Chapter 170: Parting Ways

I was completely baffled by his words. I looked up at the column-head bracket sets in the Spirit Path. These architectural elements weren’t commonly used in tomb passages; they were more typical of palaces. The designer had likely incorporated them into the Spirit Path to provide a robust structural barrier, offering significant support.

However, I soon realized that I had never seen this particular style of bracket set before. Every joint and connection was unusual, and the design was far more complex than standard forms. Without dismantling them entirely, it would be impossible to understand their inner workings just by looking at the exterior.

“Is this the same style used in your ancestral hall?” I asked, scratching my head while holding my flashlight.

Lu Ayao looked up with me. “From a distance, it looks very similar. But I haven’t studied this field much, and I only entered the ancestral hall once when I was a child. My memory might be flawed.”

I paced around a corner bracket set. I was the only one among us with any knowledge of mortise and tenon joinery. I wanted to see the whole structure; most mortise and tenon principles are roughly the same, and with my experience, I could usually figure them out after a quick look.

But after two laps, I found myself incredibly frustrated. These things were positioned in a very tricky way, as if they were intentionally designed to be incomprehensible. Either a section was blocked, or it was embedded deep into a wall crevice. Every gap was sealed tight, making it impossible to see the interlocking structure inside.

“Do you know if your Lu Clan has any master craftsmen capable of this? Your family didn’t happen to help build this tomb complex, did they?” I tilted my head to look at Lu Ayao.

He stood in silence, offering no reply.

A moment later, He Yu and Tian Xiaoqi arrived with their gear. When we explained the situation with the stone walls, we were met with even more silence.

I decided to stop overthinking it. I took the oxygen tank from He Yu and strapped it onto my back. After the experiences of the past six months, I had learned a lesson: some problems can’t be solved by brooding. When you’re completely stuck, the best thing to do is keep moving.

“Let’s explore further,” I said. “Maybe once we get deeper, the answers will reveal themselves.”

No one objected. We set off together along the Spirit Path. After passing through the mess of broken masonry, the path leveled out. Soon after, we felt a slight chill in the air.

A massive hole had been excavated into the wall at the end of the Spirit Path. In the pitch-black tomb, it looked like a dark void capable of swallowing everything. Lu Ayao went in first to scout, followed by Tian Xiaoqi, then me, with He Yu bringing up the rear.

We squeezed into the hole together. The tunnel was low, forcing us to hunch our backs and keep our heads down to move. It was an uncomfortable posture, but fortunately, Lu Ayao stopped after less than ten meters. It seemed the tunnel had reached its end.

Right after that, I heard Tian Xiaoqi let out a gasp. Being at the back, I couldn’t see clearly and had no idea what the two of them had seen.

Lu Ayao swept his flashlight around outside for a moment, then waved us forward, stepping aside to let me and He Yu through. My curiosity was practically bursting by now, so I scrambled up first, using my hands and knees to pull myself forward and stick my head out to look.

As the flashlight beam cut through the dark, the first thing I saw was a cavernous opening like a cliffside fissure. Below the opening was a void, roughly twenty meters across to the opposite side. It seemed that during construction, the hull and the rock had cracked, splitting from the top of the tomb all the way to the bottom to create this bottomless chasm. Then, I saw what was carved into the stone wall opposite us.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of relief sculptures. Immortals with turtle features and human bodies emerged from the stone, riding upon a massive celestial ship, playing music, singing, and bestowing blessings. Beneath the celestial ship were carved enormous swirling clouds. The flashlight beam wasn’t strong enough to reach the end of the ship, but the carvings right in front of us were incredibly lifelike. The entire relief was breathtaking; calling it a grand panorama of celestial beings wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all.

I was stunned into silence. Even He Yu, who was usually so well-traveled, started to stammer: “H-how big must this tomb be to pull off a relief on such a massive scale?!”

I wanted to lean out and shine the light to both sides. Seeing this, Lu Ayao grabbed one of my arms to give me a steady anchor point. He Yu handed me his flashlight, and he and Tian Xiaoqi moved back to give me more room.

