Chapter 10 Section IX Crisis of Confidence

The van drove for more than ten minutes in the wilderness at midnight, and came to the foot of a mountain ridge.The driver turned off the headlights, and everyone sat in the car to smoke. The driver asked Cyclops, "What the hell is that thing?" One Eye said, "It's Song Ci." The driver said: "I reckoned it was a treasure. What do you think? Stealing or robbing?" One-eyed said: "Don't worry, let's get down to business first tonight, that Song porcelain will not be on our plate sooner or later?" I can't hear it.Uncle Gousheng asked, "What are you talking about?"

The driver said triumphantly: "I went to the latrine, passed the kitchen, and saw that family's salt jar was a bit strange. When I came to see it, it was Song Ci." Song porcelain is a saying in the industry, and the popular saying is Song Dynasty porcelain.Porcelain in the Song Dynasty was exquisite in workmanship and expensive. Uncle Gousheng seemed very excited: "Ah, the steamed bun is in the pot, it will be a matter of time to remove the pot, don't worry, don't worry." One-eyed got out of the car first. He looked around with one eye, then lay down on the ground and listened with his ears close to the ground.A few minutes later, Cyclops stood up and said to us in the car, "Alright, let's start working."

The driver pulled out a canvas bag from the back seat of the van, opened it, and took out a telescope from it. He walked away tens of meters and stood on a small mound to look into the distance.I quietly asked Uncle Gousheng: "It's dark at night, what's the use of a telescope?" Infrared telescope. Cyclops took out the compass from the canvas bag. Under the moonlight, the compass glowed green. It was a military compass.After confirming the location, Cyclops took out a disk-like object and searched the ground, just like the ghosts in old movies.Later, after I left the gang of tomb robbers, I learned that this thing was an infrared detector.Modern tomb robbers, their equipment has been armed to the teeth.

Uncle Gousheng took out a gas mask from his canvas bag and held it in his hand.Uncle Caiwa took out a one-meter-long iron rod. I don't know what it is for.Uncle Caiwa picked up the iron rod and twisted it, and the iron rod suddenly grew a bit longer, and twisted it again, and it became longer again.I saw a semicircular sharp blade in front, which turned out to be a retractable Luoyang shovel. They have a clear division of labor, the driver looks out for the wind, the one-eyed tomb explorer, Uncle Caiwa digs a hole, and Uncle Gousheng drills a hole. Maybe they have been doing this for years.

Their tomb-robbing tools amazed me. One-eyed walked around in circles with a radius of 100 meters, not letting others get close.That night, before I saw clearly how Cyclops detected it, he was already calling Uncle Caiwa: "It's right here, dig." Uncle Caiwa picked up the Luoyang shovel, shoveled it down the pier, and lifted it up again, and there was half a dustpan of loess.Uncle Gousheng carried a plastic bucket and poured the shoveled loess back and forth into a dark hole more than ten meters away.Looking at them, I secretly groaned, if they succeed in robbing the tomb tonight, I will be a participant, and I cannot escape the responsibility.I'm looking forward to someone suddenly appearing, however, in the second half of the night of this season, the field is dripping with ice, who would come to such a place?

Seeing me standing there blankly, Duoyan reprimanded me viciously: "Are you here to help, or are you here to eat spicy meat and steamed buns?" I had no choice but to take out a bucket from the van and pour the shoveled loess into the dark hole.I pretended to be struggling, walked slowly, and was out of breath.I kept looking at the way I came, hoping that someone would appear, and looking forward to the dawn of the sky. About an hour later, Uncle Caiwa pulled the Luoyang shovel out of the hole, and retracted the Luoyang shovel back to a length of one meter.In the pale moonlight, I saw beads of sweat glistening on his face."It hit a rock," he said.

One-eyed squatted on the ground, grabbed a handful of fresh loess and sniffed it carefully, then lay down on the ground again, sniffing with his face close to the entrance of the cave.After a few minutes, he stood up and said, "Fried." Uncle Caiwa took out the explosives and detonators from the trunk of the van and put them into a hole with a diameter of more than ten centimeters.A few minutes later, there was a dull sound from the ground. Only later did I know that it was a high explosive, which was very powerful. When it was put into the cave, when the explosive exploded, it would compress the loose soil to the surrounding area, and the opening of the cave would become larger.

