Li Zhuiyuan did not try to shake Runsheng and the others awake. Drawing from what he had just experienced firsthand, he knew that what the four of them faced was no ordinary miasma, but a yin miasma.
The former was like an ordinary haunted house at an amusement park, giving you an immersive fright; the latter was far more sophisticated, distinctly interactive and manipulative.
Earlier in the "dream," someone had clearly been deliberately steering them forward. The most glaring proof was that whenever Tan Wenbin voiced a desire for something, it arranged it on the spot. Its real purpose was to keep a person thoroughly submerged in the dream, cut off from what was happening in reality.
In such a state, the divide between body and mind was stark. Even Li Zhuiyuan had failed to realize he was walking the yin path, which proved that external physical stimulation could not penetrate to the level of mental consciousness at all.
Besides, if he insisted on shoving and shaking them to wake them up, a careless slip could easily knock them over into the water. As they stood now, it would still take a while for the rising tide to drown them; knocking them in would be tantamount to executing them ahead of time.
He glanced over at Runsheng and the others, then swept his eyes toward the stone carving of the Woman Opening the Door. Her dark, mocking grin was depicted with striking, delicate realism.
Instinctively, Li Zhuiyuan considered swimming over to see if he could push the stone sculpture back into place, or strip off his clothes to drape over it in hopes of disrupting its effect.
Yet the moment that thought surfaced, he shook his head vigorously.
If he were an ordinary explorer or survivalist, following that line of thought would be completely natural. But that was still trapped in a conventional test-taker's mindset.
Instead of swimming toward the statue, Li Zhuiyuan made for the stone stairs. Climbing up until he emerged above the waterline, he turned around, faced Runsheng and the others below as well as the slightly more distant statue, and sat down.
His gaze gradually turned calm. Every piece of confirmed and speculative information turned rapidly in his mind. As he reorganized it all, he used fengshui deduction to calculate the nature of the situation before him.
The narrative sequence stalled—he was stuck on the figure that had appeared and vanished at the serpent's tail.
Nor could he derive anything from the fengshui layout, because the surrounding landscape showed no clear or pronounced shifts.
Even so, Li Zhuiyuan was not discouraged. Failure was simply another form of trial and error. When the most obvious route proved to be a dead end, then no matter how absurd or unreasonable the earlier detour had seemed, it might well be the truth.
The silhouette in the dream might not be that important, for its purpose was merely to mimic and guide. A furnished room at the top of the stairs, stalactites growing inside it—that was already absurd enough. Then came two serpent sculptures in a row, and perhaps a third and fourth would have followed.
Would anyone really carve such colossal, intricate works just to use them as stairs? Burning antique calligraphy and paintings to brew tea once in a while might be called an eccentric elegance, but doing it over and over was outright lunacy.
There was deliberate guidance, yet it did not feel human. Stepping back from the illusion, it almost seemed ridiculous.
As for that stone sculpture, since the fengshui layout deduced from it yielded nothing at all, he could boldly conclude that it was utterly useless.
He had inspected the carving thoroughly before. What miraculous mechanism could possibly twist a nonexistent half of a body into being?
Human imagination.
Which meant he had not fully awakened. This was a second layer of the dream, a multi-layered yin miasma.
Li Zhuiyuan suddenly sensed that he could wake Runsheng and the others now. He scooped up the rising water beneath his feet, splashed it across the three boys' faces, and shouted:
"Brother Runsheng! Brother Binbin! Brother Liangliang!"
Before long, their eyelids twitched, and one by one, they opened their eyes.
"Ah... was that a dream just now?"
"What happened to us?"
"Xiaoyuan, are you all right?"
Li Zhuiyuan's mouth twitched. Ignoring the three of them, he rolled over on his own and knelt on the stairs.
The four of them had been frozen facing the stone stairs, yet his consciousness had previously been completely diverted by the Woman Opening the Door. In truth, the first thing they should have suspected was this staircase—and specifically, the lowest step.
Because before falling into the trance, the water had just begun to rise, barely reaching the soles of their shoes.
