The Dragon Ridge Tombs Read online

From the shape and pattern, I guessed it dated back to the Ming dynasty. Not many Shaanxi women had bound feet, unless they were from aristocratic families, which explained why the handiwork was so exquisite.

  If Gold Tooth had been with us, a mere sniff of the shoe would have told him exactly where it was from, but I wasn’t that advanced yet. Still, I was certain from the coloring and materials that this was the genuine article, not a copy. Three-inch lotus shoes like these were popular with collectors, and this one would definitely fetch a high price.

  I asked Mr. Li where he’d found it, and he told me the whole story.

  He was from a drought-stricken part of Shaanxi, where things had been particularly bad that year. Without a drop of rain to water their crops, the villagers were driven to try all sorts of crazy remedies. When a blind fortune-teller said this was the work of a drought demon, they immediately clamored to know its name. Then a goatherd boy piped up that while leading his goats through an abandoned graveyard to the east, he’d seen a small child with green skin scurrying into an unmarked coffin. This was bizarre, particularly as no one had been buried there for a long time—and no one knew of a coffin still aboveground.

  The blind fortune-teller insisted that this coffin must be where the demon was hiding. The villagers wanted to break it open to see what was inside, but the village elder disagreed—he thought the blind man was talking nonsense. In a rage, the fortune-teller led the others to the graveyard, determined to prove he was right. Sure enough, there was the coffin. Working together, the villagers ripped the lid off.

  Right away, an awful stench hit them, a bit like a pile of fish left to rot in the sun, but worse.

  The more fearless among them pinched their noses shut and went closer to have a look. They gasped—a female corpse lay in the coffin, her clothes and gold jewelry perfectly preserved, even though they were clearly centuries old. The body was dried out, the skin like fossilized wood.

  By the dead woman’s head lay a tiny creature like a monkey, covered in green fur. It was alive, curled up in a ball as if asleep.

  The villagers argued about what they had discovered and what should be done. Only the fortune-teller spoke with authority.

  “Kill it!” he said. “The green creature is the drought demon, and it must be killed before it wakes up at nightfall. If you wait, you will never catch it. Beat it to death; then give it a good whipping to tear the corpse apart and ensure it doesn’t come back to life.”

  A few bold souls grabbed the creature and bashed its head in with a hammer. The strange thing was, it didn’t bleed. Instead, when they whipped it, each lash released a puff of black smoke. When the body was destroyed, it burst into flames and was instantly reduced to ashes.

  The sun was now beginning to set. The villagers asked the fortune-teller what they should do with the corpse, and he replied that leaving her where she was would bring disaster, and to put the coffin lid back on and burn her along with all her possessions.

  They hesitated at first. This was an ancient corpse, and the jewelry she’d been buried with was surely worth a great deal.

  As they were debating what to do, dark clouds rolled over them and thunder started rumbling. Finally, the village elder put Li Chunlai in charge of setting the fire. The rest of them ran off. Mr. Li was the sort of man who always did what he was told, and though he was terrified, he steeled himself to follow instructions.

  Hoping to get the job done before the rain started, he quickly scraped together some twigs for kindling, piled them around the coffin, and lit a match.

  As he waited for the coffin to catch fire, Li Chunlai started thinking that it was a shame not to take a bit of the gold for himself. He’d waited a second too long, though, because the flames suddenly blazed up.

  As regret swallowed him, he was blinded by a flash of light, and four thunderclaps sounded in quick succession. The rain came down in buckets, drenching him and dousing the fire.

  Dripping wet, he stared at the smoldering coffin, his heart thumping. The heavens were giving him an opportunity. The contents of the coffin were still intact. If he was going to grab them, it had to be now.

  The other villagers were long gone. After having waited forever for the sky to open up with rain, they weren’t about to let a drop go to waste. Li Chunlai was all alone in the desolate graveyard with the dead woman. He was still terrified, but then he thought of how much money he could get. Enough to marry a nice plump lady and put an end to his bachelorhood. He grabbed a nearby shovel and pushed the lid, which had already been pried open and weakened by the flames, aside.

