The Chronicles of the Tomb Robbers归档 - 第75页共91页

4 3 月 2025

170 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 40 – The Nest of the ‘Guardian Deity’

The corpses were all dressed in tattered armor; some had dried into mummies, while others had become half-skeletons. These were likely the Jurchen warriors who had been hunted down during their exploration. However, their weapons were too rudimentary. We now have so many M16s and Type 56 rifles, with powerful firepower. Thinking of this made me feel a lot more at ease.

After entering the area where bodies were hung on chains, we crawled down nearly fifty more meters. Corpses surrounded us on all sides, their decayed, hollow eyes staring at us, which was genuinely unsettling. The atmosphere suddenly turned gloomy.

To prevent any blind spots in our vision or to dispel this fear, a few people lit cold fireworks, illuminating the surroundings to an unprecedented brightness.

Surprisingly, no strange birds appeared, and I didn’t feel the agitation that usually comes with their flight. It was eerily quiet all around.

The fat guy pointed to a corpse hanging to the side and quietly asked me, “They’re all old corpses, with no fresh ones. Could it be that this place has already been abandoned?”

I shook my head to silence him. It was possible, but since the strange birds could go out to hunt, it meant there must be an exit nearby. Our hopes were significantly raised.

Of course, it was also possible that they were temporarily absent, like a swarm of bats that all fly out of the cave at the same time to hunt. If that was the case, we should pass through this area quickly. So, I signaled to urge everyone to speed up.

At that moment, Kirk and Panzi in front stopped. Panzi turned around and waved for me to come over.

I told the others to rest in place, then leaped and crawled down several ledges to reach Kirk. To my surprise, his powerful flashlight was already able to illuminate the vast bottom of the chasm. It seemed our Spider-Man adventure was about to come to an end.

However, the flashlight’s beam was too diffuse, and we couldn’t see clearly what was down there. After experiencing the eerie tomb names in the Chinese ancient tomb, this German clearly had lost confidence in his judgment; he insisted that I take a look before making any decisions.

This underground chasm was too large; using the flashlight was of no use. You could only tell there was something below, but what it was remained completely unclear. Even with night vision goggles, we could only see vague green shapes.

We had a few signal flares left, and I had intended to conserve them, but in this situation, we couldn’t afford to hold back. I asked the fat guy to think of a way to fire a flare in this environment, trying to make the illumination last as long as possible.

Aning and the others had more advanced flares than ours. The fat guy knew the ropes and made an “OK” gesture.

He activated a glow stick, cut it open with a knife, and applied the paint inside to the tip of the flare. Then he tossed the flare into the deep abyss. We saw a glowing dot fall like a meteor, landing at the bottom of the chasm, bouncing twice before coming to a stop.

Then the fat guy raised his Type 56 rifle, took a three-round burst, and hit the flare tip. Instantly, the flare ignited, illuminating the entire valley floor clearly.

Indeed, we had reached the bottom of the chasm, which was covered in extremely uneven black volcanic rock and the bones of corpses that had fallen from above, layered upon one another. It was hard to tell how many bones and black feces were there, almost covering all the rocks. On one side of the chasm floor, there was a massive bronze door with two sides.

I cannot adequately describe the grandeur of this massive gate. It stands about thirty meters high and nearly sixty meters wide. If converted into modern buildings with three meters per floor, the height of this gate alone is equivalent to ten stories. The entire surface of the gate appears to be cast as a single piece, and this is definitely not a bronze artifact that ancient people could have forged. It is certainly not meant for human use, as such a door weighs tens of thousands of tons, resting upon the rocks—who could possibly open it?

Aning said, “This must be the great underground gate mentioned in the legends of Dongxia, where the emperors of the ten thousand slaves appeared throughout the ages. After each dynasty was replaced, they would seal the gate again with the living skins of human sacrifices. Can you guess… what lies inside?”

I shook my head, my mind wandering elsewhere. I thought to myself, who could have cast such a massive gate here? How did the ten thousand slave king emerge? Could he truly be a god, possessing the divine power to move ten-thousand-ton boulders? I murmured, “No matter what lies inside, we definitely cannot go in.”

The same type of giant bronze artifacts, as well as the giant bronze divine trees I saw deep in the Qinling Mountains, are also buried deep at the base of the mountains. Are these massive, humanly impossible bronze artifacts related in some way? Or could there be similar things hidden within other giant mountain ranges, like Kunlun or the Himalayas?

I vaguely felt that I was approaching a colossal ancient mystery, and a profound sense of insignificance washed over me. Compared to the ancient mysteries of these wonders, I felt utterly trivial, and I couldn’t even see a glimmer of hope for uncovering the truth.

The illumination flares gradually extinguished, and darkness once again enveloped the underground. Yet, I remained there until Panzi patted me on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go down,” which brought me back to reality.

One by one, we climbed down the chains and soon arrived at the bottom of the valley, carefully stepping over the bones beneath our feet until we stood before the giant bronze gate. At that moment, my sense of insignificance intensified to the point where I felt an impulse to kneel down.

Even in our modern era, we felt this way upon reaching this place. It’s not hard to imagine how shocked the Dongxia warriors must have been when they painstakingly brought Wang Canghai here. No wonder they were so haunted by their experiences here that they fought to document everything to pass on to future generations. I could even sense Wang Canghai’s anguish—his initial belief that he understood the laws of the universe, only to suddenly realize he knew nothing at all.

Lost in my thoughts, the fat man interrupted my contemplation. He was shining his flashlight toward the middle of the rift. The bottom of this underground rift was about five to six hundred meters wide, with rubble on the ground resembling small hills. The fat man walked quite a distance, and upon reaching the middle of the rift, he saw a massive stone mountain that had been shaped into platforms, resembling a small pyramid. A long stone staircase was built on one side of the rock, with small lamps on either side of each step.

What caught the fat man’s attention was the object placed on the stone platform—a gigantic white stone coffin, roughly the size of a car, with nine stone-carved centipedes coiling around the base, forming a lotus shape. Surrounding it were four black stone figures, facing the four cardinal directions, in a posture of worship.

Before the coffin, there was a large cauldron for placing offerings, and behind it stood a shadow wall, the carvings on which were not clear. When viewed from above, these things looked like ordinary stones and were difficult to see, which is why we hadn’t noticed them earlier.

I inhaled sharply: “Could this be… the Nine Dragons Coffin of the Wannu King? The one mentioned in Wang Canghai’s dragon fish cryptic text?”

The胖子 (Pangzi) replied, “It must be! Didn’t someone say that the Wannu King’s coffin is guarded by nine divine dragons? Look underneath this coffin; aren’t there exactly nine centipedes? I thought Chen Pi Ah Si was just messing with us, but it turns out it’s real!”

I had always thought that the Wannu King only had the shadow coffin in the underground tomb, and that the body had undergone sky burial, so I had long given up hope of finding the real king’s coffin. I never expected that we would actually discover the true Nine Dragons Coffin here. We were all excited, and a few eager ones had already run over. An Ning, who was nearby, hurriedly called out to them, shouting, “Don’t go over there, it’s dangerous!”

Upon hearing this, the ones who were running immediately stopped in their tracks. An Ning shouted, “Didn’t you see the centipede dragons under the coffin?”

Pangzi said, “My goodness, that’s a stone sculpture! What danger could there be? What kind of eyes do you have?”

An Ning raised her eyebrows and retorted, “What kind of eyes do you have? I’m not talking about those stone sculptures; look closely at the edge of the stone platform!”

The edge of the stone platform? An Ning’s expression was very serious, but I looked left and right and still couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know what she was so worried about, so I asked her to show me.

An Ning used her flashlight like a teaching stick and pointed. At first, I still didn’t notice anything, and just as I was feeling extremely puzzled, I suddenly saw the stone platform move slightly. To my shock, I discovered that there was a gigantic volcanic centipede coiled on the stone platform, measuring at least five or six meters long. It was so large that, combined with the color of its shell and the volcanic rock, it was almost indistinguishable at first glance.

After spotting the first one, I quickly counted a second, third, fourth… in total, we counted nine giant centipedes, all coiled around the stone platform, resembling a relief sculpture that almost blended into the platform itself.

The Nine Dragons Coffin was indeed living up to its name!

An Ning said, “If you climb onto the stone platform without understanding what’s going on, you’ll definitely be bitten in half. Volcanic centipedes are carnivorous insects, extremely fierce and quick. Our size is exactly what they love to prey on.”

Having experienced many strange things, I could still forgive the idea of centipedes growing to a meter long, considering this was an underground rift in a volcano, where the environment and air composition were likely different. There have been similar discoveries in other parts of the world, but I had never seen insects that were so extraordinarily large. They looked like monsters mutated by radiation from a horror movie.

One of the Chinese experts in An Ning’s team muttered to himself, “So strange. The lifespan of this kind of centipede is usually only two to three years. They should have died when they were only as long as a finger. How could these have grown so big? Have they been alive for thousands of years?”

4 3 月 2025

169 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 39 – The Only Exit

The tomb passage slanted downward, the angle becoming steeper. The胖子 and I shone our flashlights down, but there was no sign of an end; the terminus was forever shrouded in deep darkness. I started to feel a bit anxious. We had already walked a long distance down, deep into the heart of Changbai Mountain. If we continued like this, where would we end up? The center of the Earth?

But even if it led to the center of the Earth, we had to keep going, because the guiding symbols left by the dull oil bottle clearly indicated that he had gone in this direction. With every step we took, we were getting closer to the truth of the matter. We had no choice but to press on. After walking for more than twenty minutes under the flashlight’s beam, the胖子 said to me, “Xiao Wu, have you noticed that it’s getting a bit warmer in this tomb passage?”

I nodded and replied, “Maybe our destination is near an area of volcanic activity, where there are lava or hot springs, which would explain the rising temperature. What exactly did Wang Zanghai dig up back in the day?”

The胖子 couldn’t answer that question either.

After advancing for a while, the胖子 suddenly turned around and asked me, “You have to tell me honestly, what kind of special relationship do you have with that guy?”

I was caught off guard by the胖子’s question and didn’t know how to respond. Then I realized I had misunderstood; he wasn’t asking about the kind of relationship I was thinking of. The series of events that had just happened unfolded too quickly for me to fully process. Now that I thought about it, the胖子 didn’t know that my blood had exhibited the same phenomenon as Lao Men’s blood in the Qinling Mountains. It was his first time seeing this, so how could he not be surprised? To avoid revealing any weaknesses in front of A Ning, I hadn’t asked him about it then. Now that it was just the two of us, he naturally wanted to inquire. However, given his personality, it was unlikely he would ask me directly; his question about my relationship with the dull oil bottle was probably just out of curiosity about why my blood could “drive away insects.”

According to Liang Shiye, the peculiar ability of my blood should be related to having consumed the blood of a smoked corpse, but I really couldn’t recall whether I had eaten such a thing. I knew nothing about the blood of the qilin and couldn’t provide him with a definite answer. Besides, my earlier reaction was purely instinctive; I couldn’t simply conclude that it was my blood that was at work.

Seeing that I didn’t respond, the胖子 assumed I agreed with his line of thought. He said, “Maybe he’s your long-lost brother, or cousin, or even your father’s illegitimate child. Your family must have inherited this special ability.”

I scolded, “Don’t talk nonsense. I’m my old man’s only son. If that kind of scholar had an illegitimate child, then there wouldn’t be a trustworthy man left in the world.”

The胖子 still believed there was definitely something fishy going on. I didn’t want to discuss this further, so I changed the subject.

After walking for a long time, we finally reached the end of the tomb passage. As we stepped out of the passage, a warm breeze suddenly blew in, refreshing my spirit. I quickly turned on my flashlight to look around and discovered that we were on a corridor built on a cliff, similar to the sacrificial altar of the fake spirit palace we saw in the ice dome when we arrived. The floor beneath us was supported by columns suspended over the cliff, and in the center of the corridor stood a massive black cauldron, one of its legs already sunk into the stone floor, leaning dangerously as if it might topple over. Clearly, we had to be cautious as we moved around this platform, as the stones beneath had aged.

The edges of the platform were all cliffs, and the area above was pitch black, making it impossible to see the ceiling. The Fatty grumbled, “Why is it that… we’ve reached the end again, with no way to go? And there’s still a coffin here. Where on earth has the King of Ten Thousand Slaves hidden himself?”

