Now that my limbs were fully functional, Fats set me down. His face was sweaty, and he was panting like a dog in August. I remembered that when I had carried him on my back earlier, I had almost spat up blood. Now we were even.

Suddenly, behind Fats I saw someone on a branch waving at me. Trembling, I rubbed my eyes and the person disappeared. Thinking he had hidden behind the tree, I stuck my head out to investigate.

"Stop wasting time," Fats grumbled. "Come on."

"Wait a second!" I pulled him back. "Go left! I just saw someone waving."

We looked, and there was nothing but a hole in the tree that looked like the shape of a man. It was dark and I wondered what was inside.

Fats turned on his flashlight. There was a bunch of rolled-up vines in the hole wrapped around a rotting corpse of a man. His blue eyes were so clouded that it was impossible to make out where his pupils were, and his mouth was open as if he wanted to tell us something.

Fats sneered at me, "He's only a dead man. Maybe ghosts have begun to greet you with friendly waves, do you suppose?"

I had encountered too many strange things on this trip-whether ghosts were real or not wasn't something I wanted to debate with Fats. If this corpse had beckoned us over, he definitely had a reason, I thought. As I stared at him, I saw he had something clutched in his hand. Prying his fingers open, I found a pendant in his death grip.

The corpse-eaters below were rattling again and had begun to climb up to us. I looked at the dead man, gave him a salute, and continued my climb. Fats and I both moved much faster than usual; we weren't too far from the crack in the cave's roof and reached it easily.

As we climbed through the opening, we looked down and saw that the corpse-eaters had no plans of stopping their a.s.sault. They had reached the edge of the crevice and Fats yelled, "It's not time to rest yet. Run!"

I had been underground for so long that the openness of my new surroundings felt confusing to me. A man carrying something came running out of the bushes- it was Uncle Three. When he saw me, he shouted, "Quick-pour this gasoline everywhere!"

I ran to him and looked-where we had entered the tomb and the crevice we had just emerged from were separated only by a low cliff just several feet high. Our equipment was still there and when I saw the barrels of gasoline waiting for us, my heart soared and I thought, all right you little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-just wait and see what's in store for you now.

Fats and I leaped down, each grabbed a barrel, and ran back to my uncle. He was already pouring gas through the opening we had crawled through and down the walls of the cave. As the corpse-eaters approached the crevice, Uncle Three lit a cl.u.s.ter of matches and tossed the flaming bundle into the crack in the roof.

A fireball shot into the air and the smell of h.e.l.lfire filled our nostrils. The tide of corpse-eaters retreated in a flash as the gasoline formed a wall of fire. We heard them wailing in agony as they burned alive, and it sounded wonderful.

Adding more fuel to the conflagration by pouring in our remaining barrels of gas, we watched the fire erupt from the crevice to a height taller than two men put together.

We were struck by a wave of intense heat that singed off my eyebrows, and, taking a few steps back, I looked at the pendant that I held tightly in my hand. It was a name tag for James-perhaps the corpse I took it from? I polished it on my sleeve and put it in my pocket, thinking if I had the chance, I would find his family and give this to them so he might rest in peace.

Fats was sweating like fifty pigs from the heat of our inferno. He asked Uncle Three, "Where are the other two?"

Uncle Three pointed behind us. "Panzi's out of it. It looks like he's got a fever. As for Menyouping, I haven't seen him anywhere. I thought he was with you guys."

I glanced at Fats and he sighed, "I haven't seen him- I'll bet he didn't make it."

Uncle Three shook his head and said, "No. This guy comes and goes mysteriously-and he was ahead of all of us the whole time. If he had been caught in the explosion, he would probably have been blasted out of the cave and we would have seen him."

I looked at Uncle Three's expression and knew that he really wasn't very confident about Poker-face's safety. Although it was true he was an expert grave robber, he'd been in the same mess as we were before the explosives went off. If he had been flung out of the tree by the blast, he was dead for sure.

We looked around within the vicinity but without success. There was no sign of Poker-face.

We returned to the camp, packed our things, and lit a bonfire to heat the canned food that we'd packed in our bags. I was unbearably hungry, and could have eaten anything put in front of me. As we ate, Uncle Three pointed at the low cliff behind us. "You see, this camp is right at the edge of the crevice. Obviously the tree demon that the old guy saw was the hydra-cypress. It was probably the noise from the celebration of the men he had guided that caused the tree to break through from the cave's roof. Good thing we didn't stay overnight here but went straight down into the tomb, or else we too would have been captured by the monstrous tree."