Li Zhuiyuan descended the stairs, plunged into the water, and reached the bottom step. He tapped it firmly with his flashlight, then shone the beam straight into it.
The ordinary stone step now revealed a translucent quality resembling jadeite. Inside, suspended flocculent patterns appeared—except, unlike the static fibers in regular jade, the things inside were squirming. They looked like long parasites, or perhaps tiny white serpents.
One of them happened to be burrowing out from the edge of the step, half its body already exposed. Had he not noticed beforehand and kept his flashlight fixed on it, no one would have sensed it slipping into the water.
It wriggled completely free. Li Zhuiyuan extended his hand before it, and it clamped down.
"Hiss..."
A sharp agony tore through him instantly—a deep, visceral pain that amplified step by step.
"Ah..."
"Gurgle... gurgle..."
Li Zhuiyuan woke once more.
This time, he was submerged. The water had already risen past his mouth, lingering just beneath his nostrils. A hair higher, and his mouth and nose would have been completely engulfed, sending his real body into suffocation.
Waking with a scream still torn from his throat, he immediately choked down several mouthfuls of water.
Turning in the water, he looked at Runsheng and the others first. They were still standing where they had been, fast asleep.
People said that when the sky fell, the tall ones held it up; but when the water rose, the shortest was the first to drown.
Looking back, he saw that the stone carving of the Woman Opening the Door remained as it had originally been, only its flat, sliced back turned toward him. There was no ghastly, mocking smile.
Li Zhuiyuan knew he was truly awake now, returned to reality.
With no time to examine anything else, he dove beneath the surface and aimed his flashlight at his leg, where the distinct throbbing pain originated.
Rolling up his trouser leg, the flashlight revealed a long, thread-thin white thing. Its head was anchored in his skin, while its tail drifted continuously with the ripples, swaying cheerfully as if wagging its tail in delight.
The human body was an exquisite mechanism. In everyday activity, the friction of bones and the stretching of muscles generated minor pain, but the brain secreted substances to dull it. That was why running brought a sense of euphoria to those who exercised.
An addict, having flooded their system with unnatural pleasure, disrupted the brain's secretion cycle, leading it to assume natural pain suppression was unnecessary; once the substance was cut off, pronounced withdrawal symptoms appeared, like ants crawling across the skin.
This "little snake" functioned the same way. Its bite was intensely painful, but it numbed one's senses. The pain was always there; only when a person truly became aware of its presence could the numbed perception be awakened.
Truly, the finest ingredients required only the simplest preparation, and the most exquisite yin miasma... simply laid a parasite directly into you.
Li Zhuiyuan grabbed it and yanked it out. It thrashed and wriggled, so he pulled with both hands and snapped it in two.
Honestly, if circumstances allowed, he would have loved to collect these creatures to study and develop methods for walking the yin path later on.
However, he lacked the proper research facilities, and the current situation gave him no leeway.
Li Zhuiyuan waded over to Runsheng, rolled up his trouser leg, spotted the identical white thread, and tore it free.
Next came Tan Wenbin.
*Splash!*
Runsheng woke up, tumbling from the sudden jolt of agony.
*Splash!*
Tan Wenbin woke up as well, splashing into the water.
Yet when Li Zhuiyuan rolled up Xue Liangliang's pant leg to repeat the process, he found that the head of the long white thread biting into Xue Liangliang's leg was pitch-black!
It looked completely lifeless. Even if he left it alone, the creature probably would not have lasted much longer.
This meant Xue Liangliang was capable of waking on his own through sheer "resistance," and very soon at that.
Yet by the time Xue Liangliang woke up, he might have managed to pull Runsheng and Tan Wenbin up, but Li Zhuiyuan would have already drowned.
Reaching down, he pulled it off.
Xue Liangliang hissed, though his pain was nowhere near as intense as Tan Wenbin's or Runsheng's. He didn't fall; instead, the moment he woke, he immediately reached down to haul the boy out of the water.
All four scrambled up the stairs, leaving the waterline behind.
Li Zhuiyuan explained what had just transpired. The three boys were horrified, chilled by the near miss.
