Chapter Fourteen: The Bodhisattva Lights the Lamp

  After walking a few steps, I found that there were many wooden boxes piled up beside me, big and small, with unknown contents inside.

  But I didn't have time to care about these wooden boxes, as my attention was completely drawn to another iron wall in front of me.

  It is another compartment, cutting off the already castrated cargo hold once again.

  I couldn't help but admire the handwriting of Jinhua Wheel's management, and the cost of these two large iron walls is not cheap. Moreover, it is not necessary at all, unless it is specially prepared for transporting extremely special goods.

  The iron gate was fully enclosed, and Oni no Otoko pushed it open a crack.

  "Hmm, it's strange that the British have added two more locks and posted soldiers outside, but this important place inside doesn't have any extra precautions?"

  "In the first place, there was a lock, but we solved it last night. The British obviously sensed that someone had sneaked in, but didn't take any precautions, tsk, I'm also puzzled."

  "It's possible they didn't dare come in and take a look, or... maybe they just didn't want to." The old corpse said slowly in his unique tone.

  "Are you saying they're afraid of what's inside?" I gazed at the rough iron gate, unsure of what was stored inside. To be honest, I had some regrets, but now wasn't the time to think about escaping. Don't be fooled by Guī Yè Jiāo and Lǎo Tàijiān being polite to me; when it came down to it, these two fugitives wouldn't hesitate to strike a fatal blow.

  The iron gate continued to open, and a chill emanated from within, a pitch-black expanse.

  I walked slowly with Oni-otoko under the flashlight, as soon as I entered the iron gate, I felt like I had entered a huge enclosed space. The darkness around me was like a thick fog that wrapped around and pressed down layer by layer. The beam of light from the flashlight was filled with thick haze, everything looked unclear.

  A figure was illuminated by a ray of light, casting a fleeting shadow.

  Suddenly, I took a sharp breath in.

  "Could it be that Da Ba and Xiao Qiu are in cahoots with each other?" I wondered to myself, my footsteps having already come to a halt.

  But soon, this idea was abandoned. The flashlight swept around in a circle, two, three... eighteen figures! Unless Da Ba and Xiao Qiu had mastered the art of splitting themselves like little Japanese ninjas, it could only mean that there were other people here!

  Isn't this a British trick? Are they going to station troops here and give us a surprise attack?

  I quickly looked at Oniichan and saw that he was calm, without focusing his attention on the figure, but instead shone his flashlight towards the top of his head.

  I suppressed the curiosity and fear in my heart, and lifted my head along the light. Just a few breaths later, suddenly, a large object appeared above my head.

  Due to the weak light of the flashlight, after passing through the fog-like black mist, there was only a bright spot the size of a washbasin, which could not illuminate the entire outline of large objects. In the light, objects looked like flat stones with numerous insect and bird patterns carved on their surface, looking extremely ancient, and it wasn't until later that I learned this was the carving style of three generations ago.

  I swallowed a mouthful of saliva and whispered in the ear of the oni: "What is this thing?"

  "Right away, you'll know." - Inuyasha

  Just as I was puzzled and couldn't understand, it suddenly lit up silently around me.

  A faint green light flashed for an instant, illuminating the space with a eerie and desolate atmosphere.

  "My god, stone coffin, damn it, how many are there!" I was shocked by the scene in front of me.

  Only nine huge coffins, far exceeding the standard size, were lined up above their heads, suspended in mid-air by a complex network of iron chains, as if they might fall at any moment.

  What astonished me was that these coffins were all different. The one above my head was the largest, three times the size of a normal coffin, and it was made of pure stone. The eight coffins on the sides were either wooden or extremely rare iron coffins. Not only did they differ in material, but also in the style of the paintings on their surfaces and their external designs, which were vastly different, clearly not from the same era. One large red coffin had already cracked open, revealing a narrow slit, from which a cool breeze emanated.

  But what shocked me most was that these coffins were placed upside down!

  "Time is running out, take a look around." Oni no Yaiba patted me on the back, and I finally came to my senses from the shock.

  He lifted his head and then quickly looked down again, his eyes scanning the horizon before he suddenly turned pale with shock.

  The figure I saw earlier revealed its true face in the black fog of Lushan.

  "This is... a mud Bodhisattva... why are they still wearing masks?" I exclaimed, looking around and finding exactly eighteen of them. I cautiously took a few steps forward, and only then could see clearly. Each Bodhisattva was as tall as a person, standing upright, with bodies roughly carved, like cheap goods picked up from a street stall. However, their faces were adorned with incredibly lifelike Bodhisattva masks, which upon closer inspection turned out to be made of bronze. These bronze masks were truly works of art, perfectly capturing the compassion and serenity of the Bodhisattvas.

  In the hands of these mud Buddhas, each one was dragging a bronze oil lamp, held high above their chests, sputtering sparks, and the dim greenish light illuminating the space was emitted from these lamps.

