Inside the tomb, it was quiet and bright, with nothing in it.
The candlelight flickered, lengthening the shadows of the two people standing at the door.
At this moment, it was hard to call the two of them human. If other people saw them, they might think they were ghosts.
"We're here. Let's go in and see if there's a jade pendant..."
As Yi Yun spoke, tears welled up in her eyes again.
"As long as I find the jade pendant, I can go home."
"My daughter..."
She stumbled forward, Lu Yanli stood beside her, and walked in together.
There was only a huge coffin placed in the center of the tomb. It was more than half a person tall. Outside the wall, reliefs were raised, and candlesticks were placed on the surrounding walls, with flickering candlelight.
"How could it be? There are no burial objects?" Yi Yun was still in a daze, unwilling to believe it. She screamed, "Impossible! There must be burial objects!"
“Jade pendant… Jade pendant!!”
Lu Yanli followed her to the back of the coffin, and they were both shocked.
Behind the coffins, there were more than 20 corpses wearing the same uniforms. They were bloody and almost rotten, but their appearances before death were vaguely visible.
We can easily recognize that these bodies... are the archaeological team members who lived and died together with us just now!
"How could this happen? Aren't we all..." Yi Yun couldn't believe it, "Why are we here?"
Besides, everyone was infected with an unknown green fluorescent parasite, but these corpses were clean and had nothing on them.
So, what did we just experience? Are the archaeologists already dead
Lu Yanli walked over slowly and roughly estimated based on the degree of decay that these people had been dead for at least a few days.
“Oh my god, so, we have actually already…” Yi Yun seemed to be talking to himself, but also seemed to be chatting.
Lu Yanli had no choice but to answer her question. Compared to the archaeologists, he wanted to know where the owner of the tomb had gone.
Before they could come to a conclusion, the door of the tomb slammed shut, scaring Yi Yun.
At the same time, a candle in the corner suddenly went out, as if... someone stood next to it and blew it out.
But neither of them has discovered it yet.
Yi Yun's eyes wandered around the tomb.
There is nothing anywhere, then there is only...
She walked towards the coffin, stretched out her almost bony hands, and pushed open the coffin lid little by little.
She found that the moment she placed her hand on it, it began to decay, and the speed of decay was several times faster than before.
But Yi Yun no longer cared, and she pushed the lid of the coffin open much faster. When her remaining eyes finally saw the scene inside the coffin clearly, a scream of collapse escaped from her throat.
Lu Yanli followed her, stood beside the coffin and looked over, and immediately understood why she collapsed.
The coffin was empty, there was nothing in it.
There was no corpse as we imagined, no burial objects, and naturally no jade pendant.
It was as if the people inside had left.
"Why is there nothing? We finally got here... Why is there nothing?"
"I want to go back... My daughter is still waiting for me, she is so young... I want to go back..."
A green liquid with a strange smell flowed out of his eye sockets and fell into the coffin. Yi Yun stood there blankly for a long time before he began to think about what to do next.
Turning around, I saw Lu Yanli walking to the wall and looking at the relief murals on the wall.
"Lu Yanli, are you looking at this?" Yi Yun's eyes lit up with hope. "There's something wrong with this relief, right? Is that right?"
Lu Yanli also turned his head to look at her, his only eye still as calm as usual, without a single ripple. He said nothing, but put down the bag behind him, took out the scroll from it, and spread it on the ground.
Improving the map.
After entering this tomb chamber, I found that the degree of decomposition of the body was gradually slowing down, so of course I had to hurry.
Yi Yun wanted to rush over and ask him to stop drawing and look for the jade pendant together with her. She wanted to tear up the map, but in the end she did nothing and wandered around in the tomb holding on to the last glimmer of hope.
A few candles in the corner were extinguished again.
Lu Yanli quickly finished drawing the map, which was not difficult for him. Then he put the map away, stood up, and looked around in the tomb, trying to find some new clues.
"Mr. Lu, come and take a look." Yi Yun, who had calmed down, waved to him, "There are some words on the relief on the wall, they look familiar."
"Captain Cen has translated these words and images." Lu Yanli recalled.
Captain Cen told a story about a "god" and a "king", but he just saw another "god" on the way. Could these two "gods" be the same person
He closed his eyes and recalled the words on the wall that Captain Cen had just passed by when he was translating.