  The first time around, he’d been squashed in the crowd and had only managed a quick glimpse of what was in there. Now he had to brace himself to take a proper look at his spoils.

  Most of the original foul smell had dissipated, replaced by an equally repellent mixture of acrid burning, dampness, and mustiness. Even as the rain continued, this strange odor assaulted him.

  Li Chunlai gritted his teeth, held his nose, and peered into the coffin. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was as the others had said—there was jewelry aplenty. No time to think about demons.

  The storm was growing more violent, and it would soon be pitch-dark. Li Chunlai pulled himself together and fixed his sights on a gold bracelet. His hand had just closed around it when someone slapped him hard.

  He cried out, thinking the lightning must have reanimated one of the other corpses buried here. The region was famous for its living dead, though he’d never expected to actually encounter any himself.

  But when he looked behind him, he recognized his neighbor Ma Shun. The man was a sturdy, barrel-chested fellow, famous in the village for his courage. There was nothing that scared him, and when he was in a temper, he could pound anyone around him to a pulp. No one dared make him angry.

  Ma Shun had also noticed the dead lady’s valuables and decided to grab them for himself—but with so many people around, he hadn’t had a chance. When the village elder put Li Chunlai in charge of setting the fire, Ma Shun had given up on the idea—but then the rain came, and he’d figured there hadn’t been time for the coffin to burn entirely, so he sneaked back to see what he could salvage.

  Mr. Ma couldn’t be bothered talking to a weakling like Li Chunlai. Brushing him aside, he pulled every garment and accessory off the corpse, then rolled them into a bundle. He was about to take off when he noticed Li Chunlai staring at him.

  “Don’t think of saying a word to anyone or I’ll tie you up in a ditch as food for the wolves,” he threatened. Then he looked through his loot and pulled out one of the corpse’s shoes. “Here. Call it hush money.” He growled and threw the shoe at Li Chunlai.

  Li Chunlai caught it and stood there with the sad little shoe in his hand. He didn’t dare offend Ma Shun, so he grudgingly agreed to stay quiet. There was no way the sodden coffin could be burned completely now, so they got rid of the evidence by digging a hole and chucking it in.

  Back in the village, Mr. Li told the elder and fortune-teller that he’d done as he was told, and nothing but ashes was left. The blind man nodded in satisfaction. “That’s good. My old master used to tell me that people buried in the wrong place easily turn into walking corpses, which in turn become drought demons. I might not be able to see, but I’m certain in my heart that’s why it hardly ever rained here. I bet this woman was buried with a child in her belly, and her corpse gave birth to it. How could a baby live underground? It would have quickly died too. Drought demons sprung from children are particularly vicious, and working with its undead mother, no wonder it was such a terror. Only burning them both to ashes could save us.”

  Li Chunlai quaked to hear this, but there was no way he could confess the truth without being severely punished, so he stuttered something and went home to sleep.

  That night, he tossed and turned in bed. Every time he fell asleep, he saw the corpse and her chi
ld reaching out to throttle him, and he woke in a cold sweat. The rain was still pounding, and there was nothing to do but try to sleep again. Just before dawn, hearing a commotion outside, he threw on his clothes and rushed out to see what was happening.

  Ma Shun’s house had been struck by lightning and burned to ashes. He, his wife, and their two daughters had died in the fire.

  Li Chunlai knew this was a bad sign. Already a coward, he felt his courage shrivel even further, chills running down his spine.

  Searching the remains of the Ma dwelling, the villagers found the valuables from the coffin. When the village elder sought out Li Chunlai for an explanation, he’d had no choice but to confess the truth.

  The village elder spent quite a while bawling out Li Chunlai in private, then warned him not to say a word to the rest of the village. Mr. Li nodded, keeping his wits about him enough to not mention the shoe he’d kept for himself. Ma Shun might as well take the blame—he was dead, after all. Li Chunlai told the elder that this was all Ma Shun’s idea, which was easy to believe, given how spineless Mr. Li usually was. The elder didn’t ask any more questions but announced publicly that the Ma family had died because of Mr. Ma’s greed.

