Naturally, he could not bear to resent Wen Xin. His frustration was mainly directed at Wen Yanan for being immature. Despite holding a lowly eighth-rank official position, instead of attending to his duties, he was picking a quarrel with an unmarried young lady. What nonsense was he trying to stir up?
With the courtyard outside the rockery now empty and quiet, and having seen Wen Xin, he felt at ease for the night. He quietly slipped back into the tunnel.
As for Wen Yanan visiting the storage courtyard tomorrow, he did not worry too much. A quick thought soon yielded a solution.
If Wen Yanan was short on time and merely coming for a visit, he simply had to be absent. Once they missed that window of opportunity, Wen Yanan would likely never bother returning to the storage courtyard again.
With his mind settled, he finally drew his attention away from romantic matters and turned to his proper duties. He took out paper and a charcoal pencil, drawing maps along the way.
Along the way, he made a detour to check the mass grave site again. The hanging skeletons were gone. He noted the location on his paper and marked the step count.
He then took an untried path and continued forward.
As he walked, he noticed something was wrong. The tunnel seemed far too long. He should have already passed beyond the Wen estate boundaries, yet it showed no signs of ending.
Curious about where it led, he pressed on, but his confidence dwindled with every step.
After walking over ten thousand steps without reaching an end, he could not help but stop and look around in both directions.
It was obvious that while the Wen estate was large, it was not that vast. Moreover, the path had hardly any turns. Having experienced the Guan Fengyang ancient tomb before, he suspected he might be walking in circles again.
Could the same eerie tricks found in ancient tombs be hidden beneath the Wen estate as well?
Hesitating for a moment, he steeled his resolve and continued forward.
The logic was simple. If he truly fell into another trap, turning back might not guarantee an escape either. If he had not, he would eventually reach an end.
He kept walking until the oil in his lamp was nearly gone, resigning himself to a return journey in darkness. Just as despair began to set in, after another six thousand steps, a bend suddenly appeared ahead.
He hurried over to check. It was indeed a curve, but still not the end.
After the turn, he walked another hundred steps or so before finally seeing a staircase leading upwards. The stairs were quite long, and at the top stood a stone wall.
After travelling so far to reach this point, it could not possibly be a dead end. What was behind this wall?
He pressed his ear against the stone, calmed his breathing, and listened for a long time, but heard absolutely nothing.
He shone his oil lamp around and spotted a metal lamp bracket on the side wall. Drawing on past experience, he gripped the metal handle and tested it. It indeed moved downwards, so he pulled it down.
With a click, the stone wall shifted. It was another revolving door.
He gently pushed it open and peered inside. It was a pitch-black space. Under the lamplight, a coffin came into view. It rested in a small stone chamber, with burial vessels arranged on both sides.
He stepped into the small chamber. It was indeed cramped, with a single oil lamp illuminating the entire space. On the walls where the chamber connected to the secret passage, there were two more metal lamp brackets. He went over to test them and realised they operated the same mechanism as the one on the side of the passage. This meant the secret passage could also be accessed from inside the tomb chamber.
Digging a tunnel this far just to build this tomb chamber? What kind of important figure must be buried here to justify such a massive project?
He could not resist approaching the coffin. Placing his hand on it, he channelled his internal energy to sense what lay inside. It felt like there was indeed a corpse. He then placed his oil lamp on the chamber bracket, gripped a corner of the coffin lid, exerted his strength, and forcibly pried up the nails driven into the sides, lifting the lid to reveal what was inside.
He took the lamp again and shone it into the coffin. Inside lay a neatly arranged skeleton, accompanied by gold, silver, and valuables as burial goods.
Yu Qing felt something was off. It was clear the tomb owner seemed to belong to a moderately wealthy family, but compared to the Wen family wealth, such a massive project clearly did not match this modest standard.
Looking around, he noticed two more metal lamp brackets on the stone wall opposite the secret passage, with a few steps beneath a long stone block in the middle. He went over to test the brackets, and one indeed clicked, causing the long stone wall to shift slightly.
Yu Qing immediately pushed it, but found it would not budge. Instead, he accidentally pushed the loosened section back into place with another click.
He pulled the lamp bracket mechanism again, and the wall shifted once more. This time, he gripped the gap and pulled inwards. It opened easily, revealing it was not a revolving door, but a hinged stone door fixed on one side.
Once the stone door opened, starlight and moonlight spilled in from outside.
Startled, Yu Qing quickly extinguished his lamp before slowly squeezing out.
Looking around, he felt a gentle mountain breeze. He realised he had emerged onto a desolate hillside covered in woods and dotted with numerous graves. He had crawled out from behind the tombstone of a dilapidated grave.
To one side, a winding river flowed, shimmering brightly under the moonlight.
At the foot of the hill, a smaller stream rippled as it flowed into the larger river.
This location sat precisely in the triangular area where the stream and the river met.
Looking back, he saw the distant Ningzhou prefecture city with its sparse lights. The Wen family had actually dug a tunnel from inside the city all the way to this spot outside. Were they not afraid of being discovered by accidental digging or construction along the way?
