As soon as I recalled it, I remembered who Jie Lianhuan was. Speaking of which, there is a bit of a connection between the Jie family and our Wu family, which might be traced back to a relationship involving distant cousins. As the saying goes, “a distant cousin can be three thousand miles away.” By my generation, we are not very familiar with them anymore, but they are indeed a historically significant family of tomb raiders. Jie Lianhuan seems to be a second-generation descendant who was closer to my third uncle. I have only seen him a few times, but my grandfather often mentioned the Jie family when he reprimanded my third uncle, saying that because of my third uncle, our Wu family would never be able to hold our heads high in front of the Jie family. It’s a pity that something happened to that kid Jie Lianhuan while he was with you!

Looking back now, it turns out that Jie Lianhuan died this way. No wonder my old man didn’t want me to hang out with my third uncle; it turns out my third uncle had a criminal record in the past.

The fat guy behind me pushed me, and I couldn’t think any further. I gritted my teeth and moved forward a few more steps. A dark hole appeared on top of the bricks. The fat guy shouted happily; in fact, his time was already up, and his front and back were blood-red from scraping against the green oak stone, looking as if he had just taken a Turkish bath. I wasn’t much better off; my legs were already getting weak. But there was no rush at this moment. The Muffled Oil Bottle went up to take a look, crawled in, kicked the walls of the tunnel to ensure they were sturdy, and then pulled me in. The fat guy had a bit of trouble; I couldn’t pull him up by myself. I just watched him get serious, shouting and pushing up with all his might, scraping off a large patch of skin on his back before finally getting out.

Once we steadied ourselves and looked down, we couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread. The space between the two walls had shrunk to a narrow gap. I didn’t dare to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t made it out. This time, it truly was a case of heaven not abandoning the desperate; if we had been a few minutes late, even if we had discovered the tunnel, we wouldn’t have been able to crawl in.

I looked up again and saw that the tunnel went straight up for about the height of a person before changing direction and slanting toward the east, likely connecting to the tunnel above. My legs were getting soft, and I couldn’t hold on much longer, urging the Muffled Oil Bottle to hurry up. The three of us crawled to the slanted section, exhausted and leaning against the tunnel wall, gasping for breath.

At that moment, we heard the sound of the stone wall completely closing below us. I breathed a sigh of relief, rubbed my legs, and tapped on my tight calf muscles, trying to relax. I had been too tense just now, and now that I relaxed, I felt a bit dazed and kept yawning. The fat guy leaned against the wall like a dead man, his body covered in scrapes, panting as he said, “This time I’ve learned my lesson. When we get back, I have to lose a few pounds; otherwise, I’ll end up writing the character for ‘king’ upside down.”

I had just heard them mention the brick tunnel; it was constructed very well. It seemed that this Jie Lianhuan was not an ordinary person. I looked up and saw that the entire tunnel had a zigzag shape. In architectural terms, this kind of construction means that even if a small-scale collapse occurs, it won’t pose a significant danger. If they had opted for a straight shaft to save energy, the bricks above could have collapsed entirely, resulting in an outcome no different from being hit by a pile driver.

The fat man took a break and then asked the dark oil bottle, “Hey, little brother, what exactly is going on? Twenty years ago, this path was just fine, but this time we almost got crushed to death. Did you take a wrong turn?”

The dark oil bottle was resting with his eyes closed. After thinking for a moment, he said, “That possibility is unlikely, unless the markings indicating the exit in that stone tablet have been tampered with. You saw how perilous the situation was just now; we probably entered a dead end.”

The fat man was puzzled and asked, “Could it be that woman discovered we weren’t dead and came back to scheme against us?”

I shook my head. I admit she’s ruthless, but I don’t think she has the ability to alter the ancient tomb’s mechanisms that have existed for hundreds of years. That would be absurd. But there was no fifth person here. After thinking it over, I couldn’t help but wonder: could it be Uncle Three? (In the modified earlier plot, Uncle Three went missing in this ancient tomb.)

The dark oil bottle noticed my concern and patted me on the shoulder, saying, “Actually, I have a hypothesis about this matter. If you’re so worried, why not let me analyze it for you?”

He was a participant in this event and had personally experienced the most critical parts, so I certainly wouldn’t refuse his insights. I nodded and encouraged him to continue. The dark oil bottle said, “Let’s assume that twenty years ago, Uncle Three and Xie Lianhuan knew each other and had a very good relationship, but they didn’t show it. When we were searching for the first time, Xie Lianhuan might have already discovered the underwater tomb’s existence, but he didn’t tell anyone, only informing Wu Sanxing.”

