Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Mysterious Person

  We stumbled into the cave. As I walked, I worried that the vines behind us would follow and crawl in, but after walking for a while without seeing any movement behind us, I finally put my mind at ease.

  The paths in the tomb intersected with each other, and after walking back and forth, I couldn't tell where I was. I asked Ma Si Zhe, "Can you still distinguish between right and left?"

  I'm now almost unable to distinguish up and down, let alone left and right.

  "Let's take it easy and walk slowly, don't rush or we'll end up back where we started."

  Cheng Shu heard our conversation and turned back to ask 'what's this about right left right left'

  Ma Si Zhe felt a bit lazy and said 'I feel like there's some kind of pattern in the road in this hole, just guessing blindly'

  "You mean that pattern is the direction of the tomb passage in this cave."

  Ma Si Zhe nodded. Cheng Shu suddenly realized 'So that's it, the route in the mountain cave, how could I not have thought of it'

  "No wonder your uncle said you have talent, okay, Fourth Master also has a successor. " After finishing, he smiled again, and everyone didn't understand what he meant, nor did they respond to him. Cheng Shu also didn't mind, continuing to say: "When I first arrived here, I didn't find any rules until the first time I climbed up the coral and found out the differences in the design of these caves."

  Seemingly indistinguishable caves, in fact, the location and size of the entrance have their own rules. The entrances on both east and west sides are relatively large, while those on the south and north are much smaller. More obvious is the shape of the entrance, some are square, some have an arc, some lean to the left, and some lean to the right.

  This is actually a very subtle difference, and you won't notice it when standing in front of the cave entrance. Only when you move away and look down from a high place can you notice these small details. Cheng Shu climbed onto the coral reef again to take another look at these caves and discovered a rule.

  The top layer consists of four elliptical openings on the east side, with their entrances facing right. On the west side are four elliptical openings, with their entrances facing left. The south side has four square openings, with their entrances facing right, and the north side also has four square openings, with their entrances facing right.

  Cheng Shu sorted out all the information he saw. Right, left, right, right, the order is southeast northwest.

  The overall situation of the second layer is the same, only the order has been swapped in turn, becoming south-west-north-east.

  No need for Brother Cheng to say more, I can probably guess the situation at the very bottom, right? This time it became northwest southeast.

  "At that time, I felt that there must be some reason for this, it's absolutely not a coincidence. I didn't expect it to be related to the tomb passage." Cheng Shu seemed to brighten up as he walked and said "Great, the design is really clever!"

  "If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have told him," Ma Si Zhe said in a low voice.

  "What's wrong?"

  Ma Si Zhe yawned and said 'Nothing, I just don't like seeing him so happy'

  After walking for a while, the tomb path gradually became quiet. Ma Si Zhe and I were fine, at least we had just slept for a while. Cheng Shu and others probably hadn't slept for a long time, now no one had the energy to speak. I looked at Huo Ying's exhausted face and took my arm out of her hand: "I'm much better, you rest too."

  Huo Ying smiled formulaically and walked to one side. To be honest, I wasn't very comfortable with her holding my arm like that. They say women's hearts are as deep as the ocean, but Huo Ying suddenly did this, and I really couldn't guess what she meant.

  Ma Si Zhe saw me let go of Huo Ying's hand, and he also let go of his own hand, relieved, pinched his shoulders and continued walking.

  Ma Si Zhe is really blind, can't he see that I'm just being polite to Huo Ying, not really interested?

  I rubbed my chest and coughed twice, frowning as I continued walking.

  I hadn't taken two steps when the figure of Ma Si-zhe in front of me began to blur, I shook my head but still couldn't see clearly. It was like being seasick, with a dizzy feeling. My eyelids grew heavier and heavier until I finally lost control and fell forward onto the ground.

  I don't know how long I slept, but I finally crawled up from the ground.

  The moment my hand came into contact with something under me, I quickly pulled it back. Looking down, it was a huge boulder. A thread of fear emerged in my heart, what's going on? How did it come back? Did I not move from there all along?

  I had just realized that this might be the same boulder as before, and hastily climbed down from it. I cautiously looked around, afraid that the vines would come out again from somewhere.

  After coming down, I found that this stone was not the same as the previous one. This piece is much larger and also not in the shape of a lotus flower. It seems to have no carving, more like an original stone.

  I looked around and found that at intervals of not more than ten feet, there was a block like the one under me. This seemed to be a storehouse for materials, containing a great many uncarved stones.

  Just as I was studying the rocks under my feet, I heard footsteps coming from not far away. I quickly hid behind a boulder and secretly looked in the direction of the footsteps.

  A man walked in from the other end of the tomb passage, wearing a earth-gray colored garment, with a woolen hat on his head and holding an old-fashioned flashlight in his hand.

  When I clearly saw the face of the person coming, all the hairs on my body shrunk back into their pores. It was my grandfather!

  Although I haven't seen him for many years, but now the grandfather I see is still the same as twenty years ago, without any change.

  What's going on? Am I dead? I stretched out my hand in front of me and waved it twice, and touched my right hand, there is a feeling. I also looked down at my feet, they are still here.

