As soon as those words came out, a flash of inspiration struck me, and I exclaimed in surprise, “Could it be that at the last moment, the two people actually swapped places?”

The silent oil bottle nodded, looking at the corpse. “This person has been scheming all along, simply trying to use the power of King Lu Shang to achieve his goal of immortality.”

“How do you know all this? It’s as if you’ve experienced it firsthand.”

“I haven’t experienced it,” the silent oil bottle shook his head. “A few years ago, when I was excavating tombs, I found a complete set of Warring States silk manuscripts in a Song Dynasty tomb. This document is actually the autobiography of Mr. Iron Face. After teaching King Lu Shang all his plans, he set fire to his entire family, disposed of a beggar’s corpse in the flames to impersonate himself, then disguised himself as a beggar to escape death. Although King Lu Shang sensed something was amiss, he had no way to stop it. In the end, after King Lu Shang was buried, he easily sneaked into the tomb, dragged the already defenseless King Lu Shang out of the jade figurine, and lay down inside it himself. King Lu Shang worked so hard, only to end up making a wedding dress for them; he probably never expected it.”

I asked curiously, “If that corpse of King Lu Shang was dragged out, wouldn’t that be another blood corpse? So aren’t there two here?”

“He didn’t write about that in his book, probably because the time since King Lu Shang was placed in the figurine was too short for him to turn into a blood corpse.” His gaze became a bit uneasy. “In an autobiography, he only briefly mentioned these things and couldn’t possibly have detailed records.”

I looked at the silent oil bottle, and for some reason, I suddenly felt that his words were a bit insincere. I glanced at my uncle, and sure enough, he didn’t believe it either. But since the person didn’t want to say more, and had already concocted a lie, it didn’t make much sense to expose him. After the silent oil bottle finished speaking, he seemed to have completed his task, returning to his expressionless state, standing up and saying, “It’s almost dawn; we should be leaving soon.”

“No way, we haven’t found the ghost seal yet,” the Fatty said. “Look at all the good stuff here; leaving now would be a waste of our trip!”

The silent oil bottle shot him a cold glance, seeming a bit hostile toward the Fatty. The Fatty, feeling embarrassed, shrugged and said, “Alright, but we have to take this jade figurine with us, right? There might only be one of these in the world; I’m thinking of everyone here.”

That was a fair point. My uncle patted his backside and said, “Then what are you hesitating for? Let’s make it quick and get out of this ghostly place.”

Suddenly, I lost interest in all of this and didn’t want to help them. I closed my eyes to rest for a moment, when suddenly a few drops of water fell on my face. I thought it was raining, but when I looked up, that strange face of the blood corpse had already emerged from the jade bed, its two eyes without pupils almost touching my eyebrows.

I jumped up in fright and saw the head of the blood corpse rolling on the jade bed. At that moment, it actually rolled off onto the ground, as if something was inside it. The Fatty wanted to take a closer look, but the silent oil bottle held him back, saying, “Don’t move, let’s observe first.”

The Fatty nodded, and at that moment, a very small red corpse bug bit through the scalp of the blood corpse and crawled out. Da Kui saw this and cursed, “Damn! Even such a tiny thing dares to show its face in front of me.” He lifted the pry bar in his hand, ready to hit it.

Uncle San suddenly hugged him tightly and said, “You idiot, that’s a corpse king! If you kill it, we’re in big trouble.”

Da Kui was taken aback, unable to believe it. “This tiny thing is a corpse king? What about those bigger ones? Aren’t they going to be even more troublesome?”

Men Youping was also very surprised. He slapped my shoulder and said, “We need to leave quickly. The corpse king is here, and I can’t control these corpse bugs. It’s very tricky!”

At that moment, the small red corpse bug suddenly let out a couple of squeaks, shook its wings, and seemed to have spotted us, suddenly flying toward us. Men Youping shouted, “It’s poisonous! Just touching it will kill you, get out of the way!”

Uncle San turned around and flipped to our side. Da Kui, who had been a bit dazed, didn’t react in time and reflexively grabbed the bug. He froze for a moment before letting out a terrible scream; his hand instantly turned blood-red. Not only that, but the red color rapidly spread up his arm.

The Fatty yelled, “He’s poisoned! Quick, cut off his hand!” As he spoke, he rushed to grab Men Youping’s knife. Men Youping was already very weak, and when the Fatty bumped into him, the black knife slipped from his grip. The Fatty caught it in mid-air but suddenly sank down, cursing, “Damn it, why is it so heavy!” He tried several times to lift the knife but failed.

At this point, it was too late. Da Kui twisted in pain, his entire body almost turning blood-red in just a few seconds, as if all his skin had suddenly melted away.

He looked at his hand in terror, wanting to scream but unable to make a sound. Men Youping saw that I wanted to help Da Kui and grabbed me, gritting his teeth, “Don’t touch him! If you do, you’ll die!”

