Volume 5 Chapter 27 A new symbol

I can’t remember the symbol in the underwater tomb, but I still remember the two symbols carved on the bottom of the moat and the entrance to the tunnel. This symbol is completely different from the two.

Fat Pan Zi and the others really have no concept of the English alphabet. As long as it is English, they can’t tell the difference, so they didn’t care about it just now. But I went to college and took the CET-4 and CET-6 exams. Even if my grades weren’t good, I at least knew that these two were different words.

I always thought that this was just a simple guide symbol, similar to any kind of simple graphic, with only the meaning of “go this way.” But if it is simply a guide, the symbol should not change. According to common human psychology, after entering the tomb, attention should be completely on the surrounding environment. When carving the symbol, it is impossible to intentionally change the pattern, and the symbol is also carved in a very hurry, indicating that the person who left the mark was not doing this in a very calm situation, which also ruled out the possibility that he changed the symbol on a whim.

There is only one reason for this phenomenon, and that is that these symbols have different meanings. While guiding the way, he seems to be telling us something.

The question is, what is the message? This foreign language is not foreign, but it is a word composed of English letters, and it is really impossible to tell what language it is. But common similarities such as German and French are definitely not, because the arrangement of the letters is too irregular.

And the symbol we saw at the bottom of the river and at the entrance to the tunnel, after entering which we encountered no danger, so if the meaning is that it is safe to enter, then this different symbol, carved here, must mean something different. It is hard to say that it is not a warning, indicating that there is a terrible danger in this direction of the tunnel?

The fat man and the others listened to my thoughts and felt that there was something wrong. We stopped in place and dared not move for the time being.

However, having reached this point was already a breakthrough, and we could say that we had already succeeded halfway. At this point, the question of which way to go in the tomb passage did not seem important, and even without the symbols to guide us, we were not panicking.

It was only after entering the underground palace, especially the main tomb passage, that we had to be especially careful, because as long as there were traps in the ancient tomb, they would definitely be in this section, and it was necessary to spend some time here.

Pan Zi said to me, “Little Master, you’re the only one here who knows a little English, and if you don’t know it, then there’s no way to know it. If you don’t translate these English words into Chinese, we won’t know the meaning of the whole sentence, but we can guess it anyway?”

Pan Zi didn’t know any English at all. He probably thought that English was actually the same as Chinese characters, with one letter meaning one thing. I was too lazy to teach him English, so I said to them, “If you want to guess, why not guess who left this symbol and why they left it? This way, the chances of guessing the meaning are a little higher.”

The fat guy said curiously, “We don’t know who left it, but do we still have to guess the purpose of leaving it? This must be a guide for us, right?”

I shook my head and said, “I used to think the same way, but now I don’t. If it was really left for us, at least it should have been written in a way that we could understand. The form used by the person who carved these symbols is so obscure. Now it seems that the purpose is not to help us. We may have just picked up a bargain. This symbol is for others to see.”

Pan Zi thought about it and thought it made sense. He asked again, “Then who are the others?”

“A-Ning and the others are in a large group, so they may have split up into groups. This symbol may be a secret code between their teams.” The fat man said.

I nodded, indicating that this was possible, but there was no basis for it, and the actual situation could not be guessed. He said, “There may be other reasons, and it’s useless to guess now.”

What I was most concerned about was the information contained in this symbol. This kind of symbol should be similar to the chart on international adventure maps. Some primitive jungle trails are marked on the map with a danger level. In addition to telling you that you can walk here, a symbol can also tell you what you will encounter on this road. For example, if there are hippos in the river, there will be a code for hippos.

When I got here, the symbol had changed, so the meaning of this special symbol made me worry. Could it be that this symbol means there are rice dumplings in this tomb passage?

I thought of the “Beware of bears” sign on the off-road vehicle. Maybe the person who left this symbol also has an adventurous and theoretical way of doing things. This symbol may mean “Beware of rice dumplings.” Then I thought, if I could get out alive, I should put one on my gold cup bread to show my personality.

Pan Zi didn’t know that I was already thinking about it, and suddenly said to me, “No, I don’t think this symbol means anything dangerous. Do you think there is any danger in the tomb passage? You have to walk through it to know. There is no reason for them to come back and carve this symbol after they have walked through it. In other words, this symbol was carved by the person when he was about to enter the tomb passage, indicating that he had gone in this direction and telling later generations his own walking order. As for what was inside, he didn’t know when he carved it. This is actually a special kind of language called ‘tracking language.

I’ve never heard of this stuff. The fat guy asked him, “What is tracking language?”

Pan Zidao said, “Before I fought the Vietnamese monkeys, I studied cultural courses when I was in the army. Because I was serving in the jungle, I learned a lot about rescue. The ‘tracking’ language is that if you get lost in the jungle, you must mark your route while you find your way out. This method of expression has special rules. Later, the rescue team saw your mark and they will know what you have done in this area. For example, a sign of sufficient food, a sign of food running out, a sign of someone in the team being in trouble, the rescue team can follow your signs and know your situation along the way. If things get extremely bad, they can use this sign as a basis to upgrade the rescue strategy. This is said to be something invented by the Americans when they were fighting the Vietnamese.