I replied, “This isn’t even the strangest part. We followed the little brother’s markings here, and there were very clear clues along the way. But look, there’s not a single person here. Did they all realize this was a dead end and go back? Or…?” I glanced into the darkness beside us, “Did they fly away?”

We walked to the edge of the corridor, and suddenly a signal flare ignited high in the air, illuminating the pitch-black space like a small sun and revealing the scene before us.

With the light of the flare, I saw that we were actually in a massive mountain fissure. The corridor we stood on was built against one side of the cliff of the fissure, while directly across from us, over two hundred meters away, was the cliff on the other side of the fissure. It felt as if we were perched on a cliff in a gigantic rift valley in Africa. We couldn’t help but gasp in astonishment.

As the flare gradually descended, it fell below the corridor, illuminating the situation beneath us. Another shocking sight appeared: deep in the unfathomable chasm below, countless bronze chains, as thick as a bowl, spanned across, connecting both sides of the fissure.

With the descending light source, about twenty meters below the corridor, in a chaotic depth of the chasm, there were countless chains almost everywhere, with only sparse gaps. Moreover, on the chains deeper down, many objects hung densely, resembling a multitude of bells. It was too far to see clearly.

At that moment, the Fatty found a climbing rope at one end of the corridor. He lowered it down from one end of the platform until it reached just above the nearest bronze chain below, securing it there.

Frowning, the Fatty said, “That’s sufficient. The little brother is indeed persistent; it looks like he climbed down. Should we also follow him down like monkeys?”

I replied, “Considering the density of the chains below, it probably won’t be hard to climb. But what exactly is this place? Why is there such a strange setup? Could the coffin of the King of Ten Thousand Slaves be down in this chasm? Have you thought about how they could have transported that enormous coffin down here?”

The Fatty said, “There’s indeed a possibility, but the ancients always had their clever ways. Should we go up to inform those foreigners, or should we descend first?”

I said, “Once we go down, we may not be able to come back up. There’s no need for us to act as their scouts. Calling them down would only benefit them, as their equipment and technology are better than ours. Besides, Panzi is still up there; anyway, Uncle Three has already found it, so spending a bit more time is fine.”

The fat guy thought of Kirk’s muscular build and agreed with me. We returned the way we came, and knowing the road was long, we unconsciously quickened our pace.

A Ning and the others had been anxiously waiting and thought something had happened to us. When they saw us return, they finally breathed a sigh of relief. I took Panzi’s water, had a sip, and recounted what we had seen.

Upon hearing that there were bronze chains lying across below, A Ning quickly pulled out the photos she had taken from the underwater tomb and pointed to one of them. In the photo, many Eastern Xia warriors were seen carrying bows and arrows, climbing a sheer cliff, with a background filled with numerous chain-like objects. Clearly, it depicted the Eastern Xia people exploring the giant underground chasm.

I said, “It seems that those chains weren’t set up by the Eastern Xia people. They must have been curious about what was beneath those chains sealing off the chasm.”

The fat guy said, “Could these iron chains be some sort of defense mechanism set up by the ancestors who built this place to prevent something from climbing up? Like that giant black, soft-bodied creature depicted in the mural?”

I nodded, “That’s possible.” Then I asked A Ning, “Which mural is this? What’s the next one?”

A Ning replied, “According to the usual sequence of the murals, this should be the sixth from the last, with five more behind it, in order…”

A Ning spread out the last five photos. In the last mural, many Eastern Xia warriors were seen drawing bows and shooting arrows, seemingly engaged in a fierce battle, yet there were no visible enemies in the mural, leaving us wondering what they were fighting against. I thought of that strange bird that couldn’t be seen while flying in the air, and my heart tightened. Could there be something like that below as well?

The next mural depicted many evil spirits emerging from the rocks.

It seemed that there wasn’t much of a narrative connection between the murals, but they gave rise to endless associations, creating a very conscious feeling.

A Ning asked me, “Did you notice something odd again, Wu Chaoren?”

I chuckled self-deprecatingly, “It’s not that I’ve figured something out. Look, the mural of climbing the cliff is followed by the battle scene. I feel like this might be telling us what dangers we will encounter once we descend into the chasm. Those with weapons should prepare their arms.”

The others regarded me as their spiritual leader; whatever I said was taken as truth. Kirk quickly picked up his M16 and made a gesture as if to wrap it around himself. We packed our bags and headed towards the tomb passage that led deeper into Changbai Mountain.

I fell to the back of the line to check on Uncle Three, but he was still unconscious, and I couldn’t tell what terrifying things he had witnessed here. Panzi reassured me, saying that even if he had to crawl, he would drag Uncle Three out of this hellish place with him.

Walking through the tomb passage, I looked at the nervous crowd in front of me. A strange feeling welled up inside me; with Chen Pi, Ah Si, and my third uncle absent, I had to take on the role of leader for these people. This was a sensation I had never experienced before, a kind of inexplicable thrill. But were my thoughts and decisions truly correct? Was I leading these people towards death? As I pondered this, I felt a wave of hesitation wash over me.

Soon, everyone arrived at the corridor. The fat guy fired a flare, allowing everyone to see the spectacular scenery surrounding the rift. Panzi and I pulled out ropes, preparing to climb down. It was an extremely risky decision, but our escape route had been completely blocked, leaving us with no other options.

I had no idea what awaited us below. An Ning and his group were not trustworthy either. After pulling out all the ropes, I signaled the fat guy to be careful. We were all in trouble now, and everyone appeared cooperative. However, once we reached the bottom and found a way out, we had to be wary of that nasty woman turning against us.

The fat guy patted my shoulder and gave me a knowing glance, implying that he had already kept something in reserve. To ease my worries, he tugged at the corner of his shirt, revealing the remaining ten detonators strapped to his waist.

We tested the rope, and it was very sturdy. Panzi took the lead and was the first to climb down. Once he reached the chain, he hung his body like a gymnast on the horizontal bar and effortlessly jumped to another chain below. He repeated this five or six times and had descended over ten meters, giving me an “OK” hand gesture.

An Ning’s team was much better equipped than we were. Kirk brought a diffuse headlamp, turning himself into a moving light bulb. He was the second to climb down, and we used Kirk’s head as a guide, gradually descending the corridor and entering the suspended world of chains.

The density of the chains made climbing quite convenient. Regardless of what the original purpose of the bronze chains was, they provided us with a handy ladder. As we climbed for a while, our movements became more proficient, and we picked up some tricks, feeling very much like Spider-Man.

Like spiders, a dozen of us slowly descended, and there were no unexpected incidents along the way. The sturdiness of the chains was astonishing. Four hours later, the corridor above had shrunk significantly, and we had entered the depths of the rift, far beyond the reach of our eyesight from above. The giant bronze chains that had been unclear from above were now visible to me.

To be cautious, I blew the bat whistle, signaling Kirk and Panzi at the bottom to stop. Using An Ning’s night vision binoculars, I looked down. In the dim green view, I saw what hung from the chains—bodies that had been hanged there. A black, hair-like thread extended from the back of their necks, hanging from the chains. Judging by the numbers, the chains below were densely packed, almost impossible to count.

The dragon fish cipher from Wang Canghai reveals that the headless bird-like monsters we encounter, which are invisible while flying and only appear when they land, like to hang their prey on branches to dry for later use. With so many corpses here, could it be that this is their nest? No wonder the silent oil bottle warned us not to go down, but we have no other way to go now. If we don’t take the risk and go down, we might just die anyway. I suppressed the fear in my heart, made a gesture to signal everyone to be on guard, and continued downward. We’ve come this far; even if it’s hell below, we have to brace ourselves and go down.

4 3 月 2025

168 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 38 – Snake Eyebrow Copper Fish

I really didn’t want to hand over the snake-browed copper fish, but recalling my uncle’s instructions, I impulsively took it out. I didn’t expect An Ning and the others to react so strongly.

After a long while, one of them finally reacted and asked me, “Where did you get this? You… are simply a deity! Are you saying you found it in the Lu Wang Palace? This is the dragon fish script! I always thought there was only one, but I didn’t expect…”

I wasn’t in the mood to discuss this with them, so I waved my hand and said, “Does anyone here know how to read it?”

An Ning immediately shouted, “Wu Lao Si!” A Chinese man walked over, and when he saw the fish in my hand, his expression changed. He rushed over and exclaimed, “Heavens!”

I asked him, “Can you translate it?” He nodded vigorously, as if receiving a sacred object, and took it from me. He began to shine a flashlight on the fish’s scales, and soon a large number of Jurchen characters appeared on the ground. Someone nearby immediately helped to transcribe them.

An Ning’s subordinates were indeed impressive; they could translate while copying, far better than Huasheng. After they finished, I basically understood the main idea. I found it puzzling at first, as it seemed ambiguous, but as I listened further, it became clearer, resembling a narrative poem. I couldn’t record everything, but a few passages left a deep impression on me.

The entire text was very concise. It began with a few sentences stating that the secrets hidden in this dragon fish script were of great importance. Wang Canghai had engraved it, hoping it would never see the light of day. However, if someone were to find it, he hoped that person would be Han rather than Jurchen.

The text then described his experiences after being captured by Dongxia, which closely resembled the records on his murals. It also mentioned that to obtain treasures not found in Dongxia, he had led people to rob many ancient tombs. In the most spiritually potent places, he secretly placed the copper fish to give this secret a chance to be discovered.

I gasped in realization, thinking, so that’s how it is. As I continued reading, the subsequent content astonished me to the extreme—what was recorded was his gradual discovery of a bizarre secret about the Dongxia king during the renovation of the Dongxia royal tomb.

What shocked me was that Huasheng had previously mentioned the first half of this segment, which stated that the Wan Nu Wang of Dongxia was a monster that crawled out from the ground, a demon. Hearing this part directly related to what Huasheng had said.

It described how Wang Canghai had been trapped here for ten years and had once been taken to see a subterranean door known as a miracle. It was said that the Wan Nu Wang of successive generations did not inherit the throne but crawled out from that underground door after the previous generation’s death. Moreover, that underground door could only be opened when the previous Wan Nu Wang died; otherwise, the hellfire would consume everything about the one who opened it, preventing Changbai Mountain from ever seeing a white-haired figure. I felt as if a volcano was erupting, wondering if the Wan Nu Wang crawled out of a volcano.

He was fortunate enough to witness one such succession of the throne and felt immense fear when he saw that the Wan Nu Wang crawling out from the underground door was actually a monster, not a human at all.

The text describes a mysterious underground door located beneath the royal tomb in Changbai Mountain, dating back to ancient times, possibly from the Xia dynasty. It mentions that a bird with a human head guards the passage to this underground door. The narrator feels a chill at the thought of this strange bird, but the more bizarre content follows.

On another copper fish, there are records of someone sneaking into the underground door, but the narrator cannot comprehend it, as it seems to be written in a frenzied state after a shocking experience. A character named Fatty interjects, questioning why the one who opens the door isn’t harmed by the hellfire, suggesting it’s nonsense. The narrator speculates that the person must have used some unknown method, but the records are too chaotic.

Suddenly, someone reports finding a mark, leading them to discover that several coffins in the coffin pit have been opened, revealing their contents. On one side of the coffin pit, a hidden door has been opened, which also bears a mark. Anning asks if the mark was left by them, to which the narrator pretends not to know.

Another person reports that the coffins are all shadow coffins, fakes containing only jade bodies, and the real coffins are not there. When they opened them, a mechanism was triggered, releasing centipedes. They carefully searched and found a secret passage, indicating a double-layered tomb, with the real coffins possibly below, a burial method popular during the Yuan dynasty.

The narrator is astonished by the large coffin made of gem and glass and looks at the opened hidden door, realizing it is steep and seems aimed at digging deeper. They think to themselves that the place the muffle bottle doesn’t want them to go is indeed here. Anning glances at the narrator, seemingly sharing the same thoughts, and gestures for someone to go down, but everyone else looks at the narrator and Fatty instead.

4 3 月 2025

167 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part Two) – Chapter 37 – The Muffled Oil Bottle Second

I sat on my backpack while the doctor from Aning’s team bandaged my wounds. The injury on my hand was particularly severe; it took three stitches to close it up, which was caused when I was yanked down from the stone beam by a corpse. Although I wasn’t spoiled as a child, I had never done any heavy labor, so I was easily injured by such bumps and scrapes. If it were Panzai, he probably wouldn’t have been affected at all.

The doctor disinfected the wound and advised me not to touch water or use my hand for anything. I nodded in thanks, and he went off to tend to others.

