Volume 9 Chapter 11: The trap

A balance trap is set up under the stone plate. The weight of the pills on all the star maps is precisely calculated. The order in which they are taken must be strictly followed. If the pills are taken in a fixed order, the mechanism will not be triggered, otherwise the balance will be immediately destroyed, the mechanism will topple and pull the machine, causing a chain reaction. The jade figurines around it will immediately fall off, and the blood corpse will change.

This is arguably the most important sacred place of the Queen Mother’s clan. If it is invaded, it is equivalent to the risk of exposing the royal family’s most core secrets, so such a terrible mechanism is set up here, completely for mutual destruction.

Our current situation can be described as extremely desperate. The cave entrance we came in through is now sealed off, and everyone is trapped in this area at the bottom of the cave.

Uncle San’s men are scared stiff, not to mention us, even Fatty and Mian Youbing have lost their color. This situation may be something even my grandfather has never seen before. His notes don’t say how to manage and operate if you encounter a thousand zongzi that have turned into zombies at the same time. I don’t know if there is an EMBA in the tomb-digging industry.

Suddenly, a series of “cackling” sounds came from the group of mummies, followed by another one, and soon the sound was everywhere. At the same time, I saw the dry skin on the mummies’ bodies falling off continuously, as if they were really going to rise.

The mop looked at us and yelled, “What the hell are you looking at? Don’t you want to think of a way out? What should we do?”

The fat guy cursed, picked up the gun on the ground, and said, “What should we do? We can now see who can live a little longer.”

“You’re full of shit. I don’t want to die. Hurry up and think of a way out, or I’ll shoot you.” The man pointed the gun at him.

The fat man checked the bullets: “You can surrender and see, but it may not work. It’s so deep here that it may not be easy for God to come over.”

He then leaned over the corpse and shot it in the head, knocking it over. The dried skin on the corpse was blown off, and we could see the purple-colored flesh underneath. The bullet only made a small hole in it.

I could see that the fat man had already let go of his fear, and although he was still scared, he had accepted death in his heart. He fired three shots in a row, and it was only then that the other guys reacted and immediately helped him. The first to act is the strongest, and every minute of life is a minute of life.

The fat man walked over to me while he was reloading, took out a flare and gave it to me, saying to me, “Keep the light on, don’t shoot above, shoot into their faces, we have to learn from the five heroes of Mount Wulong!”

“Up there?” I looked up at the ceiling and suddenly had an inspiration. I remembered the story that my grandfather had just started to tell in his notes. What did he say?

Grandpa’s first reaction was that these blood-covered corpses wouldn’t climb trees!

If they can’t climb a tree, they certainly can’t climb a wall, let alone climb a rock wall. I thought of this and immediately said to them, “We have to find a way to get up there! Since they were able to build the furnace so high and there are no stairs around, there must be another way to get up there.”

Suddenly, everyone felt a glimmer of hope. Everyone immediately got to work. The fat guy yelled, “Don’t panic! Those with guns should defend themselves and buy time. Those without guns should look for them.”

I immediately rushed to a bronze object on the side. These things are all about one person tall, and you can see clearly after climbing up.

But when I got up there, I immediately realized that something was wrong. If there was any way to get up there, we would have definitely seen it before. And I knew that the general design concept of the ancients was that the shape moved without the person moving. This hanging furnace was not built on top, but was probably lifted up. Any operation still had to be done from below. In that case, it was impossible for us to get up there, because after the furnace came down, we didn’t have the strength to pull it up again.

But when I stood on this bronze object, I realized that we didn’t have to climb so high. We only had to climb to a place that the blood corpse couldn’t reach, and this bronze object would be enough.

Thinking of this, I immediately shouted, and several people immediately reacted, all climbing up to the bronze vessel where I was standing.

Soon everyone had climbed up. On the stairs, more blood corpses began to stand up. I looked and realized that something was wrong. These blood corpses were very large, and this height was not enough, but there were no higher bronze vessels. Shooting from a high position could only temporarily slow down the approach of a few blood corpses. When the miner’s lamp shone out, we could see that several strange faces were already very close to us, and the places that the miner’s lamp did not shine on were unimaginable.

Just when I was about to despair, the fat guy yelled, “Guys, we’re going to die!” He then shook out a few detonators and yelled, “I’m going to rush over, throw explosives along the way, and blow a bloody path. You guys cover me from all sides, and we’ll charge forward.”

I looked at it and yelled, “Where did you get this stuff?”