The cave just after the explosion was full of gunpowder smoke, and people would die if they entered it.One-eyed asked Uncle Gousheng and Uncle Caiwa to bring a large bundle of grain stalks from the nearby field and cover it over the entrance of the cave.Wait until the next night, when the smoke clears, and then go in to rob the tomb. Uncle Gousheng said: "There is a gas mask, it's fine to go down." One-eyed said: "It's almost dawn, and the things were discovered before they were moved out." One-eyed lit a cigarette and took a puff comfortably. He hadn't smoked for a long time because he was afraid of being discovered.Don't be afraid now.

Suddenly, the driver's distraught voice came from a distance: "Someone is coming, the car is coming." One Eye turned pale with fright. One-eyed said: "Hurry up and move the tools into the carriage." Uncle Gousheng and Uncle Caiwa ran to the carriage in a hurry. The driver ran over, panting heavily, like an old cow pulling a cart uphill.As soon as he got into the cab, he started the car.Before the van started, two bright lights suddenly came from the direction of the village, piercing the night sky like a sharp sword.One-eyed held up the infrared telescope and said, "Oh, it's a police car, drive quickly."

The van shook for a while, and then rushed forward like an arrow.Sitting in the car, I secretly complained, what should I do?If I was caught by the police, I would not be able to wash myself off even if I jumped into the Yellow River. A vehicle in the distance honked its horn and sounded the siren.The shrill siren sounded terrified in the cold early morning, and the one-eyed man said, "Don't worry, run!" The driver stepped up the accelerator, the van roared, and ran wildly in the wilderness like a cheetah that had spotted an antelope. The road goes up like a ladder and goes down like a ladder.These field paths are roads for farmers to deliver manure to the fields, with white ruts on both sides and luxuriant weeds in the middle.The van passed through the blue-black wheat fields, rushed through the cornfields huddled in the cold wind, and ran over the uncultivated land full of thorns and jujube trees, and finally came to the main road.Back on the solid road the van was going faster, and I looked out the rear window to see the police car get farther and farther away before disappearing around the bend.