After falling from the stone corridor, Aning and the others were utterly shocked by my “entrance.” At first, Aning didn’t even recognize me (in fact, I was disheveled, so it was quite impressive that she eventually figured out it was me). It wasn’t until Fatty called out to them from the stone beam that she snapped back to reality, looking at me with disbelief and unable to say a word.

The two groups stood frozen for a long time before gradually reacting. I moved a little, anxious to see if the person being carried was my third uncle, but as soon as I moved, everyone around me instinctively stepped back several paces, as if they had seen a ghost. A few even reflexively raised their guns again.

Fatty and Panzai had just relaxed on the beam, but upon seeing this, they quickly raised their guns once more. I hurriedly raised both hands to show I meant no harm, and Aning waved her hand, telling her subordinates, “It’s our people, we’ve worked together, put down your guns.” After repeating this several times, her subordinates reluctantly lowered their guns, but a few foreigners still looked very tense, their eyes fixed on me.

I could see the tension in their faces; they were clearly very agitated, and with just a little more fright, they might collapse. So, I didn’t dare to make any sudden moves and stood there, unsure of what to do.

Aning furrowed her brow, and from her expression, it was evident that she didn’t know we were here. She looked up and asked me, “How did you guys end up here…?”

Fatty chuckled from above, “This is like the Legend of Madam White Snake looking for a partner—those destined to meet will come together from afar, while those without fate will end up naked and huddled together, complaining about each other’s roughness. Do you believe we just happened to pass by?”

As he spoke, Fatty and Panzai jumped down from the stone beam. At that moment, a few people from Aning’s team clearly recognized Fatty and exclaimed in surprise, as his appearance triggered some bad memories for them.

Fatty walked up to us, and perhaps because he had worked with these people before, the atmosphere eased a bit. A few tense individuals finally relaxed and lowered the safeties on their guns, cursing under their breath. One person even muttered to himself, “Well, this is just great—running into bad people in a terrible place.”

I recalled the first time I met Fatty, and I couldn’t help but think that his words were quite fitting, which made me want to laugh.

Fatty shot that person a glare, then greeted a few others he seemed to know. Aning still wanted to ask him questions, but Panzai and I couldn’t hold back any longer and ran towards the foreigner carrying someone on his back, eager to check if it was indeed my third uncle.

The foreigners seemed very concerned about me; whenever I ran over, they would quickly step aside. The foreigner carrying someone on his back, however, didn’t seem afraid at all. When he saw that my target was the person on his back, he put him down on the ground. I rushed over and hurriedly lifted the climbing hat off the person’s head.

Under the climbing hat was a face that looked extremely haggard and unkempt, with a scruffy beard. I barely recognized him at first, only feeling like he resembled my Uncle San. Upon closer inspection, I gasped, almost unable to scream.

Indeed, it was my long-lost Uncle San, that old rascal! After just a few months apart, he seemed to have aged over ten years; his hair had turned gray, and at first glance, he was completely unrecognizable.

To be honest, I wasn’t mentally prepared for this encounter. I thought I would finally see Uncle San in a tomb, where he would reveal everything to me, or that he would appear to rescue me in a moment of danger… But instead, he suddenly showed up in Ah Ning’s group in such a careless manner. I was looking at him clearly, yet I suddenly found it hard to believe.

Had I really seen Uncle San again? Had I found him? I stood there frozen, unsure of how to react, not knowing if I was dreaming or hallucinating.

Uncle San seemed a bit disoriented, squinting his eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he could see me. However, when I called out to him, I noticed a slight reaction from his whole body; his cracked lips moved slightly, as if asking, “Nephew?” But then he fell silent again.

A wave of emotion surged in my heart, a feeling I couldn’t put into words. Seeing this old guy safe and sound instantly relieved me; the anxious feeling of having lost my anchor disappeared. But then a surge of extreme anger rose within me, wanting to go over and push him down and give him a good beating. The two feelings mixed together, and I wasn’t sure what expression was on my face, but it must have looked quite amusing.

The fat guy was arguing with Ah Ning about something, and I didn’t have time to pay attention to that. Panzi looked at Uncle San’s condition and rushed over to shake him several times, then started to unbutton his clothes. I was stunned when I saw that Uncle San’s shirt was covered in a thick, sticky substance. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that his chest was covered in sores, with countless hard-headed centipedes embedded under his skin. It was clear that Uncle San had tried to pull them out, but the centipede tails broke off upon contact, leaving them stuck inside, and the wounds wouldn’t heal, eventually turning into pus.

Panzi grabbed the nearby foreigner, ready to hit him, but was held back by others. While struggling, Panzi shouted, “What the hell did you do to San Ye? How could you let him end up like this?”

Seeing the horrified expression on the foreigner’s face as he looked at the wounds, I realized they were definitely unaware of the situation. However, Uncle San’s condition was too tragic. Trembling, I asked the foreigner, “Where did you find him? How did he end up like this?”

The foreigner looked like he was about to vomit. Turning away, he said, “Right below the coffin pit here. We just discovered him and thought he was dead, but then we found out he was still alive. The team leader said this old man knows a lot and we must take him with us—if I had known he had these things on him, I would never have carried him, not even if I died!”

“It must be you guys!” Panzi shouted angrily from the side. “I’ve seen it in Vietnam; those Vietnamese interrogate prisoners using this trick. They learned it from you Americans. You bastards must have tortured Third Uncle! I’ll kill you all!”

The others had surrounded us, and I waved my hand to calm Panzi down. “It has nothing to do with them. If they were the ones who did it, they wouldn’t be panicking like this, knowing that the dead centipede would attract its kind.”

Aning came over and gasped in shock. He immediately called for the medic, and a few people hurriedly helped to straighten Third Uncle out. Just then, I suddenly felt Third Uncle secretly put something into my pocket. His movement was quick, and for a moment, I felt my pocket shift. I was taken aback, and a thought crossed my mind.

In an instant, my mind buzzed, and I realized: Third Uncle might be awake! My heart was filled with both shock and relief. I was shocked that he was pretending to be unconscious—what could his purpose be? But I was relieved because being able to make such small movements showed that this old guy’s death was still a long way off. I glanced around with my peripheral vision; the others were all shocked by his wounds and didn’t notice. So I continued to support him quietly, but I squeezed his shoulder hard to indicate that I knew there was something in my pocket.

Third Uncle’s gaze became unfocused again. The medic cleaned his wounds with alcohol, then used a heated military knife to cut open the skin, using tweezers to pull out the centipedes inside and letting out the pus. Because it was so cold here, it was easy for things to freeze, so Panzi and I started a smokeless stove, continuously warming up Third Uncle.

There were a total of sixteen wounds. A few of the centipedes were still alive when pulled out and were thrown directly into the fire to be burned. Finally, the wounds were stitched up. Panzi was completely focused on the whole process, and I wanted to give him a hint, but it was impossible. I had something on my mind, but in this situation, leaving suddenly would be inappropriate. I could only wait to find out what Third Uncle had put in my pocket.

After all the issues were finally dealt with, the medic covered him with a blanket and let him rest on the side. Panzi then asked how he was doing. The medic sighed and said, “I’ve done everything I can. Now he has an infected wound. I’ll give him an antibiotic shot in a bit, but he’s already running a bit of a fever. I don’t know if he can hold on until we get out; it depends on his willpower. Don’t disturb him; let him sleep.” Only then did I have an excuse to pull Panzi away. At that moment, I realized that I was also covered in injuries from rolling down and couldn’t even stand up.

After the medic bandaged my wounds, he went to check on the others. Aning’s team had about sixteen or seventeen people, and the cold smoke from the fire was gradually extinguishing. It was too dark around us to count clearly. The fat guy was pulled aside by Aning, who was saying something continuously, but I couldn’t see what was happening there. I wanted to pull Panzi to a place without people, but he seemed a bit dazed, just sitting beside Third Uncle and unable to react.

I was really annoyed; at a critical moment, I couldn’t be of any help and had to find a way to avoid the people around me. A-Ning’s group was divided into two teams: one group was resting due to injuries, while the other descended into the coffin pit. These people didn’t seem to harbor any ill will towards me, possibly because the Fatty knew them. However, perhaps due to my earlier action of repelling the centipede, wherever I went, they all regarded me with strange looks. The circular tomb chamber was so spacious that there was no place to hide.

I steeled myself and walked over to the corpse of the fetus I had trampled, pretending to crouch down to examine it, which finally kept people from gathering around me. The corpse looked like a giant mantis shrimp, its features blurred by my stomp. Just looking at it made my scalp tingle, but I couldn’t worry about that now. I fished something out of my pocket and found a small note. Looking back to see that no one was behind me, I nervously unfolded it. It contained several lines of text, and I was taken aback; the first half of the writing didn’t resemble my uncle’s handwriting. Judging by the form of the writing, it seemed to be from the Mysterious Oil Bottle. It read:

“I’ve gone down. That’s it, you should hurry back. Going any further is beyond what you can handle. Everything you want to know is in the copper fish with the snake-eyed pattern.”

The signature shocked me even more—it was the strange symbol we had seen… This was indeed left by the Mysterious Oil Bottle. What did it mean?

Below that was my uncle’s very hasty handwriting, which looked like it had been scratched out with a nail, but it was still legible, and he had only written one line:

“We are only one step away from the truth. Give the copper fish to Old Four below A-Ning and let him decipher it. It’s okay; the most crucial information is with me. They wouldn’t dare do anything to us.”

Clearly, when my uncle got here, he must have discovered this note from the Mysterious Oil Bottle somewhere, and it was definitely meant for us. It seemed the Mysterious Oil Bottle wanted to stop us from going down, and from the note, it appeared there was some passage he went to—a very dangerous place. My uncle clearly didn’t appreciate this warning. This was really dangerous; what on earth did that old guy want? What crucial information did my uncle still have? Since the Mysterious Oil Bottle didn’t want us to go down, who was the note meant for? Was it meant for himself?

My mind suddenly wandered. Actually, during this time, I felt more clues emerging, but because the previous mysteries were so chaotic, any new thoughts became particularly confusing.

I recalled the markings in the underwater tomb; when the Mysterious Oil Bottle saw this, he must have realized he had been there before. Now, he carved the markings—did he know he would lose his memory? So he left his own marks in advance, so that when he returned next time, he could rely on them to remember?

It was all too chaotic, and my head started to ache again. At that moment, A-Ning and the Fatty called out to me, startling me. I turned around and saw them beckoning me over. So I decided not to think about it anymore, folded the note, stuffed it back into my pocket, and walked over.

A-Ning handed me a jug of water, and after taking a sip, she said, “I talked with Mr. Wang, and we are officially preparing to cooperate. What do you think?”

Cooperation? I saw the shape of her chest through her tight-fitting clothes, which reminded me of what happened on the boat, making me a bit hesitant to meet her gaze. I recalled the warnings from the “Dumb Oil Bottle” and my uncle’s words, and I genuinely didn’t know how to respond.

When I found my uncle, I felt a sense of relief, which also had a selfish element to it—at least I could get out. What I truly wanted was to escape this place. But just as my uncle said, we seemed to be very close to the truth. It appeared that my uncle had his own mysteries; if I could help him get out, he might be just as clueless as I was. If we could forget all this, that would be fine, but if not, with my uncle’s character, he would undoubtedly want to come back for another round. Could I just stand by and do nothing?

After some thought, I gritted my teeth and said, “What kind of cooperation are you talking about? Be honest, I really need to think it over if I’m going to work with you.”

Seeing my expression, she laughed and shook her head, “Well, I didn’t have time to say goodbye on the island. Thank you for saving me. There were reasons for my actions at sea… I never intended to harm you.”

I recalled the events in the underwater tomb and sighed, thinking to myself that I would be a fool to believe her. I lit a cigarette and said, “If you really want to cooperate, then tell me what’s going on. What exactly are you looking for at the bottom of the sea? Why did you come here?”

The fat guy chimed in, “Yeah, it’s better to be open about things if we want to work together.”

Aning showed a surprised expression, “You don’t know? Your uncle didn’t tell you? You all… ran around recklessly without knowing anything?”

I forced a bitter smile, thinking that if my uncle had shared the details with me, I wouldn’t have cared about his life or death. I shook my head, “He didn’t say anything. I’ve been flying blind.”

Aning furrowed her brows and looked at me for a long time, seemingly realizing I wasn’t lying. She said, “No wonder. I always thought you were a particularly formidable character. I couldn’t tell at all that you were lying. It turns out you really don’t know anything.”

