The fat guy coughed a few times after finishing his sentence, spitting several times. I was anxious to hear more and urged him to continue. He scratched his back and said, “Even if you’re hanging, you need to catch your breath. This all happened too quickly, and I can’t articulate it all at once; you’ll have to wait while I organize my thoughts.”

Seeing him like that, his face was really pale, and his voice was all over the place, indicating that there was still water in his trachea. I hurriedly patted his back a few times. He shrank away from my pats and coughed up a lot of thick, slimy stuff, saying, “Alright, alright, if you keep patting me, you’ll knock me dead!”

I urged, “Okay, just tell me quickly, what exactly happened?”

He sniffed and then briefly recounted what they had encountered. The events unfolded very rapidly, so his narration was somewhat chaotic, but I still got a rough idea of the sequence of events.

It turned out that at that moment, he saw me staring blankly at the ceramic painting and urged me a few times, but I was so focused that I didn’t hear him. Seeing I wasn’t responding, he probably thought about those valuable jade accessories and ran back to start working on it himself. At that time, he thought that once I was done picking, I would naturally come over, as the two rooms were only five or six steps apart, and it was impossible for anything unexpected to happen.

However, what he saw next completely captivated his attention, causing him to forget about my presence and not even notice when the stone door disappeared.

When he returned to the coffin, the two of them scooped water together, and soon the corpse fragment floated to the surface. The fat guy took a closer look and was horrified to find that the lumps he had thought were heads were actually the woman’s plump breasts, so large that they hung down, dragging on the twisted torso. He was stunned; he never expected this to be a female corpse.

However, logically speaking, if there were 12 hands, there should be 12 breasts as well, but there were only five on the front. Could there be more on the back? They pondered how to lift the body out of the coffin.

The fat guy first tried to use his gun as a hook to pull the body out, but the corpse was too soft; it was almost entirely waxy and slippery, with no place to grip. Wearing gloves made it even more difficult; it was like trying to hold onto soap—squeeze it, and a layer of grease would come off, which was disgusting. In the end, the guy with the oil bottle came up with a solution. They took off the clothes, one person wrapped the head, and the other wrapped the feet, using the gun to make a makeshift yoke. Together, they lifted her out and placed her on the ground.

Under the bright light of the exploration lamp, the corpse quickly dried and turned black. Now they could see clearly that several breasts had already been cut off, leaving behind large scars the size of bowls on either side of her body. Her body wasn’t twisted; it was just that the excess fat piled up, resembling a mountain.

At that time, they didn’t think about why this female corpse had such a large belly; they just assumed it was due to her obesity and didn’t realize that she had actually died during childbirth, with something else hidden inside her belly.

After the body was lifted out, it revealed a stone tablet underneath. The guy with the oil bottle said this was a coffin stone, meant to prevent the coffin from floating up if the air-sealed structure of the underwater tomb was compromised. The coffin stone was very rough, with a row of large characters carved into it.

The胖子 glanced a few times in confusion before remembering me. It wasn’t until this moment that both of them realized the door on the wall had disappeared. Upon seeing this, the胖子 panicked, not out of concern for me, but because he was worried he couldn’t get out. The 闷油瓶 reassured him not to be afraid, saying that the door would naturally reappear when the time came, and that being anxious wouldn’t help. At that moment, the most important thing was to finish what they were doing. Seeing how calm the 闷油瓶 was, the胖子 felt a bit more at ease.

The two of them tried to take the stone tablet out of the coffin, only to find that the stone coffin was extremely heavy and had been sealed with pine resin, firmly sticking it to the bottom of the coffin. The胖子 thought this was unreasonable, so he knocked on the stone tablet with force and suddenly discovered that it was hollow underneath.

They lit a torch to burn away all the pine resin, then moved the stone aside, revealing a large hole beneath. Although the胖子 was a bit rough around the edges, he was very experienced and was astonished, unable to close his mouth. This hole wasn’t intentionally designed by the tomb’s creator; it was a thief’s hole!

This was an explosive discovery. Without going into other aspects, just the positioning of this thief’s hole could be considered unparalleled, as it had been dug directly beneath the coffin. If it weren’t for the stone slab pressing down on the coffin, the corpse inside might have already been dragged into the hole. The strangest part was that this tomb was located underwater; how had this thief’s hole been created?

Moreover, if this tomb had an elevator structure, there should be another burial chamber beneath the coffin, so how could there be space to accommodate such a deep hole? At that moment, the胖子 was certain that our assumptions about the mechanisms in the tomb might be incorrect.

