Chen Xiazi could not fathom the mystery within the bronze figure, yet he was loath to display confusion before the throng of bandits. He mumbled a few citations from ancient texts as superficial appeasement, then ordered his men to torch the scattered remains and bones littering the cave. Those entire chests and bundles of Taoist scriptures were reduced to ash. This act was not born of spite, but followed the code of the Lu Lin (Greenwood Outlaws): whether robbing a traveler or desecrating a tomb, fire was always the final answer, ensuring all traces vanished and no future troubles arose.

Afterward, the assembled outlaws dismembered the giant serpent’s corpse and tossed it into the raging inferno. A stench billowed forth, sickening many to the point of retching. Just then, a scout reported several unidentified groups appearing around Laoxiong Ridge in Nuqing County—some military, others bandits—all clearly hoping to seize an opportunity in the chaos gripping the Xieling contingent to plunder Bingshan. The defeated soldiers who had fled earlier were mostly being waylaid and killed by these opportunistic parties en route.

Chen Xiazi thought ruefully, this is what they call kicking a dog when it’s down—even the mountain thieves and bandits surrounding Nuqing County were now wading into the mess. With so many of the tomb-raiding Xieling brothers dead in this venture, the morale of the remaining group was severely shaken. Staying to fight a losing battle offered no reward. A wise hero doesn't fight unwinnable odds; as long as the green mountains remain, the firewood will never run out. It was best to evacuate this den of trouble as soon as possible.

Chen Xiazi made his decision swiftly, summoning his men to throw the corpses of the slain bandits and engineers into the cave to burn along with everything else. He then led the wounded brothers away under the cover of the dense woods, retreating from Laoxiong Ridge under the cover of night. Once across the border wall into Miaojiang territory—his own ground—he took twenty or thirty trusted confidants, fast guns slung low, blades tucked close, heading for the mountain hollow to rendezvous with Pagoda Sparrow and the others.

Pagoda Sparrow summarized his harrowing experiences in the woods, sticking only to the essentials. By any measure, their expedition had not returned without merit. They had, after all, broken into the ancient tomb at Bingshan, cracked open the coffin, and retrieved a jade belt inlaid with gold, transforming what looked like a devastating defeat into a costly victory, securing the ultimate prize and salvaging some measure of dignity for Chen Xiazi.

Moved by Pagoda Sparrow’s life-risking ordeal, Chen Xiazi clasped his hands in respect: “Between brothers like us, there is no need for such thanks. In the future, when you seek the Muchen Zhu (Dust Pearl), the one hundred thousand outlaws of Changsheng Mountain will surely lend you our strength. Through water or fire, should I break this oath, may my own eyes be ruined like this bronze figure’s, leaving me a cripple for life.”

Pagoda Sparrow quickly countered: “Chief Chen speaks too highly. In raiding this tomb, I found a clue regarding the Phoenix Gallbladder within the burial chamber. Without the aid of the heroes of Changsheng Mountain, I would still be casting about like a needle in the ocean near the Qian border. This is a debt of unimaginable kindness. The next time Brother Chen ventures into the mountains to rob a tomb, regardless of the perils of mountain or river, I will follow by your side, giving my life in return for this great favor, lest I, Pagoda Sparrow, become a crippled man with missing limbs.”

In that moment of heightened emotion, the two men unwittingly invoked dire curses upon themselves, though neither truly gave them serious thought at the time. As dawn approached, faint, scattered gunshots echoed from the distance, suggesting the various bandit factions eyeing Bingshan’s treasures had begun to clash. Fearing an encounter with a large bandit force, Chen Xiazi relied on his recent familiarity with the terrain gained during their activities near Bingshan. He led his group, carrying the wounded, taking back trails out of the mountain, crossing ridges and wading rivers until they reached the Miaojiang border wall. There, they finally rejoined the main contingent and retreated nonstop to their stronghold in Xiangyin.

The outlaws were utterly exhausted and rested for several days. The Miao guide, unable to hold his breath in the tomb, had inhaled a significant amount of the noxious miasma and died. Hong Guniang’s broken leg was finally set, but as the saying goes, “mending tendons and bones takes a hundred days”; she would be unable to walk for nearly three months.

Once their spirits had somewhat recovered, Chen Xiazi perceived that his position as the supreme leader of Changsheng Mountain was precarious. This raid on the ancient tomb at Bingshan was likely the costliest venture in the history of tomb raiding, both in deaths and dispersal. Luo Laowai’s contingent had scattered, and many could no longer be controlled, causing Changsheng Mountain to lose face throughout Hunan.

Chen Xiazi was consumed by anger. The current situation was grim. Unless he could pull off a massive tomb raid to secure significant wealth, a return to prominence seemed impossible. Yet, most of the ancient tombs in the surrounding provinces had already been plundered. Where could he find a tomb of the caliber of a feudal king? He calculated briefly, and an idea took root.

