We were burning leaves and branches gathered from the pit, some still damp, so the fire wasn't burning strongly, but it produced plenty of smoke.

Clutching a cloth over my nose, I said, "Is that enough, Third Brother? The flames were quite vigorous just a moment ago."

Half an hour later, the ceramic jar was mostly blackened with soot. Yao Wence prodded downwards with a stick, but this time the Corpse Corner Immortal wasn't brought up.

"Should be effective. Who'll go down first?" Boss asked in a grave tone.

"Me! I'll go!" Third Elder Sun said through clenched teeth. "I'll scout ahead for you guys. If Second Brother is down there, I might be able to rescue him."

He gripped the edge of the jar and tentatively felt for the depth with his legs.

"It's not very deep, seems like we're close to the bottom."

Suddenly, a sound of collapsing stones came from below, and Third Elder Sun cried out in alarm!

"Hold on! Don't flail! I've got you, Third! Cloud Peak, come help quickly!"

I rushed over to grab Third Elder Sun's other arm, and seeing this, the Yao Family Siblings also ran to assist. Together, we pulled Third Elder Sun, whose feet dangled in the air, back up.

"What happened, Third?" we asked.

Pulled to safety, Third Elder Sun was still shaken as he said, "That... that was close, must've stepped on something unstable."

Yao Yumen shone her flashlight down, but the darkness beneath the jar swallowed its beam, revealing nothing.

Undeterred, Third Elder Sun suggested we use a rope to slide down.

Unsure of the depth, we tied a climbing rope around his waist.

Boss and I held the rope tightly.

"Be careful, Third Brother. If anything feels off, just shout and we'll pull you up immediately!" I said.

Third Elder Sun nodded, his headlamp on, and began to descend slowly along the side of the large jar.

Two meters, three meters, five meters—the rope quickly unspooled to ten meters.

Yao Yumen frowned, "Could there be an underground palace below? Why else would it be so deep?"

Finally, when we had let out eighteen meters of climbing rope, it stopped moving—Third Elder Sun must have reached the end.

Boss grew impatient; after all, it was his own brother who had gone missing in the pit.

"All this talking and guessing from up here, what good does it do! If there was a massive earthquake in ancient times, a drop of eighteen meters isn't impossible!"

"You all hold onto the safety rope. I'm going down to find Third," Eldest Elder Sun said, winding the rope around his waist.

"I'm fine, Big Brother! Come down and see for yourselves, my heavens! I've never seen anything like this!" Third Elder Sun's voice boomed from below.

And so, one by one, we slid down. I was the third last, with the Yao Family Siblings following behind.

My grip was not particularly strong, and the climbing rope I clutched tightly chafed painfully against my hands.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The cave was pitch-black, and halfway down, I glanced upward.

Just beneath the mouth of the cave, on the inner wall, several flat beetles crawled—Corpse Corner Immortals that had not been burned earlier. When my light shone on them, the beetles remained utterly still.

After cautioning the Yao siblings above, I resumed my descent, sliding down the rope bit by bit.

Yao Yumen followed, and finally Yao Wence. When Yao Wence came down, he looped the rope around a large vat, explaining that we would need it to climb back up.

Descending from above, we were struck by the vastness of the space below—not just I, but the Yao siblings and the Sun brothers were all taken aback.

The darkness was intense, so I waved my flashlight haphazardly around.

The area was open, surrounded by stone walls—this subterranean space was undoubtedly man-made.

The darkness obscured our vision, and the flashlight's beam offered only a limited view. It was Third Elder Sun, walking ahead, who first noticed something and abruptly halted us, pointing out there were human bones scattered on the ground ahead.

Finding skeletons in a tomb was not unusual, but these bones, strewn across the floor, seemed out of place for they were too white, suggesting they were not ancient. At a glance, there were leg bones, hand bones, finger bones, but conspicuously, no skulls.

Jade Sister, who was brave, squatted down for a closer look and said, "A few months to half a year old, not very long."

Beside me on the ground, I discovered an empty Nongfu Spring water bottle.

Despite the many questions, such as the absence of skulls and clothing, we huddled together and tentatively agreed with Third Elder Sun's hypothesis.

We thought our venture had been in vain on the night we descended into the pit, when we discovered a hole blasted by a detonator in the ceiling of the tomb passage. Initially, we believed that a local tomb raider gang from the south had beaten us to it, plundering all the burial artifacts below.

Yet, the reality was quite the contrary. We found modern towels, traces of others having descended, but the West Ear Chamber was still rich with burial artifacts. We filled seven or eight large hemp sacks, and at the time, Second Brother joked that the Southern Mouse had turned vegetarian, leaving us so much 'fatty meat' out of kindness.

Now, down here, seeing the Nongfu Spring bottle and these bones, we speculated that this was related to the group of tomb raiders from a few months ago.

How they died or how they ended up here was a mystery to us; the only plausible explanation was that they had double-crossed each other.

At this moment, Yao Yumen pulled a compass from her bag and began to fiddle with it as she crouched down.

"Jade Sister, what's this?" I asked, not understanding, seeking her insight.

"Stop asking questions, kid. Don't distract my sister now; there are many things you don't know," Yao Wence cast a cold glance at me.

On the compass, there were two long needles and one short needle. Strangely enough, though no one touched the compass, the short needle kept swinging from side to side on its own.

"Over there..." Yao Yumen rose to her feet, pointing towards the northwest.

At the time, I didn't understand, but now, having been in the field for a while, I can tell you that this compass is specially made. The short needle is crafted from a material called Heavenly Iron, an ancient term people used in the past, which is actually what we now call Meteorite.

This type of compass is specifically used by the descendants of the Mound Selection Sect in the south for observing yin houses and choosing grave sites. Observing mountains to determine geomancy, the silver needle for divination—these practices involve a complex understanding of the study of the Feng Shui magnetic field, something I cannot explain in just a sentence or two.

We followed Yao Yumen towards the northwest. Along the way, I saw several stone oil lamp stands and surmised that thousands of years ago, this place must have been brightly lit.

After walking for over ten minutes, our path was blocked by a massive stone gate.

The surface of the stone gate was densely inscribed with many patterns and characters, most of which were incomprehensible, as if the gate bore the culture of another world.

In the center of the stone gate were four characters, not in the previously seen nine-layered seal script, but likely in the Bird Seal Script, which was more conspicuous.

"Do you recognize the Bird Seal Script?" Eldest Elder Sun asked casually, seeing Yao Yumen staring blankly at the big stone gate.

It took her a while to come back to her senses, and she nodded with a pale face.

"We can go no further... We must not proceed," she said with a tone of resignation.

Eldest Elder Sun frowned. "What do you mean? Are you planning to back out?"

Yao Yumen nodded again, her face still pale.

"This level... it surpasses the Mawangdui Han Tomb. Those four characters are... the Mustard Seed Traveling Palace."

"Behind this stone gate lies a natural stone weighing tons; it's impossible for just a few of us to open it from the outside."

"You have unwittingly discovered something extraordinary—this is... this is a national-level grand underground palace." (To be continued)

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I have also posted the following more chapters [All free]: https://www.readgates.com/article/7b136c