This threw the entire situation back into confusion, and both of them fell silent. The胖子 understood very clearly that because of this hole, the arrangement for storing energy and hiding the corpse had been disrupted. Although the corpse had already become waxen and could no longer transform, the energy of this place was no longer intact, which would inevitably affect the feng shui of the entire tomb. Although it was unclear how the overall changes would unfold, it was possible that this place could suddenly turn from a spiritual site into a cursed one. The胖子, though not highly skilled in feng shui, was still from the northern school and knew that such a transformation was very ominous.

However, he wasn’t a specialist in this area, and when he thought too deeply, his mind couldn’t keep up. He believed that the characters on the stone tablets might be the key, so he began to jot them down. At that moment, he heard the闷油瓶, who was squatting beside the female corpse, suddenly shout, “Oh no!”

When he turned his head, he was shocked to see a small hand covered in white hair reaching out from the female corpse, gripping the闷油瓶’s left hand tightly. The胖子 hadn’t expected there to be a dead baby inside the woman’s belly, which startled him. However, he reacted quickly; regaining his composure, he immediately drew his gun and fired a volley at the woman’s belly. It seemed to hit the right spot, and the闷油瓶 managed to break free. The胖子 wanted to shoot again, but the闷油瓶 shouted, “It can’t be killed! Let’s go!” After saying that, he pulled him towards the thief’s hole in the coffin.

The fat man looked at the remaining coffin fluid flowing down and felt extremely nauseous, unable to move his feet for a moment. However, when he turned around to take a look, he saw a face shape protruding from the belly of the female corpse, as if it were desperately trying to escape. The skin on the corpse’s belly had become translucent, and he could clearly see the features of whatever was inside. A chill ran down his spine, and he thought to himself that a gentleman does not suffer immediate losses. Gritting his teeth, he followed and crawled inside.

The tunnel was cleverly dug out of bricks, with all the bricks only partially removed, allowing for a naturally arched brick beam at the top of the tunnel. The weight above would not collapse down; such craftsmanship truly required skill. It was likely that it would take several days to complete.

The dark oil bottle had already crawled in a few steps, and the fat man was desperately chasing after him. He didn’t know where the tunnel led. After crawling a short distance, he suddenly discovered that the tunnel sloped downwards, and there was actually water below. However, the section with water didn’t seem long. He saw light refracting in, and guessed it might be me, so he plunged into the water. After swimming just a few strokes, he indeed found it widened into a large pool. At that moment, both of them were out of breath and desperately surfaced, only to see me pointing a dart at them.

I couldn’t help but say, “So you only saw a hand, huh?”

The fat man replied, “I, your fat lord, am not afraid of that thing at all, but this young man is so impressive that he ran away upon seeing it. What am I trying to prove? But to be honest, I really don’t understand why we should run, young man. What is that thing? Is it really that powerful? It looks quite light; a few darts should be able to handle it.”

The dark oil bottle touched his wrist and said, “That’s just a white-haired drought demon. Cutting off its head will kill it, but when it dies, a large amount of corpse poison will evaporate, and we only have this little air left, which isn’t worth it.”

I was shocked to hear this. The drought demon is said to be a ghost that causes droughts, and it’s said that a zombie that stays too long in a corpse-rearing ground can turn into one. The Book of Songs mentions that the drought demon is cruel, like burning and tormenting. In short, there are many sayings about this thing, and I didn’t expect it to be like this. However, none of that was important. I had already prepared to see strange things when I entered the ancient tomb. What was surprising was that the tunnel led to this pool of water; that seemed unlikely. I estimated that the tunnel’s opening below the pool was merely an exit. Perhaps when this person dug the tunnel, he couldn’t confirm the position of the main coffin, so he dug tunnels in several possible directions, and this was just one of them. Thinking of this, I asked if they had discovered any forks in the road.

The fat man shook his head and said no. This tunnel wasn’t long and clearly went straight to the end. I wasn’t discouraged upon hearing this, because a brick tunnel is quite convenient for hiding an opening.

Thinking that since this theft tunnel didn’t break the airtight structure, its entrance must be inside this ancient tomb, I realized that even if we found it, it wouldn’t be of much use. I estimated that he must have entered the ear room through the spring, and since the ear room was still in a doorless state, he had no choice but to dig out a path. However, this guy was really unfortunate; when he dug towards the ear room, he hit the coffin stone, and when he dug towards the accompanying chamber, he encountered a pool of water. I wonder if he managed to break through to the main burial chamber.

While I was thinking, the胖子 suddenly said, “Do you think the drought demon can swim?”

I was taken aback, not understanding what he meant. He pointed at the water, and when I turned around, I saw that a large number of bubbles had suddenly emerged from the center of the pool.