Chapter 81

“Huh?” Zhou Feng asked, puzzled. “Why do you ask this?”

“Don’t wonder why I’m asking, just hurry up and answer my question!”

“Well…” Zhou Feng wrinkled his brow as he began to think back. This was a topic that people cared about very rarely. Everyone cared about the location of the Zhou tomb, not the declining family who had disseminated the location of the Zhou tomb.

“Ah! I remember!” Zhou Feng clapped a hand to his forehead. “The surname is Qi! That declining family’s name is Qi! Huh, isn’t that a coincidence? That’s the same name as the leading tomb robbing family.”

“It’s Qi?” Feng Yuan repeated. In his mind, the clues slowly wove together into a tapestry.

Qi Zhao’s change seemed to start after Qi Zhao had read the Qi family’s records.

Those Qi family records had been passed down for a very long time and, other than the heads of the family, not many people had seen them. Rumor had it that whoever could see the family records was the true owner of the records and the head of the Qi family. Rumor also said that the person who saw these records would be able to find an old tomb.

Yes, these were all rumors. Although the head of the Qi family didn’t acknowledge these rumors, Feng Yuan was certain that these records existed because Qi Zhao had read them! Qi Zhao had inadvertently mentioned that he’d read these records.

The more he thought about it, the more Feng Yuan trembled with fear as, with this clue, everything else became clear.

That dissemination that the “Zhou tomb is in Northwest China” was done by the declining Qi family, the Qi family which was now the leading family in tomb robbing circles! Qi Zhao was now the head of that family! Feng Yuan wasn’t convinced that this was a coincidence. There was no way on earth that such a coincidence could occur!

The person who could read these records was the true owner of these records. So, like this, it could also be said that the records only have one true owner, i.e. the person who wrote said records. In other words, no matter how many Qi family descendants had read these records since they were first written, from then until now, in actuality, there had only ever been one reader, the records’ true owner who was now called Qi Zhao!

If anyone who read these records could find an old tomb, and this old tomb was the snake tomb they were currently inside, then, in other words, the original dissemination of “there’s an old Zhou tomb” was also disseminated by the Qi family head. After the “Zhou tomb is in Northwest China” was disseminated by the family head, eight tomb robbing teams were suddenly formed to go after the snake tomb, which had gone untouched for several decades ¹ . Feng Yuan didn’t believe that the Qi family head wasn’t behind this!

Or, to put it even more simply, it could say that everything, from the information about the snake tomb to the eight teams entering the snake tomb, had all been planned by Qi Zhao.

In that case, who really was Qi Zhao? If he really had gotten the information of the snake tomb from the records, why hadn’t he secretly gathered forces in order to raid the tomb for treasure? Why had he, instead, deliberately spread this information widely among the entire tomb robbing community? What was his ultimate objective? Also, if Qi Zhao had always been the true owner of the records and he had gotten the records from the last head of the family, did that mean that reincarnation really did exist?

You’re asking, ‘why not question whether Qi Zhao is immortal? That’s because reincarnation is more believable.  Feng Yuan was sure that Qi Zhao had been born from his mother’s womb. He was also sure that Qi Zhao had grown up bit by bit, and was even more sure that Qi Zhao had once been an ordinary person before he’d read those family records and became strange. The Feng family had frequent dealings with the Qi family, and Feng Yuan had met him several times at get-togethers between the two families. Feng Yuan and Qi Zhao had originally been not familiar but after continuously spending time with Qi Zhao, they slowly got to know each other well.

Besides, if Qi Zhao’s existence had been neverending, this plan of his shouldn’t have progressed intermittently over a hundred years without seeing any results! If he’d been alive throughout this span of time, perhaps Qi Zhao’s objective would have already been attained!

Feng Yuan once more silently thought through the deduction he’d recently made. Then he whispered to Zhou Feng, “I know you are very interested in ancient rumors of this country, so let me ask you: do you know the Qi family’s history?”

