Peter gives terse instructions in Chinese, and we roar away.
As we cruise downhill, our narrow road weaves across a lush, mountainous countryside wreathed in ferns and reeds and towering stalks of bamboo. After half an hour, we leave the pavement for a path made of crushed stone, green fingers of tree limbs dragging across our tinted windows. We roll slowly, through scraping branches and directly over small trees. I glance at Peter in alarm as a rock grinds across the undercarriage, vibrating our feet.
Eventually, we slide to a halt on a steep slope, engulfed in green canopy.
The driver glances down at a GPS unit, turns, and nods. Peter rolls down the window, listening. A moist breeze instantly fills the car, warm and smelling of chlorophyll. Water roars in the distance, hidden somewhere in the jungle.
Peter claps the driver on the arm and nods a thank-you.
Leaning into the door, he shoves it open against dense jungle, clearing a swath of space for us to wriggle out. I shrug on my backpack, put two fingers over my chest to reassure myself that the relic is still there, and latch a hand on Peter’s knife strap as he moves deeper into a maze of vines and leaves. The wet jungle sways around us, hotter now, almost breathing, already drawing prickles of sweat onto my skin.
The SUV surges away in reverse, tires grinding over mud and rock.
“Whoa, wait!” I shout as the hood vanishes.
“It’s okay,” says Peter, over his shoulder. “We don’t need him. It’s not far now.”
We continue downhill, step by step, the jungle compressing around us like the digestive tract of some monstrous creature. Then Peter throws an arm out to bar my way, nearly knocking the breath out of me. Looking down, I see a dizzying expanse of empty air beyond my boot. We’re standing on the edge of a black rock cliff.
Across the valley, a waterfall thunders, prehistorically huge, nearly lost in billows of its own pounding mist. The cataract is split down the middle by a flat rock, lodged stubbornly on the precipice like the prow of a wrecked ship. On either side, torrents of yellow-brown water cascade over the edge, soaring in a torrent through the sky.
“This is the place,” I say, seeing the expression on Peter’s face. “How long has it been?”
Peter surveys the landscape, eyes calculating.
“A long time for a man,” he says. “But not for a mountain.”
Up the river, a series of tropical birds are sitting on branches high in a tree, watching us. I count them by habit. One, three, one, three.
“Who do they belong to?” I ask.
“Her.”
“She’s watching us?”
“She’s been waiting a long time,” he says. “Come on.”
Drawing a machete, Peter leads us straight back into the damp jungle, chopping a path with clean, tireless strokes.
“How far?” I ask, watching the birds take flight.
Peter responds without looking back.
“I was running for my life the last time I was here,” he says. “But I came from Huangdi’s tomb on foot.”
Headed mostly uphill, Peter occasionally checks his pocket watch. I follow him on the sweating, muddy trek through the tight jungle. Between panting breaths, I frantically try to put together a picture of what we’re walking into.
“I thought you had no memory this far back?”
Peter’s reply is calm and measured, his breathing steady.
“Huangdi has his tools, and so does Leizu. She once gave me a gift of remembrance. Or perhaps it was supposed to be a punishment.”
A rock face peeks out of the jungle in the distance, bright and broken. At the top is the flat line of a plateau. Hidden in the base is a dark crease, wreathed in vines. The hillside below it is a crumbling field of broken rock. Peter accelerates, legs churning as he climbs the hill of crushed boulders. Dozens of exotic birds perch on the cliff face, watching us without moving.
I swallow my questions and follow, the relic hot against my sweaty skin.
Peter stops before the crack in the rock face. Resting my hands on my knees, I feel the cool breath of a breeze flowing out. A cavern is hidden in the fold of stone before us, all but invisible. Peter sets about hacking the vegetation away from the opening.
As he works, goose bumps flower on the backs of my arms. The chipped edges of concentric circles are carved into the wall of this hollow—hieroglyphs that show traces of Neolithic stone-working techniques.
“This is ancient,” I say, running my fingers over the rough stone.
“It is where I emerged from the tomb,” Peter says. “There was a massive excavation. Huangdi had to hollow out this mountain.”
Now I understand the embankment of loose rock—it came from inside the mountain, dumped here ages ago and still not weathered away.
“Which means this passage will link to the tomb eventually,” I say, the back of my throat tightening. The black slice of rock seems to telescope away in my vision, like a nightmare.
Peter nods, pulling on a headlamp.
“Eventually. If it hasn’t collapsed,” he says, sliding into the crevice. “I will go first.”
I swallow and nod, trying to seem brave. I hate tight spaces, but there’s no other way except straight through. Taking a deep breath, I try to imagine the wonder of whatever antiquities might be hidden in the darkness, but I feel only a dull pounding fear.
What kind of person are you, June?
The cave starts small, and it only gets smaller.
At first on my hands and knees, and then flat on my stomach, I finally have to inch sideways—following him deeper and deeper. The rock turns cold, numbing my fingers and face. Through multiple small chambers, we find knots of tunnels heading off in every direction and some of them up and down. Peter never falters, choosing our route through the network of tunnels without hesitating.
Finally, I push my body into a vertical crevice. Scraping and sliding, Peter has also turned sideways in the gap of rock. My backpack is now attached to a rope tied around my ankle. In the LED glare of my headlamp, all I can see is my own breath, speckles of dust, and the back of Peter’s head and neck. The cave has become a black vise.
“Peter,” I say, my voice loud in my ears.
He hasn’t moved in a few minutes. Long ago, he let out all his breath to make himself smaller. Not breathing, not moving, the alarming thought occurs to me—maybe he’s dead. And then, Was he ever truly alive? Am I alone in this deep place?
I can’t turn my head to look behind me. And I can only blink in horror and wriggle backward when I see it…a trickle of water seeping over Peter’s head, leaving a damp stripe in his hair. The leak grows to a cascade, turning his hair shiny in my headlamp and oozing over his shoulder and arm.
I grit my teeth against a wave of claustrophobia.
Eyes closed, I hear a scraping sound. Peter is rocking back and forth, his face and body scraping inch by inch over sharp rock. I stay where I am, trying not to take panicked breaths, body compressed between two slabs of wet stone. Moving only my eyes, I can see that the water is pooling, rising quickly in the narrow gap.