At that moment, I suddenly felt something was off. Why was this woman suddenly looking to cooperate with us? They had so many people, plenty of resources, and there were only three of us—why would they want to team up with us? Even if it was because I could fend off the “Yao Yan,” they could just tie me up if they wanted. Could it be— I glanced around— that their situation was dire, or was there some unavoidable reason for this?

Aning seemed to guess my thoughts from my expression and didn’t point it out. She sighed, “Actually, we little players don’t know much either; we’re just working for the boss.” Saying this, she invited us to sit down and called over another foreigner. Aning introduced him to me, saying this foreigner was named Kirk, a sinologist specializing in Dongxia. He knew the most about the whole situation, so I could ask him anything. The foreigner shook my hand and said, “We were supposed to keep everything strictly confidential, but given the current situation… feel free to ask whatever you want.”

I felt a sudden jolt in my heart.

He continued, “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the purpose of our boss. To be honest, I’m just a team leader. An Ning and I only know that we need to enter a place, retrieve something, and then we’re done. As for what the higher-ups want with those items, I really don’t know. So, we can say that we have two main objectives in the underwater tomb. One is a jade seal, which you Chinese call the ‘Ghost Seal.’ I’ve heard it can summon the armies of the underworld. The other is the schematic of the tomb’s mechanisms. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get either of them. In the end, it was only after An Ning stepped in that we were able to retrieve something we were supposed to have.”

“Ghost Seal?” I almost jumped up when I heard this. “Are you talking about the Ghost Seal of King Lu Shang? In the underwater tomb?” When we mentioned the Ghost Seal, the胖子 (the Fatty) also showed interest and leaned in. An Ning seemed to dislike the Fatty but had no choice.

Kirk nodded and said, “Yes, I believe you know some of this. After the tomb of King Lu Shang was looted by the Wang Zang pirates, they replaced the Ghost Seal with a copper fish with snake-like eyebrows. We always thought the Ghost Seal was taken to their own grave, but we could never find it. As for the schematic of the tomb’s mechanisms, it’s likely in the hands of your third uncle. We still don’t know how many tricks that old fox has played on us, but we have to cooperate with him; his information is much more accurate than ours.”

I nodded and smiled wryly; I could relate to that. The Fatty chimed in, “So what did An Ning bring out during her trip to the underwater site with us?”

Kirk opened his mouth to answer, but An Ning stopped him, saying, “Say what you should say, but don’t say too much.”

The Fatty retorted angrily, “What do you mean by that?”

Kirk seemed to not care about An Ning’s warning and laughed, “Even if you don’t tell them now, you’ll eventually have to reveal it. Besides, even if you have those things now, they won’t be of any use.”

An Ning glanced at us, stamped her foot, and seemed quite unwilling: “The things I went through so much trouble to get really ended up being a bargain for you.”

(I found this situation very strange. Why were An Ning and the others cooperating so much? Later, when I talked about this with my third uncle, he said that at that time, An Ning and her group were actually at their wits’ end. They had no choice but to cooperate with you; after all, they were amateurs. No matter how good their technology and equipment were, they couldn’t compare to me, a half-baked local expert. But she was also very clever; she was actually eager to tell you everything but still wanted to pry some information from you in return. That’s what you call an old hand. Luckily, I had no intention of telling you anything, or you would have definitely given her the whole set, and my third uncle’s plan would have been ruined.)

As he spoke, he pulled out a stack of items from his pocket and handed them to me. I thought he might take out some kind of valuable artifact, but when I took a look, it turned out to be a stack of photographs, all depicting murals. I flipped through them one by one, and she reminded me not to mess up the order. I carefully examined a few and found that I had never seen these murals before. I asked, “Where did you take these?”

Kirk replied, “These were taken during the time you all went underwater together, from the main burial chamber. These are narrative murals, very crucial. You can take a look and see what they depict.”

I counted and found a total of fifteen murals, each showing different scenes that are clearly interconnected, yet there is no necessary narrative link between the murals. I saw depictions of climbing snowy mountains, overlooking hills, rock climbing, and soldiers in battle. Each mural does not have any inherent connection to the others.

Kirk noticed my expression and realized I didn’t understand, so he took out one to show me, saying, “Look at this one; what do you see?”

The image depicted several people dressed like the Jurchens, binding a Han person. I said, “Isn’t this capturing a prisoner on the battlefield?”

“You could say that, but can you guess who this prisoner is?” Kirk said with a mysterious smile.

I looked closely at the mural photo and was surprised to find that the prisoner resembled the image of Wang Zanghai from the porcelain painting. I exclaimed, “Is this Wang Zanghai? The Jurchens are capturing him?”

Kirk replied, “Yes, this is the first mural, and this image indicates something. It suggests that Wang Zanghai’s construction here might have been forced; he was taken captive.”

I suddenly saw a hint and looked at the other murals, saying, “What about these photos?”

“They all depict events that Wang Zanghai experienced after being captured by the Dongxia people. Although we can’t fully decipher them, we can make educated guesses based on the earlier images.”

I examined one of the murals closely and suddenly noticed something wrong: “This one…”

Kirk glanced at it and nodded, “You have a keen eye; this one is also crucial. Did you notice? This is the royal tomb in the volcanic crater. When Wang Zanghai was captured, this royal tomb already existed and was quite dilapidated.”

I gasped, could it be that the royal tomb above us was not built by him?

Kirk said, “We’ve studied it; the overall style of the royal tomb is from the Yin and Shang periods, but he was forced to modify it to a Ming style. The Dongxia people didn’t bring him here to build a royal tomb; they brought him to renovate it because the tomb had been in use for too many years and could no longer be utilized.”

“Then the underground palace and such were already there?” the fat man asked.

Kirk nodded slightly, “We relied on these photos to find the old path leading here, but there are still some photos we can’t understand, like this one.”

That mural depicted countless evil spirits emerging from the stones; it was the third to last. Another one surprisingly illustrated a mass of black, soft-bodied creatures climbing up a massive cliff, with someone pouring something down from above.

I felt tense as I looked at it, then relaxed, just as I was about to sit down to examine it closely. At that moment, Aning suddenly extended her hand to me, saying, “Alright, we’ve finished discussing our matters. You can look at the photos anytime, but now you should tell us something too.”

“Tell what?” I asked, confused.

“I’ve laid everything out about myself; you need to share about your dealings with Wu Sanxing,” Aning looked at me, “You wouldn’t be stingier than me, a woman, would you?”

I thought to myself, what the hell are you talking about? What you said is the same as saying nothing; you didn’t even mention the key points. Do you really think I’m that clueless Wu Xie from before? So I turned my mind around and asked her, “Is there someone here called Wu Lao Si?”

An Ning nodded, looking puzzled, “Why? Do you know him?”

I pulled out two copper fish from my pocket and waved them in front of them: “Everything you need to know is inside these. If Wu Lao Si is still alive, let him come out!”

In that instant, I saw Kirk almost fall to the ground, and An Ning’s eyes went wide as she stammered, “Heavens! You actually have two… fish…” As I moved my arm, their eyes followed my motion.

4 3 月 2025

166 Yunding Tiangong (Part 2) – Chapter 36 – Exit

My blood froze in an instant, and several people were left dumbfounded. Panzi reflexively reached for his gun, while Fatty slowly raised the rhino horn lamp in his hands. The ceiling of the tomb chamber was extremely high; the light from our wind lamps or smokeless stoves barely reached up there. If it weren’t for the sudden brightness of the smokeless stove’s flame caused by the burning rhino horn, we would only see darkness when we looked up at the ceiling. However, this illumination was still quite limited. The black figure of a child was extremely blurred in the firelight, resembling a black jellyfish clinging to the top of the tomb, swaying with the “sea currents.”

For a moment, I couldn’t be sure whether the shadow above us was cast by the “rhino lamp” or if it had always been there, unnoticed by us. When we entered the tomb chamber, although we had briefly glanced at the ceiling, my attention was completely captivated by the dazzling treasures here, and I had no idea what I was seeing. Perhaps that “child” had already been hanging above us; we just hadn’t paid attention.

Fatty cautiously raised his gun, turning to us and asking with lip movements, speaking very slowly, “Is… it… this… thing?” I waved my hand, signaling him not to act rashly. In fact, there was no basis for saying that this thing was causing trouble. Maybe the black child was just passing by and happened to rest above us. But at that moment, how could we think of such things? The situation, which had felt aimless, suddenly had a target, and people were already on the verge of losing their minds.

However, we still didn’t know what that thing was or whether bullets would work on it. If we acted recklessly and let it escape, we wouldn’t have a second rhino horn to burn.

A few of us carefully stood up. Fatty hung the stove on the gun barrel and slowly pushed it up. The ceiling of the tomb chamber grew brighter, but this was exhausting. As Fatty lifted it a bit, his hands began to tremble, and Panzi hurried to help him.

The black “child” became clearer and clearer, gradually revealing a distinct shape above us. As I watched, I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. The shadow’s form was gradually taking shape; the “child’s” head grew larger, and slowly the entire black figure transformed into the shape of a giant-headed fetus.

This… wasn’t that large-headed corpse fetus we saw in the corpse storage room? How did it follow us here? Had it been following us all along?

I suddenly recalled our encounter with the wall of ghosts in the main hall, and I was struck with horror. Wasn’t this thing originally hidden in the compartment beneath the main hall? Could it be that this predicament, which transcended physical limits, was created by the corpse fetus?

Fatty and Panzi recognized it too. Fatty grinned and, with exaggerated lip movements, slowly said to Panzi, “Damn, it looks like your black girlfriend can’t bear to let you go.” His mouth moved in a comically exaggerated manner!

Panzi was furious and retorted with lip movements, “Damn it, you’re the one who looks like this!”

I waved my hand at them, pointing at the smokeless stove. The firelight was gradually dimming. If the rhino horn burned out completely, we would truly be in a hopeless situation. We had to deal with this thing all at once.

The chubby man nodded, gently pulled back the bolt, and aimed slowly, but there was a smoke-free furnace hanging at the gun’s muzzle, which made him a bit anxious. After several attempts, his hand was shaking, so he simply opened fire in a burst. Shun Zi beside him also raised his gun and aimed in the dim light.

The light was getting dimmer, and I was breaking out in a cold sweat, but they just wouldn’t fire. I knew what was going on; it meant that both the chubby man and Shun Zi were indeed quite professional with guns. The light from the smoke-free furnace above was too flickering. In fact, we could see with the naked eye that its position was off, which was why they didn’t dare to shoot recklessly. They had to wait for the flames to gradually die down, for the light to dim, and for the shadows to stop moving for that brief moment to aim accurately.

I didn’t dare to speak, just watching as the chubby man’s hand shook more and more violently, while Pan Zi below supported him. The shadow above gradually blended back into the darkness.

I didn’t know how those tens of seconds passed. The speed at which the light faded was almost impossible to adjust to. Just at the moment when the corpse-like figure suddenly disappeared, the chubby man and Shun Zi fired simultaneously.

There was a series of gunshots, ten bullets fired from the guns. I didn’t know how many hit, but it instantly splattered dark liquid everywhere, and the thing fell to the ground. The chubby man couldn’t hold onto the furnace anymore, and it crashed to the ground, scattering embers everywhere.

We immediately stepped back several paces, and the corpse let out a scream reminiscent of a baby’s, violently knocking the rolling smoke-free furnace aside and darting into the darkness behind the tomb’s entrance like lightning.

“Damn… it can still run?” the chubby man exclaimed.

“We can’t let it escape, or we’ll be in trouble!” Pan Zi shouted. “Quick, chase it!”

The four of us scrambled up and chased after it, passing through the tomb gate. In an instant, we suddenly saw that the wall paintings in the tomb had returned to their original patterns; the ghostly wall had failed!

“It’s out!” the chubby man exclaimed joyfully. “We’re not trapped anymore! It really was that mantis shrimp’s doing!”

“What about that ghostly thing?” I turned on my flashlight and immediately saw the corpse-like figure stop deep in the tomb passage. Upon seeing our flashlight, it dashed into the darkness of the tomb at an astonishing speed, running toward the other end of the passage.

We immediately chased after it, knowing we absolutely could not let it escape. If it stopped, we would likely fall back into that situation, and I really didn’t want to experience that again.

Just as we were thinking this, in what felt like just a few minutes of running—about seven or eight minutes—we had covered roughly a kilometer of the tomb passage, and I was out of breath. The end of the passage appeared before us: a staircase leading downward. The black blood of the corpse flowed all over the ground; clearly, it had darted down in a flash.