“Didn’t I say last time that I wouldn’t go down the mine shaft without explosives?” the fat man shouted. ”It’s my private stash!”

Although I knew that this method was tantamount to suicide, I still saw a glimmer of hope. I yelled, “Let’s go!”

The fat man shouted, “There are only four detonators, and the distance is so far away. Everyone must keep up. If they fall for a second, they will be unable to save them!”

He pulled out the fuse and threw the first detonator. I watched as the smoking detonator was thrown into the group of mummies. I immediately crouched down, and suddenly there was a loud noise. The shockwave sent several bloody mummies flying. We ducked to avoid the flying gravel and debris. The bronze furnace was beaten into potholes and rattled. Looking up, I saw that a hole had indeed been blown out in front.

The fat man jumped down and immediately threw out the second detonator, shouting, “Charge!”

We immediately jumped off the bronze furnace. At that moment, the explosion started again. Without the bronze furnace as cover, the broken stones flew at us like bullets, and we were immediately blown away. But we didn’t care about the severe pain. The fat man jumped up and threw another detonator. Those with guns pointed in all directions and immediately fired to shoot down the blood-covered corpses that were rushing over.

We continued to run forward recklessly, just like in a war movie. There was another explosion, and we fell to the ground for a second. When the air wave passed, we ran again, and everyone’s ears were ringing. I think this is what it felt like to be on the Shangganling Pass.

The fat guy yelled, “This is the last one. Charge!”

He said, “This is the last one. Charge!” He threw the detonator at the stone gate. This one must be able to blow the stone gate open, otherwise we’ve done all this for nothing.

We ran forward desperately, bending over to wait for the blast, but when we almost reached it, the detonator didn’t explode. The fat guy in front of us stopped suddenly and shouted back, “Sorry, misjudged! It’s a dud!”

The blood-covered corpses around us immediately surrounded us, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder and blood-covered corpses. We surrounded him and made a circle. I yelled, “Use the gun to shoot the detonator!”

The fat guy said, “It’s blocked, I can’t see it.”

I saw the oil bottle jump up suddenly, stepping on the fat man’s shoulders and kicking hard, flying up in the air. He pressed his knees in the air, and suddenly jammed the head of a blood corpse, twisting it hard and twisting it off with its head, and then kicking the headless blood corpse into the pile of corpses with a hard kick. The headless blood corpse fell over the corpse group, revealing the detonator behind it.

The fat man was very fast, and he fired a shot with his hand, and the detonator exploded. We were very close to the detonator at this time, and we were hit by the real shot, and everyone was blown up.

I was dizzy and nauseous, and I vomited as soon as I got up. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from passing out, and when I stood up, I saw that the stone door was still intact, except for a large hole blown in it.

I was finished. I got up and looked at the blood-covered corpses around me, and I thought I was completely finished. Before I could even stand up, there was a loud noise behind me, like a morning bell, and the whole cave shook, knocking us all to the ground. The ancient corpses around us also fell over in large areas. Looking back, I saw that the huge hanging furnace I had just seen had finally broken due to the vibration caused by the explosives, and the hanging iron chain had finally broken and fell from the top of the cave, crashing into the bottom of the cave. The enormous weight had actually smashed a large hole in the bottom of the cave, and the furnace body had sunk deep into it. It seemed that there was still room at the bottom of the cave.

The buzzing sound of the furnace made my head spin. The corpse horde surrounded us, and several of us couldn’t get up. Mian Youping yelled, “Back off! I’ll distract them.”

We saw that the road had been blown up along the way, and the blood corpses had not completely gathered together, so we had to retreat again. Mian Youping shouted to the fat man, “Knife!”

The fat man fired a gun while throwing a dagger, which was caught in mid-air by Mian Youbing, who then cut open his palm and pointed it at the blood-covered corpses. The blood-covered corpses were instantly drawn to him, all turning towards him. He left us and headed upwards. The blood-covered corpses, for some reason, immediately followed him.

We took advantage of this moment and quickly retreated to the bottom. I yelled, “What are you going to do?”

Muyoubing ignored me, and the fat guy pulled me back. By the time we reached the bottom, Muyoubing had already been swallowed up by the blood-covered corpses, and we couldn’t even see his shadow. The mop said, “Damn, he’s a real pal!”

I snatched his gun and yelled, “Fuck you and your loyalty!” I wanted to rush back, thinking that it was impossible for him to sacrifice himself. Fat Man pulled me back and yelled, “Little brother, we’re here!”

