Rivers of Mercury

And the first emperor would seek to build a dark mirror empire in the afterlife, beneath the mountain he burned boulders of cinnebar with fire until they became liquid mercury which flowed through the channels of his tomb, creating shimmering, silver rivers that stood in for the eternal Chang Jiang.

Qin Shi Huang's majestic capital in Chang'an, now still secreted and unknown because of those noxious subterranean rivers of mercury are doubled about four hundred years later in the Aztec pyramids of the feathered serpent in Teotihuacan, where beyond tumbles of jade and jaguar skeletons we have found silvery rust on stone signifying the imperial rivers which might have protected the final resting places of the anonynous Meso-American emperors.