The Secret Chronicles of the Buried Dragon

A Photograph, Four Skeletons

In March 2018, on the southern slopes of Changbai Mountain in Jilin Province, a geological survey team discovered a sinkhole on the outskirts of an abandoned military exclusion zone after a rare spring blizzard. The collapse revealed an opening about two meters in diameter, with no visible bottom. Team leader Chen shone his flashlight down and glimpsed what appeared to be stonework below.

“It doesn’t look like a natural cave,” Chen reported to headquarters over the radio.

After receiving approval, Chen and two team members descended on climbing ropes. The shaft was about fifteen meters deep. At the bottom was a man-made stone chamber measuring roughly twenty square meters, its walls marked with obvious chisel marks. A stone table stood in the center, with a notebook wrapped in oilcloth resting on top. Beside it sat four skeletons arranged in a circle. Their clothes had long since rotted away, but the remnants suggested they were dressed in the style of the 1950s or 60s.

The strangest thing was that all four skeletons faced the table, their hand bones resting on its edge, as if they were waiting for something.

Chen put on gloves and carefully opened the notebook. The first page was written in traditional characters:

“In the winter of 1958, we found a way into the ‘Land of the Sleeping Dragon.’ But we made a mistake: we were neither the first nor the last. If you find this notebook, do not go any farther. What lies below is not a tomb. It is alive.”

A black-and-white photograph was tucked between the pages. It showed seven young people standing before a huge stone stele carved with illegible writing. On the back, someone had written in pen:

“The Seven Stars of the Northern Sect buried the dragon here. Autumn, 1961.”