Then, listening to their accounts, Li Zhuiyuan discovered an unexpected detail: the four of them had shared the exact same dream.
Bitten by four separate, thread-thin white snakes with no other connection between them, they had been drawn into a collective illusion.
Looking back at the bottom step, Li Zhuiyuan's eyes burned with an even fiercer intensity.
This was truly a treasure. It could survive and move in water; if he could tame and master it, combining it with Wei Zhengdao's black-covered manual to control dead-flippers, wouldn't everything go much smoother?
After all, dead-flippers were almost always active near water, and even if they made landfall, they had to emerge from the water first.
"Xiaoyuan, should I smash open that bottom step for you?"
Runsheng understood the boy well.
Tan Wenbin asked, lingering fear in his voice, "Won't that release a bunch more to bite us?"
Xue Liangliang guessed, "If that were the case, only one wouldn't have bitten each of us; a whole swarm would have attacked at once. My guess is that once a person is bitten, they develop a temporary resistance. A second bite would probably backfire and shock us awake from the pain."
Tan Wenbin breathed a sigh of relief. "So you're saying this stuff won't work on us anymore?"
Xue Liangliang replied, "Even if another bites you, just treat it like a mosquito. Slap it dead once you notice it."
Tan Wenbin asked curiously, "Brother Liang, why did Xiaoyuan say the one on your leg turned black?"
"I don't know." Xue Liangliang was just as puzzled.
Tan Wenbin clicked his tongue in admiration. "Sure enough, who'd become a matrilocal son-in-law without some perks?"
Li Zhuiyuan glanced at Tan Wenbin. "You want to become one too?"
"Huh?" Tan Wenbin scratched his cheek in embarrassment. "Someone would have to want me first, and they'd have to like what they see."
"You could ask the Zhou family if they're recruiting."
"The Zhou family?" Tan Wenbin's interest was piqued instantly. "An underwater ancient town like the Bai family's?"
"Our class monitor, Zhou Yunyun's family."
Tan Wenbin: "..."
Li Zhuiyuan hadn't told them the details about Uncle Qin, because Liu Yumei still had to live at Great-Grandpa's house.
That night, if Uncle Qin hadn't raided Baijia Town alone, Xue Liangliang would never have secured the status of a son-in-law.
In truth, the Bai family had never wanted a son-in-law, nor were they abducting a bridegroom; all they wanted was a partner to sire a child.
Their system was even more extreme: not merely discarding the father to keep the child, but discarding both father and sons, preserving only daughters.
Baijia Town had only the Lady Bai. In the local chronicles and the houses of Baijia Town, no young masters or fathers-in-law were ever mentioned. Where had all those men gone over the centuries?
Tan Wenbin envied Xue Liangliang's treatment, but such an exception could not be replicated; the standard treatment was "burned after use."
At the same time, this tied back to another matter. After the Ding family banquet, Liu Yumei had spoken to him about the Qin and Liu families, explaining why an old woman like her still had the backbone to ignore those people.
Li Zhuiyuan felt Grandmother Liu hadn't lied to him. What she told him was the truth, but perhaps not the whole truth.
The heritage of the Qin and Liu families had likely diverged onto a different path, a fact hinted at by Yu Shu's attitude toward her.
This aligned with the old woman's usual style: beneath her open, ostentatious display of wealth lay an equally deliberate display of feigned clumsiness.
"Xiaoyuan?" Runsheng's voice broke the boy's train of thought.
Li Zhuiyuan pressed his lips together. Since his interest was piqued, he might as well act on it.
"Brother Runsheng, we don't have any tools on hand right now."
"That's easy."
Seeing Li Zhuiyuan agree, Runsheng took a deep breath and plunged straight back into the water.
In fact, Li Zhuiyuan knew how to swim too. A small river ran west of Great-Grandpa's house. During that period, he had avoided unfamiliar waters and hated even fishing, but the waters near Great-Grandpa's were safe, so he had asked Runsheng to teach him.
He had learned, yet when danger arose, he still instinctively relied on Runsheng to pull him along. Runsheng's watermanship was simply that extraordinary.
