Chapter Thirty-Eight: Copper Mirror Formation

  I patted the dirt on my hand that Ma Si Zhe had stepped on, sat on the ground and savored the dream I just had. Was it really because I stayed down here for too long that I started to make things up myself? But who was that mysterious person again?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone sitting next to me and was startled, jumping back a little. It seemed like something behind me had been knocked over, and when I turned around, I actually saw my own face.

  I stretched out my right hand in front of me and waved it around, the person in front of me also followed suit. How did so many copper mirrors end up here?

  "What's going on? Where did all these mirrors come from?" I looked around at the tomb passage, which was inlaid with copper mirrors over two meters high, and after thousands of years, they still shone brightly. Under the reflection of the copper mirrors, the entire tomb passage presented a strange yellow color.

  Ma Si Zhe walked up to me and squatted down, "Just now you were walking behind me, then suddenly fell down, scaring me half to death. I thought you were dead, so I went over to help you."

  It turned out that after I fainted earlier, Ma Si Zhe and Huo Ying came over to support me, and Cheng Shu and Jiang Liu also came over to see the situation. I reckon they thought I was dead, so they came over to take a look. Just as they were walking towards me, the walls on both sides of the tomb passage started shaking slightly. With their previous experience, Cheng Shu reckoned it might be another volcanic eruption or something. So he quickly told Ma Si Zhe to prop me up and hurry forward.

  As they ran, the edges of the walls on both sides fell off, and strangely, this time the tomb passage was very stable, without the previous shaking, only the continuous falling of ash on both sides. Cheng Shu stretched out one hand, indicating that they should stop first, then turned to look at the walls on both sides.

  The mud on the wall slowly peeled off, and the entire grave path was like starting to shed its skin collectively. Cheng Shu walked closer and found that behind the tomb wall, something golden began to appear. Without waiting too long, he picked up the knife in his hand and stripped away the soil layer by layer. Before long, what was behind the tomb wall was revealed, which was a copper wall.

  Everyone looked around at the walls, and only when all the mud had fallen off did they discover that the entire tomb passage was surrounded by copper walls. What was astonishing was that there was not a single spot of verdigris on the copper walls, which still shone like new. Looking at their reflections in the copper walls, everyone was shocked into speechlessness.

  Ma Si Zhe also put me down and carefully examined the copper wall. Several people were exhausted to the extreme, all took the opportunity to rest for a while, I was awakened at this time.

  It seems I didn't sleep for long, but it feels like I've been dizzy for a long time. I slowly sat up with my hands supporting my body and found that the pain on my body wasn't as severe as before, except for the iron rust smell in my nose, which was still there after being battered by that ghostly vine.

  I slowly walked to the front of the copper mirror, stretched out my hand and touched it, but didn't find anything different about it. It was just an ordinary copper mirror. The most unbelievable thing is that it still shines brightly until now.

  "There's nothing special about it, just an ordinary copper mirror."

  Ma Si Zhe took off his shoes and poured out the sand inside. "It's strange, we were just walking fine, what's with all the shaking?"

  Cheng Shu pushed his glasses and walked over, clearing his throat. "I've seen all sorts of things sealed in tomb walls, but I've never seen a bronze mirror sealed inside before. What's the meaning behind this?"

  I'm looking at Cheng Shu, his gums are so itchy, I really want to slap him against the wall and scrape him off. And also want to urge Ma Si Zhe to abandon me here, what a big sin.

  Ma Si Zhe then poured out the sand from his shoes and slowly put them on. "Don't study what's going on here, we're not here to take an exam, whatever meaning it has doesn't have much to do with us. Sun Yi is awake now too, everyone has rested enough, let's pack up and continue walking."

  Cheng Shu was left hanging there, but he didn't feel embarrassed. Huo Ying took a sip of water and stood up, Jiang Liu saw that everyone had gotten up, so it wasn't good to sit anymore, and reluctantly slowly got up with them.

  I picked up my backpack from the ground, just about to put it on my back, when Ma Si Zhe snatched it away and slung it over his chest. I didn't decline, and followed behind everyone else.

  Just as I was about to leave, the path on both sides of the tomb began to shake again. 'What's going on? Are there still aftershocks?'

  I leaned back against the copper wall to keep my balance. Before long, I felt the wall behind me start to move forward. I quickly sprang away from the spot and saw that the copper wall was indeed moving slowly but surely.

  I took a glance at the distance, and it was all the same. The entire bronze wall along the tomb path began to converge towards the center. At this speed, in less than a minute, we would be tightly squeezed here.

  We all stood in a row, avoiding taking up space. I looked at the copper wall getting closer and closer to me, slowly pressing against my nose. I just started to understand why some people have claustrophobia, before I always thought it was a pretentious disease, now it seems not. The feeling of being in a confined space with no activity is indeed very anxious, producing a sense of oppression in the heart.

