Volume One, Chapter 14: The Exhibit

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I even mimicked the narrator, adding a terrified “Ah!” The spy on the communicator was completely unaware. Panicked, he shouted his last words: “Hey? What are you doing? Hello, hello! Are you okay?” The bug snapped the communicator in half with a crunch, plastic shards scattering everywhere, piercing its mouth sharply.

The Botbit bug realized it had eaten the wrong thing and immediately recoiled in terror, emitting a shrill hissing sound. It dragged a trail of shattered pieces by the pool’s edge, all fragments it had spat out.

Good. We no longer have to worry about that spy.

“Master, you’re really too much—the bug and the communicator both have lives,” I thought, probably grinning to myself.

“Who told them to be dishonest and provoke us cops first? They got what they deserved,” Master Qi said calmly, clapping his hands and preparing to leave.

Wait. I called after him from behind. I suddenly remembered that in my rush to open the door, I had totally forgotten to look at the inscriptions on the stone door. I felt an emptiness inside, as if I had missed some crucial clue.

But I couldn’t go back. That bug definitely wouldn’t welcome my return.

“Hey, don’t take risks.” Master Qi grabbed me firmly and tapped his head, pointing to where the high-definition camera was. He did see the inscriptions but couldn’t read the ancient script, so he decided to sketch the characters for me.

He picked up a stone and crouched down to draw on the ground. When he finished, I looked down: the first character resembled an intricately carved dragon boat with a “gong” character tilted 30 degrees clockwise in the center, like a small stool; the second character looked like a eukaryotic cell, an irregular membrane surrounding a hollow nucleus.

This was oracle bone script. I recognized at once that the two characters were “Long” and “Shou.”

Longshou?

This was a Tang Dynasty place name. Not some ancient tomb mechanism. Longshou was located in what is now the far northwest, on the southern edge of the Loess Plateau, nowhere near our Xihai City.

This is all so chaotic. The inscriptions make no sense at all. I thought to myself, better to keep moving forward—maybe the answers lie ahead.

But this underwater tomb was not going to let me gather any more clues. When we reached the next courtyard, we found there was no sixth stone door at all!

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This courtyard was more spacious than any we had seen before. The gourd-shaped cave paintings gradually converged inward, and the inscriptions had entered their closing stages, phrases like “alas, mournful” and “thus inscribed.”

All signs pointed to this leg of the journey ending; we had arrived at the final tomb chamber courtyard.

On the left side of the courtyard, three tomb doors were arranged diagonally—one large door flanked by two smaller ones.

The two small doors bore the names “Yelang” and “Shudao,” while the large middle door read “Lintao.”

“How peculiar. We spent half the day wandering without finding a single door. Not a single character on the huge stone wall—so precious, huh? And here they all are, collecting like stamp collectors?” Master Qi stuck his head in and looked around. “Hey, there are two more doors here.”

Everyone raised their light sources to illuminate the far side.

There, on the courtyard’s right side, were two more doors, inscribed with “Yumen Pass” and “Hangu Pass.”

This time, I could finally be certain—each stone door bore the name of a place.

“Place names? Doesn’t sound quite right. ‘Chenxiang’ and ‘Taibai’ don’t sound like place names at all,” Master Qi shook his head. “Apprentice, tell me, where’s Taibai? Taibai Venus? Did people in the Tang Dynasty have spaceships? Why didn’t they go to Mars or conquer the Moon?”

“Master, don’t jump to conclusions. Our country has countless scenic spots named after Taibai: Taibai Lake, Taibai River, Taibai Peak…” I was explaining when I suddenly paused.

Taibai Peak?

The main peak of the Qinling Mountains, Taibai Peak?

That’s a place name!

“All right, you managed to guess one more question. But what about ‘Chenxiang’? How should we interpret that? What place might it correspond to?” Master Qi smiled and looked at me.

I fell into deep thought.

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As we fell silent, I overheard the archaeologists murmuring nearby about how the tomb walls even bore poetry.

Poetry? Master Qi and I exchanged a look and moved closer to see.

This courtyard was also part of the underwater tomb, surrounded by rough reef walls. Yet one stone wall was deliberately polished smooth like a mirror, clearly meant for murals and inscriptions.

The gray-blue stone was mottled with marks, evidently used as an epitaph, with many writings once inscribed on it. Unfortunately, the years had faded the characters, making them hard to discern.

The clearest phrase nearest me read: “Ascend westward to Taibai Peak.”

Taibai Peak.

Again, Taibai Peak.

Suddenly, a connection flashed through my mind. In a split second, everything clicked.

The answer was within reach.

I looked up sharply, eyes blazing at Master Qi. “Master, I know! This is…”

“You’re not thinking that each inscription corresponds to a place name, but these places are special—they all come from Tang poetry, are you?” Master Qi voiced my very thought.

“Yes. And thinking deeper, the phrase ‘ascend westward to Taibai Peak’ is from Li Bai’s poetry. Before, at Hukou Pass, ‘The Yellow River’s waters come from the sky’ is also Li Bai’s poem. Longshou, Lintao, Yelang, Shudao, and Yumen Pass, Hangu Pass…”

Suddenly, everything became clear to me.

These inscriptions, these places, are all connected to Li Bai’s ancient poems!