If Runsheng could eventually master Uncle Qin's trick of sprouting gills on the spot, he would be a second Uncle Qin.
Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang stood up, aiming their flashlights at Runsheng. It wasn't so much to light the way for him—Runsheng hardly seemed to need his eyes underwater—as it was for their own peace of mind.
Tan Wenbin didn't join in at first. Then he casually looked down at the flashlight hanging from his chest, only then realizing he had merely lost it in the dream; in reality, it was still there.
After a moment's hesitation, he decided against turning it on, wanting to conserve its battery.
A sense of crisis was creeping over him. Xiaoyuan's role in the team went without saying, as did Runsheng's. Even Xue Liangliang was immensely capable. As for him... aside from lightening the mood when spirits were low, he seemed utterly useless.
He didn't even know the chemical formula for stalactites.
The fate of a marginal member was to be gradually phased out. Even if they kept including him out of sentiment, he wouldn't be able to stay in good conscience.
He had to find a way to make himself useful. Should he take over the workshops and mini-marts Brother Liang had left at school to help Xiaoyuan earn money... or should he switch his sights and apply to the Jinling Police Academy?
Lacking a proper tool, Runsheng fetched a rock and began smashing furiously at the bottom step underwater.
Striking underwater heavily blunted one's force, but Runsheng seemed born with an instinct for bypassing the drag.
Blow after blow rained down until the first step cracked open. Shards of jadeite-like stone drifted up continuously.
Tan Wenbin swallowed hard. "Is... is that worth a lot of money?"
Li Zhuiyuan said, "It's jade, but the lowest grade. It's not worth anything."
"Oh." Tan Wenbin nodded, abandoning the thought of gathering pieces, but his gaze drifted toward the top of the stairs. If they found anything valuable up there later, he would definitely carry some out.
Xiaoyuan and Liangliang were indifferent to worldly wealth; he would take the burden of vulgar greed upon himself.
Reality proved once again that the most straightforward method was not necessarily the most sophisticated, but it worked.
Li Zhuiyuan suspected others had come here before, only to succumb to the yin miasma and eventually drown or wash away.
Even if someone had broken the illusion, they likely would have scrambled upward in lingering terror.
Hardly anyone would be like the four of them, admiring the trap so much that they dismantled it to take home. Even bandits were never this thorough in stripping a place clean.
With the step shattered, a swarm of the tiny worms scattered. Yet they seemed to sense who had developed resistance and made no move toward the four boys; they even skirted around Runsheng right in front of them.
Still, these worms likely couldn't survive away from this place for long. Xue Liangliang's unique constitution had merely accelerated that process. Once removed from their specific habitat, they would perish naturally. Some things simply could not exist stably in nature on their own.
Runsheng surfaced, holding up a jade seal in his palm.
"Xiaoyuan, here."
Li Zhuiyuan took it and shone his flashlight over it.
There was an inscription on the base, but rather than a formal seal script square, it bore only a single character.
Li Zhuiyuan murmured, "*Yong*?"
Tan Wenbin looked at Xue Liangliang. "What does that mean? As in the Golden Mean—*Zhongyong*?"
Xue Liangliang shrugged. "Would you believe me if I said I can't even read the character?"
Tan Wenbin clearly didn't.
Xue Liangliang chuckled wryly. "This comes down to family heritage. Xiaoyuan is the one who understands these things."
Li Zhuiyuan said, "This is Wanzhou, historically known as Wan County. Traces of ancient human activity date back to the Paleolithic era, leaving behind many relics. The only historical match for 'Yong' in this region is the State of Yong from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. During the Spring and Autumn period, it was destroyed by the allied forces of Qin, Chu, and Ba."
Tan Wenbin's eyes lit up. "So this is a treasure from the Spring and Autumn period?"
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "I don't know. The craftsmanship... and the style of the skirt on the Woman Opening the Door sculpture looks more like the Qin or Han dynasties, or even later."
Xue Liangliang asked, "Xiaoyuan, you can't be sure?"