  Uncultured as he was, even Li Chunlai could tell that the shoe now in his possession was likely to be valuable enough that he might finally be able to afford to get married. Shaanxi was a hotbed of tomb raiding, and outsiders often turned up in the village to ask if anyone had artifacts to sell. He never dared show the embroidered shoe to any of them, though, afraid that word of what he’d done would get out.

  Finally, a distant relative from the next village had to deliver some goods to Beijing, and Li Chunlai asked if he could hitch a ride. Once he got to the big city, he asked around until someone told him Pan Market was the best place to sell an antique. It was practically destiny that the first person he spoke to happened to be me.

  Although Li Chunlai looked feeble, there was steely cunning buried deep within him. I sensed that there were details he had left out, and moments when he didn’t seem to be telling the whole truth. Still, listening carefully, I was able to piece together most of the story.

  “That’s a convoluted tale,” I said when he concluded. “From what I’ve seen, this sandalwood-soled shoe isn’t in bad condition—not many specimens make it through hundreds of years intact. I’ve seen a few pairs, but the embroidery was so discolored they might as well have been tree bark. But—”

  “How much is it worth?” Mr. Li broke in anxiously.

  I shrugged. “If you had the pair, then we’d be talking real money. But just one shoe…Is there any way for you to get hold of the other? This one seems a bit lonely on its own,” I pressed. “The antiques trade is all about completeness.”

  Li Chunlai frowned. He had no idea where the other shoe might be, and he’d had to keep this one hidden for months before he’d managed to get it to Beijing.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ve always had a soft spot for you rural folk—back when my grandfather fought in the Civil War, it was the villagers who kept him alive. So you see, I’d never try to trick you. I reckon I could get seven hundred yuan for this shoe at our market stall. So how about this—I’ll give you six hundred for it. That means hardly any profit for me, but we’ll call that a finder’s fee. Now that we’re friends, the next time you get your hands on something similar, you bring it straight to me.”

  “Six hundred?” Li Chunlai’s mouth was agape. “Are you sure?”

  “Too little? I’ll throw in another fifty.”

  “That’s plenty. I thought I’d get three hundred at most.”

  I gave him six hundred and fifty yuan in cash, and he counted the notes more than ten times before putting them away, hiding them somewhere in his layers of clothing. I told him to be careful with the money, as there were always pickpockets about.

  Afterward, we chatted about his village, which lay on the Ganyuan Gully of the Yellow River, in Shaanxi’s very poorest county. It turned out they were next to Dragon County, which I’d heard a lot about. A hilly region, it was rumored to be a national burial site, full of too many tombs to count.

  Any of the fine-glazed Tang dynasty ceramics from these tombs would sell for tens of thousands, which was how many farmers in these regions made their fortunes. They’d dig them up from their fields, and just like that would be rich. From the early twentieth century onward, collectors had descended on the area, which was now more or less picked clean.

  To the south, the Qin Mountain Range were even more full of tombs, but these tended to be hidden away. The low-hanging fruit had all been plucked. One prominent Han dynasty grave had more than two hundred and eighty tunnels dug into it, left by burglars dating all the way back to ancient times.

  Artifacts from this district were also rumored to be worth a mint, but Li Chunlai couldn’t give me specifics—it was all just gossip he’d heard.

  It was getting late, so I cut Mr. Li off and stood to leave. As we parted, he urged me again and again to come visit, and I had to be polite for quite a long time before he finally said goodbye.

  Back at the market, Kai and Gold Tooth were waiting impatiently for me. They leaped to their feet when I showed up, demanding to know what the mysterious object was.

  I produced the embroidered shoe. “That farmer was guarding this like a gold nugget,” Kai griped. “And it’s nothing but an old shoe.”

  “It’s an old shoe worth big money,” Gold Tooth said. “A rare and fine specimen. Tianyi, how much did you pay for it?”

