Time was pressing, and I and Zha Wenbin once again carried some gravel over to pour into the ditch. This would be our stepping stone, the higher it was piled, the safer we would be. Those fish were crowded in water less than a finger deep, Zha Wenbin had a small bottle in his pocket, as soon as he opened it I smelled a pungent smell.

  "Sulfur?"

  "Maybe it will work if we pour it down." He then poured all the sulfur powder from the bottle around the stones we had piled up, and indeed those fish couldn't take it either, and they started to squeeze upstream.

  Taking advantage of this opportunity, I jumped down first and grasped the copper plate with my hands. As soon as I lifted it, I felt it was too heavy, completely impossible for one person to move.

  The fat man suddenly threw down the rope on his body and said, "Take the rope and put it on, we'll pull together."

  I passed the rope through the hole in the copper plate and went ashore again. The three of us worked together to finally move the copper plate cover out. Underneath the copper plate was a circular hole about one person wide, but we didn't know where it led to. At that time, we couldn't care about anything else, as the dam we built upstream had the risk of collapsing at any moment, this is truly racing against life and time!

  If we go down and the dam collapses, we'll probably drown to death; if we don't go down and get trapped here, it's either freezing to death or starving to death; if the water comes before we enter that cave, then three people will probably be buried in the fish belly immediately.

  Comparing horizontally, I personally think drowning is more enjoyable, the last two are a bit too cruel. I leaned on their shoulders and said: "Brothers, I'll go down first, after we leave, let's just honestly return to Guangdong, Wenbin, you don't have to care about anyone else, this matter has nothing to do with us."

  I've said all I can, and naturally Wen Bin couldn't say anything else. The fatty and I were just accompanying him to take a look around, maybe he didn't expect it would end up like this either. He nodded at me and said: "If you don't mind that I'm not good at doing business, then bring me along."

  "I'm going!" I said, and with that, I jumped down first. The copper plate below was slippery, and everywhere was muddy. As soon as my hands let go, it was like sliding down a slide, rushing all the way out for over 50 meters before stopping. I looked around and saw that this was a large water ditch. Behind me was a cave, and the water ditch came out from that cave. In front of me was another pool of water, and the water in the ditch flowed into that pool.

  Behind me was Cha Wenbin, and he slid down. The fat guy was the last one, and when he came down, the water channel had already started to overflow, which proved that our dam had begun to collapse.

  Fatso shouted as soon as he came out: "Lucky for you guys, if I was a few seconds later, you wouldn't have seen me!"

  "Why are you being so finicky?"

  "I've got to cover up that copper plate, or else what's going to happen after those things come out? What's going on here, have we really managed to get out?"

  Fatso asked me, who am I asking? All I know is that at this moment we are in a small space of less than ten square meters, and everything around us except for the stones is still just stones.

  "He pointed to the waterway: 'If the one we just crossed is considered a tomb path, then this should be the outer path. The outer path will have a gate that connects with the outside world. As long as we find the gate, we can get out.'"

  "Look, we don't have a magic brush or Ma Liang's skills, where do you think there's a way out in this place?" The fat guy was right, even if you wanted to take a leak, you couldn't find a spot to turn around, it's such a small space, let alone a door, even finding a place to sit is cramped.

  "Where is it?" The current dwelling of Cha Wenbin was in a small pond in front of me, I looked at it and it was just a bit bigger than an iron pot on a rural earthen stove, but it was quite round.

  "Since the tomb chamber is already underwater, the entrance should be natural as well. That mouth of the water pool would make a perfect entrance. From an anti-theft perspective, as long as the water keeps flowing from upstream, no one can crawl in through this tunnel against the current. The force of the water combined with the slope is enough to deter any tomb raider."

  Fatso thought that Cha Wenbin was right: "Going up would be death, even with scuba gear. The tomb raider would be torn to pieces by the fish above as soon as he lifted the copper lid."

  So it seems our only way out is this pool of water in front of us.

  "Go down?"

  That fatty has already started undressing and gave me a glance saying: "Not going down?"

  "There are two possibilities," I said. "One, we'll still drown, and two, we'll be eaten by fish just the same..." I pointed to the water ditch behind us: "Those copper plates have holes as big as a thumb, do you dare guarantee that in all these years, there haven't been any fish fry or whatever leaking out from inside? Fatso might not know they're waiting for you to jump down!"

  Looking at the water, Pangzi's clothes were taken off halfway and stopped: "Xiaoye, you said that we are completely finished, no way, I would rather starve to death than be eaten, at least leave a whole corpse."

