Chapter 64: A Wall Full of Corpses

“Holy shit! What the hell is that?!” I screamed, scared out of my wits. My body instinctively leaned backward, and if Yu Jingzi hadn’t anticipated it and caught me from behind, I would’ve gone tumbling headfirst.

A bloodshot eyeball jutted out from the stone wall, staring at me from who knows how long behind the rock. I wanted nothing more than to get as far away from that thing as possible. At that moment, I didn’t care about any sense of propriety between men and women. I grabbed Yu Jingzi’s arm and practically dove behind her.

“You little punk! We’re just getting started, calm down!” Yu Jingzi smacked me hard on the back. “These corpses didn’t just show up because of you. They’ve been in the wall this whole time. We’ve been walking past them all along. So what are you freaking out about now?”

Damn it! I would’ve been better off not knowing. As soon as she said that, my stomach churned with nausea. It had been so dark earlier that I’d stumbled along with my eyes half-closed, barely able to see anything. I had no idea there were corpses embedded in the wall!

Thinking back, I’d even leaned against the wall to rest when I got tired. The moment that thought hit me, I felt a chill run across my forehead. Had I been face-to-face with one of those corpses?

I clung tightly to Yu Jingzi’s arm, refusing to let go. After a long moment, I finally dared to squint one eye open and peek at the eyeball protruding from the crack in the stone.

The corpse was completely embedded in the wall, with only a single cloudy eyeball exposed. Bugs occasionally crawled across it. Once I confirmed it wasn’t actually watching me, I finally opened both eyes.

“There’s a corpse in the wall… why the hell is there a corpse in the wall?” I asked, my voice still trembling.

Yu Jingzi shook her head. “They’ve been here since we came down. No idea if they crawled in themselves or were stuffed in as part of some ritual. These cracks are packed with mummified corpses. Whatever’s going on here, they’re probably the cause.”

She pulled me aside, raised her peachwood whistle, and blew twice toward the back of the group. Another flare shot into the air, lighting up the area. Two team members quickly moved to the spot I’d just been standing. They carried pickaxes, took a few quick measurements, and began digging.

“What are they doing?” I asked, watching their movements.

Yu Jingzi drew her blade, took off her jacket, and tied it around her waist. “Everything embedded in this wall is dried up and ancient—except this one. It looks fresh. We can’t tell much from the outside, so I’m digging it out to take a closer look.”

I swallowed hard. Damn, this woman’s got nerves of steel. I was scared out of my mind. In a place this cramped, if anything went wrong, our only option would be to jump into the water. There was no other way out.

The two Liu Family members worked fast. As soon as they pried away the final layer of stone covering the corpse, Yu Jingzi instantly raised her blade in front of her. I was blocked from seeing what they uncovered, but I could feel it—everyone instinctively took a step back.

Yu Jingzi’s frown deepened. I craned my neck to see past her, and the moment I caught sight of it, my scalp went numb.

I knew that corpse.

It was Chou Zai!

His body was twisted into a strange position, half-prone as if he’d been forcibly dragged into the stone. He’d clearly been dead for a while, his skin tinged with a sickly green. The most horrifying part was that the stone near his body looked like it had come alive. It was crawling, inching toward his skin like it was feeding on him.

Before I could process what I was seeing, Yu Jingzi blew her whistle again. She seemed to understand exactly what was happening. Without a word, she turned and started descending the stone steps.

“He was one of Hou Jinshan’s men. He must’ve died here recently. How did this happen?” I asked, hurrying after her.

Yu Jingzi pressed forward under the flare’s light. “Did you see those white butterflies when you came in? He was probably dragged into the wall by them. The things crawling on his body are their larvae. We need to reach the surface immediately. The walls around us are likely crawling with those larvae. They’re still feeding. But once they get hungry again, we’ll be next.”

Yu Jingzi was panicking. I could feel it. Her pace quickened, and I struggled to keep up. Soon, a wide gap opened between us.

The Liu Family had always dealt with water, but now we were stuck in a stone corridor with nowhere else to go. If we really were caught in a ghost trap, this wasn’t something the Liu Family was equipped to handle.

After about ten minutes, when the flare finally dimmed again, I’d calmed down completely. Without thinking, I called out to Yu Jingzi ahead of me. “Stop! We’re not getting anywhere just walking like this. We need to stop and think of another way.”

Yu Jingzi turned back to look at me. “Do you have a better idea? What else can we do besides keep going?”

She didn’t stop, so I had no choice but to follow. Not long after, she suddenly halted. I glanced to the side—and saw the same pile of broken stone. Chou Zai’s corpse was lying right there in the crevice.

We’d come full circle.

“Damn it! These things won’t let us reach the end even if it kills us,” Yu Jingzi cursed, stepping over the rubble and continuing forward.

Once the entire team had passed the corpse, Yu Jingzi finally turned to me. “If we keep going, we’ll just end up back here again. Got any ideas?”

I looked around, then crouched down and leaned over the stone steps, shining my flashlight downward. I matched our location against a bronze relief sculpture about thirty meters away and realized—we hadn’t moved at all, even after all that walking.

The principle behind a ghost trap is actually pretty simple from a scientific standpoint. It happens when external factors throw off a person’s sense of direction. The brain starts misinterpreting visual cues, and those errors can be caused by suggestion or illusion.

But that explanation only applies in environments with multiple paths. Here, the stone steps were built tightly against the cliff wall, and there was only one way down. How could a single path create such a confusing illusion? Unless, of course, something was wrong with our eyes.

But I didn’t want to dwell on that possibility. I’d experienced hallucinations before in Gansu. If all of us had fallen into some kind of trap, then the only thing left to do would be to sit here and wait to die.

“What did you usually do when you ran into something like this?” I asked Yu Jingzi.

She let out a breath and said, “Our family doesn’t have any special tricks for this kind of thing. In the past, we’d just burn anything that felt off all at once. But the stuff here is embedded in the walls. Who knows how many there are? There’s no way we could burn them all.”

At that, Yu Jingzi cursed under her breath, then added, “Damn it, if that pillar really is this cursed, we should’ve brought him down here with us.”

It was dead silent around us. I heard her words loud and clear, and Yu Jingzi quickly realized it too. She shut her mouth immediately. I’d already suspected she was hiding something from me, and now it was confirmed. But at the time, I was more focused on figuring out a way to break through this situation, so I pretended not to hear and didn’t press her further.

Since this path wasn’t an option, we had to find another.

I glanced at the bronze pillar relief sculpture not far from the stone steps and said, “We definitely can’t keep going down. That leaves us with two choices. One, we jump into the water. But the pool’s huge, and we’re way too high up. If we hit the water wrong, we could get knocked out. So I’ve got another idea.”

Yu Jingzi looked at me. “What are you thinking?”

I pointed toward the distant relief sculpture. “We use a grappling hook to latch onto the relief, then climb onto it. The pillar’s wide enough, and it should connect to the shore. We can climb down along the bronze pillar. That shouldn’t be too hard for someone from the Liu Family, right?”