Thinking back now, at that moment, I spoke those words so seriously and even used lip movements, fearing that the ghost might hear me. It shows how much my nerves had been tortured, and I didn’t even realize it. If it were a normal time, or if the pressure were a bit lighter, I would never have had such thoughts.

This is actually inevitable. We spent so much time and went through so many things to reach this point, yet we found ourselves in this inexplicable dead end. Let’s not even mention the long road ahead or how to go back; the situation before us has already clogged our thinking, making it hard to conceive or see many problems.

In hindsight, I could think of many solutions, such as using a compass and watching the index changes to navigate that tomb passage. As soon as we experienced a moment of reversal, the compass needle would definitely move, and so on. However, at that time, apart from a few fixed thoughts, my mind was completely blank, leading me to absurdly point the possibility towards a ghostly wall. At that moment, I didn’t find it funny or ridiculous; instead, it felt somewhat chilling.

The others, Fatty and Shunzi, were even worse off than I was. They were completely affected by my expression, their faces turning pale one by one, swallowing hard. Fatty also used lip movements to say, “Are you sure? I said it earlier… so what do we do now?”

My thoughts at that moment were that the logical basis of this tomb passage was not valid, so the reason for this phenomenon must be unrelated to logic. However, if it wasn’t a dream, nothing else could escape the constraints of logic. In other words, what we were seeing or hearing could very well be illusions. Therefore, it became difficult to describe the scenery around us. I believed that only the power of the “evil ghost” could create such simultaneous illusions for four people; only an “evil ghost” could disregard logic and trap people in such a flawless manner.

Here, the term “evil ghost” is merely a more understandable euphemism, referring to all the forces we cannot comprehend. Such a force evidently must exist.

But if there really are “ghosts,” we would be helpless, as we couldn’t see them and naturally couldn’t deal with them. Even if we cursed or used any random method, it would be of no use against them. This would lead to my second most disliked situation: knowing the problem lies around us, yet being unable to address it, with no way to take action.

At that time, I also had a very naive thought, not knowing what category this power belonged to. If it were unconscious, that would be troublesome. It wouldn’t have any thoughts, and even if we devised a plan, it would be useless. We would have to confront it head-on to find it. If it were a vengeful ghost, that would be easier; it could think, and we could force it out, making it commit some mistakes.

After much consideration, Fatty firmly concluded that this ghost was very likely one of the several corpses before us. Perhaps someone’s soul was unable to let go of worldly matters and was wandering here. Naturally, upon seeing someone come to accompany it, it would want to play tricks, but we didn’t know which corpse it was.

Fatty first ruled out Shunzi’s father. After not seeing his son for ten years, he naturally wouldn’t joke with his son’s life, leaving the other six corpses.

At this moment, I felt a bit ridiculous, but we had no other choice; we had to try everything. So I walked up to the corpse, made everyone kneel down, and then broke a few gold ingots with my useless fingers to burn for them, while bowing my head and saying, “I am the nephew of Wu Sanxing. I have urgent business with my uncle. Which of you is casting spells? Please accept the paper money and let us go. We really are in a hurry. If necessary, leave this fat guy to keep you company, and let the others go.”

Upon hearing this, the fat guy was furious. Panzi and Shunzi quickly held him down, not allowing him to move. The fat guy cursed, “Wu Xie, you despicable little man, I will bite you to death!”

After I finished speaking, I looked around, but there was no change at all; the corpses remained the same. Realizing it was useless, I waved my hand to let them release the fat guy. He nervously glared around and also noticed that nothing had changed, and couldn’t help but sneer, “You see, Uncle Ghost is fair; he doesn’t care for your little bit of money.”

I replied, “Maybe he doesn’t care for you either, really.”

At that moment, Shunzi said from the side, “No, wait, shouldn’t we think about it this way? Look, my father is here. Even if someone is against us, my father will help us. Since it’s useless now, maybe it’s not these few people who are doing evil?”

If it were any other time, I would have laughed at such childish words, but now I listened seriously and even considered his possibility. After thinking it over, I said, “Perhaps your father has already left, or maybe there’s more than one doing evil, and he can’t handle them. But I also feel that it might not be just these people. They are all adults and have a good relationship with my uncle. I don’t think they would play pranks or do something like this; it could be a little ghost, and the corpse isn’t here.”

