Chapter 35: The Suspended Woman

We continued climbing upward. After another twenty meters, I could just make out the dome of the Side Chamber from my position. I clenched the flashlight between my teeth and swept the beam upward—what I saw made my heart jolt.

A corpse was hanging in midair, swaying in the breeze. And it seemed the higher we went, the more of them there were. That was definitely not a good sign. I stopped climbing. He Yu saw it too and halted beside me.

Lu A’yao swept his flashlight upward and said without turning his head, “You two wait here. The corpses above are in all kinds of conditions—high risk of reanimation. I’ll go first. If anything happens, get down fast.”

“Reanimation?” I turned to He Yu, shocked.

He Yu shot me a look. “Why are you staring at me? Since we got here, you’ve already seen a centipede the size of a train engine. This shouldn’t be that surprising anymore, right?”

He had a point. If it weren’t for He Yu and Lu A’yao watching my back the whole way, I’d probably be dangling from some corner of this place just like those corpses. I looked back at Lu A’yao—he was already ten meters ahead.

Being alone in a place this dark and oppressive messes with your mind. I knew all too well how terrifying a person’s imagination could be. So when Lu A’yao volunteered to scout ahead alone, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. If something happened to him, I’d probably carry the guilt for the rest of my life.

“You’re really something, you know that?” He Yu climbed up to my section of the chain and lay flat beside me, his voice low as he chided me. “Worrying about things that aren’t your business. The guy’s ten times more professional than you. Quit overthinking. All you need to focus on is how we’re gonna run if shit hits the fan. Ever heard of Plan B?”

His words distracted me a little. I looked around again but couldn’t come up with anything. I’d been feeling my way along the climb, and the tomb walls were solid stone. That meant if anything went wrong, we’d have no way out in the short term.

I looked up to see Lu A’yao carefully maneuvering through the hanging corpses. From where I was, I could just barely make out the beam of his flashlight. Not long after, he shone it toward us—he’d reached the top.

“There’s something up here I think you two should see,” Lu A’yao called down.

He Yu gave me a boost and said, “You go first. I’ll follow. Just don’t kick me off the chain, yeah?”

I’d never seen a reanimated corpse before. Or maybe I had, but in my mind, corpses were far less terrifying than bugs. I’d discovered that about myself by accident. Still, most people would be more afraid of the dead, wouldn’t they?

I grabbed the chain and started climbing. The last stretch wasn’t long—maybe thirty meters—but I moved extremely slowly. The hanging corpses varied in their states of decay. Some were like the paper-thin ones I’d seen earlier, while others were still damp and not fully decomposed.

Many tombs used poison on burial corpses to deter grave robbers. Even after all these years, who knew if the toxins had dissipated? So I was extra cautious, angling my body to avoid touching any of them.

He Yu was far behind me, deliberately keeping his distance. From the start, the three of us had spaced ourselves out while climbing the chain. That way, if anything went wrong, we wouldn’t all get caught in the chaos.

I raised my flashlight and caught something in the corner of my eye—a very fresh corpse, just two arm lengths away. The clothing was too stained to tell its original color. Its eyes were two pitch-black hollows, and the face was twisted in a grotesque expression. I saw that Japanese brand again—it was wearing the same style of clothing as the one I’d seen earlier.

Their outfits matched eerily well. Could they have been part of another team that came in before us?

Before I could think more about it, Lu A’yao reached down from the corbel arch and offered me his hand. I grabbed it and climbed up the last eave of the pillar. As soon as I got up, he gestured for me to look overhead.

I squinted and looked up. About three meters above us hung a female corpse—and the sight made my heart sink. Unlike the others, she was suspended upright in midair.

It was rare to see anything properly positioned in this tomb. I leaned on Lu A’yao and stood up, shining my flashlight for a closer look.

The woman’s body was wrapped in layer upon layer of burial robes. Her face was hidden in shadow. Her headpiece and neck ornaments were intricate. A red cord descended from the dome above, tightly binding her body. The way she was tied was crude, as if she were nothing more than an object to be discarded. The result was that the entire corpse hung there like a cocooned silkworm, eerily still.

I took out the jade disc and asked Lu A’yao, “You think she might be the owner of this?”

Lu A’yao barely glanced at the jade before saying, “Probably not. From the murals earlier, we can tell the tomb’s builders favored upside-down burials. This woman, though adorned in gold and silver, is bound upright and hung from the dome. The dome is sealed, and the ground is quicksand—no way up or down. In feng shui, this kind of burial is inauspicious, a sign of great misfortune. Even the worst criminals wouldn’t be treated like this. And that jade you’re holding—it’s carved with a Luan bird and has rare blood veining, something you don’t see in a thousand years. It doesn’t match her situation at all.”

I quietly put the jade disc away and studied Lu A’yao’s expression. What he said sounded logical, but it was all based on his own speculation. I’d dealt with people who studied feng shui and the I Ching before—the more skilled they were, the more cautious and precise their words. As the sole heir of the Lu family’s orthodox lineage, Lu A’yao had inherited that trait. But when it came to this jade, his conclusion was unusually firm and decisive.

I held the jade in my palm, slowly rubbing it. It was just a burial item—where it came from or how it got here was ultimately just someone’s story. But Lu A’yao’s tone made me suspicious.

“There really are a lot of treasures in this world,” I said with a smile, testing the waters. “Since that’s the case, I have a question about this jade.”

Lu A’yao, crouched on the corbel arch, turned to look at me.

“How do you know it’s one of a kind? Have you seen it before? Is that why you’re so sure?” I smiled. “Traditionally, jade discs like this come in pairs. If there’s only one Luan bird carved on it, doesn’t that fulfill the old saying—‘sorrow before the mirror’? Isn’t that what you guys call… inauspicious?”

Lu A’yao didn’t show much emotion. He didn’t answer—just turned back to look at He Yu’s flashlight in the distance. That told me I’d guessed at least half right.

I’d guessed right, but I wasn’t happy about it. It was just a damn burial item, and this guy was being all secretive? Even if he’d seen it before, why couldn’t he just say so? We might not be best friends, but we’d come this far together—fought through swarms of bugs, crawled through pits of corpses. He’d lied to both me and He Yu—for what, a piece of jade?

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. And since he wasn’t talking, I had nowhere to vent.

He Yu still hadn’t come up. I was getting impatient and shouted down, “He Yu! You planning to build a nest down there? Are you climbing the chain or polishing it? Been a year and you’re still not up!”

Just as I finished yelling, I saw He Yu’s flashlight blink rapidly a few times. It took me a moment to realize—it was a signal: three long, two short.

The moment he finished, he turned the flashlight off.

My heart dropped.

Something had gone wrong.