After Chen Pi Ah Si’s iron bullet flew by, the flickering flames instantly dimmed again, and the shadow over there became blurred once more, making it impossible to see anything clearly. The bullet eventually struck something, producing a crisp sound as it rolled to the ground, the noise echoing in the vast Ling Palace, sending chills down our spines.
At the moment the fire flared up, everyone was startled by the shadow, and Shun Zi was especially panicked, softly exclaiming, “What is that thing?”
Hua He Shang immediately covered his mouth, preventing him from speaking further. Several hands instinctively reached for their knives.
Chen Pi Ah Si waved his hand at us, signaling us not to be so tense, and then gave Hua He Shang a knowing glance. The latter quickly jumped a few steps to one side, extinguishing the flame with one hand.
I couldn’t help but admire Chen Pi Ah Si’s calmness; in such a bizarre environment, anyone else would have hoped for a brighter light around them, but in reality, being in the dark is the safest option in this situation.
Once the lamp was extinguished, the surroundings plunged into darkness again, enveloping us like a thick fog, while the lamp on the other side appeared even brighter.
We quickly turned off our flashlights and held our breath, watching that shadow. The surrounding darkness stimulated my nerves, and I could feel my heart pounding fiercely.
The shadow was clearly that of a person, most of its body still concealed in the darkness. What was particularly unsettling was its unusually long neck and some appendages on its body that resembled spikes or tentacles, giving it a distinctly non-human appearance. It looked more like… a bird.
I instinctively felt a chill, my heart racing. Aside from Dun You Ping, everyone else was around. This shadow definitely wasn’t Dun You Ping; could there be someone else here?
Who could that person be? How did they end up in the Ling Palace atop the snow-capped mountain? Could the avalanche we just experienced have drawn the attention of border patrols, and this person was a scout from the liberation army?
That didn’t seem likely. Not to mention that the avalanche occurred in the valley; even if someone discovered it, it would take at least a day to arrive—there’s no way they could get here so quickly.
Suddenly, I recalled that this Ling Palace was a trap set by Wang Zang Hai. Since it was a trap, it must be extremely dangerous. Those caught in a trap can never anticipate what awaits them inside. Could this shadow be the monster that Wang Zang Hai arranged to be here when he set the trap?
We didn’t dare to breathe, staring intently at that shadow, hoping to deduce something from its movements and shape. At the very least, we wanted to know whether this thing was human or something else entirely.
But strangely, the shadow stood there motionless, like a clay sculpture, not even swaying. It seemed not to be a living creature at all.
After a moment of waiting, with both sides remaining still, Fatty began to lose patience and whispered, “Something’s not right. If it were a living creature, it would have to move. This thing is completely still; could we be seeing things? Is it just the shadow of those lamps cast on the pillars?”
Ye Chengdao replied, “Nonsense, the lamp servants are all standing nearby, right? How could it have walked over here by itself?”
The fat man whispered, “Isn’t it said that the spiritual energy of heaven and earth can make even a pipa come to life? Maybe the stone lamp servant here has come to life too, and can move by itself.” I felt uncomfortable hearing what he said, and I didn’t have the extra wisdom to judge his words. A few months ago, I didn’t even believe in zongzi. Now, having seen zongzi that could fill two mahjong tables, I really couldn’t say whether there were any monsters or not. However, when the fat man said that the stone lamp servant had come to life, I felt it was more of a joke. The fat man tends to be unreliable when he speaks during dangerous situations, which is very much related to his personality.
But the fat man was right about one thing: as long as it’s a living thing, it has to move. Even a zongzi couldn’t just stand there like a stone; it would be too strange for a shadow to remain completely still. No matter what it was, we couldn’t just stay here in a deadlock. Although I couldn’t see, I knew that the surroundings were crawling with “wall snakes.” If someone got bitten again, while it might not be fatal, being short on clothes and medicine in the snowy mountains could be deadly.
We quietly discussed it, and the thoughts of several people were basically the same as mine. The fat man said in a very low voice, “Then let’s not admire its figure here any longer. Let’s sneak over and take a look. If it’s really a person, damn it, we’ll just knock it down and beat it up!” A few people agreed, and I felt a rush of wind beside me. Impatient, I already started to move over. In the pitch darkness, there was no way to form a formation; I gritted my teeth and headed toward the only light.
The lamp servant wasn’t too far from us. After taking a few steps, the shadow became clearer and clearer. The more I looked, the stranger it appeared. Unconsciously, an ominous feeling grew stronger within me. As I almost approached the area illuminated by the light, I instinctively slowed down, hiding in the darkness, and cautiously crept closer.
