The Dragon Ridge Tombs

by Tianxia Bachang

  The stone-lined room was about the size of a regular apartment and was made from stacked rock rounds. The entrance was a semicircular opening with no door, and although it was obviously human-made, there was a natural grace about it. I asked Julie if she could tell what the room had been used for, but she didn’t know. We went through the round opening and found nothing inside but the stone bed.

  It was a neatly shaped smooth platform that didn’t look like the typical resting place in a tomb. We examined it from every angle but couldn’t work out what it was for. In front of it was a square hole opening onto a forty-five-degree tunnel deep enough that when I shined my flashlight in, I couldn’t see the bottom. It was possible to walk down the slope, and we wondered if that was where Professor Qiu had gone. I called down to him a few times, but there was no answer.

  I led the way, leaving two of the soldiers behind to guard the entrance, just in case. As we descended the stone-paved passage, we could hear water flowing somewhere beneath us. Suddenly, I was worried that Professor Qiu had fallen in and drowned. I quickened my steps. When we got to the bottom, we found ourselves in a human-made cavern, with a pool in the center. The water seemed black in our flashlight beams, too deep to see what lay beneath. Several metal loops had been fixed to the ceiling, from which thick chains dangled into the water. These were made of some strange black material that didn’t appear to be metal, but I couldn’t tell what else it might be. When we tried to have a closer look, some of the chains suddenly twitched violently, sending ripples across the placid pool.

  The five of us remaining—Julie, the leader, two soldiers and I—all stepped back at the unexpected movement. There was no wind here, so what had made the heavy chains move?

  I glanced at Julie, but she shrugged and shook her head at me. It seemed clear that we had to take the risk of raising whatever it was to the surface, in case it had something to do with Professor Qiu’s whereabouts.

  The soldiers were starting to get uneasy. These were tough rural folk who would have faced an armed platoon without qualms, but thousands of years’ worth of superstition were deeply rooted in them, and the chains made them unsettled.

  “Mr. H-Hu,” the leader stammered. “What if there’s some sort of…monster down there? If we disturb it, it might come eat our whole village.”

  The two soldiers nodded in agreement. “Yes, yes, maybe it’s the Yellow River monster,” one of them said. “If we set it free, there’ll be another disaster.”

  While they spoke, I frantically scanned the cave for something to convince them it was safe. If they got spooked and ran away, Julie and I wouldn’t be able to do much on our own.

  I was absolutely certain there wasn’t a tomb down here. I knew my feng shui, and Stone Tablet Village lay in a valley. While the surroundings were certainly beautiful, there was also too much water underground, and no one in their right mind would want to be buried here.

  Besides, I was familiar with tombs from all periods, and neither the tunnel nor the stone room looked like a burial chamber. If anything, the stone platform looked like an altar—the sort used to arrange grave goods on.

  Looking around the cavern, I couldn’t see any other way out. This was the end of the road. Professor Qiu and his colleague had definitely come down here, so where were they? In the water? I felt one of the chains—it was in fact metal, coated with some strange substance that absorbed light and prevented rust.

  The chains were still shaking a little. The movement didn’t look like the result of an underwater current—a living thing was probably causing it. Could there be some giant turtle, or even a dragon, held captive down there? Of course, I couldn’t say anything to the soldiers about my thoughts. Then I remembered the blind fortune-teller and, like him, decided to fight superstition with superstition. The most urgent thing was to haul up whatever was down there and see if it helped us find Professor Qiu. So, with a resolute expression, I turned to the soldiers. “Listen, everyone, this is a test of our spirit. Blood may flow and heads may roll, but we have to pull up those chains.”

  The leader stepped forward. “Mr. Hu, it’s the Yellow River monster down there. You’re asking us to cause big trouble. We won’t do it.”

  I wasn’t too sure about the wisdom of this move either, but I kept my face full of confidence. “Don’t you remember what our friend the fortune-teller said?” I made my voice boom in an attempt at authority. “That blind man, the reincarnation of Zhuge Liang, has five hundred past lives and eight thousand years of knowledge. He said this is a celestial cave, and I know he’s right. In my studies of antiquity, I’ve seen descriptions of such places. Deep within this pool is a heavenly furnace where the magic pills of immortality are forged. If we can acquire such a marvel, then according to international law, we should…we should…”

  Julie saved me. “According to international law, whoever first discovers such an object enjoys naming rights,” she chimed in.

  “Yes, precisely! Do you know what naming rights are?” I pointed at one of the soldiers. “Let’s say you, soldier Li Dazhuang. If you were willing, we could name the pill of immortality the Dazhuang pill. And when our nation’s factories begin manufacturing this medicine and distributing it for the benefit of all, everyone will know of your contribution. And of course, the five of us will be the first to take these pills. I can guarantee that.”

  The soldiers looked at each other, clearly convinced. The combined force of superstition and national glory, not to mention the lure of immortality, was all it took to sway them. There was one other worry, though: if this was a celestial furnace, why were the chains moving?

  I tried to bluff through that. “As for the chains, they’re moving because…because the pills have so much energy in them. A true life force.”

