Chapter 175: Spirit Channeling

It was impossible for any mechanism to silently move a massive, solid stone door to another location. This was a matter of physics, not metaphysics; moving something that heavy would inevitably make noise.

With that realization, our previous “mechanism theory” fell apart on its own.

But if it wasn’t a large-scale mechanism, what else in a tomb could move a door without making a sound?

He Yu sucked in a breath of cold air. “Um, Xiao Yao, let me brainstorm for a second. Have you ever heard of the folk legend called Ghost Blinding?”

I had heard of it. I spent most of my childhood in the county seat, and every season when the corn and wheat began to ripen, I’d often hear rumors of people being ghost-blinded in the fields. The common folk version of Ghost Blinding was slightly different from a Ghost Wall. Ghost Blinding was more akin to the illusion I had been trapped in earlier; you could see and touch things, and you didn’t just keep walking in circles in the same spot. You could walk for a long time taking different paths, but in the end, you still couldn’t find your way out.

Most people who were ghost-blinded usually assumed afterward that they had simply lost their way, never realizing they had been ghost-blinded.

“Do you think that’s what’s happening to us?” He Yu sprawled out like a lazy lord. “Maybe three little ghosts are perched on our backs right now, covering our eyes while the three of us sit here grinning like happy idiots!” After saying this, he didn’t forget to hold his flashlight under his chin, pulling several exaggerated ghostly faces at me.

I glanced at him, and we both checked each other’s back, confirming there was no problem. But He Yu’s joke made me start thinking carefully about this possibility. It was a last resort, but since I had already ruled out mechanisms, I had no choice but to start thinking along supernatural lines.

“Old He, you’ve seen more of the world than me,” I asked him. “Generally speaking, if people in our line of work encounter Ghost Blinding, but spirits can’t be seen, how do they tell whether they’ve actually been ghost-blinded?”

He Yu rubbed his chin. “I heard from the old-timers that if you squeeze the juice from willow leaves and rub it on your eyes, you can see ghosts when you open them. But back in the day, very few tomb raiders actually carried willow leaves. The things are inherently eerie, and a tomb is already a ‘yin’ residence. Think about it: if you bring willow leaves inside, wouldn’t that make it even more cursed? So nobody carries them.”

Speaking of eerie things, I was reminded of the Jade Disc hanging around my neck. I hadn’t believed it could ward off evil before, but ever since going to Yunnan and entering that ancient pagoda, I was ready to kowtow and offer incense to this treasure.

“Blood Jade wards off evil,” I said. “If there really is something foul here, it shouldn’t be able to trap us to death. We must be overlooking something.”

Tian Xiaoqi suddenly pressed her hand on my arm. She said, “In ancient times, there was 《Garden of Marvels^[1]》. It says in 《Garden of Marvels》, ‘Shengxi Material must not be burned lightly; when lit, it emits a strange fragrance, and if it touches one’s clothes, one can commune with ghosts.’ If the legend is true and we light Shengxi Material, we might be able to communicate with these eight predecessors.”

He Yu burst out laughing. “What a great suggestion! Goddamn Shengxi Material. What, are the two of us Doraemon? You expect us to pull a rhinoceros out of thin air for you?”

I felt my trouser pocket. It was hard. This old object had been through a lot with me. I hesitated for a long time before finally pulling out the Black Hoof Iron. When He Yu saw the pitch-black material in my palm, his jaw nearly hit the floor, and he looked like he was about to jump up and start swearing.

“Holy crap! Why didn’t you say so earlier? You had something this good and you’re only taking it out now?! Quick, quick, light it up! Let’s break this monster’s illusion!”

I clenched the Black Hoof Iron tight and shouted, “My family treasures this like their own lifeblood! If I burn it, I’ll definitely be locked up when I get back. This thing has been passed down in my family for six or seven generations. If it gets destroyed in my hands, how many years of my life will I have to forfeit to pay back that debt?”

He Yu didn’t care about my protests; he had no concept of family heirlooms. He lunged forward and snatched the Black Hoof Iron from me. “You’re still thinking about that? Look at those eight guys over there! If you don’t burn this, it won’t be long before you end up just like them. An object is just an object. You have to make it out alive before you can worry about losing years off your life!”

Hearing his words, my train of thought snapped, and I didn’t even try to snatch it back. By the time I reacted, he had already set it alight. This piece of Shengxi Material was quite old, and after so much time, it was difficult to burn. He Yu held the fire-starter to it for a long while before it showed the slightest sign of catching fire.