  I told him, and he smiled. “Excellent bargaining—we’ll get two thousand for this, no problem.”

  “Really?” I hesitated. “If I’d known, I’d have offered him more. I thought it was worth seven hundred tops.”

  “It’s Monday,” said Gold Tooth. “I don’t think business is going to improve. Let’s pack up and get something to eat. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had mutton hotpot. How about it?”

  Kai was in disbelief. He couldn’t wrap his head around the worth of the old shoe. But he quickly recovered. “Great minds think alike—that’s just what I was hungry for.”

  And so we went back to the restaurant where we’d first eaten with Gold Tooth. It was four in the afternoon, so there weren’t many customers around. We got our usual corner table, and the waiter lit the flame under our tureen of broth. The dishes of raw meat and vegetables quickly arrived, and we dunked them into the boiling liquid to cook.

  “Gold Tooth, could you explain to us why this shoe is so valuable?” I asked.

  He turned the shoe over in his hands. “This is no regular artifact. Didn’t you notice what’s embroidered on it?” he began. “Since the Tang dynasty, we’ve regarded peonies as the most precious of flowers, and while regular folk might have had peonies on their shoes too, they wouldn’t have been as exquisitely rendered as this here. Besides, look in the center of the blossom—six little pearls. Not the best quality, but they raise the value of the shoe immensely. The most important thing is who the owner was. This farmer came from Shaanxi, which has always been a down-to-earth region—the peasants never bound their feet. Which means this was likely the property of a minister’s wife from another province, or else some wealthy merchant’s out-of-town bride. Either way, it must have been someone with money. The more I look at it, the more I think I was being too cautious when I said two thousand. We’re looking at six grand at least. And if we had a pair, well, the value would increase four or five times.”

  My mouth fell open. I immediately made up my mind to stop by Shaanxi as soon as I could, to give Li Chunlai some more cash. I’d feel like I had ripped him off otherwise.

  We kept chatting as we ate, and the conversation moved on to the ancient tombs in Shaanxi.

  “I’ve never been there myself,” said Gold Tooth, “but colleagues who have tell me the area aroun
d the Qin River is absolutely packed with treasure—more than you can count. Dragon County alone must have a hundred thousand graves. In some places, one ancient tomb is built on top of another, like a layer cake of dynasties. I reckon we ought to make a trip and see if we can pick up anything good. Even if we don’t, it’s always nice to see a bit more of the world. I’d have done it sooner if I were in better shape.”

  “I was just thinking about going there too,” I said. “Why don’t we take a road trip? We’ll do some business along the way, and with Kai and me along, we’ll look out for you.”

  We shook on it, and started making plans. I’d heard that there were all kinds of long mountain ridges there, the sort we called “dragon spines,” and anyone going deep enough into them was sure to be rewarded. I was keen to get a big haul soon. The money we owed Julie was hanging over my head. I hated being in debt.

  Gold Tooth was also eager to start on the journey. “If we want to get anything valuable, our best bet is to go to the more remote areas,” he said.

  Kai suddenly thought of something. “Should we bring some extra black donkey hooves for luck? There might be a lot of walking corpses there.”

  “Good thinking,” I said breezily. “We may not encounter any dumplings, but better to be ready.”

  It was a good thing we were.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I should explain that I wasn’t talking about the kind of dumplings Li Chunlai had devoured, but rather a trade term used among reverse dippers. We refer to the undead, people unable to rest peacefully in their coffins, as “dumplings.”

  Finding a good burial place is a matter of good feng shui. The right spot not only ensures the dead will remain asleep, but also protects their descendants and keeps their clan prosperous and safe.

  Burying someone in the wrong place can go badly in a couple of ways: the entire family of the deceased might have unspeakable ill luck, such as ending up in prison and losing all their property, with the whole clan eventually dying out; or the dead person, unable to rest easy, will never decompose and end up as an undead creature. To be clear, this has nothing to do with embalming techniques and everything to do with bad feng shui.