I felt a moment of frustration here, as I instinctively recalled that we used to see the stone door marking our return point; now we faced a staircase, which felt unfamiliar. But in the next second, I truly breathed a sigh of relief. The chubby man pushed me from behind, and we rushed in without caring about any traps or mechanisms. If we were to die, so be it; even if only one of us remained, we would take that thing down to relieve our pent-up frustrations!

Almost ten sections merged into one, we dashed down like kangaroos. However, running down the stairs was inevitably slower than running on flat ground, and that corpse didn’t slow down at all, disappearing into the darkness below the stairs in almost an instant. I knew I had no hope of catching up, but I couldn’t stop myself. When I tried to halt, my left foot tripped over my right, and I tumbled down several times, ending up at the bottom of the stone steps, my head bleeding and my flashlight flying away.

I cursed under my breath and was just about to get up when the fat guy stumbled down from above and rolled right over me. Fortunately, it wasn’t my first time, so I let out a muffled grunt and quickly scrambled to my feet to avoid further trouble. However, halfway up, something snagged my pants, causing me to fall again, and my butt stung painfully.

I scrambled to get up, falling several times in the process, only to realize I had been caught by something. Meanwhile, the fat guy managed to get up, shined his flashlight in my direction, and suddenly let out a sound of surprise.

With the light from his flashlight, I saw what had snagged my pants: behind me was a row of barbed wire fences made of concrete, spanning the entire tomb chamber. Then, I heard gunshots coming from one side, and they were very dense, unlike the sound that could come from just the fat guy and Shunzi’s two guns.

As I got up, I noticed a beam of light coming from one side, but it wasn’t very strong. Just as I was about to step out, Panzi and the fat guy, who had been following me, caught up.

I wondered why they were running so slowly. The fat guy explained that Shunzi had gone back the way we came when they reached the intersection; his father had also found a lot of gold and didn’t want to take any more risks with us. He said he would wait for us in the snow-capped mountains for a week, and if we didn’t come out by then, he would go back on his own.

I cursed that ungrateful guy in my heart, but he had already endured so much hardship with us. At that moment, the fat guy also heard the gunshots and became alert.

We shone our flashlights around and discovered that at the end of the stairs on the other side of the tomb passage was a platform, with several long corridors outside. This meant that it was an entrance to a huge two-level tomb chamber, but there was no ceiling between the two levels; only a few suspended corridors allowed a direct view of the lower level.

This was called a “Sky Corridor.” It looked intricately carved with dragons and phoenixes but was actually functional, serving as a mechanism to suspend coffins in the massive tomb. It seemed that directly below the Sky Corridor was likely a coffin chamber, from which the dense gunfire was emanating, and outside, flashlight beams flickered everywhere.

We were puzzled about what was happening. Could it be that the corpse had jumped down earlier, causing this chaos? With so many shots being fired, even if the elephant had fallen, how could they miss a single corpse?

Three people lined up and went to the balcony. The corridor outside was very narrow, and we carefully climbed up. Looking down, we discovered a huge circular tomb chamber, measuring at least five to six hundred square meters. To my surprise, An Ning’s team was right below us. Dozens of cold fireworks were thrown around, illuminating the entire tomb chamber. They were gathered in a circle, continuously shooting at something around them, but I couldn’t see clearly what it was. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were all thick centipedes, filling the tomb chamber densely, almost like an ocean surrounding An Ning and her team in the middle.

In the center of the tomb chamber, there was an inverted pyramid-shaped coffin pit, with eight massive black coffins surrounding a translucent giant jade coffin in the middle. The jade coffin had already been opened, and under the illumination of the cold fireworks below, it shimmered with colorful light, reflecting an eerie glow. I saw that the centipedes seemed to be crawling out from this coffin in an endless stream.

A chill ran down my spine as I thought, could this be the Nine Dragons Carrying the Corpse Coffin mentioned in the records of the Snake-Browed Copper Fish? The treasure chest that held the remains of the King of Ten Thousand Slaves? It seemed that this group of amateurs had triggered some mechanism or had simply stepped on a centipede.

At this moment, there was no time to think about that. The dozen or so people below were already exhausted from dealing with the situation, but the centipedes surged up like a tide, making their efforts futile. Killing one only made the others more frenzied.

“Should we help them?” the fat guy asked me.

Panzi shook his head, “Let them die a few more.”

The fat guy laughed, “You might as well shoot them directly; they’d die faster.”

I felt conflicted. It wasn’t really a question of whether to help or not; it was about what would happen to us if we did. An Ning had already tried to kill us in the underwater tomb; we had narrowly escaped by luck, and I had saved her before, but that didn’t guarantee she would show us any mercy. However, if I didn’t help, watching so many people die right before our eyes would leave me with guilt for a lifetime.

Moreover, there was the question of whether we could even save them. Shooting from above wouldn’t help; the only way to rescue them was to pull them up with ropes. But they were barely managing to defend themselves with all their firepower, and if we lowered a rope, there would definitely be casualties below.

Just as I was hesitating, I suddenly saw a foreigner in An Ning’s team carrying someone who looked very familiar. I immediately tapped Panzi and pointed it out to him. As soon as he saw it, he exclaimed, “That’s Uncle Three!”

“Are you sure?” I looked too, and while it resembled him, I wasn’t certain. But Panzi’s words made me feel more convinced, so I took a few steps closer to get a better look.

Unexpectedly, after just one step, I felt something was off under my feet. Looking down, I saw that the corpse I had just escaped from was dangling beneath the stone corridor. I had unwittingly walked right over it, and its dried-up hand suddenly grabbed my foot and pulled me down forcefully.

I was furious, thinking that it must have held a grudge and was always causing us trouble. But standing on the stone corridor, my balance was poor, and as it pulled me, I lost my footing and fell onto the corridor.

Panzi and Fatty raised their guns at the same time. This guy really doesn’t learn his lesson; at such a close distance, his head was instantly blown apart, leaving only half of it. Then, the claws gripping the lower part of the corridor let go, and the entire corpse fell into the space below, dragging my foot along with it.

When such a heavy thing yanked me, I let out a scream and fell down as well. The corpse landed first among Aning and the others, who were all focused on the centipede beside them. They didn’t pay any attention to what was happening above, and immediately, they were terrified, scattering and falling all over the place. Then I fell down from the air too.

Later, Fatty said that my fall looked like I had jumped down voluntarily. But I truly had no choice but to fall down. I landed hard on the already smashed head of the corpse, and black blood splattered everywhere.

Fortunately, the stone corridor wasn’t too high; otherwise, if I had fallen down like that, I would definitely have twisted my ankle. However, after I fell, I only staggered slightly before regaining my balance. Looking around, I immediately noticed that the centipedes were fleeing in all directions as if they had seen a ghost. In an instant, the swarm of centipedes retreated like a tide, and soon the ground was left with only the bodies of the centipedes.

I was so scared that it took me a long time to come to my senses, not understanding what had just happened. When I looked up, I saw that everyone was staring at me, their faces filled with horror, as if they had seen some kind of monster.

4 3 月 2025

165 Summit of the Clouds (Part 2) – Chapter 35 – Xi Zhao

Thinking back now, at that moment, I spoke those words so seriously and even used lip movements, fearing that the ghost might hear me. It shows how much my nerves had been tortured, and I didn’t even realize it. If it were a normal time, or if the pressure were a bit lighter, I would never have had such thoughts.

This is actually inevitable. We spent so much time and went through so many things to reach this point, yet we found ourselves in this inexplicable dead end. Let’s not even mention the long road ahead or how to go back; the situation before us has already clogged our thinking, making it hard to conceive or see many problems.

In hindsight, I could think of many solutions, such as using a compass and watching the index changes to navigate that tomb passage. As soon as we experienced a moment of reversal, the compass needle would definitely move, and so on. However, at that time, apart from a few fixed thoughts, my mind was completely blank, leading me to absurdly point the possibility towards a ghostly wall. At that moment, I didn’t find it funny or ridiculous; instead, it felt somewhat chilling.

The others, Fatty and Shunzi, were even worse off than I was. They were completely affected by my expression, their faces turning pale one by one, swallowing hard. Fatty also used lip movements to say, “Are you sure? I said it earlier… so what do we do now?”

My thoughts at that moment were that the logical basis of this tomb passage was not valid, so the reason for this phenomenon must be unrelated to logic. However, if it wasn’t a dream, nothing else could escape the constraints of logic. In other words, what we were seeing or hearing could very well be illusions. Therefore, it became difficult to describe the scenery around us. I believed that only the power of the “evil ghost” could create such simultaneous illusions for four people; only an “evil ghost” could disregard logic and trap people in such a flawless manner.

Here, the term “evil ghost” is merely a more understandable euphemism, referring to all the forces we cannot comprehend. Such a force evidently must exist.

But if there really are “ghosts,” we would be helpless, as we couldn’t see them and naturally couldn’t deal with them. Even if we cursed or used any random method, it would be of no use against them. This would lead to my second most disliked situation: knowing the problem lies around us, yet being unable to address it, with no way to take action.

At that time, I also had a very naive thought, not knowing what category this power belonged to. If it were unconscious, that would be troublesome. It wouldn’t have any thoughts, and even if we devised a plan, it would be useless. We would have to confront it head-on to find it. If it were a vengeful ghost, that would be easier; it could think, and we could force it out, making it commit some mistakes.

After much consideration, Fatty firmly concluded that this ghost was very likely one of the several corpses before us. Perhaps someone’s soul was unable to let go of worldly matters and was wandering here. Naturally, upon seeing someone come to accompany it, it would want to play tricks, but we didn’t know which corpse it was.

Fatty first ruled out Shunzi’s father. After not seeing his son for ten years, he naturally wouldn’t joke with his son’s life, leaving the other six corpses.

At this moment, I felt a bit ridiculous, but we had no other choice; we had to try everything. So I walked up to the corpse, made everyone kneel down, and then broke a few gold ingots with my useless fingers to burn for them, while bowing my head and saying, “I am the nephew of Wu Sanxing. I have urgent business with my uncle. Which of you is casting spells? Please accept the paper money and let us go. We really are in a hurry. If necessary, leave this fat guy to keep you company, and let the others go.”

Upon hearing this, the fat guy was furious. Panzi and Shunzi quickly held him down, not allowing him to move. The fat guy cursed, “Wu Xie, you despicable little man, I will bite you to death!”

After I finished speaking, I looked around, but there was no change at all; the corpses remained the same. Realizing it was useless, I waved my hand to let them release the fat guy. He nervously glared around and also noticed that nothing had changed, and couldn’t help but sneer, “You see, Uncle Ghost is fair; he doesn’t care for your little bit of money.”

I replied, “Maybe he doesn’t care for you either, really.”

At that moment, Shunzi said from the side, “No, wait, shouldn’t we think about it this way? Look, my father is here. Even if someone is against us, my father will help us. Since it’s useless now, maybe it’s not these few people who are doing evil?”

If it were any other time, I would have laughed at such childish words, but now I listened seriously and even considered his possibility. After thinking it over, I said, “Perhaps your father has already left, or maybe there’s more than one doing evil, and he can’t handle them. But I also feel that it might not be just these people. They are all adults and have a good relationship with my uncle. I don’t think they would play pranks or do something like this; it could be a little ghost, and the corpse isn’t here.”

That being said, if it really was as I said, it would be difficult, because we couldn’t see where the ghost was. It might be lurking on our backs without us knowing. Not being able to see it made it impossible to take action. With that thought, I sighed and asked, “Does anyone have any ideas? Any remedies would do. Is there anything that can see ghosts?”

Panzi said, “I heard that if you apply cow’s tears to your eyes, you can see ghosts.”

The fat guy laughed, “Then the task of finding a cow falls to you.”

“No, maybe you don’t need cow’s tears to see them,” I suddenly thought of a method. “But it requires a sacrifice from the fat guy.”

The fat guy became nervous again, “You’re not thinking of killing me to let my soul negotiate with the ghosts, are you? I won’t allow it! If you kill me, I will definitely conspire with that ghost to make your situation worse!”

This guy actually came up with another idea, and I was furious, “Where are you thinking? I just want to borrow your gold-plated charm.”

“What do you want it for?” The fat guy covered his chest, “This is a real item; can you afford to replace it if it gets damaged?”

“The gold-plated charm is the most effective talisman in the world. If it were real, how could we have fallen into such a predicament? I already checked; this thing is fake.” I said, “Hurry up and give it to me.”

