Chapter 138: Arrow of Life and Death

Zhang Qinglin pressed against the corpse's neck, pushing it back as he shouted, "The Underworld won't accept you, get out of here!"

Zhang Qinglin gripped his long saber and slashed hard at the corpse's neck, but it caused no damage at all; it only made the creature grow even more ferocious.

The corpse grabbed Zhang Qinglin by the wrist holding the weapon, hoisted him up, and slammed him down onto the ground.

Zhang Qinglin hit the floor heavily, and the saber flew out of his hand.

With a hideous expression on its face, the corpse leaned over to grab Zhang Qinglin once more. At that very moment, Cheng Che quickly scrambled up, retrieved a broken sword from the skeleton, and thrust it toward the corpse.

The corpse swept its arm out and batted Cheng Che aside, then turned its ferocious face back toward Zhang Qinglin on the ground, drawing closer step by step.

Suddenly, rapid footsteps rushed in from behind Zhang Qinglin, leaping forward with a long stride to place himself right before him.

Zhang Qinglin saw Hu Geming holding a black donkey's hoof, locking eyes with the corpse. The moment the corpse opened its mouth, Hu Geming swiftly shoved the donkey's hoof right into it. The corpse instantly froze in its tracks, its head shaking from side to side.

Hu Geming spun around, running back the way he had come while yelling at the top of his lungs, "Stop standing there like idiots, that trick won't hold it for long, run!"

Zhang Qinglin scrambled up from the ground, cast one glance at the immobilized corpse, and together with Cheng Che, sprinted like mad in Hu Geming's wake toward the end of the tomb tunnel.

To the left at the end of the tunnel lay yet another passageway. Hu Geming led Zhang Qinglin and Cheng Che toward a grand hall he had previously discovered.

Bai Weiwei and the others were resting by a pile of fallen rocks near the hall, while Wu Guangen and his subordinates sat opposite them.

When Jiang Xinyue saw Zhang Qinglin and Cheng Che return safe and sound, a heavy stone finally dropped from her heart, and a smile instantly bloomed across her face.

Bai Weiwei looked over at them, relieved to see they were unhurt, and picked up her canteen to take a sip of water.

After scouting the surrounding area, Hu Geming returned to report that the location was temporarily safe, and they paused there to catch their breath.

Following the fierce battle with the corpse, Cheng Che had sustained an injury to his shoulder, and Jiang Xinyue was currently tending to his wound.

Zhang Qinglin sat to one side, touching his chest as he stared across at Wu Guangen. Then, recalling the note Bai Weiwei had given him, he unfolded it once more. What secret was hidden within the bronze fish coin?

Bai Weiwei walked over and sat beside Zhang Qinglin. "What are you thinking about? Have you discovered something special about this fish coin?"

Keeping his eyes fixed on Wu Guangen, Zhang Qinglin shifted his gaze to Bai Weiwei upon hearing her voice and replied, "I find it all very strange. There are so many things I can't figure out, like how Wu Guangen managed to find us.

And who on earth was that skeleton? Why did it come looking for my father carrying a bronze fish coin? What do those two sentences on the note mean?"

Bai Weiwei cast a dismissive glance at Wu Guangen before turning back to Zhang Qinglin. "It seems the bronze fish coin might have other uses. Ancient currency, especially bronze coins, is something I studied for a period of time. Fish-shaped coins are quite rare, even exceptionally so, among ancient monies.

This type of fish coin is not only confirmed by archaeological excavations, but ancient texts also bear traces of it.

In the *Book of Changes*, under the Hexagram *Pi*, it is recorded: 'Threading fish for the palace women; favored, and all is auspicious.'

Gao Heng's commentary explains that 'threading' means stringing them together.

'Threading fish' means they are arranged in sequence one after another without skipping over anyone, metaphorically representing people having an established order. The line of the oracle text means the ruler arranges the palace women in a sequential order like threaded fish, bestowing favor upon them in turn by the evening roster. Thus, the palace women would not fight for favor, grow jealous, or undermine one another, leading to no ill fortune.

Later, this came to refer to attending the ruler in sequential order without favoritism.

As for the character for 'threading'...

Naturally, in later times, the word also became a unit of currency, as in a string of one thousand copper coins.

Once you understand the meaning of 'threading,' when the King used 'threading fish with palace women' as a token, he wouldn't have been using live fish directly; instead, he used these 'money cowries' in the form of copper fish."

As for the bronze fish coin, the one he currently held was only the second he had ever seen.

Prior to this, Uncle Jiang had received an identical bronze fish coin. Uncle Jiang had said that coin was stolen from a tomb between the Huai and Yellow Rivers.

