I was completely dazed for several minutes after I landed. I didn't know what was going on in my brain, and I didn't know whether I was dead or not. Then a spicy liquid spurted out of my throat and flowed back into my trachea. I kept coughing, and blood spurted out of my nose and flowed onto my chin.
It took me half a cigarette's time to recover and feel my body return bit by bit. I sat up tremblingly. It was pitch black all around me and I couldn't see a thing. I touched the ground and saw only dry stones and sand. The bottom of the moat was dry. Fortunately, the stones were relatively flat, otherwise I would have fallen to death or been knocked to death.
The gas mask was cracked and one of the lenses was broken. I touched it and found that the entire gas mask was dented. I touched the front and found that there was a very sharp stone where my face fell. It seemed that thanks to the protection of the mask, my face was not broken. However, the gas mask was completely useless at this point.
I struggled to pull off the back clasp and carefully took it off my face, but as soon as I got it in my hand, the mask broke into four pieces and could no longer be put on.
Without the mask, the sulfur smell in the air was stronger, but after taking a few breaths, I didn't feel any discomfort. It seemed that the severity of the poisonous gas here as Pan Zi said was not true, or the air quality under the moat was not bad. I cursed inwardly, threw the mask to the ground, spit out the blood left in my mouth, and looked up.
The moat was at least ten meters high and it was all grey. I could only see the Fatty and his men's flashlights shining down from above, waving around as if they were searching for me. I could also hear some shouting, but I didn't know if it was because of the fall. My ears were filled with the buzzing sound from the moment I landed on the ground, and I couldn't really make out what they were saying.
I tried to scream a few times, but as soon as I exerted my breath, a tearing pain spread from my chest to all around, and the sound suddenly turned into a moan. I didn't know what I was saying, or even if I made any sound.
In order to let Fatty and the others know that I was still alive, I picked up the gas mask I had just thrown away and slammed it against the ground, making a "pa pa pa" sound. The sound was not loud, but it bounced back and echoed at the bottom of the quiet moat, which was very ear-catching.
After knocking for a while, suddenly a cold firework was thrown down from above and landed next to me. I cursed and dodged. Then, I saw a person's head sticking out of the cross-section of the bridge. Judging from the size of the head, he seemed to be a fat man.
I crawled over, picked up the cold fireworks and waved them at him. He saw it immediately and yelled, but I couldn't make out what he was saying at all. I could only make a few meaningless noises. The fat man retracted his head, and soon a rope was thrown down from above, dangling to the bottom of the riverbed. The fat man began to climb down with an automatic rifle on his back.
Ten or so meters is about the height of a fourth or fifth floor, which is neither high nor short. The fat man slid to the bottom in no time, let go of the rope and pointed his gun around. Seeing that there was no movement, he ran over, squatted down and asked, "Are you okay?
I said hoarsely and weakly, "Are you okay? Why don't you try falling once?"
When Fatty saw that I could still make a joke, he breathed a sigh of relief and whistled upwards. Immediately, Pan Zi and Shun Zi climbed down from above with their equipment on their backs.
They helped me up and first put me on a rock to the side and let me lean against it. Then they asked Shunzi to hold me down, took out a medical kit, and examined me.
When I saw the medical kit, I felt a little relieved. I thought to myself that I was well prepared. Pan Zi confirmed that I had no broken bones, took out some bandages, and bandaged my larger wounds. Then he scolded me, "Why did you keep jumping when I told you to stop? You are lucky to be lucky. Otherwise, how would I explain to Master San if you died?"
I was furious when I heard that, and I cursed, "You're still blaming me? I was already in the air when you called for a stop. This is not like playing a videotape that can be rewound—" Before I could finish, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest, and I almost twisted myself.
Pan Zi was shocked when he saw it, and quickly held me down and told me not to move.
I gritted my teeth and wanted to curse him, but it was in so much pain that I couldn't even say a word and could only gasp for air.
