Chapter 167: Wrapped Ancient Corpses

As he spoke, I began to survey our surroundings. This was a new Side Chamber, more than twice the size of the previous one with the caisson ceiling and the tortoise, but the ceiling was relatively low. I wasn’t sure why it had been designed that way.

We sat in a corner of the Side Chamber, leaning against the wall. The stone here wasn’t as damp as before. I guessed we were deeper inside now, and this was likely just a simple storage area for funerary objects, as there were no coffins or outer sarcophagi.

Places without dead bodies always gave me an inexplicable sense of security. They must have carried me for a long time to find such a relatively safe spot. If it had been He Yu alone, he probably would have just found any spacious area and rolled out the sleeping bags. But with Lu Ayao along, who tended to be more meticulous, this place was likely his find.

Watching the fire burning in front of Lu Ayao, I asked He Yu, “The oxygen levels down here are low. How are you able to light a fire?”

Hearing my question, Lu Ayao pulled a burning stick from the fire and handed it to me without looking back. “There’s a draft.”

I took the stick and stared at it for a long time, holding it right before my eyes. Even when my eyes began to ache from the strain, I didn’t see the flame flicker much at all. I looked at He Yu, and He Yu looked at Lu Ayao.

“Come on, Old Lu. You must be seeing things because you haven’t slept. This flame isn’t moving at all.” He took the stick from my hand and held it up to inspect it himself.

Lu Ayao remained seated, still not turning around, but his voice was resolute. “There is a draft, though it’s very faint. All the tomb chambers and Spirit Paths we’ve passed through have circulating air. There must be a passage connecting the tomb to the outside somewhere. If the air wasn’t circulating, we would have suffocated long ago given how long I’ve kept this fire burning.”

I glanced at Tian Xiaoqi and thought he had a point. I hadn’t felt any difficulty breathing so far, so there really must be such a passage, even if we weren’t near the intake vent.

At that moment, I suddenly thought of the Ancient Corpse that had frequently appeared in my hallucinations, and then I remembered the Waist Token on its body. I immediately asked, “Before we got here, did you guys figure it out? What kind of tomb is this? Who is the owner?”

He Yu shook his head. “You have no idea. Ever since the two of us entered this hole, it’s been one disaster after another. We haven’t had a chance to investigate that at all. Then you ended up in that state and gave us a real scare. We didn’t have the energy to worry about anything else.”

He Yu talked for a long while, explaining their path and the bizarre twists they’d encountered. Only then did I finally understand that this tomb was a completely different beast from the ones I had entered before.

Since it was an undersea mausoleum, Lu Ayao had initially judged that the outermost layer must contain a certain amount of space. This area would be quite large, serving as a waterproof buffer to protect the central burial chambers in case of a collapse. He had used his compass to fix several coordinates, concluding that one of the apertures in the Tomb-guarding Beast likely connected to this waterproof layer.

The subsequent explosion proved his theory. The impact of the external blast directly triggered the protective mechanisms of the waterproof layer. Lu Ayao had gambled on that two-minute window while the machinery was in motion.

Just as the tomb chamber was about to sever the passage connecting to the Tomb-guarding Beast, He Yu and the others successfully entered the waterproof layer. However, once inside, they were shocked to find they weren’t the first ones there. Right in the center of the waterproof layer’s wall was a massive robber’s hole, wide enough for two people.

This proved the tomb had already been raided, and by a group, given how spacious the tunnel was. They followed the tunnel forward, even finding a Luoyang shovel so rusted it was useless, discarded cigarette butts on the ground, and an empty bottle of Erguotou liquor.

He Yu stood up, kicked the liquor bottle aside, spat, and cursed, “Damn it! I knew this dump would be empty. We’re eating someone else’s leftovers. Now Xiao Yao’s fate is uncertain, and we find this? What a load of absolute crap!”

Lu Ayao didn’t look at the mess on the floor of the tunnel, nor did he wait for He Yu to finish cursing. He took the lead and continued forward. The man always acted as if no one else existed, and He Yu was used to it. But when He Yu looked up, Lu Ayao had already stopped, shining his flashlight on something ahead.

He Yu walked over to look and found a tortoise lying in the middle of the tunnel. It was actually alive. The tortoise lay on the ground, motionless. If Lu Ayao hadn’t stopped, He Yu would have thought it was some auspicious funerary object carved from stone.

“Well, that’s a new one! First time I’ve ever seen a live turtle in a tomb!” With that, he strode forward and picked the tortoise up. As soon as it was in his hands, it slowly retracted its limbs into its shell.

“Old Lu, your Lu Clan is well-versed in these things. Is there some meaning behind this?” He Yu squatted on the ground, fiddling with the turtle in his hands.

Lu Ayao didn’t speak, but his expression was deeply troubled. His brow was furrowed tight. After staring at the tortoise for a long time, he suddenly turned and began walking back the way they came.

“What are you doing? Hey! Where are you going?” He Yu hastily dropped the tortoise and chased after him, grabbing Lu Ayao’s arm.

