adminThe eerie sound we encountered suddenly appeared behind me. Although the noise was not loud, in the absolute silence of the coffin, it was as clear as thunder, causing my whole body to shudder, the muscles on my forehead to tense up, and cold sweat to break out all over me. This coffin was about six or seven meters long—not too long, not too short—judging by the sound, the source should be no more than a meter away from me, almost right against my back, at a distance where it could tap my shoulder. “D…d…” The rhythmic sound was like listening to someone knock on a door, sending a chill from the back of my neck all the way down to my heels.
For a moment, my entire body stiffened, unable to move. I considered whether to turn around and look or to pretend I hadn’t heard the sound and ignore it. But soon I realized, with a mix of laughter and tears, that I needed to calm down. At this moment, there was really no choice but to face it; fear and making excuses were simply a sign of waiting for death.
After a brief standoff, the ghostly sound neither drew closer nor receded. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and tightened my grip on the short knife, slowly turning around to see what was behind me.
As I turned, the strange sound suddenly stopped. I focused my gaze, and in the gray mist behind me, there was nothing. The direction from which the strange sound had come was still a hazy expanse, disturbed only by my movement, which created some bizarre air currents that quickly settled back to their previous evenness.
I swallowed hard, feeling a bit surprised. I shone my flashlight around, finding no abnormalities; it was as if the sound had never existed. The sound had been so close to me just now, crystal clear, and it was definitely not an illusion. My turning motion had lasted only about a second; if the sound had come from a moving object, it couldn’t have disappeared so quickly. Could it be that the sound came from somewhere else? Had I misjudged?
Instinctively, I took a step forward, wanting to find the source of the sound. Suddenly, a figure lunged at me from the mist beside me. My eyes were sharp enough to catch the situation just in time, and I quickly crouched down. The figure missed grabbing me but still knocked me to the ground. I rolled over and looked back; the person who had collided with me was a stocky figure—it was Boss Wang, the one who had dragged me into this place.
I cursed under my breath, brandishing my short hunting knife, intending to settle things with him. To my surprise, he quickly dodged back into the mist, disappearing from sight.
I couldn’t help but spit in disdain. During our struggle, his dagger must have fallen outside. Now, fearing my short knife, he dared not confront me head-on and hid in the mist, waiting for me to approach before launching a surprise attack—completely different from his earlier arrogance. That bastard was definitely a coward.
However, on second thought, the situation here is so bizarre that this guy must have extraordinary courage. If it were me, without a flashlight or any weapon, I wouldn’t dare to ambush anyone; I would have already curled up in a corner, trembling. Fortunately, the fog here is thick as water, and any movement creates a very obvious trail. It wouldn’t be so easy for him to launch a surprise attack on me; otherwise, I would have already pinned him down after that last move.
As I thought about this, I found it strange. If the owner of that eerie sound was moving inside the coffin, there should be some signs of movement. However, when I looked just now, the fog was smooth, and it didn’t seem like anything had moved through it. Could it be that it has no physical form? Is it a ghost?
While remaining on guard against Boss Wang launching another surprise attack, I stood up. The space inside the coffin isn’t large; after rolling around, I didn’t know where I had landed, so I needed to quickly retreat to the side and find a way to climb up.
Overall, this place isn’t big. Now that I looked around, I was already close to the center of the coffin. Through the fog, I saw something in the central part; judging by the shadow, it seemed that many ropes hung down from the top of the coffin, reaching all the way to the bottom. I initially thought they were aerial roots of branches sticking to the top, but as I took a step forward and shone my flashlight, I realized they weren’t. Those things were bronze chains, about the thickness of a wrist, covered in fungi and banyan roots, winding from the top to the bottom. However, it seemed that the chains were only fixed between the top and bottom of the coffin; nothing was tied to them below.
This stone coffin is said to be huge, but in fact, coffins of this size have been found in the tombs of several aristocrats from the Western Han and the Five Dynasties with large lids. Although this is called a coffin, it would be more appropriate to refer to it as a coffin chamber. In a traditional burial, the inner coffin should be placed in the center of this chamber. For the wealthy, the stone coffin chamber would be closely surrounded by dozens of wooden coffins, extending all the way to the innermost edge.