The fat man handed me a water bottle and said, "But you are lucky. With such a high altitude and rocks below, most people would be crippled if they didn't die."
I took the kettle and thought to myself that this should be called a bad fate. I must have survived because I hit those two iron chains just now. I don't know if I am lucky or unlucky. I have been encountering things like falling from high places recently, and I haven't died. It's really killing me.
After drinking a few sips of water, the blood in my mouth was washed away and my throat felt a little better. I asked him what that thing was. Pan Zi said that this time they saw it clearly and it must be a strange bird, and it was very big, as tall as a person. It was a pity that they didn't hit it, otherwise they would have seen what it was.
The fat man said, "This is fucking weird. The person I saw on the Shinto Path just now might be this thing. A bird with a human head. It might be an owl."
Shunzi looked up and said, "Strange, those strange birds don't seem to be flying down anymore."
I also looked up, and sure enough, the invisible pressure just now had obviously disappeared, and nothing was swooping down anymore.
"Is there something strange here that makes them afraid to come down?"
Pan Zi was also a little hesitant, and the fat man said, "How about this, I'll go around and take a look. If there's any problem here, we'll go up right away. You guys stay here, Xiao Wu, you take a rest first."
I nodded, and Pan Zi said, "I'll go with you," and we walked in two different directions.
Not long after, the fat man who was searching whistled at us, as if he had discovered something.
Pan Zi held the gun horizontally and looked in the direction of the fat man, only to see that the fat man had walked a long way along the bridge, and the flashlight was blurred. In the range of his flashlight, we saw a large black shadow behind him. It seemed that there were many people standing in the darkness in the distance. The black shadows were intertwined and continuous, and it was impossible to count how many there were.
We were all on guard. Panzi bolted his weapon with a click, and Shunzi drew his hunting knife. Panzi shouted to Fatty, "What's going on? What's that?"
The fat man shouted over there: "Come and take a look and you will know."
Judging from what we felt on the bridge just now, the moat is nearly 60 meters wide and very deep in both length and width. Compared with the absolute width of the river, the place where the fat man stood was actually not far from us, but because of the thick darkness around us, we couldn't see clearly what he illuminated with his flashlight.
However, judging from the fat man's tone, there didn't seem to be any danger there.
Shunzi looked at me and asked me if I could go and take a look. I nodded, and he helped me up, and the three of us limped towards where the fat man was.
The bottom of the moat is covered with uneven black stones, some of which are very large. It can be seen that it must have been a huge project when it was originally built. The large, criss-crossed black shadows reflected by the fat man are right under the piers of the stone bridge above.
I walked to the fat man's side with difficulty, and the shadows became clearer. I walked closer, took the flashlight from the fat man and shone it, then I could see clearly what they were.
There was a fault in the riverbed where the fat man was standing. Under the fault was a ditch about one meter deep and twenty meters wide. Countless black life-size ancient human and horse figurines, mixed with bronze chariot wreckage, were arranged in the ditch. When you get close to a few of them, you can find that the surface of the figurines is severely corroded, their faces are blurred, and their facial features cannot be distinguished. Many of the figurines are still holding bronze objects, which are rotten and covered in green spots.
Most of these human figures were standing, close together, and many had collapsed and broken, piled up in a crooked pile. From where I was, the area within the reach of my eyesight and the light of the flashlight seemed to be filled with these things, a large area of dark shadows at the bottom of the gloomy imperial mausoleum, which looked creepy.
"What are these?" Shunzi was stunned when he saw them for the first time.
"These seem to be burial figurines, and these are chariot and horse figurines, symbolizing the welcoming procession or the emperor's travels—" I stuttered. "Strange, why the hell are there these things here? Shouldn't they be placed in the underground palace or the burial pit?"