Suddenly, I saw Mian Youping emerge from the blood-covered corpses. He was like a god, stepping on the almost vertical rock wall on one side and then jumping out of the encirclement. He rolled to a place where the blood-covered corpses were sparse, and then I saw him jumping almost bent over, quickly passing through the blood-covered corpses, and retreating to the side of the furnace in an instant.

Several of Uncle San’s men were stunned. After the oil bottle was turned over, he said to us, “These blood corpses have not seen blood, and their joints are still hard. They are not like the ones in the Lu Palace that were soaked in blood, otherwise none of us would have escaped. Don’t be dazed, and see where you can run.”

We only then realized that the furnace was deeply embedded in the hollow below, surrounded by cracks that led underground. There was indeed room below. The entrance should have been blocked by the stone plate, which we had not noticed.

At this point, we had no choice but to climb down the furnace, hanging onto the lines on its body.

There was a half-meter-high mezzanine underneath, and we couldn’t even lift our heads when we squatted down. There was gravel all around, so after we got down there, we immediately picked up stones and blocked the gap. We didn’t relax until we couldn’t see any gaps, and we all collapsed to the ground. My ears could barely hear anything, and I felt like the world was spinning.

Wenjin immediately tore off his clothes to stop the bleeding.

The fat man used his flashlight to look around and found that it was a very small stone chamber, also artificially carved, only six or seven square meters in size. The furnace made it even more cramped, and there was no room to move.

“Shit, what do we do now? Will those things fall apart?” one of the guys asked.

“Normally, there is solar energy to dry them out, but there is no hope here. We have to think of another way out.” The fat man was shining his flashlight around, and suddenly we all saw that someone had carved something on the rock on one side. At first glance, it was the kind of writing used on oil bottles, but it didn’t look like a mark, but rather a sentence.

Everyone came over to take a look. The fat guy said happily, “Little brother, look at this. Does it mean there is still a way down?”

Muyoubing bent over to take a look, and his face changed. We asked him what it meant, but he shook his head. But I could see from his expression that he clearly understood.

But the place where the mark was carved was a cliff. The fat guy touched it and couldn’t find any flaws. Mian Youping came over and used his long fingers to trace the lines on the cliff. He then picked up a stone and started smashing it. After two smashes, the stone suddenly cracked like powder. He hit it and created a hole that could only accommodate one person, and could barely be passed through while crawling.

“How could there be a thief’s hole here?” the fat man said in surprise.

“It’s not a thief’s hole. This is a pipe used to design mechanisms. The mechanism above us is moving inside it,” said Mian Youping, who had already drilled his head in.

We looked at each other and followed one after the other. After crawling in for less than ten meters, it suddenly turned vertically downward. We couldn’t turn around inside, so we had to climb headfirst. After crawling for a while, I almost passed out from the brain congestion, and suddenly heard the sound of water.

There was water, so it was connected to the channel. We immediately accelerated and soon reached the end. We found a stone blocking the way. Mian Youping hit the stone a few times, knocking it out. The stone rolled down, and we heard the sound of water below.

We looked out and saw that it was a wide waterway with a gentle current and not very deep. It was waist-deep and the water was clear, so we could see the stone slabs at the bottom of the waterway.

Muyoubing took the lead, and several people went down one after another. As soon as they entered the water, they discovered a commotion underwater. Countless insects were scattered by our surprise, and several people were so scared that they almost fired their guns.

I was also shocked to see that the waterway was full of small, flesh-colored, shell-less bugs. They were transparent and usually invisible at the bottom of the water. They didn’t seem to be aggressive, and they scattered when we moved.

After all of us had gone down into the waterway, a few of us looked at both sides of the waterway. We saw that the upstream of the waterway was an iron gate, and outside the gate was a pile of branches and debris that had been washed down from upstream. The downstream was pitch black, and we didn’t know where it led.

We came to the iron gate and shook it for a while, but found that it couldn’t be shaken, and it was very strong.

“What is this place?” asked one of Uncle San’s men.

“The waterway here is so deep and the water flow is so strong, it may be the main channel leading to the lowest reservoir,” Wen Jin said. Before he finished speaking, someone suddenly cried out. We turned around and saw that in the middle of the waterway downstream, there was a statue of a bird with a human face, more than two meters high, which appeared very abrupt here.

We walked over and saw that the statue was almost the same as the one I saw in the rainforest. I was about to take a closer look when I saw that the oil lamp had taken a deep breath and suddenly bypassed the statue and walked downstream. We exchanged glances and immediately followed.