Chapter 17 Palace Beneath the Earth

Hearing Jiang Yongguang's words, I subconsciously looked towards his location. I saw Jiang Yongguang standing in front of a stone door. The stone door had been opened, with one half still closed and the other half smashed into a pile of rubble.

The walls around the stone door were still constructed of the common blue bricks of the Ming Dynasty, but both the scale and structure were much more magnificent than the tomb chamber above. Compared to the tomb chamber above, the lower-level tomb chamber was like an underground palace.

Xiao Liang couldn't help but exclaim, "The tomb chamber below is so luxurious! It's even equipped with such a magnificent stone door. Officer Jiang, could this be a royal mausoleum?"

I had heard from Boss Wang during our chats that the Ming Dynasty had strict requirements for specifications and levels. Whether it was clothing, food, housing, or transportation, as well as tombs and coffins, there were extremely strict hierarchical systems. Not to mention ordinary people, even high-ranking officials did not dare to easily cross the line, and could only strictly follow the division of ranks.

Sure enough, Jiang Yongguang looked around and nodded slightly, saying, "Judging from the specifications of this mausoleum, it is likely the tomb of a noble of the level of a duke or marquis, or even possibly a prince or a close relative of the imperial family."

"Then there must be a lot of burial treasures," Lao Wei said immediately, then gasped and said nervously, "Damn, we can't let Yang Guo's rats steal the burial objects, otherwise the loss will be huge!"

Hearing him say this, the Xiaoling Guards all became nervous. Jiang Yongguang took the lead and walked along the broken stone door.

But I kept pondering in my heart, what is the connection between this mausoleum and the ancient Shu tombs? And what is the relationship between Liu Bowen's severing of the dragon vein and the lock dragon well in the pit of the dead? Why does it appear on the banks of the Ma Mu River?

Soon, our group entered the stone gate under the leadership of Jiang Yongguang, but as the light of the headlamps illuminated the space behind the stone gate, Jiang Yongguang, who was walking at the front, suddenly uttered a low cry.

Hearing his cry, my heart also thumped, and then I looked up and saw that the scene in front of me was quite scary!

Behind the stone door was another stone door. The second stone door was more solid than the first and was undamaged, tightly closed.

And in front of the second stone door was a corpse lying on the ground, tragically dead. Three crossbow bolts were lodged in his chest, blood flowed onto the ground and had not completely solidified, and the air was filled with the smell of blood.

Without a doubt, he was one of Yang Guo's tomb robbers. There must be some kind of deadly mechanism hidden here that caused the tomb robber to die here.

"Everyone be careful, there are traps," Jiang Yongguang whispered as a reminder.

I carefully observed the situation in front of me.

In front of the second closed stone door, there was a stone altar on which was placed a ferocious mythical beast that looked like both a lion and a *qilin*.

Lao Wei recognized the mythical beast at a glance and said, "Oh, isn't this a *suanni*? The dragon has nine sons, and the *suanni* is the fifth, specializing in being a tomb-guarding beast."

Jiang Yongguang had already told us about tomb-guarding beasts when we went to the tomb before.

After the ancients died and were buried, they worried that their remains would be disturbed by lonely ghosts in the earth, so they would ask craftsmen to carve some tomb-guarding beasts for them to be buried with, in order to drive away the ghosts underground.

This is the role of tomb-guarding beasts.

And the *suanni* is the most common type of tomb-guarding beast during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Jiang Yongguang said, "This makes it even more certain that the owner of this mausoleum was a noble. Tomb-guarding beasts in the Ming Dynasty were not something that anyone could use. Ordinary people or those with insufficient official rank would be severely punished for using tomb-guarding beasts without authorization."

Uncle Mei glanced at the tomb-guarding beast *suanni*, then at the closed stone door, and at the corpse of the rat lying in the pool of blood, and said in a deep voice, "I'm afraid that this mythical beast *suanni* is not only a tomb-guarding beast, but also the mechanism for opening this stone door."

Hearing this, Jiang Yongguang walked over, hugged the tomb-guarding beast with both hands, and tried to twist it to the left, and then to the right. He quickly nodded and said, "That's right, this tomb-guarding beast can be twisted to both sides. This is a multiple-choice question. If you twist it correctly, the stone door will open, and if you twist it wrong, you will die from an arrow."

Lao Wei said nervously, "Damn, doesn't that mean there is a fifty percent chance of being shot to death? This question is too dangerous."

Hearing Lao Wei say this, I also felt scared.

Although the probability of opening the door is fifty-fifty, the probability of being shot to death is also fifty-fifty.

The unlucky rat in front of me is the best example, accidentally putting his life on the line.

No one would bet their life to open the door.

But at this moment, Xiao Liang carefully observed the three crossbow bolts in the rat's chest, and then looked at the tomb-guarding beast *suanni*, and shook her head, saying, "No, the probability of being shot to death is not fifty percent, but zero percent."

Lao Wei raised his eyebrows and asked, "Why?"

Xiao Liang pointed to the three crossbow bolts in the rat's chest and said, "Look at the position where he was shot, and then look at the tomb-guarding beast. It's not hard to imagine that he should have been holding the tomb-guarding beast and twisting it, twisting it in the wrong direction, and was suddenly shot to death by the three crossbow bolts shot from the two eyes and one mouth of the tomb-guarding beast."

I immediately took a look and found that Xiao Liang was right. On the face of the tomb-guarding beast, only the two eyes and one mouth were open, which could shoot crossbow bolts, and the arrangement of these three holes just matched the position of the three crossbow bolts in the rat's chest.

Xiao Liang continued, "When Yang Guo and the others opened the door, they didn't know that twisting in the wrong direction would shoot crossbow bolts, so this rat was shot to death. But now that we know in advance, we can completely block the exits of these three crossbow bolts, so that even if we twist in the wrong direction, no crossbow bolts will be shot out, right?"

Hearing her say this, we all suddenly understood.

Indeed, since there is already an unlucky person who has tested the mechanism for us, we can completely prevent it in advance.

"Xiao Liang is right, it was originally a simple matter, but I made it complicated," Lao Wei said with shame.

Jiang Yongguang simply did what he said, and directly took out two hemp ropes, twisted the hemp ropes to be thick, and stuffed them into the eyes and mouth of the tomb-guarding beast, so that the crossbow bolts could not be shot out. Even if they barely pushed open the hemp ropes and shot out, the force would be greatly reduced and would not be able to penetrate people's bodies.

After finishing the process, Jiang Yongguang hugged the *suanni* himself, twisted it hard to the left, and shouted, "Go!"

With a "squeak" sound, the tomb-guarding beast trembled violently under his twist, followed by three muffled "poof poof poof" sounds from inside. The hemp ropes stuck in the eyes and mouth of the *suanni* were immediately ejected, and then three crossbow bolts fell weakly from the inside and landed on the ground.

Jiang Yongguang breathed a sigh of relief and said with lingering fear, "Thanks to blocking it in advance, I saved my life. I can even choose the wrong answer in a multiple-choice question! My luck is really bad!"

After speaking, he immediately prepared to hug the *suanni* and twist it in the opposite direction. Since twisting to the left was wrong, twisting to the right must be correct.

But at this moment, Xiao Liang quickly shouted, "Stop! Officer Jiang, I think for the sake of safety, you should block the three holes again before twisting to the right."