The Autobiography of a Tomb Raider

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"Disappeared? Boss! How could a living person just disappear?" It took me a while to process what had happened.
The boss and Sun Laosan looked grim, clearly weighed down by worry.

Sun Laosan haltingly explained what had happened.
Compared to the east chamber, the west chamber hadn’t yielded anything significant, and Sun Laoer had always been bothered by this. So, when they were working that night, the two of them split up. Sun Laoer thought there might be a hidden underground chamber or secret compartment beneath the west chamber, where the bronze and jade artifacts could be buried.
Sun Laosan, being the more level-headed of the two, had laughed at his brother, saying, "Second Brother, I think you’re losing your mind."

The boss had his own theory about the strange situation. He firmly believed that the main burial chamber and the coffin couldn’t have just vanished. He speculated that the main chamber might have collapsed due to earthquakes and years of water erosion, sinking deeper into the ground. This would make it a "tomb within a tomb," which only increased the difficulty of the excavation.
What is a "tomb within a tomb"?
This phenomenon isn’t exactly rare, especially in areas prone to frequent earthquakes. Essentially, it’s a result of natural disasters.

When the main burial chamber collapses and sinks, the depth and location of its movement are completely unpredictable. Finding it relies 60% on luck and 40% on skill.
Take the recent buzz around the Sanxingdui ruins, for example. Some people might not know this, but the Sanxingdui civilization site was actually discovered by national archaeological teams back in the 1930s. Despite decades of excavation, they still missed several large pits. It wasn’t until recently that these pits were accidentally discovered.
This is a classic example of how earthquakes and natural disasters can cause burial and sacrificial pits to shift significantly, creating a "tomb within a tomb." It’s why the younger generations, like the post-00s and post-90s, have had the privilege of witnessing the excavation of the ancient Shu Kingdom’s golden mask.

Sun Laoer had disappeared in the pit, in the west chamber. Who knows if he had fallen into some hidden black hole or triggered some kind of trap? His fate was unknown, and as his brothers, Sun Laosan and the boss were determined to find him.
They wanted to see him alive or, at the very least, recover his body.
None of them had slept that night. Several times, Sun Laosan had become visibly agitated, saying he wanted to go down into the tomb alone to search for his brother. But each time, the boss stopped him.

The boss said, "Laosan, as the leader of this team, I’m just as anxious as you are about Laoer’s disappearance. But that doesn’t mean we should act recklessly! Laosan, you’ve always been the calm one. Tell me, how many people in our line of work have gotten into trouble because of situations like this?"
"So, Laosan, we need to call for reinforcements."
"Huh? Reinforcements?" I asked curiously, "Boss, are we going to call the police? Have them look for Second Brother?"

The boss glared at me. "Yunfeng, has your brain been kicked by a donkey? Call the police? Do you want to spend the next ten years eating prison food?"
Scolded, I stammered, unable to argue.
The boss told us not to worry and said he would find someone to help. He specifically instructed me to keep an eye on Sun Laosan and make sure he didn’t sneak off to the tomb alone. He said the reinforcements would arrive soon.
I hadn’t slept much that night. The next morning, I was brushing my teeth in the courtyard when I noticed that Yikezhi, the flirtatious woman, was nowhere to be seen. I had no idea where she had gone.

"Yunfeng, go out and buy a basket of steamed buns and a bowl of wonton soup for Third Brother," Sun Laosan’s voice suddenly came from behind me.
I spat out the mouthwash and turned around. "No can do, Third Brother. The boss told me to keep an eye on you. He said you can’t leave until the reinforcements arrive."
Sun Laosan’s face turned red with frustration.

"Damn it!" He kicked over the trash can in the courtyard.
That morning, I was like a door god, following Sun Laosan wherever he went, strictly carrying out the boss’s orders to prevent him from sneaking off to the tomb.
I never expected a tough guy like him to cry. At one point, I saw Sun Laosan break down in the room, sobbing at the table and muttering, "No matter where you are, Second Brother, you have to hold on. You’ll be fine."

Around three in the afternoon, two people arrived at the inn—a man and a woman. The man wore sunglasses and had a buzz cut. He was lean and wiry. The woman looked to be in her thirties, with a cold, stern expression.
When the boss introduced them to me, he said, "Yunfeng, meet the Yao siblings. They’re well-known in the business, with a deep family background. Their uncle is the famous Yao Shiyu, a legend in our line of work."
At the time, I just thought these two were impressive because of their aura. I didn’t know who Yao Shiyu was back then, but I would later have the chance to meet him a few times.

He was a remarkable man, also from the same background as the boss, though his story didn’t end well.
If you’re interested, you can look up Yao Shiyu online. His tomb-raiding stories could fill a book. I know more about him than most, and if I were to tell his story, it would take three days and three nights.
The boss had brought these two in mainly because of the woman.

She had studied international archaeology abroad and had extensive knowledge of traps, mechanisms, and security measures in large tombs—things like diamond-sealed doors, quicksand traps, and fire mechanisms. Her expertise could be a huge help to us.
Don’t think I’m spinning a tall tale here. These traps and mechanisms in ancient tombs are very real, and many of them are still fully functional today.
Let me give you two real-life examples of tomb security.

First, the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. The tomb is surrounded by rivers of ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) mercury, and the burial mound is an astonishing 150 meters high. Even today, over two thousand years later, the mercury levels in the soil around Mount Li are over 300 times higher than normal. This was a security measure. In ancient times, without gas masks, anyone who dug into the tomb would be dead within five minutes from mercury poisoning.
Second, the Qianling Mausoleum, where Emperor Gaozong of Tang and Empress Wu Zetian are buried. To this day, I believe Qianling is the best-protected imperial tomb in history, even surpassing the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Who in our line of work wouldn’t want to take a look inside Qianling?

Just think about it—Wang Xizhi’s Lanting Xu (Preface to the Orchid Pavilion), which is said to have an 80% chance of being in Emperor Gaozong’s coffin. If someone could get their hands on that, their descendants would be set for thirty generations!
The problem is, no one can get in.
Qianling spans Mount Ru and Mount Liang. When I was 24, I snuck up to the peak of Mount Ru one night to take a look.

If you stand on the peak of Mount Ru on a starry night and look carefully, you’ll notice that the mountain ranges of Ru and Liang align perfectly with the Big Dipper in the sky. What does this mean?
From the perspective of feng shui and astrology, this is called the "Domain of Eternal Life."
The design of Qianling is said to have been overseen by Yuan Tiangang and Li Chunfeng, two renowned feng shui masters who also served as high-ranking officials in Wu Zetian’s court, responsible for observing celestial phenomena, ensuring the nation’s prosperity, and averting disasters.

Historically, there have been over 70 recorded attempts to rob Qianling, with 17 of them being particularly famous.
One time, the military governor Wen Tao led three battalions of soldiers to dig into Qianling. But on that day, a thunderstorm struck, and over a dozen men were struck dead by lightning.
During the Huang Chao Rebellion, the rebel army, short on funds, mobilized 400,000 soldiers with shovels to dig into Qianling. They ended up splitting Mount Liang in half but found absolutely nothing. To this day, the area is still known as Huang Chao’s Trench.

This is what it means to be impenetrable.
 
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