Li Zhuiyuan said, "I can only recite what I've read. When it comes to antiques and ancient architecture, book knowledge alone isn't enough."
Xue Liangliang ventured, "Could someone later have discovered some secret of the State of Yong here and built this place around it?"
Tan Wenbin asked, puzzled, "People do that?"
Xue Liangliang explained, "It's quite common. Just like how many modern tourist attractions build exhibition halls directly over original historical ruins. In essence, isn't it the same idea?"
Li Zhuiyuan gently shifted the seal in his hand. Fine jade was valued for its watery luster, but this piece was absurdly so—its interior was gelatinous, almost liquid, dotted with minute granules that looked like the eggs of those tiny serpents.
The snakes had hatched from this seal. Ordinarily, they likely remained in this dormant state, hatching only when stimulated or sensing an intruder.
Did the hatched snakes eventually return to lay eggs again?
Was there a fixed quota per batch, or a specific triggering mechanism?
For now, it seemed that once Runsheng smashed the step and destroyed their nesting environment, the eggs inside would no longer hatch.
"Brother Runsheng."
"Yeah." Li Zhuiyuan handed the Yong seal to Runsheng for safekeeping. They would have to wait until they escaped to study it further.
The four of them turned their attention back to the top of the stairs.
The water was rising faster now; they had no choice but to head up.
Li Zhuiyuan warned, "Stay sharp, everyone. Be careful."
Tan Wenbin replied immediately, "Will do. I'll pinch my thigh hard every few minutes."
They resumed their ascent.
Before long, a platform appeared. It was no longer the stone chamber from before, but a colossal sculpture of a serpent's head, its jaws gaping wide, as if swallowing whole anyone who entered.
Xue Liangliang remarked, "It seems the people of Yong worshiped snakes."
Passing through the serpent's maw, they entered a vast, open expanse. There was no coiled serpent body acting as a staircase, only rows of massive stone pillars. Under the flashlight beams, the space resembled an underground palace.
Yet there was no gold or jade grandeur; it was crude, primitive, and sparsely furnished, feeling overwhelmingly desolate.
As they advanced, their footsteps began to echo. Even when they noticed and tiptoed with extreme caution, it did no good; the echoes grew louder and louder.
Eventually, it ceased to be an echo. Even after they came to a complete halt, the sound continued on its own, swelling with increasing intensity.
Finally, a faint green glow appeared ahead.
Li Zhuiyuan swept his flashlight forward. The green light retreated, revealing a ferocious tiger poised to pounce.
Startled, everyone scrambled back. Runsheng, who stood at the front, lowered his center of gravity as he retreated, clenching his fists and preparing to fight the beast.
Soon, however, they realized the tiger was dead. It rested upon a stone dais, and though remarkably lifelike despite the ages, it was ultimately just a taxidermied specimen.
Then the vanished green glow surfaced again. In an instant, the tiger's eyes filled with an eerie green radiance, as though the beast had returned to life.
Having realized what it was, the four boys instinctively assumed something was nestled inside the specimen rather than believing the tiger had actually revived.
Li Zhuiyuan suspected equipment played a role here. Flashlights were far more efficient than torches, which vastly diminished the psychological terror originally intended to scare off intruders.
Shifting the beam, he saw various beasts standing atop numerous nearby pedestals, some belonging to species that no longer inhabited this region.
Most striking were two human figures, clearly distinguishable as a man and a woman. Clad in leather armor, their faces concealed behind bronze serpent masks, they stood among the beasts like monarchs commanding them.
Both held their arms in a grasping, upward posture, yet their hands were empty.
Sweeping the beam across the base of the dais, he spotted several piles of decayed matter. Much like excavated terracotta warriors, the objects they originally held had rotted away.
The woman had her right arm raised high, likely once wielding a weapon; judging from a bronze spearhead that had fallen at the base, it had probably been a long spear. Her left palm faced upward, suggesting she had once cradled something—not a weapon, but more likely a token of authority.
Yet there was no trace of anything on the platform below. Had it completely rotted away, or had someone taken it?
So far, they had found no evidence that anyone had ever entered this place.