Fatty also knew this and felt strange. This place was an imperial mausoleum, not a place for children's play. The number of things in the underground palace and the arrangement of all the burial objects in the burial pits were all very particular. It was not like the mausoleums of ordinary royal nobles, which could be casual. The imperial mausoleums were about aura and momentum. This practice of piling up burial objects in the open air was equivalent to a rat spot on a piece of top-grade white jade. It was a taboo among taboos. If the emperor saw it at that time, he would definitely confiscate the property. Although Dongxia was a small secret country on the edge at that time, the famous Wang Canghai who built the mausoleum would definitely not make such a low-level mistake.
The fat man climbed down the ditch, holding the gun in one hand cautiously and shining a flashlight on a headless terracotta with the other hand. He said to me, "It looks like the costume is Yuanfu, the clothes of a minority ethnic group." As he said that, he wanted to touch it with his hand.
I reminded him, "Don't move it. This thing is mysterious. There must be something strange about it."
The fat man didn't take it seriously: "What's there to be afraid of? Can he still survive?" But my words still had some effect. He retracted his hand, put his gun on his back, took the flashlight in one hand, and pulled out the hunting knife from his waist with the other hand. He hit the figurine with force a few times. The figurine didn't react at all. He turned around and said, "It's the real deal, a stone man."
Pan Zi looked curious, and also climbed down the ditch and walked to the fat man. I still felt a little uncomfortable watching him, so I said, "You guys be careful."
The fat man waved his hand, indicating that he was not interested in talking to me. He put the hunting knife back into its holster, tried to lift the nearest figurine, and asked, "Xiao Wu, you are in this business, are these things valuable?"
I nodded and told him, "This thing is a bit fancy. Not to mention the whole thing, even parts of it are wanted. I know that a Terracotta Warrior head is worth 2 million, and that's Meiko. The horse heads are rarer than the human heads and more precious, so it's hard to say how much they're worth."
The fat man looked around with regret, revealing a look of deep sorrow, and said, "What a pity, what a pity, this thing is not easy to carry—"
I still feel very strange in my heart. These things really shouldn't be here. People say that there is a story behind every item in the ancient tomb. These things must be here for some reason, or a story. So what was the intention of the designer at that time?
Judging from the distance on both sides, the ditch where these human figures stood was located in the deepest part of the center of the moat. When the imperial mausoleum was just built, these things should have sunk to the bottom of the moat and were covered by the water surface. The blurred faces of the human figures are also evidence that they had been submerged in water for a long time. In other words, after the imperial mausoleum was built, the people on top could not see the existence of these things.
What is the point of putting these figurines here? Are they construction waste, defective figurines? Did the craftsmen get lazy and sink these garbage into the moat? It doesn't seem so. They are arranged so neatly, it doesn't seem like a way to pile up defective products.
It is really impossible to guess what the ancients were thinking. I felt sad in my heart. If I hadn't fallen down, I wouldn't be able to see anything under the bridge from the bridge. It was just a coincidence. Is God trying to tell me something?
At this time, the fat man suddenly made a "tsk" sound and said, "Have you noticed that all the figurines here are facing the same direction and walking in the same way, which is very different from what we see in the market."
I didn't notice it at first, but when the fat guy said it, I followed his instructions and looked, and it was indeed true.
It was normal for the funerary figurines to be arranged in one place, and I had never seen them facing in a mess, but the walking movements that the fat man described were very strange, and I had never seen them before. I used a flashlight to carefully illuminate the lower part of the figurine, and suddenly, a strange feeling came over me.
"These people—" I frowned and said, "Looks like they're on the march."
"March?" Pan Zi looked at me.
I nodded. "Judging from the clothes worn by the figures in the carriage, this is an imperial procession. Look at the horses, the carriages, and the movements of the people. They are all heading to the same place. The arrangement of these figures and their movements seem to represent a dynamic scene."
We all looked in the direction of the procession of terracotta figures, and saw that this long and strange procession of terracotta figures extended into the darkness deep in the moat, and we could not tell where their 'destination' was.