Chapter 37: Alive or Dead?

  I stood in front of my grandfather's coffin, looking at the black and white photos of him placed on the mourning hall, with an indescribable feeling in my heart.

  My grandfather's name is Han Gengyan, a native of Fengtian born in 1904. He experienced many events throughout his life, including the Beiyang warlord era, the ten-year civil war and the Anti-Japanese War.

  Han Geng was born into a family of scholars, his father being a well-known scholar in the area at that time. His father always taught Han Geng to be familiar with poetry and literature so that he could bring honor to their ancestors, but Han Geng had no interest in them whatsoever. On the contrary, he spent most of his days playing pranks and fighting with kids of his age group, earning him the title of "King of Kids" in the area.

  In 1920, with the fall of the Qing dynasty, Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, and after Yuan's death, the Beiyang warlords became a mess, each occupying one side. Han Gengyan was not a peaceful master to begin with, so he joined the warlord, coincidentally it was the Fengtian clique that was being strongly supported at that time. This also determined the father's death. The old father who didn't like marching and fighting but loved poetry and songs saw his own son join the warlord, how could he swallow this breath, with sorrow he passed away.

  Han Geng was quite famous in the small detachment under the Fengtian warlord at that time. At that time, many of those who joined the Fengtian warlord were young men from Fengtian, and most of them had been bullied by Han Geng. When Han Geng first joined the Fengtian warlord, he was also very unwelcome. The officer in charge of the small detachment was very enthusiastic about welcoming the local tyrant when he came to join.

  As the war broke out in various places, although the Fengtian warlord had Japan's support behind it, some troops' military pay was not delivered on time, forcing Chinese people to "rob tombs" to make ends meet. For the warlords who were once prosperous, the two words "rob tombs" became "borrowing from the dead", which, although sounding somewhat unpleasant, solved the pressing problem at that time.

  Han Geng was in a troop that happened to receive an order to go to a nameless mountain to "borrow money".

  Deep in the night, at the foot of a nameless great mountain!!

  "Zhang, where are we going to dig a grave?" Han Geng scratched his head and asked the young man in front of him.

  The young man in front of Han Geng is a typical military man with a strong and resolute face, exuding an aura of firmness and majesty. He was Zhang Zhen, the captain of the army that Han Geng belonged to at that time.

  Zhang Chen took a drag on his hand-rolled cigarette and blew out a smoke ring. "The locals around here say there's supposed to be a tomb up in these mountains."

  Listening to Zhang Zhen's words, Han Gengyan turned his eyes around. He himself was very taboo about taking things from the dead, but this time because of the military salary, the superior leader ordered that they had to find ancient tombs in their respective jurisdictions and dig out some ancient tombs to use as silver tickets, which was an irresistible order. This made Han Gengyan somewhat headache.

  "I say, Zhang Ge, these are just rumors among the local people, not credible, right? I think we should get some money from somewhere else." Han Gengyan said with a laugh. If someone else had said this, they wouldn't have dared to speak to Zhang Zhen like that, but Han Gengyan and Zhang Zhen were from the same place since childhood, and when they were young, Zhang Zhen especially liked Han Gengyan, his mischievous younger brother.

  "Little Han, don't worry about this, I've already had Little Hu go survey the terrain. Little Hu, you know as well, in this aspect he and Old Wan are the most skilled. With them on our team, we're absolutely unbeatable." Zhang Zhen said while smoking a cigarette. The Little Hu and Old Wan mentioned by Zhang Zhen were people who, in the past when things weren't so chaotic, had exceptional skills but couldn't show them off, could make a lot of money but couldn't go out to earn it - in other words, they were "inverted fighters" in the eyes of the common folk. But now, the orders given by their superiors to each military unit happened to coincide with the wishes of Hu Bang and Wan Guan.

  Listening to Zhang Zhen's words, Han Geng was extremely displeased in his heart, but he had no choice. If he explicitly refused to go, it would be a serious breach of military discipline; if he made excuses, it would be impolite to Zhang Zhen and would also reveal the psychological tendency of leaving the organization for small groups.

  Before Han Geng could speak, Zhang Zhen took a deep drag on his cigarette and looked at the burning ember before carelessly tossing it to the ground and stepping on it. "Little Han, in this era, we're all forced to take up arms and go to war against our will. If our country wasn't fragmented into so many factions, would those foreign devils have a chance to meddle? My desire as a soldier is to use my strength to unify the nation, drive out every last one of those foreign devils, and see who dares to interfere again! I know you don't want to be in this line of work, but it's all for the country. You'll have to come down eventually, even if you're unwilling. This is an order from above, not something that can be decided by me alone."

  Listening to Zhang Zhen's words that were both hard and soft, Han Geng also knew that this time he had no choice but to go down together with him, so he nodded randomly.

