No one had expected it. Everyone had imagined many possibilities, but no one — truly no one — had expected that the greatest discovery to emerge from their continued excavation of the underground palace would be neither treasure nor more deposits of alluvial gold.

It was an underground granary.

The granary was vast beyond reckoning. Never mind the population of ancient Baocheng at its height — even the current population of Jizhou City could have fed itself from this storehouse for years.

“Is this grain or gravel?”

Yu Jiuling crouched before one of the grain vats and peered inside. He pulled open the sliding gate at the base, but not a single kernel tumbled out. When he jabbed at the contents with a stick, it felt like poking solid stone.

Xiahou Zuo glanced at Li Chi. “Now, who was it that complained about military rations being too hard?”

Li Chi crouched there as well, staring at the contents of the vat. He thought to himself: if they could have hauled all this out during a siege, it really would have served as ammunition to hurl at the enemy — and it would probably have been toxic to boot.

“What a shame,” Yu Jiuling said. “This grain could have fed the people of Jizhou City for years, and instead it’s all been ruined like this.”

“Think about it — this has been sitting here for over a thousand years at minimum.” Xiahou Zuo sighed. “That these vats are still so well preserved is remarkable in itself.”

Before them, the colossal underground palace stretched away into the darkness, and within it stood row upon row of enormous stone-built granary vats — like fossilized giants from some primordial age.

This was positive proof that Director Gao had been telling the truth: the Kingdom of Youshan had been no minor state. And this was not even the aboveground granary of Baocheng — this was the underground reserve. That a hidden vault could hold such quantities of grain spoke to the kingdom’s power at its height, and it no longer seemed so far-fetched that they had once split the Iron Crane Tribe in two.

“Let’s keep looking,” Yu Jiuling said with a sigh. “Judging by all this grain, we can consider ourselves lucky to have gotten that pile of alluvial gold.”

The high spirits Yu Jiuling had arrived with had deflated entirely at the sight of the granary.

Fortunately, they now had the floor plans of the underground palace. Li Chi had used the old diagram to sketch a rough copy — not as detailed as the original, but capturing the basic layout and structure. Beyond the granary, according to the map, should lie the armory.

“Doesn’t something seem odd?” Tang Pidi asked Li Chi. “So far we haven’t found a single set of remains. If the last Youshan emperor brought his retainers here to die, there ought to be bodies — a great many of them. We found the Seven Divine Generals’ armor, but no corpses.”

Li Chi nodded slowly. “Perhaps they were all buried in one place.”

In those long-ago days, Emperor Tuoba Zheng of Youshan had led his last loyal subjects into the underground palace to take refuge. No one could know how many years they had survived in that lightless, sealed world — how many years they had clung to existence in helplessness and fear before dying, one by one.

The last survivor must have suffered terribly. He would have buried everyone else with his own hands.

When only one person remained in this vast underground palace — how had he lived out his final days?

Li Chi and the others carried their torches through the great expanse of the granary and emerged at a passage beyond. The corridor was broad — wide enough for a full cart to pass through with ease.

“It’s a gentle slope,” Tang Pidi said, peering ahead. His expression shifted slightly.

“This is a grain ramp,” he said. “This is how they moved provisions into the granary. Which means…”

“This ramp leads directly to the surface,” Li Chi said at once.

They brightened immediately. They had been moving through the underground palace for so long now that it was difficult to say what part of Jizhou City lay above their heads at any given point. But if there was a ramp that emerged into the open air, its location suddenly became very interesting.

Should Jizhou ever fall to siege or assault, this underground palace would become invaluable — and a direct passage to the outside world even more so. They had long since drawn up plans to conceal at least three thousand troops within the city, and now they had found a place to hide them.

Three thousand soldiers in full armor, ready to pour out through the ramp — if the exit lay anywhere near the city gates, that would be a different matter entirely.

They followed the ramp for something over two li before their answer presented itself. The passage ended. Ahead, the way was sealed by a wall of massive stones. There was no way through.

“Back we go.” Li Chi shook his head, feeling a quiet pang of regret. If this ramp had still been passable, it could have been put to real use.

They retraced their steps. On the way in they had passed the entrance to the armory without going inside, having wanted first to see where the ramp led. Now they turned in.

Everyone fell silent.

The enormous armory was filled with row upon row of weapon racks, each one standing because they were built of stone and had not collapsed. The weapons resting on those racks, however, had all rotted away. Nearly every one of them had been a type of long spear, and the spearheads were remarkably small — testament to how scarce iron must have been in those times.

They moved through rank after rank of weapon racks and came at last to an open space. There, every single person stopped at the same moment.

Laid out across the open floor — ordered in rows, just like the weapon racks — were bodies.

There must have been several hundred of them. They had made their final choice here, dying together. Every person lay beside a weapon. The bodies faced different directions, and yet the rows were perfectly, immaculately aligned.

Li Chi stood motionless, breathing growing difficult.

“These were soldiers,” he said quietly. “This was their last dignity.”

He stood straight, then bowed deeply.

Everyone followed without a word being spoken. No one felt that the gesture was unwarranted. Even Yu Jiuling found himself believing that these remains deserved to be honored.

These last few hundred had not chosen to die of old age. They had been soldiers. When the last of their generals finally passed, they had lost their final leader — and so they had chosen to end their lives here, in formation.