Thinking of this, he suddenly paused. He slowly turned back to look at the tomb exit beneath his feet. Directly behind the tomb ran that very stream, only about a hundred steps away.
He quickly estimated the angle of the tunnel bends and followed the stream direction with his eyes. To his shock, he realised a likely possibility. The long tunnel he had just traversed must have been constructed directly beneath the stream, likely following its course underground.
In that case, there would naturally be no worry about anyone accidentally stumbling upon the tunnel over the years.
Yet the waterproofing and leak prevention for a tunnel beneath a river, combined with such a vast distance, represented an enormous engineering feat that was hard to fathom. How many years would it take to secretly complete such a tunnel?
After a moment of awe, he turned around and felt around the outside of the recessed tombstone, confident there must be an external mechanism to open it.
He eventually found it beneath the tombstone lintel. One of the stones in the beam could be pressed upwards, directly linking to the opening mechanism.
Returning to the tomb chamber, as he closed the tombstone door, he used the moonlight to read the inscription. It stated that an unknown righteous man had been buried here, funded jointly by local gentry.
The closed tombstone clicked into place, fully resetting.
Relighting his oil lamp, he looked at the gold, silver, and valuables beside the skeleton, but ultimately left them untouched.
It was not that he did not want them, but the items inside were clearly meant for tomb raiders.
Logically, the tomb of an unknown hero would contain no wealth, making it unlikely to be robbed. If someone stubbornly dug it open and found valuables upon opening the coffin, they would naturally stop searching further. This was likely a measure to prevent the secret passage from being exposed.
If he took the valuables, he would have to destroy the tomb. Otherwise, how could the disappearance of the items be explained?
Not only did he leave the items, but he also replaced the coffin lid, used his internal energy to drive the nails back in, restored it to its original state, checked the surroundings once more, then retreated to the passage steps. He carefully closed the stone wall before withdrawing.
He hurried along the way, nearly running, but as expected, the oil lamp ran out of fuel and went dark.
Plunged into absolute darkness, he felt his way along the wall as he moved forward.
After walking a few miles, his hand touched the first bend. Only then did he take out a fire starter, light it, quickly locate the entrance, and quietly slip back into the storage room.
He waited in silence for quite a while, confirmed everything was safe, and then climbed out from the pile of clutter.
After checking the door and finding it secure, he inspected the bedroom, confirmed Xiao Gouzi was fine, replaced the oil in his lamp, and dove back into the tunnel once more.
Today, he wanted to map out a rough layout of the tunnels beneath the Wen estate to prepare for targeted infiltration and reconnaissance later.
Reaching a junction that branched left and right, he hesitated briefly before finally heading down the right path, which clearly led out of the Wen estate.
He had travelled back and forth several times without ever taking this route. Today, he would see exactly where it led outside the estate.
As he walked, he found it was another long tunnel without any branches.
However, it was much shorter than the one leading out of the city. After roughly four li, he reached the end. A straight staircase led up to an exit blocked by another large rockery. Faint sounds of singing and laughter drifted from outside.
What was going on? Who was singing and dancing so late at night?
Finding a hole leaking light, he peered out. Between pavilions and towers, brightly dressed women moved in succession, embracing male guests. He immediately understood where he was. A brothel.
The hanging lanterns bore the name. Yuchun Lou.
Watching from his hiding spot, Yu Qing found it rather peculiar. The end of a tunnel beneath the Wen estate leading to a brothel was truly unexpected.
A grave ahead, a brothel here. He could only sigh at how the Wen family liked to play their games.
After observing the surroundings outside, he was about to turn back when he suddenly stopped. He turned again, peered through a crack, and spotted a courtyard wall not far away. An idea formed in his mind to sneak out of the Wen estate.
The reason was that upon entering the Wen estate, he had brought little of use. For example, luminous stones for lighting would be far superior to a fragile oil lamp while exploring tunnels. Then there was spiritual rice. He had dared not bring much when entering for fear of a search, so he had only sewn a small amount into his clothes. His main supply was running low. With more spiritual rice, he could avoid scavenging for bones inside the estate later.
This included their self-defence weapons. All three brothers had hidden their gear outside.
Without special circumstances during his probation period, he basically could not leave the Wen estate. Furthermore, his current situation made it inconvenient to enter the tunnels during the day.
After thinking it over and observing the outside repeatedly, he took off his coat, turned it inside out, and felt for an iron ring attached to a chain. He gave it a trial pull. With a click, a large rock in front of him shifted.
Yu Qing proceeded as carefully as possible. Giving it a gentle push, the rock slid smoothly aside, revealing an opening.
He poked his head out to check, carefully squeezed through, and gently pushed the rock back into place with his shoulder. After it clicked shut, he crouched in the shadows and cautiously observed his surroundings.
Little did he know that on top of the rockery, a black-clad man with a thick beard sat holding a wine gourd, looking rather bewildered.