A Tomb Raider's Account: Shadows of the Returning Ruins

My name is Lu Chenzhou.

Many years ago, people in the trade called me “Lu Three Lamps.”

Every time I entered a tomb, I lit three lamps:

One to honor the dead,

one to honor the living,

and the last to honor my own life, which would sooner or later be lost underground.

I was born in an obscure village on the borderlands of western Hunan. My grandfather was a famous tomb raider known far and wide, but my father died in an ancient tomb with no name. Before my mother died, she told me that once the men of the Lu family set foot among the things underground, there was no turning back.

I didn't believe her.

Not until I was twenty-two, when I went into my first tomb with an old tomb raider named Chen the Lame to pay off my debts.

There was no gold or treasure in that tomb, only a bronze coffin, a black lamp that would never go out, and a tomb brick engraved with my father's name.

That was when I learned that three generations of the Lu family hadn't raided tombs for money.

They had been searching for something all along.

A key said to open the “Ancient Kingdom of Guixu.”

And my father hadn't died back then.

He had simply been taken underground.