The most famous stretch in Xiangxi is the Mengdong River, where the name "Mengdong" itself signifies the Yi people dwelling in caves. It was notorious for its abundance of holes—caves in the mountains, hollows in the trees, recesses in the cliffs, and one vast, unfathomable chasm, the ancestral resting place of the Dongyi people, considered sacred ground by the locals.

A colossal mountain shaped like an ancient vase jutted from the earth. The Yuan Dynasty general’s tomb situated at its peak was constructed not according to the lay of the land but utilizing the technique of "Yansheng" (occult suppression), intended to quell the dragon energy of the Miao ancestral cave below. Beneath the vase-mouth peak lay Fenghuang'ao, nestled under the Old Bear Ridge of Nüqing County. This basin was so thickly overgrown with vegetation that it completely concealed the subterranean cave system.

When Bottle Mountain finally collapsed, the colossal mass of millions of jun slammed down. The earth’s crust immediately outside the entrance to the "Ancestral Cave" absorbed the impact. Initially, no subsidence was visible, but the Aged Ape, dwelling beneath the Purple Gold Coffin and having gained sentience over the years, sensed the impending catastrophe from its prone position. It thrashed, crying out in sorrow, its roars incessant.

At that very moment, the Corpse King within the coffin suddenly reanimated, gripping the Miao guide tightly. Before Partridge Whistle could intervene again, the heavens and earth ripped apart. The ground split open like a monstrous mouth, swallowing trees, rocks, the coffin, and the ape corpse from a radius of several li whole. A deafening roar erupted, choked with dust, obscuring the stars and moon.

Though Partridge Whistle was supremely skilled, he possessed no divine power to defy the cataclysm. The earth-shattering transformation occurred with startling abruptness, entirely without warning. His body swayed, and he plunged into the void along with the collapsing ground, dropping several zhang.

Knowing self-preservation was paramount and that he could not save the guide, he swiftly raised an arm to shield his eyes from the blinding dust. Although the surface had given way, the Ancestral Cave below contained ancient pillars and massive trees. The collapsing soil and rock from above were intercepted by the jumble of debris within the cavern, preventing a straight fall to the very bottom.

Partridge Whistle landed on a slab of earth the size of a tabletop favored by the Eight Immortals. Midway through his descent, this hard earth fragment snagged on an upward-growing root formation, shaking violently before shattering into dust. He seized the opportunity, pushing off and leaping, using the embedded Baizi Panshan Jia hidden within his night suit to hook onto an ancient tree within the cave, suspending himself mid-air.

In the chaos, Partridge Whistle had no time to survey his surroundings. He had no idea how vast or deep the Miao ancestral cave was, nor where the guide or the zombie in the Purple Gold Coffin had fallen. His priority was escaping the immediate peril. Then, he heard the roar of the wind, a muffled thunder. Great sheets of fragmented rock and uprooted trees were cascading down together from overhead.

Sand and stone flew inside the cave, stirring up suffocating dust. Partridge Whistle held his breath, gripping a thick, slick, ancient root. He touched the root with his foot, using the rope-like tendril to swing his body toward a distant point, narrowly evading the falling debris above. In the darkness, he felt a soft, slender hand grip his arm. He immediately let go of the tree root, which was on the verge of snapping, and used the momentum to press against the uneven cave wall.

Focusing his gaze, he realized it was Red Maiden. She too had fallen during the subsidence. In her panic, she had grabbed the Wugong Guashan Ti (Centipede Mountain-Climbing Ladder) which had snagged on a root, preventing her from plunging to the floor. Her face was pale with shock. Seeing Partridge Whistle flash towards her from mid-air, she quickly reached out to pull him in.

Partridge Whistle, having faced countless perils, showed no fear now. Seeing the ground fissure widening, with dark, swirling Yin energy emanating from the depths, he realized the tremors were ongoing. He had to seize the moment to escape. He countered by gripping Red Maiden’s wrist, while his other hand grasped the Wugong Guashan Ti anchored to the wall. With three quick ascents and leaps, he reached the top of the ladder, hooked the bamboo section with his foot, and prepared to send it further upward.

By this time, the dust had settled. Moonlight streamed into the ancient tomb within the Ancestral Cave. The cavern was supported by a hundred or so massive, ancient timbers, each several wei in girth, acting as pillars for the immense space. Most of these columns were riddled with openings resembling insect burrows—these were burial chambers; each chamber was a separate cave, filled with skeletons but no coffins, an uncountable sight.

In that brief moment of stunned observation, the ground began to shake again with a violent tremor, as if a stampede were approaching. The initial collapse had involved several earth-shaking cracks deep below, but this time the force came from above, cascading down relentlessly. Even Partridge Whistle, with his iron will and bold heart, felt his courage falter, his guts turning to ice, unsure where this new danger originated.

Suddenly, the moonlight was obscured by a colossal, dark shadow overhead. Partridge Whistle and Red Maiden looked up and groaned aloud. The sinking and collapse of the forest floor had caused that enormous boulder, broken off from Bottle Mountain, to slowly roll down the unstable slope. It was about to crash through the cave entrance.

