Joining a Group

"Oh, young man, so young, what's there to think about."

I wiped my tears and looked back and froze, wasn't this the old man who showed me the way in Panjiayuan yesterday?

This is the same old man who told me that the stall at the Temple of the Press didn't cost anything.

"Young man, I've noticed you since you came to Panjiayuan yesterday to sell your stuff, if I guessed right, was the money stolen?"

The old man was dressed in a casual suit, with some white hair at the temples, and looked very spry.

Not thinking much about it at the time, I nodded with red eyes, I said my money from the sale had been stolen and I didn't want to live.

He shook his head and laughed lightly, "How much money did you lose, young man?"

I said I had lost over four thousand dollars.

"Huh," she laughed and gave me a finger.

"You call four thousand dollars money? You work with me, and in just this amount of time, I'll make you twenty thousand dollars."

Staring dumbly at his one finger, I asked, "How long? A year?"

The old man shook his head.

"A month?"

He shook his head again.

"A week??"

"Haha, no kidding, a minute! A few thousand dollars in a minute if you're quick on the uptake!"

I thought it was unbelievable, I thought this guy was a trafficker and wanted me to sell my kidney.

I wouldn't sell a kidney, I'm fine if I'm going to die, if I live and sell my kidney, I've heard people say that I'll never have children and my wife will have to cuckold me.

He left a message and turned around and left.

"Young man, if you want to make a name for yourself and drive home in style, then come with me, if you still want to die for that chicken money, then don't come and prove that I've misjudged you."

Yes, four thousand dollars, an astronomical amount to my family living in poverty, was chicken feathers to him.

This man, the master who brought me into the business.

The way to make his fortune in his line of work was grave robbing.

If the door is locked a thousand times, there must be a king or a prince living here.

From the moment I followed him down the footbridge, I was in the business.

I learned soon after I joined the industry that what the old man said was true, a few thousand is chicken feathers, that is, you can earn it in minutes.

Have you all often heard of the four major schools of tomb raiding?

The gold-digging school, the mountain-moving daoist, the unloading rider, and the hairy general.

In fact, the real situation is not like this, these sects have long disappeared in the long history, now the inverted fighting is probably divided into two factions.

They are the Northern School and the Southern School.

Some people also jokingly call them the bold faction and the timid faction.

The northern faction is bold and wild, with a Luoyang shovel in their hands, they dare to dig anything, but one thing is that they are not good at digging water holes, especially in the southern areas of Hunan, Guizhou and Zhejiang, where the water holes are dry for a thousand years, wet for ten thousand years, and not dry or wet for half a year, and the water holes are very difficult, and people need to have water monkeys with that kind of water, and the water holes are too deep, and they also need professional air cylinder diving equipment.

Not to brag, the northern faction is basically dry ducks, the ground bully, underwater is really not play.

Many of the Southerners are family types, dads with sons, grandfathers with grandchildren, and generally rarely take fire with outsiders they don't know, so they are known as the timid faction, which of course is done to prevent blackmail.

This is not an exaggeration to say that there are many different kinds of people in this business, but there are also those who are really good at it.

There are also those amateurs who dare to dig graves with a hoe, and they die the quickest and are the ones who get caught the most.

Those who are in the regular army are rarely caught.

I'll give an overview.

In a gang of six tomb raiders, the one who gets the most money is the eye man, which means to look at tombs and find them.

There is also the rice seller, which is the code name of the industry, rice means money, some regions are also called the seller, this person is responsible for pouring up the things to cash, doing this especially requires contacts, south to north, they all have their own circle network, especially to ensure that one thing, the things sold can not be traced.

At the back, there are the earthworkers who are responsible for drilling the holes, a job that depends on experience.

The earthworker, who has to have a good ear, should not be underestimated, and it is important that a big job can be done, as well as the release of the wind.

There is also a job is the logistics office, the logistics office is usually a person, this person does not go down the pit, only responsible for equipment replacement purchase.

This is to reduce the number of people exposed, so as not to reveal their identity.

Finally, there is another job, called scattering soil.

The job I did when I first joined the industry was scattering soil.

The amount of money that you get is minimal, but even if you get the least amount of money, you still earn more than a part-time worker.

