Chapter 15: The Iron Box

  After several rounds, the black snake finally died.

  Huang Pizi used his mouth to bite the black snake's head and dragged it into the darkness with great effort. I shone my flashlight on it, dragging the snake behind a rock, then swept the light around again before asking Zhong Ling'er: "What do we do? Go in or go out?" Zhong Ling'er said to go in. I greatly admired her courage - when faced with a venomous snake, she didn't show any fear and even wanted to go further inside. It was clear that she had an extraordinary amount of bravery and a selfless spirit. A girl like this is truly worth having.

  I handed the flashlight to Zhong Ling'er and lit the way, walking ahead. Slowly making our way to the opposite side of the stone chamber, we found two openings in front of us, one on the left and one on the right. Both openings were over two meters high and about a meter wide, with signs of artificial excavation. I turned back to look at Zhong Ling'er, asking her which path to take, and her eyes were fixed on the opening to the right. I thought she wanted to go that way, so I stepped forward into it.

  Just two steps away, a sudden noise came from behind, I immediately turned around and shone my flashlight, only to find that about two meters away from us stood a yellow mongoose, its mouth corner stained with blood, the same one that had just fought with the black snake. At this moment, it stared at me with a pair of eyes shining with white light, as if wanting to say something to me.

  Zhong Ling'er also stopped and stared at Huang Pizi in extreme surprise.

  "Is this little guy coming to ask us for repayment? Although I knew it couldn't understand human language, I still asked with a pretentious tone: "Little brother, thank you for saving us just now, do you need us to do something for you?"

  Huang Pizi just looked up at me, naturally without saying a word, didn't come over, and didn't leave either.

  Because Dahai was deceived by Huang Pizi to hang himself, especially the ferocious appearance of that Huang Pizi who hanged himself with Dahai has been lingering in front of me, so I have a subconscious guard against Huang Pizi. However, this Huang Pizi is different from others, perhaps because it saved us, I think it's very cute, and I take a step forward to ask questions again, but it takes a step back, turns around and runs into the hole on the left.

  "Hmm?" Zhong Ling'er's delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that the yellow-skinned person seemed to be luring us in.

  I find it strange, it just saved us and now leads us into that cave entrance. What does this little guy want to do?

  Is it going to lead us to find Da Hei's soul?

  "Shall we go in?" I asked Zhong Ling'er.

  Zhong Ling'er nodded.

  After walking for about ten steps inside, the front suddenly became empty. I shone my flashlight downwards and found a stone staircase in front of me. On the road, there were three black objects lying horizontally. I shone my flashlight at those black objects and couldn't help but take a cold breath - they were actually three dead bodies!

  Those three corpses were very close together, their heads facing this direction, as if they wanted to run up from under the stone steps, but fell dead before reaching the top.

  I have an innate fear of the dead, if it weren't for Zhong Ling'er being here, I would have turned around and slipped away long ago. However, seeing Zhong Ling'er standing by my side without moving, I couldn't bear to leave either.

  Zhong Ling'er shone her flashlight down at the stone steps, discovering that they extended all the way down, seemingly without end. Moreover, below was a dark and eerie abyss, as if leading to hell itself.

  I remembered the legend about this cave, it seems that the legend is true, people have indeed died here, but what puzzles me is that the yellow-skinned person brought us here to see dead people?

  Jing Ling'er walked slowly ahead, and I hesitated for a moment before following her.

  When I came to the corpse, all I saw was that its skin and flesh were dry and withered, its clothes were old and rotten, as if they would turn to dust at a touch. Only the hair remained, which was very eerie, it could be seen that they had been dead for many years.

  I saw that under the corpse's body, there was a small box held tightly in both hands and pressed against his chest. I crouched down and used my lighter to take a closer look, discovering that the box was only the size of a shaving kit, made of copper, and covered in dust. I muttered to myself: "What is this thing? This person is holding it so tightly, could there be treasure inside?"

  Zhong Ling'er also squatted down and shone her flashlight on the iron box.

  I told Zhong Ling'er that this cave used to be a bandit's lair, and although the government troops had cleaned it out, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there were still treasures hidden inside that the bandits had plundered. Maybe this box contains a priceless night pearl. Then I suggested: "No matter what's in the box, we'll split it equally." But Zhong Ling'er said: "You can have it all, I don't want any of it."