  "This is human wax, made from human oil and corpse poison mixed with some long-lost secret formula." The old corpse pointed to the lamp oil and said to me, then reached out to the mud Bodhisattva's body, squeezed out a layer of mud scum under his nose and smelled it, saying: "This mud is actually corpse scum, as a reserve fuel for corpse oil, can burn for tens of thousands of years. Human wax is extremely precious, not something ordinary people can afford to use."

  I gave the old corpse a weird look, waving my hand in front of the old eunuch's eyes. The old corpse chuckled: "Don't doubt whether I'm blind or not, I was born in an ancient tomb since childhood, and can distinguish human aura and light heat in the dark."

  I spat out my tongue, how can there be such a magical thing, cheating kids?

  "Why are these people shining by themselves? It's too weird." I was very puzzled.

  "It can sense human presence, and as soon as someone moves, it will light up." Lao Lao explained, seeing the disbelief on my face, quickly telling me the secrets behind it: "Actually, the secret lies in these bronze masks. The nostrils of the masks can detect extremely weak external air flows, which are then transmitted to the intricate mechanisms inside, triggering the ignition of the oil lamp. The internal structure is extremely precise, worthy of being called a masterpiece. Such devices were luxury items among luxury items in ancient tombs. Think about it, in a quiet ancient tomb, the only thing that can cause unnatural air disturbances is human activity, and these humans are likely to be grave robbers. The self-igniting wax is very eerie, not only can it scare away inexperienced grave robbers, but it will also slowly release chronic toxins, making it impossible for anyone to stay for long, otherwise they will die with blood flowing from their seven orifices and become one of the burial objects in the tomb. These eighteen mud Buddhas are probably not burial objects from the Yongzheng Emperor's mausoleum. When Sun Dianying robbed the tomb back then, I didn't find these things, so they must have been brought from somewhere else by the British. Ah, we didn't expect to encounter this troublesome wax, and our preparations for antidotes were severely insufficient, which is why we had to retreat last night."

  "Oniichan interrupted, 'The toxic gas concentration is starting to rise, let's hurry up and get things settled.' Jii-san nodded and said to me, 'Look up and see if you've found anything.'"

  I raised my head and said, "A coffin."

  "Look up again." The old corpse said in a low voice.

  My eyes narrowed, and I tiptoed forward a few steps, straining to peek through the gap in the coffin. Finally, I discovered a special phenomenon - the chains suspending the coffins all converged towards a central point, and at that center, an extremely strange object appeared. It was a large bronze lump with a diameter of nearly five meters.

  The outside of the mound is full of tunnels, large enough for an adult to enter and exit, small ones are only as big as a snake hole.

  About ten meters above my head, the big bronze pimple was almost stuck to the top of the boat. All the chains were stretched out from holes of various sizes. From a distance, it looked like a broken moon.

  "The thing is inside this bronze sphere, you go in and take it out." The old corpse said calmly, which sounded more like an unquestionable command to me.

  I'm stunned, to climb up, I first need to climb on top of those coffins. Stone and iron coffins are fine, but those wooden coffins look like they're about to collapse at any moment. What if I accidentally step on one and it collapses? One foot gets stuck in a place that shouldn't be stepped on, and the zombie is awakened and brought out, then I'm done for. By the way, ghosts and goblins seem to call zombies "zongzi" (glutinous rice dumplings) in their jargon. What an insult to food! From now on, I'll never eat zongzi again.

  Oni no Ya saw me hesitating and said, "Don't think about it anymore, hurry up and get on."

  "I asked: 'The coffin is over a meter off the ground, how am I supposed to get up there?'"

  "Really stupid." Oni Ototsu pointed at the Muddy Bodhisattva and said, "Step on his head."

  "Chi Na, you really are bold and fearless, not afraid of retribution." I shuddered at the thought, as I was still a novice then, and didn't dare to offend any ghosts or gods, far from being as reckless and arrogant as I would be later on.

  "Haha, those of us in this line of work have never thought that there would be any good rewards. Don't be so hypocritical and act like a woman. Those with small guts will die after one or two fights. This world is afraid of evil people, as long as you are evil enough, you can survive." Gui Ye Jia scolded me and pulled me to the side of the mud Bodhisattva, dragging me by force, I stepped on the shoulder of the mud Bodhisattva with one foot.

  A dark alleyway echoed with the sound of "Amitabha", and just as he was about to exert force to push upwards, two small objects suddenly fell from above his head.

  "What the...!" The sudden change of events scared my little heart into an uncontrollable frenzy, one foot still resting on the Buddha's shoulder, I immediately turned around and looked down at the ground with a comical posture.

  At a glance, I recognized the origin of these two things: "Armadillo!"

  Oni no Ya was even more surprised and almost simultaneously shouted out with me: "Orochimaru! Konohamaru!"