“Fake?” The fat guy took it off and looked at it carefully, “Are you sure?”

“Of course, this is made from rhino horn. I’m in this line of work, how could I not know? Look, the golden talisman of the pangolin is getting darker the more you wear it. Just look at your rhino horn; it’s already starting to turn green. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Damn it! No wonder I’ve been so unlucky!” The胖子 (Fatty) was furious. “That bastard has tricked me again! It’s no wonder it never works. If I make it out of here alive, I swear I’ll tear down his shop. My last name won’t be Wang if I don’t!”

I took the golden talisman from Fatty’s hands and tried to comfort him. He then asked how I planned to use it. Was I going to press it against the corpse’s forehead?

I replied, “There’s an ancient legend called ‘Rhino Light Communication.’ Have you heard of it?”

Fatty looked puzzled. “Isn’t that from a Hong Kong movie released a few years ago?”

“Pretty much, that’s the idea.” I nodded. “As long as you burn this thing and use its light, you should be able to see ghosts. Of course, I haven’t tested it myself, so I don’t know if it really works.”

At that moment, I felt ridiculous for even suggesting it, but since I had already brought out the cow’s tears, why not the rhino light? It was a desperate measure. Before Fatty’s fifth appearance, this was the only feasible idea I had left; I had to try it.

The Book of Jin once recorded: “When Qiao was at Wuchang, he reached Niuzhu Cliff, where the water was unfathomable. It was said that many strange creatures lurked beneath. Qiao then burned rhino horn to illuminate it, and soon saw water creatures emerging, bizarre in shape. That night, he dreamt of a person who said to him: ‘Parting ways with you in the ethereal realm, we agree to illuminate each other!’” The gist is that ancient Chinese people believed burning rhino horn and using its light could reveal supernatural beings. Surely, the ancients had some useful insights.

As I spoke, I took out a smokeless stove and placed the golden talisman on it to burn. At first, it wouldn’t catch fire, but soon a strange smell began to waft out, and green flames flickered with an unusual light.

I lifted the smokeless stove high to illuminate as much as possible, and we all turned our heads, searching for anything that might have appeared that wasn’t there before. I walked around the tomb chamber, but saw nothing, and the others couldn’t see anything either.

“Maybe the ghost is hiding far away,” Shunzi said.

“No way. The legend says that if a ghost is ‘hitting the wall,’ it’s actually clinging to a person’s back.”

We checked each other’s backs but found nothing. Fatty muttered, “I told you legends are worthless. It wasted my golden talisman. Even if it is rhino horn, it turned out to be useless.”

Panzi deflated, “Looks like this trick won’t work either. There probably isn’t a ghost. We might be facing the fifth scenario, which is completely unfounded, with no clues whatsoever—no references at all. What should we do now? This time, we might really be done for.”

I sighed inwardly, just about to speak when suddenly Fatty made a gesture for silence, and Panzi followed suit. My eyelids twitched, and following Fatty’s gaze upwards, I saw a faint black “child” appearing on the ceiling of the tomb chamber above us.

4 3 月 2025

164 Yunding Tiangong (Part 2) – Chapter 34 – People from the Bottom of the Sea

I still have internal injuries, and now, at a glance, I nearly spat out a mouthful of blood, startling the others. Panzi and the others had never seen this photo before; although I had mentioned it, they didn’t recognize it upon seeing it, which made them feel puzzled. The fat guy hurriedly helped me with my blood and asked what was going on.

I trembled as I picked up the photo, pointing out the “Menyouping” and “Third Uncle” in the picture to them. Upon seeing it, the others’ faces turned even paler than mine, and no one could say a word.

I could hardly believe this was real. Turning to look at the several corpses nearby, my mind was in chaos. This photo couldn’t have appeared in the hands of unrelated people. Could it be that the mysterious team trapped here ten years ago in Changbai Mountain was actually the same group from the underwater tomb? Were these corpses actually Wen Jin and Li Si Di?

I trembled as I flipped the photo over and saw a line of blurry text: “Xisha Archaeological Team, a memento from Li Si Di.”

It seemed there was no mistake. If it were someone else who brought this photo here, it would be highly unlikely. The person who kept such a commemorative photo must be one of the people involved… No wonder Third Uncle couldn’t find them no matter how hard he looked; they had already died here!

Looking at their clothing, it indeed matched the photo, but why did these people come here? Did they also discover something in the underwater tomb that drew them to Changbai Mountain?

Wait, something’s not right. I suddenly thought of Third Uncle and Menyouping. My God, almost everyone from the underwater tomb is now in Yunding Tiangong. This group arrived ten years ago, while Third Uncle and Menyouping just arrived recently. Why did they have to come here?

The mysteries that I had almost forgotten suddenly revived in my mind, and countless questions surged into my brain. Panzi and the others were unaware of Third Uncle’s past, and their shock upon seeing the photo was even greater than mine. I had no choice but to patiently explain it all again. The others listened in astonishment. The fat guy said, “No way, wait a minute, I just thought of more. It seems that everyone who went to the underwater tomb, including An Ning, has come here too. Is there a curse in the underwater tomb? Anyone who goes there must climb Changbai Mountain… No, that doesn’t seem to make sense?”

The fat guy was obviously talking nonsense, but I felt a chill run down my spine. Some things in my heart became clearer. It seemed that the underwater tomb wasn’t the key; the key was here. The underwater tomb seemed to be just a springboard…

I searched everything I could find on the corpses, but there were no more clues. I couldn’t figure out who was who, and my mind was in a tangle. Dazed, I walked toward the tomb passage without even grabbing my flashlight.

The fat guy hurriedly stopped me and told me to calm down. He said it wouldn’t help to rush; after all, these people were also trapped here. If I died, I could at least ask their souls what was going on, but by then, it would already be too late.

He pulled me down to sit and catch my breath. Gradually, I calmed down, and only one thought remained in my mind: “I must get out of here. I must find Third Uncle and get to the bottom of this. Otherwise, I won’t be able to close my eyes even in death.”

The fat guy said, “But up until now, we haven’t found any clues proving that anyone among them successfully got out. It’s possible that we can’t get out of here at all; it might be a closed space. Even if you close your eyes, it won’t do any good.”

As soon as the胖子 spoke, the others had nothing to say. We originally wanted to find some clues from these corpses, but suddenly we uncovered such a huge secret. It was truly a case of one wave not settling before another rose. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts, and the atmosphere had dropped to an extreme low. My head felt heavy, and I didn’t dare to look at that photo again, fearing that some monster might suck me in. My throat began to itch, and I seemed to have caught a cold, starting to cough, and then I coughed up blood.

Seeing me like this, 潘子 said to us, “Let’s take a break today. Anyway, we can’t get out for the time being. It’s better to get a good sleep so our minds will be clearer. 小三爷, don’t think too much. I know you have a lot of questions in your mind, but figuring them out isn’t something that can be done in a short time.”

I waved my hand, saying that I couldn’t sleep. It was better to keep thinking here. I could only sleep when I was too exhausted to think anymore; otherwise, I would just feel more and more tired. The胖子 didn’t know how many cigarettes he had smoked by now. He was mumbling to himself while smoking, “Actually, I just remembered, if I had known earlier, I wouldn’t have followed that mark. It would have been better to listen to me. One group is trapped, and the other could still find a way… That mark, thinking back, might have been left by these corpses. You see, everything is so coincidental. Maybe they, like I thought, split into teams, and those two actually went to the other side of the tomb passage.”

I shook my head and said it wouldn’t work. If one group was trapped, the other group coming back would be in the same predicament, and it would be even more frustrating. Besides, the side without the mark might be even more dangerous; we didn’t know what awaited us there.

However, thinking deeply was impossible, because since we were already trapped, when the other group returned, the tomb passage would have changed, and they wouldn’t be able to find this burial chamber anymore. Those numbers—were they left by survivors on the other side, marking the spots where our team went missing?

As I thought about this, I suddenly shivered… a flash of lightning struck through my mind… the mark…

I sat up abruptly and said to them, “I just thought of a very strange flaw. This tomb passage is a paradox!”

“What?”

I frowned, trying to think about how to express myself. “I’m afraid you won’t understand. For example, if we walk out, in the darkness, for whatever reason, we must go through a process of turning around, even if we don’t know it at all, right?”

The others nodded. I continued, “For instance, if I’m holding a pen and drawing on the wall while moving forward, then at the exit, there will definitely be a long mark left on the wall following me. When I accidentally turn around at that moment, what do you think you will find?”

The胖子 nearly jumped up: “You would see the marks you made on the wall of the tomb passage ahead!”

“Not just that!” I said. “The key point is that after I turn around, the left and right will change. Then, my hand holding the pen will start marking on the other side of the wall.”

“This!” 潘子 also frowned.

“This is a logical inference,” I said. “In other words, if we explain it logically, there must be a turning point in the middle of the tomb passage! At the turning point, it’s as if we walk into a mirror, moving in a straight line to our opposite direction. Do you all agree?”

Everyone nodded; as long as it was logical, they certainly accepted my reasoning.

I continued, “Alright, think about this: if we walk this way and really encounter that ‘reflective surface’ I mentioned, how thick do you think that surface is?”

“How thick?” A few people were still digesting my earlier words, looking confused.

“Exactly, there must be a thickness. If there’s no thickness, then when your body’s front half passes through, your back half would…”

Panzi instantly understood my meaning, breaking out in a cold sweat, and instinctively interjected, “Overlap with each other!”

“Correct! Because at that point, your front half has already been reflected back, but your back half hasn’t passed through the ‘mirror.’ So if my statement is correct, then as we go through the reflective ‘mirror,’ we would undoubtedly die! We would turn into a monstrous heap! Your face would hit the back of your head!”

“But we’ve walked through so many times without dying,” the fat man said, puzzled.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. This reflective surface must have a thickness much greater than that of a human. There’s an intermediate reflective segment. After we enter this segment, we walk a certain distance inside and then come out from the other end, completing the folding of space.”

Everyone nodded in agreement; this inference was seamless.

“The problem is, we don’t know how long this distance is. Let’s assume it’s only two or three steps. For example, if we walk into that ‘mirror space,’ but the fat man doesn’t go in and stays outside, and the mirror space is only two or three steps wide, where you can see both sides, what do you think will happen?”

Panzi understood the fastest, his throat nearly stiffening. “We… would see another fat man appearing in front and behind us.”

“Good, now here’s a contradiction: when the fat man behind you looks forward, can he see the fat man in front of you? Or if you try to hold one of the fat man’s hands, what would happen?”

Panzi quickly made a stopping gesture: “Don’t… don’t say anymore!”

“What does this imply?” The fat man beside us also turned pale.

“We don’t need to continue experimenting to conclude that this so-called ‘mirror space’ does not exist! Moreover, the logical basis that says we can’t escape this tomb passage also doesn’t exist; the existence of this tomb passage is illogical.” I lowered my voice: “Wang Canghai is not a god; he cannot create physical rules by himself. The mechanisms here have nothing to do with Wang Canghai, and these people did not die because of that. What we are facing now is a special case, a new situation! We misled these corpses, and the only possible cause for our current situation seems to be…”

I carefully pointed to the fourth item written by the fat man and mouthed silently, “There are ghosts around us!”

4 3 月 2025

163 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 33 – Excavation and Quantum Mechanics

Once again, I sat down in the treasure tomb, and the atmosphere was completely different from before. Everyone was silent, their faces a mix of pale and green, and the golden light reflecting from the smokeless furnace began to evoke a profound sense of disgust in me.

No one raised any questions; everyone appeared to be deep in thought, but I knew that, like me, their minds were utterly blank.

The situation had spiraled beyond our control. I even believed that the initial assumptions about the mechanisms were no longer valid; we had entered an indescribable state. Any scientific reasoning had completely failed after such a simple experiment.

No human power could cause a bullet to make such a drastic turn in mere seconds. To explain this phenomenon scientifically, one might even have to invoke quantum mechanics, which might not suffice.

“This is really like a ghost wall!” Shun Zi’s face was extremely pale as he glanced at his father, who was set aside, revealing an expression of deep sorrow and fear.

I knew what he was thinking; he understood why the mummified corpses among the jewels wore such expressions of despair. In such circumstances, attempting again and again, returning to the starting point time after time until they ran out of ammunition—how could they not be desperate? They must have died in utter hopelessness, still unable to grasp any semblance of a clue.

