Chapter 26: Bug Hunt

The two of us huddled together and drank a little water. Worried that the Coffin and Outer Coffin behind us might have been pried open by those bugs, we crawled forward for another half an hour. The tunnel was narrow—whoever carved these passages must have been unusually short. I kept banging my head or scraping my back, making every inch of progress a struggle.

The tunnel twisted and turned. Though there were no sheer drops or vertical climbs, a few steep slopes angled at nearly sixty degrees had me gasping for breath. The unchanging scenery ahead blurred my vision and nearly made me faint.

After crawling for so long, my spine was locked in a constant hunch, and my knees were rubbed raw by the jagged rocks. My back ached, my legs throbbed, and my neck felt like it was about to snap. Until now, I’d never realized that crawling through tunnels was a skill in itself.

I gritted my teeth and followed He Yu for over an hour. Finally, the tunnel widened by about a hand’s breadth. I slumped against the wall and waved him off. “I can’t go any farther. Need a break.”

He Yu didn’t say anything but stopped with me. His forehead was dripping with sweat. The sudden burst of physical exertion had left me lightheaded. We dumped all the food and water from our backpacks onto the ground—just three packs of compressed biscuits and two and a half bottles of mineral water.

“If that passage up ahead isn’t the tomb corridor you guessed, then we’re stuck wandering in circles down here. If we don’t die of thirst, we’ll starve instead,” He Yu said as he split the supplies between our two backpacks. He handed me the one with the Jade Casket inside.

I took the pack and leaned against the stone wall. Exhaustion washed over me like a tide. He Yu said a few more things, but I was too far gone to catch any of it. My head lolled to the side, and I passed out completely.

It was a restless sleep. I dreamed I was in a palace of gold and jade, its walls adorned with murals of people worshiping a thousand-legged insect that had flown out of the sun.

In my hands was the Nine-Ring Jade Casket, already open. Countless centipede-like creatures were crawling out of it. My hands trembled, and the casket slipped to the floor. I jolted awake, drenched in sweat. He Yu was sitting across from me, smoking one cigarette after another.

“Want one?” He offered me a cigarette. When I started to refuse, he added, “It helps calm the nerves. Places like this are a breeding ground for nightmares.”

I didn’t usually smoke, but I let him light one for me anyway. I took a deep drag, and only then did my racing heart begin to settle. By the time I finished the cigarette, He Yu was already strapping his pack back on.

He gave a faint smile. “Rested enough? If you are, we need to keep moving. We can’t stay here too long. We’ve already been stopped for three hours. In my experience, staying in tight spaces like this for too long can cause hallucinations. I think we’re close to that corridor.”

I nodded, flicked away the cigarette butt, and moved aside to let He Yu go first.

But he shook his head. “I’ll stay behind you. That way, if something happens, I can back you up. If I’m in front and something goes wrong with you in the back, I won’t be able to reach you in time in a tunnel this narrow.”

He had a point. He Yu was definitely more experienced underground than I was. If he was behind me, he could at least fight off a monster. If I were in the rear, I’d just be monster food. So I adjusted my posture and started crawling forward.

I twisted the beam of my flashlight to its narrowest setting, clenched it between my teeth, and felt my way along the tunnel walls. After about twenty minutes, the space ahead suddenly opened up. A new fork in the tunnel came into view, and I scrambled toward it as fast as I could.

The moment I saw it, I knew—we’d found the corridor leading to the Tomb Chamber. The structure was like a crossroads. Our tunnel had been excavated straight through the corridor, forming a right angle with the original passage.

Now that we’d found the corridor, the Tomb Chamber couldn’t be far. If Tian Yuqing had taken the official route, we were bound to meet her in the chamber.

“He Yu, I think we’re saved!” I turned my head—and froze.

Behind me, it was pitch black. What the hell? Where was he!?

I was sure He Yu had been right behind me just ten minutes ago. The ropes on his gear had been rhythmically tapping my legs the whole way.

Panicked, I crawled back, sweeping my flashlight around. Had a monster taken him? But no—if a monster had grabbed him, he would’ve screamed, right? He couldn’t have just vanished without a sound.

I crawled back over ten meters and still didn’t see a trace of him. The tunnel was small, with only one path—no forks, no side passages. How could a full-grown man just disappear?

Suddenly, a metallic clinking echoed through the tunnel, like a zipper brushing against stone. My first thought was that He Yu had found something and was knocking on the wall to call me over. But why wouldn’t he just say something?

“He Yu?” I called out, instinctively moving toward the sound. No reply, but the clinking grew louder and faster, echoing from deeper inside the tunnel.

Was it really He Yu? Maybe he was in trouble and couldn’t speak, just knocking to get my attention. The thought made my heart race. I raised my flashlight and scrambled toward the sound.

Just as I was about to reach the source, something grabbed my right arm in a death grip. My flashlight slipped from my mouth and hit the ground with a dull thud, going out instantly. In that moment, it felt like two powerful forces yanked me—pack and all—into a crack in the tunnel wall.

What the hell?! The rock’s alive!?

I shut my eyes and kicked and flailed wildly. Then I heard He Yu’s voice, right by my ear. “It’s us! Keep quiet!”

I froze and snapped my eyes open. He and Lu A’yao were wedged into the narrow crevice, one in front of the other, in a position that looked almost impossible. The tunnel I’d just crawled through lay outside the crack. They had pulled me in and shoved me to the very back.

I saw the knives clenched in their hands and immediately understood. I covered my mouth and stayed perfectly still. The air went dead silent.

Then, the clinking sound suddenly amplified, echoing through the tunnel like it was right in front of my face.

Outside, a dark mass moved past. Before I could make out what it was, Lu A’yao’s hand shot out, knife in hand, and stabbed something.

The clinking stopped instantly, replaced by a shrill, piercing wail—like a baby screaming.

In the next second, Lu A’yao was yanked out of the crevice.