Chapter 27: The Nine Murals

He Yu blocked me in the crevice and tossed me a fruit knife. “Stay here!”

With that, he dashed out to help. But once more people showed up, I wasn’t scared anymore. Orders like that don’t work on me in moments like this—both of them had gone out, how could I just sit here like a scared dog?

I picked up the fruit knife and squeezed out of the crevice. What I saw was a giant centipede-like creature, several meters long, lying on the ground with its belly split open. Lu A’yao flicked black fluid off his hand; the dagger in his grip had broken in half, the other half still lodged in the creature’s body.

He Yu hoisted up the creature’s severed tail, handed me a spare flashlight, and wiped the sweat from his brow. “This thing’s got some strength. So, brothers, what do you say? If we stew it, it might keep us going for another week.”

Lu A’yao shot him a glance and yanked off one of the creature’s antennae, using it like a whip. “This thing breeds by feeding on corpses. If you want to stew it, be my guest. I’ll pass.”

I crouched and stepped over the bug’s corpse. “When did you two link up? I didn’t hear a thing. He Yu, is there even a shred of trust left between us? If I’d crawled just a bit farther, that thing would’ve eaten me.”

He Yu chuckled, not the least bit offended. “You suddenly crawled ahead too fast. I tried to grab you but missed. Don’t worry though—once we realized you’d probably come back when you noticed no one was behind you, we figured if we moved fast enough, we could pull you in.”

“And you weren’t afraid I’d just ditch you and run? I mean, I already found the passage.” I said, annoyed.

He Yu grinned. “If it were someone else, maybe I’d have doubts. But you? I trust your character.”

Lu A’yao took the lead, crawling ahead. We followed behind him.

“That bug came from the direction you guys were headed. If there’s one, there’s bound to be more. This cave’s no longer safe. We need to get into the corridor as soon as possible. Best case, we run into Tian Yuqing’s team.”

Once the flashlight beam lit up, I noticed most of Lu A’yao’s clothes had been torn. Some of the wounds were fresh. He Yu had a few injuries too, but compared to Lu A’yao, he looked much better off—probably all from fighting that bug.

As we crawled, I fished some band-aids from my pocket and tossed half to He Yu. I kept the rest and patted Lu A’yao. “There’s medicine in my bag. Want to patch up before we keep going? If we drag this out, you might get infected.”

He ignored me. I felt a little awkward and stuffed the band-aids back into my pocket. Ever since I met him, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been cold-shouldered. No wonder no one’s ever formed a close alliance with the Lu family—not even the Tian family, who are masters of networking, bother dealing with them. Maybe it really is a personality issue.

The three of us crawled out of the cave as fast as we could and officially entered the side corridor. The ceiling here was arched, far more refined than the cave we’d just left. Intricate carvings of birds adorned the stone walls on both sides, lifelike and beautiful.

We followed Lu A’yao and picked a direction. After crawling a bit farther, we finally stopped to rest. Lu A’yao sat down, ignoring his wounds, and said, “There are at least a hundred man-made tunnels like the one before. After I fell, I crawled through twenty-three of them. Each one leads somewhere different.”

I thought to myself, what are you, a mole?

He Yu said, “Could they be tomb raider tunnels? The digging style looks similar. In ancient times, even government-backed looters used whole armies to dig and haul out treasure in waves.”

“Unlikely,” I chimed in. “What dynasty’s army had nothing better to do than dig up a tomb like it’s an ant farm? A dozen tunnels, maybe. But hundreds? Were they bored out of their minds or was a pangolin reborn as a person?”

Lu A’yao gave a slight nod this time and glanced at me. “The tunnel’s age shouldn’t be more than a hundred years. Definitely not ancient. The digging technique is consistent throughout—same angle with every pick. I think all these tunnels were dug by one person.”

If that’s true, then this was a massive undertaking. For one person to dig all this? Might as well say they were building a giant whack-a-mole amusement park. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.

Lu A’yao looked puzzled by my laughter but didn’t say anything. He turned and continued exploring deeper inside.

He Yu misunderstood and burst out laughing with me. “Ah, the perks of being young. No wonder you’re our little runt. When he said he’d take on that bug, I didn’t even dare stop him. The Lu family’s known for being… unstable. If a lunatic kills someone, it’s not even considered a crime. And you? You dared laugh at him. Not bad. Keep it up.”

I stopped laughing and blinked. “Wait, what? I wasn’t laughing at him.”

“Too scared to admit it, huh?” He Yu narrowed his eyes, pointing at me as he caught up to Lu A’yao. “I get it, I get it. No need to explain. I understand.”

Now I was even more confused. I hurried to catch up. What the hell does he think he understands? I didn’t say anything!

The corridor sloped downward and gradually grew taller. At the turns, ornate beams and murals became more frequent. Eventually, it widened enough for the three of us to stand upright. We switched from crawling to walking, which sped things up and gave me a chance to stretch my stiff limbs.

“Hey,” He Yu said, “do you think that cave earlier might’ve been dug by the person who died there? Maybe they were trying to escape the bug?”

I’d thought of that too, but something about it didn’t sit right. There were just too many identical tunnels. From what Lu A’yao said, some even connected to the surface. If someone was digging for survival, they wouldn’t have ended up like that corpse—so pitiful and alone. Which meant these tunnels had another purpose. I just hadn’t figured out what yet.

Also, the corpse’s clothing didn’t look like that of a tomb raider. Things happened too fast earlier for me to get a good look.

Lu A’yao swept his flashlight around and moved closer to a wall. “Those tunnels are all near the surface. They don’t go deep enough to reach the core of the tomb. Most of them connect to areas where those bugs roam.”

He Yu looked at the wall too. I pulled out my spare flashlight and saw it was covered in murals. Ancient murals are usually abstract, and I’ve never had formal training—I couldn’t even read the characters. At best, I could count how many little people were in each scene.

Lu A’yao naturally stepped aside to let He Yu take a closer look, standing next to me. Clearly, he didn’t understand them either. I felt a strange, inexplicable sense of satisfaction. So what if he’s from the Lu family? He’s just as clueless as me.

He Yu gave the mural a once-over and said, “Let’s keep going. This is just a small section. There should be more ahead.”

He walked forward, and Lu A’yao and I followed. Sure enough, ten meters ahead, past a few stone bricks, we found a second mural. This one wasn’t as well-preserved—the lower half had flaked off.

After He Yu finished examining it, we moved on. The corridor stretched long and deep, with a mural every few bricks. We walked for ages without seeing any sign of a tomb chamber. At this point, it felt less like a passage and more like an art gallery.

After the ninth mural, the walls went bare.

He Yu stood in front of the ninth mural for a long time. Neither of us rushed him. I knew well that interpreting murals wasn’t easy. The thinking of ancient people was vastly different from ours. To truly understand a mural, you needed years of study and a vivid imagination.

After ten minutes, He Yu finally turned back, frowning. “These murals are actually pretty straightforward.”

He jogged back to the first one and pointed. “Because of a tyrant’s rule, the people suffered terribly.”

Then he walked toward us, pointing to each mural as he passed. “A high priest emerged from among the people, leading them in prayer to the heavens, hoping for a miracle. Then a giant dragon descended to the mortal realm and slew the tyrant. The people all knelt in worship to the dragon and the priest.”

He stopped in front of us. “It’s clearly a religious narrative. But there’s one part I don’t understand.”

I asked what it was.

He pointed to one of the murals. “Everyone praying is upright—but the dragon and the priest are upside down.”