In his early days, when Chen Xiazi first began his career robbing tombs, he often worked the southern regions—from Liangguang to Lianghu, extending into Yunnan and Jiangxi—his travels knew no bounds. He had once excavated the tomb of the King of Dian in Lijiashan, Yunnan. The ancient Dian Kingdom tombs in Lijiashan were layered one upon the other, and many grave robbers over the centuries had unearthed treasures there. However, precisely because the Dian King’s tomb in Lijiashan was such an obvious target, it had been looted countless times since the Song Dynasty—not just nine out of ten tombs were empty, but essentially all ten.

When Chen Xiazi arrived during the Republic era, he found a scene of desolation: “Stone figures wept in vain, the marker posts burned silently,” a landscape pockmarked by relentless excavation. Tomb robbers refer to robbing tombs already plundered by others as digging in a “filter pit.” The very first group to locate and enter an ancient tomb would reap the richest rewards, returning laden with gold, jewels, and jade. The later arrivals would find little of value.

The second wave of robbers, while saving some effort, missed out on the valuable mingqi (burial objects). They had to settle for what the first group discarded: the burial robes worn by the deceased, or perhaps a bronze lamp, a ceramic jar, a clay figurine, or a stone beast from the chamber, all of which the second group would clear out.

By the time the third wave of robbers arrived, only an empty coffin and the four corners of the room usually remained. But as the saying goes, a thief never leaves empty-handed. The third group would certainly not return without spoils. If there were murals, they would be sliced off the walls. If there were no murals, they would dig out the tomb bricks or roof tiles, and finally, they would drag away the coffin boards, scrub them clean, and sell the wood to a coffin shop as raw material.

When Chen Xiazi and his men reached Lijiashan, they found the burial complexes of the ancient Dian kings reduced to mere muddy holes, having been filtered countless times by official and rogue robbers alike, leaving not even a single bone for posterity.

However, Chen Xiazi was lucky at that time. Undeterred, they dug through several muddy ponds marked by deep, dark soil and grass stains, eventually discovering the tomb chamber of a late-period Dian King that had only been looted two or three times. Even so, this tomb held no mingqi—only an empty coffin, though its material suggested quality, crafted from precious timber sourced from the primeval forests of Yunnan. Chen Xiazi regretfully dismantled the coffin boards, only to discover a human-skin map inside. After having it restored by a skilled craftsman, the map revealed the precise location of the Xian King’s Tomb.

Tomb robbers were intimately familiar with the legends surrounding the Xian King’s Tomb. It was said that the tomb was built with unimaginable luxury, requiring the living sacrifice of ten thousand people. Furthermore, the underground palace was described as a celestial palace; mortals wishing to visit the Xian King could only arrive by crossing the Yin River in a small boat launched from the Heavenly River, and once there, they could never return, forced to serve the Xian King for eternity.

This tomb—in the heavens, nonexistent on earth—was deemed impossible for any grave robber to plunder. As these legends aged, they naturally became distorted. Many seasoned veterans of the trade considered the Xian King’s Tomb a mere myth. Even the emperors like Qin Shi Huang, Han Wudi, or Tang Taizong had to build their tombs underground; how could a frontier chieftain from the south possibly construct his resting place amidst the celestial aura of the heavens? This tale simply could not be taken as fact.

But faced with the scarcity of nearby tombs and the pressing need for a major score, Chen Xiazi began to fix his sights on the Xian King’s Tomb. He immediately pulled out the human-skin map and discussed the matter in detail with Pagoda Sparrow.

Pagoda Sparrow, however, had his mind wholly occupied by the Muchen Zhu hidden in the Black Water City of Xixia, having no interest whatsoever in the Xian King’s Tomb. His entire focus was fixed on that single objective. The legends of the Yunnan Bug Valley were ethereal and uncertain; the existence of the Xian King’s Tomb itself was questionable. Launching a major expedition to Yunnan might yield nothing. Thus, he told Chen Xiazi that he must first go to the Black Water City desert to seek treasure; only after succeeding there would he return to assist the Xieling contingent in finding the Xian King’s Tomb.

Chen Xiazi disagreed; consolidating his leadership of Changsheng Mountain was the immediate priority. Logically, finding the Xian King’s Tomb deep in the mountains seemed far easier than locating the Black Water City buried beneath the yellow sands. At least they had a map detailing the route; searching for ruins in the boundless desert, conversely, was harder than ascending to heaven. No tomb robber had ever succeeded in finding a treasure buried in the desert. The endless sands were a forbidden zone, where the techniques of both the Banshan and Xieling schools found little purchase.

Pagoda Sparrow often worked alone, and for his journey to the Black Water City in Xixia, he hadn't intended to seek help from the Xieling outlaws. However, being open-hearted, he told Chen Xiazi plainly about his desert expedition. In truth, the entire lineage of Banshan Daoists had migrated from the deserts of the Western Regions to the Jiangnan area, and they had indeed ventured deep into the desert many times to seek ancient sites, though that was the lore of millennia past.

