Volume 6 Chapter 15 Floating corpses

In the dark depths of the water, the ancient corpse wrapped in white gauze had been in the water for an unknown number of years. The gauze was already in tatters, and it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman.

Uncle San was sweating profusely, but he immediately calmed down. Obviously, since it was a shipwreck tomb, it was not strange to have a floating corpse here.

However, as he gradually let go of the flashlight, he saw, in the cold white light, another ancient corpse in the darkness next to the ancient corpse, dressed in the same way, hidden in the gloomy sea water.

Uncle San had an ominous premonition. He continued to move the flashlight and sure enough, he found that there were a large number of ancient corpses floating in the darkness below, as many as thirty or forty. The countless white gauze clothes really gave people a chill.

Because of the searchlight, it is now impossible to know where the faint green fluorescence is coming from. What is most creepy is that the group of ancient corpses is not static. The stiff corpses are suspended in the water and are slowly moving.

Uncle San’s heart was about to jump out of his throat. In the airtight helmet, his head was covered in cold sweat. He thought to himself, “Luckily I held on to Xie Lianhuan. If I had just swam straight over and turned on the light when I was next to the group of ancient corpses, I would have died of fright. These corpses must have been soaked here for nearly a thousand years. The ordinary ones would have long since dissolved. How could they still be floating in the water? Could it be that they had already become zongzi?

He had not prepared anything when he came down here, and he had never thought that he would face such a dangerous situation. He had not even brought a donkey hoof with him. It was also extremely unfair to say that. Following this son of a bitch, Uncle San had long forgotten that he had brought all this on himself.

Looking at the son of a bitch again, he was also full of fear. It can be seen that the behavior of not caring about being close just now should be caused by not knowing the real situation. It seems that the foreigner did not tell him what he would see.

Uncle San’s thoughts were like lightning, and in the blink of an eye he had already anticipated several situations. At this time, the ancient corpse group in the distance gradually drifted closer, not hurriedly, and the white gauze slowly drifted. If it weren’t for the darkness around him and the indistinct facial features, this scene would really be like a scene of immortals walking on clouds in the heavenly palace.

As Uncle San watched, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and realized something.

He lowered his body and dived a few meters, bringing himself closer to take a closer look.

The ancient corpses did not seem to have completely decayed. Although the facial features were blurred, it was still possible to see the human appearance. One corpse after another was in various postures, some like a tray, some like a flute, some like a zither, and there were more than a dozen of them. Although they were as stiff as iron, the beauty of their postures was unparalleled. Uncle San understood what he had seen.

On the murals of many ancient tombs, there is a picture depicting the owner of the tomb being dissected and ascending to heaven. The gates of heaven are wide open, the immortals are gathered to welcome him, auspicious clouds surround him, divine birds fly, and the sky is bathed in light. In such murals, there is always a picture of “the dance of the celestial masters” painted above the ladder of clouds that the tomb owner is stepping on. There must be countless celestial old immortals in the painting, playing the zither in unison.

But the tomb owner here obviously felt that the “celestial music and dance” in the painting was not enough. The scene formed by these dozens of ancient corpses is exactly the real celestial music and dance, with drums and zithers playing in unison.

He immediately understood why Xie Lianhuan would look for these ancient corpses, because the route of the celestial music and dance was the path of the tomb owner’s ascension to heaven. Following the ancient corpses, he would definitely be able to find the tomb owner.

Xie Lianxian, who was still recovering from the shock, gestured for San Shu to follow him. His movements were distorted due to the tension.

San Shu tried to calm his heart rate. He knew that he had definitely entered a place of no return, but he was not panicking. Since he knew where the place was, and the tomb would not run away, the preparations he had made were clearly insufficient. He had a good excuse to convince himself to retreat.

Now that I think about it, the place they were in was basically an endless abyss. It was impossible to guess where the ancient corpses were drifting to or how long it would take. If they went after them rashly, they would waste a lot of time and there wouldn’t be enough oxygen.