There was chatter and laughter in the carriage after the shock.The driver said triumphantly: "Compared to us? Unless he is a Mercedes-Benz off-road vehicle." One-eyed said: "He has a broken Beijing jeep, and he can't keep up with it in eight lifetimes." Uncle Gousheng was still in shock, he asked, "Was that the police just now?" One-eyed said: "I can't tell. It's a police car anyway. You didn't hear the sound of beeping beeping beeping beeping beeping. There are too many units with police cars now. Anyone who wears a uniform will drive a police car. Some private individuals also drive police cars. So arrogant that I don’t know his last name.” Uncle Gousheng said unconvinced: "It's not that the police are afraid of him? He doesn't dare to beat people." One-eyed sneered and said: "Nowadays, anyone in uniform can control you and beat you? Beating you is light. After arresting you for a few years, I will let you eat six liang of food a day." Northwest called the prisoner "Eat six liang food". One-eyed and well-informed, he is definitely different from rural guys like Uncle Gousheng and the like.Later I heard Uncle Gousheng say that during the "Cultural Revolution", One Eye was the leader of a rebel faction, and he was beaten blind in one eye during the fighting.Later, Cyclops was arranged to check the scales at the hog purchasing station.In those days, this was an absolutely fat job, similar to the director of the Electric Power Bureau today. Sitting in the car, I also let out a sigh of relief. One-eyed said: "That's the end of today's business, tomorrow we'll be gone, and we'll go back to our homes. Don't look for me anymore, you won't be able to find me if you look for me." Uncle Gousheng asked, "What's the matter?" Uncle Caiwa also asked, "What's wrong?" I was very surprised, turned my head to look at One Eye, and suddenly saw that in the dimly lit carriage, One Eye's eyes stabbed me like a knife.I shudder. The van ran wildly along the road, and it didn't know where it was.When it was daylight, a large building appeared in front of us, and the street seemed very wide. It turned out that we had come to a nearby county town. Duoyan knocked on the window of a hotel, and there was a disheveled man in the window. After Duoyan gave the money, the disheveled man opened two rooms for us without looking at his ID card.I share a room with Uncle Gousheng and Uncle Caiwa, and Cyclops shares a room with the driver.The driver drove the van into the hotel yard, pried off the license plate and replaced it with another one.It turns out that every time a tomb is robbed, the van has to be replaced with a deck. Even if someone finds out and takes away the sign, it belongs to someone else and cannot be found on their head. After entering the hotel, I fell into a deep sleep. I haven’t had a good sleep in the past few days. I chatted with Uncle Gousheng until dawn, and ran in a van all night. Now I feel like a loach, walking along the darkness And the smooth tunnel slid all the way to the depths of sleep. I don't know how long it took, in the dimness, I heard someone talking, I wanted to open my eyes and get up, but I still didn't have the strength.I heard a person has been asking about my origin, and a person is trying to explain.I suddenly lost all sleepiness and my heart became very bright, but in order to confuse them, I still pretended not to wake up. The people who are talking are Cyclops and Uncle Gousheng.One-eyed suspects that I called the police last night, and he thinks I'm an undercover agent.Uncle Gousheng said, I grew up watching him, and he has a very good relationship with my father. In order to treat my father, he quit his job in the county seat. Now that he has no job, how can he be a policeman? One-eyed said: "We have never missed a shot before, why did the police come as soon as he came?" Uncle Gousheng said: "It must be a coincidence. If my nephew was a policeman, I would still follow you to do this job? You must have arranged for me to do something good like guarding the gate." One-eyed said: "Anyway, this matter is strange." Later, because I was too sleepy, I fell asleep again. When I woke up again, it was already in the afternoon, and a ray of the setting sun shone through the wooden lattice windows, shining on the white gray walls that had been messed up by countless people. There were some phone numbers left by small businessmen on the walls, and There are some doggerel with ambiguous content.There are people coming and going in the hostel, speaking with various foreign accents. This county is located at the junction of three provinces, and there is a village called "Rooster Crowing Listening to Three Provinces". The village can hear it.This county, which is the thoroughfare of the three provinces, is naturally full of people. Uncle Gousheng has gone out, his bed is empty, and Uncle Caiwa is still sleeping soundly, snoring like thunder.The cramped rooms of the hostel smelt violently of feet and a sour smell of something rotting.A mouse sneaked out from under the bed and looked at me curiously. Seeing that I didn't respond, it boldly ran to an apple core in the corner, took two bites quickly, and then turned its head to look at me.I picked up the cigarette box on the table and threw it at it, and it quickly got under the bed again. I lit a cigarette, and suddenly recalled the conversation between Cyclops and Uncle Gousheng that I heard in a haze. Could it be that Cyclops began to doubt me? After waking up, I went to the next room and saw the