  Everyone nodded; they seemed to think this made sense. Certain now that this was a celestial furnace and not the river monster, they started rolling up their sleeves.

  “Tianyi, are you sure?” Julie asked me softly. “There might really be a living creature down there.”

  “Trust me. I wouldn’t play around with our safety. Look at all the situations I’ve gotten us out of. Judging by the feng shui of this area, I can guarantee there’s no ancient tomb down here, so we don’t need to worry about dumplings. And this is a peaceful valley, not some deep forest, so there isn’t some fierce animal lurking in the water. Even if there is, it’s chained, and we have rifles. But if it’s Professor Qiu down there, would you want to delay a second longer? And it might be him—we don’t know.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” said Julie, “but you don’t make it easy. So what are you going to say to these village men when they’re done hauling up the chains and there’s no celestial furnace or magic pills?”

  I sighed. “I have no clue. But I’m hoping you’ll help me out.”

  The men were ready now, and the leader shouted at me to get into place. Julie and I stuck our torches into the ground near the water’s edge and stood with our rifles cocked and ready.

  “Go ahead!” I shouted.

  The three soldiers pulled the chains in unison, as if pulling buckets from a well. It looked like the mechanism was so well designed that not much effort was needed.

  My palms were sweating, and Julie looked fearful too as those chains creaked their way up. More than ten meters of links passed before our eyes. Then, with an enormous splash, something dark and heavy broke the surface.

  “Praise the ancestors!” the leader exclaimed. “You were right, Mr. Hu! That’s the celestial furnace of immortality!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The chains rose a couple of feet more, and now a huge black object was dangling above the surface. In the hazy light of the torches, we couldn’t quite see what it was, only that it was round and crudely fashioned, similar to a water tank. This definitely wasn’t any sort of animal.

  None of us
had actually seen a celestial furnace—could this be one? Had my nonsense somehow been the right guess? There are stranger coincidences in the world. I got Julie to point her flashlight at the object and picked up a torch as I went closer to investigate.

  The soldiers were fixing the chains in place so the thing would stay suspended over the water. The pool was no more than three meters across—really more like a large well than a pool—so we were able to reach out and touch the thing.

  At closer range, we could see that there were mystical carvings all over the container, which was covered with tiny holes. Julie and I couldn’t guess what it was for. It was hard to tell even what period it was from. And what secret could it hold that it needed to be held by so many chains?

  A heavy cone-shaped lid sat atop the container, fastened by six latches. Water had been draining through the little holes as we watched. Although this thing was shaped like a water tank, it seemed to have the opposite function.

  By this time, even someone as slow as the leader could tell this was no celestial furnace. “Mr. Hu, do you know, this reminds me of the leaky old urn that sits in my garden.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. “Does your urn have so many intricate carvings? Look at that design—this has to be an ancient artifact. Now you’ll just have to wait for the government’s cultural bureau to bestow a finder’s reward on your brigade.”

  “I think I know what this is,” Julie said. “It’s a torture implement.”

  “You mean the sort of thing where you stick your prisoner inside, dunk him into the water, then pull him up again so the water drains out, just before he has time to drown? I’ve seen those in movies. But why bother with fine carvings on a torture device? Anyway, no point in guessing. Let’s just open it and see what comes out. For all we know, it might actually hold immortality pills.”

  “Is that a good idea, Mr. Hu? What if there’s a demon inside?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you—there couldn’t possibly be anything like that in this place. Don’t be so spooked.”

  Seeing that they weren’t going to talk me out of it, the soldiers gave me a leg up so I could reach the top of the strange object. I grabbed hold of one of the sturdy chains and ran a hand over the surface of the tank. Sure enough, it was painted metal, much more solid than a normal ceramic urn. What on earth could this be holding? I decided to open the lid just a crack, ready to clamp it down again if anything inside moved.

  Although they’d been underwater, the latches weren’t rusty in the least but clicked open easily. I’d gotten five of them open when the strange container wobbled, as if something in it was thrashing about. Taken off guard, I grabbed a chain. Whatever it was flung itself against the sides.

  Julie and the soldiers screamed the professor’s name, telling him to stay calm. But the noise continued, and no voice answered. I threw the final latch open. Still holding on to the chains for balance, I kicked the lid off.

  The inside of the container was inky black. The others held up their torches, but that just blinded me and made it harder to see inside. I bent over, intending to ask Julie to toss a flashlight to me, but as my face neared the opening, I caught a whiff of a stench so foul it made me gag.

  Covering my nose, I peered into the darkness. A pale human hand rose toward me. “Professor Qiu?” I yelped, reaching to pull him out.

  As soon as my hand closed around it, I knew something was wrong. This hand was cold and hard—not a living person’s hand. The realization dawned a second too late, though, because I’d already started pulling reflexively before I realized this hand was just bones, and an entire skeleton was attached to it.

  Even in this dim light, I could see the stark white skeleton clearly, glistening with water droplets. I screamed and took a step back, sliding off the container and falling headfirst into the pool.