The black shadow was almost ten steps away from me. I squinted at it, and little by little, my heartbeat quickened, cold sweat began to pour out, and I prayed that heaven wouldn’t let me see what I didn’t want to see. However, as my vision got closer, I gradually realized that heaven might not protect people like us who rob graves. The thing in front of me became clearer, and suddenly I couldn’t even move my feet. I felt my whole body go soft, and in the end, I was completely frozen, unable to move.
I couldn’t find the words to describe what I saw; I could only say it was a huge creature shaped like a “centipede.” But whether it was a centipede, I didn’t know, because it was too big. I knew that the largest centipedes could grow over a meter long, but this one was clearly larger. The centipede raised half of its body like a snake, coiling around a lamp servant. What we saw as its neck was actually just the shadows formed by its two large venomous fangs and long antennae. Countless long legs hung down, and the entire giant creature remained motionless, seemingly absorbing the gases that evaporated from the lamp oil.
In the centipede family, the Caribbean Galápagos centipede can grow to 40-60 cm, but none have been found to exceed a meter. With such a gigantic size, this creature’s lifespan must be in the thousands of years.
The sound of several people groaning echoed around me, and I even heard the fat guy mutter very softly, “Damn it!” Clearly, the others who had come over were also seeing it and starting to doubt their own eyes. I recalled the massive black tombstone we had seen along the way, engraved with a centipede dragon, and suddenly understood why the dragons of the Dongxia people had the thousand legs of a centipede!
It seemed that after retreating into the deep mountains, they had encountered such a gigantic centipede and had deified it as an incarnation of a dragon.
In the midst of my confusion, I heard someone whistle a few times, signaling, “Fall back!” At that moment, I didn’t know who had said it, but I instinctively started to retreat. I kept backing away, not knowing where I was going, and when I looked around, everything was pitch black.
It turned out that after Master Hua extinguished the lantern slaves on our side, we lost our point of reference for retreating, and as a result, we all got separated.
I turned my flashlight back on, thinking of lighting a lantern slave to attract their attention, but then I saw the shadow of the giant centipede flicker not far away. The lantern slave beside it suddenly went out, and the giant centipede vanished into the darkness.
I suddenly remembered what Shunzi had said about centipedes having a tendency to seek warmth, and I immediately felt something was off. Meanwhile, from a distance, Master Hua lit a cold firework and shouted, “Everyone, don’t light the lantern slaves! All of you, focus on my cold firework and gather here!”
In the dark, I heard many feet scuttling on the floor, moving at an incredibly fast frequency. I couldn’t tell where they were crawling. The sound was getting louder, so I quickly took off running.
In the chaos, I heard the fat guy calling from another direction, “Why aren’t we lighting it? If we light this thing, it can temporarily distract that big bug! If we don’t, it will come straight for us! With all those legs, we can’t outrun it!”
Master Hua replied, “No! I can smell the lamp oil, and that oil contains insect essence. Once the scent spreads, even more of those—those things will crawl out, and then it will be even worse.” He paused, clearly unsure how to refer to this enormous centipede.
Hearing that there might be more than one, I felt my heart race. I ran towards Master Hua’s cold firework while shouting, “Then what do we do about this one?”
Master Hua said, “When we get there, I’ll have a plan. Watch your back; these insects crawl very fast!”
Before long, I rushed to Master Hua’s side, following the light of the cold firework. Suddenly, many beams of flashlight light appeared around us as several people dashed out from the darkness. We were panting heavily, unable to speak. The fat guy clutched his chest, looking around at the darkness, and asked Master Hua, “Alright, we’ve arrived. What’s the plan? Hurry up! That thing is about to come over!”
As he listened to the unsettling scuttling sound, it suddenly stopped, as if the giant bug hadn’t followed us and had instead halted.
Master Hua was also panting heavily, coughing while patting his backpack. He said, “Actually, it’s not a particularly special method. We still have explosives; we can blow it up.”
When the fat guy heard this, he burst out laughing, “Well then, this glorious task is yours. You go ahead; I’ll help take care of the old man.”
The monk Hua said, “There’s no need for me to go; I’ve already arranged it, and naturally, someone will go.”
Suddenly, I felt a chill from his face and realized something. I turned around and exclaimed, “Where’s Lang Feng?”
Hua remained silent, only looking toward the darkness beside us, saying, “Get ready. It’s coming.”
Before his words had finished, a loud “boom” echoed, and a dazzling fireball suddenly burst forth from the darkness. We instinctively dropped to the ground as a shower of wooden debris rained down on us. The entire floor shook violently, with wooden planks nearly hitting my nose. The shockwave wasn’t strong, but the noise was deafening, leaving my eardrums ringing, and I couldn’t hear anything clearly for a moment.
I raised my head to look in the direction of the explosion and saw that a large pit had been blown into the floor, with flames licking at the edges. The massive “Thousand-Legged Dragon” had its entire head blown apart and was still writhing, while the site of the explosion was precisely where we had just placed Lang Feng.