That massive, dark green rock, weighing millions of jun, contained the Yuan man's tomb chamber. After shattering and rolling, a third of the structure had broken away, scattering coffins, funerary objects, and armored corpse remains. But the remaining hollowed-out shell was still the size of a small mountain. If it fell into the Ancestral Cave, the two clinging to the wall would surely perish.

The sound of the giant rock crushing timber echoed with snapping cracks (kacha-kacha), and the shadow at the entrance grew larger. If it fell, annihilation seemed certain. Partridge Whistle had been in the trade since he was thirteen, navigating mountains and tombs for fourteen arduous years, constantly walking the razor’s edge. Confident in his mastery of the authentic secrets of the Ban Shan School and his exceptional skill, he often held a touch of arrogance. The more perilous the situation, the calmer he became. Yet, trapped in this inescapable predicament, like a sparrow in a cage, even wings capable of soaring to the heavens would be useless. His mouth went dry, paralyzed by indecision.

As anxiety mounted, he suddenly heard a harsh grinding sound—kālā-lā—of iron wheels rolling within the giant rock tomb chamber overhead. Partridge Whistle stiffened. "What kind of iron cart wheels are in a mountain tomb?" Red Maiden also wondered aloud, "Could it be the iron roller described in the operas?"

There was an opera scenario called The Iron Roller, depicting the fierce battle between Jin and Song forces at Niutou Mountain. The Jin army employed iron-plated rollers, cast from hundreds of pounds of raw iron, which were pushed down the slope, carving bloody swathes through the Song ranks. Yue Fei’s great general, Gao Chong, renowned for his unparalleled bravery, managed to spear eleven iron rollers, but ultimately, exhausted, he was crushed by the twelfth roller before the battle line. Red Maiden had often seen this play near Moon Mountain. Hearing the sound of iron wheels inside the rock tomb, the scene immediately came to her mind.

Upon hearing her reference, Partridge Whistle understood instantly. Without further thought, the fractured section of the mountain body suspended above them suddenly split open. With a resounding clang (kēng qiāng), an ancient war chariot burst forth. The front was lined with blades, catching glints of cold light in the moonbeams. The chariot body was adorned with several iron tiger heads, their jaws clamped around iron rings, clanking with every movement. The entire vehicle was iron-cast and mounted on eight rollers at the base. This was a famed "Tiger Chariot" from the Song and Yuan periods, typically used to charge enemy formations from a height.

Ancient tombs after the Song Dynasty often contained inclined, narrow passageways housing large mechanisms like the Flying Tiger Chariot or Flying Dragon Chariot. If tomb robbers triggered the locking mechanism, the chariots would shoot out, grinding intruders in the passage into a paste. It was presumed the Yuan general’s tomb held similar devices, but the collapse had caused the thousand-pound Tiger Chariot to roll down the mountainside along with the tomb chamber before its mechanism fully deployed.

Although the passageways and chambers within Bottle Mountain were sturdy, they had already been shattered by the repeated impacts of the collapse. At this inopportune moment, the locking pin of the Iron Tiger Chariot snapped loose, smashing through the tomb wall. Propelled by a fierce gust of wind, it plummeted downward, aiming directly for Partridge Whistle and Red Maiden above.

Partridge Whistle knew the depths below were fathomless; jumping down would never allow him to escape the thousand-pound chariot's speed. He would be smashed to broken pulp while still airborne. He had to fight for life, emulating the ancient general Gao Chong, daring to meet the charge head-on. He pulled his body away from the bamboo ladder, roared like a tiger, and hoisted the Wugong Guashan Ti upward, aiming to intercept the charging Tiger Chariot.

However, the sheer momentum of the iron-armored Tiger Chariot in flight was like a thunderous blow. Partridge Whistle knew it was nearly impossible to deflect the thousand-pound chariot with a bamboo ladder. He used finesse instead of brute force, his angle and placement perfect to the millimeter. The tail of the ladder braced against an inward curve of the Ancestral Cave wall, while the tip angled precisely to strike the edge of the Tiger Chariot.

In his ears, a tremendous metallic screeching (qiāng lāng lāng) resonated throughout the cavern as iron ground against stone. The thousand-pound Iron Tiger Chariot was deflected aside by the Wugong Guashan Ti. The entire bamboo ladder bent into an arc, one end jammed into the wall, the other catching the chariot's haphazard blades, locking fast against a massive timber pillar on the opposite side of the cavern. The Wugong Guashan Ti, manufactured by the Reclining Ridge bandits, proved itself a top-tier piece of equipment in the tomb-raiding trade, holding back a crushing force at the critical moment.

Partridge Whistle and Red Maiden were buffeted by the wind shear from the falling chariot, feeling a stinging pain across their faces and hands. They clung tightly to the wall, afraid to move, their nostrils filled only with the fetid, damp odor of subterranean earth.

