The Lost Tomb : Tibetan Sea Flower

Chapter 17: Frozen Sacred Lake

Poker-face took Laba all the way to the place where the Tibetans boarded the boat. Near the shore of the lake, the ice was so frozen that there was no difference between stepping on it or land. But the more they walked towards the center of the lake, the thinner the ice became, and in the end, there was the heart-stopping sound of cracking ice at their feet.

They had to detour around the edge of the lake.

The shape of this great lake was very strange. In fact, it was hard to imagine its shape if you didn't look down from the sky. The whole lake looked like a giant cattail leaf fan, with one part shaped like the fan and the other shaped like a long and narrow handle because of a very deep valley. In such a high-altitude cold area, the lake's surface should have been completely frozen without question. Why wasn't this the case when it came to the center of the lake?

They walked all the way along the lake for at least four or five hours before finally getting around it. At this time, Poker-face understood why the boat was needed, because it would have only taken more than ten minutes.

After bypassing the fan-shaped body of water, the lake became narrow and long, with cliffs on both sides covered in snow. Although the lake was narrow and long, it actually looked quite wide. They continued walking into the valley until it was almost dark, but when they reached the middle, they suddenly saw something strange up ahead.

At the end of the ravine, a temple was built in the air. At this point in the story, I wondered what kind of structure was used, but since I had studied architecture, I could imagine it almost immediately. It must have used a lot of large crossbeams to connect to the cliffs on both sides. In the middle of the crossbeams, upright posts were used to penetrate into the lake bottom and the temple was then built on top.

It was a typical lama temple, quite old, and built with black Himalayan rocks. It was at least seven stories high, and one floor was equivalent to two and a half stories of an ordinary building. The lama temple was like a dam, steadfastly intercepting the whole ravine.

Walking under the temple, Poker-face looked ahead and saw that the lake continued on in the distance without end. On the lake under the temple, there were many small boats, one of which was covered with a layer of new ice, and some places were still wet.

Poker-face asked Laba to wait and climbed up bit by bit. Sure enough, he found an entrance under the temple, but it was blocked by a board. Poker-face gave a push, but something very heavy seemed to be on it so it didn't move.

He didn't give up and drew back, took a deep breath, and then pressed against the wooden door. With all of his strength concentrated on his shoulder, he quietly pushed it up.

Here, I want to explain that it's very difficult to exert one's strength while pushing up, so the difficulty of weight-lifting is completely different from that of lifting with your body weight. It's very difficult for a person to lift something like that, because they're not used to that kind of upward movement, so the lifting muscles haven't been exercised.

But Poker-face obviously exercised his arms very well and slowly pushed the wooden door up. After entering, he saw a stone weighing more than two hundred jin [1] pressing against it.

He rolled over the wooden door and saw a utility room that was used for making, repairing, and storing food and raw materials. Poker-face looked around and saw a lot of charcoal, wood, food, and some unknown meat hanging on the beams.

The meat was frozen solid and had obviously not been sun-dried. As long as there was moisture here, it would become "Himalayan stone" in just a few minutes.