And we might be the next batch; soon there would be four more withered corpses here, all wearing expressions of profound despair, leaving the next victims to ponder what we thought before we died.

The reason I hadn’t despaired before and hadn’t anticipated this step was that I believed my intelligence would prevent me from being trapped by any kind of mechanical trap. But now, things were different; clearly, the situation we faced was far more bizarre.

“Should we continue?” After about ten minutes of silence, Pan Zi asked in a dry voice.

But no one answered; several gazes turned toward the Fatty.

On the ground in front of the Fatty were two of our hypotheses remaining, while the third was my offhand suggestion: spatial folding.

The reason I suddenly brought this up was that I recalled how the oil bottle had disappeared for a few seconds in front of me when we were at the volcanic fissure. I had been utterly perplexed at the time, but now I thought it might indeed be related to spatial folding. Given how terrifying the recent experiment was, it was almost a pseudoscientific test. Suddenly, my mysterious notion of spatial folding became the most plausible explanation.

If Fatty hadn’t listed these things out, I would have likely forgotten everything in a panic after witnessing this experiment.

After a long silence, Fatty finally said, “Alright, we’ve all seen it with our own eyes, so let’s skip the nonsense. How do we prove the third hypothesis?”

“No! No need to prove it.” Suddenly, Pan Zi spoke up again.

Panzi has a very thorough way of looking at problems; he can always see the essence of things directly. Just like when the fat guy was still hoping that the tomb passage would open up, Panzi immediately completely denied it. This is related to the fact that Panzi has come down from the battlefield; he thinks about problems without a shred of wishful thinking. So when I hear him speak, I feel scared, afraid that he will state many facts that shouldn’t be said.

I heard him say, “There are only six corpses here. Let’s assume that a total of eight people came in, which means two people must have gone out. Although we don’t know how they got out, if it’s like what the Third Young Master said about the third option, then absolutely no one could have gotten out. So we don’t need to consider that option; considering the third option is tantamount to admitting that we are doomed.”

His words sent chills down the spines of several people, and the fat guy protested, “How can you be sure that eight people came in? Maybe only six came in from the start.”

Panzi sighed and said, “You foolish fat man, you still don’t understand. It doesn’t actually matter how many people came in.”

This can’t be proven, and arguing is useless. I thought to myself, “Right now, the number of people who came in is not important to our situation at all, but it is crucial for our morale. If two people managed to get out, our mindset would be completely different. We could think about how they got out, and at least there would be a glimmer of hope.”

Thinking this, I ignored them and walked over to the corpses to look at their notes, hoping to find some clues. Perhaps someone had written a diary or something. If someone had recorded their thoughts at the time or mentioned that someone had managed to get out, at least we would have a bit of hope.

However, when I looked at the notebook earlier, I had only skimmed through it. There were no lengthy passages; most of the short entries were just accounts or brief information, offering no insights.

I pondered whether these people would still be writing when faced with death. Perhaps when they were dying, they had no light, the batteries were long dead, and there was no heating source, which is why they huddled together in the dark. If eight people came in, when would the last two have gone out? It certainly wouldn’t have been while they were still conscious; if that were the case, the others should have been able to get out too. Could it be that they were so weak from hunger and in total darkness that they didn’t even notice when two of them left?

Could the key to getting out have been the darkness, going without light?

Thinking about this sent a chill through me. I remembered that this was an ancient tomb. Walking through such a narrow tomb passage in complete darkness would truly be deadly.

Seeing that I was looking for information, the others gathered around to help. Sitting there and daydreaming was not a solution; sometimes, we needed to look at something to stimulate our thoughts.

Considering the issue of the lack of light, I told them not to waste battery power and to turn off their flashlights. The remaining heating stove could also provide some light. We gathered around the stove, with three notebooks and a novel, and each of us began to flip through them, searching for clues word by word.

The notebook I flipped through has neat handwriting, likely written by a woman. I turned several pages, and it was filled with names and phone numbers. There was also a list of people she invited to dinner, the phone number for a hotel in Changbai Mountain, some simple maps drawn in certain places, addresses, and memos. I saw that in 1994, it seemed this woman had been ill and hospitalized, as there was a note about needing a follow-up appointment.

Flipping further, I found only blank pages, but I continued to turn them one by one, hoping she had written something. Just then, the fat guy said, “There’s a clue here.” He read aloud, “Today, I sold the last item I brought out from the sea for 3,000 yuan, paid back 1,500 to Old Li, and cleared my debts. This guy is a fisherman.”

I smiled wryly and shook my head, then looked over at Panzi. His notes were the thinnest, almost empty, and he had already finished reading. I turned to Shunzi, only to see him engrossed in a novel, apparently having skipped to the most exciting part where the protagonist was about to act.

The fat guy was displeased and snatched it away, scolding, “I told you to look for clues, and you’re reading smut! Your conscience is seriously lacking! Confiscated!”

In the scuffle, the novel suddenly fell apart, and pages flew everywhere. I cursed and scolded the fat guy while opening my flashlight to pick them up. Suddenly, Panzi said, “Hey, there’s a photo here.” He picked up a yellowed black-and-white photo from the papers.

I took it and, upon a closer look, suddenly felt it was familiar. Another glance made my mind buzz, and I nearly lost my breath—this photo was none other than a group picture of my uncle and the others at the dock before they went to the Xisha Islands!

4 3 月 2025

162 Yunding Tiangong (Part 2) – Chapter 32 – The Enumeration Method of the Fat Guy

The fat guy suddenly said he had thought of something, and we were all taken aback, but we quickly prepared ourselves to hear some nonsense. We had almost gotten used to the fat guy’s unreliability; instead of teasing him every time, we might as well let him ramble on. Besides, sometimes his way of thinking was different from ours, so it wouldn’t hurt to listen.

At that moment, I wasn’t particularly anxious, as we weren’t at a point of total desperation yet. It was just that with these few corpses around, it was hard not to think of some unpleasant things. In fact, for someone like me, facing this kind of intellectual challenge, I even felt a bit fortunate; this was certainly easier than dealing with a bunch of zongzi (sticky rice dumplings).

Panzi shared my thoughts and didn’t take it seriously either. He casually asked the fat guy, “What? Don’t talk nonsense, we don’t have time for that right now!”

The fat guy leaned closer to us and said to Panzi, “You damn well discriminate against me! When have I ever been completely off the mark? This time what I’ve thought of is absolutely crucial.”

Panzi chuckled and replied, “With that little brain of yours, what do you think you’ve come up with?”

This time the fat guy was surprisingly serious. He said earnestly, “Actually, it’s not that crucial. I just had a sudden insight about the mechanisms in the underwater tomb. Think about it; we were overthinking things before, but in reality, how simple is it? I was pondering whether we might be overthinking this time too, and letting the mechanisms in the underwater tomb lead us to preconceived notions. Whenever we encounter something like this, we think the room must be moving or something. Maybe the problem here has nothing to do with this tomb at all; it’s just an ordinary burial chamber.”

Panzi grinned and said, “Nonsense! If it were ordinary, how could I not get out…?”

I could see that the fat guy hadn’t finished speaking, so I waved my hand at Panzi, signaling him to let the fat guy continue.

The fat guy said, “Actually, it’s very simple. Think about it: if this passage and this tomb have no problems at all, but we still can’t get out, then where does the problem lie? It must be with us!”

At this, both Panzi and I were momentarily stunned. I said, “Are you saying that the deadlock here is our own fault?”

The fat guy nodded and said, “Although I don’t know what the problem is yet, it’s likely. I’m thinking, could it be that we have hypnotized ourselves with those wall paintings, or maybe there’s some hallucinogenic gas here, and we’re all poisoned? I know of a type of mushroom that, when eaten, causes the sensory organs to malfunction, making you spin in circles without realizing it.”

The fat guy had previously told me that when he was a child, he saw traps in the forest used for hunting bears that employed this kind of poisonous mushroom. Once the bear was affected, it would just keep spinning in place until it exhausted itself.

I fell into deep thought, and Panzi also fell silent, furrowing his brows as he began to consider the fat guy’s words.

Was it our own problem? If so, the complexity of the situation would be entirely different. However, after a bit of consideration, I felt something was off.

In fact, the fat guy’s statement was quite enlightening; perhaps the truth was close to what he said, but there was a fatal flaw in his reasoning: would we really be like this if we were poisoned? I had experienced poisoning before, and someone who was truly poisoned would definitely exhibit strong discomfort.

As for hypnosis, I’ve never really believed in it because its specificity is too strong. It’s believable that it’s easier to hypnotize someone overweight, but it’s really unlikely for me and Panzi. However, if we return to the realm of strange tricks, it’s indeed hard to come up with anything. In fact, I just conceived about a dozen methods, and among them, two or three architectural structures could completely achieve such a layout. But these methods have very high requirements, meaning there must be absolute prerequisites, such as the three people must act together, and our walking speed must be fixed, etc. Wang Canghai would definitely not design such a low-success-rate trap.

We all fell into deep thought at once. The fat man saw that we stopped talking after listening to him, and he didn’t know what to do, so he pretended to be deep in thought as well. Later, I don’t know how it happened, but the more I thought, the sleepier and more fatigued I became, and I ended up falling asleep.

However, I probably only slept for three or four hours. I was in a daze and didn’t really fall into a deep sleep. I could hear the voices of the fat man and Panzi talking, which woke me up. When I got up, I found they were walking down the same tomb passage again. Shunzi had obviously just run back, panting. Looking at the fat man’s expression, it was clear that the result was still the same, with no progress.

I rubbed my eyes and asked what they were doing. The fat man said they had thought for a long time but had no clue, so they might as well experiment. They had just let one person walk with their eyes closed while another watched from behind, with the two connected by a rope, to see if the person with their eyes open would suddenly turn around halfway through.

I listened, shivering. This was simply a method of experimentation that could drive someone to despair. It was fortunate these few had thick skin; if it were me doing that, who knows if the person on the other end of the rope would still be the same one halfway through.

In the end, the result was still the same. Whether blindfolded or with eyes closed, they both felt they were walking in a straight line, but they still ended up back in the tomb chamber. Since Shunzi had his eyes closed, he found it particularly strenuous, and his face was pale.

The few of us sat back in our seats, all sighing. I told them to save their energy; in fact, such blind experimentation could lead to a breakdown in thinking. Then the situation returned to before I fell asleep, and we started our meaningless discussion again.

During the discussion, someone would always doze off, but fortunately, when one person slept, the others could still continue thinking. Thus, we tossed around one idea after another, proposing and then rejecting them. At first, there were many theories, but later on, the conversation dwindled, and time unknowingly passed by six or seven hours, and our stomachs began to growl again.

Finally, the fat man lit a cigarette, thought for a moment, and said to us, “No, this scattered way of thinking is really wasting time. Let’s write down all the possibilities and then summarize them into a few points. After that, we can directly verify one of them, right?”

I nodded. In fact, by the end, many of the problems we were discussing were repetitive, and we had all entered a state of confusion.

The fat man cleared a space on the ground covered with gold artifacts and wrote down a few numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4. Then he said, “Let’s think about how many hypotheses we have now. Everyone recall, not in detail, just the general direction will do.”

Panzi said, “The most likely one is that there are mechanisms.”

The fat man wrote “mechanisms” next to number 1. Then Shunzi said, “Your idea could be that something is influencing our perceptions, like psychological suggestion or hypnosis, making us unknowingly walk back.”

The fat man replied, “No need to get into too much detail.” He wrote “illusion” behind number 2 and looked at me.

I said, “Theoretically, it could also be spatial folding.”

“That’s impossible; it’s too mystical,” Panzi remarked.

The fat man said, “No matter what, if there’s a one in ten thousand chance, we should acknowledge it. We’re just making a memo.” He wrote “spatial folding” behind number 3. Then he added, “It could also be ghosts,” and wrote “ghosts” next to number 4.

“What’s the point of writing this down?” Panzi asked, confused.

The fat man replied, “You guys read a lot; you don’t understand. I haven’t read much, but everything must be written down. There’s a benefit to this; for example, if there are several things, you can handle them together. If you organize it beforehand, you can save a lot of time. We only have two days, right? We need to save some time. By the way, is there a number 5? Does anyone have a number 5?”

I looked at the four points. They indeed covered a range from quantum mechanics to metaphysics, psychology, and engineering. I couldn’t think of a fifth point for the moment. Our previous discussion had mainly focused on points one and two; three and four seemed utterly impossible.