With one flashlight between my teeth and another in my hand, I leaned halfway out of the hole, squinting at the sight on either side. What I saw left me speechless. The entire fissure had been designed to resemble a colossal ship!

Furthermore, the designer had fashioned the upward-sloping part of the fissure into the ship’s prow. Both sides of the chasm were covered in long stretches of relief carvings depicting various turtle-featured immortals. The prow was relatively close to us; the hole we had crawled out of was actually a large opening created by hacking off the head of one of the carved immortals.

Given the sheer size of this sculpted ship and the depth of the fissure, it suggested the tomb likely contained multiple levels of Spirit Paths and burial chambers. Such a massive scale of funerary arrangements undoubtedly exceeded the established norms of any known dynasty.

Looking further down, not far from our makeshift exit, I saw a chain walkway hugging the reliefs. The walkway traversed the carved clouds; it was so subtle that one wouldn’t notice it without looking carefully.

I quickly signaled for Lu Ayao to pull me back, then recounted what I had seen outside. He Yu immediately voiced the exact same thought I had. “There must be many levels beneath our feet then. We don’t even know which floor we’re on. You don’t think we’ve accidentally wandered into the eighteen levels of hell^[1], do you?”

I gave him a kick. “Don’t start with the horror stories. The structure here is different from anything we’ve encountered, but no matter how bizarre it is, it’s still just a tomb for burying the dead. At most, the designer had some unique ideas and liked to innovate. Burying deep and stacking high, it houses the dead while saving space. Why wouldn’t they do it?”

“Oh! Listen to you go before I’ve even said a word. Come on then, you’re the only one here who’s studied this stuff. Tell us the logic behind what’s out there.” He Yu stared at me with an amused expression, waiting to see me make a fool of myself.

I wasn’t worried about being put on the spot. When it comes to tombs, who can say for sure that their theory is the absolute truth? Even the most famous archaeologists wouldn’t dare claim that. Besides, we were still in the initial speculation stage. I could say whatever I wanted and spin any theory I liked, as long as it sounded reasonable.

“Did you notice the Tomb-guarding Beast earlier?” I asked. “Only its head was stone, while its body was assembled from those Ship-Burial Coffins. Couldn’t we apply the same logic here? Think of the Spirit Path we’re in as a series of Ship-Burial Coffins. They aren’t connected vertically, which makes it look exactly like a collection of individual ship coffins pieced together.”

He Yu pondered this for a moment. Unable to find a good counterargument, he said, “Fine, I’ll give you that one. What’s next? How do we find a way out?”

Tian Xiaoqi spoke up. “If we can find an air passage, we might be able to follow it out.”

I was still thinking when I suddenly heard a sharp clatter behind me. Without a word, Lu Ayao had already begun climbing down the reliefs toward the plank walkway below. He hadn’t given us any warning, startling the three of us who were still discussing strategy. I was especially shaken; being closest to him, I thought for a second he had lost his footing and fallen.

“Old Lu! You’re going the wrong way! We need to get out, not go further down!” He Yu shouted.

Lu Ayao’s flashlight beam wavered. He shifted his grip, hanging from the arm of a turtle-faced immortal statue, then leaped lightly onto the plank walkway. The iron chains collided with a series of crisp, metallic clangs.

He didn’t turn around, only saying, “Lu Xiaosu is here. I’m going down alone to look for clues. You guys find a way back up first!”

I had no idea how he’d concluded so quickly that Lu Xiaosu was down there. It sounded completely unreliable to me. Lu Xiaosu had been missing for years; how could she possibly be in a place like this?

Watching Lu Ayao’s receding back, I pressed my hand against the cold stone wall, my heart racing with anxiety. I watched him stride along that ancient walkway, his flashlight beam already fading into the distance. I quickly shouted after him, “You can’t go alone! Come back up first, and we’ll figure something out together!”