The eyes of the man and woman also began to glow with a green light. Under the direct glare of the flashlight, however, the light shrank back noticeably, suppressed wherever the beam landed, only to flare up again once the light moved away.
A few points of light drifted outside, hovering briefly before dissipating. They were likely some kind of firefly.
Nesting inside the taxidermied beasts and human figures, they flared to life when disturbed by external movement, creating a terrifying presence.
Knowing what they were, the boys felt the fear evaporate. It was no different from touring a museum.
They pushed forward, and the echoing hum seemed emboldened, gathering strength once more.
Passing through the stone platforms of beasts, before their flashlights could sweep farther into the distance, a massive green flare suddenly surged ahead. A towering mound of white bones loomed before them.
Countless fireflies nested within. The echoing sound had simply been the collective stirring of their awakening; now fully roused, their fluttering wings resembled ghastly corpse-fires blazing atop the pile of bones.
On the outermost rim of the bone mound lay horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, dogs, and chickens; the middle layer held tigers, deer, bears, apes, and birds.
They corresponded precisely to the six domestic livestock and the five wild beasts.
Though many scattered bones lay around the perimeter, most retained their articulated structures, making them easy to identify.
At the very center, forming the height and core of the mound, were humans.
Human skeletons were stacked like building blocks, clutching and supporting one another in a frantic upward scramble, serving as the main pillars of the bone pile.
Xue Liangliang stood slack-jawed, his eyes wide with shock. Through the lens of his architectural training, he saw an unsettling fusion of mechanics and aesthetics.
Among the four of them, Tan Wenbin was perhaps the only one who felt the raw cruelty and grief of it all.
Human sacrifice—or so-called art sculpted from human lives—never failed to evoke a chilling sense of shared mortality.
Tan Wenbin looked left and right. Runsheng wore his usual stoic expression, while Xiaoyuan and Liangliang seemed absorbed in technical appreciation. All Tan Wenbin could do was chant silently in his heart: *It's all in the past, it's all in the past.*
When he finished, he pinched his thigh hard—so hard that tears sprang to his eyes.
Noticing this, Xue Liangliang patted Tan Wenbin's shoulder and comforted him, "Try not to dwell on it. It's just the ignorance of the past."
Aside from glowing, the fireflies showed no signs of aggression, and their emergence brightly illuminated the cavernous chamber.
Behind the "pyre of white bones," a dozen stone steps led upward.
At the top rested a colossal bed, draped in curtains woven from gold threads that shimmered under the light while effectively obscuring whatever lay within.
Judging by the style of the drapery, even without seeing inside, one could easily picture a woman seated there.
Most importantly, behind the grand bed stood a set of half-open double doors.
In the entire underground palace, this was the only visible passage leading upward—the crucial route to escape to the surface.
Circling around the bone mound, they reached the base of the steps.
Then, three of them froze.
Xue Liangliang asked curiously, "Why is there a shovel here? Someone's been here before?"
Tan Wenbin said, "It looks like our Yellow River shovel."
Runsheng bent down and picked it up. "It is a Yellow River shovel. Exactly the same model."
With two sharp snaps, the shovel broke apart as Runsheng tried to piece it together. It was rusted through.
Tan Wenbin said, "So our predecessors were here?"
Xue Liangliang asked, "Corpse retrievers rob graves too?"
He quickly corrected himself, "Wait, no, this isn't a tomb. There's a bed, but no coffin."
Then he scrambled to find another excuse: "Maybe your predecessors came down here to deal with that giant creature—to rid the people of a menace."
Li Zhuiyuan said, "Brother Liang, you don't need to be so anxious. We only ended up here by accident, but if I had known about this place beforehand, I would have wanted to come down too—though with proper preparation. Besides, there's a faction called water monkeys who specialize in raiding water burials. Even if I don't consider them peers, what they study follows the exact same traditions as us."
With that, Li Zhuiyuan took the broken Yellow River shovel from Runsheng and examined it, confirming it belonged to their trade and was not a Luoyang spade.