The fat man asked him, “So you’ve learned it, can you understand it?”

Pan Zi shook his head and said, “I mean maybe, this code is completely different from what I learned at the time, and I can’t recognize it either, but I believe this should be a kind of tracking language. We don’t need to decipher it, the change in this symbol may just mean that he twisted his ankle here.”

The fat man sighed and said, “This is not good. If it is a ‘tracking’ language, then it means that the person who left this symbol is not determined to succeed. He is preparing for his second echelon, which means that he is not confident that he will be able to get out alive this time.”

Pan Zi said, “Right! So after all this talk, it’s not going to do any good. I think that since this symbol wasn’t left for us to see, we should just pretend we didn’t see it. Our main task now is to find Third Uncle. The symbol wasn’t carved by Third Uncle, which means that Third Uncle didn’t necessarily take this path. We’ll just go our own way. We’ve done this before, and we’ve encountered this situation before. I don’t believe that we can’t even find a way to explore the tomb.

This argument is to the fat man’s liking. The fat man nodded in agreement and said to us, “Old Pan, this sentence sounds like human language. Then why don’t we split into two groups? You and Xiao Wu go that way, and I and Xiao Shunzi go this way. Let’s see whose luck is better. Anyway, it’s a straight road. If you find it’s not right at the end, just turn around. The other pair, who went the right way, will wait for the others outside the mausoleum. It’s not a good idea to hesitate here.”

I felt that this was not appropriate, and said, “That’s true, but I’m afraid this main tomb passage is not so easy to walk. Look at the four-foot stone slab on the ground. This kind of tomb passage is likely to be equipped with flying arrows and turning boards. Don’t both teams die in the tomb passage at the end, and we will never see each other again once we separate.”

The fat man laughed at me and said, “If you think like that, you shouldn’t have come. You’re just here for fun. Now that you’re in the underground palace, you shouldn’t be afraid of this little trouble.”

I thought to myself, this is what I wanted to do. My ambition has always been to be a wealthy citizen. I don’t know what kind of luck I’ve had this year. I’ve been making zongzi all the time. Now I’m not afraid of zongzi anymore, but I’m not even allowed to be careful. What’s going on?

Pan Zi thought the same way as me, and said to the fat man, “No, Little Master San is right. Just think of one reason. The people in the Ningma team must be nearby. We have to guard against people as well as zongzi. Two guns are always better than one. And what if one team goes out and disappears without coming back? What should the other team do? It’s better for us to stay together and take care of each other.”

Shunzi, who had not spoken up until now, also expressed his opinion: “No matter what, I must deliver Mr. Wu. I must definitely follow him.”

Fatty raised his hand and surrendered to the three of us: “You two are engaging in personal worship. You’re isolating me, damn it! I’m out of luck. Whatever you say, we’ll die together.”

Pan Zi said, “We’ll go in the direction of the carved symbol first. If it’s not right, we’ll turn back. Just be careful.”

We nodded and agreed. I knew very well that it was useless to discuss it here, since we were already here. Now it was all up to luck as to which way to go and how to go.

So we got up and Pan Zi took out a folding walking stick similar to a blind man’s stick. While he tapped the ground, we walked in the direction of the carved symbol.

We walked very carefully. I was actually very annoyed by this place where we couldn’t even walk in peace, but there was no way around it. Since we had come here, we couldn’t afford to miss this step, otherwise all the hard work we had done before would have been in vain.

I thought we would spend at least half an hour in this tomb passage, but I didn’t expect that this section of the tomb passage was extremely short, less than 200 meters, and then suddenly it became wider. At the end, there appeared a huge jade door.

I recognized it as the gate to the underworld at first glance, because the tomb gate at the entrance to the tomb passage would not be made of such good stone. The bottom half of the gate had been blown away, revealing a large cavity. Obviously someone had entered already, I don’t know if it was Aning and the others or someone else.

I was secretly pleased. So we were on the right track. Behind the door was the core of the entire underground palace. Many classic tomb structures immediately came to mind. Although this was the imperial tomb of the Eastern Xia, it was built by Han people, so it must not be too different from the tombs in the Central Plains. I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. I wondered what the coffin of King Wannu looked like and whether there were any coffins buried with him.

The jade door of the tomb chamber will most likely have a mechanism, and the stone walls on both sides are probably hollow, filled with poisonous stone powder. Moreover, there is usually no way to solve this kind of mechanism, because the tomb chamber is not meant to be opened again once it is closed. Even if you are the craftsman who designed the door, you cannot get in once it is closed.

However, this door has already been blown up like this, so it is estimated that the mechanism has also been destroyed. We need not worry about this. We all bent down and entered the tomb chamber behind the door in an orderly manner. The fat man, being cautious, lit some cold fireworks to increase the lighting, so that we could see the layout of the tomb chamber clearly.

The moment the cold fireworks lit up, we saw a scene that took our breath away. None of us expected to see such a scene, and we all froze in place unable to move.