Both of them came from the background of tomb raiding, and at that time, they certainly wouldn’t let this opportunity slip by. So when others weren’t paying attention, they found a time to secretly infiltrate this ancient tomb. Both of them were skilled, so it shouldn’t have been difficult at all. However, after they entered the tomb, an unexpected incident occurred that made Uncle Three develop murderous intent and want to set up a trap to kill Xie Lianhuan.

We can’t know the specifics, but it’s certain that when Xie Lianhuan found himself in a desperate situation, he left a blood-written message on the brick ceiling of this passage. He suddenly realized that this brick ceiling was hollow, and he must have had some tools with him, so he quickly made a hole to escape and saved his life.

I nodded; this analysis was impeccable. He continued, “After Xie Lianhuan escaped, he wanted to use this hole to get out. Based on his experience, after several failures, he finally managed to escape from this ancient tomb. Naturally, he immediately wanted to find Wu Sanxing to settle scores, but unexpectedly, when he encountered Wu Sanxing, he was killed instead. His body was disguised to look like it had accidentally died from being trapped by a coral reef.”

Hearing his analysis made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but I couldn’t find a reason to refute him, and he did say it was a hypothesis. I steadied myself and continued to listen.

After that, for some purpose, or perhaps to truly avoid a storm, Wu Sanxing brought all of us into the underwater tomb and pretended to sleep. At that moment, I discovered the secret of the porcelain and led everyone to the bottom of that pool. This might have been something he didn’t anticipate; he had no choice but to pretend to be possessed by a female ghost, leading us into the room where the models were kept, and then in the passage behind that mirror, he knocked us all out.

After we fell into a coma, he must have done something to us. As for how I came out of it, I can’t judge what happened to the others, but I’m sure they must have lost their memories just like I did. Over the past twenty years, even if we saw each other, we would only feel a sense of familiarity. Upon hearing this, I asked him, “Why didn’t Uncle San just kill you all back then? Wouldn’t that have settled everything?”

The Mute Oil Bottle said, “I can’t figure it out either, but perhaps he thought there was no need to kill us at that time, since we knew nothing.”

His assumption almost painted Uncle San as a scheming, premeditated villain, which I simply couldn’t accept. In my impression, Uncle San was definitely not that kind of person.

When the Fatty heard this, he seemed to have a realization and said to me, “Xiao Wu, I just remembered something that might explain this, but if I tell you, don’t laugh at me.”

Upon hearing this, I thought it was indeed a good time to brainstorm. The Fatty is straightforward, so he might come up with something I hadn’t thought of. I urged him to speak quickly, and he pretended to be mysterious, whispering, “I think this matter is actually very simple. After your Uncle San arrived at this place, he might have encountered something… unclean and got hit by it. Didn’t the little brother just say that your Uncle San learned how to comb women’s hair? Think about it, isn’t that a hint for you to find the way to the Heavenly Gate? Who knows this best? It’s the old ghost in this tomb! I think your Uncle San must have been controlled by the vengeful spirit of the tomb’s owner. If you find your Uncle San, just pour a basin of dog blood on him to force that ghost out, and everything will be fine.”

As he continued to speak, I found his explanation more and more absurd, saying, “Your explanation is ridiculous! I’ve lived with my Uncle San for over twenty years and never thought of him as a woman. That doesn’t count.”

The Fatty replied, “I never said the ghost had to be a woman! This madness can have its moments of being active or inactive. Maybe your Uncle San is perfectly normal in front of people but secretly puts on makeup and does embroidery behind their backs.” As he said this, the Fatty made a gesture with his fingers, which I found amusing. I said, “Do you think he’s like Dongfang Bubai? Embroidery? That doesn’t make sense.”

Listening to the Fatty, the Mute Oil Bottle said, “No, what he said does have some possibility. Such things have indeed happened in ancient tombs.”

Seeing that someone agreed with his opinion, the Fatty immediately became more confident, saying, “You see, I, the Fatty, absolutely won’t talk nonsense. I estimate that this is very much related to the tomb being underwater. Feng Shui, Feng Shui; the so-called wind rises, water stops. Do you know why water ghosts look for substitutes? Because their souls can’t leave. This ancient tomb is built in the water; while the Feng Shui is good, it’s significantly unfavorable for the tomb’s owner.”

Listening to his well-articulated reasoning, I couldn’t help but feel skeptical and said, “How about this: let’s remember this. If we really can find Uncle San, I’ll get a blessed Buddha seal and stamp it on his forehead to see if it works.”

“We each shared some ideas again, and by this time we had all calmed down. The chubby guy looked at his watch and said, ‘Let’s not hold a representative meeting here anymore. If it really goes like I said, if we starve to death here, our souls definitely won’t be able to escape, and then we won’t even be able to reincarnate. That would be a huge loss.’ After saying this, he scratched his back and asked me, ‘Xiao Wu, have you noticed that ever since we entered this ancient tomb, at some point, we’ve been itching like crazy?'”