  Good.

  I clasped my hands together in respect to the corpse and said, "Senior, you protected this box with your life before you died. It must be a treasured treasure of yours. Now that you've ascended to heaven, I'll take care of it for you temporarily. I have no ill intentions, please don't mind." After finishing speaking, I looked around left and right, hoping to find a wooden stick or a chopping knife to pry the iron box out of the corpse's hand. However, after searching for half a day, I couldn't even find a piece of wood shavings, so I had no choice but to clasp my hands together again in respect to the corpse and "explain" once more, carefully taking the iron box from its hand.

  The iron box was very dusty, probably because it's made of copper. After blowing away the dust on top, I found that there were relief carvings on the surface of the iron box, which featured strange patterns and ancient seal script characters. The reason why I say they are ancient is that these characters are unfamiliar to me, but they somewhat resemble Mongolian script.

  I turned it over and over again, strangely this iron box was like a whole, there was no way to open it.

  Zhong Ling'er was also curious to observe the iron box, I handed it to her, she shook her head and didn't take it. I said this wouldn't be Pandora's magic box, maybe there's a devil trapped inside? Never mind for now, I'll study it later when we get out.

  I stood up and looked down at the stone steps, asking Zhong Ling'er if she still wanted to go down. She said wait for her to take a look first, while saying that she took out the paper with the big black birth date BaZi from her pocket, glanced at me, and asked me to turn around. I asked her what's going on, was she going to pee? Zhong Ling'er said: "I'll use his birth date BaZi to see if his soul is here." I said then go ahead and look, why ask me to turn around? Zhong Ling'er said this is a secret technique, others can't watch. I chuckled and said I wouldn't understand anyway, are you afraid I'd steal your skills? Zhong Ling'er's face fell, clearly unhappy, so I had no choice but to uninterestingly turn around.

  Zhong Ling'er was fiddling with something behind my back, making a rustling sound. I was curious and wanted to sneak a peek at what she was doing, but thinking of Zhong Ling'er's stern face, I had to hold myself back. After about five or six minutes, I finally heard Zhong Ling'er say, "Okay."

  I quickly turned around and asked: "Is Da Hei's soul here?" Zhong Ling'er slowly shook her head.

  "Isn't she here?" I found sweat beads on her forehead and asked why she was sweating, but Zhong Ling'er didn't respond. She just said lightly, "Let's go." After finishing speaking, she turned around and left. I panicked and hastily said, "But your mother said she was in this place!" Zhong Ling'er walked while saying, "My mother said it was a dark place, not necessarily this cave." I felt extremely frustrated. If we couldn't confirm that she was definitely here, then why come here? It's so dangerous! Initially, if Huang Pizi hadn't lent a hand to save us in the stone room, I'm afraid both of us would have ended up as snake food! Moreover, you could have used the black birth chart to test whether his soul had re-entered or not. Why didn't you do that earlier?

  But I didn't say that out loud, judging from the sweat on Zhong Ling'er's forehead, it wasn't an easy task to use her mother's method of using the eight characters of a person's birthdate to detect whether Da Hei's soul was here or not. She had always believed in her mother and thought that Da Hei's soul was indeed here, so she came in, but after entering, she didn't find Da Hei's soul, and there were poisonous snakes inside, now encountering an endless downhill road, so she had to use her last resort - the eight-character soul detection method.

  It wasn't until later that I realized that using the eight characters to measure one's soul was indeed a mentally taxing task, and ordinary fortune tellers couldn't do it. For someone as young as Zhong Ling'er to be able to master this skill was truly no easy feat.

  "Where is that big black soul?" I asked Zhong Ling'er.

  Zhong Ling'er said she didn't know.

  I'm very disappointed, I thought Zhong Ling'er would come out and definitely succeed, but unexpectedly found an unopenable iron box, and Da Hei's soul is still nowhere to be found. I think Da Hei's mother will be even more heartbroken.

  Extremely depressed, I came out of the cave, and the sky was already slightly dark. In the distance, I saw a kerosene lamp placed at the entrance of the cave, with the light flickering. I looked around for a while, scratched my hair and asked: "Where did Wu Lele go?"