This meant a seasoned predecessor had indeed entered this place. The details visible on the rusted fragments proved it was a professional tool, adhering to the standard Yellow River shovel specifications recorded in Wei Zhengdao's books.
So whoever entered had been a true professional.
Yet had they come purely for treasure?
They began climbing the steps. Aside from the broken shovel, they found nothing else.
Reaching the top, level with the massive bed, they discovered a square trench surrounding it, filled with a milky-green liquid.
A strange odor, previously undetectable, drifted into their nostrils.
The scent was far too familiar. Without waiting for Runsheng to speak, even Tan Wenbin blurted out, "The stench of a water corpse."
Runsheng added, "Very thick. Very pure."
Li Zhuiyuan cautioned, "We stick to the edge. Don't disturb or touch anything."
The ledge was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to sidle through. They edged along with meticulous care.
Even Tan Wenbin, whose eyes had gleamed at the sight of the gold drapery, dared not entertain any thought of taking it now. Once a dead-flipper was involved—especially of this caliber and in such a place—greed was a death sentence.
Without incident, they skirted the bed and its surrounding pool, arriving at the rear.
The doors were just above them. Heading up should lead them to an exit.
The four couldn't help looking back. From this angle, the bed resembled a small boat anchored in the middle of a pool.
Tan Wenbin sighed with regret. "What a waste. So much gold."
Xue Liangliang patted his arm and asked, "What, tempted?"
Tan Wenbin admitted frankly, "Yeah."
Xue Liangliang reminded him, "Nothing here can be taken."
Tan Wenbin: "Uh..."
"The thing Xiaoyuan took was something that nearly killed us. It has a grudge against us, so taking it was justified. Besides, when this place is excavated by archaeologists in the future, leaving that thing down here might endanger our comrades. It had to be removed in advance."
Tan Wenbin thought to himself that Xiaoyuan probably hadn't even thought that far.
"Brother Liang, you sure know how to spin things."
"I'm just seeking truth from facts."
"Honestly, I didn't want the gold to get rich either. Look at all those sacrificial victims in the bone pile. Even if this isn't a tomb, this place was built on the blood and sweat of the common people. Leave the cultural relics alone, but if we brought out the gold, we wouldn't use it for ourselves—keep a small cut for Xiaoyuan's research funds, and donate the rest to Wanzhou government projects and Hope Primary Schools. Returning what was taken from the people back to the people is better than letting it gather dust underground."
Xue Liangliang chuckled. "And you said I knew how to spin things? You're the master."
"Not at all."
"Once gold is crafted into ornaments, it becomes a cultural relic too."
"Fuck."
Li Zhuiyuan spoke up: "Let's go. Once we're out, we'll report this place—"
Before he could finish, a woman's face poked out from the side of the half-open door ahead.
She appeared with chilling eeriness, abrupt and completely without warning.
Particularly at the very moment they had just crossed the bed, assumed they were safe, and let down their guard.
This was the true Woman Opening the Door.
All four jumped in fright, but Runsheng's reflex was instantaneous: gripping the broken half of the Yellow River shovel, he swung it straight at the woman's head behind the door!
Ghost, monster, or demon—eat a shovel first!
*Clang!*
The woman's face vanished, and Runsheng's shovel struck only the doorframe.
"Giggle, giggle, giggle..."
The woman's face peered out again from behind the other door. This time, her lips parted and closed, emitting silvery, bell-like laughter.
On a sunny afternoon in a park, such laughter would sound sweet and charming, but in this subterranean crypt, it sent shivers down their spines and made their scalps prickle with dread.
Runsheng raised the shovel to strike again.
*Clang!*
The face vanished once more.
Yet her laughter swelled, no longer confined to the doorway, spreading until it echoed throughout the entire underground palace.
The green fireflies began turning a vivid, bloody crimson, casting the hall in the gory light of a sea of blood.
The milky-green pool around the bed began to bubble furiously, as if boiling.
Even the gold drapery stirred without wind. Now there was no need for imagination: inside sat a woman draped in magnificent red robes.
Her hair was still pitch-black, smooth and lustrous, cascading down her back and spreading behind her.