Could this bronze fish coin now be from the exact same place? What kind of connection existed between them?

As Zhang Qinglin pondered this, he heard Bai Weiwei say, "In other words, the copper fish coins were strung together and arranged in order. A certain copper fish represented a certain palace woman, and the king would take turns visiting them in order by the roster, bestowing favor upon them, leading to good fortune in all things.

Of course, if the king had used real fish and kept them in his bedchamber, it would not only have reeked and ruined the king's desires, but once they rotted, how could they serve as a token year after year?

In fact, not only did the Zhou dynasty use copper fish coins for ordering, but fortune-tellers today still frequently use copper coins to divine destinies. The underlying meaning is entirely the same."

Using copper fish to represent sequence reflected how, during the Western Zhou period, the first centralized bureaucratic system of state governance emerged across the land.

The King of Zhou was the "common lord" of all states. But by the Eastern Zhou, the Zhou royal court had lost all its influence. In the end, it was just like big fish eating small fish, with large vassal states swallowing smaller ones.

This ultimately formed the geopolitical landscape of the Seven Warring States, before they were finally unified by the most powerful state of Qin.

Zhang Qinglin looked at the bronze fish coin in his hand and said, "Weiwei, are you saying this bronze fish coin is very likely related to some ancient form of ranking sequence, or perhaps symbolizes some deeper meaning?"

Bai Weiwei steadied herself and said, "Whether this fish coin is currency or something else entirely, I can't say for certain.

However, I have looked into relevant materials. In our country's totems, fish and fish patterns symbolize numerous offspring, harvests, and wealth.

The word for fish shares a homophone with 'surplus' in the phrase 'abundance year after year,' representing an auspicious fish.

Totemic fish were frequently mentioned in ancient times and rarely in modern times.

Yet people still revere and love fish, viewing them as mascots that embody blessings, prosperity, and strength.

Therefore, fish-shaped coins might not only have been created as substitutes for real fish by ancients who wished to imbue them with beautiful meanings and expectations for life and existence.

Because of their antiquity and rarity, they are draped in an extra layer of mystery.

Oh, that reminds me. I read in an ancient text that an ancient tribe once observed astronomical phenomena through the Five Elements, careful not to leak the heavenly secrets. The navigational tools they used were none other than bronze fish coins. These five bronze fish coins were smelted from a special grade of bronze.

Later, the people of that tribe placed special spirit pearls in the eyes of the fish, which could interact with the external environment and generate a certain magnetic resonance with weather changes, thereby achieving the ability to observe the skies, determine directions, and measure the cosmos.

However, those five bronze fish coins were eventually lost. Legend has it that if one gathers all five bronze fish coins, finds the ruins of that tribe, and sets up the divination board once more, one can obtain whatever they desire."

Set up the divination board for navigation? The bronze fish coin actually possessed such a function; this came as quite a surprise to Zhang Qinglin.

At that moment, Wu Guangen, sitting opposite them, sneered, "Miss Bai, I must say, the stories you make up are quite fascinating.

The bronze fish coin, to put it bluntly, was just currency used by ancients for trade. If it had any special purpose, it was merely ritual implements used for mysterious rites by some tribe in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

I actually feel like I've seen this thing somewhere before. Hey kid, hand me that bronze fish coin you've got so I can take a look. Maybe I can uncover the mystery inside."

Bai Weiwei glared at Wu Guangen, eyeing his smug and complacent expression, then turned her head to whisper to Zhang Qinglin beside her, "He's my brother's man. Don't give him this thing under any circumstances, don't believe a single word he says, and just ignore him altogether."

Cheng Che walked over and chimed in, "Old Zhang, don't believe a word he says."

Bai Weiwei continued, "Little Lin, everything I just told you is backed by documentary evidence. If this really is connected to your father, then things are getting rather serious."

Zhang Qinglin asked, "What are you trying to say?"

"The note and the bronze fish coin found on the skeleton point to two possibilities. One is, exactly as the note says, that the person was supposed to deliver this bronze fish coin to your father, but was killed before he could ever meet him.

The second possibility is that the man likely *did* meet your father, but ran into danger before he could pass along the message. Your father might not have made it out either, so..." Bai Weiwei swept her gaze elsewhere and continued, "Regardless of whether these two possibilities match what we think, the most crucial thing right now is to find the main tomb chamber."

Cheng Che said, "That's easy to say, but right now we don't even know where we are."

Zhang Qinglin put away the bronze fish coin and looked around the surroundings. "My father definitely came here. The arrow mark discovered in the subterranean river cave was left behind by him, and I found the same arrows in the tunnel just now."

