Chapter 166: Layers of Illusion

But this time, the situation was different from before. My consciousness only wavered for a fleeting moment before I snapped back to clarity. My flashlight lay beside me, and I was lying alone on a large rock, half-submerged in water. Looking up, I could see the giant turtle poking its head out from the caisson ceiling.

This was the side chamber where Bai Shenxian had dived and left from at the very beginning.

It felt incredibly real. I could even smell the saltiness of the seawater. Subconsciously, I began to roll up my sleeves, pushing them all the way to my elbows. I immediately discovered that there wasn’t a single scar on my body. It seemed that seeing Tian Xiaoqi earlier had just been a thrilling, terrifying dream.

I picked up the flashlight from the water and stood up. The sensation was so authentic that I felt momentarily dazed, unable to distinguish what was reality. Once again, I shone the light on the pile of funerary objects, knelt down, and moved the porcelain vase whose base was embedded in the ground.

As before, after a half-turn, the stairs reappeared in front of me. I paused for a second, then headed down the stairs with my flashlight. Just like my first time entering, after five or six steps, the stone wall behind me automatically sealed shut.

However, I didn’t intend to go back and pry at the door this time. Instead, I continued forward, turning into the corridor. Everything was still shrouded in silence. Following my memory, I accurately opened a door. Once inside, I reached for the pillowcase, but when my hand felt inside, there was nothing there.

My heart sank. Suddenly, I heard the sound of people running back and forth in the corridor outside. I followed the noise to the door to look. At some point, the corridor had become brightly lit. A second later, I saw a team of New China intellectuals dressed in military green walking past me.

I hurried to catch up, feeling that the back of the leader looked familiar. I chased after them, desperately trying to get a clear look at the person at the front. Yet, no matter how hard I pushed forward, I couldn’t get through. It wasn’t until I heard someone behind me call out “Master Gan” that I stopped in my tracks.

The man at the front, who was being pulled aside to look at documents, turned his head. The moment I saw him, the world began to spin.

This young man was my grandfather. I clearly saw his epaulettes and a chest badge pinned to his clothes with “434” written on it. The person behind me who had called him “Master” brushed past me, and I was astonished to see that his badge clearly bore the surname “Tian”.

By the time I reacted, my grandfather and the others had already turned the corner at the end of the hall. I swallowed hard and followed quickly. Opening the door, my grandfather waved at me, signaling for me to close it immediately. This place was like a laboratory, quite large in area. Those old experimental instruments were now discarded in the utility room next door, replaced by small cranes and various ropes.

I walked over to my grandfather’s side. I watched as he put on his glasses and then his gloves. I followed his gaze and saw a Giant Golden Silk Phoebe Coffin placed right in the center of the laboratory.

Why call it a giant coffin? Because this outer coffin was two sizes larger than any I had ever seen before. Looking at the layers of coffin boards inside, there had to be at least four layers. The top three layers and the heaviest outer lid had already been cleared away, and the funerary objects from those layers were gone. What they were about to open now should be the final layer—the one containing the body of the tomb owner.

I could see that the expressions of the archaeologists around me were very tense. They all held their breath, watching the young men who were separating the coffin lid from the body. After waiting for an hour, the final layer of black coffin board was finally separated. They lifted the entire board and set it aside.

Everyone instinctively crowded around, including me. At a glance, we were all horrified. The coffin was filled almost to the brim with coffin liquid. Having liquid in a coffin wasn’t unusual; what amazed these team members was its color. From bottom to top, the liquid revealed a blood-red hue.

How to describe it? The liquid wasn’t murky; it was a clear, pure red without any impurities. Leaning over, you could even glimpse the corpse lying flat, submerged in the fluid. There wasn’t the slightest scent of decay. Instead, my nose began to catch a faint, ethereal fragrance, though I couldn’t tell if it was emanating from the coffin liquid.

The scent was addictive. I took a few more breaths. Just then, I heard my grandfather suddenly clap his hands, his expression turning quite grim. “This is bad! There’s something wrong with this scent. Everyone, evacuate the site immediately! Fast!”

I immediately retreated a dozen steps, but the people who had been standing beside me didn’t move an inch. I turned back to look at them and was shocked to see them suddenly and frantically diving into the liquid in that coffin. Some people tried to pull them back, but they pushed the rescuers away as if possessed. The scene instantly fell into chaos. Those trying to help fell into the liquid and began to go mad as well.

“Ascension! Ascension! Drink the liquid and you can achieve Ascension to Immortality!” I heard one person, who was desperately cupping the liquid to drink, suddenly scream like a madman.

For a moment, I couldn’t hear the sounds around me. As if possessed, I walked to the side of that Giant Golden Silk Phoebe Coffin. Upon touching it, I realized the coffin was coated in a layer of gold dust, and the wood of the inner walls was actually inlaid with jade.

The liquid in the coffin was now half gone. My gaze drifted unconsciously to the corpse inside. Through layers of sari-like silk, I saw a wooden plaque hanging at the corpse’s waist. That strange character was still carved upon it. In that instant, a flash of inspiration hit me, and a word suddenly jumped into my mind.

Ji. This character was the seal script for “Ji”.

I immediately looked at the corpse’s neck. A strangulation mark was clearly imprinted there, already turned dark and bruised. This corpse was the exact same one I had seen inside the Tomb-guarding Beast!

In an instant, all sorts of complex information flooded my mind: the stories Lu Ayao had told me, the tales of the outsider returning from the dead, and the eerie geomancer recorded in the Lu Clan’s ancient books.

Master Jiyun? This was very likely Master Jiyun’s coffin. But if this body really was Master Jiyun himself, why did I see him hanging from a stone platform inside the Tomb-guarding Beast earlier?