The more popular you are, the better. I was chosen because of my popular face.

Who would have nothing better to do than to pay attention to a 16 or 17 year old kid every day? What's wrong with that?

On the other hand, if you're too handsome or too ugly, you won't be able to do the job and there's a chance you'll be spotted before the dirt in your pockets is dispersed.

Carry a little at a time, pretend to walk your dog and scatter the grave dirt down your trouser leg without leaving a trace.

Sneak a penny afterwards and no one will notice us.

The old man who brought me into the profession was called Wang Xiansheng, known in the trade as Wang Shoutou, who was rumoured to have touched thousands of tombs in his lifetime, from the Warring States period to the Qin dynasty, from the Song dynasty to the Ming and Qing dynasties, and basically all of them.

There are two tombs that people in the profession love the most, one is the Han tomb and the other is the Western Zhou.

The reason is simple: bronze and antique jade are very valuable, and it is often said that nine out of ten Han tombs are empty, which is true.

The Western Zhou tombs are even more impressive.

If you were lucky enough to find a Western Zhou tomb full of bronze artefacts, then congratulations, your children and grandchildren will not have to work.

Again, the Western Zhou tombs were the deepest ever buried in the dynasties, and it was only after Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms that the Shi Huang Mausoleum was built, and only since then did sealed mounds of earth become popular.

Mountains and rivers change.

Where the Great Tomb of the Western Zhou, which is generally more than fifteen metres underground, has no sealing mound, it is not easy to find and even worse to dig.

On the surface, the authorities prohibit the sale of bronzes, but we all know by heart where all those bronzes on the TV treasure hunting programme came from.

Less than one percent of the total number of bronzes have been handed down, so did the rest pop up on their own?

The sources are all the same, they all flow out of our line of work.

The first job I did, in Shunde, was when Wang took me away from North|Jing and told me not to contact the outside world in the near future.

The job was a Western Zhou tomb, and because there was a serious shortage of manpower, I was selected by Wang to do the scattering work, and I was the youngest member of the group.

When I arrived in Shunde, Wang threw me a thousand yuan, saying that this was a rule, a bonus for joining the industry, and he told me to spend it as I pleased, saying that it was okay to find a sister to play with.

I was just a little bit more, so I didn't dare to find a sister, but I couldn't spend much money on food and drinks.

I ate Shunde's water snake soup, four cups of chicken, fried fish cakes, Junan steamed pork and so on, all very delicious.

After two days in Shunde, Wang called me and said, "Yunfeng, it's time to do something tonight, how about it? Are you ready? Have you remembered all that I taught you?"

I nodded and said, "Yes, no scattering of soil at dawn, no scattering of soil with cars, no scattering of soil in the park, no scattering of soil with crowds."

The head of the group nodded in satisfaction, and he asked me again, "Then I ask you, where are you going to disperse?"

After thinking about it, I told him, "Back to the head of the handle, by the construction site, in the demolition house, in the woods, in the garden."

"Haha, not bad, I haven't taught you these yet, not bad, not bad, have the aura."

"Be smart, follow us well and I'll make you the richest man in your village within two years, got it?"

With a happy face, I immediately nodded my head and said yes.

That night in the hostel, four more people came one after another, three men and one woman in total.

The woman was in charge of our logistics, in her thirties, with a bit of a flirtatious smile and a black mole under her eye, and a nickname in the trade, a mole, which I later heard others say was a mole whose goal was to have slept with enough men for a hundred by the time she was forty.

"Yo yo yo yo, here comes another newcomer, this is too small, just don't know

"All right, all right, Xiaohong you should not scare him, this child is small, has aura, cultivate for two years may become a talent," Wang handle head helped me to relieve the situation.

The three men were brothers, all surnamed Sun, in order of age, they were the oldest, the second and the third.

They are known for their ability to play with a Luoyang shovel and their ability to detect earth with a flying needle, especially in deep pits.

The first impression I got from this man was that he was calm and honest. I only learned later that the more honest a person is on the surface, the more resourceful he is in his heart, with his eyes on all directions and ears on all directions.

There is a small ravine to the southwest of Shunde's Shunfeng Mountain Park, called Moth Hill by the locals, and the old man said that the big pit was halfway up the hill from Moth Hill.