Across from where the soldiers lay, a row of stone platforms stood against the far wall. The platforms had been built simply, without adornment. On each one lay a set of remains — but unlike the soldiers who had fallen where they died, these had been laid out flat, with care.

Li Chi and the others straightened and moved forward. On the stone platforms they saw military robes and armor, all arranged with great deliberateness. The robes were still folded in their original form; one touch and they would crumble to dust.

On the largest platform, the remains must belong to Tuoba Zheng himself. And arranged around it in the positions of the Big Dipper were seven more platforms, each bearing its own remains — almost certainly the Seven Divine Generals of Youshan.

Beside Tuoba Zheng’s remains lay a dragon crown, its shape barely still legible, the symbol of imperial authority.

Next to the crown sat a wooden box. The box had long since fallen apart, but the object inside was still wrapped tightly in several layers of material. Li Chi approached and carefully unwrapped it, extracting a rolled scroll of what appeared to be some kind of hide.

He unrolled the scroll and read for a moment, then let out a long, heavy breath.

“The martial art that Director Gao described — the combined creation of the Seven Divine Generals, something that would make a person invincible under heaven — it isn’t a personal cultivation method. It’s a military treatise.”

He passed the scroll to Xiahou Zuo, who read several lines and sighed as well.

“A pity. They were never invincible under heaven. No matter how unmatched a military treatise may be, once the nation is already broken — beset by enemies within and without — it has no use left in the world.”

Xiahou Zuo passed the scroll to Tang Pidi. But Tang Pidi did not read it right away. Instead, he wrapped the scroll back up carefully and held it with both hands, as though cradling a priceless treasure.

Yu Jiuling looked at the dragon crown. “That thing must be worth a fortune.”

Li Chi shook his head. “Leave it. Let it stay here.”

Yu Jiuling made a sound of assent and moved away to search elsewhere.

On the wall facing Li Chi and the others, an enormous geomantic map had been carved into the stone — every line precise, every detail exquisite, a masterwork of craft. This must have represented Youshan at the height of its power.

“Go get me paper and brush,” Li Chi said, turning back. “I want to copy this map.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “This map is from a thousand years ago.”

“Place names change,” Li Chi said. “The land doesn’t. This map has its uses.”

At that moment, Yu Jiuling called out from across the chamber: “More alluvial gold over here!”

Everyone except Li Chi and Tang Pidi ran over at once. Li Chi waited for paper and brush, while Tang Pidi’s gaze came to rest on something on the map.

“So the Yanshan Ancient Road is real.”

He pointed to a location on the carved wall. “I heard a story on the steppe once. To defeat the Iron Crane Tribe, the Youshan emperor had issued a decree conscripting craftsmen and laborers from across the kingdom to cut a small path through the Yanshan Mountains. It took seven or eight years. They used that mountain road to enter the steppe and strike the Iron Crane Tribe from behind — a surprise assault that shattered them in a single blow.”

He looked at Li Chi. “We should send someone to find Brother Yu right away and tell him to locate this ancient road.”

Li Chi nodded. “Understood.”

Over where Yu Jiuling stood, the group had found more stone barrels, each one containing alluvial gold — but in much smaller quantities than the deposits they had found in the outer part of the underground palace. What these barrels of gold had originally been intended for, no one could say.

“Don’t overthink it,” Yu Jiuling said. “Take it all.”

The men began scooping alluvial gold into carrying packs. There were nine stone barrels in that row, none of them very large. As they worked the gold out handful by handful, a faint clicking sound came from beneath the barrels, and someone noticed that the barrels seemed to have risen slightly from where they had stood before.

The sound reached Li Chi. He turned to look — and in that instant he saw one of the stone barrels, now lightened of its weight, slowly rising.

“Put it back!”

Li Chi cried out in alarm.

But it was already too late. The entire armory seemed to give a low shudder. Li Chi and Tang Pidi locked eyes, then shouted in unison.

“Run!”

Yu Jiuling startled badly. He grabbed the two nearest men and sprinted. Xiahou Zuo was already shouting, driving everyone toward the exit.

“Leave the gold, drop it, just run!”

Li Chi saw that some men were still trying to hoist their packs onto their backs. His eyes went red. He shouted himself hoarse telling them to move.

They ran from the armory at full speed. Moments later, the chamber shuddered again. Every stone barrel that had been lightened of its gold now lifted upward, and with a thunderous crash, an enormous, heavy portcullis came slamming down, sealing the armory shut.

If Li Chi had not turned and looked back in that instant, they might all have been sealed inside the armory forever. The mechanism was single-use: once the portcullis fell, it could not be raised again. If those trapped inside could have freed themselves simply by restoring the barrels to their original weight, the door would have had no purpose.

They stood outside and watched as the colossal stone gate settled into place, hearts still hammering.

“If we hadn’t been greedy, we wouldn’t have been sealed in,” Yu Jiuling said, almost to himself. “Even just taking from one barrel might not have triggered it…”

His face had gone pale. He seemed to be wrestling with something.

“The map…” Li Chi shook his head. “I never had time to copy it.”

Tang Pidi smiled — an easy, unhurried expression.

“It doesn’t matter. I memorized it.”

Li Chi stared at him. “All… all of it?”

Tang Pidi was already turning to leave. “Is that so strange? A mere few thousand li of territory.”

—