With these words, Zhang Qinglin stood up and walked over to the stone pillars.

Cheng Che hurried over as well and said, "In other words, Uncle Zhang and the others came here and left a trail. If we just follow the arrows, won't we be able to get out?"

Zhang Qinglin walked around to the front of the stone pillar, shook his head, and said, "The arrows left by my father don't necessarily point the way out. Remember when we went back to the old house, and I found a notebook my father left behind? It had many different types of arrows drawn in it. Those with three horizontal lines in the middle, where the lines with hooks pointed in the same direction as the main arrow, meant to keep moving forward. The ones where the middle line had a hook pointing in the reverse direction of the main arrow meant to turn back, indicating the path we came in by.

However, every single arrow here has two horizontal lines with hooks in the middle, which means to keep walking straight ahead."

Zhang Qinglin stroked the animal-face patterns carved onto the stone pillar, then looked up at the very top, where a creature resembling a fire bird stood perched, facing the massive stone doors in front of the stone steps.

"Keep walking straight? Does that mean Uncle Zhang and the others just kept wandering around this tomb without finding a way out? Old Zhang, you've got to be kidding me," Cheng Che blurted out in astonishment.

Zhang Qinglin's gaze remained locked on the fire bird's beak. The beak looked somewhat strange; it held a round stone within it, and upon closer inspection, patterns were carved onto that spherical stone.

He sighed and said, "I have no reason to joke with you about this. Chi Tan, bring the flashlight over."

Chi Tan trotted over to Zhang Qinglin's side and handed him the flashlight. Cheng Che also stepped up to stand beside Zhang Qinglin, and the three of them simultaneously shone their lights upward at the top of the stone pillar.

Under the illumination of the flashlight beam, the stone fire bird's stony eyeballs seemed to twitch.

Cheng Che rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the fire bird's eyes showed nothing unusual.

Zhang Qinglin realized that the fire bird on the stone pillar bore an extreme resemblance to the mythical bird named Bifang recorded in the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*. The text described the Bifang bird as resembling a crane, but with only a single leg, its entire body covered in red markings, cyan in color, and possessing a white beak. Once the Bifang bird cried out, a strange fire would inevitably break out.

What baffled Zhang Qinglin was that ancient tombs typically had divine beasts carved on their doors to suppress spirits and ward off evil. If it were a bird, it should have been the Vermilion Bird or a phoenix. What kind of divine beast was this before them?

Zhang Qinglin swept the flashlight beam toward the side stone wall. Near the edge of the stone door, an arrow pointing sideways emerged within the beam of light. Zhang Qinglin walked up to it, reached out to touch it, and leaned in close to inspect it, a massive question mark forming in his mind. The arrow had two horizontal lines in the middle, but the hook pointed in the *reverse* direction—it did not lead inward through the stone door. What did this arrow signify then?

Could it be that his father had encountered danger and carved it incorrectly?

While Zhang Qinglin was lost in thought, Hu Geming came running over from another tomb entrance with a panicked expression. "That corpse is coming this way, quickly find a place to hide!"

Everyone immediately sprang to their feet. Wu Guangen and his subordinate also darted toward the side of the stone door.

Heavy footsteps echoed in a steady progression. Instantly, all eyes turned toward the tunnel entrance on the left.

Jiang Xinyue stood beside Zhang Qinglin with her hands clamped over her mouth. Her eyes flickered as if she had caught sight of something terrifying, and she suddenly jumped and let out a scream.

At that moment, the approaching corpse heard the scream, twisted its hideous face, and strode directly toward Zhang Qinglin and his group.

Zhang Qinglin covered Jiang Xinyue's mouth, turned his head to look back at the arrow on the stone wall once more.

Hu Geming shouted, "Get out of the way!"

Just as the corpse lunged forward, Zhang Qinglin shoved Jiang Xinyue, grabbed Bai Weiwei by the side, and yelled to Cheng Che, "Over here, follow me!"

The group ran after Zhang Qinglin toward the right. Bursting into the right-hand tunnel, Zhang Qinglin spotted another arrow, next to which was a cave entrance—the arrow pointed directly inside. Clutching his flashlight tightly, Zhang Qinglin strode in.

Wu Guangen followed closely behind, muttering, "This damn thing doesn't look like a proper path at all."

Cheng Che retorted, "Then don't follow us, go find your own way out."

As Zhang Qinglin walked forward, the passage, standing a little over a meter high, was hardly easy to navigate. The soles of their feet crunched over numerous gravel stones, grinding out a continuous series of rustling sounds.