adminI recalled the legend of the Clipper Valley, where the silent army of the Northern Wei vanished into the mountains. I understood most of it already; the silence referred to an army composed of mute soldiers, possibly the “silent cavalry” mentioned by the Liang scribe from the Northern Wei period. These soldiers would never reveal secrets, which is why the emperor sent them on dishonorable missions, such as tomb raiding.
A thousand years ago, the descendants of the Snake Kingdom had disappeared through intermarriage with the Han people and migration overseas. However, within this cave, a group of ancestors from the Snake Kingdom had survived, guarding the tomb of a certain chieftain. For some unknown reason, that Northern Wei army knew there was a tomb hidden in the mountains.
The Han army invaded this place, breaking through the labyrinthine caves and charging into the burial pit. The ancestors of the Snake Kingdom vowed to resist to the death, but unfortunately, they were no match for the advanced equipment of the silent cavalry. Everyone was slaughtered.
It is certain that the majority of the corpses here are those of the She people. As we walked in circles, it seemed that the gathered vengeful spirits were still guarding their ancestors’ tomb, preventing us invaders from getting close.
This was indeed a dilemma. Should we just go back empty-handed? I felt very unwilling, but if there really were ghosts at work, we had no chance of winning.
The torch was gradually losing its light, flickering a few times, with flames as small as a candle’s.
Old Yang no longer urged us, knowing that with ordinary methods, it was impossible to reach the entrance of the ancient tomb. Whether or not there were ghosts, the torch wouldn’t last much longer.
Liang scribe said, “Since this is a battlefield, the corpses can’t have been tampered with. This isn’t a corpse formation; I suspect we’ve been tricked by ghosts. This is a classic case of getting lost in the dark. Does anyone know a way to counter it?”
Old Yang sighed helplessly, “My cousin from Shanxi said that when encountering such things, if you tie a red thread around your left foot, you can walk out. But we don’t have any red threads on us. How about we use our own blood to dye it?”
I said to Old Yang, “Absolutely not! The emergence of blood here always feels ominous. Let’s think of another way.”
Liang scribe then said, “Right, I’ve heard my master say that getting lost in the dark requires a dark environment. Don’t we still have signal flares? If we shoot one up and then run straight towards it, I think it would be better than using the torch. At least it won’t confuse us.”
I felt this made some sense. As long as we knew where we were going, we wouldn’t get lost no matter what. So I gave Old Yang a knowing glance.
Old Yang sighed, took out the signal gun, and said, “What a waste.” With that, he raised his hand and fired a shot straight up.
The meteor-like signal flare shot into the sky. I instinctively looked up, waiting for it to ignite. Unexpectedly, as the flare flew, it suddenly went “pop,” bounced a bit, and fell straight down.
I exclaimed, realizing, “Oh no! I forgot this is a cave. Shooting the flare straight up without it igniting will hit the cave ceiling.”
The signal flare fell rapidly, bursting open with a puff just before hitting the ground. This was a phosphorus pentoxide signal flare used by the expedition team, capable of burning for about fifty seconds, with a very high initial ignition temperature. When I saw how close it was to the ground, I knew it was bad news. Sure enough, just a few seconds after it landed, flames began to flicker from the spot.
I kicked Lao Yang and scolded him for being brainless. Fortunately, we were all bones; otherwise, we would have to run back to put out the fire. Before I finished speaking, Master Liang patted my hand and shouted, “Grandpas, this is bad!”
I turned around and saw that the small flames had suddenly erupted into a wall of fire. Incredibly, this wall of fire was spreading with astonishing speed along the narrow path between the piles of corpses. For a moment, it looked like a fire dragon was slithering through the pitch-black cave, and wherever it went, the bones on both sides of the path crackled ominously.
Seeing this, Master Liang turned pale and quickly crouched down to scoop up some dirt from the ground. After smelling it, he shouted, “Fire oil! There’s fire oil in the mud!”
I was taken aback and crouched down to squeeze the dirt; it was indeed true. I hurriedly shouted for Lao Yang to extinguish the torch, feeling a chill in my heart. I hadn’t expected such a powerful trap to be hidden in the corpse formation. It seemed that the ancient inhabitants had set this up as a last line of defense to protect the treasures in the ancient tomb, but unfortunately, it had been triggered by us.
It was a miracle that nothing had gone wrong on our way here. If we had accidentally dropped the torch earlier, we would have been charred to a crisp by now.