"We don't know how long our fire is going to last," Fats observed. "If it burns out, the corpse-eaters will come and we'll be in trouble. It's almost dawn. Let's hurry out of the forest and we'll talk about everything later."

I quickly took a few more bites of food and nodded. Fats and Uncle Three took turns carrying Panzi and we set off into the forest.

We were quiet as we traveled. When we first came to this place, we had talked and sung happily. Now we were completely focused on finding safety and jogged in silence. We knew we were fleeing for our lives.

My strength had reached its limit. In the last part of our walk, I was relying almost solely on willpower to carry me through. If a bed had appeared before me, I would have fallen asleep in less than two seconds-but none did.

We walked all that day and into the next morning before we got out of the forest. Pa.s.sing the rocky slopes created by the landslide, we finally saw that sweet little village.

But we couldn't relax until we took Panzi to the village clinic. The country doctor came, frowned, and immediately called the nurses to come and help him. Sitting on a nearby stool, I fell asleep.

It was a sleep caused by severe exhaustion-deep, dark, and with no dreams. I only woke up because I heard a disturbance outside and wanted to know just what was going on.

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

THE PURPLE-ENAMELED GOLD BOX.

I was a bit dazed and looked around for my uncle to see if he knew what was happening outside, but he was on the stool beside me, sleeping even more heavily than I had been. I ran outside and saw people pushing their carts and pulling their livestock up the hill behind the village. I heard a child yell as he ran past me, "Oh, no! Oh, no! There's a fire up on the mountain!"

I was shocked. Could the forest have been set ablaze by the conflagration we had started in the cavern? When we had lit a fire in the crevice of the cave, we hadn't thought of being careful and if there were a forest fire, we were no doubt the ones to be blamed.

I began to be upset-if this fire grew larger, it would do a lot of damage. What had we done? I ran inside to wake my uncle and we grabbed two chamber pots from under a hospital bed. Following the crowd, we ran up the hill. Fats came by on a big mule-drawn cart and shouted, "We caused a s.h.i.tload of trouble here-come on! Let's go fight this fire!"

My uncle and I jumped on the cart and saw a huge cloud of black smoke in the distance. It was evidently one h.e.l.l of a fire and Uncle Three whispered, "From the direction it's coming from, it looks like our fire all right."

I clapped my hand over his mouth as a few villagers ran towards us, yelling, "Hurry up and call the fire brigade! The mountain is about to collapse!"

I knew at once that the cave was probably collapsing from the fire and grew worried that the corpse-eaters might come crawling toward the village in droves. We whipped the mule to his full speed until his b.u.t.t was swollen and finally arrived at the spot where all were gathered to fight the fire.

The villagers knew what they were doing-some of them were up ahead clearing the roads while others had begun to fetch water with their basins. They transported the water in a bucket brigade, pa.s.sing it from man to man. I saw the process and figured it would take at least two hours for the basins of water to go from here to the scene of the fire. I yelled out, "Villagers, there's no need to fetch water now. This water won't put out the fire. Don't make any unnecessary sacrifices. Just wait for the fire brigade."

Everyone looked at me as though I was completely insane, and an old man responded, "Young man, this water is for the firemen to drink. If there is no drinking water at the fire, they will surely die. We'll hack down a firebreak to surround the fire. When the blaze reaches that point, there will be nothing to feed it and it will go out by itself. If you guys don't know anything, then don't burden us with your help, please." He looked at the urinals in our hands and shook his head.

Embarra.s.sed by the stares of the villagers, I blushed bright red. I lost face big-time, I thought, I've made a complete a.s.s out of myself and I'll never blurt out my opinions again, Lowering my head, I followed the crowd into the forest.

After an hour's walk, we could feel the heat from the fire, and black filled the sky. The villagers took pieces of cloth, soaked them in the water, and put them over their faces. I looked at Fats, who took the silk scroll with gold trim out of his pocket, dipped it in the water, and tied it over his face. Then he picked up a shovel, joined the villagers, and began to dig a trench to serve as a firebreak.

We worked until mid-afternoon, when helicopters appeared in the sky and firefighters gathered in the forest to replace us. I was especially worried that someone would die because of our stupidity and carelessness. But fortunately, when the final count was called, only a few people had suffered minor injuries.