The translation of single characters is simpler, one character for one pronunciation. By comparing Captain Cen's narration with the text and graphics on the wall, Lu Yanli also found some patterns.
"These reliefs are the same as the murals outside, but the inscriptions are uncertain."
Another candle was extinguished, and the route was observed, which slowly extended in the direction where they were.
As Lu Yanli watched, he suddenly felt something was not right.
Although the relief and the mural outside are exactly the same, the text displayed is slightly different.
According to Captain Cen's narration, the villagers' "kings" and the "gods" they worship are all kind and compassionate. They will protect the villagers, and the reasons for hiding are either because they are injured or fall into a deep sleep.
But the embossed characters clearly gave a completely opposite answer. As Lu Yanli looked at it, he suddenly felt cold all over.
I knew something was wrong.
We walked from the outside to the inside, and the natural order for viewing the murals was from the outside to the inside.
But what if... the true order is actually from the inside out
Lu Yanli suppressed his throbbing heart and translated slowly, his eyes completely attracted by the relief in front of him.
Reversing Captain Cen's story, it would be...
"… There was once a mountain. This mountain was extremely dangerous. Anyone who lived in the mountain would be cursed. A group of people moved in to avoid the war and were unwilling to leave… Later, they found that their descendants were also cursed. They had to secretly invite the guardian deity to pray for the preservation of the village’s incense, but they had to provide a large amount of offerings to the guardian deity every year… Moreover, in order to bear the curse, they had to bury the dead in a forbidden area and let the dead bear the curse of the living. In this way, they could live in peace and security…"
Yi Yun asked curiously: "Lu Yanli, what are you talking about?"
Lu Yanli's tone was rarely vague: "The secret of the village may have another possibility."
Continue reading and recite it aloud.
"Later, wars in the outside world became more frequent, and many people fled in. There was also a group of troops that came from nowhere. They had weapons, and they wanted to find a burial place for their king. Under the leadership of the leader, the two sides also went to war."
"It was a war between mortals, so the guardian deity ignored it and just slept... Some people desperately tried to escape, and when they got down the mountain, the evil spirit that had been bearing their curse came out from the back of the mountain..."
"The evil spirits and the guardian gods also fought. Later, the evil spirits were driven back to the back mountain, and the guardian gods became much weaker. Sixty years before the reincarnation day, the group of soldiers forced the villagers to build an underground palace..."
"That king was blessed by the gods during his lifetime and got a..." At this point, Lu Yanli lowered his voice, turned his head, and looked at Yi Yun with his remaining eye, "He got a Pisces jade pendant and a method of immortality."
Yi Yun, who was extremely sensitive to the term "Piercing Fish Jade Pendant", suddenly raised his head and squinted his eyes to try to see the jade pendant on the relief clearly.
"Yes, there is no mistake... It must be..." She stretched out her hand, but couldn't touch it. The tomb was too high and too wide, and the reliefs were several times larger than them. Standing on the ground, people could only look up at the sculptures that were several people tall.
Yi Yun began to beg Lu Yanli again: "Please, can you lift me up? I need that jade pendant." Otherwise, she couldn't reach it at all.
Lu Yanli did not agree.
Even if the two of us added together, we couldn't reach it, not to mention that it wasn't a Pisces jade pendant, it was just a sculpture. After saying this fact, we continued to read on.
"The king was buried in the mountains as he wished, along with a large amount of treasure. The soldiers killed many villagers to bury him, as they firmly believed that this way, their king could be resurrected. The loyal soldiers stayed in the village, waiting for their king to revive sixty years later."
"Because they killed too many people, the number of evil spirits in the back mountain increased. In order to curb those evil spirits, they used the method of human sacrifice to sacrifice to the guardian spirits invited by the villagers, so that those wild fairies could fight against the evil spirits."
"The five great immortals hated their king and were unwilling to bless him, so the soldiers came up with a plan... They found a boy from the village and claimed that the boy was the reincarnation of their king. They gave him the finest silks and satins, let him eat the most delicious food, and built a throne for him..."
"The boy's family thought they were going to have a good life, so they quickly agreed, but his sister didn't want to. The soldiers were very patient and slowly worshipped the boy as their king for a whole year. Until the next year's sacrifice, they wanted the boy to replace their king and let him bear the curse..."
