Chapter Twenty-Four: The Bound Corpse

  I was heavily bumped by the downstream horse, and I couldn't grasp the stone at the cave entrance anymore. In an instant, I was washed away by the rushing water. This time, I'm done for sure, I thought of all the ugly ways to die after falling down.

  But the situation I had anticipated did not occur, and what caught me was not hard ground. I heard a splash in my ear, no, it should be two splashes. Ma Si Zhe and I both fell into a pond.

  The water wasn't deep, and when I fell in, I could clearly feel my back hit the ground. However, due to the impact of the water, it didn't hurt as much as I had imagined. But the force of the water was not small either, slapping me in the face, feeling like I had been slapped hard on the ear.

  I choked on a few mouthfuls of water and found I could stand up, the water just reaching my chest. I swam and walked, swimming towards the shore. When I fell in, I choked on some water and lay on the shore coughing. After sitting for a while, I felt something was wrong. Ma Si Zhe is still in the water!

  I looked up and saw that Ma Si Zhe was almost floating away. I quickly jumped back into the water, grabbed his neck with one hand, and dragged him towards the shore. Ma Si Zhe also tightly grasped my hand, his fingernails digging deep into my flesh, probably because he was terrified of drowning in the water. I didn't care about him, only focusing on swimming forward.

  With great difficulty, I swam to the shore and lifted one leg onto land. I grabbed Marx's neck and pulled him out of the water. Since my back was turned to him, I didn't see that Marx had already started rolling his eyes.

  After being dragged ashore, I used the old method to press him twice. Ma Si Zhe indeed spat out a big mouthful of water. After spitting out the water, he still didn't show any signs of getting up, lying on the ground and panting heavily.

  "Sun Yi, if I die one day, it will be at your hands." Ma Si Zhe stared at him, saying calmly and without desire.

  "Can't you have a bit of conscience? Who was it that snatched you back from the jaws of death?"

  "Please hand me over to him, at least I'll suffer less."

  "Look at what he's saying, a typical hypocrite."

  Ma Si Zhe didn't like hearing this, and suddenly flipped over from the ground to sit up, opened his collar, stretched his neck and shouted "You look, you yourself look, are you going to save me or kill me. This is flesh ah, this is"

  I lowered my head and took a look at Marx Zhe's neck, and indeed there was a bright red mark on it.

  "Maybe I used a bit too much strength just now," I smiled awkwardly.

  "Really? You're being too modest."

  We were talking, and suddenly the waterfall behind us stopped, the noise disappeared, and the cave was quiet. This thing is like opening a sluice gate, and there's also a time limit. When I came down with Ma Siqi, it might have been during the water release time.

  I looked up at the hole we fell from, over ten meters high. If it weren't for that pool of water, Ma Si and I would have either died or been paralyzed from the fall.

  We took out the things in our two bags to check, and the guns were fine, just needed a wipe. The food was all packaged and didn't seem too damaged, then I remembered the camera in my bag, so I quickly pulled it out to take a look. As soon as I opened the camera case, a lot of water poured out with a gurgling sound, and my heart nearly broke.

  Just about to turn it on, but Ma Si Zhe stopped me. 'Look at the water situation, I'm afraid it can't be used anymore. Turning it on would be a waste of effort, and if any of the internal wires get burned, it will be even harder to repair.'

  I thought so too, let's wait until we get out and see if it can be fixed. At least the things inside shouldn't be lost. I shook off the water that had seeped in, pulled out the memory card, and put the camera back into my bag.

  "Come to think of it, I seemed to have seen something at the bottom of the water just now," Ma Si Zhe suddenly remembered and said to me.

  "What thing"

  I fell face down from above and my face is numb. I don't have the heart to see what it is, but I seem to have seen a pair of shoes.

  "Shoes?" I looked at my own feet and Marx's, our shoes were all intact on our feet. Whose could they be? Could it be Uncle Cheng and Huo Ying's?

  I thought for a moment and decided to go down again to confirm whether they had also fallen into this cave.

  I handed the backpack to Ma Si Zhe and turned around, walking back into the water. Seeing me slowly walk in, Ma Si Zhe asked in surprise, "Is the water really that deep?"

  I despise what you said: "What did you think? You were submerged like that, and I thought you had fallen into the Pacific Ocean."

  I walked to where I had just pulled out Ma Si Zhe, held my breath and dove in. The water was really not ordinary cold. Just now outside it was already freezing, the temperature of the water made me even colder. My coat had just been burned when I came down, so I was freezing to death. Through this experience, I learned a lesson, secretly deciding that next time I would definitely take off someone else's clothes before setting them on fire.

  I had been searching underwater for half a day and hadn't seen the shoe Ma Si Zhe mentioned, just as I was about to get up, my foot suddenly kicked something.

  I floated up to the surface for a breath of air, and then dove down again. What was tangled around me turned out to be a shoe, which I picked up in my hand and swam towards the shore with.

  Ma Si Zhe took the shoe in his hand and looked at it. 'This is Jiang Liu's shoe, Cheng Shu and the others are indeed ahead of us.'

  But how did Jiang Liu's shoe end up here?

