Ten Tomb-Robbing Rules: A Dead-End Path

I’m 30 years old, living overseas.

I entered the trade at 16. At 18, my guide and master died in a Yuan-dynasty tomb in Inner Mongolia, and I officially struck out on my own.

I once hid in a Qing-dynasty tomb for fourteen days, drinking nothing but the corpse water in a coffin, just to evade the Lei Zi searching everywhere for me.

I also once took seventeen cuts from a fellow tomb raider over a pool of water in Lop Nur.

While moving goods in Xianggang, I had a gun pointed at my head and was forced to hand over twenty-three prized porcelain cups for nothing.

In Kekexili, our car sank into quicksand. Wrapped in yellow sheep hides, we trekked more than two hundred kilometers on foot and escaped with our lives.

Over twelve years of tomb raiding and twelve years of life, I experienced far too many things.

At 28, I sold my last burial artifact, flew abroad from Pudong, and left the trade for good, escaping unscathed.

In this book, I’ll write about some of my experiences. I also want to take this opportunity to warn you all: tomb raiding leads only to a dead end!

Some names, places, and dates in this book have been changed. Please do not assume they refer to real people or events.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.