No one replied. The light from his flashlight vanished soon after. I wasn’t sure if Lu Ayao had intentionally chosen a path that kept him out of our sight, but from my current vantage point, I could no longer see anything below.

“What do we do now? Should we listen to him and go up?” He Yu was clearly at a loss.

“What kind of crap is that?” I snapped. “We follow him down, of course! We came down together, we go back together. It’s dangerous down there. He thinks he can just walk off like that? What would it say about us if we just went up on our own!”

Fuming, I cursed under my breath. I tightened the straps of my backpack and grabbed onto the stone belt of the nearest immortal statue. Using the reliefs as footholds, I began to climb down slowly. Tian Xiaoqi, caught between us, looked at me and then at He Yu.

He Yu was clearly unhappy with my attitude. I could tell that, deep down, he just wanted to get out as fast as possible. Standing at the cave entrance, he began to swear loudly. “The poison in you hasn’t even been neutralized yet! Are you people fucking suicidal? I’ve had enough! Are you both insane? I don’t care anymore! I’m going back! You two can go die for all I care, I’m done!”

I looked up, intending to shout back at him, but I saw him turn and walk back into the tunnel. My heart sank, followed immediately by a surge of pure rage. Fine, let him go. I’d go down alone if I had to. If we were going to part ways, then so be it. At this rate, the group was bound to break up sooner or later anyway!

As I climbed down, I felt small pebbles falling from above. I looked up to see Tian Xiaoqi following me. Her movements were more agile and graceful than mine, and she soon caught up to my level.

I timed my move and let go, landing on the plank walkway. Tian Xiaoqi dropped down right after me. I stepped forward to steady her and asked, “Why did you follow me down? Aren’t you going back up?”

She hesitated for a moment before saying, “Well… I thought about it, and I decided I’d rather come down with you. What did he say just now? That Lu Xiaosu is down here? How does he know that?”

I shook my head. Tian Xiaoqi must have caught that key detail in Lu Ayao’s words, which was why she had followed me down so recklessly. I felt a sudden wave of self-pity. We had come all this way together, yet any little thing could send us our separate ways. It seemed Bai Shenxian’s earlier words hadn’t been without merit after all.

We were moving too slowly, and the walkway was completely empty. Lu Ayao clearly had no intention of waiting for us. At his speed, we likely wouldn’t be able to catch up, but going back up meant leaving him down here all by himself, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

I did my best to rein in my emotions, turned on my flashlight, and looked in both directions. Because of Lu Ayao’s awkward position earlier, I hadn’t really believed he would just up and leave, so I hadn’t paid attention to which way he had gone. Looking at the empty walkway now, I was stuck, unable to decide.

“How about we play ‘pick the little rooster^[2]‘?” Tian Xiaoqi suggested.

I sighed, thinking to myself, Have I really sunk to the point where I need to pick the little rooster just to decide which way to walk?

Then I nodded. Tian Xiaoqi began reciting the childhood game rhyme for “pick the little rooster,” and it landed on the right. Without any argument, the two of us shone our flashlights toward the right and started along the walkway.

The walkway consisted of sections connected by iron chains, making it wobble heavily underfoot. The two of us walked one behind the other, unsteady on our feet. As we went, my heart began to sink.

Walking on the walkway caused it to sway, yet when we first landed, it had been practically still, barely moving at all. That indirectly proved Lu Ayao was already far ahead of us. If he picked up his speed even a little more, we would never catch him in this lifetime.

Lu Ayao was moving in such a hurry because, logically, he must have found a clue, one that pointed directly to Lu Xiaosu’s disappearance. That was why he had jumped onto the walkway so decisively, and he had likely spotted that clue the first time he went out to check.

And when he called me over to look at the wall later, he was probably probing for my thoughts on the tomb, or perhaps using my input to evaluate its level of danger. But his final choice to go down alone… did that mean the danger here was already far beyond my capabilities?

The more I thought about it, the more terrified I became. The hands I used to grip the iron chains trembled slightly. I did my best to stop my mind from spiraling and forced myself to focus on the walkway ahead.