Chapter Twelve: The White Bone Cave

  I once went to a water cave in Benxi during a holiday when I had nothing to do.

  Benxi Water Caves were formed tens of millions of years ago as a large water-filled limestone cave. Hundreds of millions of years ago, Benxi was originally a vast ocean due to the warm climate, and the limestone in the cave was formed through lithification at that time. Later, due to tectonic movement, it gradually rose to become land. The external forces continued to erode the limestone, forming today's water caves.

  This is an extremely long and requires many special conditions to complete process.

  Why is it formed here? This cave is not much different from the water cave structure of Benxi, but it's just a lot smaller. The cave is very dark, with stalactites of various sizes hanging from the top, and there are small pools every few meters underfoot, whose depth can't be seen.

  I slowly walked closer to take a look. What I saw almost made me scream out loud. The things hanging densely from the top were not stalactites, but rather white skeletons one after another.

  Ma Si Zhe shouted a few sentences at me, I didn't respond, so he patted his butt and got up, walking to my side.

  "My goodness"

  After a long time, I pressed Ma Si Zhe's open and uncloseable mouth together.

  "What's this?"

  "How was I supposed to know?"

  Dozens of white bones are hanging in front of me, and the gloomy feeling is beyond my language to describe. It seems that Ma Si Zhe has never seen such a situation either.

  "Is this another form of worship?"

  "Perhaps," Ma Si nodded slightly.

  I forced myself to look up and see if I could make out anything. Suddenly I discovered that all these white bones had no skulls!

  Is this somehow connected to the glowing skull I saw in the cave earlier?

  "Look quickly, there's something on the wall!" Jiang Liu's shout temporarily pulled me and Ma Si from our shock.

  Jiang Liu said the wall was extremely hidden. Under the wall, there was a two-meter diameter pool of water, not deep but very clear, so clear that you could see the bottom. In front of the wall were dense white bones. I carefully dodged and avoided bumping into myself.

  The wall was painted with very abstract paintings, so abstract that it was impossible to discern what they depicted. The painting was interspersed with text, belonging to a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, very rare and obscure, and I could only decipher a rough idea.

  The written records date back to over 200 years ago, during the time of Emperor Wu of Han.

  I'm a bit skeptical of myself, it's actually the Han Wu Emperor period, but in my grandfather's notes, this is clearly the Eastern Zhou Dynasty Yan State tomb. Now it seems that there must be a problem with the monk's message, and the records in the temple annals have not been verified, relying solely on hearsay and speculation, making it difficult to distinguish between true and false. The fact is now right before our eyes, this place once existed during the Han Dynasty.

  The text only recorded two pieces of information: time and number of people.

  The time was 290 years ago, and there were 115 people.

  "Could it be the number of people involved in the construction and the time spent on it?" Ma Si Zhe asked me.

  The possibility is actually very small, the regular tomb generally has some paintings on the wall to express a good wish for the deceased. Or if the deceased believed in Buddhism before death, Buddhist murals would be painted on the wall of the tomb after death. In either case, it is unlikely that the number of construction workers will be engraved on it.

  These numbers are engraved in the lower right corner of the painting. Perhaps I can only decipher the accurate information of these numbers after figuring out what is depicted on the painting.

  This painting makes me feel very uncomfortable, it looks very strained. All the people are at abnormal angles, which makes me look very strained.

  Maybe it was holding the flashlight for too long, my neck and right arm started to go numb. To relieve myself, I had to hand over the flashlight in my hand to Ma Si Zhe and let him take a look first. I took out a cigarette from my pocket, put it in my mouth, and searched several pockets but couldn't find the lighter, probably lost when running just now.

  A burst of flame appeared before me, I looked up, it was Jiang Liu.

  Just as I wanted to say thank you to him, Jiang Liu's pupils suddenly became slender, like some kind of feline creature. In just an instant, I blinked and looked at him again, and he had already returned to normal, the time was so short it seemed like an illusion.

  Jiang Liu didn't say anything else, gave me a faint glance, put away the lighter and turned his head to look at the painting with Ma Si Zhe, both of them tilting their necks.

  I've been feeling that something is off about Jiang Liu since just now, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it is.

  I took a deep drag on the cigarette, and the tobacco flavor instantly penetrated my brain. I thought that now I urgently needed nicotine to calm down, who knows what hallucinations would appear next.

  My gaze inadvertently swept across the pond in front of the mural, and something was vaguely reflected in the water, a bit blurry. I suddenly thought of it.

  Turn off all flashlights

  In the darkness, with only a beam of light from my flashlight, I saw clearly the shadow in the water. Indeed, reflected in the water was the front image of the mural on the wall. The path and route that I couldn't understand suddenly became clear.

