Volume 1Chapter 5: Water Shadow

“Hey, my little grandfather, don’t scare me. I’m big and I’m afraid of things that can’t be named. You said it was a bunch of horse thieves, and I, Da Kui, don’t care. I don’t know anything about this thing. Look, my legs are all weak.”

I thought to myself, there is no way to stay here, and a very uncomfortable feeling kept coming and going in my heart. I didn’t know if it was the psychological effect of this depressing cave or something, so I said, “No matter what it is, the most important thing now is to get out quickly. Now we are going against the current, and going back will definitely be faster than when we came. I think we have been in this cave for less than ten minutes, so getting out will definitely not be a problem.”

“Yes, yes, Little Third Master is right.” Da Kui hurriedly agreed, “Master San, just say the word. If we have to climb over the mountain after we get out, I’ll carry everything. I’m strong, so it won’t be much of a delay if we lose a day or two. If we work faster in the cave, we’ll make up for it, right?”

Master San glanced at the oil bottle again and asked, “What do you think, little brother?”

Muyoubing said indifferently, “It’s probably too late to try to get out now. Since those two people were able to let us in, they must be sure that we won’t be able to get out.”

“If we don’t get out, are we just going to wait here until we die?” Pan Zi looked at him, and Muyoubing looked at him, then turned his head and closed his eyes to rest. Pan Zi got the cold shoulder and had to say to his uncle, “I think we can’t go forward. Look at A-Kui, he’s scared to death. Let’s go back. The way in isn’t complicated, maybe we can get out. If we really run into any strange things, we’ll think of something!”

“This is the only way,” said Uncle San, nodding. ”Light up the mine lamps in front and behind. You put the shotguns away. I and A-Kui will use them to prop up the oar. Pan Zi and the eldest nephew will keep an eye on the back. Little brother, you help me with the directions.” We all agreed. Pan Zi took out another miner’s lamp and shone it behind us. The cow on the second boat let out a loud cry when it was illuminated by the light. Pan Zi cursed, “Third Uncle, we have to drive the cow into the water, otherwise the pole won’t be able to hold it.”

Because the miner’s lamp was shining forward, we didn’t notice at all that we had already pulled a boat behind us and forgotten about it. Now that we saw it, we couldn’t help but be shocked. It seems that these two old thieves had really thought it through. The height of the cave was such that the cow couldn’t even stand up, let alone be driven into the water. With the equipment in the cart and the cow, the draft was already very deep. If we went up again, not only would the oars not be able to push, but it might also sink. In this way, the tugboat behind us is like a plug blocking us.

At this time, I vaguely heard a strange sound coming from the depths of the cave, and it was obviously much closer than the last time. The sound was like the whispering of countless little ghosts, making people extremely uncomfortable. Everyone was quiet, and the atmosphere was eerie for a while. Suddenly, I was completely absorbed in the sound. I tried to pull myself back several times, but I was immediately drawn back in. I knew there was something strange about the sound, but I couldn’t get my mind back on track. I was completely absorbed in the sound. At that moment, I don’t know who kicked me hard, and I fell into the water.

Immediately, the sound in my head disappeared, and almost at the same time, I saw Pan Zi fall. Then came Uncle San and Da Kui, and finally the oil bottle jumped down with a miner’s lamp. The sound was much fuzzier in the water, and we were not affected, but it was very blurry to see things in the water with the naked eye. I squinted and could only see a general picture. The oil bottle pointed underwater at us, then shone the light, and the water wasn’t very deep, and we could see a layer of white sand at the bottom. He swept it around, and there were neither plants nor fish or shrimp. I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, so I poked my head out of the water and took a breath. Just as I shook the water from my eyes, I suddenly saw a bloody face hanging upside down, with two eyes staring at me.

I stared at him, and he stared back at me.

I recognized the man as the middle-aged man who had rowed us across the river. I looked up and saw that he was only half a man, and a large black bug was nibbling on his intestines, occasionally flicking them. I was instantly terrified. Wasn’t this a huge, terrifying corpse? My God, how many dead people must have been eaten to grow this big?

At this moment, Pan Zi’s head also appeared on the other side. Unfortunately, he was not as lucky as I was. Before he could understand what was going on, the bug let out a “chirp” and threw the corpse directly at him. It then jumped onto his head and stuck its large pincers into Pan Zi’s scalp.

Pan Zi was a character. In this situation, he flipped his left hand and I didn’t know when he had the saber in his hand. He directly put the saber under the bug’s pincers and dug out one of its pincers. If it were me, I would have to report to the King of Hell after being hit by the big bug. The bug let out a squeal of pain from somewhere, and the other claw couldn’t hold on to its strength, so Pan Zi pushed it out with a punch. This whole series of events happened in the blink of an eye. Pan Zi didn’t see me, but he pressed the bug directly onto my face.

I cursed in my heart, this Pan Zi is too unscrupulous. He said how he would protect me, but now that there is a situation, he directly threw this deadly thing onto my face. You said you had a saber, but I only have two hands. The bug was really rude, and it used its sharp claws to cut off a piece of skin from my face. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake it off, but I didn’t expect that it had barbs on all its claws, which firmly hooked my clothes. Several of them went straight into my flesh, and the pain made tears come out.

At this time, the oil bottle also surfaced. Seeing that I was about to give up, it rushed over and quickly inserted two fingers into the back of the bug. With a forceful pull, it pulled out a white, macaroni-like object. The poor bug had just been in the ascendancy, but it was over in less than a second. I threw the bug corpse onto the boat and felt like I had just had a dream.

Da Kui raised his thumb to Mian Youping: “Young man, I’m impressed by you. You pulled the guts out of such a big bug. You’re the best!”