  Just as I was thinking, my grandfather walked over in my direction. For some reason, my first reaction was to hide. But there was nowhere to hide around here, and relying on these few tombstones, I would be discovered sooner or later.

  At this time, my grandfather had slowly walked to my back, but what made me puzzled was that he seemed not to have discovered me, and went straight past me from behind. I stood up from the stone bench, accidentally bumped into my chest, subconsciously cried out, but found that I couldn't make a sound. Then touched my chest, and surprisingly didn't feel any pain.

  I'm done for!

  It seems that the previous fall from the vine was quite severe, and it's possible that I broke a rib or two, which poked into my lungs. But why didn't I feel any pain before? Unable to figure it out, I decided not to think about it anymore and quickly accepted reality, deciding to follow Grandfather instead, wanting to see what had happened to him. Even if I die, I want to be a ghost who understands things clearly.

  My grandfather's experiences have always been a mystery to me. All of my guesses seem unreasonable and unconvincing.

  After making sure Grandpa wouldn't notice me, I followed him with big strides.

  Grandpa walked through this piece of land without giving it a second glance. I followed behind Grandpa and found that this place is quite different from the underground of Maoer Mountain where we walked before, at least not any road I've ever taken.

  As they walked and walked, they found that it was actually a dead end. Grandpa held the flashlight to illuminate the wall in front of him, touched it a few times, turned his head back and said "There's no way out".

  I was startled, had Grandfather seen me? Had he known all along that someone was behind him? I was just about to speak up and explain when I remembered that I couldn't make a sound. Just as I was gesturing frantically at Grandfather, another set of footsteps came from behind, and I turned around to see yet another person.

  I couldn't see the person's face clearly, he walked past me as if I was invisible. He stopped in front of the tomb wall that Grandfather had mentioned. He scraped off some dirt from the wall, and just as I was wondering what he was doing, he used both hands to push against the wall with force, and to my surprise, the tightly sealed wall opened up a crack.

  Grandfather's expression was just as shocked as mine. That person didn't say a word and walked in. My grandfather and I followed closely behind him.

  This feeling is quite strange, as if it was something I had always fantasized about. If one day you could become invisible, what would you choose to do? But no matter how hard I thought, I never imagined that I would gain this ability in this gloomy tomb, and at the cost of my life. This makes me feel a little uneasy.

  After the door was pushed open, I saw a statue of a snake-headed human figure standing right in front of me, wearing armor. It looked familiar - wasn't this one of the Four Heavenly Kings that I had seen under Tongtian Temple? How did it end up here?

  Grandfather asked the person next to him, "Is it here?"

  That person nodded, jumped up and landed on top of the statue. He took out something like an iron nail, placed it on the statue, raised his wrist, and with one palm, nailed the iron nail into the statue.

  The statue cracked from the top of its head, slowly spreading downwards, and with a crisp sound, it fell to the ground. At the same time, the man jumped down from the statue and picked up something from the scattered debris, handing it over to my grandfather.

  Take good care of this thing, and you'll get the results you want.

  I took a look, and that thing was the copper ball Grandfather had given me. Grandfather took over the copper ball, his hand slightly trembling, and let out a sigh "What a pity, what a pity, my time is almost up" Grandfather wiped away tears and looked at the person in front of him "Thank you for this journey"

  "If the people in your village can really survive this disaster, it's also a glimmer of hope for me, so you don't have to thank me." The person's voice was faint.

  Grandfather put the thing in his hand into his pocket, turned around and walked back with that person one after another. I also wanted to follow, but my feet seemed to be stuck, and no matter what, I couldn't move.

  Dizziness struck again, and everything before my eyes turned black. In the darkness, I seemed to hear Uncle Cheng's voice once more.

  "We've also rested for so long, and this Sun Yi doesn't know if he can wake up or not. Carrying him to continue walking is a burden, why don't we just leave him here for now and come back to pick him up later?"

  "We can't hold on for much longer with our current physical strength, let alone carrying an injured person."

  Cheng Shu and Jiang Liu sang a duet, the meaning of their words was to leave me here and come back for me later? Bullshit! I'm anxious in my heart but can't open my eyes.

  Ma Si Zhe stood up, patted his pants and stood up from beside me. His voice was low and serious: "If you're not going to wake him up, then we'll just keep waiting. Don't forget that my uncle asked you to come here to take care of someone - the one lying there is your boss." Cheng Shu and Jiang Liu knew they were in the wrong and suddenly had nothing to say.

  Marx Zhe walked past me, and I was still immersed in the moving feeling of Marx Zhe's unwavering dedication to me. But when Marx Zhe walked past me, he accidentally stepped heavily on my hand.

  I was trampled on and suddenly opened my eyes, sitting up dazedly on the ground.

  Ma Si Zhe crouched down in surprise and looked at me 'You're awake?'

  I licked my dry mouth and went "hmm".

  Huo Ying also came over and asked, "How are you? Is there anywhere else that's uncomfortable?"

  I trembled and stretched out my hand 'hand hurts'