  The water was bone-piercingly cold and went straight up my nostrils with a sharp jab of pain. Luckily, Kai and I had often gone swimming in the sea as children, and the water felt like second nature to me. I felt no fear at all as I kept my eyes open, though there was no light, and searched for my way up to the surface. I was dizzy from the fall, and with darkness all around, I had no sense of direction. There was no sound. If I couldn’t figure out which way was up, I was going to die down here.

  Just as I was giving up hope, there was a burst of light—someone was swimming toward me with a waterproof flashlight. As the figure came closer, I saw that it was Julie.

  I grabbed her outstretched hand. Her other hand held a rope, and at her signal, the soldiers hauled us back, gasping, to the surface. “Tianyi, that was so close,” Julie said, panting, her face pale. “If I’d been just a few seconds later…”

  Another strange noise came from the suspended container, as if someone was pounding the sides for help. Our heads snapped up as we wondered, could there be a ghost in there?

  “Don’t worry, I’ll go take another look,” I said to Julie. “If I fall in again, I’ll need you to give me mouth-to-mouth.”

  She rolled her eyes at me and pointed at the soldiers. “Sure, I bet those guys will be happy to.”

  “Why so harsh?” I smiled. “I’d do the same for you, and yet—”

  “You know what?” she interrupted. “You and Kai, you’ve never cared about life or death. A situation like this, and you’re still joking around. Why not be serious? What did you see up there, anyway, that made you fall in?”

  I blinked, not wanting to tell the truth in case she thought I’d been too easily scared. “When I opened the lid, I saw some sort of trap. So I calmly flipped backward to avoid it, and that’s how I fell in.”

  “Forget I asked. I might as well go look for myself.” And with that, Julie scraped her wet hair back and piled it into a loose bun, then got the soldiers to give her a boost up to the container, which was still emitting peculiar sounds. The men were definitely jittery and seemed certain a monster was going to hurl itself out at any moment. I warned them not to fire and tossed a flashlight up to Julie, yelling that there was a skeleton inside. With that warning, hopefully she wouldn’t be startled into falling like I had.

  She stayed up there quite a while, rooting around inside the container. When she jumped down, she was brandishing a jade bracelet. We all stared at it, completely clueless. After my time in Pan Market, I’d developed a good enough eye for antiques that I could tell at a glance this was fake, worth a couple of yuan at most. Was the skeleton that of a woman? How long had she been in there? Had her corpse been put into the container, or had she been alive when she went into the water? None of this made any sense.

  “Tianyi, guess what was making that racket?” Julie asked.

  “The skeleton. It must be possessed.”

  “Nice imagination.” She laughed. “No, it wasn’t a bone demon. I had a good look. There are three skeletons, all adults, and a couple of dozen strange fish, two or three feet long. They seem unusually strong—even with all the water gone, they’re still thrashing around. That’s what’s making the noise and causing the chains to rattle.”

  “That’s strange. Are they special flesh-eating fish?”

  “Don’t know.”

  The leader butted in. “Mr. Hu, I’ve been staring at this bracelet, trying to remember where I’ve seen it before. I think it belonged to a woman in our village. She was married many years ago in another town. A few months back, she came for a visit, showing off this bracelet, bragging that she got it in Guangdong for a few thousand yuan. All the other wives were jealous and went home to demand expensive jewelry from their husbands too.”

  I could guess where this was going and urged him to finish the story.

  “The woman left without saying goodbye, and we all thought she must have had an argument with her parents and run off home to her husband. But now it seems she was attacked and ended up in this pot.”

 
; Before I could reply, we heard footsteps approaching down the passage. I thought it was the two soldiers we’d left on the level above coming to see if we were all right, but instead Professor Qiu emerged. A man followed him.

  I ran over to them. “Professor Qiu, you’re alive! You almost scared us to death. I’ve come all this way to see you. Then I thought you’d been eaten by fish. Where did you just appear from?”

  The professor smiled, as if he’d been expecting to see us. I quickly explained the situation.

  Taking a closer look around the cave, Professor Qiu said, “This tank is an awful device—I’ve seen something like it in Yunnan. But this isn’t a matter for archaeologists anymore. I’m going to call the police. Everyone, let’s go. Be careful not to disturb the scene of the crime. We can talk more when we’ve gotten out of here.”

  With that, everyone obediently trooped back the way we’d come.

  The village elder was delighted to see us all unharmed. I gave the soldiers the cash we’d promised them, and although they were disappointed not to have tasted the pills of immortality, the money was a nice boost.

  After instructing the village council to call the police, the professor took Julie and me to dinner. I had many questions about what happened in the cave, and I asked them all on the way. Professor Qiu explained that he’d gone into the cave with his assistant, and he too had seen the chains descending into the pool. They hadn’t tried to raise the container, though. Going back the way they’d come, they found a hidden passageway at the top of the first tunnel, leading to a space with a lot of stone tablets.

  The hidden tunnel ran parallel to the one we knew about, only lower down. Because it was out of our line of sight, we hadn’t seen it. The professor only happened to notice it on his way back, when his flashlight dipped. He’d led his assistant down that way, examining the stone tablets, only to find that because this passage was lower, there was much more water damage. Part of the roof had collapsed behind them, leaving them trapped.