Chapter 19: The Beetle

Tomb raiding is not a child's game of make-believe; it requires scientific reasoning and verification. It’s nothing like what television dramas show, with restless corpses everywhere, rice dumplings hopping about, and corpse bugs scuttling all over the place. After thousands of years, most bones would have crumbled to dust.

As we followed the passage downward from the entrance, Jade Sister swung her headlamp back and forth, carefully observing details we might have overlooked.

No wonder everyone in the tomb-raiding world says Master Yao is amazing. Just judging by Yao Yumen alone, this woman is no ordinary person. When we reached the end of the passage and stared at the stone wall, she suddenly spotted another issue.

“Look here,” she squatted at the northwest corner of the wall and called us over.

“Yumen, is that writing?” Yao Wence, who had spoken little until now, asked.

Curious, I crouched down to take a closer look.

Where Jade Sister pointed, some of the stone surface had peeled away. After the pooled water receded, dried mud revealed faint markings resembling characters.

She took a bottle of water from her bag and poured a little onto the wall.

The stone absorbed the water rapidly. After wiping it back and forth with her hand, a series of carved inscriptions slowly emerged.

“This... this is ancient bronze script... Nine-fold Seal Script!” Old Sun exclaimed upon recognizing the characters.

Jade Sister furrowed her brow. “An intriguing tomb. As far as I know, this script was discontinued by the late Shang dynasty. How could anyone still be using it in the Western Zhou period?”

We poured more water on the wall.

Soon, we discovered that the entire stone wall was intricately covered with ancient bronze inscriptions in Nine-fold Seal Script!

Everyone was shocked. Old Sun immediately proposed a hypothesis: could this be the tomb owner's epitaph?

“That’s right, might it be the epitaph?” the Third Brother chimed in.

After recovering from her surprise, Jade Sister shook her head. “Unlikely. Epitaphs didn’t become popular until after the Western Zhou. Have you considered that this wall... might actually be a door?”

“A door? What do you mean?” I was puzzled.

She pulled a powerful flashlight from her bag and carefully felt along the stone wall, inch by inch.

The rest of us joined in, feeling every part of the wall repeatedly.

After a thorough search, besides the undecipherable Nine-fold Seal Script, we found nothing else.

Old Sun said coldly, “Third Brother, do you have detonators in your bag?”

“Big Brother, I brought four,” he replied.

“Drill holes and set the charges. Blow it open,” Old Sun’s eyes gleamed coldly.

“You’re crazy!” Jade Sister stood up to stop him. “Using explosives to open the entrance might be acceptable, but this is inside the tomb passage! Do you want to bury us all alive?”

“Then what do you suggest?” Third Brother remained calm.

“Look around nearby. If this really is a stone door, Western Zhou craftsmen would have used special sealing stones. There must be hidden compartments nearby—otherwise, they would have trapped themselves inside.”

“Yu... Jade Sister,” I raised my hand to speak.

Everyone turned to look at me.

Taking a deep breath, I pointed westward. “Jade Sister, there’s a large ceramic jar in the corner of the western antechamber. Beneath it is a dark hole, and it seems quite deep.”

“Let’s go check it out,” she nodded and headed toward the western antechamber.

Upon arriving, Old Sun approached the jar and pushed aside the bluestone slab covering it.

Seeing the dark hole at the bottom, he looked back at me. “Yunfeng, how did you know?”

Staring down the hole, I shuddered and said, “Big Brother, you don’t know. I pulled a human bone out from below once. It still had a foul smell that day. I don’t know why, but today there’s no smell.”

“Also, Big Brother, there are corpse beetles down there that bite. Don’t even think about reaching inside!”

Third Brother frowned. “What’s that? Corpse beetles? Aren’t those bites from snakes?”

“No, no, it’s not,” I shook my head vigorously.

“Anyway, it’s definitely not snakes. I can feel it.”

“Little Yunfeng, are you talking about those beetles with a white antenna on their head? Like a giant rhinoceros beetle?” Jade Sister asked me sternly.

I hadn’t seen them that night, but Granny Liu told me about them. She said corpse beetles have white antennae. That matched perfectly.

I thought for a moment and said, “Maybe.”

Seeing me nod, Jade Sister and Yao Wence’s faces instantly turned pale, very noticeably.

“What’s wrong, Miss Yao?” Third Brother asked.

Taking a deep breath, she looked at me and said, “If you call those things corpse beetles, fine. I heard from my uncle that these creatures only live two to three months and survive solely by feeding on decaying flesh. They are rare, cave-dwelling poisonous insects.”

“That only means one thing,” she said coldly, pointing at the jar, “There are most likely dead bodies down there, and the deaths happened no more than three months ago.”

“Move aside,” Yao Wence pulled out a hollow iron rod from her bag—a short one with a hole in the end. I wasn’t sure what it was for.

She used the rod to poke into the bottom of the jar.

After more than three minutes, like fishing, she carefully pulled the rod back.

Attached to its tip were two large, flat beetles!

We all jumped in surprise. These beetles looked strange; none of us had ever seen anything like them.

The beetles had many legs, almost like centipedes. Besides their mouthparts, a white antenna about a centimeter long protruded from each beetle’s head, resembling an old man’s white beard. The whole appearance was hideous and bizarre.

“Be careful not to get bitten. These things are poisonous,” Jade Sister warned.

Yao Wencai, the flat-headed man, swung the rod aside and stomped on the beetles.

Both were crushed underfoot, oozing yellow-green liquid with a foul stench.

Third Brother swallowed hard and said, “So, what now? Are we going to crawl down there?”

The jar’s diameter was large. I estimated that anyone with a normal build—man or woman—could squeeze through. I even wondered if Second Brother might have gone down already.

“Crawl down? Are you crazy? These beetles are poisonous, and who knows how many more are down there. That’s a death sentence!” Jade Sister shook her head, mocking Third Brother.

He seemed a little annoyed and squinted. “Oh, Miss Yao, do you have a better idea?”

She snorted coldly. “Yes, I was paid by Boss Wang, but my brother and I only came out of respect for my uncle. I’m here to help find someone, not to risk my life following you fools.”

“This hole—if anyone’s going down, it’s your group. My brother and I definitely won’t.”

“Come on, you two were fine just a moment ago. Why the sudden quarrel?” Seeing the tension rise between them, I hurried to mediate.

“How about... we set a fire? Maybe that will kill all those ugly insects,” I suggested.

That night,

Halfway up Moth Mountain, a strange sight appeared.

No one knew whose ancestral tomb was smoking.