In the end, Shunzi did not cry. After a moment of excitement, he relaxed and respectfully tidied his father’s hair. However, the body was severely dehydrated, and the hair fell out at the slightest touch. After much effort, he managed to fix it, but his father now resembled Ge You. I knew that this kid was still feeling bad inside; perhaps he had held onto the hope that his father would be alive for the past ten years. Now that hope was shattered. One could say he felt relieved, or one could say he was in despair.

The fat guy and Panzi didn’t understand what was going on and were sweating profusely. I briefly explained my guesses to them, believing I wasn’t wrong. Upon hearing this, the fat guy also shed tears and said, “My old man left early too. He spent his whole life serving the country in the revolution, only to be labeled a counter-revolutionary in the end. Shunzi, I can understand your feelings. But people should always think positively. In ten years, father and son can reunite. Heaven has taken care of you; try to look at it more openly.”

When the fat guy cried, Panzi’s eyes also became moist. He said, “Alright, alright. You both still have your old dads. I never even got to see my dad’s face. Third Grandpa has always been like my father, and now his life and death are still uncertain.”

I hurriedly said, “What’s wrong with you two? Shunzi hasn’t even cried, and you’re both making a fuss. Let’s see why they died here.”

Since they could walk in here, there was no reason they couldn’t get out. If they died here, something must have happened. We were also in this tomb, and I didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. At the same time, I felt it was a bit strange that several bodies appeared here. Shunzi’s father was just a guide, but the others, according to Shunzi, insisted on entering the mountains at an inappropriate time. They shouldn’t be ordinary tourists; did they have some ulterior motive? Was it a coincidence that they ended up here? I had to find out.

We began to search through the backpacks of these people. There was all sorts of stuff inside: decayed novels, notebooks, pencils, nylon ropes, army tents, old flashlights, vintage Swiss army knives (which surprisingly still worked), a 1986 edition of a Korean-Chinese dictionary, bubble gum, old lighters, flasks, lipsticks, sanitary pads, medicine boxes (including gauze, alcohol, cotton, and several types of medicinal liquor), military compasses, and so on.

One of the novels was “How the Steel Was Tempered.” It was an old book, and I didn’t dare to open it; if I did, it would surely fall apart. The notebooks were also old work notes, which I had seen my dad use when I was in elementary school. There were three in total, and when I opened one, I saw it was filled with accounts and phone numbers. Back then, those were the only functions of such notes. Moreover, there was nothing to prove their identities, and most importantly, none of them had an ID.

We laid all these items out in a row. The gear was nearly complete; although not as advanced as ours, it should be sufficient to get out. In any harsh environment, these supplies could manage reasonably well.

This was strange, I thought. No matter what, under the premise that they had the ability to leave, these people should have died on the way out, not sitting here as if waiting for death. Could it be that they were reluctant to part with the treasures here? That seemed even less likely.

If that’s the case, could it be that dying here is more than meets the eye? A sudden sense of foreboding surged within me, and I felt as if something in this tomb was watching us, causing me to shiver involuntarily.

The fat guy, looking at the items we had laid out, suddenly clicked his tongue and said, “Comrades, have you noticed that something is missing from these items?”

We all pondered his question, and upon his prompting, we took a closer look at the items. However, in my mind, I felt that all the essential things were present, and I couldn’t think of anything that was missing. I asked him, “What’s missing?”

The fat guy replied, “Food! There’s no food! No one has any food in their bags.”

As soon as he said this, we all jolted. Looking again at the row of items, it was indeed all equipment, with nothing that could be used to stave off hunger.

I asked in confusion, “There really is no food. This suggests that these people didn’t die from an accident. If it were an accident, it wouldn’t be so coincidental that everyone had no food. Wait a minute, could it be that they… ran out of food and starved to death here?”