The Wugong Guashan Ti held the Tiger Chariot suspended momentarily, but the iron battering had stressed the bamboo structure severely. With cracking sounds (kākā), it finally snapped, plummeting down with the iron vehicle. After a long interval, a dull, muffled thud signaled their landing. The ancestral tomb of the Yi people was truly bottomless.

Partridge Whistle and Red Maiden let out a breath of relief, but one crisis had barely passed when another arose. Immediately following the passage of the Iron Tiger Chariot, the million-ton boulder hanging at the entrance began to roll down. While the chariot was heavy, its size was limited, allowing some maneuvering space within the cave. But the colossal rock from Bottle Mountain descended like a vast blanket. Not even a resurrected Gao Chong, let alone the Grand Celestial Immortal, could stop it. It crushed earth, stone, and timber, plunging straight down, instantly extinguishing the moonlight and plunging the entire underground cavern into absolute darkness.

Yet, in the final instant before the moonlight vanished, Partridge Whistle had spotted a deep recess in the cave wall—a natural formation large enough to shelter them. Judging by the sound and shape, without turning back, he dragged the woman behind him, propelling them both from the wall into the shelter of the rock face. The giant boulder slammed into the depths of the cavern, grazing their hiding spot.

Tucked tightly into the recess, their eardrums nearly ruptured by the impact, they sustained several painful gashes that bled profusely. Once the massive rock had passed and the shaking subsided, a wave of belated terror washed over them. They counted themselves immensely fortunate. Had the ancient Miao Ancestral Cave not possessed this naturally occurring recess, even with iron limbs and bronze heads, they would have been reduced to dust.

Partridge Whistle looked down. The giant rock was half-wedged deep inside the cavern, exposing the shattered tomb passage and chambers within. This tomb also featured architectural elements, though much smaller than the main palace structure—only one or two courtyards deep. It retained the simple elegance of double eaves, tiled roofs, and vermilion-lacquered columns, but the bricks and tiles were scattered, columns toppled, all mangled by the collision and shock.

The massive rock tomb did not reach the cave floor. Clinging to the wall, they could still faintly hear the cries of the Aged Ape echoing from the depths. Partridge Whistle helped Red Maiden down onto the surface of the rock. They quickly bandaged their wounds. He looked up; ascending was child's play for their skills. However, Partridge Whistle intended to pass through the Yuan tomb alone and scout the ancient Miao Ancestral Cave. Since the Aged Ape was still alive, perhaps the guide had also survived. Though the man's life might not seem valuable, he was their companion from the start, and they had sworn oaths before entering the mountain; he could not simply be abandoned.

The Ancient Miao Ancestral Cave contained the remains of successive Yi chieftains and nobles; the Yin energy was deep, and the potential dangers unknown. Partridge Whistle worried about taking Red Maiden, a woman, down into such a perilous place where he might fail to protect her. But Red Maiden was fiercely independent, and he certainly couldn't voice such concerns directly to her face. Thus, he suggested she return first to find Old Man Chen, asking him to arrange for reinforcements.

Red Maiden, sensing Partridge Whistle’s desire to go solo, immediately countered: "Are you thinking I’ll slow you down? The leader of the Reclining Ridge faction ordered us to fire signal arrows in case of dire trouble. With the earth shaking and the sounds of gunfire mixed with the ghostly wails of the mountain monkeys, the accomplices near Bottle Mountain surely heard it, yet no one has come to our aid. I suspect the situation over there is worse than we imagine. What help could I possibly bring back?"

Not wishing to provoke her anger, Partridge Whistle replied, "How could you say such a thing? With the assistance of the experts from Moon Mountain, I would certainly welcome it. It's just that we’ve been gone too long; I should inform Chief Chen..."

Before he could finish, Red Maiden cut in: "If you respect me at all, let me come with you. That guide’s fate is unknown. If we delay, he might be drained of his marrow by the Xiangxi Corpse King. He has a family to support; his death here would be blamed on Changsheng Mountain. Though we at Changsheng Mountain engage in arson and murder, we value loyalty above all else. Are we to shrink from danger and leave someone to die? Perhaps my Moon Gate techniques are not as divine as your Ban Shan Daoist arts, but on the matter of loyalty, I would never concede to you."

Partridge Whistle was never one for dithering over minor disagreements. Seeing that his few words had provoked dozens of eloquent responses from Red Maiden, he quickly fell silent. Since she possessed the courage, they might as well go together. He immediately adjusted his gear. He had lost both his quick-draw pistols, but having spent his life amidst blades and guns, he kept many sharp implements close. He took the wicker basket that had once held his Nüqing chicken from his back; hidden beneath the base of the bamboo cage were disassembled bullets.

Partridge Whistle rapidly assembled a British-made Sten submachine gun. This weaponry had been purchased directly from foreign smugglers and was considered extremely formidable at the time. He tucked three or so extended magazines onto his waist, and after securing their oil lanterns to their chests, the two of them stepped onto the massive rock jammed inside the cavern. Finding a collapsed opening to a tomb passage, they leaped in tandem, one after the other, into the inverted, upside-down chambers.

The Ancestral Cave of the Ancient Miao people was filled with the bones of successive chieftains......