  It's a very clever design that won't be noticed if you're not careful. Apparently, it's a kind of code that only people who know the method will understand the information conveyed in the painting.

  I saw a bloody story in the dim and hazy water light.

  Dozens of men wearing masks on their faces, transported one by one beautiful young girls to a certain lake. Then ignited, prayed, as if completing some kind of sacrificial ritual.

  They strangled the girls to suffocation, then each man carried a corpse on his back and dove into the water, inverting the girl's corpse in the muddy sediment at the bottom of the water. I saw some girls wake up during transportation and struggle desperately, but were dragged ashore and had their skulls smashed with stones, then thrown to the animals behind them.

  I couldn't tell what kind of animal it was, it looked like a lion and also like a dog. As I watched the way it ate, I felt a sense of familiarity, but I couldn't quite place where I had seen it before.

  I counted and there were over a hundred people buried in the lake. The lake was in a very dark place, because the people in the painting were all holding torches. The more I looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

  The place in the painting is actually where we saw the glowing skull in the cave before.

  No wonder there is noctiluca on those skulls, it turned out that place was originally a water area.

  After confirming that all the corpses were properly placed, their leader ordered everyone to extinguish their torches. Then in the darkness, a massive object appeared.

  The person who might have recorded it didn't see the specific appearance of that thing either, just a general outline, the screen was very dark, and I had to strain my eyes to see.

  After it appeared, it crawled straight into the lake, moving slowly. With the lake as a reference object, I estimated the volume of that thing. Before we went to the Night Glow Skull, it was about the size of a playground, and this thing actually occupied one quarter of the lake!

  After the big fellow went down, they walked through the middle and then ashore, walking deep into the mountains. It turned out that these people had spent so much effort just to pave a road. What was it that made those people so respectful?

  Miraculously, after the thing landed on the shore, the water in the lake actually dried up bit by bit, as if it had been sucked away. The people on the shore all knelt down reverently. It wasn't until much later that they lit the torches again.

  I feel like I'm watching a terrifying black fairy tale, shocked to the point of being speechless. Is this vicious and complicated sacrificial ritual really something that has been passed down from ancient Dian Kingdom as Cheng Shu and Ma Si Zhe said? What are they sacrificing, and what do they want to pray for?

  After the lake water dried up, the corpses gradually emerged from the surface of the water. Those men used knives to brutally cut off the necks of the corpses, leaving their heads in the muddy sediment at the bottom of the lake. They packed up and took away the torsos.

  The painting left a very simple map with only a few strokes, just the direction and coordinates, slightly marked. I had Ma Si Zhe draw it down.

  It wasn't until I saw this that I understood the meaning of those two numbers. The time was when the cruel sacrifice took place, and the number of people was the number of people who were buried at the bottom of the lake as sacrifices.

  "This map looks kind of familiar to me"

  Ma Si Zhe took out the map he had just copied and looked at it back and forth.

  I also looked down and didn't see anything. Maybe I was shocked by that mural and need to calm down for a while before rethinking.

  "I can't see now, wait a while and ask me again." I took out another cigarette and lit it. The one I had just lit was smoked for only one mouthful before it went out by itself.

  "So, this skull-filled cave is actually an artistic decoration created by those muscular but brainless thugs."

  "Maybe that sturdy fellow is now waiting for you to visit their home decoration style, and then take the opportunity to invite you to have a drink when you're not paying attention."

  Ma Si Zhe refused to communicate with me and took a flashlight with Jiang Liu to wander around in the cave.

  In a place where I didn't see, Jiang Liu's eyes flashed a green light, and then he was dizzy again. Can't remember what just happened, just feel a little dizzy, heard Ma Si Zhe shouting him, and hurried to catch up.

  I crouched on the ground studying that map, and I don't know if it was influenced by Marx Zhe, but I also felt a little familiar, where exactly?

  "Sun, Sun Yi" I raised my head and saw Ma Si Zhe and Jiang Liu looking at me with strange expressions. The mixed information conveyed in their eyes made it impossible for me to guess what they meant. Just as I was puzzled, Ma Si Zhe slowly raised his gun towards me.

  "My god, what are you doing?" Before I could finish speaking, Ma Si Zhe fired a shot above my head with a loud bang, stunning me and making my ears numb.

  I was stunned, my mouth agape and unable to move. I saw Ma Si Zhe rushing towards me with his mouth open but no sound coming out, I asked him to speak louder, just as he opened his mouth, I realized I couldn't hear my own voice either.

  Damn it, I was stunned by Marx's shot.