I asked him at the time, "Putou, how do you know there is a big pit halfway up the mountain."

The old man spat out a smoke ring, squinted his eyes and told me, "Yunfeng, the lock is cut across the fence, clearly living on both sides, high mountains and flat caves, big pits buried in the middle."

I was so confused, I felt that Wang Zhuotou was talking in a roundabout way and I couldn't understand it at all.

Later, after I had memorised the burial scriptures, Wang Zhuotou passed on his experience in dragon pointing to me, and it was only then that I realised that these four short sentences of Wang Zhuotou's really told me all about the feng shui advantages of Moth Mountain.

That night, after one o'clock in the morning, a few of us arrived at the halfway point of Moth Mountain with our big bags on our backs.

Looking at an old cedar tree, the old leader stomped his foot and said excitedly, "Lao Er Lao San, this is it, take a sample first and taste the salt, if there are stones then put down the needle!"

Sun Lao Er nodded as he pressed the small walkie-talkie on his shoulder, "Boss, ready for dinner, no guests around, right?"

The red light on the walkie-talkie lit up and came the low voice of Boss Sun, "The wind is calm, let's fire up and cook."

Knowing that there was no one around, a glint of excitement flashed in Sun Lao Er's eyes.

He took off his rucksack and took out of it a small short stick and finally a curved-headed half-round shovel.

Wang Zuotou said to me, "Yunfeng, this is what we need to eat, now the times are advancing, we have to keep up with the times, ah, Luoyang shovel made into a cut-off casing, put it in the bag, no one will be able to tell."

Ka ka ka ka, Sun Lao Er skillfully picked up the Luoyang shovel, and the one shovel that was picked up was very long, eight metres away.

"Second Brother, this is a deep pit, is this long enough? Not enough I have more in my bag," asked Sun Laosan.

"Lao-san don't panic, it won't juggle any longer, we just have to see first

"Yunfeng, come here, help me hold it," Sun Lao Er waved at me.

I ran over to help him hold the Luoyang shovel, and then Sun Lao Er unzipped his trousers, pulled out his little brother in front of me, and began to release the water with a clatter.

When he finished draining, he shivered and pushed up his trousers.

Squatting down, Sun Lao Er stared at the water release for a moment, then he frowned, "No, this

"Little Yunfeng, just under the foot you're standing on, you put the bubbling water in now."

Although confused, I did as I was told, so I began to let the water out with a clatter.

"Oh," said Sun Lao Er with a smile, "this youngster is just fiery and strong! Look at this yellow urine."

He stared at the ground where I was draining for two minutes, and Sun Lao Er nodded, "That's the spot.

He had so much strength in his hands that he could go down ten centimetres with one shovel, and the Luoyang shovel kept bringing soil out.

Halfway down the shovel, I noticed that the colour of the soil had changed, turning a little darker.

I asked, "Second Brother, look, the mud has turned black, has it reached the ground?"

"It's early, this black soil is not what we want, it's a rotten tree root fertilising layer, no hanging use."

The smaller holes poked deeper and deeper.

"Shit, that's bull, not enough pole, Lao San! Lengthen it!"

As the pole lengthened, the Luoyang shovel continued to probe down.

An hour later, the shovel brought out a layer of white soil, white soil

Sun Lao Er took his nose and sniffed the soil and suddenly became violently excited.

"Grass! King's head! This Yun Feng kid is a blessing! It's been two years since I've seen a big pit like this!"

"A shovel hit the rammed earth layer, white paste mud attached to green paste mud!"

"Either he's a Western Zhou nobleman! Or a minor vassal king!"

"We're going to be rich!"

"Shh! Keep your voice down, Second Brother," warned Sun Laosan with a frown.

But Sun Lao Er looked unconcerned as he waved his hand, "It's mostly because I haven't seen a green belt white for a few years, so I hope it's a new pot."

A new pot meant that the tomb had not been robbed before and was fresh, so that once in a while you could make a fortune.

Even if it's a leftover pot, if there are still two pieces of meat in it, we haven't come here for nothing."

"This is a Western Zhou pit, what if a four-goat square or a bronze blood earthenware jar comes out of it?"