“I’d actually researched the Qi family’s history before.” Zhou Feng nodded his head. “But it’s been a while and there hadn’t been very much information. Besides, what information there was had been conjecture.” After a pause, he said, “The Qi family has been well-known in tomb robbing circles for several centuries. At that time, China was very chaotic so that, in only a few days, a new power would supplant an old power. The Qi family arose under these circumstances and their history is just as chaotic, so I don’t clearly understand the specifics.”

“No, that’s not what I’m asking.” Feng Yuan organized his thoughts to try to clearly convey to Zhou Feng what he meant. “I’m asking if you knew the Qi family history from before they became tomb robbers.”

“This is ah.” Zhou Feng thought for a while but wasn’t sure what to say. “I seem to have heard people speak of this but I’m not sure I remember it very well. It seems like the Qi family has existed for a very long time, seemingly since…yes, since the Western Zhou. Addiotionally…oh, oh that’s right, the Qi family wasn’t originally called Qi. The first family head was named Ji, the same as the national surname ² likely the surname of the Western Zhou Wang at the time. As for why they went so far as to change their surname to Qi after, I don’t know.”

Although the information provided by Zhou Feng wasn’t much, it was enough for Feng Yuan to think a little more deeply. If his theory from before held water, then could it be that this tomb was Qi Zhao’s, no, Ji Zhao’s? No, that was wrong. Wasn’t it said that there was something in the tomb that could eternal life? If Ji Zhao had that thing back then, surely he wouldn’t still be mortal. So no, that wasn’t it. Perhaps it was because of this thing’s existence that Ji Zhao changed his family name to Qi. Ji Zhao had finally died, even with the object. Ji Zhao had entered the tomb with the object granting long life so now Qi Zhao wanted to enter the tomb to retrieve it.

However, there were still some areas that didn’t make sense. Sinking into contemplation, Feng Yuan frowned. He knew that the information that they had was too little so there was no way for them to thoroughly understand the entire matter. However, the name Ji Zhao sounded a little familiar.

“Zhou Feng, in history was there ever someone named Ji Zhao?”

Entirely unaware of Qi Zhao’s history, Zhou Feng naturally didn’t connect the name Ji Zhao with Qi Zhao, and he once again looked questioningly at Feng Yuan. Honestly and sincerely, Zhou Feng said, “There was, and it was the third generation Wang of the Western Zhou, Zhou Kang Wang. Zhou Kang Wang’s name was Ji Zhao.”

Feng Yuan was stunned. Ji Zhao was once the Zhou King ³ ? This….

“Then has the tomb of Zhou Kang King Ji Zhao already been found?”

Zhou Feng nodded his head. “It’s already been found. Zhou Kang King’s tomb is in Shaanxi ⁴ and was discovered at the same time was the tombs of Zhou Wu King ⁵ and Zhou Cheng King ⁶ .”

So it was like this. The idea he’d just had was wrong, and this snake tomb wasn’t Ji Zhao’s tomb. So whose tomb was it? No, it might also be that this Ji Zhao wasn’t that Ji Zhao…

Feng Yuan felt like his head was going to explode. Let it go, or rather wait until there’s enough evidence and then think about it. Without enough of a foundation, thinking of this was really tough on him.

The history of the Zhou Dynasty, especially the Western Zhou, was really too scant ⁷ so trying to find the desired information out of that was even harder. It was no wonder that Feng Yuan’s head felt like it was about to explode from lack of understanding.

Walking almost at the back of the line, Feng Yuan and Zhou Feng absolutely didn’t realize that, ahead of them, Qi Zhao had been smiling eerily the entire time, as though what Feng Yuan and Zhou Feng had just been speaking of, and even what Feng Yuan had just been thinking, Qi Zhao had overheard.

Suddenly Qi Zhao stopped in his tracks, and the people behind him also came to a stop. Qi Zhao was walking ahead, leading the way, so if Qi Zhao stopped then the people behind him didn’t move no matter how puzzled they felt.

