A Life of Attributes Starting as a Nobleman in the Republic of China Era

He pointed to the dome of the cave.

"--above."

Everyone looked up at the star map on the dome. The bronze stars shimmered faintly under the lights, silent and ancient.

"So," Akutagawa said slowly, "after this door was closed, no one ever went in through the main entrance again. Did the later Mohist leader, Tian Deng, always use the secret passage?"

"It should be," Old Sun said, "but this door itself... is not just a door. It's a mechanism."

He pointed with the tip of his flat shovel at the copper ring in the center of the round door.

"This ring isn't for pulling, it's for turning. Like tightening a screw, you turn it clockwise, and the latch behind the door will gradually lift up. But—" He paused, "this mechanism has been oiled, thousand-year-old oil, which has turned into a resin-like substance, sealing up all the gaps. Turning it requires a lot of force, and—"

"And what?"

"And there's something connected to the back of this door." Old Sun looked uneasy. "When I knocked, I could feel the whole wall vibrating slightly. This door isn't a separate door; it's the lock for the whole wall. Opening it isn't just about opening a single door."

"What is it?" Zheng Debiao asked.

Old Sun shook his head and didn't say anything.

Akutagawa walked up to the copper ring, grasped it with both hands, and tried to twist it. The ring didn't budge. Veins bulged on his forehead. He tried again, but it still wouldn't move.

He released his grip, took a step back, and nodded to the two Japanese soldiers. The two soldiers stepped forward, each holding one side of the brass ring, and simultaneously exerted force.

A muffled groan, as if coming from the depths of the earth, echoed from the cave.

It wasn't the sound of metal, nor the sound of stone, but the sound of the entire wall, the entire cavern, and the entire earth working together. Dust fell softly from the dome, and several pieces of jade embedded in the star map loosened, falling from the height and shattering on the ground.

The copper ring moved.

It rotated less than an inch clockwise and then stopped. But that inch was enough to change something. The runes around the round door began to emit a faint, almost imperceptible glow—not light, but something closer to heat, as if something behind the door had been awakened and was slowly radiating heat outwards.

Chen Che felt the stone slabs beneath his feet getting hotter. He looked down and saw that the dark red luster in the blood groove on the ground was deepening, turning from dark red to crimson, and from crimson to bright red, like a riverbed that had been dry for thousands of years welcoming a flood again.

"Lamp oil..." Zhou Banxian's voice trembled, "There's something flowing in the blood tank—"

It wasn't lamp oil. Chen Che squatted down and touched the inner wall of the blood trough with his finger—it was scalding hot. That bright red sheen wasn't liquid; it was heat, heat flowing up from deep underground, coursing along the blood trough. This blood trough wasn't a channel for transporting lamp oil, but rather—

"The veins of subterranean fire." Akutagawa's voice also became urgent; he had clearly realized the same thing. "The Mohists laid out an entire geothermal system underground, using the natural heat from beneath the earth to maintain the temperature of the ever-burning lamps. The blood grooves are the heat conduction channels, and the copper valves are the temperature control mechanisms. This entire mountain, the entire Zhabei area beneath the earth, is a gigantic—"

He was searching for the right words.

"--stove."

The groans behind the round door grew louder and more frequent, no longer a single long note, but a superposition of countless sounds: the squeaking of stones, the twisting of metal, a whooshing sound that was like flowing water or flames. The dust on the dome turned into fine pebbles, which fell softly down, hitting everyone's heads and shoulders.

"Young Master!" Chen San shouted, "This place is about to collapse!"

"It's not collapsing," Chen Che said. His eyes were fixed on the round door—the circular stone slab was changing. The patterns on the relief began to deform under the heat, and the runes seemed to come alive, wriggling on the stone surface. The originally sunken carvings were expanding and rising, turning into reliefs, while the originally raised patterns were sinking and disappearing.

The entire door was flipping open.

It wasn't a mechanical flipping, but a slow, irreversible transformation at the material level. The stone, softened by heat, became like dough, reshaped, and rearranged. The runes were no longer decorations, but commands—the Mohist art of mechanical engineering was not merely a mechanical technique, but an understanding and manipulation of matter itself.

"People from two thousand years ago..." Zhou Banxian murmured, "How did they do it..."

The turning of the round door took about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea. When the change stopped, the previously closed stone slab disappeared, replaced by a circular opening. The edges of the opening were as smooth as a mirror, like porcelain fired at high temperatures, gleaming with a glazed sheen.

Behind the cave entrance was a sloping ramp. The walls of the ramp were embedded with small copper lamps, each containing a kind of solidified grease, black in color, like blood dried for a thousand years. But under the heat, the grease was slowly melting, seeping out drop by drop with a liquid, amber luster.

"Mermaid oil." Akutagawa's voice grew hoarse, his eyes fixed on the bronze lamps. "The oil of the mermaids of the East Sea, it never rots, never dries. It melts when heated and solidifies when cooled. Once the underground heating system the Mo family laid is activated, these lamps will—"

Before he finished speaking, the first bronze lamp lit up.

It wasn't lit, but rather the grease in the lamps ignited spontaneously under the heat—there was no flame, only light, a cold, silvery-white glow, like moonlight solidified into liquid, awakened from a thousand-year slumber. The light traveled down the slope, one lamp after another, as if someone were lighting stars one by one in the darkness.

At the end of the ramp lies a larger space.

Everyone saw the light in that space—not the cold glow of a copper lamp, but a warm, orange-red, pulsating light. It was like someone had lit a fire in the deepest part of the darkness, or like the slow, powerful beating of the heart beneath the earth.

"May it shine forever..." Akutagawa murmured.

He was the first to step onto the slope.

The ramp was longer than it appeared. With each step, the temperature rose. The air became scorching and dry, and breathing it felt like a burning sensation in the trachea. One by one, the copper lamps embedded in the walls lit up, their cold, silvery light stretching behind them like a carpet of light.

Chen San's forehead was covered in sweat, but he didn't wipe it away. His hand remained gripping the hilt of his knife, and his eyes were fixed on Akutagawa's back.

"Young Master," he said in a low voice, "what will we do once we get down there?"

Chen Che didn't answer immediately. He took a few steps before saying, "It depends."

"What's going on?"

"The condition of the lights."

Chen San looked at him, puzzled. Chen Che offered no explanation.