Chapter 40: The Golden Pyramid

  Oni no Yaiba took a step ahead and arrived outside the 'cave', then stopped in his tracks.

  "Come on, let's go, what are you spacing out for?"

  Oniichan was like he was possessed or something, and it wasn't until a while later that I heard him muttering to himself, "He's... got milk... we're rich..."

  "Where did you come from, you 'mixed' egg 'door' god, blocking the way for no reason? Let me take a look!" I would have kicked him flying with one foot if only my combat power was higher than his, but sadly the reality is just the opposite.

  The demon reluctantly shifted a few positions, turned sideways and completely crawled out of the 'hole', quickly leaving the view to me.

  "Ah, this is......" At the moment I saw the scene in front of me, I forgot to breathe, and rubbed my eyes hard, hardly daring to believe everything I was seeing.

  Although it has been many years, every time I recall this breathtaking scene, I still can't help but tremble with excitement all over my body. It also caused me countless sleepless nights, if only I could have moved that thing away at the time!

  What was laid before my eyes was an unimaginable shocking scene.

  A vast underground space, like another unknown world that does not exist in the mortal realm. The top of the space, hundreds of meters high, reveals a hidden gap, and under the daylight, a crescent-shaped beam of light shoots down, connecting the sky and the abyss. All around are strange plants over two meters tall, dense and lush, covering a large area as far as the eye can see, and a small path stretches from beneath one's feet, extending all the way to the center of the trees.

  These scenes are not what I care about, at this moment my line of sight is all concentrated in the central region, where a nearly hundred-zhang-tall majestic... golden pyramid rises from the ground!

  Not bad, it's a golden pyramid buried under the ground of a deserted island!

  The tower emitted a dazzling light that was impossible to look away from, a radiance that I and Koinosuke were all too familiar with, one that we couldn't help but think about day and night. In this world, there's only one metal worthy of possessing such an eye-catching brilliance that illuminates humanity's greedy instincts - gold! I could almost be certain that this was a golden tower, or at the very least, a gigantic pyramid wrapped in gold leaf.

  Even if it's just gold foil, the amount of gold inside is countless times more than what Jin Hua Lun transported!

  I feel parched and tongue-tied, at this moment my eyes must be shining with greedy gaze, it's really too shocking, for a while I'm at a loss.

  "Why did the Japanese build this golden pyramid?" I muttered to myself.

  Oni looked at me with a silly expression and sneered, "Who told you this was built by the Japanese? If it were made of pure gold, even selling off Little Japan wouldn't be enough to produce that much gold!"

  "This thing is..." I was puzzled, shook my head, and suddenly thought that the golden pyramid wasn't exclusive to Egypt, right?

  "Never mind, let's take a look at the past." Oniyasha said, I nodded repeatedly. Ah, gold, so much gold! How can you enter the treasure mountain and return empty-handed? At least you have to 'touch' it to satisfy your cravings.

  We walked along the small path towards the center of the plants, looking around in all directions. The plants on both sides were particularly strange, like a huge 'jade' corn 'stick', with green leaves wrapped around it, and at the top, clusters of blood-red flowers bloomed.

  As I walked, I suddenly saw a large leaf burst open, revealing a piece of greenish-blue tattered cloth from beneath the layered leaves.

  Driven by curiosity, I pulled on the tattered cloth. The ogre's face changed color: "Don't touch things casually."

  However, as soon as Oni no Ya's voice fell, the tattered cloth was pulled out by me, and a bloody dead man's hand also 'appeared' at the same time!

  "Ah!" My pupils contracted, and I hastily withdrew my hand in a manner akin to being electrocuted. However, possibly due to the inertia from earlier, the plant's leaves could not withstand the weight of the corpse after it tilted, and more than half of the dead body fell to the ground with a thud.

  All I saw was that the corpse was covered in fresh blood, wearing a tattered peasant's cotton-padded jacket. What made me feel cold air constantly emerging from my mouth was that on the corpse's head, there were actually 'flowers' blooming, those big, blood-red 'flowers' I had seen before. The roots of this 'flower' were growing out of the seven orifices on the corpse's head - the eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

  "This can't be... a human 'Fatty' Blood Orchid!" Oniyasha let out a ghostly scream.

  "This is too evil!" I suddenly realized that I was in a forest composed of such plants, and my legs were trembling with fear, how many people must have died here.

  "This place is not suitable for a long stay, let's go!" The oni Kageyasha pulled me to hurry up and run forward. I asked: "What kind of person is 'Fatty' Blood Orchid? It can't be that they use humans as fertilizer to raise them?"

  "The demon's head didn't turn back, and in a low voice said: 'Bury the living person halfway in the ground, plant a seed of the "human fat" blood orchid in their belly, and feed them fresh blood through their mouth at regular intervals. When the time is right, the human fat blood orchid will take root and sprout, using the nutrients from the living person to grow, and gradually break out of the seven orifices of the human body, growing into a flower. The roots will come out of the anus and penetrate the mud, growing into green leaves. This is an ancient legend's evil flower, so malevolent that only King Zhou of Shang was known to have cultivated it in history. I've only seen brief mentions of this flower in remote classics, never thought it actually existed!'"

  I couldn't help but ask, "What's the point of planting such a wicked 'flower' when you're already full and idle? Are you sick?" This is not a beautiful and mysterious plant forest, it's simply a terrifying and eerie dead forest.

  "You don't understand, didn't you see that the corpse from just now doing 'flower' 'fatty' hasn't rotted? This is high-quality goods for a living sacrifice! Let's be clever and not turn these corpses into dumplings." Oni no Ya suddenly thought of something and hastily put on his Oni mask which he hadn't worn in a long time, also kindly tossing one to me, saying: "Put it on, your internal energy is unstable, your breathing is disordered, causing your aura to leak out excessively."

