Tomb raiding: Intercepting Yin Xinyue and building a family of immortals

Having received Zhang Qishan's assurance, the chieftain of Pingyun Village quickly ordered his men to clear the way.

A famine struck, leaving corpses of the starved everywhere in Hunan Province, even among the Miao people.

Compared to the unearthed artifacts in Guanyin Mountain, the Miao people care more about disaster relief grain.

The next morning, Bao Dongha led everyone into Guanyin Mountain.

The mountains are rugged and full of strange rocks.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it's incredibly winding and circuitous!

Many of the mountain paths were dead ends. Without the guidance of locals familiar with the roads, Su Chen and his group would not be able to get out of Guanyin Mountain even if they walked for ten days or half a month.

After much wandering and twisting, the group finally arrived at the Guanyin Temple in Chentangpo before sunset.

As mentioned earlier, the Guanyin Temple was first built in the Ming Dynasty.

It is impossible to know exactly who built it, and it has undergone several renovations since the Ming Dynasty.

The group, along with the helpers from Wu, Jie, and Zhang's families, totaling more than forty people, finally arrived at the Guanyin Temple in Chentangpo.

This is a dilapidated ancient temple, built right next to a cliff.

Several tents were pitched in the open space in front of the ancient temple.

"Old Jie!"

Wu Jizong shouted.

A short while later, Jie Yuanlong emerged from the Guanyin Temple.

As soon as Wu Jizong met him, he couldn't help but start complaining.

They said that Jie Yuanlong was unreliable and almost got stuck in the Miao village.

"Old Wu, I didn't know Pingyun Village would go back on its word. We agreed to send a guide to bring you in..."

Xie Yuanlong offered a helpless explanation, and then couldn't wait to talk about what he had gained in the past two days.

"My buddies and I have searched the entire Guanyin Temple these past two days, and you know what? We actually found something!"

As they spoke, Xie Yuanlong led Su Chen and the others into the Guanyin Temple.

This is a typical Buddhist temple, with a main hall enshrining a statue of Guanyin, and two side halls.

However, due to years of disrepair, the walls of the main hall are mottled and the roof has several large holes.

The gilding on the Guanyin statue inside the hall has completely fallen off, revealing the clay Buddha statue underneath.

“Last time we found clues about the suspected tomb on the base of the Buddha statue. Later I was thinking, is it possible that the real clues are on the old Buddha statue itself…”

"So, I searched everywhere near the Guanyin Temple for the past few days. After two days of searching, I finally found the real Buddha! This Buddha was hidden too deep. Who knew it was hidden underground?"

Upon hearing this, Wu Jizong immediately lay down on the ground and tapped and thumped with his fingers.

"No, they're all solid!"

Not only was Wu Jizong puzzled, but Zhang Qishan also frowned and said, "I searched the temple last time, but there were no secret passages or mechanisms!"

Xie Yuanlong explained with a smile.

"There are no mechanisms inside the temple, but there are outside!"

As he spoke, he waved his hand.

Immediately, a henchman took the grappling hook from his waist and hooked it onto the cliff behind the Guanyin Temple.

This fellow was agile and quickly climbed to the top of the cliff.

He waved from the top of the cliff and saw Xie Yuanlong nod in acknowledgment.

It's unclear what mechanism was triggered, but the ground in front of the Guanyin Temple suddenly emitted a clicking sound of gears turning.

After a moment, the ground slowly parted to the sides.

Everyone was astonished and hurried over to check.

However, they discovered a large hole in the ground, beneath which stood a colossal Buddha statue, five or six meters tall.

"My goodness, a golden Buddha! It must be three stories tall! If it's pure gold, it would make someone richer than a country!"

Wu Jizong's eyes widened in surprise, and he exclaimed in astonishment!

"What are you thinking? Even if you put all the gold in the whole country together, it might not be enough to cast this one golden Buddha!"

Su Chen shook his head and casually retorted.

Later generations calculated that there are approximately 200,000 tons of gold in the world, which, when added together, would be equivalent to a seven-story cube.

Xie Yuanlong nodded and explained, "I sent people down to investigate. The Buddha statue is made of white marble and covered with gold leaf. However, such a large Buddha statue is extremely rare, even if it is not made of pure gold."

Hanbaiyu is white marble. The railings and imperial roads in the Forbidden City are all paved with Hanbaiyu.

Wu Jizong was greatly disappointed, and then frowned.

"wrong!"

"What's wrong?"

Wu Jizong thought for a moment and said, "This is Guanyin Mountain, the temple is Guanyin Temple, and it enshrines Guanyin Bodhisattva, so why is there a Buddha statue buried underground?"

Upon hearing his words, Bao Dongha seemed to remember something and suddenly said.

“I’ve heard the old folks in the village say that this mountain wasn’t originally called Guanyin Mountain, and the temple wasn’t called Guanyin Temple. It’s just that there’s a saying that this mountain is connected to hell, and hungry ghosts often come out to cause trouble at night. In the early Ming Dynasty, a high monk named Daoyan passed through this place. In order to suppress the hungry ghosts in hell, he wrote to the emperor and built a large temple here and cast a golden Buddha statue.”

"But I don't know when it started, the golden Buddha disappeared, and the mountain was renamed Guanyin Mountain..."

"I originally thought it was just a legend, but I never expected there really was a golden Buddha..."

Zhang Qishan narrowed his eyes slightly and stretched out a hand.

Lieutenant Zhang understood and quickly fetched a Wuzhou brand brass flashlight made in Shanghai.

Zhang Qishan turned on his flashlight and shone it on the Buddha statue on the ground. After observing it for a moment, he said in a deep voice, "Strange, there seems to be another temple down there!"

After pondering for a moment, Wu Jizong guessed, "Could it be that the underground site is actually a Buddhist temple built during the Ming Dynasty, which was later deliberately buried and a Guanyin temple was built on top of it?"

This white marble Buddha statue is as tall as a three-story building; one can only imagine how large the temple must be.

Completely burying it would be a huge undertaking.

Thinking of this, Su Chen turned to look at Bao Dongha.

The latter shook his head and explained, "Our Miao village only moved here at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The elders in the village only heard about it from rumors. Anyway, ever since Pingyun Village settled here, there has been Guanyin Mountain and Guanyin Temple..."

Zhang Qishan nodded, agreeing with Bao Dongha's statement.

"Such a large temple, to completely bury it, it would be no exaggeration to say that it would require moving mountains and filling lakes. It would require at least tens of thousands of laborers to work continuously for several years. If it weren't for the Ming Dynasty court at the time, ordinary people would never have had the power to lead such a project."

"You mean... the Buddha statue below has some connection to the Ming Dynasty court?" Wu Jizong asked in surprise.

Zhang Qishan smiled faintly and asked in return, "Do you know whose Buddhist name is Yan?"

"How would I know..."

"Daoyan's real name is Yao Guangxiao. He was a notorious sorcerer in the early Ming Dynasty. He was also the greatest contributor to Emperor Yongle's conquest of the country. Why would such a trusted confidant of the emperor travel thousands of miles to build a grand temple and cast a golden Buddha statue on the remote Guanyin Mountain? There must be another reason behind this."

Su Chen was completely baffled as to the reason.

Because of this tomb, there are no records of the Nine Gates in later generations.

Neither Wu Laogou's notes nor the eyewitness Zhang Rishan revealed the origin of this tomb.