Lu Ayao stopped when pulled. His eyes scanned every crack in the tunnel walls as he said in a low voice, “We can’t go any further. We’re turning back to find another way. There’s something wrong with this tunnel.”

He Yu was confused. “What do you mean? Is there something wrong with the turtle? This tunnel is so spacious, and we haven’t run into any trouble so far. Besides, your compass hasn’t reacted at all, has it? Why can’t we keep going?”

He pointed at the compass gripped in Lu Ayao’s hand. This type of compass was a unique creation of his family, unavailable on the market. It was a strange device; it didn’t point north. Under normal circumstances, the needle wouldn’t move at all. People in the business usually called it an “Underworld Plate.” It took years of study just to understand the basics. A common compass couldn’t overcome a “ghost wall” illusion, but as long as one knew how to read this thing, they could find their way out no matter how chaotic the magnetic field.

Lu Ayao shook his head. “It’s normal for there to be tortoises in a tomb. They represent wealth and longevity. Live tortoises might be placed in royal burials. Finding one in a tomb chamber isn’t a major issue for the Feng Shui, but finding one here is a problem.”

He Yu thought for a moment and quickly understood Lu Ayao’s true meaning. They had been inside for less than twenty minutes. Logically, they were still in the outer layers of the tomb complex, possibly not even through the waterproof layer yet. But here was a live tortoise that should have been in the main burial chamber or a side chamber. This old turtle certainly hadn’t crawled all this way on its own. So how did it get here?

There were many legends among tomb raiders, and He Yu knew of one called the “Man-Eating Hole.”

One version said these holes were traps set by the tomb owner—a robber’s tunnel intentionally dug into the roof to lure lazy raiders. Once inside, they would find only poisoned arrows and spikes, with no way out. Another version called them “Scapegoat Holes.” Once a person entered, they would walk forever without reaching an end, as if they had stepped into another dimension. By the time they were discovered, their head and body would be fused into the stone, a gruesome sight.

Because of this, veteran tomb raiders usually found their own entry points and dug their own tunnels into the chambers. They generally avoided using tunnels dug by others.

Thinking of this, He Yu hurriedly followed Lu Ayao back the way they came. They hadn’t been walking for long, so it shouldn’t take much time to reach their starting point. The two of them picked up their pace.

But halfway back, Lu Ayao suddenly skidded to a halt. Seeing this, He Yu slowed down and stopped, asking breathlessly, “What’s wrong?”

The question had barely left his lips when he saw the needle on Lu Ayao’s compass suddenly move. It trembled violently, spinning two full circles before abruptly snapping to a halt. It pointed directly ahead of them. Lu Ayao shifted his stance, turning in different directions, but the needle remained fixed on that single point.

It was the direction they had come from—the beginning of the tunnel.

The silence around them was so heavy that a falling pin would have sounded like a thunderclap. He Yu shivered, inching closer to Lu Ayao as the temperature seemed to plummet by a dozen degrees. His voice shook as he spoke. “What does that mean? It’s a good sign, right? It means we should keep going?”

“There’s something ahead,” Lu Ayao said curtly. He calmly raised his gaze, following the direction of the needle, and clicked his flashlight to its brightest setting, aiming the beam straight ahead.

He Yu took one look, and cold sweat instantly drenched his back.

Without them noticing, the once-empty tunnel behind them had been filled. Rows upon rows of Ancient Corpses, wrapped from head to toe in saris, stood in the darkness. The bodies were shrouded in two or three layers of fabric, obscuring their faces, but their numbers were staggering. Stacked like lumpy burlap sacks, they completely blocked the path back.

This was the first time He Yu had ever encountered something like this. His legs turned to jelly the moment he processed what he was seeing. If Lu Ayao hadn’t been standing right there, he surely would have wet himself.

“L-L-Old Lu… we’ve definitely stumbled into a man-eating cave. These… these thousand-year-old monsters… you can handle them on your own, right?”

Lu Ayao watched the Ancient Corpses for a moment before looking back down at his compass. The needle was still vibrating incessantly. “Go back the other way,” he said immediately.

“You got it!” He Yu didn’t hesitate. He spun around and broke into a jog, heading deeper into the tunnel.

Lu Ayao turned and followed close behind. They ran back the way they had come for about a minute before Lu Ayao shouted, “Stop!” The sudden command nearly made He Yu collapse. He was about to turn around and snap at his friend, but when he looked back, he saw those sack-like Ancient Corpses standing less than five meters away.

“Holy shit!” he cursed, his legs giving out as he tumbled to the ground.

Lu Ayao was even closer to the corpses; one more step and he would have been face-to-face with them. Yet, the man didn’t show even a flicker of terror. He calmly observed the Ancient Corpses, gauging the length of their ranks, before turning to help He Yu up.

“What the hell is this? Are they playing Red Light, Green Light with us?” He Yu spat as he stood.

“It’s as I thought,” Lu Ayao said. “When we move, they follow. And they aren’t slow. As long as we’re in this tunnel, we won’t be able to shake them off anytime soon.”

“Then what do we do?”

Lu Ayao turned to look at him. “How’s your long-distance running?”

“Huh?”

(The Trivia Collection will be updated in two days.)