"Haha, you're the one who dares to think, if something like that really comes out, we wouldn't dare to sell it, we'd be investigated to death." After Sun Lao Er said this, he pressed the intercom again and said, "Boss, the head of the eye said that there is a four-goat square dun in this tomb, do you have a way to sell it?"

The red light on the intercom came on and a radio tone came through.

"Fangzun my ass! I don't want to get shot yet, get to work!"

The Sun brothers were famous on the road, relying on real skills in their hands, and with this shovel of earth structure, they could probably picture it in their minds

Because of the age of the tomb, there are usually cave-ins in such tombs, so to dig in a straight line to the main chamber with your eyes closed is basically a pipe dream, and you may end up digging further and further out of the way, and eventually passing by the burial goods.

So it was safest to dig down to the top of the tomb and then choose whether to go to the ear chamber or the main chamber.

With the oldest two and the third all on board, accompanied by a whirlwind shovel to start digging, it was time for me to get out on the job.

My job was to scatter the soil, but not all the soil, otherwise the hole would have been over ten metres deep and I would not have been able to carry all that soil.

The soil that matched the colour of the surrounding soil was basically scattered in situ and was basically invisible, but I was responsible for scattering the soil that had been dug up from the rammed earth layers, just the white and green soil.

Because the green paste mud and the white paste mud were mixed with the soil, the difference in colour was too obvious, so I needed to scatter this part of the soil around, not leaving any trace of it in situ.

There were people farming everywhere in the mountains, so the green and white soil brought up by the whirlwind shovel could not be thrown away, so I had to pile it up to one side and dispose of it when it was almost daylight.

"Yunfeng, find a good place to pile it up first, don't be stupid and put it in someone's field."

"Don't worry, Second Brother, I know."

There wasn't much green and white soil, so I took seven or eight small bags out of my backpack and piled them up a little bit apart.

"Ugh?"

At this moment, Sun Lao Er was in the dirt pit and the whirlwind shovel in his hand suddenly stopped.

"Lao Er, what's wrong?" The eye handle head asked from above.

"Look," he said as he reached down and grabbed a handful of soil, "the further down you go, the wetter it gets, this is not a good sign, it's not guaranteed

Wang Zhuo head frowned: "Puddles? It can't be that bad. ..... You try twenty centimeters down."

Sun Lao Er nodded and started digging down again.

"Second brother, you can't go down! This

"There's water in the tomb passage, even if we fight down, the robber hole will be soaked by the water! It won't stand up at all!"

The head of the eye handle couldn't help but burst out with a foul mouth, "Fuck, didn't count on this, Second and Third come up first, we don't have enough time to touch the water hole."

The Sun brothers threw up the spinning shovel first, and then climbed up with their legs stretched over the hole.

"Put the head, I dare to guarantee that if we hit a metre and a half down, we will definitely see the dunking!"

The top of the tomb was a stone tomb, and the top of a brick tomb in the Ming and Qing dynasties was called a coupon.

Sun Lao Er lit a cigarette, he looked at the dug hole he had dug, squinted his eyes and said, "Put the head, we've come this far, should we put up a fight?"

"What do you mean, Lao Er?"

He flicked his cigarette ash and said in a cold voice, "Tell a mole to send over the compression water pump and the small generator."

Immediately, Wang Zhuo head shook his head and said, "Pumping water? It's too risky, it's not raining at this time of year, and judging by the temperature here in Shunde, the pit won't freeze, if we can't finish pumping the water in two hours, we'll all be finished when it's light.

"Second Brother, I also agree with the head of the tomb, it is certain that there is water in the tunnel, and if there is too much water, one pump alone will not be able to finish it." Sun Laosan frowned and voiced his thoughts.

"Then what the fuck do we do, a pot of fatty touch to eat!"

Wang Zhuotou stroked his chin for a moment, then he suddenly turned to me and asked, "Yunfeng, what do you think? Should we take our men off the mountain or continue to work?"

The two brothers also turned their heads to look at me.

"Huh?"

I was squatting on the ground, dividing the earth, when I didn't expect him to ask me suddenly.

After thinking about it, I spoke up then.

"Put the head, I want to earn money."

"Incisive!" Sun Lao Er laughed and said, "Those who are brave will die of hunger and those who are timid will die of hunger.