We returned to the village, completely exhausted. I was starving to death, asked a village child to make me two sesame seed cakes, and ate both in one bite. I had never tasted anything so savory and almost burst into tears as I swallowed them.

A village official commended us for our a.s.sistance, saying few city people were so helpful to villagers nowadays. Stop this praise, I thought, my heart cannot bear it. If you knew we were the ones to start the fire, you would certainly murder all of us.

A nurse had changed Panzi's bandages and washed his wounds. His breathing had apparently stabilized, but he had not yet regained consciousness. The doctor told me to relax, a.s.suring me there was no danger. When the paramedics arrived later, they would take Panzi with them to a big hospital in the city, he said, and his words put me at ease.

I went back to the guesthouse with Uncle Three and took a bath. If I hadn't removed my clothes, I would never have known that not one part of my body was without injury. Every inch of my skin was either bruised or scratched. When I was fleeing for my life, I felt no pain, but the sight of my damaged flesh reminded me of what we had all been through and shot me back to reality. When I came out of the bathroom, I couldn't tell where my arms and legs stopped and the pain began.

I went to bed, fell asleep quickly, and slept until afternoon the next day. When I woke up, Fats and Uncle Three were in their beds snoring like thunder.

I went downstairs to eat breakfast and learned from my waiter that the fire had been extinguished. It was no more than a small forest fire and the troops of firefighters had already gone away.

Feeling a bit more at peace, I went to the clinic and found that Panzi had been taken to a hospital in the city of Jinan. I expressed my thanks and felt grateful but knew it was better for us not to linger in this place. It was time to leave and after a few days we returned to Jinan.

My uncle and I first went to the hospital where Panzi was hospitalized and took care of his paperwork. He was still in a coma so Uncle Three and I decided to stay with him until he was out of danger.

Fats parted with us in a hurry after we left the mountains. He gave us a phone number where he could be reached and left the silk scroll for Uncle Three to deal with.

The next day I called the hospital and learned that Panzi still had not woken up. I sighed as Uncle Three gloomily walked into my room cursing, "G.o.d d.a.m.n it, am I mad- can't believe I've been outwitted!"

I thought he meant he had been cheated in the antiques market and said, "Uncle Three, for someone with your competence and experience to be cheated must mean whatever you bought was an excellent counterfeit. There should certainly be no problem pa.s.sing it on to another buyer."

Uncle Three pulled out the silk scroll with gold tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, barking, "Pa.s.sing it on? My a.s.s! I'm not talking about antiques. I'm talking about this thing!"

I almost fell out of bed, yelling, "What? That's not possible."

Uncle Three said, "As sure as s.h.i.t it is. I sent this out to have its gold content inspected. The results show that the purity is much too high. It was simply impossible to refine gold of such high quality in that era. This is a nearly perfect counterfeit!"

I couldn't believe it. Uncle Three sighed, "I suspected it. Menyouping obviously could defeat the zombies so why did he always run away? He didn't vanquish the blood zombie until almost the last moment. He obviously wanted to get rid of us at that point and went off alone to do his own thing."

"So during the time he was separated from us, he went to the main cave and opened the coffin of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers? And then he put this fake gold silk scroll inside? How could he do this on his own? Besides, the cave in the tree could be opened only by pulling the chains apart. If someone had opened it before us, we would have noticed their tracks," I sputtered.

"Did you look at the back of the coffin? He's a grave robber. He probably dug another cave behind the coffin, and exchanged the real gold silk script with the fake one that way!" Uncle Three sighed again. "What a pity my decades of experience couldn't see through this deception. This man is truly too deep, too unfathomable."

I still didn't understand and asked, "So the accounts I read on the scroll were all false?"

Uncle Three nodded. "These stories didn't sound credible in the first place. We were fooled by them because we were distracted by everything that had happened to us in that tomb. Now that I think back on what you read to us, I see way too many flaws. And how could you have understood only the two most important paragraphs with your level of knowledge? If you didn't understand the other ones, this clearly shows that he tampered with the ones you were able to read to make them comprehensible to you."

My mouth fell open. Uncle Three sighed again and said, "It looks like he is the only person who knows about the secret of the Ruler of the Dead Soldiers. Now that the cave has collapsed, it's impossible to go back in and find out."