Da Kui, seeing us, retreated in horror as if we were monsters. He charged at me, mouth wide open as if to shout, “Save me!” I was so frightened by the scene that I couldn’t move. Uncle San rushed over and pulled me away just as Da Kui lunged and missed, then crazily pounced on Panzi. Panzi was already in a dire situation and couldn’t react in time. The Fatty shouted that it was bad, suddenly snatching my gun. I was shocked, realizing he was going to shoot, and hurriedly struggled with him. In the chaos, the gun accidentally went off, and with a bang, Da Kui was shot in the head, his body jolting and collapsing to the ground.

My mind buzzed, and I fell to my knees. Everything happened too quickly; just moments ago, he was fine, and suddenly he was like this. My mind went blank, and I didn’t know what to do.

The small red corpse bug squeaked and crawled out from Da Kui’s hand, shaking its wings. The Fatty cursed, and Men Youping shouted, “No!” But it was too late. The Fatty rushed over, picked up the purple jade box, and smashed the bug to pieces.

For a moment, the cave was deathly silent, not a sound to be heard. Men Youping suddenly grabbed a handful of dust from the ground and threw it over himself, shouting, “Hurry up and leave, or it will be too late!”

The Fatty looked around, seeing that nothing had happened, and curiously asked, “Why do we need to leave?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the previously quiet cave suddenly became noisy. Countless chirping sounds echoed from all directions, and then we saw, from the large and small holes in the rock cave, one, two, three, ten, a hundred… an endless tide of green corpses surged out. The scale of it was beyond any human description. Waves of them came crashing in, trampling over each other, overwhelming us.

I was stunned at the sight. My uncle slapped the back of my head and shouted, “Run!” He quickly picked up Panzi, and the Fatty wanted to grab the purple jade box, but my uncle yelled, “Are you out of your mind?!” Seeing he couldn’t move it, the Fatty grabbed the gold-threaded silk and stuffed it into his pocket.

We all climbed up a tree. The tree was tangled with all kinds of vines and protrusions, making it easy to climb. Someone like me, who was agile, quickly ascended over ten meters. At that moment, the corpses had already swarmed to the base of the tree. I looked down and gasped; the entire base of the tree was covered in green. If I fell, there would be nothing left of me.

The corpses seemed to gather their consciousness for a moment and suddenly began to jump up. They climbed the tree much faster than we did and quickly reached our feet. The Fatty was above me and asked, “Didn’t you say your little brother’s blood was more effective than mosquito repellent? Why isn’t it working?” My mind was still filled with the image of Da Kui collapsing earlier, and I didn’t want to respond to him. He cursed under his breath, and suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my calf—a corpse had bitten me. I kicked it off and looked down; it was like a pot boiling over, with corpses scrambling to climb up.

At that moment, my uncle shouted from above, “Explosives! There’s still explosives in that bag by the jade bed!” I asked, “Which side?” My uncle cursed, “You don’t even know sitting right there? It’s in the left pocket!” I looked down, but the bag of explosives was lost in the sea of corpses and was completely out of sight. I hurriedly fired a few shots, hitting only a few bugs.

Just then, the Mute pulled out a few firecrackers from his pocket, lit them, and threw them onto the jade bed. Although the bugs were no longer afraid of his blood, they still feared fire. As soon as they saw the flames, they scattered, creating a large circle that revealed the backpack. The Fatty, already covered in several bugs, shouted, “Damn it, hurry up and light a firecracker! I can’t hold on much longer!”

Panzi shouted from above, “Damn! No way, there are too many explosives in there; if it blows, we won’t survive!” I saw more and more corpses climbing up and realized that hesitating now would surely lead to death. I shouted, “I can’t worry about that anymore; if I die, I die!” Gritting my teeth, I aimed at the backpack and fired a shot.

The explosion was instantaneous. There was a deafening bang, and I felt as if my chin, buttocks, and thighs were all simultaneously struck by a pile driver. My whole body was lifted by the shockwave and then slammed into something hard. That impact left me dazed; my throat felt sweet, and I spat out a mouthful of blood. Everything in front of me turned black, my head buzzed, and I couldn’t hear anything at all.

It took me a long time to recover. When I looked down, I saw that many of the corpses had been blown away by the gusts of wind. I turned my head and couldn’t see anyone else, so I hurriedly used both my hands and feet to climb up. Because I had coated myself with the powder from the stone platform below, those ghostly vine hands parted to let me through. At that moment, a cacophony of shouts came from below. I looked down and saw the corpses gathering like a tide, climbing up extremely quickly. Realizing I couldn’t afford to hesitate, I pushed through the pain and continued to climb, closing my eyes and desperately making my way upward.

Just as I was about to reach the crevice, a sudden pain shot through my back. I turned around to see a corpse had jumped up and was biting into my back. I quickly turned and shot it, shattering it into pieces. But at the same time, a larger one lunged at my thigh, biting down hard. Gritting my teeth, I smashed it with my gun, but it immediately grabbed a branch and tried to jump back up. I shot it again, destroying it as well. However, a third and fourth one quickly followed.

I could see that I was only a few steps away from the exit. I thought to myself, go ahead and bite, you can’t kill me in such a short time. Once I reach the surface, you’ll be in for it. With that thought, I continued to climb. Just then, a sudden, intense pain shot through my hand that was gripping the branch. I turned my head and saw a bloodied face suddenly peering out from behind the tree trunk, with two bulging eyes staring straight at me.