Someone asked, “Qi Zhao, what’s happened?”

Qi Zhao turned his head and sent an admonishing look at the person who had just spoken. Without extra effort, this look commanded that everyone present not make a sound. Qi Zhao turned back around and slowly shut his eyes. His head tilted slightly to the side as though he were listening to something. After a minute, Qi Zhao opened his eyes.

Qi Zhao slanted a somewhat-unwilling look at the tallest mountain and, soon after, softly said, “Head this way!”

Although those behind him wondered why they had suddenly changed direction to head southeast after they’d definitely been walking due east the entire time ⁸ , because of Qi Zhao’s identity and temperament, and also because no one was familiar with the route and wanted to embarrass themselves, everyone felt like they had no better option than to silently follow Qi Zhao.

In the end, Feng Yuan appeared to almost be in a trance, and he didn’t think much about Qi Zhao’s actions. Contrary to this, Zhou Feng’s pupils shrank after Qi Zhao suddenly announced that they were changing direction, and Zhou Feng finally noticed Qi Zhao’s strange mien. Compared to the others, who didn’t know why Qi Zhao had suddenly changed direction, Zhou Feng had a gut feeling: Qi Zhao had heard a snake to the east and changed direction accordingly!

Within the group, the only one who had this thought was Zhou Feng, but Zhou Feng didn’t think that his idea was wrong. For a long time now, Qi Zhao had behaved in all kinds of fishy ways, making Zhou Feng even more convinced that he was right. Zhou Feng had been underground several times, each time more dangerous than the last, and every time Zhou Feng had had a premonition, it had saved his life. Since was still standing here, it could be surmised that most of his premonitions had been accurate. If this were the case, why would Zhou Feng not trust his own gut?

Zhou Feng consciously looked to the side at Feng Yuan’s trance-like expression but didn’t say anything.

After Qi Zhao changed direction the first time, changing the route’s direction became more common to the point where it happened very often. After that first day, the route changed once or twice a day which became five or six times a day. And as time passed, the route changes continuously happened more often, and the people in the team began to become dissatisfied. ‘Yes Qi Zhao, you are the next jialama, the great expert in tomb robbing and the next head of the Qi family, but you also can’t wield these as weapons to toy with us! Changing routes once or twice, we don’t care. Three or four times, we can bear it. But five or six or seven times…what’s up with that?

If you don’t know the way, then stop and discuss what’s happening with everyone, where we’re going. No one is going to blindly follow you! We came here in order to rob the tomb, not have a tour! Not to leisurely wander around the woods ogling the beautiful scenery everyday!’

Actually, Qi Zhao was now even more anxious than the others. Zhou Feng was correct, and Qi Zhao was, indeed, dodging vipers. Everytime he changed course, it was because they would have run into a viper if they had continued on ahead. Qi Zhao absolutely didn’t want to encounter a viper, so he had no choice but to change direction each time.

If someone was looking down from the top of this mountain range, then they would have discovered that the vipers had already formed a circle around the humans so that the humans were trapped within this encirclement Because the vipers were searching the mountain every day, this circle was gradually shrinking and the range in which the humans could operate was decreasing more and more. As a result, Qi Zhao was encountering vipers more and more often, and Zhou Feng and the other team members were forced to change direction more and more frequently.

T/N:

Footnotes

<ol>sentence restructured for clarity 国姓: a type of surname where the clan’s origin is royalty the title 王 or ‘king’ is placed at the end 陕西: prominent in that it’s capital is Chang’an, what is today called Xi’an 周武王: King Wu of Zhou (-1043), personal name Ji Fa, reigned 1046-1043 BC as first king of Western Zhou dynasty 1046-1043 BC 周成王: King Cheng of Zhou (1055-1021 BC), reigned 1042-1021 BC as the 2nd king of Western Zhou, son of King Wu of Zhou restructured for clarity sentence restructured for clarity</ol>