Chapter Eighteen: Corpse Shell

  I followed the route of Da Gui's oil and water, and continued to move forward. Thanks to the gecko's sticky feet, the process wasn't too tiring. As I climbed, I looked at the stone wall that rose up along the way, and surprisingly, there were deep scratches all over it, like they had been scratched out by human fingernails. They were extremely long and thin, about 3-4 cm deep, and almost every inch of the wall was covered in these scratches.

  However, when we climbed over 100 meters, the scratches suddenly stopped, and vivid small human figures appeared on the mountain wall, densely packed like ants. These small people have faded in color after thousands of years of weathering, but the remaining colors still allow me to distinguish them as ancient ethnic minorities from Guangxi Province. Why do I say that? Because they didn't wear clothes similar to those worn by ancient Han people in the Central Plains - instead, they wore animal hides and hats made of animal teeth, with dark brown skin tones. For some reason, I couldn't see their faces clearly, which piqued my curiosity. As I followed the route, I observed that each small person was depicted in a different action, with men and women jumping and dancing wildly, but surprisingly, none of them had visible faces! Did the tomb owner know about modern portrait rights, so they kept the images of the small people secret? I shook my head, how could I have such an absurd idea recently?!

  We climbed up another five or six steps, and we arrived at the entrance of the cave where the slaves were buried. The cave was not big, about two meters wide and six meters deep. I looked inside from the outside, and a rotten coffin was placed in the center, with some stone tools and sealed jars made of stones scattered around, as well as animal bones that seemed to be from wild boars and dogs. It seemed like they were also buried together. Humans always feel curious about coffins, maybe it's because of our curiosity about the unknown. I held my flashlight in my mouth and looked inside again, and what I saw made me break out in cold sweat! My hair almost stood up! What was going on? Inside the coffin lay a mummy with its hands straight up, its fingernails black like 2B pencils, which was very disgusting. Its legs were raised high, its head tilted to one side, and when I looked at it, our eyes met, and I felt a chill. The two empty eye sockets stared at me, the mouth open in an "O" shape that no human could make, and the entire face looked terrifying. It seemed like we had disturbed its rest! My friend saw that I was not feeling well, laughed, and said: "Lu brother, these things are dead, there's nothing to be afraid of. If they were going to come back to life, they would have done so by now. Fat brother told you, fat brother went down to the cave for the first time when he was 13, and he was so scared that his intestines were all knotted up, and his heart almost stopped beating. You're just sweating a lot, which means your courage is still okay."

  I turned back to look at him with a gaze that seemed to pierce through my eyes, and I knew that Oil Barrel was trying to comfort me, but when men try to comfort each other, it's just mockery. Only women can offer genuine comfort to men. This isn't arrogance; it's like the strong mocking the weak. So at this moment, Oil Barrel's words were like nails piercing my heart, ridiculing my weakness and incompetence. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down as much as possible, for in my heart was a burning fire that could potentially engulf me.

  "Halt!" Da Gui shouted in a low voice and made a stopping gesture with his hand. "What's going on?" You Shui Tun hastily asked.

  I couldn't see the expression on his face but his tone was very serious: "There are many things reviving here, they are slowly approaching us now."

  "Rebirth, or is it just a fake resurrection." You Shui Gu said as he stared into the deep cave with eyes like those of a wolf, resembling a slave buried alive.

  I also became extremely vigilant and saw Da Gui approaching a crazed shout: "No, no zongzi! It's a corpse shell!"

  Zongzi, shi ke zi, what's the difference between eating and Jia Kela? I don't understand what they're talking about, so I just shout at Da Gui with a changed expression: "Hurry up and lead the way, we can't mess with this thing".

  As we all accelerated our upward climb, when there were about 30-40 meters left to the entrance, I suddenly felt something tearing at my muscles from behind, a wave of scorching pain all over my body. What's going on? My right hand tightly grasped the stone wall to fix my body, and with my left hand, I reached back and grabbed it. The thing was caught by me, and the feeling transmitted through my palm was that its body wasn't big, probably only about the size of a glass bead. It wriggled in my hand. With the wolf's eye still in my mouth, I took a closer look with narrowed eyes. Ah! Almost made me vomit to death! It was a white maggot, also known as the white worm that appears on some dead people and animals. This thing was more than ten times larger than an ordinary maggot, wriggling in my hand, emitting waves of rotting corpse smell in the air, don't even mention how disgusting it was!

