My thoughts snapped back, and I took a closer look, only to find it was a black cat.
What's more, this black cat looked somewhat familiar.
Wasn't this the same black cat that had been with Ou Bao before?
How did this cat end up here?
Before I could ponder further, Wang Yang seemed to have discovered something.
I stopped paying attention to the cat and walked over to Wang Yang.
He pushed aside a patch of bushes, revealing a ground hole less than a meter wide.
Dirt was piled around the entrance. I took out my flashlight and shone it into the hole, finding a large space below.
"It's a tomb robber's tunnel," Wang Yang said.
Tombs from the Warring States period were dug straight down, so usually, once the location was found, one could enter by excavating the top.
"I'll go get them. You wait here for me," Wang Yang told me.
I nodded and then crouched at the hole, peering inside.
After a long while, seeing no movement inside, I stopped investigating.
Although I had been in tombs before, I still lacked a lot compared to professionals like Fu Honglang.
It was better for me to stay put until they arrived.
Just as I found a place to sit, the same black cat I had seen earlier reappeared from who knows where.
Its pair of yellow-green eyes stared at me, making me feel a bit unnerved.
"Did you just run out from in here?" I asked the black cat.
It was funny, really, talking to a cat...
To my surprise, as soon as I spoke, the black cat meowed, "Meow..."
I was taken aback. "You can understand me?"
The black cat quieted down, no longer meowing.
I figured my brain must be faulty. If this cat could understand human speech, what then?
I stopped bothering it and checked my belongings.
Just then, a gust of cold wind blew up from the tunnel. As it brushed past me, I couldn't help but shiver.
The black cat nearby immediately bristled. Its body arched, its tail stood bolt upright, and it stared at the tunnel entrance as if facing a great enemy.
Seeing this, I quickly stood up and took two steps back.
Looking at the moderately sized tunnel, my heart was pounding in my chest, fearing that something might leap out at any second!
"Meow!!" the black cat cried out, turned, and leaped into the bushes, vanishing without a trace.
This made me feel abandoned. I glanced around, gritted my teeth, and thought to myself, "Damn it, in broad daylight, is there something down there that dares to come up?"
As I thought this, I involuntarily moved to the side, to a spot where the sunlight was stronger.
As the scorching sun shone on me, whether it was psychological or not, I suddenly felt less afraid.
After about ten minutes, Fatty and Xiao Liu arrived first, followed by Fu Honglang, Shi Tou, and Wang Yang.
Upon arrival, Fu Honglang grabbed some soil from the ground and sniffed it. "This soil is fresh. This tunnel wasn't dug long ago..."
After speaking, he began to organize his equipment. The way he was going about it clearly indicated he was preparing to descend into the tomb.
Fatty was also somewhat excited and ran to my side, saying, "Brother Xiang, I'll follow you later..."
I ignored him and took another flashlight and some spare batteries from my backpack.
Since the last time I came out of that tomb in Yuncheng, I had gained some experience in tomb raiding.
In a tomb, food and drink were secondary. I felt that the most crucial thing was light.
If there was no light, I figured, I wouldn't need to wait to starve to death; I'd scare myself to death.
Therefore, in a tomb, nothing was more important than visibility.
I put the spare flashlight into my satchel, along with a box of compressed biscuits and a bottle of water.
Xiao Liu stayed above to cover the rear, while Shi Tou took the lead, being the first to enter the tunnel.
Upon entering the tomb, I found the ground entirely covered with bluestone slabs, very neatly laid.
The surrounding walls were also made of bluestone slabs, but many murals were carved on them.
This tomb chamber was about three hundred square meters, with a stone coffin placed in the center.
There were two lamp stands on either side of the stone coffin.
In addition to the two lamp stands beside the stone coffin, there were also lamp niches in the four corners of the tomb chamber, and these niches were peach-shaped.
Fatty held his flashlight, looking around excitedly. I told him not to touch anything carelessly, but he seemed not to hear me.
Wang Yang, seeing me looking at the murals, asked, "What are these painted with?"
"It should be a sacrificial process," I replied.
Although the murals had traces of carving, they were not deep; most were painted.
"What were they sacrificing? Can you tell?" Wang Yang asked.
I looked closely and said, "It seems to be kiln sacrifice..."
Fatty, apparently tired of wandering around, came over to us. Seeing us discussing the murals, he butted in, "Brother Xiang, what is kiln sacrifice?"
"Kiln sacrifice is a type of live sacrifice... Ancient people believed that by sacrificing living people, they could produce good ceramics. Therefore, when firing ceramics, they would throw living people into the fire as fuel..."
I paused and said, "Legend has it that Emperor Huizong of Song dreamed of scenery after rain cleared, and he couldn't forget the celadon color in his dream. So, he ordered the kiln workers to fire celadon wares. To produce the so-called celadon color, someone sacrificed a mother and daughter, and eventually, a celadon brush pot was fired."
As I spoke, I looked at the murals. Although the scenes depicted people being thrown into the fire for sacrifice, what was being fired did not seem to be kiln wares, but something I couldn't quite understand.
"Brother Xiang, according to you, those celadon ceramics were fired using living people?" Fatty asked.
I said, "I don't know about that. In any case, the custom of live sacrifice has been around for a long time. 'Mozi's节葬' has many records, including a custom in the eastern part of the Yue Kingdom where the eldest son, once born, would be killed and shared among relatives and friends... 'Book of the Later Han Dynasty' also records that in the south, newborn eldest sons were offered to the king or leader to be consumed..."
"The Xia Dynasty had immersion sacrifices, where women were submerged in rivers to appease river gods, as recorded in oracle bone inscriptions. During the Wei and Jin periods, there were tiger sacrifices, where live people were fed to tigers, as well as bridge sacrifices, well sacrifices, and so on, innumerable..."
Fatty sighed, "Superstition kills people... Brother Xiang, who do you think came up with this idea of sacrifice?"
I shrugged, "You ask me, who do I ask? However, 'The Book of Rites' states: '未尝，不食新.' Roughly translated, it means new harvested grain must be offered to the gods before consumption. So-called sacrifices are merely attempts to gain divine protection..."
"Where are all these immortals in the world?" Fatty said dismissively.
Who knew that as soon as he finished speaking, a "kaka ka" sound began to ring out...