Chapter Twenty-Five: Seven Stars Among Bamboo Leaves

Peanut grinned, revealing his neat, white teeth, and said, "You don't look so well."

"It's not that," I tried to steady myself. "Didn't you just—already, you know... How could you be—"

"You must have a poor memory. I told you, I'm immune to all poisons," Peanut replied, then shouted toward the opening, "I’m not that easy to kill!"

"Ah!" Old Tan below was startled too. "Boss Peanut, you're alive?"

"If you’re still here, I’d feel embarrassed to leave before you," Peanut answered with confidence. The bruised, bluish tint on his face had vanished, and he looked even healthier than I did. For a moment, I struggled to process it.

Meanwhile, there was a commotion near my second uncle. I told Old Tan to stay put and went over with Peanut.

When everyone saw Peanut arrive, they were visibly afraid. I wanted to explain, but before I could, Peanut stripped off his shirt and turned his back to the crowd.

The purplish venom on his back was gone, and the bloodshot veins around the wound had disappeared as well. On closer inspection, it seemed the wound itself had healed quite a bit.

"Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s talk about this young man’s situation once we get out," my second uncle said as Peanut put his shirt back on.

"It's a bit early to think about getting out now," Peanut’s words poured cold water on everyone’s hopes.

My second uncle just smiled and let it pass, then pointed to the ground. "We all got misled by our own experience. There’s definitely something about these stones."

I crouched down and examined the slab he indicated. Aside from some scratches, there was nothing odd. Pressing on it, I found it rock solid. "Uncle, what's wrong with this slab?"

He said, "Look carefully at the markings. What do they remind you of?"

I thought there was nothing on that stone, but leaned in for a closer look. After a long while, I finally noticed something. On the surface of the stone were three faint lines, each seemingly random. At first glance, they meant nothing, but ignoring the uneven colors of the slab, I realized the three lines seemed to form a leaf.

"A leaf?" I muttered, finding it strange.

"More precisely, a bamboo leaf," Er Lengzi chimed in.

He was right, now that I looked again. My second uncle proceeded to show me six other slabs with similar markings. Without exception, each of the seven randomly arranged stones bore the same traces.

"At first, we thought if there was a mechanism here, it must be some sort of movable switch, so we only tried stepping on them. None of us imagined it’d be this complicated. These seven bamboo leaves form a map of the Seven Stars," my second uncle explained. "But beyond that, after all this time, I still can’t figure out how your friend triggered the trap."

Looking at all seven bamboo leaves together, I did see the Big Dipper constellation. Yet the slabs themselves seemed no different from the others. "Hey, what if all of them need to be stepped on?" I recalled Old Tan mentioning he’d danced here before—maybe he had accidentally triggered the mechanism by stepping on the stones in some particular pattern.

After I shared my idea, my second uncle nodded. He called over a few of the men and had them step back and forth on the stones, trying to see if anything happened. For over ten minutes, they hopped around like they were playing jump rope, but nothing moved an inch.

My second uncle shook his head and told them to stop. He fell silent for a moment, then glanced at Peanut. "Can you see any clue here, young man?"

"To carve bamboo on a tomb, and use bamboo leaves to form the Seven Stars... This tomb’s owner must have had a fondness for bamboo," Peanut replied, as though studying the origins of the tomb rather than answering.

"In old times, scholars admired bamboo and lotus. Maybe the tomb’s owner saw himself as upright as bamboo. What’s so strange about that?" I said.

"No," my second uncle interrupted. "Everything in a tomb is supposed to relate to the owner's identity, especially one of this scale. In history, only one type of person used bamboo to represent their status. I can think of only one possibility."

"What possibility?" I thought, are you here to rescue my father or to play archaeologist?

"The ancient kingdom of Yelang," Peanut answered.

"Exactly. Only Yelang revered bamboo to this extent. But it can’t be—though it’s from the Western Han period, this area isn’t Yelang territory. How could there be a Yelang tomb here, let alone a royal one?" My second uncle was deeply puzzled.

"Yelang? As in 'the arrogance of Yelang'?" My knowledge of history was limited to the names of a few dynasties. "But what does it matter what kind of tomb it is? We need to go down there—if you wait to figure this all out before finding my father, all you’ll be able to do then is collect his remains."

"Nonsense," my second uncle glared at me. "What do you know? Hmph. If this really is Yelang, then I think I understand the meaning of the Seven Stars diagram."

We all quieted down, waiting for him to go on.

"More than twenty years ago, when I first started tomb-robbing with my older brother, we found a Han tomb—belonged to a vassal lord, but there wasn't anything of value. I remember my brother seemed distracted, barely took anything, like he was searching for something. When we entered the main chamber, there was only one coffin. My brother wouldn’t let me help, so I explored the corners. There, in the wall, I found a hidden compartment. I thought it might contain treasure, but inside was only a bundle of rotting bamboo slips. I unrolled them and saw small seal script. I’d studied that a bit, so I could read it. After reading it through, I realized it recorded things about the Yelang kingdom—'from the Southern Sea to the great marshes of the North,' stuff about Yelang’s culture and history."

Judging by his expression, I suspected my uncle was glossing over how much of the bamboo text he’d actually understood.

He pursed his lips and went on, "But at the end of the bamboo slips, there was a very interesting line I still remember: 'Seven stars: three-four above, one-five in the middle, three-three below—remember this.' I didn’t understand what it meant then, but now I wonder if it’s connected to this."

What’s with this three-four, one-five business, I thought. But Peanut asked, "What happened to the bamboo slip after that?"

"My brother saw me crouched there and snatched it from me. Later he just took it with him when we left," my uncle replied.

I was wondering why Peanut asked such a strange question, when Er Lengzi and Qin Feng exchanged a meaningful glance and both went "hmm."

"What is it?" I asked.

Er Lengzi grinned. "Three-four above, one-five in the middle, three-three below—that’s a game our old man used to teach us as kids."

"Huh?" We were all taken aback.

Er Lengzi explained, "It’s a kind of footwork game. You draw sixteen dots on the ground, then two people stand back to back on opposite sides. Each chooses a 'step pattern' and calls it out. For example, if I call three-three, I take three steps left, then three steps right. If my left steps land on the other person, I lose. If my right steps hit them, I win. It’s always left first, right after, using one of three patterns. The old man made me and Crazy play it seven rounds every time. We thought it was boring, but he always took it very seriously."

Whether or not my father was guilty of child abuse, I couldn’t say. But Peanut just laughed, "So that’s it."

Honestly, with Yelang one moment, my uncle’s grungy youth the next, and Er Lengzi’s miserable childhood right after, my mind was spinning. I patted Peanut on the shoulder. "If you know something, say it quick. I can wait, but my father can’t."

Peanut smiled at me, then addressed my uncle and the others, "Yuan Jie’s right, we need to hurry. Everyone, get your gear in order and take what you need."

"What do you mean?" my uncle asked.

"If my guess is correct, these stone slabs are a lock, and the key is the game you played as kids," Peanut said, looking at Er Lengzi and Qin Feng.

"What?" The two of them stared at Peanut, baffled.

Peanut replied, "If you don’t want to waste time, stop asking questions and get ready."

I glanced around—the tension was thick. My father’s men all looked at Peanut with thinly veiled disdain, as if to say, "Why should we listen to you?"

But my uncle, the most senior among us, waved his hand and nodded. The others, even if unwilling, obediently began packing up. Qin Feng, as always, moved the fastest; in less than ten minutes, he’d packed his own bag and even added some things to mine. The rest didn’t lag far behind. Soon, everyone shouldered their packs and gathered around.