  Before facing absolute death, I don't want to maximize the risk. Even if Cha Wenbin's inference is correct without any error, the probability of us surviving after jumping down will not exceed 30%.

  "Are you willing to bet?" I asked Zhang Wenbin.

  He shook his head, then fell into deep thought. This thing called life, everyone only has one, it's better to live a life of begging than to die easily, I think he doesn't plan on handing over his own life here either.

  Time flies, I look at my watch and it's already afternoon. The fat guy is sleeping soundly, snoring loudly. I stare blankly at the water, while Zhang Wenbin continues to throw stones into it without stopping.

  "Xiao Yi, I just drew a divination," he said with a smile: "The divination symbol is auspicious. I don't know if you believe in this or not, but I feel that we will be fine."

  I don't know if he was consoling me, nor did I wish anything to happen. I retorted: "If you were the tomb owner or the designer of this tomb, would you have planned for people to come out alive?"

  Cha Wenbin was taken aback for a moment, then I saw him shaking his head at me and saying: "No..."

  "I may not be as clever as you and Pangzi, but I know that a tomb designed with such ingenuity will not let go of any possibility. So, we will die, it's just a matter of time, right?"

  He stared at me, just staring at me like that, and then he laughed. He asked me: "Are you afraid of death?"

  "My answer was also very direct: 'Afraid? Of course I'm afraid. Who isn't afraid of death?'"

  "Then I'll tell you, I just deceived you." Zhang Wenbin spread out a few stones on the ground in a certain pattern and said to me: "I wanted to comfort you, but after all, you are a rational person, your reasoning is correct, people who come in here have only one dead end. Just now, I really did cast a divination, got a Kan hexagram, this hexagram is very interesting, it almost perfectly matches our current situation."

  "Explain it, Master Cha."

  Zha Wenbin drew a diagram on the ground with stones, with two broken horizontal lines at the top, one connected horizontal line in the middle, and another two broken horizontal lines below. He said: "This is called Kan Hexagram, which is the 29th of the 64 hexagrams. The hexagram statement says: A bright moon shines on the water, only seeing the shadow but not the footprints; a foolish man goes to fetch treasure, feeling around in vain."

  "Kan in the Eight Trigrams represents water, and water is also known as Xuan color, so it's called Xuan Trigram. From the trigram statement, you can interpret it as: there seems to be a road ahead, but it's actually a trap. Once you fall into the deepest part of the pit, the result will inevitably be disastrous. The upper? (line) of this trigram is water, and the lower? is also water, which is exactly like our current situation. Our head is above water, and our feet are still in water, but both waters are full of danger. Those who try to go down will die without a whole body."

  "Am I right in understanding that just now, when we were on top, or rather at your place, the first stroke was also extremely perilous? The gold and silver treasures in the water channel are like the bright moon reflected in the water. If we had continued to scoop them up like that, we would have been pecked clean by a flock of fish, and in the end it would all have been for nothing."

  "That's right, just like you said."

  I reminded him: "But Wen Bin, we just escaped a disaster earlier because we weren't greedy for money, were we?"

  "Our Taoist school has a saying: The Great Way is fifty, Heaven gives birth to forty-nine, and man hides one. Originally, the Great Way of heaven and earth had fifty lines, but heaven and earth only gave birth to forty-nine lines, so this heavenly way was not complete from the beginning. Everything has a thread of life, and just now we crossed that line."

  "That's still a line I can cross. My grandfather used to say that as long as I grow up and don't take the wrong path, I will definitely achieve something."

  At my words, Cha Wenbin suddenly remembered something. He rummaged through his bag for a while and then excitedly said: "I remember now, you still have a treasure with me." He carefully opened a layer of cloth, and it turned out to be the compass that my grandfather had left behind years ago.

  "I had forgotten, it's been years since I last used it." Zhang Wenbin stood up and adjusted his breathing, then placed the compass flat on his palm. I took a glance, the needle on the compass was rotating continuously, not fast, but without any intention of stopping.

  Zha Wenbin said to me: "If I have the chance to go out, I will study this compass carefully. It has brought me too many shocks."

  "It's just a piece of junk, back then it almost got used as a cornerstone by my dad."

  "It has no north or south, nor does it rely on magnetic fields, and is completely different from our compass. However, it can ask about life and death, take a good look!"

  After finishing, Zha Wenbin stuck his middle finger into his mouth and bit it hard. Then he squeezed a drop of blood onto the center of the Luo Pan. A miraculous scene occurred - I saw that drop of blood slowly seep in, and on the emerald green Luo Pan, a faint red line appeared...