  Ma Si Zhe thought for a moment and said 'There must be some emergency, so Jiang Liu didn't have time to pick up his shoes and fled in a hurry from here'

  "What's going on?" Ma Si Zhe stood up from the ground and looked around at the situation in the cave. Unfortunately, it was quite dark inside the cave, and the flashlight couldn't reach the topmost part of the cave, so nothing could be seen clearly.

  At this time, Ma Si Zhe took out something the size of a bowling ball from his bag and unwrapped the layers of plastic wrap on it.

  What is this?

  "Flare" Ma Si Zhe loaded the flare and said to me "Close your eyes".

  "What's the point of giving me birthday gifts?"

  Ma Si Zhe let out a loud shout, staring at me. I obediently closed my eyes. Then I heard a loud "bang" sound, followed by the sound of firecrackers exploding.

  I opened my eyes again, and the light in front of me was as bright as daylight. It was even a bit dazzling, fortunately, the top of the cave was high enough, otherwise I would have been blinded.

  With the light of the flare, I finally saw the entire tomb clearly. The top of the cave was about three stories high from me, and there were chains tied up there, each chain as thick as my forearm, crisscrossing and nailed to the wall.

  I was wondering what so many iron chains were used for when I suddenly saw a person tied up under the lock chain on the upper left.

  That person was bound in circles of chains, like a cocoon, with only the head and feet exposed. Because it was too far away, I could only vaguely make out the human shape. The person's hair was disheveled and hung down over their face, suspended in an eerie posture.

  Ma Si Zhe and I both retreated backward, neither of us daring to get close.

  "Uncle Cheng" Ma Si Zhe called out tentatively, but the person didn't respond.

  "You'd better shout something more reliable, how long can Uncle Cheng's hair be?"

  Ma Si Zhe shouted again, "He Jie!" but the person still didn't respond. Ma Si Zhe wiped his face, I don't know if it was water or cold sweat, and whispered to me, "It's over, none of them are."

  Suddenly, a gust of wind blew in, causing the chains to swing with the wind and strike the wall with a clanging sound. This tomb was deep underground, where did the wind come from? The corpses on the wall also started to sway gently with the blowing wind, as if they were about to wake up.

  I also got nervous, 'won't it be zongzi?' I had made preparations to meet zongzi before I came, but my heart was still beating like a drum at this moment.

  "Zongzi is easy to deal with, I have black donkey hoof in my bag, just stuff it directly into her mouth. What's scary is if it's something tricky, what if the black donkey hoof doesn't work?"

  "Why don't you go up and take a look?" I asked tentatively.

  I won't go, no need to bother her for nothing, maybe she doesn't want to deal with us now, let's just quietly slip away.

  At this time, Ma Si Zhe and I were at the mountain cave that had just fallen down, and another deafening sound came again. A large amount of water poured out from the entrance of the cave and rushed into the pond.

  It lasted for a few minutes, and then the cave returned to calmness. I heard a rustling sound on the wall, looked up again, and found that several iron chains binding the corpse had fallen off, exposing its neck.

  "It seems this water flow is a cycle, every time it flows, the chain will loosen one circle, until that thing breaks free"

  "We have to leave before she breaks free." I finally understood why Jiang Liu and the others were so panicked when they escaped. They might have coincidentally encountered the last chain being unlocked, and after their escape, the corpse automatically returned to the top of the cave, restoring everything to its original state, starting all over again.

  The only road in front of us is on the opposite side, and if we want to go anywhere, we must pass under the feet of that female corpse. We thought about walking there first, then speeding up and running in all at once.

  I bowed my head and tightened my shoelaces, also securing my backpack properly. When Ma Si Zhe gave the order, the two of us charged into the tomb passage together.

  Ma Si Zhe gave me a countdown of "three, two, one" and then we both sprinted forward together.

  Not far from running, Ma Si Zhe seemed to trip over something and fell to the ground. I turned my head just wanting to help him up, but suddenly felt that my feet were tied up with something and couldn't move.

  I looked down and found that countless vines, which had previously stretched out from the lotus flower, were now stretching out from all sides. Ma Siqi and I were firmly fixed to the ground, unable to move.

  I drew out my dagger and slashed at the tendril, but it dodged nimbly to one side. Then a multitude of tendrils reached out for me. I could cope with one, but not so many. As they entwined me, the water in the cave came pouring down once more.

  "Not good, the water flow is speeding up, think of a way quickly!" Ma Si Zhe said to me while continuously wielding his dagger. I looked up at the corpse on the wall, the chains had already fallen off by more than half, only a few were still wrapped around its knees. The corpse's body was starting to tilt forward.

  I hastily pulled my foot out of the tangled vines, but to my surprise, it seemed to have a life of its own and kept tightening. I used both hands to pull with all my might, and amazingly, I managed to pull off my shoe. I excitedly shouted to Marx: "Take off your shoes, quick!"

  Ma Si Zhe heard me say that and started to quickly untie his shoelaces. Before long, the two of us finally managed to free ourselves from the vines.

  No time to take care of the shoes on the ground, he rushed towards the grave passage. At this moment, the water flow poured down again behind him, and at the same time, the last few locks also fell off.