Volume One: The Hundred Coffin Mound Chapter Twenty-Four: The Cave

Li Kun bent over and reached into the car, retrieving another small wooden box. After setting it on the ground, he gripped the wooden lid and gave it a sharp upward pull. With a crisp snap, the lid came off, revealing inside an assortment of small paper boxes and several magazines already loaded with bullets. Li Kun picked up one of the paper boxes, tore open the packaging, and inside lay rows upon rows of ammunition.

He took a few bullets and fed them into a magazine, then grabbed a couple more preloaded magazines from the box and slid them into his backpack. He nodded to me, signaling that all was in order.

I said, “That should be everything. Let’s put them back in the van for now. We’ll head home, grab something to eat, and come back a bit later.”

Li Kun nodded in agreement. Together, we loaded everything back into the van, then I settled into the driver’s seat while Li Kun took the passenger’s side.

About half an hour later, we were back in the county center and found a restaurant where we ordered a modest meal.

After dinner, we returned to the van and waited in silence. With all those things stored inside, neither of us could relax, so we decided to wait out the time in the car, watching the minutes tick by.

We tried to close our eyes and rest, but our minds kept conjuring images of the tomb. We lay there, eyes shut, for what felt like ages, yet sleep eluded us completely.

By ten o’clock, I tapped Li Kun’s shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at me—clearly, he too hadn’t managed any rest.

I said, “It’s about time. Even if we blow up Thunder Mountain now, no one would come. It’s safe.”

Li Kun nodded. “Yeah, everyone’s probably fast asleep by now.” I gave a nod in response, then started the engine and drove straight toward Thunder Mountain.

We weren’t far off; after dinner, I’d already steered the van in this direction. In just five or six minutes, we arrived at the foot of the mountain.

The moon was full that night, its light bathing the earth so clearly that even without a flashlight, we could see well enough. Though it was winter, the absence of cold wind made the night feel mild.

After parking, we got out. Li Kun slung the smaller backpack over his shoulders—the larger one had no compartments for magazines and would have been awkward to access, so he chose the smaller one. I took the other pack, loaded with iron hooks and climbing rope.

Li Kun carried his rifle slung across his back, holding a shovel in one hand and a crowbar in the other. I took up a pickaxe and a medium-sized hammer.

Once we were ready, we nodded to each other and set off for the spot halfway up the mountain we’d scouted earlier that day.

The human eye can see at night, though not clearly. But after lingering in the darkness, vision adjusts, and with tonight’s full moon, we made swift progress. In less than ten minutes, we stood before the pile of massive boulders.

I gave Li Kun a nod and moved in front of the largest stone. Together, we climbed the slope.

Setting our gear down, Li Kun took up the pickaxe, spat into his hands, rubbed them together, then gripped the tool with both hands.

With a powerful swing, he brought the pickaxe down hard into the crevice among three stones wedged at the side of the boulder. There was a sharp crack, sparks flew, and the pick struck a gap between two smaller rocks.

Li Kun braced himself and pushed forward with all his might, but the stone beneath didn’t budge.

I said, “Li, pull out the pickaxe first. Let’s try with the crowbar.”

He nodded, withdrew the pick, and I stepped in with the crowbar.

I knelt, wedged the crowbar into the crevice, and gave it a gentle upward force. Instantly, the central stone shifted. I said, “Li, pull this one out.”

He nodded and began twisting the stone back and forth. I pressed down with force while Li Kun yanked upward. With a gritty clatter, he pulled the stone—about the size of a washbasin—free from the pile.

With that, the other two rocks, previously wedged together, tumbled down into the gap.

Li Kun and I quickly grabbed our flashlights and shone them into the opening. The mouth of the hole was more than a meter wide, plunging straight down, nearly three meters from the surface to the bottom.

I lay flat on the ground, peered inside, and swept my flashlight into the depths, straining to see more clearly. The beam revealed only a crescent-shaped cave, over two meters high and almost as wide.

The flashlight’s reach was limited; we could see clearly for only seven or eight meters, beyond which shadows swallowed everything. The cavern seemed to stretch more than twenty meters deep. To see anything more, we’d have to go in.

I sat up and said to Li Kun, “It’s a cave, but I can’t see what’s inside. The flashlight doesn’t reach far enough. We’ll have to go in.”

He nodded. “Alright, let’s check it out.”

He pulled the large backpack over, unzipped it, and wrapped the climbing rope around the giant stone at the entrance, securing it with an iron hook.

After checking the knots and testing the rope’s strength, Li Kun nodded at me, fastened the harness around his waist, braced his feet against the stone, and slid down into the hole.

Once he landed, Li Kun swept the cavern with his flashlight, searching the shadows. Finding nothing immediately obvious, he moved to the entrance, looked up, and called, “Liu, wait up here a moment. I’ll check it out first, then you can come down.”

I hesitated. But knowing Li Kun, luck had simply landed him the entrance to this cave—he wasn’t the careful type. If he blundered into a tomb chamber and triggered a trap, he’d be doomed.

“I’ll come with you,” I said. “Toss up the harness and carabiner. We’ll go in together—I’ll have to come down eventually anyway.”

Li Kun mulled it over and saw my point. He tossed the harness and carabiner up to me.

I fastened the harness, braced my legs against the stone, and slowly slid down into the dark mouth of the cave.