The Bronze Haunted Tomb
An archaeological team discovers an unrecorded Han dynasty tomb in the Kunlun Mountains.
Inside the tomb lie technological artifacts far beyond their time,
and a thousand-year-old jade effigy frozen in the pose of making its final call.
As experts try to decipher the microchip in the effigy’s mouth,
the entire mountain suddenly begins to move,
revealing the true tomb beneath it: a bronze city kept running by some kind of artificial intelligence.
The snowline of the Kunlun Mountains gleamed dazzling white beneath the June sun. The archaeological team’s drill had been roaring for three straight days, boring a two-meter-wide shaft into the frozen earth at an altitude of 4,700 meters. Professor Chen, the team leader, crouched by the hole. Suddenly, the probe in his hand met a strange resistance: not rock, not frozen soil, but something more like dense metal.
“Slowly. Take it slower.” He lowered his voice, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
The drill rod sank inch by inch, then suddenly jammed. The operator scrambled to shut down the machine, and a cloud of bluish-gray dust billowed through the shaft. Professor Chen leaned over to look. When the dust settled, a deep green gleam appeared at the bottom. Bronze. Vast expanses of corroded bronze, with faint outlines of cloud-and-thunder patterns on its surface.
“A Han tomb.” He could barely keep from whispering. “No… This kind of structure has never been recorded…”
When the news reached the foot of the mountain, Mu Xuan was polishing an inkstone in his shop in Shanghai’s old city. His phone vibrated. Professor Chen had sent a photo: the bronze wall exposed beneath the shaft, with some kind of glowing crystal embedded in its patterns. Mu Xuan stared at the picture for a long time. The inkstone slipped from his hand and struck the rosewood table, leaving a white mark.
Three days later,
