Chapter 19 Section VI

Chu Haiyang asked him to go ahead: "Go, it's your turn. If the landslide occurs, you will be buried first." Xia Mingruo casually said that you really have the adversity spirit of a revolutionary comrade, and that the landslide would happen if I didn't go down, so he and Captain Zhou walked into the tomb with the scaffolding on their shoulders. The entrance to the tomb is about 1.80 meters wide. If it hadn't been destroyed later, the length should be more than 10 meters.Because murals were found on both walls, a ten-centimeter protective soil layer was left on each side. After digging a section further, the accumulated soil near the murals could be picked off with a fine bamboo dagger.

The tomb passage was dark and stuffy, and the PLA soldiers who went down first were waiting for them in front of the vault. Captain Zhou unloaded his equipment: "This is the first time to pass through the cave, there will be more in the future, come on, work!" Several people shrank their hands and feet to assemble the bracket in the narrow space, and the sound of wrenches and hammers was heard endlessly. Limited to manpower, financial and material resources, the archaeological team excavated the tomb passage using the method of digging a hole, just like digging out a blocked tunnel according to the original traces. risk of landslides.

Fortunately, people have their own specialties. For example, the uncle is good at making holes, the leopard is good at explosives, and Xia Mingruo is miraculously good at making brackets. The fulcrum he finds is always the most accurate and the most powerful.Chu Haiyang was willing to bow down, saying that this was the excellent skill that Comrade Xia Mingruo had cultivated in countless opportunistic and opportunistic times in the past twenty years. Dig, brace, dig, brace. The aisle, patio, patio, aisle, and the tomb passage less than 20 meters long have been dug for a whole week. This speed is not too much to call encroachment.

During this period, Xiao Shi never went to the construction site once. ("Teacher!" Shi Weidong hugged the old man's leg and hissed, "You called me here! It's not just for cooking, washing sheets, and rubbing your stinky socks?!") There is a small niche in the middle of the two walls of each courtyard symbolizing the courtyard. Some of the niches are pottery figurines of male and female attendants, and some are rare birds and animals. When the fifth courtyard was cleaned, everyone was very excited, because the tomb door was diagonally below. Through the gap between the big stones that seal the door, we can see that the door of the tomb is hewn from two whole huge stones, with a standing statue of Bodhisattva engraved on the front.The Bodhisattva's feet are on the blue waves, the Buddha's light is on his head, he is making mudras with his hands, his feet are bare, his face is like a full moon, his body is plump, his expression is gentle and calm, which is faintly the style of the early Tang Dynasty.

Most of the archaeologists are atheists, but they also stopped to worship, and then returned to the ground to discuss the opening of the tomb door, because whether it is opened inwards or outwards, there are great questions. "Open to the outside." The old man wrote and drew on the ground with grass stalks, "It is very likely that there is mud accumulated in the corridor, so it will definitely not be pushed in." Everyone reached an agreement immediately, so they called it quits early, and rushed to the construction site the next evening with the tools to open the tomb door.

After removing the door-sealing stone, I found that, oh, it really should be opened to the outside. There is a door hinge, and after more than a thousand years, it can still turn freely. It doesn't take much effort to open the door. Open the door and you will see the corridor, which is made of small bricks as a whole, with an arched roof, and there is ten centimeters of silt underground. Xia Mingruo was the first to get in, and then mounted a brace on Chu Haiyang's neck, while the rest waited outside the corridor. Chu Haiyang said: "Front is forward, back is backward, don't say 'here...over there...a little more here', where do you want me to go?"

Xia Mingruo raised his head: "Hey, you are really difficult to serve, I don't want you anymore, let me replace you with a leopard." He struggled to twist the wire with a vise, and shouted to the outside from time to time: "Where's the shelf? Bring the shelf!" A large group of people coaxed the shelves to be passed in.At this time, I heard the old man growl: "Come out, everyone who is watching the excitement! The air inside is originally thin, what if you want to suffocate the two of them to death?!" Old Captain Zhou added: "If you don't die from suffocation, you will also suffer from heat stroke!"

The excited archaeologists could only climb out of the tomb one by one, muttering, and Lao Zhou angrily educated them one by one. The uncle fanned the flames: "Okay, okay, good scolding! There is no discipline at all!" Leopard followed his master with a smirk. The old man looked at them, and the uncle felt guilty and wanted to hide, but the old man beckoned him to come forward. "You..." said the old man. "Li Yiji," the uncle bowed, "I'm Li Yiji." "Oh, Mr. Li." The old man returned the salute, and both of them were quite old-fashioned.

The uncle waited for him to speak. "I went down to have a look just now," the old man pointed to the ancient tomb, "There is a stone door at the end of the passage, with a forehead and a pedestal, and there are cheeks on both sides, and it seems that there are locks, which are more complicated than the first one. " Uncle nodded. "Go and drive." The uncle suddenly raised his head and widened his eyes. "My body was broken during the 'Cultural Revolution'. I didn't dare to enter the stuffy and claustrophobic places. I was afraid of going out of order, which would affect the work of young people." The old man said, "From my observation, Lao Zhou couldn't open the door. It's open. You have enough experience, why don't you take the students in for me and take care of them."

"Uh... I..." "We won't go when you open the door," the old man added. The uncle gave him a deep look, picked up two iron crowbars from the ground, and walked towards the tomb.The old man patted Leopard on the shoulder: "What are you doing in a daze? Why don't you help your master." In the tomb passage, Xia Mingruo bent down and said, "It can't be done, all the sweat is pouring into my eyes..." He looked at the only light with resentment: "It's so stuffy, I need oxygen..." "Rest." Chu Haiyang said. "You guys are resting, I don't have to rest." The uncle poked his head out in the dark, and said sarcastic words: "Oh, it's so cool here."