Uncle San fully realized the situation and stopped Xie Lianhuan, telling him to go back and not continue. It was too dangerous to continue any further, and his life was still important.

However, Xie Lianhuan suddenly made up his mind at this time (neurotic is a common problem among second-generation descendants, and it seems that I also have this problem). Without waiting for Uncle San to stop him, he went straight to the place where the female corpse went.

Uncle San flashed a few searchlight signals from behind, trying to make him wait a little longer, but Xie Lianhuan didn’t care at all. Uncle San saw this and thought to himself, “Oh no, this kid probably wants to get rid of me.”

Just now, he had coerced Xie Lianhuan to come down with him. Xie Lianhuan must have been unwilling to do so. Now that it was almost the end, Xie Lianhuan simply wanted to get rid of him.

Even though he had no feelings for him anymore, Xie Lianhuan was still his relative, and he was the so-called older brother. Chinese people always have a blood relationship and a protective complex in this regard. At this time, Uncle San could not leave Xie Lianhuan alone. He could only suppress his anger and rush after him.

(At this point, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Uncle San mention his “unavoidable” and “no way” circumstances. I can hear the difference in his tone, as if he was subconsciously emphasizing his reluctance to follow Xie Lianhuan. In fact, from what I know of Uncle San’s personality, at that time, he was not the type of person who could control his curiosity. I already feel here that, inevitably, Uncle San may be primarily responsible for Xie Lianhuan’s death.

I think so because when I was a child, Uncle San took me with him for a while. At that time, he tied me to a roadside post with a rope for a whole day because he had to go to the fields and couldn’t take care of me, and I almost had heatstroke. Afterwards, he bribed me with a lot of salted ice to keep quiet about it, and I was too young to understand and didn’t say anything. But about this incident, do you know that when he was young, he was quite a naughty boy with poor self-control?

But when I thought about the blood characters left by Xie Lianhuan on the ancient tomb, I could never believe that Uncle San would deliberately harm him. So when I heard this, I couldn’t help but start to get nervous.)

The next thing that happened was very fast.

Uncle San weighed the consumption of oxygen while struggling to catch up with Xie Lianhuan. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had never been to an ancient tomb like this before, and he really wasn’t sure.

But Xie Lianhuan was already far ahead, diving quickly ahead, and since San Shu was not very good at diving, it was obvious that he could not keep up with him.

Following the light in front of him, he swam forward in the darkness for more than ten minutes, and before he knew it, many floating objects appeared around San Shu. San Shu took a quick look and saw that they were all made of broken wood, carved windows, wooden beams, thousands of them, all highly decayed, covered with white sea rust.

Then, in the middle of these floating objects, Uncle San saw a huge, tilted black shadow that looked like a monster.

The “ancient mummies” floating in the water floated straight towards this thing, and Xie Lianhuan in front of them had already overtaken them and was close to the huge black shadow. With his light, Uncle San gradually saw the true face of that thing.

It was the bow of a giant ancient ship stuck in the reef. The word “giant” was an abuse of language, as San Shu could not describe the size of the bow he saw.

The bow of the wreck extended from the reef, extending more than 200 meters on both sides. The wreckage had completely deformed, and the twisted bow was covered in white sea dust and scaly coral reefs. If it weren’t for its strange shape, one might think it was the skull of a giant sea creature.

The “Ancient Corpse of the Dancing Music” floated down towards the wreckage and soon disappeared into the dark waters. San Shu and Xie Lianhuan followed closely behind, and under the illumination of the two searchlights, the wreckage became clearer and clearer.

On the deck at the bow of the ship, San Shu saw a wooden, carved pavilion half-buried in the reef. It seemed to be the main building of the huge wooden ship, but it was now tilted and almost collapsed. On top of the pavilion was a deformed, cracked white marble door, wide open, like a big mouth, waiting for them to walk right into it.