  "Quickly get rid of it, brother! This thing is a poisonous shell!" Oil Barrel shouted at me.

  My head was shocked, and with a forceful throw of my left hand, I threw the bug away. As I looked down, oh my god! My mother almost scared me to death. From the tomb below us, a large patch of white bugs emerged, like flowing water, towards us. With their appearance, a stench of rotting flesh slowly filled the air, making people feel nauseous like rotten salted fish! This is what Oil Water Belly Mouth said was the Corpse Shell?! Oh my god! Is there anything more disgusting than this?!

  Not to mention how disgusting it is, Oil Water Belly says this thing is toxic, let's leave here first and talk about it later. With so many bugs crawling on me, I estimate that in just two seconds, only a skeleton will be left. A chill ran down my back, and I quickly used all my strength to climb up with Oil Water Belly. But no matter how fast I climbed, these shell-like creatures were faster, and they had already reached my feet after I took only two or three steps. They crawled into my pants through the small gap at the bottom of the pant legs because it was too cold in winter and I didn't want to change my pants, so I wore a pair of windbreaker pants, a pair of jeans, and a pair of thermal underwear - three layers of big pants. For a while, the bugs couldn't drill into my body quickly, but these bugs might be really toxic. My feet felt burning pain, and they gradually became numb. I was in agony, thinking that this thing wasn't just toxic, it was highly toxic! Only three or four steps away from the cave entrance, I slowly felt dizzy and disoriented, and more shell-like creatures swarmed onto me. The exposed skin on my body already felt the bugs drilling into my skin, a kind of piercing pain spreading throughout my skin.

  Just as I was about to collapse, the oil drum stretched out its foot to my head and said urgently, "Brother, quickly grab onto my foot, Fat Brother will pull you up!"

  My mind was in a daze, the corpse had already crawled onto me and was highly toxic. He's now using his feet to pull me, ninety percent of which would also be infested with corpses. My value has been completely drained by him, why is he still risking his life to save me? I have a strong dislike for this oily water belly person, the Cantonese accent makes it difficult for me to listen, and the way he eats, picks his nose, snores while sleeping, and sets traps for me along the way has made me want to kill him. Leaving me here would only be nurturing a tiger.

  "Grandma and mom will think what, Fat Brother won't give up halfway, Fat Brother really hopes to make friends with you!" Oil Water Belly said again.

  Forget it, let's go up first! Thinking of using all my strength, I grasped the foot of the oil bottle with both hands, and in an instant, I felt that my body's center of gravity had left the surface of the stone wall, and I was slowly lifted into the air. When I reached the entrance of the cave, everything went black before my eyes.

  "Lu brothers... wake up... wake up"... I don't know how long I had been unconscious, but my mind slowly regained consciousness. The sound of You Shui Gu's calls came from beside me, and I opened my eyes dazedly to find Da Fu, Da Gui, and You Shui Gu sitting next to me, their three pairs of eyes staring at me strangely. My body was numb all over, unable to feel pain or move, like a dead fish on the ground. Using the corner of my eye, I took in our surroundings - we were still at the entrance of the mountain cave, with only broken stones on the ground. This burial cave was different from others, without coffins or burial goods, but with many murals carved into the walls. The cave was deep, with a 30° inclined stone path leading up, and on either side of the path were placed pairs of ferocious-looking ghost masks.

  "Hey, what about those shells? Why are they all gone!! I thought to myself and quickly asked the three of them."

  They exchanged glances, clearly at a loss for words. Finally, the oily-skinned one spoke up in a low voice, "Lu brother, don't you know that those shells are afraid of you? They've all been scared away by you, and you didn't even notice?"

  Why would I be afraid of you!!!!!!!