"The boy's family found out, and after discussing it, they swapped the boy's and girl's names and birthdays, letting the sister take the place of her brother..."
"…The girl was thrown into the river for sacrifice. The guardian gods hated the king, so the girl was tortured…" Lu Yanli stared at the relief, which showed a girl standing in a river of blood surrounding the village, with half of her body exposed, surrounded by shouting people.
"The soldiers didn't know. They were afraid of the girl's revenge, so they nailed her into the coffin, making it impossible for her to enter the back mountain after her death. After the sacrifice that year, the guardian deity invited by the villagers breathed a sigh of relief, but because it was still weak, they could only find a girl to descend..."
Lu Yanli recalled the scene in Shangxian Village.
The younger sister took the place of the older brother.
Isn’t this Zhang Huixuan’s story
That's why the sister hates her brother and everyone in the village, including the guardian gods who protect the village.
Behind them, most of the candles had gone out. Lu Yanli was completely immersed in the story of the relief, while Yi Yun was trying to climb up and grab the jade pendant carved out of stone.
Lu Yanli took a step back and discovered a smaller relief in the corner.
It was a little boy, digging a grave.
In the next scene, the man opened the small coffin buried in the grave and pulled out a nail.
The third scene shows the coffin being buried back in the grave.
So, Zhang Huixuan had a chance to escape, right? She had a chance to kill everyone, including the guardian spirit that possessed Lili. Was this the last bit of guilt from her brother, or was it just pure curiosity? Lu Yanli didn't know.
It was not until this moment that he realized something was wrong behind him.
The light faded
Just as I was about to turn back, a strong feeling of palpitations suddenly surged up in my heart, and my intuition told me that I couldn't turn back!
What's behind
A huge shadow slowly appeared in front of him, covering Lu Yanli's original shadow. The shadow was still getting bigger, and it must be the owner who was approaching.
"Yi Yun! Be careful! Come down quickly!" Lu Yanli looked up.
Yi Yun has climbed to a very high place.
The tomb can indeed slow down the rate of decay, but it cannot stop it. Most of her flesh had already rotted and fallen off, revealing a green skeleton and densely packed fungi parasitic on it. She was able to survive until now, all thanks to her strength. When she heard Lu Yanli calling her, Yi Yun was about to lower her head, but the latter said, "Don't look! Come down from the other side!"
Since the unknown monster behind him was so huge, it was useless to climb up high. Lu Yanli thought about it, calculated the distance between himself and the coffin behind him, and threw the scroll in his hand backwards with force. With a muffled sound and an echo, it fell into the coffin.
Then, he limped forward without looking back.
However, the chill coming from behind did not diminish in the slightest. He could almost smell the stench of decay that seemed to have been buried for thousands of years.
what to do
I'm already standing in front of the relief. Go forward? There is no way forward, unless I climb up like Yi Yun and hide behind the relief.
The candles placed in the tomb continued to go out, and the shadows behind him gradually darkened. No... the entire tomb was getting darker. In the darkness, the faces of the reliefs became increasingly eerie and terrifying.
It is conceivable what will happen when the tomb is plunged into complete darkness.
Yi Yun had already crawled to the vicinity of the "king".
Her body was badly decayed, leaving a long fluorescent trail in the darkness. Yi Yun reached out to grab the carved Pisces jade pendant. At this moment, her heart and eyes were filled with only the jade pendant.
She didn't take it off.
It was a stone sculpture, firmly cast in the hand of the "king".
“No... don’t... I found it with great difficulty, I finally..." Yi Yun’s face was filled with tears, and she stretched out both hands to take off the Pisces jade pendant carved out of stone.
She failed.
Her legs were already badly decayed, and she lost her balance, falling from the top of the relief, hitting the ground and spitting out blood.
Then, her breath gradually became weaker, but her eyes were still wide open, staring at the top of the relief, trying to see what she was looking for in the darkness.
Lu Yanli leaned in closer and could still hear her faint voice.
"Jade pendant... Nannan..."
The cold aura behind me was approaching, almost sticking to my body, and a creepy feeling of palpitations came over me.
Before the aura completely descended, Lu Yanli stretched out his hand and placed it on Yi Yun's neck.
The world was spinning.
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in a museum. Parents were taking their children to visit the museum, and they were having a great time.