“Go,” said Pan Zi, who had two bloody holes in his head. Luckily, the holes weren’t too big. He said while tearing his teeth, “Look at your culture. This is called the central nervous system. This guy paralyzed the bug directly!”

“Are you saying that the bug is still alive?” Dakuai had already climbed halfway onto the boat, but on hearing this, he put his foot back into the water.

Muyoubing rolled onto the boat and kicked the bug aside. “We can’t kill it yet. We need it to get out of this corpse hole.”

“Do you think that sound just now was made by this bug?” Uncle San asked him. He had just heard the bug make a few sounds, but it didn’t sound like it.

Muyoubing turned the bug over, and we saw that on its tail was a fist-sized hexagonal copper wind chime. We didn’t know when it was planted there, but it was covered in green patina. The six sides of the wind chime were engraved with dense incantations. Pan Zi tied a bandage on it while kicking it with his foot, and the hexagonal bell suddenly moved on its own!

The sound it made was the same as the one I had just heard, but the one I had just heard was very ethereal, as if it were drifting in from the underworld. This one sounded very real, and it seemed that the bell was the source of the sound, but it must be combined with the empty echo to have a mesmerizing effect. There must be very sophisticated mechanisms in this hexagonal bell, and it has survived for thousands of years without decaying. It is estimated to be made of gold or silver. But how can it ring by itself?

I was wondering why the bell was ringing so loudly, as if there was an imprisoned spirit trying to escape from the artifact that imprisoned it. Unfortunately, the artifact was too small, which made me feel a bit ridiculous. Pan Zi finished bandaging his wound all by himself, as if he did it every day. The bell rang loudly, and he was annoyed by the sound, so he tried to step on it. He didn’t expect that the bronze shell had actually deteriorated to such an extent that the bell cracked when he stepped on it. A very unpleasant green liquid spurted out.

Uncle San was furious and wanted to hit Pan Zi on the head with a fist. But then he thought that Pan Zi had just had two holes drilled into his head, and if he hit him again, he might end up like the bell. So he gave up and instead scolded him, “Can’t you keep your feet still? This thing is at least a magical artifact, and you just ruined it with one kick!”

“Uncle San, I didn’t know it was so fragile,” said Pan Zi, feeling aggrieved. Uncle San shook his head in anger. He used his saber to push aside the bronze fragments. Inside were small bells, each one different in size and shape, like a honeycomb. The bells were attached to a very delicate hollow ball, which was now cracked from being stepped on. Inside was a large green centipede, its head already flattened. The green water had been stepped out of the body of this finger-thick centipede.

Uncle San turned the hollow ball over with the tip of his knife and found a tube on the ball, which was inserted into the part connected to the huge corpse. He said, “I’m afraid that when the centipede is hungry, it will drill into the corpse through this tube to eat. How did such a symbiotic system come about?”

The half-dead boatman’s body floated on the water, sinking and rising. Uncle San sighed: “This is called self-inflicted suffering. They must have wanted to leave us alone in this corpse cave, waiting for us to die and then come and fish our things. I don’t know what happened today, but I actually died at the hands of this giant corpse. It’s really deserved!”

“This is called a coincidence. It seems that our luck is not bad,” I said.

Pan Zi shook his head and said, “I don’t think the claws of that thing could tear a person in half in a short time. If it had that kind of strength, my brain would have been dug out already. I say there must be more than one of these things. This one must have carried the corpse over after dismembering it and wanted to eat it alone.”

Daku was already very relaxed, but when he heard him say that, he couldn’t help but swallow his saliva.

“Don’t panic. Didn’t the little brother just say that we have to rely on this thing to get out of this hole! We’ll put the corpse on the bow of the boat and let it open the way for us. This thing has eaten corpses all its life and has a very strong yin energy. It’s the guest star of those zombies. In the corpse cave, I guess they are the overlords here. With it on our boat, we will definitely be able to get out. “Uncle San said, ”Come on, we’re not going to quit. I want to see what kind of place it is that can produce such a big bug.”

Hearing what Uncle San said, I also thought it made sense. We had been in the cave for quite some time, and it was too depressing to be unable to even lift our heads. We took out the folding shovel from the luggage in the back and used it as a rudder to push against the stone wall and move forward.

While I was rowing, I studied the cave wall on this side. Suddenly, I had a question, so I asked Uncle San, “You see these are all whole pieces of stone. How did the ancestors who dug the tombs in ancient times dig them out? Even now, it would be difficult for a few hundred people to dig such a deep cave.

Uncle San said, “You see how round this cave is, and it’s very old. I think the people who dug this cave must have been the official robbers, the army that specializes in robbing graves. It seems that we will not find the tomb marked on the map as easily as we thought.

”Uncle San, how can you be so sure that the tomb is still there? You see, an army came and dug such a long cave. It’s hard to say that this thing has been moved by others! Daku said, “I think that when we go in, there may not even be a coffin board left.”

My third uncle groaned and said, “If this tomb has been looted for thousands of years, then there is nothing we can say, but you have to know that this cave is definitely on the map, which means that this looting cave already existed when the tomb owner was buried. And there must be more than one tomb in this area. Who knows when this tomb was dug?“

”That means,” I already sensed that my uncle’s words had a chilling meaning, ”everything we have encountered, including the huge corpse, the age of the hexagonal bronze wind chime, and their owner may be even earlier than the Warring States period?”

Uncle San shook his head: “What I’m more concerned about is why our tomb owner would choose to set up his grave in a place that has already been dug up by grave robbers.

Muyoubing suddenly waved his hand, telling us to be quiet, and pointed to the front. We saw a green phosphorescent glow in the depths of the cave where the miner’s light couldn’t reach. Uncle San sighed: ”The Jishidi is here!”