As early as the Han Dynasty, the Banshan Daoists had exhausted their intellects searching for the Muchen Zhu. At that time, some had considered that if they could not find the Pearl, they might return to their ancestral homeland, the Twin Black Mountains, to explore beneath the Bottomless Ghost Cave on Mount Zhaglama, perhaps finding the source of the curse.

However, the Zhaglama Twin Black Mountains were already occupied by the Ghost Cave people. At the end of the Twin Saint Valley, they had built a city and named their kingdom Jingjue. The Queen of Jingjue was a singular, unmatched marvel.

Legend claimed the Queen of Jingjue could capture people with her gaze. Some said it was an art of translocation and manipulation; others claimed it was an evil sorcery that captured souls through national prestige. No one knew her true nature. The thirty-six kingdoms along the Peacock River were largely controlled by Jingjue. The Banshan Daoists attempted infiltration into the heavily guarded Mount Zhaglama several times, only to be discovered by the guards, costing several lives for nothing.

Eventually, one Banshan Daoist devised a brilliant strategy to counter the Jingjue Kingdom. Jingjue’s strength stemmed entirely from the formidable Queen. Eliminating her would make breaching the city effortless.

Thus, this predecessor of the Banshan Daoist disguised himself as a diviner from the distant East and employed the art of alliance-building, turning the Western Regions, long enslaved by Jingjue, against their oppressor. The kingdoms secretly planned and assembled forces to attack the main city of Jingjue. The Banshan Daoist then prepared a slow-acting poison, concealed within the flesh of a golden lamb. The Prince of Gumo, the mightiest warrior of the thirty-six kingdoms, carried this golden lamb as an offering to the Queen of Jingjue, poisoning her with the slow medicine.

The Queen of Jingjue’s weakness was her extreme arrogance; she was the moon that eclipsed the stars in the desert, believing only a divine being such as herself was fit to taste the golden lamb. As expected, she fell for the ruse and died shortly after the poison took effect, subsequently being buried atop the Bottomless Ghost Cave on Mount Zhaglama. The allied forces, long lying in ambush in the desert, were immensely heartened by the news of the Queen’s death. They charged into the city, fighting until dawn broke on the second day, finally breaching the underground royal palace. The allied soldiers, bearing a deep hatred for the Queen, were about to pry open her ancient tomb to desecrate the body and seize the vast treasures she had amassed, when the desert suddenly erupted in wind and flying sand, obscuring the sun and moon.

The all-consuming black sandstorm struck like the true God’s whip, causing dunes to shift and burying everything on Mount Zhaglama. The allied troops who had entered the city, including the Banshan Daoist who masterminded the assassination, were swallowed by the sands. For centuries thereafter, only when the desert storm abated would the ancient city of Jingjue occasionally reveal its mysterious veil, only to sink once more beneath the rolling sands, this ephemeral city of the ghost eye moving with the dunes.

The remaining Banshan Daoists were unwilling to concede defeat. They continuously ventured into the desert, searching for the Twin Black Mountains buried beneath the sand, but all returned empty-handed. Despite their best efforts, they could never locate the unmarked Mount Zhaglama, finally abandoning the quest altogether.

During this time, the Banshan Daoists who entered the desert encountered countless strange fortunes and accidentally found various historical sites and tombs. Eventually, they reached a consensus: searching for a tomb or ancient city in the desert without any distinctive geographical markers offered the Banshan Daoists less than a one-in-ten-thousand chance.

Upon hearing these old tales, the ambitious Chen Xiazi’s imagination soared: what if he led a massive contingent of bandits into the furious desert, excavated the mountains of gold and silver piled in the City of Jingjue, and returned to Xiangyin to undertake earth-shattering schemes, bringing glory to the Lu Lin? Perhaps his surname, Chen, would one day be known as the founding ancestor, and those foreign powers—the Americans, the English, the Japanese—who constantly challenged the Middle Kingdom, would all be forced to write letters of surrender and tribute submission, paying homage annually and coming to court every year. This would truly fulfill his aspirations as a man, ensuring the name of “Xieling” was inscribed upon the pages of official history.

Pagoda Sparrow, noticing Chen Xiazi’s face shifting from bright to dark, reflecting a mix of sudden joy and worry, could not gauge the depth of his ambition, and quickly asked what distracted him. Chen Xiazi snapped back to reality, sighing repeatedly. He understood that the venture of treasure hunting in the desert was merely a pipe dream for the Xieling outlaws. Even with several contingents of men, they would be but a drop in the ocean amidst the boundless desert; heaven knew where they would even begin digging.

Thinking this, Chen Xiazi asked Pagoda Sparrow why he insisted on seeking the Black Water City of Xixia if nothing could be found in the sand-swept land. Centuries ago, a massive sandstorm had swept through, completely burying that famous Xixia city. Like the City of Jingjue, it was likely undiscoverable now. It would be far better to go to Yunnan and follow the map to rob the tomb; at least there was a clue to follow. With the combined skills of you and I, brother, what great undertaking under heaven could we not accomplish!

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