I carefully recalled the process of meeting Du Fei, and it seemed that was indeed the case!

If there hadn't been any interruptions, I might have noticed Du Fei's intention, but with that disturbance, I overlooked this important clue.

Feng Ruoxing said, "Why did Qiao Gongliang force so many people to write stories? Could it be that even after he died, he still wanted people to tell stories for him?"

"I'm wondering about that too!" As I spoke, Ye Yang had already parked the car we temporarily rented at the entrance to Old Bald Mountain: "There's no road ahead, we can only climb the mountain to move forward."

"Let's go up and take a look!" Following the route in Gong Fugui's story, after walking a distance into the mountain, I indeed saw a stone bridge built over the water.

The bridge surface was only about a meter above the river below, and there were no guardrails on either side of the stone bridge. The bridge itself was a flat stone slab extending straight to the opposite bank.

My foot had just stepped onto the edge of the bridge when I pulled it back: "Let's go down the river and take a look! I suspect the continuation of the story of the Qiulong Tomb is downstream."

I walked about half a kilometer down the river before I could clearly see the two hills on the opposite bank.

The two hills stood side by side, pressed against the back of Old Bald Mountain. From my position, Old Bald Mountain looked like the back of a chair, and the two hills looked like the armrests of the chair. Adding the increasing slope below, the entire mountain was clearly a grand master's chair.

"What an excellent feng shui treasure land!" I turned to look at Ye Yang and said, "Take a look, are there any graves on the mountainside?"

Ye Yang raised his hand, made a thumbs-up gesture, and then moved his thumb downwards on the mountain a few times: "There's a grave on the mountain, but there's no one in the tomb. No, that's not right, the Yin energy is at the entrance of the tomb passage. The coffin probably hasn't sunk into the grave."

I narrowed my eyes and said, "What would happen if someone was buried there?"

Ye Yang said, "The feng shui here is good. Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise are all present. The mountain shape also resembles a chair. Burying ancestors here, the descendants can at least reach the rank of a second-grade official. But..."

Ye Yang changed the subject: "People can't be buried on the mountain, they have to be buried inside the mountain."

"Although this mountain is shaped like a chair, the armrests on both sides are clearly not proportional to the back of the chair. If you build a grave directly on the mountain, people won't be sitting on the chair, but hanging on it."

"The original second-grade official position would become a steward standing behind the chair, pouring tea and water, and serving people."

"To occupy the feng shui, you should dig a tomb passage from that position and let the tomb passage go deep underground!" Ye Yang pointed to the mountainside, and then moved his finger down along the mountain: "That is, here."

"If the person who built the tomb is a feng shui master, and adds some feng shui formations in the tomb. That would be a combination of inside and outside, so that the earth energy and the feng shui formation complement each other, and the effect of the feng shui formation can be further enhanced. The descendants of the tomb owner will also have the opportunity to be granted nobility and become a minister."

Feng Ruoxing couldn't help asking, "Why must the entrance to the tomb be built on the mountainside, instead of at the foot of the mountain?"

Ye Yang said, "Because the river at the foot of the mountain is too close to the main peak. If the tomb entrance is not tightly closed, it will easily flood the tomb chamber when the water rises, which would be a loss greater than the gain."

I sneered, "Qiao Gongliang wants this tomb!"

Feng Ruoxing didn't understand: "How do you know?"

"Because of the painting hanging in Du Fei's house," I explained, "The painting is of a swallow feeding its chicks. The chicks being fed are clearly a bit bigger. Under the swallow's nest, there is also a little swallow struggling desperately on the ground."

"Have you heard of the cuckoo? That is, the bird we often call the cuckoo."

"Cuckoos don't build their own nests. But they lay their eggs in other birds' nests. After the cuckoo chicks hatch, they rely on their slightly larger size to squeeze all the other chicks or eggs out of the nest, so that the adult birds can only feed themselves."

"Do you think the bird in that painting might be a cuckoo? That is, the cuckoo mentioned in the Book of Songs."

"If you were to name that painting, would 'Que Chao Jiu Zhan' (cuckoo occupying the magpie's nest) be appropriate?"

After hearing what I said, Xia Mengying immediately responded: "You mean, the legend of the Qiulong Tomb is true. The coffin dug out of the Qiulong Tomb was washed away by the water while crossing the river. As a result, it drifted here with the water. The thing in the coffin wants to forcibly occupy this empty tomb that hasn't been buried yet."

"But he hasn't been able to get the coffin into the tomb yet, and was blocked near the entrance of the tomb passage by someone using a secret method?"

"This tomb happens to belong to Qiao Gongliang? Or rather, it's a place that the Qiao family built and prepared to bury their ancestors. Qiao Gongliang has been trying to take the tomb back, which is why he later tested the governor's mansion?"

I nodded and said, "That's probably what it means. Qiao Gongliang asked us to come to him, just to help him reclaim the tomb."

I suddenly raised my voice: "Qiao Gongliang, I know you're here, how about coming out to meet me?"

Qiao Gongliang couldn't possibly come out to meet me, he was afraid I would directly arrest him and take him to the underworld.

Qiao Gongliang must also come out to meet me, without external force, he would not be able to get back the Qiao family's tomb.

Now it depends on how he appears.