I instantly understood what Hua had done. No wonder the “Thousand-Legged Dragon” hadn’t chased us here; it had been lured away to where the unconscious Lang Feng was, and Hua had strapped explosives to him.
I could hardly believe my eyes. I turned to look at Hua and Chen Pi Ah Si, but none of them showed any expression, as if this had nothing to do with them.
Seeing my expression, Chen Pi Ah Si patted me gently and whispered, “Three steps before, four steps after. Didn’t your grandfather teach you this? If it were me, they would do the same to me. In this line of work, you have to have this awareness.”
“Three steps before, four steps after” is a saying from the local dialect. It means that before you do something, you need to think three steps ahead, and after you do it, you need to consider four steps. In the underground, every movement can be life-threatening, so you must always think about the consequences and how to handle them. If you find you can’t solve the problems that arise, then you shouldn’t proceed. This kind of consideration must become a habit.
I understood Chen Pi Ah Si’s intention; in reality, Lang Feng’s chances of surviving after following us out were already very slim. His point was that death was inevitable, so it would be better to let him die quickly.
My grandfather had mentioned something similar in his notes. When underground, sometimes it’s too late to recognize danger until it’s already upon you, so you must consider it before it arises. Tomb raiding is a meticulous task that requires courage; countless amateurs, driven by impulse, have ventured into ancient tombs and ended up as sacrificial offerings.
However, despite this reasoning, it felt incredibly unjust for Lang Feng to die like this. I suddenly felt afraid even standing next to Chen Pi Ah Si.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t express my feelings at that moment, so I took a deep breath and tried to act as if nothing had happened.
The fire in front gradually extinguished. The wooden planks here had been frozen for many years, with gaps filled with ice particles formed from moisture in the air. The more they burned, the more there were, and the harder it became to ignite anything.
We walked over to the pit that had been blown into the floor. My steps felt heavy, as I was afraid of suddenly encountering some severed limb. However, the Fatty and Panzi didn’t seem to react much; they appeared accustomed to such things, or perhaps they thought that showing their distress wouldn’t help. Seeing that I was a bit unsettled, Fatty patted me on the back and said softly, “Forget it. After all, they were involved. They might even have blood on their hands. Those who live this kind of life will eventually pay the price.”
Shunzi still didn’t understand what was happening and followed us, looking a bit dazed and scared.
When we reached the hole in the floor, I shone my flashlight down. The wooden floor had been blasted open, revealing a large pit where the bricks had been blown away. Below, the corridor reinforced with black stone slabs had also cracked, creating a gap that exposed emptiness underneath.
I knew what was down there because this part of the spirit palace was built on a steep slope, but the floor was flat, so there must be a triangular space supported by beams and columns below. All buildings constructed on steep slopes or cliffs, like the Potala Palace, have such a structure.
Cold wind blew out from the gap, clearly connected to the outside. I recalled that the triangular space below was surrounded by whitewashed walls. I wasn’t sure what the situation was, but there was wind blowing out, suggesting that it might be possible to exit from there.
There was evidently something wrong in this area; the ground was covered with millipedes. If we tried to exit through the front door, it would likely become increasingly dangerous. The newly created pit was just the opportunity we needed to escape.
Fatty jumped into the blasted pit, but the hole below was too small for a person to pass through; it needed to be widened. Huashan also jumped in to help. Fatty asked me if it was okay to keep digging like this.
I told them not to act recklessly; the stone corridor was already brittle from the winter cold, and the explosion had surely compromised the load-bearing structure below. I had no idea how deep it was, and if it suddenly collapsed, it wouldn’t just be one or two people falling; the whole area could sink, turning the spirit palace into our tomb.
So, we tied a rope around the waists of Fatty and Huashan, securing the other end to a large pillar nearby. We all clipped ourselves to the rope so that if a collapse occurred, we could support each other.
Once we were ready, Fatty began to smash the stone slabs below with a hammer. Unexpectedly, after just one hit, there was a loud crack from beneath his feet. A beam, as thick as a bowl, snapped under his weight, causing his foot to sink in all the way up to his thigh.
I was startled, thinking the whole thing was collapsing, but fortunately, it was just his foot that was stuck. Fatty cursed loudly and tried to pull his foot out.
After a long struggle, he managed to get his foot to his knee but couldn’t free it completely. He seemed puzzled, but suddenly his expression changed. He shouted, “Not good! Something’s pulling my foot!” With that, he started sliding down.
Huashan hurried down to grab his hands and pulled with all his might. The others rushed over to help, but they couldn’t pull him up to the brick pit; it seemed that something down there was really holding onto him.
Ye Cheng turned on his flashlight and shone it downwards, causing everyone to gasp in shock. They saw a bluish-purple, withered hand reaching out from the hole created by the fat man’s weight on the stone corridor, tightly gripping the fat man’s ankle.