Seeing that we had no reaction, the fat man said, “Alright, let’s first verify points one and two. These two can be tested together.”

“What method will you use to verify?” I asked curiously.

In fact, most of the experiments we could conduct had already been done, but due to the long tomb passage, many experiments had proven useless.

Suddenly, the fat man smiled: “Actually, I just thought of a good method. It might be impossible to prove whether one or two is influencing us, but we can prove that one of them isn’t. Just watch.”

I looked at the fat man, who seemed very pleased with himself, and suddenly felt uneasy. Did this guy have some plan? He picked up a rifle from the ground and said to us, “This tomb passage is about 1,000 to 2,000 meters long, and the effective killing range of a Type 56 rifle is 400 meters, but the bullet can reach up to 3,000 meters. I’m going to fire a shot here and see what the result will be.”

As soon as I heard this, it suddenly clicked in my mind, and I thought to myself: This genius!

If it’s a problem with our own perceptions, then the bullet wouldn’t have any perception. The tomb passage might influence us, but it wouldn’t affect the bullet. If the situation here can still be explained by common sense, then the bullet will definitely disappear at the end of the tomb passage and won’t come back.

The brilliance of this experiment lies in the speed of the bullet. In such a short tomb passage, the bullet can travel the entire distance in 2.3 seconds, without any mechanisms or traps, allowing it to take effect in such a short time.

However, if the situation here truly exceeds the bounds of rational explanation and enters the realm of metaphysics, then the bullet would, like us, make a 180-degree turn in a straight tomb passage, transcending space. It’s simple and beautiful, very much in line with the spirit of science. I feel a bit ashamed that, as a college student, I couldn’t come up with such a method.

But then I thought, this kind of idea could only come from someone like him; it’s the simplest form of logical thinking. To determine whether there is an illusion at play, one must look for something that isn’t affected by illusions. To find something, one should look nearby; considering this in a three-step process, the solution immediately becomes clear and is not complicated at all. I suddenly felt that Wang Canghai might have encountered a rival. Someone as scheming as him would probably fear a straightforward thinker like the fat guy, as any trick would be simplified.

The fat guy said he would do it, and we followed him. He walked into the tomb passage, pulled back the gun’s bolt, and was about to fire into the passage. I hurriedly shouted, “Wait!”

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Don’t do that,” I replied. “If—I’m just saying if—this place is truly as sinister as that, then firing your gun would almost instantaneously result in you being shot.”

The fat guy’s expression changed; it was clear that he had previously thought the first and second possibilities were quite large, and he hadn’t considered whether the third or fourth might actually be true. However, after I mentioned it, he nodded, shifted the gun to the side, reasoning that bullets follow a parabolic trajectory, and if the bullet were to come back, it should land just below the muzzle.

We all hid by the door, still unprepared mentally, when the fat guy suddenly fired. A loud bang echoed through the tomb passage, followed by a series of echoes. Almost simultaneously, we saw the tomb door shake violently, sending up a cloud of dust.

My head buzzed, and I thought this was bad. I leaned out to take a look. The fat guy was still in a rigid stance, maintaining his position of firing, but on the door just a few centimeters below his gun, a bullet hole appeared, and the smoke from the explosion had yet to dissipate.

4 3 月 2025

161 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 31 – Endless Cycle of Death

Several people looked pale, and as we looked around, the more we did, the more certain we became that there were footprints everywhere on the ground. This was indeed the tomb we had just discovered belonging to Shunzi’s father. The strange thing was, how did we get back here?

The passage was straight, and when we walked, we didn’t turn at all. With four people and one corpse, we could all attest that, logically, it was impossible to have walked for twenty minutes and returned to the starting point. This was simply unbelievable; it was like we were caught in a ghost wall.

The fat guy was a bit skeptical and looked at the entrance of the passage we had come from. He said, “Could it be that we unknowingly walked back the same way? Damn, this is eerie.”

Panzi replied, “No way. If we had turned back, all four of us would have noticed. I remember walking straight the whole time. The passage isn’t long, and there are no forks; there’s no reason to remember it wrong.”

The fat guy said, “Then it must be a ghost wall. Shunzi, is your old man playing tricks on us? You need to teach him a lesson; we’re in the middle of something important.”

Shunzi was furious at the fat guy: “Stop talking nonsense.”

I stopped them; this was not the time for bickering. I was drenched in cold sweat because I felt that the most undesirable thing might have already happened. However, I still couldn’t fully convince myself of it. I said, “Stop arguing. We need to see if we really walked back the same way. There’s only one way to find out—we’ll walk it again.”

The others exchanged glances, and seeing my expression, they probably sensed something was wrong.

At that moment, I couldn’t shake the image of those dry corpses from my mind—their expressions of despair. Had they been trapped here and died this way? With no food, but no matter how they walked, they always returned to the original room? This was too unbelievable. But my instincts told me I might be right, and now the same fate that befell them might also be happening to us.

What I needed to do now was to prove my premonition or, rather, to find a way to deny this terrifying feeling. So, I hurriedly walked into the passage, and the others quickly followed me.

Having walked through once, I was sure there were no traps. This time we moved very quickly; I almost jogged at the front, my eyes fixed on both sides of the path to ensure there were no forks, and I didn’t turn back for no reason.

In less than ten minutes, we completed the entire route. As we approached the end of the passage, I was almost constantly praying, hoping my premonition wouldn’t come true. But ultimately, when I saw that almost identical jade door, my heart sank, and cold sweat began to pour out uncontrollably.

As we entered the door, the fat guy rushed toward the golden mountain and then knelt down, covering his face with his hands. I rushed over to see six corpses; everything we had arranged was there… we had returned.

My premonition was confirmed. Despite being 100% focused and certain that there were no forks or turns, we walked straight and still ended up back at the starting point.

The chubby guy was exhausted from running and gasped, “This is definitely a ghost wall, a ghost wall! No matter how we walk, it’s just a loop. Both ends of this tomb passage lead back to this tomb chamber. We’re about to meet Shunzi’s father. Shunzi, you should talk to your dad and tell him not to mess with us, or we’ll just leave him here and walk away ourselves.”

Shunzi was already shocked and had no time to argue with him. I was also flustered, constantly turning to look at the surrounding walls, but I didn’t even know what I was looking for.

“Calm down! Calm down!” Panzi panted from the side, “Don’t panic! Didn’t you say yourself, Little Third Master, that Wang Canghai’s tricks are just psychological pressure at most? We can’t fall for it knowing that! We must stay calm; there’s definitely something wrong here.”

After Panzi said that, I suddenly felt enlightened and became a bit clearer-headed. The sense of despair faded instantly. I nodded vigorously and said, “You’re right, this must be a mechanism. We’ve already confirmed in the underwater tomb that there’s no such thing as a ghost wall. Wang Canghai is skilled at using clever devices to create an eerie atmosphere. If we don’t know the details, it’s easy to be led astray.” As I spoke, I rubbed my face hard to shake off that suffocating feeling.

Honestly, I was saying these words to myself. After I finished speaking, I didn’t even realize what I had said.

Looking back on this moment, I felt that I must have sensed that things were beyond my control and was trying to use those words to encourage myself not to give up.

Because when we walked through that tomb passage earlier, it felt too real. I couldn’t even imagine how a mechanism could create this phenomenon. The first thing that came to my mind was the movement of the tomb chamber or the deep burial passage, but that was impossible; I quickly dismissed that idea. We weren’t walking that fast—if the tomb chamber could move, how fast would it need to be? The passage was even less likely to move. As long as there was a slight tremor, we would definitely notice. But if neither the tomb passage nor the tomb chamber was moving, then there was no explanation for what we were experiencing.

Although I kept telling myself it was a mechanism, deep down I already knew something was wrong. However, saying it out loud was still beneficial for the others; at least it could reduce their panic.

But I underestimated the psychological endurance of the chubby guy and the others. Panzi was much calmer than I was. Wiping his sweat, he asked me, “Whether it’s a ghost wall or a mechanism, we have to solve it. What should we do now? Should we try walking again?”

I gritted my teeth and said, “Let’s go again! Damn it, this time let’s walk slowly and really pay attention to the sounds beneath our feet or around us. I refuse to believe there are no flaws.”

So we entered the tomb passage again. This time, after walking for forty minutes, we realized we had failed because the tomb door looked exactly the same, and we hadn’t sensed anything unusual along the way.

After that, we didn’t know how many times we went in again, but all ended in failure. I gradually began to feel the despair of those corpses, and the expressions on the faces of the others grew increasingly worse.

I felt that continuing like this was not a solution. After returning to the tomb chamber, I told them to stop walking. Since we had already tried so many times, we had basically ruled everything out. This mechanism was definitely designed using methods we couldn’t even imagine.

The fat man was exhausted to the point of nearly collapsing. However, he still insisted on continuing to walk, thinking that perhaps at some moment, the old tomb passage would return, and then we could escape.

Panzi, upon hearing this, simply said, “You can give up on that thought; that passage will definitely not come back.” He glanced at the several dry corpses nearby, making his meaning clear. Those corpses had undoubtedly entered the tomb passage more times than we had, yet they still ended up trapped and dead. Therefore, walking through the passage was useless; even if we tried a thousand times, it wouldn’t matter. We shouldn’t entertain such lucky thoughts.

The fat man immediately lost his resolve and sat down, saying, “So according to you, aren’t we doomed? Those people here must have tried everything. If we do it again, it won’t help at all.”

Panzi replied, “Stop thinking about that. If you think like that now, you might as well just kill yourself. Once we’ve done everything we can, then we can think about despairing. For now, while we still have strength, we should think of ways to survive.”

I recalled the issue of food and asked, “Should we ration the food now? We need to prepare for a long battle; the longer we can survive, the greater our chance of getting out.”

Panzi sighed and shook his head. “Little Third Master, to be honest, we are actually worse off than they are. Our food is running low; I think we can only have two more meals at most, and that won’t even fill us up. There’s no need to ration it; we should eat as we like to keep our energy up. I estimate that if we can’t get out within two days, we’ll have no other options left. Then we’ll have to use explosives. If the explosives don’t work either, then I guess we’ll just wait for someone else to come and collect our bodies.”

Two days. My heart sank. How long had those dry corpses been here? Could we really get out in two days? There was absolutely no certainty.

The fat man’s stomach was already growling, and he asked Panzi, “So, comrade cook, can we eat early? I need to take care of something to distract me before I can think about anything else.”

As soon as the fat man spoke, we all felt hungry. Panzi had no choice but to light the stove and cook. Our food was mostly just dried noodles left. It was fine when we first ate it, but it wouldn’t last long. The fat man complained about the lack of meat, and I mentioned that we had frozen spare ribs. If he could stomach it, and if Shunzi didn’t mind, then we wouldn’t either.

After eating, we felt warm all over and our spirits were lifted. The few of us began to ponder over the situation. I recalled the entire process of descending into the underground palace, which had been fraught with danger, and I was surprised that it was still unstable after reaching the palace. This underground palace must have had a central design by Wang Canghai—what exactly was it?

The underground palace was shaped like a “回” (hui), with the spirit hall at the very center, the most strictly controlled area. Wang Canghai would certainly not dare to tamper with it. Surrounding the central area were burial pits, sacrificial pits, a drainage system, and a complex network of passageways and tomb paths. This meant we were still on the periphery of the palace’s center.

I tried to estimate the vertical and horizontal distances we had descended, using my understanding of the dimensions of the underground palace to determine our position. However, this seemed quite difficult. We had already lost our bearings in that underwater drainage passage and had no idea of the direction. Who knows which way the exit we would eventually emerge from was facing?

While my brain was spinning rapidly, the chubby guy, who was pretending to think, suddenly had a moment of realization and said to us, “I’ve got it!”

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170 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 40 – The Nest of the ‘Guardian Deity’

169 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 39 – The Only Exit

168 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 38 – Snake Eyebrow Copper Fish

167 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part Two) – Chapter 37 – The Muffled Oil Bottle Second

166 Yunding Tiangong (Part 2) – Chapter 36 – Exit

165 Summit of the Clouds (Part 2) – Chapter 35 – Xi Zhao

164 Yunding Tiangong (Part 2) – Chapter 34 – People from the Bottom of the Sea

163 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 33 – Excavation and Quantum Mechanics

162 Yunding Tiangong (Part 2) – Chapter 32 – The Enumeration Method of the Fat Guy

161 Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (Part 2) – Chapter 31 – Endless Cycle of Death

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分类目录归档：The Chronicles of the Tomb Robbers