But that didn’t make sense either. A person can survive a month without food, as long as there’s water (and please, if you’re 2.27 meters tall and only weigh 90 pounds, don’t argue with me). As long as they had the will to leave, they wouldn’t starve to death here. If these people died of starvation, there could only be one explanation: they couldn’t get out.

Thinking of this, I recalled the disappearing tomb passage in the underwater tomb, and I hurriedly jumped up to the pile of gold to check the tomb door we came through. To my relief, the door was still there and hadn’t disappeared at all. I finally breathed a sigh of relief, though I was still a bit flustered, fearing that the door might suddenly vanish.

The fat guy knew what I was worried about and said to me, “If we really encounter that kind of situation, we have explosives with us this time, so we don’t need to be afraid.” I felt much more reassured.

“Could it be like this?” While pondering, Panzi asked Shunzi, “Do you know how many people were in your father’s expedition team?”

“I think there were only seven people, according to my mother, but that was just what she saw. She didn’t know how many there actually were; anyway, my father left with seven people.”

“Then here we have… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, a total of 6 corpses, and at least two people are missing.” Panzi said, “Could it be that those two people, seeing the wealth, killed the others and ran away?”

I shook my head in denial. There were no signs of a struggle among these people. The positions and expressions of the corpses at the time of death indicated they had curled up together. It didn’t seem like poisoning, nor did it look like they died from external forces. What troubled me the most, and made me feel the need to clarify the cause of their deaths, was that the expressions on the corpses were strikingly uniform, all revealing a deep sense of despair, as if they had fallen into a hopeless situation.

This was the first time I had seen such corpses, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling. I had a premonition that what happened here back then was definitely not simple, and the deeper I speculated, the more I felt an indescribable chill and unease enveloping the surroundings. Among this pile of gold, there was an eerie feeling that something was watching us, becoming increasingly pronounced.

After pondering for a long time without coming to any conclusion, the fat guy and the others couldn’t hold back any longer and wanted to start fiddling with the gold artifacts. This time, I calmly stopped them and said, “These dead bodies died amidst the gold artifacts; I really can’t let this go. Let’s not touch anything for now; don’t forget the purpose of our coming here.”

As soon as I said that, they realized their mistake. The fat guy suddenly thought of something and said, “I really lost my mind and forgot what we came here for. That mark led us here, the door was blown open, but inside is just a treasure chamber? There’s no coffin. I can see that the mark indicates there are ritual items, and it must have been left by An Ning and the others so that their second team could come to collect the treasures.”

I replied, “The door was likely blown open by these corpses, but this is just a burial chamber for accompanying items. The coffin definitely isn’t here; we need to head in the opposite direction.”

Although it didn’t make sense, I had always thought this passage was the main tomb passage, with one side being the tomb door and the other leading to the center of the underground palace. Now it seemed that wasn’t the case. Could it be that this passage still isn’t the main tomb passage? Just how big is this underground palace? I wondered if it was like a maze. Then I recalled those marks—could it really be that the underground palace is so complex that they left these marks behind?

“What about those things?” the fat guy asked, a bit reluctant.

I said, “Just taking one of them would be enough for you to live a carefree life for half your life. There’s no need to be too greedy, and we can always come back later.”

After seeing the corpses, the fat guy clearly had doubts in his mind, but since he couldn’t leave empty-handed, he picked a few smaller gold artifacts to tuck into his pocket. Shunzi insisted on taking his father’s body out, so he strapped it onto his back using a backpack. The body had already dehydrated and didn’t weigh much, so it wasn’t hard to carry.

We took one last look at the dazzling pile of gold and agate, steeled ourselves, and filed out through the blown-open tomb door.

As soon as we exited the tomb door, I heard the fat guy let out a “Hmm.” I had a premonition and quickly turned on my flashlight to look around, and I couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat.

The murals on the walls of the tomb passage outside had changed from when we walked in earlier; I didn’t know when it had happened, but the red murals had all transformed into the shadows of large-headed black figures.