  The copper wall was getting closer and closer, I closed my eyes, I felt it squeezing my chest, I could hardly breathe. Feeling myself being squeezed tighter and tighter, just when I thought I was about to die, the copper wall slowly began to retract backwards.

  I opened my eyes to see a whole wall of copper beginning to crack, splitting into several pieces of copper mirrors. The copper mirrors moved like well-trained soldiers, bit by bit, calmly and unhurriedly, slowly arranging themselves in position, surrounding us in the middle.

  The formation took about a minute to settle in, and it wasn't until after a minute that the bronze mirror finally stood still. We all stared at the change before our eyes with our mouths agape.

  Each copper mirror is two meters high and one meter wide. Through the gap between the two copper mirrors, I saw that the wall behind the previous copper mirror was actually empty. Now the copper mirror has moved away from its original position, the tomb passage is no longer narrow, and it has become a very spacious space.

  "What's going on?" With Jiang Liu's words, the copper mirror, which had already stabilized, changed its formation once again. About a minute later, it stopped again.

  I lowered my voice 'This thing is still voice-controlled'

  Ma Si Zhe put his hand to his mouth and whispered, "But what does it want to do?"

  We stood still, staring at these copper mirrors, neither of us making a move. After a stalemate for a while, the copper mirrors that had been surrounding us began to slowly move again.

  Slowly gathering in front of us, blocking our way.

  "So that's what it means"

  It's impossible to go back the same way. Who knows if those vines outside have calmed down or not? Going back would be sending ourselves to our deaths. But since this path is blocked, what should we do next?

  Just as I was hesitating, I found that the copper mirror in front of me began to change.

  The originally smooth copper mirror began to slowly reveal an image. "Ah, you guys look quickly, isn't there someone on it?" I trembled with my hand pointing at the mirror in front of me.

  Cheng Shu and Ma Si Zhe both heard me say this and followed my hand with their eyes.

  On the copper mirror, a blurry figure first appeared, then the figure became clearer and later even had color. I suspected that the shadow reflected in the mirror was not mine, but the fact proved otherwise. Because the person in the mirror was crawling on the ground with an impossible posture for ordinary people. In fact, I would rather use the word "crawling".

  They put their right foot on their left leg, crossed their arms in front of them and moved forward little by little on the ground. One person crawled to a place very close to the mirror.

  I stood still, lowering my body and bringing my face close to the mirror. Unexpectedly, the person in the mirror suddenly raised their head, a pair of empty eyes staring straight at me.

  I was so scared that I fell to the ground, cold sweat streaming down my face in an instant, and my heart racing wildly.

  Ma Si Zhe picked me up from the ground, swallowed a mouthful of saliva and asked me 'Have you seen this person before?'

  I shook my head 'No, I don't know this person.' After him, countless people started crawling towards here. Then I saw another face again. Every time I see this face, I will be shocked, but undoubtedly, this time gave me a bigger shock than the last time.

  "No, I know him," I said, pulling Marx and pointing at someone farther away from the mirror.

  Ma Si Zhe also looked at me with a tense expression and asked, "Is that person Ye Hua?"

  I nodded. Ma Si Zhe had only met Ye Hua once, so it was very possible that he didn't have a deep impression of him. But I was different, I could confirm that the person was indeed Ye Hua.

  After confirming that the person was Ye Hua, I carefully looked around at the faces in the mirror and was surprised to find many people I had seen at my grandfather's funeral. It turned out that they were all from our village.

  Instead, Cheng Shu and Jiang Liu were both confused, 'What's going on? What about Ye Hua?'

  I was too lazy to tell him, but thinking that Uncle Cheng might be able to help, I briefly told him the whole story.

  "So this is the person you and Ma Zhe saw that day"

  That's right

  Cheng Shu reached out and touched the copper mirror, "Is this what they call the Gate of Rebirth?"

  Cheng Shu's hand touched the mirror for an instant, and the person in the mirror suddenly disappeared. The copper mirror returned to its original state, as if nothing had happened at all. If there weren't so many people present this time, I'm afraid I would have doubted again whether it was just another dream of mine.

  "Huh? How did it disappear again?" Jiang Liu asked. Cheng Shu withdrew his hand, and the copper mirror in front of him slowly retreated back into the wall. The neat movement caused a huge echo to reverberate throughout the tomb passage.

  Everything happened so fast it was like an illusion. I turned to Marx and said, "Did you see that? The person just now." I urgently needed someone to tell me this wasn't an illusion.

  Ma Si Zhe seemed to still be in shock and nodded blankly.

  Cheng Shu said to us, "This place is not suitable for a long stay, let's..." Before Cheng Shu finished speaking, the tomb passage shook again. Just as I thought those bronze mirrors were going to do something, a crack suddenly opened on the ground.

  The crack grew bigger and bigger, and we all flashed to both sides. The crack slowly cracked under our feet, the copper mirrors on both sides were smooth, and there was no place to land.

  I clutched the mirror tightly with my hands and stared at the pitch-black crack, sweating more and more, but my hand slipped and it fell down again.