That being said, if it really was as I said, it would be difficult, because we couldn’t see where the ghost was. It might be lurking on our backs without us knowing. Not being able to see it made it impossible to take action. With that thought, I sighed and asked, “Does anyone have any ideas? Any remedies would do. Is there anything that can see ghosts?”

Panzi said, “I heard that if you apply cow’s tears to your eyes, you can see ghosts.”

The fat guy laughed, “Then the task of finding a cow falls to you.”

“No, maybe you don’t need cow’s tears to see them,” I suddenly thought of a method. “But it requires a sacrifice from the fat guy.”

The fat guy became nervous again, “You’re not thinking of killing me to let my soul negotiate with the ghosts, are you? I won’t allow it! If you kill me, I will definitely conspire with that ghost to make your situation worse!”

This guy actually came up with another idea, and I was furious, “Where are you thinking? I just want to borrow your gold-plated charm.”

“What do you want it for?” The fat guy covered his chest, “This is a real item; can you afford to replace it if it gets damaged?”

“The gold-plated charm is the most effective talisman in the world. If it were real, how could we have fallen into such a predicament? I already checked; this thing is fake.” I said, “Hurry up and give it to me.”

“Fake?” The fat guy took it off and looked at it carefully, “Are you sure?”

“Of course, this is made from rhino horn. I’m in this line of work, how could I not know? Look, the golden talisman of the pangolin is getting darker the more you wear it. Just look at your rhino horn; it’s already starting to turn green. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Damn it! No wonder I’ve been so unlucky!” The胖子 (Fatty) was furious. “That bastard has tricked me again! It’s no wonder it never works. If I make it out of here alive, I swear I’ll tear down his shop. My last name won’t be Wang if I don’t!”

I took the golden talisman from Fatty’s hands and tried to comfort him. He then asked how I planned to use it. Was I going to press it against the corpse’s forehead?

I replied, “There’s an ancient legend called ‘Rhino Light Communication.’ Have you heard of it?”

Fatty looked puzzled. “Isn’t that from a Hong Kong movie released a few years ago?”

“Pretty much, that’s the idea.” I nodded. “As long as you burn this thing and use its light, you should be able to see ghosts. Of course, I haven’t tested it myself, so I don’t know if it really works.”

At that moment, I felt ridiculous for even suggesting it, but since I had already brought out the cow’s tears, why not the rhino light? It was a desperate measure. Before Fatty’s fifth appearance, this was the only feasible idea I had left; I had to try it.

The Book of Jin once recorded: “When Qiao was at Wuchang, he reached Niuzhu Cliff, where the water was unfathomable. It was said that many strange creatures lurked beneath. Qiao then burned rhino horn to illuminate it, and soon saw water creatures emerging, bizarre in shape. That night, he dreamt of a person who said to him: ‘Parting ways with you in the ethereal realm, we agree to illuminate each other!’” The gist is that ancient Chinese people believed burning rhino horn and using its light could reveal supernatural beings. Surely, the ancients had some useful insights.

As I spoke, I took out a smokeless stove and placed the golden talisman on it to burn. At first, it wouldn’t catch fire, but soon a strange smell began to waft out, and green flames flickered with an unusual light.

I lifted the smokeless stove high to illuminate as much as possible, and we all turned our heads, searching for anything that might have appeared that wasn’t there before. I walked around the tomb chamber, but saw nothing, and the others couldn’t see anything either.

“Maybe the ghost is hiding far away,” Shunzi said.

“No way. The legend says that if a ghost is ‘hitting the wall,’ it’s actually clinging to a person’s back.”

We checked each other’s backs but found nothing. Fatty muttered, “I told you legends are worthless. It wasted my golden talisman. Even if it is rhino horn, it turned out to be useless.”

Panzi deflated, “Looks like this trick won’t work either. There probably isn’t a ghost. We might be facing the fifth scenario, which is completely unfounded, with no clues whatsoever—no references at all. What should we do now? This time, we might really be done for.”

I sighed inwardly, just about to speak when suddenly Fatty made a gesture for silence, and Panzi followed suit. My eyelids twitched, and following Fatty’s gaze upwards, I saw a faint black “child” appearing on the ceiling of the tomb chamber above us.