  The turbid clouds gradually covered half of the crescent moon as they were blown by the wind, and the trees on the mountain also made a "hissing" sound as they were blown. The only thing that was not perfect was that the curved branches blown by the wind looked like thousands of people waving at you in the middle of the night.

  "Captain, I and Lao Wan have thoroughly researched this tomb. I can guarantee that it's extremely large. Shall we start now?" A slender young man ran over from a distance, his military uniform was completely disgracing the uniform, anyone with discerning eyes could tell at a glance that he wasn't up to any good, and this person was none other than Xiao Hu, Hu Bang.

  Zhang Chen nodded, looked up at the moon in the sky, took a deep breath and said "Xiao Hu, where is Lao Wan now?"

  Hu Bang smiled and said, "Old Wan is waiting for us at the entrance of the tomb now. We've already dug a tunnel to the treasure chamber, just waiting for you to bring your brothers down." His eyes sparkled with excitement, as if gold, silver, and jewels were already laid out before him.

  Zhang Zhen smiled and patted Hu Bang's shoulder, then turned to the forty or so soldiers behind him and said, "Brothers, there is a very large tomb on this mountain, which must have a lot of gold, silver, and jewels. Xiao Hu and Lao Wan have already opened the way for us. We will set out now and bring all the gold, silver, and jewels from the ancient tomb back here. At that time, Commander will definitely give you great rewards!" After finishing speaking, he led the way with Hu Bang towards the direction of the thief's cave.

  Listening to Zhang Zhen's words, all the soldiers were like they had taken a stimulant, loudly shouting "good" and immediately following Zhang Zhen.

  Looking at the scene in front of him, Han Geng let out a deep sigh and followed them helplessly.

  Not long after, a group of people arrived beside the cave, and there was already someone waiting beside the cave. The man was short and stout, about 1 meter 67 or 68 tall, with two eight-shaped whiskers on his face. If he wasn't wearing military uniform, some people would definitely mistake him for a successful businessman. Looking at his stature, if you hadn't seen his skills, who would believe that he was a master of martial arts?

  Fatso saw Zhang Zhen coming and immediately put on a full face of smiles "Zhang, the tunnel is already ready for you, when are we going in?" Fatso was indeed the old Wan "Wan Guanjun"

  "We'll go down now, it's already midnight, let's try to get out before dawn. This is the content of Chapter 37 of Gui Gu Xuan." Zhang Zhen waved his hand to signal Wan Guan and Hu Bang to lead the way into the tunnel, after all, they were experts in this area. Hu Bang was a masterless earthwork expert, specializing in Luoyang shovel techniques, which were considered top-notch, even someone like Zhang Zhen who had seen the world couldn't help but praise him. The tunnel digging technique was divided into four schools: Fa Qiu, Mo Jin, Ban Shan, and Xie Ling. Hu Bang belonged to the free earthwork expert school, while Wan Guan was a Mo Jin master, said to be the 53rd generation descendant of a family that had served Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period, but no one knew if this was true or not.

  Wan Guan and Hu Bang immediately carried their tools and went in, Zhang Chen looked at the bottom of the pit on the right side of the cave entrance about 2 meters high and smiled, then led everyone to take torches and walk in one after another.

  As soon as he entered the cave, Han Geng felt a wave of cold and damp air rushing towards him, mixed with a faint smell of fishiness that only people with extremely keen senses of smell could detect.

  "Zhang Gege, have you smelled a fishy smell?" Han Geng quietly asked Zhang Zheng.

  Zhang Chen waved his hand, "Cough, Little Han, what's with the smell of blood? You must be too nervous. It's your first time doing this job, don't worry about it, just a mud block smell."

  Listening to Zhang Zhen's words, Han Geng secretly pinched himself, thinking that he must be too tense. How could there be a fishy smell on the ground more than two meters below? He must have mistakenly taken the smell of mud for a fishy smell.

  In this way, a line of fifty people walked in the cave for about half an hour and finally arrived at a spacious space similar to a cave. With the help of firelight, it can be seen that the surrounding area is surrounded by scattered stones, with only two earth roads, one is the road they took when they came, and the other is unknown where to go.

  "Xiao Hu, Lao Wan, why haven't you two left yet?" Zhang Chen looked at Hu Bang and Wan Guan in puzzlement as they stopped moving, while Hu Bang and Wan Guan were unusually quiet, and the entire cave fell into a dead silence.

  Looking at Hu Bang and Wan Juan not responding to his words, Zhang Zhen didn't get angry, but only felt puzzled. Normally when Zhang Zhen asked Hu Bang and Wan Juan questions, they would rush to answer, but now they stood there like stone statues, completely ignoring him. This couldn't help but make Zhang Zhen feel very puzzled. But at this time, Han Geng Yan had discovered the reason why Hu Bang and Wan Juan were standing quietly like stone statues, and he couldn't help but break out in big drops of sweat on his forehead.