driver was still asleep. One-eyed and Uncle Gousheng were sitting face to face. One-eyed was talking. look at me.Those searchlight-like eyes made my heart tremble. I pretended I didn't know anything, stretched my waist and said, "I wake up after a nap, feeling comfortable all over. Let's take a bath together. After bathing and eating, I'll treat you." One-eyed pretended to be polite and said: "How can I let you pay, you are a guest." He stretched out his hands and made a gesture of rejection, but a spark of excitement flashed in his eyes. A few tens of meters away from the hostel, there is a bathhouse. The room is very high and very wide. It is steaming. There is a rectangular bathhouse in the center of the ground surrounded by cement walls about 20 to 30 centimeters high. The bathhouse is full of bare buttocks, and there are dozens of dumplings soaked in the bathhouse, some of which are splashing in the middle of the water; some are sitting quietly in the corner with a comfortable look; rushed into the bathroom.There was a lot of chatter in the bathhouse, and someone sang loudly: "Sister, go forward boldly..." Someone spoke loudly: "Isn't your broken girl married to someone yet?" After coming out of the bathhouse, I took them to a restaurant in the center of the county. Opposite the restaurant was a movie theater and a post office. At the door of the movie theater, a loudspeaker was shouting vigorously. "Lawsuit".On the huge promotional poster, Gong Li dressed as a peasant woman is wearing a plaid red padded jacket with a sad face.There is also a tweeter at the entrance of the post office, and the loudspeaker is vigorously promoting a mobile phone card: "It only costs 20 cents a minute, and my wife and children like it. When you call the State Council, the State Council says you are really capable..." Later, I saw Jia Zhangke's movie "Xiao Wu", and felt that the scenes in it were very similar to this county. There is a small private room in the restaurant where we eat.With the doors and windows closed, you are completely cut off from the outside world.I thought at the time, since One Eye had already suspected me, I should simply retreat and play hard to get. I pretended to leave and see what they said. As long as a few people in the north get together to eat, they can't live without wine.The wine is high-grade liquor, which can be ignited with a single match.People who don't know how to drink, after three drinks, get under the table.Those who can drink, however, yell and exalt, venting their usual depression through alcohol. I poured a glass of wine into each person's glass, held it up and said, "After this glass of wine and this meal, I will go and go back to the South." One-eyed pretended to be surprised and said, "What's the matter? Aren't you going to join us?" Uncle Gousheng said: "It's better to work hard here than to work in the south." I said: "I wanted to work hard with everyone, but what happened last night, some people must have doubted me. I thought about it, it's better to go." One-eyed said: "Oh, no one suspects you, it's your own overthinking. Do your best." I deliberately pretended to be sincere and said, "Let me go." Cyclops and I were both acting, neither of us had enough words to say, but we both pretended that we had a firm attitude and a strong will. In fact, we were both testing each other's tone and feeling for each other's confidence, and we both managed the fire just right. Uncle Gousheng and Uncle Caiwa didn't know we were acting, and they tried their best to keep me.Uncle Caiwa said: "There are many people working hard, and now there are nine cold days. Where can I find reliable people?" I know that they need people. To do such shameful things, only people with a very close relationship can be together.I have such a close relationship with Uncle Gousheng, so I may be the most suitable candidate for them.But, I can't say that I want to be with them in front of Cyclops, this kind of words must be said by Cyclops himself, he said it, and I still have to pretend to hesitate, after that, he will no longer doubt me casually . I pretended to be sincere and said: "I work part-time in the south, and I can earn thousands of yuan a month if I do a good job. I have been back for so many days, and my work has been delayed. I have to go to work quickly." That day, we drank a lot of wine in the restaurant. Taking advantage of the strength of the wine, I purposely shouted to Cyclops: "Boss, to be honest, I still don't care about your affairs." One-eyed said: "Don't call me the boss, I'm not the boss, the boss just sits in the room and directs." It turned out that there was someone above the one-eyed one, and he was just an errand runner. I said: "I have read many ancient books, and I know the history and geography of this area very well. I am a cultural person, and a cultural person should do what a cultural person does." squinted one of his eyes. One-eyed gritted his teeth and said, "Cultural people are dicks, and people nowadays only recognize old people's heads." The reason why I said that my ancient prose is solid is because among the tomb robbers, the most lacking is someone who can understand ancient books.I heard that the tomb robbers are looking for the tomb site, one is a country legend, and the other is an ancient book.The tomb robbers are all uneducated farmers. One-eyed walked out, not knowing what to do.After a while, he came in and said: "You can follow the boss from now on, the boss will not treat you badly. You will