Xia Mingruo lay on Chu Haiyang's back, shocked, "How did you come down? So you beat the old man to death?" The uncle gave him a blank look. Xia Mingruo immediately pinched Chu Haiyang's neck and cried, "Yangyang—you asked him to pay back our old man's life!" Chu Haiyang asked, "Uncle, so the old man asked you to open the second tomb door?" The uncle nodded, took out a long dagger from his pocket, inserted it into the crack of the door, picked it up and down, frowned and said, "The door latch is still made of mandarin ducks, no wonder it can't be opened." Chu Haiyang squatted beside him, and Xia Mingruo was determined to be a parasite, so he couldn't get rid of him no matter how much he leaned on his back.The uncle smiled: "Don't waste your energy, Haiyang, this guy did it on purpose, he wants to rest." "Then what do you think of this door?" Chu Haiyang could only maintain a hard posture and asked. The uncle smiled and said, "Of course I can drive, it's just... a leopard!" He shouted, "Why are you so slow, silly boy!" "Here we come, here we come!" Leopard ran panting along the cemetery with a small oil lamp in his hand, "Old... the old professor wants me to bring some more... huh... huh...tools!" "You don't need to bring anything! Where's the knife on your body?" "It's all... here!" "Come help," said the uncle. "Oh... oh." The leopard raised the knife and approached, imitating the uncle and inserting the knife into the crack of the door. The uncle said: "Who wants you to help me with this? You give all the knives to Haiyang, and then help me to carry Douxin." When Xia Mingruo heard this, he immediately shifted his vain eyes to the leopard, and opened his hands in a hug. Leopard stuck to the wall and shook his head desperately. Xia Mingruo took the initiative to rub against him, stuck to him, and whispered into his ear: "Leopard, you have nowhere to go for a long time, let me tell you a story. Do you know what a cat ghost is? In the Sui and Tang dynasties, there were people Raising cats with human blood, what about this blood... this cat..." One of the countless howls after the leopard met Xia Mingruo came again. Accompanied by the screams was the sound of the tomb door opening.The mandarin duck latch is a very high craftsmanship, which has been mentioned once or twice in ancient technical books.It is said that it can be locked automatically when the door is closed, but when it is opened, two people and four hands need to push it in different directions at the same time, just like the wheel lock on a submarine. The old man is still right. Only old men like uncles can deal with mysterious things. Opening the door, without even taking a step, something flew out of the tomb, wrapped in a dark wind, and hit the leopard standing in the middle of the corridor. Before the leopard could even scream, it rolled its eyes and fell down. It fell down and pinned Xia Mingruo, so Xia Mingruo screamed: "Cat ghost——!" Xia's father is a liar. But he led Lao Huang on a wretched and profound path with Solzhenitsyn's persistence in his soul. Old Huang was thinking. Gentlemen are harmonious but different, and the same will not continue.Therefore, Laohuang and Maogui are the same, but different. Xia Mingruo discussed with him: "Why are you getting fat again?" "..." "Always in the tomb?" "..." "From the hole uncle dug?" "..." "Ouch," Xia Mingruo pulled it off the leopard, and rubbed it in his arms numbly, "but it's finally back! I really miss those two German shepherds!" The uncle's legs were still a little weak, and at this moment he slid down from the stone door: "Huh—" "No way?" Xia Mingruo smiled, "Are you really scared?" The uncle wiped off a drop of sweat, and looked at Chu Haiyang with his eyes: "Do you think it's scary...?" Chu Haiyang suddenly smiled softly. He came over, first touched Lao Huang, then Xia Mingruo lovingly, then put away his smile, and chased him mercilessly. Xia Mingruo and Lao Huang yelled and fled away. The uncle asked: "Is it intentional?" "That goes without saying!" Chu Haiyang roared angrily, "Both are not good! The only pursuit in life is to scare the leopard!" Hearing this, the uncle squatted sadly in front of the leopard's corpse, and shouted: "My miserable apprentice, what evil did you do in your previous life... Oh, my God, I'm sorry..." The leopard was awakened by him, and stood up in a daze. Lao Huang jumped back into Xia Mingruo's arms, and Xia Mingruo hid behind Chu Haiyang. Chu Haiyang bent down and asked the leopard with concern, "Are you all right?" The leopard was startled, and then recalled his soul, and shouted heartily: "Cat ghost——!" The rest of the people all responded in pain: Going deaf!Going deaf! The uncle covered his mouth: "Don't, I still want to take a look at the tomb before the archaeological team comes down." Leopard whimpered: "Master..." His master said: "Don't be afraid, don't believe it to scare you. Where did the cat ghost come from? It's actually their old Huang." The leopard looked at Xia Mingruo eagerly, and Xia Mingruo laughed. The leopard pointed at Lao Huang and asked tremblingly, "The ones fed with blood?" Xia Mingruo laughed and said, "How is it possible, it's just a family of cats." Leopard is still worried: "Can you use spells to harm people?" "How can that be?" Xia Mingruo approached, holding up Huang to be at eye level with him, "Spells, it's pediatrics, Lao Huang has never used it uncommonly when he harms people. Come on, buddy Huang, we were wrong, hurry up!" Apologize to Brother Leopard, and show a solid class friendship." So at a distance of only ten centimeters from the leopard's nose, at the entrance of the tomb with the door open and exuding a cold atmosphere, under a dim electric light bulb, Lao Huang tried his best to open his three-petal mouth, laughing with difficulty, convulsively and distortedly. up. The leopard's eyeball poked upwards, then fell down again.