A few people called out to me, and when I turned my head, Ye Cheng let out a strange cry, and we all instinctively took a big step back. Panzi, reacting reflexively, cocked his gun with a ‘click’ and raised it, but he didn’t fire.

(Strangely enough, I had never heard of anyone using a handgun to shoot zongzi in a tomb. Never. I didn’t know if it was a rule from our ancestors or if doing so would lead to some unknown consequences. Later, when I asked Master Hua, he said the surface reason was that many corpses have corpse poison, and if you just shoot a moldy zongzi, the corpse fluid would splatter everywhere, ruining everything. Moreover, the sound of the gun would easily attract trouble. But as for the actual reason, he wasn’t sure.)

The fat guy was pondering how to stuff a cigarette into his gas mask when he was startled by our commotion, not knowing what was happening. But when he saw where Panzi’s gun was aimed, right next to his head, he realized it wasn’t aimed at him. He immediately turned to look over his shoulder.

When he turned, he came face to face with that figure. The fat guy was instantly dumbfounded, and the cigarette in his hand fell onto the beam, leaving him frozen in place.

The person crouched behind the fat guy, exuding an eerie aura, didn’t react at all to the fat guy’s turn. The two of them just stared at each other, gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.

Where did this person come from!? My mind was in turmoil. When we entered earlier, we had swept the area with flashlights. Although we hadn’t been overly thorough, such a large person couldn’t have hidden from us. This meant that when we came in, this ‘person’ wasn’t here, so how did they suddenly appear on the fat guy’s back?

Could it be that Ah Ning and his gang had set some trap here? Or could it simply be the vengeful spirit of someone who died in this royal tomb?

I’ve seen my fair share of strange things, but being in this eerie underground royal tomb made my scalp tingle and my hair stand on end. I couldn’t help but feel like something was lurking on my back, making me extremely uncomfortable.

The fat guy’s face turned pale, and cold sweat poured down his face. However, he was still a person of some caliber. At this moment, he realized what was happening. He didn’t dare to move, but I saw his hand slowly make a gesture like a gun, probably signaling Panzi to shoot.

Panzi waved his hand, telling him to move his head slightly so he could aim better. At that moment, Master Hua raised both hands and whispered, “Wait, let’s take a look first. It might be a living person.”

“How can someone look like that and still be called a living person?” Panzi whispered back.

Master Hua gestured for him to be quiet and slowly moved the flashlight towards the area behind the fat guy’s shoulder. As the beam of light illuminated the figure, it turned its head towards us. I saw a face that was indescribable; the whole face was sunken in. Where the nose should be, there was only a large hole, and the eye sockets were deeply deformed. Its eyes reflected the flashlight’s beam like a pair of flashlights, and its mouth looked almost like that of an owl.

Panzi hesitated, lowering his gun and looking at us. “What the hell, is that a night owl?”

I thought to myself, how could this be possible? The air quality here is so poor that it’s basically impossible for any living beings to exist; a night owl couldn’t survive here. And if it were a night owl, it would be way too big. However, looking at this face, it really does resemble one. Night owls fly without making a sound; could it be that it silently swooped down from the roof and landed on the fat guy? How could the fat guy not feel anything at all?

The sweat on the fat guy’s face was pouring down like a waterfall. While he was still urging Panzi to shoot, his hand started to reach for the dagger at his waist. Perhaps seeing that we weren’t reacting, he couldn’t help but want to take action. I quickly waved my hand at the fat guy, telling him not to move; we must not act recklessly until we figured things out.

The fat guy bared his teeth at me in protest. Unexpectedly, as soon as he showed his teeth, the creature on his back seemed to have been stimulated, and its sunken face twisted. The person leaned back, suddenly opening his mouth wide. I was shocked! A pair of two-inch long fangs were revealed; that definitely wasn’t a bird. Moreover, its mouth kept widening, soon exceeding the limits of what a human could open.

I realized this was bad; the fat guy was in trouble! Panzi pressed the butt of his gun tightly against his shoulder, aimed at that mouth, and was about to pull the trigger when suddenly, with a “whoosh,” a gust of wind flew past me, and something was thrown in from outside the door. It struck Panzi’s gun, causing the barrel to shift, and a series of bullets whizzed past the fat guy’s ear. The fat guy, startled, yelled, “Where the hell are you shooting?”

I turned to see Chen Pi, Ah Si, and Shun Zi rushing in. Chen Pi shouted at Panzi, “Put down the gun!” The creature above had already bitten down towards the fat guy’s neck. The fat guy bumped his head back against the creature, knocking its head away, then twisted his body to grab the creature’s mouth from behind, trying to shake it off. But it seemed to be clinging to his back, and no matter how he shook, he couldn’t get rid of it. The fat guy shouted, “Damn it, someone come help me!”

Ye Cheng drew his knife and was about to rush up when I yelled, “No! The beam is going to collapse! Fat guy, jump down quickly!” The fat guy didn’t hear me at all and continued shouting, “You heartless bunch, hurry up!”

Chen Pi suddenly flicked his hand, and an iron pellet hit the fat guy’s foot. The fat guy cried out in pain, his foot slipped, and the entire beam tilted down with a crack because of his movement. The fat guy lost his balance and fell down. The height from the beam to the ground meant that falling down wasn’t without consequences. Fortunately, there was a corpse hanging below; when he fell, he pulled on it with force, which cushioned his fall somewhat, and he landed heavily in the pile of rubble on the ground. We rushed over to take a look, and everyone froze: the creature on the fat guy’s back was gone; there was nothing there…

I suddenly remembered the bullet holes in the pillar and immediately realized something was wrong. I waved my hand and said, “That thing didn’t fall down! Watch out above!” Before I could finish my sentence, a shadow flashed past my head like lightning, and Shun Zi rolled on the ground, already sporting three bloody scratches on his left shoulder.

I quickly raised the gun, but the old 56 was much heavier than I had imagined. I wasn’t holding it very steadily, and after lifting it a couple of times, the muzzle didn’t even rise. The fat guy got up and snatched the gun from me, sweeping it around instinctively. A large number of tiles came crashing down. We all raised our flashlights to illuminate for him, but when the smoke cleared, there was nothing up there; whatever that thing was had disappeared.

“What the hell was that thing?” the fat guy said, still shaken.

“Why are you asking us? It was right on top of you, and you didn’t even feel it! What are you doing?” Panzi yelled at him.

The fat guy got angry and was about to retort when suddenly he froze. We turned to look, and I was shocked to see that strange face had somehow peeked out from behind Panzi’s shoulder, staring at us with an eerie gaze, while Panzi himself was completely oblivious.

We all quickly stepped back from Panzi. Seeing our reaction, his face turned pale, and he shouted, “What are you doing?” Before he could turn around, that thing behind him suddenly opened its mouth wide, revealing a set of sharp fangs.

The fat guy raised the gun and fired a shot. With a loud bang, half of that thing’s head was blown off, and greenish blood splattered everywhere, drenching us in an extremely foul odor.

For a moment, I thought it was over, but then I realized something was wrong. Inside that massive mouth, which was now half gone, there was still a faint outline of a face!

“Damn it!” I heard Shunzi whisper, and in a flash, he lunged at Panzi, knocking him away. Panzi fell to the ground but quickly turned and sat up, not knowing when he had grabbed a military knife, and he thrust it backward.

However, the thing behind him had already vanished; instead, it was Shunzi who had just collided with him. The knife went straight for him. Fortunately, Shunzi reacted quickly, grabbing his hand and twisting it around, while shouting, “Who fired the gun just now?!”