“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know, it’s right by the edge of the pit,” the胖子 said, glancing at me. Suddenly, he added, “A thief doesn’t leave empty-handed; there might be something good down there. I need to go take a look; wait for me for a few minutes.”
I was furious, but since I was alone, he wouldn’t listen to me. He wanted me to hold the oil bottle while he went down into the water to search. I had no choice but to urge him to be quick.
However, it wasn’t easy. Most of the tiles were buried beneath the debris. Searching through the shards of pottery was nothing like being in the sea, where the sand is relatively loose. Here, the pottery shards were sharp, and being at the edge of the pit made it difficult to maintain balance; any movement would cause the shards to slide into the pit. The surface was manageable, but digging deeper became extremely difficult. Sometimes, when I spotted a shard and tried to flip it over, I couldn’t lift it as if it were stuck inside.
After digging for a while, the胖子 seemed to have found something. After surfacing for air, he dove back down, forcefully inserting his hand into the pit of excavated pottery shards and trying to pull something out. But after a couple of attempts, he suddenly shuddered and quickly withdrew his hand, blood streaming from it.
“Oh no!” I thought, worried he had been bitten by the turtle king. However, the胖子 showed no signs of poisoning; it just looked like a deep wound. He took a breath, switched hands, and forcefully yanked out a bone, then resurfaced.
“What happened?” I asked from the side.
“Damn it, this bone seems to have barbs; it hurts like hell,” the胖子 said, sucking on his finger while shaking the skull he had just pulled up, signaling me to shine the mining lamp over.
I muttered, “See? You brought this on yourself.” I walked over to shine the light for him, but as I got close, I suddenly heard a series of dull “gurgling” sounds beneath me, followed by a stream of bubbles rising up.
Both the胖子 and I froze for a moment; the bubbling paused, then started again with a “gurgle-gurgle.”
“Damn it, you really can’t help but cause trouble; that fart of yours is like a rocket launcher, even in rapid succession. The noise is too loud,” the胖子 said, covering his nose.
I was baffled and looked around, “Damn it, I didn’t fart.”
“If you didn’t fart, why does it smell so bad? What is that smell? Even the poop is dying from the stench,” the胖子 frowned.
There was indeed a foul odor in the air, and as I smelled it, I was startled; this was definitely not the smell of flatulence. Although I couldn’t immediately recall what it was, I subconsciously felt something was wrong, as if trouble was brewing. Just as I was about to suggest we leave, I suddenly lost my balance. The water splashed around me as if I had stepped into empty space, and I plunged deep into the water.
It happened so suddenly that my feet felt like they had vanished in an instant. My first reaction was that I had slipped, and I immediately kicked my legs to regain my footing. But then, bubbles started to rise all around me, and the pottery shards beneath my feet began to shift, sliding in one direction; I couldn’t maintain my balance at all.
I was alarmed and quickly realized what was happening. I curled my legs up and flipped over, diving underwater, and the胖子 followed me as we plunged into the depths.

As I swept the miner’s lamp, I saw that the water beneath my feet had collapsed, creating a large pit that connected with the adjacent hole, forming a very deep chasm. The surrounding shards of pottery and skulls all slid toward the bottom of the pit. Turning around, I saw that the oil bottle was being pulled into the pit by the collapse; his foot was tightly wrapped in the shards and he couldn’t pull it out, as if something was grabbing his foot and pulling him down, trying to drag him to the bottom of the pit.

I had neglected the oil bottle earlier; in fact, he had been taking care of us all along, and we were still not used to taking care of him. I saw his leg trapped in the debris, already wrapped up to his thigh, evidently having been ensnared at the moment of the collapse. He did not resist at all, blankly allowing himself to sink down with the shards.

Seeing that he was about to be engulfed by the pit, the fat guy and I hurried over to help, each grabbing one of his hands and pulling upward. The fat guy couldn’t exert much force with one hand, so he bit down on the miner’s lamp and used both hands. Together, we kicked against the water with all our strength to pull him out.

If he had been alone, he would have been doomed; with two or three people, it wouldn’t have been such a big accident. As the oil bottle was lifted, he began to cough.

The fat guy said, “I told you your farts are powerful enough to burst through the bottom of the water; remember to give a heads-up before you fart next time, so you don’t accidentally hurt anyone.”

I gasped and cursed, “You’re still mocking me at a time like this? Just wait, I’m going to settle the score with you later.”

“You see, you’re not humble at all when it comes to accepting advice!” The fat guy used the miner’s lamp to shine down at the bottom of the water, where the collapse was slowly expanding, but some of it had stopped. Soon, a hole about the size of half a basketball court appeared before us, dark and ominous, like a large mouth ready to swallow us whole. Occasionally, bubbles would rise from below, and a foul stench filled the air.

I remembered that this was the smell of marsh gas. This hole must have existed before; perhaps there were wooden beams or something similar above it, which maintained a fragile balance after decaying. Without external forces, this balance could last for a thousand years, but once any damage occurred, the wooden beams would collapse. The pit that had formed might have been caused by a broken beam, and the fat guy digging at the edge had triggered a chain reaction.

“Damn,” the fat guy said, “it seems like it’s all empty down there?”

It shouldn’t be deep, but the water had become murky from the disturbance, making it hard to see the bottom. I said, “This might be a layer that was previously built to prevent ghostly jars.” Seeing him walk toward the edge again, I warned, “Be careful; it felt solid when I stepped there earlier, but suddenly it collapsed. Damn it, this whole area might be hollow underneath. Now that one section has collapsed, let’s not trigger another chain reaction and create a whirlpool that could finish us all off.”

“As long as you don’t fart, it should be fine,” the fat guy replied. “Hey, what’s that?”

I followed his flashlight and saw something floating up from the deep pit.

“Stay back,” the fat guy cautioned. I instinctively stepped back, pulling the oil bottle with me, and the fat guy focused the miner’s lamp on that object.

The things came up quickly, and soon floated out of the hole. At this point, we could see clearly that they were all pieces of rotten wood and branches, mixed in with a lot of unidentifiable, cotton-like garbage. These must have been sediments pressed down beneath the muddy bottom, stirred up by the fallen pottery shards, along with a large amount of murky water. In no time, the visibility near the hole was getting worse and worse.

The fat guy scooped up a few items, all branches tangled with garbage, getting his hands covered in stinky mud. He threw them away from him and said, “Damn it, I’ve turned over the old muck at the bottom of this mud hole, it stinks to high heaven! What the hell! This can’t be an old latrine, can it?”

I replied, “Only your family would use such a big latrine. If you slipped while taking a dump here, you might end up dead. Do you think you could even manage to go?”

The fat guy was really good at talking nonsense. If this were a latrine, taking a dump would be more nerve-wracking than bungee jumping. I don’t think even an elephant would dare to use it. The ancestors of the Queen Mother of the West wouldn’t torture themselves like this, would they?

“Maybe this is because the queen wanted to instill a sense of vigilance in her subjects, so they stay alert while taking a dump,” the fat guy said seriously.

I urged, “Let’s go, it’s too dangerous here!” Just as we were covering our noses and about to leave, the fat guy pulled something else out of the water. This time, it wasn’t a branch. He exclaimed, “Hey, look at this!” and held it up. “Damn it, what do you think this is?”