call me uncle from now on." Maybe he just went out to call the boss. At night, all of us, except the driver, were drunk. We got into the van, and this time, the van pulled us to the grocer's shop on the edge of town.The bald boss led us around along the ravine, and finally walked into a courtyard with two cave dwellings.This is the den of the tomb robbers. The bald boss regarded me as one of his own, and his eyes were no longer full of guard and vigilance when he looked at me.Is he the legendary boss? Here, I saw a lot of weird tools related to tomb robbery. In addition to the commonly used shovels, picks, round shovels, and axes with a wooden handle up to one meter long, there is also a steel drill. The round handle, the flat side has been polished shiny, it is estimated that many sarcophagi have been pried open.In addition, I also saw a gun drill in the corner of the cave, a one-foot-long spiral drill bit, which can cut through the stone.Since there is a punch gun drill, there must be a generator. Sure enough, under a tarpaulin, I saw a small generator.There was actually a small water pump next to the generator. This is simply a museum of tomb-robbing tools. However, if you don't know the inside story, you will never connect these tools with tomb-robbing.These tools are still ordinary farm tools, and you can almost see these farm tools when you walk into those well-off farmers. However, I still don't understand the water pump, what role does it play in the tomb robbery? I asked Uncle Gousheng, and Uncle Gousheng said: "The water pump is very useful. If the tomb has been dug, the water pump must be used." I asked: "It has been dug up, why do you still dig it?" Uncle Gousheng said: "If it's a big tomb, you can find treasure every time you dig it." I asked, "Why is there water in the dug tomb?" Uncle Gousheng said: "In order to save trouble, the grave diggers hurriedly filled the pit with soil, and then ran away. The soil in the pit is obviously weaker than the surrounding soil. When it rains, the pit will soon become empty." The water accumulated in this puddle and flowed into the tomb. The tombs are all hooped with bricks, so pools of water are formed. These pools are usually several meters deep, and people don’t know how to jump into them. , will be drowned." What surprised me even more was that I saw several ancient books with curled corners and yellowed pages beside the kang. When I opened them, I found that they were several county chronicles and some family trees from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The paper is as thin as a cicada's wing, and the old calligraphy and strokes on it are as thin as a mosquito's foot. I really don't know where the group of tomb robbers found these antiques. That night, I didn't see the bald boss of the grocery store, and I don't know where he went. Cyclops regarded me as his own, and he and I slept on the same kang.He said: "Snoring at night on a dog day can kill people." The "dog day" he was talking about was the driver. That night, the driver, Uncle Gousheng, and Uncle Caiwa all slept on a kang. It is estimated that there will be a "snoring conference" in the cave next door tonight. I pretended not to understand anything, and asked Cyclops about tomb robbery. One-eyed shook his head and said, "Since ancient times, tomb robbery has been divided into official robbers and private robbers. People in the country now say they are archaeologists, but they are actually official robbers. We are private robbers. Why are they only allowed to dig tombs and not us?" Tomb?" I knew that Cyclops was making unreasonable words, and archeology and tomb robbery were two different things, but I couldn't refute, so I nodded, pretending to agree with his opinion.I said, "Cao Cao's tomb digging is an official thief, right?" One-eyed said in a well-informed tone: "If you want to talk about digging graves, it has a long history, and it started at the earliest in the Spring and Autumn Period. The old ancestors had a punishment called whipping corpses. What is whipping corpses? Dig out the dead, beat them with a whip, and the gold, silver, and treasure will be yours." "Oh." I thought of Wu Zixu in the Spring and Autumn Period. With the help of King Helu of Wu, he pacified the state of Chu and exhumed the grave of his dead enemy King Ping of Chu.This may be the earliest record of whipping corpses in history books. Cyclops has been immersed in this industry for many years. He has rich experience and accumulated rich experience.However, Cyclops is not like Uncle Gousheng who always answers questions. When he doesn't want to answer, no matter how I try to trick him, he always keeps silent.In order to avoid arousing his suspicion, I had to change the subject. However, despite this, Cyclops opened a new window for me, allowing me to understand the extremely mysterious industry of tomb robbery. One-eyed said something incredible.He said that in the local Qing Dynasty, a general rescued a wolf from a hunter's noose. The wolf repayed his kindness and has been secretly protecting the general.The general was defeated in a battle, the whole army was wiped out, and the general was also injured and unconscious.The first wolf brought the pack, and a female wolf woke the general up with milk.The general lay on the ground for ten days, and the she-wolf fed the general for ten days. Later, the shepherds in the mountains rescued the general.The general has fought for more than ten years, and the wolves have guarded him for more