I clutched my head, my brain feeling like it was about to explode. It didn’t make sense. Wasn’t the seabed related to the Gune Kingdom? Why would Master Jiyun’s coffin be here? Whose tomb was this, anyway? And where had this coffin been excavated from?

Was everything I was seeing really just an illusion?

Or was it that someone had always wanted me to discover something—and specifically, wanted only me to discover it?

A mouthful of water choked my throat. I came splashing out of the water, coughing. I wiped my face and looked up to see that caisson turtle flicking its tongue at me again. Panic instantly set in. I scrambled back onto the shore and found myself back in the side chamber from before, still half-lying on that large rock.

This was truly sinister.

Another illusion.

I didn’t want to trigger the mechanism again and enter that building for a third time, so I began to search for another way out. I felt around the four corners and found that besides the one porcelain vase that could turn, the others were indeed just ordinary vases.

At this moment, I was like the villagers in the legends, trapped in the “Outsider’s Loop.” Staying here was definitely not an option. Thus, I was forced to activate the mechanism once more. I walked down the stairs, the stone wall closed, and I turned into the building’s corridor again.

This time, as soon as I entered, the lights in the corridor all flickered on. I could even smell the fresh paint on the walls. Archaeologists moved back and forth like a revolving lantern, and the air was filled with the noisy din of their conversations. But I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. I stood in the middle of the corridor, a picture of total displacement.

My ears felt like they were about to burst. I covered them and crouched down, a voice constantly echoing in my heart: What do you want? What do you really want? What on earth do you want from me?!

I snapped my eyes open. It had to be that corpse’s doing! I’d seen him in both hallucinations; he was definitely the one behind this!

A surge of temper flared within me, and in an instant, all my composure and logic were tossed to the winds. What I feared most was this cycle of hallucinations repeating endlessly. How many more times would I have to endure this? How much longer until I could return to reality? I refused to be trapped in an illusion for the rest of my life.

I kicked open the door to a room labeled “Tool Room” and grabbed a saw off the wall at random. After weighing it in my hand for a moment, I hauled it toward the last room at the end of the corridor.

The door there was wide open now. Clearly, the “plot” had progressed past the opening of the coffin, and most of the preservation fluid had been drained.

I pushed through the frenzied crowd and rushed to the Phoebe zhennan wood coffin. I raised the saw high, preparing to hack down at that millennia-old, uncorrupted body, when I heard someone calling my name from outside. My movements froze mid-air.

“Gan Ji! Gan Ji!”

I listened for a moment as the voice grew clearer. It was He Yu!

I was nearly moved to tears of joy. I dropped the saw immediately and ran out the door, sobbing as I bolted toward the source of the voice. “He Yu! I’m here! Don’t leave without me, take me with you! Wait for me, wait for me!”

When I truly woke up, He Yu was feeding me water, his arm tucked under my head to serve as a pillow. Seeing that I was regaining consciousness, he called out to the others before grinning at me. “What are you mumbling about? We’re all right here. Besides, wherever we go, we’d have to wait for you.”

I opened my eyes and stared at him, dazed. The surroundings were completely unfamiliar. At He Yu’s call, Lu Ayao, who had been tending a fire nearby, walked over quickly and crouched down to check on me.

“Is this still a hallucination?” I asked them blankly.

Hearing this, He Yu and Lu Ayao exchanged a look. He Yu asked him, “Old Lu, you didn’t mention this poison had side effects. Look at the kid, he’s gone soft in the head.”

“What hallucination? You had another one?” He Yu turned back to ask me.

I realized instantly that this wasn’t an illusion. They had come to save me! All the grievances bottled up inside me exploded at once. I threw my arms around both of them, sat up, and began to wail.

“I’m not dead! I’m not dead! You came to save me, thank God! I thought I was going to die in this hellhole and never get out!” I howled and sobbed until my throat went hoarse.

Lu Ayao, whose neck was being squeezed by my grip, gave my arm a gentle pat. I let go, and He Yu rubbed my back firmly. “Alright, alright, stop crying. We’re here now. Listen, you just got the toxin out of your system, don’t get so worked up.”

I finally started to come to my senses and calmed down after a while. “Right, where’s Tian Xiaoqi? I was in the hole with her before I passed out.”

He Yu pointed toward a corner of the Side Chamber. I looked over and saw Tian Xiaoqi leaning against the wall, fast asleep. He said, “Well, I misjudged her before. I’ll admit, she’s actually pretty reliable in her own way. She dragged you out of that hole and gave you two days’ worth of food while she only ate one day’s worth of crackers. By the time we found you, she was nearly fainting from hunger.”

As I watched, Lu Ayao took out his thermal blanket and covered Tian Xiaoqi with it. Then he sat back down by the fire, staring into the flames and occasionally poking them with a branch.

He Yu continued, “Old Lu says the poison you were hit with is different from ours. The antidote Bai Shenxian gave us can only suppress it at best. To get rid of it completely, we’ll have to find a way once we’re out.”

“Don’t worry, your Fourth Brother is fine now, though his recovery is a bit slow. We were desperate to save you, so we came down first. But the situation inside the Tomb-guarding Beast had changed. The two of us were running around like idiots for ages without finding you. Instead, we ran into Liang Si and his bunch of bastards. They were begging and pleading for us to lead them out, so we had no choice but to tie them all up and send them to the surface.”

I lifted my hand to look at my wounds. They had stopped bleeding and were meticulously bandaged. This didn’t look like He Yu’s handiwork.

“We were delayed too long. By the time we got back down, it was already the second day. Old Lu didn’t even ask me before he started planting explosives. I’m not sure exactly where he blew or how much he used, but half the Tomb-guarding Beast is gone now. The bastard nearly took me out with it, but it’s a good thing he blew it up. Otherwise, you’d definitely be a goner this time,” he said.