When the red light on the intercom came on, the head of the eye immediately said, "Contact a mole, tell her to send the stuff over within an hour, one minute later, the money will be one point less for her afterwards."

Soldiers are quick.

This was the first time I had seen the organisational skills of the logistics office, and in less than an hour, a water pump and a small generator were sent to the ground for us on time.

As soon as the water pump arrived, Sun Lao Er rolled up his trouser legs and went straight down the robber hole with a shovel, followed by a constant flow of mud from

A few minutes later, all we heard was Sun Lao Er shouting from under the pit.

"Crap! Big water is coming up!"

He had just come up and the underground water had already submerged most of the robber hole.

After connecting the generator and the pipes, Wang Zhuotou threw the pump directly into the robber hole.

We were lucky enough that the water didn't take long for the pump to come down, and it didn't soak the hole that had just been made.

After the head of the eye put the pump away, he said, "Lao Er, put the needle straight down and punch the top of the hole through!"

The "needle" was a special kind of pointed breaking tool in the tomb raiding business, with a diamond tip, specially designed to cut through the top of the dome, which was very powerful.

The sound of chiseling stones came from under the robber's hole.

Sun Lao Er's voice then came, "Put the head! It's through!"

Immediately the eye handle head had a smile on his face, he looked at the time and said, "The pumping delayed a lot, Yunfeng, you go down too, one more person and one more pair of hands, hurry up and take as much as you can."

I was stunned, so I asked him, "Head, you can't run the wind? What if

Yunfeng, think about it, if the tomb is well sealed, can it still be filled with so much water?"

"Don't worry.

I then took my headlamp with me and went down the burrow for the first time in my life.

The top of the irrigation was broken open by Sun Lao Er, and I stretched my legs on both sides of the robber hole and descended a little.

The top of the dunk was far enough away to dare to jump down.

There was still some standing water in the tomb passage, which could flood one's calves, and the two Sun brothers were standing in the water.

"Jump, Yunfeng, it's not much higher! We'll prop you up later!" Sun Lao Er, with his headlamp, looked up and shouted to me.

Immediately, I jumped with a silent prayer of God's blessing in my heart, only to fall unsteadily and drink a large mouthful of water from the tomb passage.

"Yunfeng, you need to practise later, look at your thin arms and legs, are you alright?" Sun Lao Er laughed and helped me up.

This tomb passage was in the shape of a cross, our current position was in the middle, there were bends to the left and right in front of us, connecting the east and west ear chambers, straight ahead was the main tomb chamber.

Sun Lao Er laughed as he threw his hands back, "We're lucky the tomb passage didn't collapse, looking at the style of the system, it's still a vassal from the early middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, this level, there must be a sealing stone in the main chamber in front of us, if it had collapsed, we wouldn't have had to work hard, even if the sealing stone was still there, it doesn't matter, Lao San has a knack for this kind of thing."

"Isn't that right Lao-san?"

"You're too kind, Second Brother," said Sun Lao San, staring into the darkness ahead of him, "I can still open a sealed door under three tons, as long as there's no topping stone inside."

To touch the main chamber first, then to the east and west ear chambers, that was our plan at the time.

We three tripped forward through the water.

Just then, something red floated over the water ahead.

"This ..... What's this?" Sun Laosan fished the thing out of the water.

Spreading it out, this rushed over from the main chamber in front of him, but it was a modern pink towel .... And the towel also had the brand logo printed on it.

Seeing this towel, the Sun brothers' faces were very ugly.

When Sun Lao San raised his head, the headlamp illuminated the top of the irrigation.

Seeing very clearly, at the northwest corner of the irrigation roof, there was a small hole that had been punched straight down, and the stone irrigation roof around the small hole was cracked, a dense crack.

"Grass!" Sun Lao Er threw away the towel in his hand as soon as he could.

He looked at the small hole in the top of the grout and said, "This was fucking pounded down by the percussion drill, there was originally explosives in it, the bastards didn't have the vajra needle, they wanted to blow up the grout! This towel is to block the small hole to reduce the movement of the explosion!"

"This Western Zhou tomb has been touched by someone!"

"It must have been the gang from the south, we've wasted so much effort!"

"It's a shoe picker! It has been found! "