As the curtains swayed, her arms twisted with unnatural, grotesque contortions, and her hair slowly swept around.
Her arms inverted, pointing backward; the two hands that had been hidden in front now appeared at the back, facing Li Zhuiyuan and the others.
The shifting of her long hair was the unmistakable turning of her head.
Though her face remained hidden behind her hair, the sensation was unmistakable: she had twisted her head completely around.
Originally, she had sat facing the palace hall; now, she faced the great doors.
Ahead, by the doors, a woman's face kept peeking out, laughing incessantly.
Behind them, the woman in the bed—whom they had supposedly bypassed safely—had "awakened."
Caught in between, the four boys were trapped, unable to advance or retreat.
Yet Li Zhuiyuan finally understood the purpose of this place. This palace was no tomb; it was a sacrificial sanctuary.
By comparison, the murals of the Woman Opening the Door painted on the walls of main burial chambers in later dynasties were nothing more than crude imitations.
Here, the occupant had built this hall for herself in life, crafting genuine doors, waiting for the "Woman Opening the Door" to guide her soul into the Western Paradise!
The woman peeking out from behind the door had triggered it all.
What on earth was she? Why hadn't she triggered it earlier or later, but waited precisely until the four of them were about to pass through?
Had she escorted the soul away earlier, things would have been far simpler—a bare, harmless palace would have been ideal. After all, the four of them were merely taking a detour to survive.
"Xiaoyuan?"
Runsheng gripped the broken shovel and asked for direction.
Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin pressed close to Li Zhuiyuan's flanks, the three of them instinctively shielding the boy in the center.
They had to make a decision immediately.
*Rumble, rumble, rumble!*
From the pool below came the scraping sound of heavy stone moving. The entire bed rose into the air.
From beneath the waters, eight figures emerged, hoisting the bed upon their shoulders.
The four bearers at the corners were men in leather armor, strikingly similar to the armored man standing among the beasts near the entrance.
Emerging from the water with eyes closed, liquid seeped continuously from the corners of their eyes, nostrils, and mouths. Unlike ordinary dead-flippers that leaked water, what oozed from them was silver—like mercury.
"Mercury corpse refining..."
Wei Zhengdao's *Jianghu Zhiguai Lu* contained records of such dead-flippers, positioned specifically at water burial sites to guard the tomb master.
Ordinary corpse retrievers never encountered them because they did not raid tombs; only water monkeys specifically studied methods to handle them.
Aside from the four armored men, who had clearly been laid to rest alongside the red-robed woman when the sanctuary was first constructed, there were four others. They wore tight-fitting long tunics, each sporting a long braided queue behind their head.
These four Qing-dynasty men were almost certainly the predecessors who had left the Yellow River shovel behind.
The reason Li Zhuiyuan recognized them as predecessors rather than water monkeys was that water monkeys operated in large packs—like Ding Dalin's gang, where twenty men was considered a small crew. Here, there were only four, with no other bodies left behind.
The pool, thick with the stench of drowned corpses, had evidently possessed preservative qualities, for these men and their clothing had neither rotted nor bloated, remaining remarkably lifelike.
Carrying the bed, the eight bearers stepped out of the pool and mounted the stone steps. Every synchronized step landed with terrifying weight, radiating suffocating pressure.
"Giggle, giggle, giggle..."
Behind the half-open doors, the laughter continued unabated.
"Xiaoyuan!"
Runsheng called out again. The moment of decision had arrived.
Runsheng was already bracing to charge through the doors, and Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin had assumed the same stance.
Compared to the eight corpse-bearers below and the mysterious woman perched upon the bed, any rational person would choose to dash through the doors. After all, past the threshold, there was only that solitary face!
Yet at that exact instant, Li Zhuiyuan noticed something: of the four Qing-dynasty men hoisting the bed, the bearer on the far right—though his body and arms remained rigid, mechanically holding the litter and marching upward—had moving eyes. His pupils darted repeatedly to the left, back, and left again, while his lips silently parted and closed, mouthing wordless instructions over and over:
"This way... this way... this way..."
Chapter 65