Now that I had taken a few steps, I should at least see the general shape of the inner coffin according to the size of the coffin chamber. However, all I saw were a few chains, and there was nothing on the ground. Could it be that this chamber is completely empty? Where did that sound come from? What was the source of that eerie radio interference?
I was stunned for a long time, then took another step forward, wanting to walk to the middle of the bronze chains to see if there was any hatch on the bottom of the coffin they were tied to. Just as I took a step, I suddenly felt my foot give way, and I fell down. I quickly grabbed the bronze chain in front of me and slid down a few meters before stabilizing myself, drenched in cold sweat.
What the hell happened? It felt like I stepped into thin air! I was still shaken, and when I shone the flashlight downwards, I couldn’t see the ground. The fog below was particularly thick, and when I tried to step down, I found nothing beneath my feet; it seemed like there was a deep depression.
There’s definitely something odd about this. I thought that the chamber was embedded two meters into the sacrificial altar on top of the bronze tree, with nothing in between. It might be a multi-layered embedded coffin method like those from the Warring States period. Perhaps there’s a depression in the middle of this chamber called a coffin well, where the real coffin is located. I don’t know how deep this coffin well is, but it’s really dangerous. If I had stepped into thin air just now, I might have fallen to my death.
The several bronze chains here might be part of the lifting device used to lower the coffin into the coffin pit; the inner coffin containing the body should be right below me. Just as I was thinking about this, the fog nearby suddenly stirred again, and Boss Wang rushed over, this time wielding some kind of weapon, lunging at me fiercely. The fog was so thick here that he probably judged my position by the beam of my flashlight. Realizing something was wrong, I instinctively shouted, “Don’t! Stop!”
But it was too late. Boss Wang let out an “Aiya,” missed his footing, and fell down. I felt the iron chains below tremble violently, presumably because he grabbed onto them, and at the same time, I heard a squelching sound from my hand, and my body began to slide downward.
Turning my head, I realized that the mushroom-like fungi above were squeezing my hand, releasing a slippery, waxy liquid that made the bronze chains feel as if they were coated in oil. I panicked and quickly tried to insert my short knife into the chain’s hole, but damn it, it wouldn’t go in. In a few moments, the knife got stuck in the tree roots, and I had to twist hard to stop my body from sliding. At this point, I had already slid down more than ten meters, entering the interior of the coffin pit, inside the trunk of the Paulownia tree.
Boss Wang was hanging below me on the bronze chain, bloodied, about a foot away from me. He couldn’t hold onto the chain and barely managed to stop himself by threading his belt through a chain hole. I shined my flashlight on him, and he cursed while turning his head to avoid the blinding light.
Seeing that he posed no immediate threat to me, I looked around the coffin pit. The interior of the bronze tree trunk was similar to the outside, engraved with deep grooves resembling twin serpents, with tree roots winding down along the patterns. The fog inside was much thinner than above. I scanned the surroundings, eager to know how large this coffin pit in the center of the coffin chamber was; if it was too big, climbing out could be another major issue.
The coffin pit was rectangular, four meters long and two meters wide, just enough to accommodate a coffin comfortably. I could touch the walls of the pit with my hand, and perhaps due to the fog, the tree roots here were not infested with a lot of fungi, allowing me to see the natural color of the roots. There was a strange odor in the air of the coffin pit; perhaps it was because of the excessive fog outside that the filtering medium in my gas mask had started to dampen, reducing its effectiveness. I could feel the strange smell growing stronger, irritating my nose. It seemed that Boss Wang was also suffering.
Looking down, I was startled to see that the iron chains extended deep into the darkness below, into a place where my flashlight couldn’t reach. They were incredibly long; from here, the entire coffin pit appeared bottomless, looking as if it extended indefinitely downward.
No way? I thought, feeling a strange sensation. Could it be that the entire bronze tree is hollow? We had climbed up at least three hundred meters; how deep did this copper tree extend underground? If it was hollow, what could be at its bottom? The center of the Earth? Hell? What significance does this giant hollow cylindrical structure have standing here?
Boss Wang was also very surprised. The two of them remained silent, staring intently below. Suddenly, there were two eerie sounds, “thud… thud…” that echoed around us! Boss Wang and I exchanged a glance, and our gazes were all directed towards the dark abyss below. That sound actually came from the depths of this chasm.