As the Black Hoof Iron caught fire, it crackled with a green light. Instantly, an incredibly strange fragrance wafted out from it. For some reason, inhaling the scent made my vision more than twice as sharp.

However, just as a third of the Black Hoof Iron had burned away, something extra appeared in my field of vision. I had just reached for the flashlight beside me when, in the next second, I saw layers upon layers of legs appearing right in front of He Yu!

I looked over at He Yu. He was staring fixedly behind me, not daring to breathe, and his hand holding the Black Hoof Iron was trembling like he had Parkinson’s. Steeling myself against the pressure, I looked up. We were completely surrounded by ancient corpses. The ancient corpses were all facing us, encircling us tightly, and the inner circle was even leaning in as if eavesdropping on our conversation.

The three of us didn’t dare breathe a single drop. There were far too many ancient corpses near He Yu and Tian Xiaoqi. I sensed that the area behind me was relatively sparse, so I planned to quietly scoot my rear backward.

But the moment I moved even a tiny bit, the ancient corpses across from me seemed to sense my movement. They all turned their heads to look at me, their wrinkled faces full of ferocity. I immediately froze, not daring to move another muscle.

“What do we do?” He Yu looked like he was about to cry, mouthing the words to me.

A flash of inspiration hit me. Cautiously, I raised my head to look at the ceiling of the tomb passage. What I saw startled me. Through the green light crackling from the burning Black Hoof Iron, the ceiling that had been covered in massive stones was now completely open. This Yin-Yang Thirteen Palaces had no roof, which meant we could climb over the wall.

I signaled with my eyes to Tian Xiaoqi, who was closest to me, and she quickly realized it too.

“You two need to climb the wall,” I mouthed to He Yu while taking the Blood Jade off my neck.

The moment I gripped the Blood Jade in my hand, the surrounding ancient corpses abruptly shrank back two or three meters. Seeing his chance, He Yu rolled across the ground, tossed the Black Hoof Iron to me, and scrambled up the wall in two quick steps.

Tian Xiaoqi didn’t waste any time either. She grabbed He Yu’s outstretched hand and climbed up as well. I was about to follow when I heard a strange gurgling sound in the distance. I looked back and found myself staring right into the eyes of a White Corpse Turtle Immortal that had blended into the crowd of Ancient Corpses. It had seen me too, its eyes glowing with an eerie green light.

I wasn’t going to make it up the wall. I threw the Black Hoof Iron back up to He Yu and yelled, “Run! Don’t come down! Whatever you do, don’t come down!”

I didn’t even know my reflexes could be that fast. Before He Yu could call out to me, I bolted down the tomb passage. At the same time, I heard the terrifying sound of floor tiles being swept aside behind me.

The damn thing was chasing me! It hadn’t even considered the two on the wall; it had come straight for me!

What rotten luck! The thing really had escaped. Was the one I blew up earlier its relative or something?!

In an instant, the passage was filled with the sounds of running and shattering tiles. The flashlight beam bounced so wildly I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was running at my absolute limit. He Yu was right; the Thirteen Palaces were full of turns. Every time I rounded a corner, I could hear the monster behind me slamming into the wall and gnashing its teeth. Several times, I felt like if it just stretched its neck, it would take a chunk out of my backside.

My focus slipped for a split second, and the ground suddenly vanished beneath my feet. I felt a floor tile shatter under my weight before I went down with a sharp cry, tumbling and crashing down several steps. My flashlight went flying eight zhang^[2] away. I had been running too fast; my calves cramped up so violently that I lay there on the ground, unable to stand.

When I looked up, I saw a slender corpse wedged into a crack in the stone wall directly in front of my head. The sight froze me to the bone, and for a moment, I completely forgot to scramble up and keep running for my life.

Just then, I heard something leaping from the steps above, lunging straight for my neck. I looked back and saw a bloody, gaping maw closing in on me.

At the critical moment, a gust of wind whipped out of the darkness. I had no idea what was happening until a cold flash caught my eye. A Mountain-Cleaving Machete came spinning like a whirlwind out of the pitch-black tomb passage, slicing the White Corpse Turtle Immortal in two and pinning it firmly to the wall.

I scrambled forward a few paces to grab my flashlight. When I saw Lu Ayao walking out from another passage, I finally slumped to the ground and let out a massive sigh of relief. The tension had been so intense that I was starting to feel lightheaded.

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