prying nail after nail loose, little explosions of dust making us cough through our masks.

  As the last nail popped up, I grinned. “What do you think we’ll find inside?”

  “Something worth a whole bunch of yuan, I hope!” Kai said.

  I deepened my voice. “You know, there’s a prophecy about two grave robbers, one fat and one skinny. They venture into a deep, dark burial chamber and see a coffin that opens the tiniest crack, and a huge arm shoots out, covered in green fur, with fingernails three inches long—”

  Kai let out a little shriek. “Stop it!”

  “It grabs the fat one and pulls him into the coffin, and there’s nothing left of him but his final, bloodcurdling scream. The other guy runs away in time.”

  “No more messing around! You almost scared me to death.”

  We took hold of the wooden lid and heaved it to the floor with a crash, after which the silence seemed deeper than before. Inside the coffin lay a tall man, all the moisture in his body shriveled away, leaving bruised-looking purple skin hugging bones. This corpse had to be a thousand years old—there were nothing but black holes where the eyes and nose should have been. The man wore a faded scarlet robe with tattered gold embroidery and a wrinkled, mold-spotted pair of cloud-striding boots.

  My scalp prickled, but excitement was stronger than fear. Clasping my hands, I recited the ancient prayer: “Revered sir, we are poor and have no choice but to take a few small articles from you. No offense is intended, for you have
long departed into the sky and into the ground, dust to dust, earth to earth. Your wealth is only external—you didn’t bring it with you into this world, nor can you take it with you. These treasures will improve the lives of many like us—”

  Before I could finish, Kai was already reaching into the coffin, feeling around for anything valuable. He took out a tricolor water jar. “Careful!” I hissed. “Don’t disturb the body.” He continued rooting away, and I picked up one of the urns next to us, the better to hold any jewels we might find. Despite myself, I was trembling. I was a gold hunter now!

  My own hand landed on something cool and hard. Jade—even better. Gold fetched a high price, but jade was priceless. This piece was exquisitely carved into a pair of wings—a moth. Song dynasty, by the look of it. How much would this be worth? I stood still, admiring it, thinking how many yuan it would fetch from a Hong Kong or Taiwan buyer. Tens of thousands, at least. Was there even such a thing as a ten-thousand-yuan note? Lost in my fantasies, it took me a second to realize Kai had gasped loudly and was now staring in alarm at something behind me.

  Turning around, I saw nothing at first. Then I realized: sometime in the last few minutes, our candle had gone out.

  From the sweat beading every inch of his face, I could tell Kai was as terrified as I was. Why hadn’t I planned better for this eventuality? My grandfather had always stressed the importance of the candle, but I don’t think he’d ever had a ghost blow it out on him.

  Moving quickly, we hauled the lid back into place, then stood facing each other. Nothing stirred. “Tianyi,” whispered Kai. “How much did you pay for that candle?”

  I shrugged. It was from the village shop. “Probably two cents?”

  “Maybe you should have sprung for a five-cent one.”

  “Fine, next time I’ll invest in a fancy candle. Imported from America, if you like. But this one’s gone out now. Let’s put things back as quickly as we can.”