than ten years.Many times when the enemy rushed into the formation, it was the wolves who drove the enemy away and protected the general.Later, the general made extraordinary achievements. When Cixi fled to the west, the general escorted him and defeated the bandits many times.When Cixi returned to Beijing, the general fell ill and died. Cixi ordered people to be buried in the mountains, and the wolves kept guarding the general's tomb.There were several groups of grave robbers who were about to dig the grave, but they were all driven away by the wolves.During the period of the Republic of China, an earthquake occurred here, the location of the general's tomb was unknown, and the wolves disappeared. One-eyed said: "This story is recorded in the county annals." I opened a county annals from the period of the Republic of China, and I found this record. One-eyed said: "Over the past hundred years, grave diggers have been looking for this general's tomb, but they have not found it. Whoever can find it will get rich." That night, I asked Cyclops a lot of questions about the mechanism in the tomb. One-eyed said: "If there are tomb robbers, there are also anti-theft ones. Only by understanding the anti-theft technology can we better rob tombs." Each tomb has a tomb chamber, and each tomb chamber has a tomb door. The size of the tomb chamber and the tomb door vary according to the economic situation of the owner of the tomb.If the situation is good, the tomb door will be as high as a person, and people can stand up in the tomb chamber; if the situation is not good, the tomb door will be less than half a meter, and there is no room to turn around in the tomb chamber except for the coffin. I asked: "The space in the tomb is large, so it's easy to handle; if the space is small, what should I do if I jump down alone?" One-eyed said: "So, to drill a tomb, you need to find a small and strong man. First pry off the lid of the coffin and push it aside, then the man gets into the coffin and lies on the body of the dead man, head to head, feet to feet. Feet, with a hook like a barrel hanging from the body, from head to toe, hooking up the dead man's body in sections, supporting himself and the dead man with one hand, and groping on the dead man with the other hand to see if there is any treasure. The wealthy family likes to stuff dead people with jade, so the mouth, ears, nostrils, belly, anus, and vulva of the dead must be searched." One-eyed put it lightly, and I was horrified to hear it.How much courage and guts does it take to lie on top of a dead person and stick face to face with a dead person. Cyclops said that to enter the tomb, one must pass through the tomb gate, and there are two kinds of organs at the tomb gate, one is the top stone and the other is the round stone.The top door stone is still used by families in the north until now. There is a groove on the ground, and there is a gate stone behind the door. , I can't push it away.The round stone is another mechanism. Behind the door of the tomb is a gentle slope with grooves. After the door is closed, the round stone will fall into the hemispherical pit along the groove and press against the door. Can't push it away. I asked, "How did these organs be cracked?" One-eyed said: "Organs are set up by people, and there are ways to break them. There is no mechanism in this world that cannot be broken." One-eyed began to play tricks, he didn't talk about how to crack it, but talked about anti-theft techniques. In addition to the organs on the tomb door, Cai Dong’s family also filled the tomb with quicksand. When the tomb door was opened, quicksand would flow out continuously. Tomb robbers had to clean up all the quicksand before entering the tomb.However, in the spacious tomb, the quicksand filled is as many as several tens of tons, relying on the strength of one person, it will not be able to dig it out for a few days and nights. In this case, the tomb robbers can only give up.There are also people who put a lot of stones in the tomb. The huge stones are bigger than the hole dug by the grave robbers. When encountering this situation, they can only give up.Some people also put charcoal in it to prevent moisture.Therefore, as long as you use a Luoyang shovel to shovel out charcoal, sand and other things underground, it means that there is an ancient tomb. Even if you enter the tomb safely, you will still encounter various traps, the most important of which is the pit flap, which looks no different from the ground anywhere else. If you step on it, it will fall, and the sharp blade below will cut you down. Human body pierced.There are also hanging stone crossbows and the like. Once an unsuspecting tomb robber touches the mechanism, a huge boulder will fall down, or the crossbow will shoot poisonous arrows.Some people also poured mercury into the tomb, and the mercury volatilized. The tomb robbers didn't know it. If they walked in and breathed the air containing mercury, they would die... I never thought that the inside and outside of the tomb would be so dangerous.One-eyed spoke happily, and I was dumbfounded when I heard it. I asked, "How long have you been digging the grave?" One-eyed didn't answer directly, he just said: "It's hundreds of miles around here, I count this." He stretched out his thumb, "Wherever there is a tomb, I can't escape my eyes."One of his eyes glowed brightly in the dark. In the middle of the night, Cyclops didn't want to say more, so I didn't ask any more questions to avoid his doubts.