  I took a look at the mask and it was an ugly pig face mask. I got angry immediately: "Return your Pigsy's thing!"

  "You don't know what's good for you, this is made from the skin of a mermaid from the East Sea, it's said to be an unparalleled treasure that only a few have heard of but never seen! 'Color'!" Oni no Tsubasa said with disdain. I didn't believe him, of course, and I wasn't about to put it on, but just covering my mouth and nose with it brought a strange aroma that invigorated me greatly, like I had taken opium.

  As I walked, I suddenly realized that the clothes on the dead body were very similar to those worn by farmers in Northeast China. "Could it be a Chinese person...?" I suddenly thought of a possibility - building this massive underground base would have been impossible for the Japanese alone, and given their violent tendencies, they must have forcibly recruited Chinese laborers. According to the common characteristics I found in the confidential documents, not one of these laborers from the occupied territories met a good end. In other words, the ruthless Japanese had buried them alive down here! But what was the purpose?

  Before long, we finally arrived in front of the Great Pyramid.

  The closest contact is more shocking than distant gaze.

  I 'touched' the gold bricks on the tower body, and couldn't help but take a bite. Ah, this texture, this taste is pure gold!

  I'm so excited I'm trembling all over!

  If it weren't for the fact that these gold bricks were stacked extremely tightly, and each one weighed over a ton, I would have loved to put them in my pocket and take them away immediately. This is not like the gold on the Jin Hua ship that has already been registered by the Nationalist Party - these are ownerless objects, whoever can grab them is a king!

  Oni no Yaiba is a bit better than me, but he's also greedy and lies on the gold bricks in a daze.

  After a long time, we found that in the middle of the golden pyramid, there was a small passage, which seemed to lead to the interior of the golden pyramid.

  "I've read in the newspaper that the Egyptian pyramids are extremely mysterious, especially with the treasures of the ancient pharaohs buried inside. This underwater pyramid is even more incredible, the entire body of the pyramid is made of gold, what kind of treasure could be hidden inside?" I exclaimed excitedly.

  "Hmm, don't forget that the pyramids have burial objects because they contain the mummies of pharaohs, and the pyramids themselves are tombs. Our Han culture emphasizes feng shui, using mountains as mausoleums, but ancient Egyptians didn't have suitable mountains, so they built their own 'mountains', the pyramids, to guide the wind and water.

  Ghost Night Demon stroked his chin thoughtfully and said: "In my estimation, this pyramid is definitely not something that those poor Japanese could build. Even if they could afford it, they wouldn't need to make schoolchildren go without shirts in class during wartime just to save a little fabric. I think it's highly likely that this pyramid was built by a civilization near ancient Egypt or one influenced by ancient Egyptian culture, and this civilization probably controlled a massive gold mine that has never been discovered before!"

  It seems that we have actually entered a tomb of an unknown civilization.

  I looked at the deep 'cave' entrance and uncertainly asked Oni no Yaiba: "Are we going in?"

  Oni no Yaiba rubbed his palms together and slapped his chest, excitedly saying: "You damn nonsense, what do you think my old line of work is? Turn it upside down!"

  "Ah, I forgot about this." To be honest, I thought he was an American soldier all along.

  Oni and Kage opened the way, holding flashlights to illuminate our path, while I followed closely behind them. We walked quietly into the unknown pyramid.

  Undoubtedly, inside the square 'cave', it is also made of pure gold.

  Oni no Yaiba adjusted the flashlight's aperture to make it a floodlight, greatly illuminating all four walls.

  All I see is a repetitive pattern appearing on the walls from time to time.

  A pair of conjoined babies, back to back, struggling to crawl in opposite directions. The lines are simple, full of primitive and wild atmosphere, but still can be identified as two babies, although the strokes are concise, their faces are almost identical.

  As I walked, the pattern kept repeating itself, so I didn't have to deliberately remember it, but it was deeply etched in my mind. What this thing represents, I guess it might be a totem of this unknown civilization.

  "Huh? What's this..." Oni no Yaiba hesitated for a few steps, and the flashlight swept around the four walls in a circle. Suddenly, countless human faces appeared on the golden walls.

  These people's faces were all showing painful expressions without exception.

  It is gold inlaid.

  I took a deep breath and Kiyotsugu said cautiously, "Load your gun, be careful."

  I did as I was told, tiptoeing and almost sticking to the back of the oni as we moved forward.

  Even the ground beneath my feet is covered with human faces, and I feel a pang of guilt as I tread on them.

  The wall of faces stretched on for a long time, with each face different from the next. There were countless men and women, old and young, just like the myriad expressions of humanity, yet their suffering was as if they were in a hellish abyss. We walked for an entire minute before we finally reached the edge. Before I could even catch my breath, at the junction where the wall of faces met the ordinary wall, I saw another face that was all too familiar: "Ah, it's Old Third Zhang again!"

  I wonder why all the strange things that keep happening to me, more or less, are related to this 'bastard'. I pulled the ghostly night yaksha, but instead, he countered by grabbing my collar and pulling my face forward with force.

  "What are you doing? I have an important discovery!" I wanted to tell Guī Yè Jiāo about the strange thing that happened to Xiǎo Sān's face, but Guī Yè Jiāo replied in a weird tone: "I also have an important discovery here!"

  Under Inuyasha's fierce pull, I faced a golden wall head-on, and an unbelievable scene unfolded before me.

  Two faces slowly emerged on the wall, like **, with their features initially blurry, but after more than a dozen breaths, they became increasingly clear and lifelike.

  I was shocked to discover that these two strange faces were none other than a ghostly yasha and... myself.