Several people looked pale, and as we looked around, the more we did, the more certain we became that there were footprints everywhere on the ground. This was indeed the tomb we had just discovered belonging to Shunzi’s father. The strange thing was, how did we get back here?

The passage was straight, and when we walked, we didn’t turn at all. With four people and one corpse, we could all attest that, logically, it was impossible to have walked for twenty minutes and returned to the starting point. This was simply unbelievable; it was like we were caught in a ghost wall.

The fat guy was a bit skeptical and looked at the entrance of the passage we had come from. He said, “Could it be that we unknowingly walked back the same way? Damn, this is eerie.”

Panzi replied, “No way. If we had turned back, all four of us would have noticed. I remember walking straight the whole time. The passage isn’t long, and there are no forks; there’s no reason to remember it wrong.”

The fat guy said, “Then it must be a ghost wall. Shunzi, is your old man playing tricks on us? You need to teach him a lesson; we’re in the middle of something important.”

Shunzi was furious at the fat guy: “Stop talking nonsense.”

I stopped them; this was not the time for bickering. I was drenched in cold sweat because I felt that the most undesirable thing might have already happened. However, I still couldn’t fully convince myself of it. I said, “Stop arguing. We need to see if we really walked back the same way. There’s only one way to find out—we’ll walk it again.”

The others exchanged glances, and seeing my expression, they probably sensed something was wrong.

At that moment, I couldn’t shake the image of those dry corpses from my mind—their expressions of despair. Had they been trapped here and died this way? With no food, but no matter how they walked, they always returned to the original room? This was too unbelievable. But my instincts told me I might be right, and now the same fate that befell them might also be happening to us.

What I needed to do now was to prove my premonition or, rather, to find a way to deny this terrifying feeling. So, I hurriedly walked into the passage, and the others quickly followed me.

Having walked through once, I was sure there were no traps. This time we moved very quickly; I almost jogged at the front, my eyes fixed on both sides of the path to ensure there were no forks, and I didn’t turn back for no reason.

In less than ten minutes, we completed the entire route. As we approached the end of the passage, I was almost constantly praying, hoping my premonition wouldn’t come true. But ultimately, when I saw that almost identical jade door, my heart sank, and cold sweat began to pour out uncontrollably.

As we entered the door, the fat guy rushed toward the golden mountain and then knelt down, covering his face with his hands. I rushed over to see six corpses; everything we had arranged was there… we had returned.

My premonition was confirmed. Despite being 100% focused and certain that there were no forks or turns, we walked straight and still ended up back at the starting point.

The chubby guy was exhausted from running and gasped, “This is definitely a ghost wall, a ghost wall! No matter how we walk, it’s just a loop. Both ends of this tomb passage lead back to this tomb chamber. We’re about to meet Shunzi’s father. Shunzi, you should talk to your dad and tell him not to mess with us, or we’ll just leave him here and walk away ourselves.”

Shunzi was already shocked and had no time to argue with him. I was also flustered, constantly turning to look at the surrounding walls, but I didn’t even know what I was looking for.

“Calm down! Calm down!” Panzi panted from the side, “Don’t panic! Didn’t you say yourself, Little Third Master, that Wang Canghai’s tricks are just psychological pressure at most? We can’t fall for it knowing that! We must stay calm; there’s definitely something wrong here.”

After Panzi said that, I suddenly felt enlightened and became a bit clearer-headed. The sense of despair faded instantly. I nodded vigorously and said, “You’re right, this must be a mechanism. We’ve already confirmed in the underwater tomb that there’s no such thing as a ghost wall. Wang Canghai is skilled at using clever devices to create an eerie atmosphere. If we don’t know the details, it’s easy to be led astray.” As I spoke, I rubbed my face hard to shake off that suffocating feeling.

Honestly, I was saying these words to myself. After I finished speaking, I didn’t even realize what I had said.

Looking back on this moment, I felt that I must have sensed that things were beyond my control and was trying to use those words to encourage myself not to give up.

Because when we walked through that tomb passage earlier, it felt too real. I couldn’t even imagine how a mechanism could create this phenomenon. The first thing that came to my mind was the movement of the tomb chamber or the deep burial passage, but that was impossible; I quickly dismissed that idea. We weren’t walking that fast—if the tomb chamber could move, how fast would it need to be? The passage was even less likely to move. As long as there was a slight tremor, we would definitely notice. But if neither the tomb passage nor the tomb chamber was moving, then there was no explanation for what we were experiencing.