The fire dragon in the distance showed no signs of slowing down and had already split into two paths, with flames leaping up over a person’s height, illuminating the cave brightly. I glanced around and finally saw the layout clearly. The entire corpse formation had interconnected pathways, and the narrow paths were all connected. Sooner or later, this fire dragon would reach us, and we had to find a place to take cover.
I anxiously looked around and noticed a sunken area just a dozen meters to our left. However, a wall of fire had already formed in between, yet the soil inside had not burned, making it seem like a good refuge. At that moment, the head of the fire dragon was rushing toward us, and there was no time to think. I shouted to them, “Stop staring here! The pit is over there! Damn it, let’s rush over!”
The two of them reacted and charged toward the open area, stepping on the corpses. I was surprised to find that I had the ability to leap over those stone figures; in just a few seconds, I reached the wall of fire, and a wave of scorching heat hit me in the face.
I thought about pushing through in one go, but as I got close to the wall of fire, I smelled burning hair. I hesitated for a moment, wanting to stop, but unfortunately, my momentum was too great, and I couldn’t brake in time. I could only shout loudly, close my eyes, and jump through. Fortunately, I was fast enough; I felt a burn on my body and then rolled onto the ground. I quickly rolled to extinguish the flames on me, and then Lao Yang and Master Liang rushed over, rolling to put out the fire as well.
At that moment, I understood why the ground here was sunken. It turned out that the top layer of soil had been removed by someone. I didn’t have time to look closely as I rolled, and Lao Yang had already rolled over to my side, screaming in agony.
I hurriedly took off my outer coat and helped to pat out the fire on Lao Yang’s body. When I helped him up, I found that he was fine; only his eyebrows had been burned off. Turning around, I saw that Master Liang was rolling on the ground, but the fire on him wouldn’t go out. I figured it was probably because he had fallen to the ground and his clothes had been soaked with oil, so the fire couldn’t be extinguished. I quickly knocked him down and used the mud on the ground to smother the flames.
Master Liang was howling in pain, and white smoke was rising from his body. Lao Yang and I tore off his clothes and saw several charred spots on his back. Fortunately, he had sweated quite a bit, which provided some protection, so overall it wasn’t too serious. I opened the water flask and poured half a flask of water on his back to cool him down, then looked up to assess the situation around us.
The open area we were in was already blocked off by a wall of fire, and outside it was chaos. A wave of heat hit us, and all the hair on my body curled up. Many bones were probably cracking due to the steam building up inside, sending bone fragments flying into the air. Seeing that the situation was dire, I realized that the corpse pit would inevitably be completely burned. This area was low-lying, and soon the oxygen might be burned away, which would either suffocate us or cook us alive.
Just when I was feeling frantic, Lao Yang suddenly grabbed me and shouted, “This is bad! Grab a weapon, the King of Hell has come for us!”
I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but when I turned around, I suddenly saw six or seven large rats that had been driven mad by the fire. They jumped over the fire wall and came straight at me, ready to bite. I crouched down to dodge them, but before Lao Yang could react, he shot one, sending it flying. I raised the extinguished torch as a weapon and knocked a few more away, but at the same time, another dozen rats darted out like lightning. This time I was too close; they clawed at my back, and I immediately fell to the ground. Lao Yang fired a few more shots, forcing them back. When I looked up, I was shocked to see that outside the fire wall, there were already rats of all sizes, their red eyes staring hungrily at us.
I felt a sense of dread; the few rats that had jumped in were intimidated by Lao Yang’s gunfire and dared not come closer for the moment. However, the ones outside, seeing that the spot we were standing on seemed safe from the flames, would surely start charging in one by one, and their numbers would only increase. In a few minutes, once they realized they had the advantage in numbers, they would undoubtedly swarm us and turn us into skeletons.
I thought it was not worth it to fight them here, so I grabbed Lao Yang and urged him not to worry about the rats for now. The most important thing was to find a way out. Just then, Master Liang shouted at us, “There’s a tunnel here!”
We turned back and saw an inconspicuous small hole at the center of the pit, which I didn’t know who had dug. Lao Yang quickly ejected the magazine, checked the bullets, handed the gun to me, and then picked up Master Liang, heading towards the center of the pit. I held the gun in one hand and my torch in the other, following behind him.
We had barely taken a few steps when the nearest rats suddenly squeaked and charged at us like lightning. I raised my hand and fired four shots, hitting three of them. But two had already pounced right in front of me. I had no choice but to swing my torch, creating a loud bang and turning the two rats into a bloody mess in mid-air.