Something flashed into my mind and I said, "Oh yes, I almost forgot! It wasn't completely a wasted trip. I brought something out from inside of the tomb!" Then I turned my backpack upside down, praying that I hadn't lost it. The purple-enameled gold box was still there-I took it out and said, "It's this. I took it from the hands of the fox-corpse."

Uncle Three looked, saying, "This is a puzzle-box. The main compartment is where the locks are kept. It can't hold very much and it's quite difficult to open. You see?" he twisted the lid of the box, and its four corners opened up, showing a small turntable. There were eight holes on it, with a number in every one of them. It looked very much like an old-fashioned telephone dial.

"This is the oldest type of puzzle-box," my uncle said impatiently, "You can't open it unless you know the pa.s.sword. Just a minute. I'll go to that garage across the street and borrow a blowtorch-we'll cut it open and see if anything's inside."

Uncle Three ran off quickly before I could call him to come back. An eight-digit pa.s.sword-could it be 02200059? But how could a number printed on a foreigner's belt buckle be an ancient pa.s.sword? I dialed it, 0-2-2-0-0-0-5-9, heard a click, and the box opened.

End of Volume One:.

CAVERN OF THE BLOOD ZOMBIES.

Coming Next:.

ANGRY SEA, HIDDEN SANDS.

Chapter One.

THE BRONZE FISH WITH SNAKE BROWS.

The lid of the box slowly opened. Inside there was s.p.a.ce only for an object no bigger than my thumb, and what the box contained was just about that size-a small bronze fish.

I held it in my hand. The fish looked ordinary enough but the workmanship was exquisite, particularly the brows of the fish, which had been crafted to look like snakes. It was so lifelike in its appearance that I was surprised. How precious was this object and why had it been hidden for so long?

Uncle Three entered, blowtorch in hand. Startled to see the box was open, he asked, "How the h.e.l.l did you do that?"

I told him about the pa.s.sword numbers and he frowned. "This is getting more and more confusing. It seems like that bunch of foreigners came to do more than just rob graves."

He picked up the bronze fish and his face clouded over. "What? Isn't this the Bronze Fish with Snake Brows?"

Uncle Three took something from his pocket and handed it to me. I looked at it and saw it was also a dainty little bronze fish. It too was about the size of my thumb, its brows were also shaped like snakes, and its workmanship was superb. Every last scale on its body was fine and smooth. It had to have come from the same place as the one in the purple-enameled gold box.

The only blemish in this lovely little fish was that almost embedded in between its tiny scales were bits of white grit that looked like lime. I was certain I knew where this had been found but to be sure, I asked my uncle, "Was this a marine discovery? Did you once rob an undersea tomb?"

To Be Continued in Volume Two...

Note from the Author.

Back in the days when there was no television or internet and I was still a poor kid, telling stories to other children was my greatest pleasure. My friends thought my stories were a lot of fun, and I decided that someday I would become the best of storytellers.

I wrote a lot of stories trying to make that dream come true, but most of them I put away, unfinished. I completely gave up my dream of being a writer, and like many people, I sat waiting for destiny to tap me on the shoulder.

Although I gave up my dream of being a writer, luckily the dream did not give up on me. When I was 26 years old, my uncle, a merchant who sold Chinese antiques, gave me his journal that was full of short notes he had written over the years. Although fragmentary information can often be quite boring, my uncle's writing inspired me to go back to my abandoned dream. A book about a family of grave robbers began to take shape, a suspenseful novel.... I started to write again....

This is my first story, my first book that became successful beyond all expectations, a best-seller that made me rich. I have no idea how this happened, nor does anybody else; this is probably the biggest mystery of The Grave Robbers' Chronicles. Perhaps as you read the many volumes of this chronicle, you will find out why it has become so popular. I hope you enjoy the adventures you'll encounter with Uncle Three, his nephew and their companions as they roam through a world of zombies, vampires, and corpse-eaters.

Thanks to Albert Wen, Mich.e.l.le Wong, Janet Brown, Kathy Mok and all my friends who helped publish the English edition of The Grave Robbers' Chronicles.

About the Author.

Xu Lei was born in 1982 and graduated from Renmin University of China in 2004. He has held numerous jobs, working as a graphic designer, a computer programmer, and a supplier to the U.S. gaming industry. He is now the owner of an international trading company and lives in Hangzhou, China with his wife and son. Writing isn't his day job, but it is where his heart lies.

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