Although I kept telling myself it was a mechanism, deep down I already knew something was wrong. However, saying it out loud was still beneficial for the others; at least it could reduce their panic.

But I underestimated the psychological endurance of the chubby guy and the others. Panzi was much calmer than I was. Wiping his sweat, he asked me, “Whether it’s a ghost wall or a mechanism, we have to solve it. What should we do now? Should we try walking again?”

I gritted my teeth and said, “Let’s go again! Damn it, this time let’s walk slowly and really pay attention to the sounds beneath our feet or around us. I refuse to believe there are no flaws.”

So we entered the tomb passage again. This time, after walking for forty minutes, we realized we had failed because the tomb door looked exactly the same, and we hadn’t sensed anything unusual along the way.

After that, we didn’t know how many times we went in again, but all ended in failure. I gradually began to feel the despair of those corpses, and the expressions on the faces of the others grew increasingly worse.

I felt that continuing like this was not a solution. After returning to the tomb chamber, I told them to stop walking. Since we had already tried so many times, we had basically ruled everything out. This mechanism was definitely designed using methods we couldn’t even imagine.

The fat man was exhausted to the point of nearly collapsing. However, he still insisted on continuing to walk, thinking that perhaps at some moment, the old tomb passage would return, and then we could escape.

Panzi, upon hearing this, simply said, “You can give up on that thought; that passage will definitely not come back.” He glanced at the several dry corpses nearby, making his meaning clear. Those corpses had undoubtedly entered the tomb passage more times than we had, yet they still ended up trapped and dead. Therefore, walking through the passage was useless; even if we tried a thousand times, it wouldn’t matter. We shouldn’t entertain such lucky thoughts.

The fat man immediately lost his resolve and sat down, saying, “So according to you, aren’t we doomed? Those people here must have tried everything. If we do it again, it won’t help at all.”

Panzi replied, “Stop thinking about that. If you think like that now, you might as well just kill yourself. Once we’ve done everything we can, then we can think about despairing. For now, while we still have strength, we should think of ways to survive.”

I recalled the issue of food and asked, “Should we ration the food now? We need to prepare for a long battle; the longer we can survive, the greater our chance of getting out.”

Panzi sighed and shook his head. “Little Third Master, to be honest, we are actually worse off than they are. Our food is running low; I think we can only have two more meals at most, and that won’t even fill us up. There’s no need to ration it; we should eat as we like to keep our energy up. I estimate that if we can’t get out within two days, we’ll have no other options left. Then we’ll have to use explosives. If the explosives don’t work either, then I guess we’ll just wait for someone else to come and collect our bodies.”

Two days. My heart sank. How long had those dry corpses been here? Could we really get out in two days? There was absolutely no certainty.

The fat man’s stomach was already growling, and he asked Panzi, “So, comrade cook, can we eat early? I need to take care of something to distract me before I can think about anything else.”

As soon as the fat man spoke, we all felt hungry. Panzi had no choice but to light the stove and cook. Our food was mostly just dried noodles left. It was fine when we first ate it, but it wouldn’t last long. The fat man complained about the lack of meat, and I mentioned that we had frozen spare ribs. If he could stomach it, and if Shunzi didn’t mind, then we wouldn’t either.

After eating, we felt warm all over and our spirits were lifted. The few of us began to ponder over the situation. I recalled the entire process of descending into the underground palace, which had been fraught with danger, and I was surprised that it was still unstable after reaching the palace. This underground palace must have had a central design by Wang Canghai—what exactly was it?

The underground palace was shaped like a “回” (hui), with the spirit hall at the very center, the most strictly controlled area. Wang Canghai would certainly not dare to tamper with it. Surrounding the central area were burial pits, sacrificial pits, a drainage system, and a complex network of passageways and tomb paths. This meant we were still on the periphery of the palace’s center.

I tried to estimate the vertical and horizontal distances we had descended, using my understanding of the dimensions of the underground palace to determine our position. However, this seemed quite difficult. We had already lost our bearings in that underwater drainage passage and had no idea of the direction. Who knows which way the exit we would eventually emerge from was facing?

While my brain was spinning rapidly, the chubby guy, who was pretending to think, suddenly had a moment of realization and said to us, “I’ve got it!”