Chapter Sixteen: Corpse Worms

  The three of us watched with bated breath as the person came down, step by step, getting closer and closer.

  When he walked out of the darkness completely, I saw clearly that it was Uncle Cheng. I don't know what happened to him, but Uncle Cheng's body was covered with mud and water, looking very disheveled.

  We all breathed a sigh of relief, and I put down the gun in my hand. "Uncle Cheng? How are you here?" Since we got separated in the cave, I hadn't seen them again, and our journey had been fraught with danger, so much so that I didn't have time to think about what their situation was like. Moreover, Uncle Cheng and Huo Ying were both experienced, so as long as I took care of myself, I wouldn't be a burden to everyone else.

  "I was just upstairs and heard the noise downstairs that wouldn't stop, I thought to myself it's probably someone else who has come after this tomb again. Let's have a direct confrontation, it's not certain that Ho Ying and I can handle it. When the person came up, it turned out to be you," said Cheng Shu as he walked over.

  I also thought we were being careful enough downstairs, didn't expect it to be so obvious.

  "I suspect you've got an armored regiment behind us" The voice came from behind, I turned around to see Huo Ying walking over from the other side of the table, dusting off his hands. Huo Ying didn't look much better either, like Cheng Shu, he was covered in mud and water.

  After a while, we sat down in this eerie Tongtian Temple and slowly began to recount our experiences along the way. To be honest, the scene was really like telling ghost stories. Although the lights were bright, just thinking about the dry corpse downstairs and the four stone statues made us feel cold all over.

  I thought our story was exciting enough, but as soon as Uncle Cheng spoke up, I felt that we had been walking too comfortably all along.

  Cheng Shu and Huo Ying ran into another road, the intersection was blocked by a large stone that had been dropped. It was also unlikely to return to the original road, only to move forward with a hard head.

  The bluestone road had long since disappeared, and the ground was covered in thick mud, making every step a struggle. It wasn't just ordinary mire - the road beneath seemed to have a strange adhesive quality.

  Gradually, Cheng Shu found that something was not quite right. The place where the mud was stuck on his ankle became more and more itchy. At first, it was still tolerable, but later it became so itchy that he had to bend down to check.

  At this sight, Cheng Shu and Huo Ying were shocked. No wonder they felt itchy, this was not just some simple mud at all. The mud under their feet was crawling with white, flesh-like worms that looked like tapeworms.

  The density of the maggots was unbearable, in the black mud, about half of it was white and wriggling. Even old-timers like Cheng Shu and Huo Ying couldn't help but feel nauseous. I reckon if they didn't mind stepping on vomit to move forward, the two of them would have thrown up right there and then.

  "What's next?" asked Huo Ying, still in a bowing position, looking up at Uncle Cheng.

  Cheng Shu told Huo Ying to calm down first and observe their surroundings. The walls around them were smooth, with no place to climb or hide. The two of them stood in the middle of the muddy ground, unable to move forward or backward.

  Huo Ying picked up a worm with her knife and examined it carefully under the light of her flashlight, making an astonishing discovery.

  "This is a corpse worm's egg!" Huo Ying said with shock, holding the insect up in front of Cheng Shu.

  The corpse worm is one of the most terrifying parasites. It only parasitizes in the internal organs of a corpse, hollowing out the body from the inside out.

  The growth rate of the coffin fly is extremely fast, from egg to adult, only one week is needed. Within this week, several coffin flies can empty a corpse of an adult male. During the process of emptying, the coffin fly slowly grows larger, from the thickness of hair to the size of a finger.

  However, the corpse worm was not interested in fresh things, in other words, Huo Ying and Cheng Shu were safe for the time being. The intense mental tension made the two people forget about the itching on their feet.

  The sheer number of corpse worms itself raises a question, that somewhere nearby there must be a large number of corpses serving as hosts to accommodate these parasites.

  Just looking around, the smooth walls didn't seem to have any hidden passages or mechanisms. Cheng Shu reached out to touch it, but he didn't feel anything unusual. The tomb was so short that they almost hit their heads on the ceiling. So where did all these insects come from?

  Cheng Shu was at his wit's end.

  At this time, the two people under their feet suddenly slid a little. Cheng Shu and Huo Ying looked at each other, understanding in their hearts.

  It turned out that the ground below was not entirely muddy, and under the shallow mud, a corpse pool was buried. Possibly due to the shock just now, the insects inside the corpses were frightened and crawled out of the corpses one after another, floating in the mud.

  What is the purpose of the existence of this corpse pool then? Is it just for raising these corpse worms?

  I really admire the mental quality of Cheng Shu and Huo Ying. In such a terrifying scene, their fear didn't last for more than a minute. Then they started thinking clearly about various questions, including where the corpse came from, why it filled the entire tomb path, and where this road leads to at the end.

  If I were there, I'd probably be thinking about where to find water, when I could wash my feet and pants legs, and how to leave as soon as possible.

  After thinking for a while, Cheng Shu felt that the mechanism must be under his feet. He couldn't care less about the nausea and stretched his hand into the muddy water. Several corpse worms quickly gathered around his hand as if they had smelled something delicious, instantly wrapping themselves around it. Cheng Shu didn't bother to clean them off, focusing solely on exploring downwards.

  The mud was not deep, just barely covering his elbows. Cheng Shu felt around below, while Huo Ying held a flashlight to illuminate the area beside him.

  The first time he went down and didn't touch anything, Uncle Cheng changed positions and stretched his hand down again. This time he touched something metallic.

  That thing felt tightly tied to something, and Uncle Cheng used a lot of force to finally pull it off.

  After taking it out, the surface was full of silt and the entity could not be seen at all. Huo Ying twisted open the kettle and rinsed it with water, only then could she see what that thing looked like.

  That was a Chairman Mao badge, about the size of a quail egg. This made Uncle Cheng very puzzled, as the speed at which the silt corroded things was much faster than on ordinary land, and metal objects were even more impossible to preserve.

  Chairman Mao's badge, no need to say, this must be an item from modern times. Nowadays, people don't wear these either. Could it be that someone has been here in the past few decades?

  I suddenly remembered that someone had been here before. That person was my grandfather.

  My grandfather's generation, almost everyone wore Chairman Mao's badge, let alone my grandfather who was a party member. I heard from my mother that at that time, some people even pinned Chairman Mao's badge on their flesh to show respect.

  If this thing is really my grandfather's, it means that he was walking the same path as Cheng Shu and He Ying when they entered the mountain, and dropped the brooch in that muddy pool. It's possible that something urgent happened, or maybe it fell off during rest. I think the latter possibility is small, after all, my grandfather would not sit in the mud to rest even if he was in a good mood, let alone when those disgusting little bugs were crawling around.

  "Wait, since that Corpse Wriggling Worm only works on corpses and nothing else, why are your two feet itching?" Actually, I also wanted to ask this question, but my attention was drawn to the brooch. Ma Si Zhe asked, and I remembered."

  "What's making us itch isn't the bugs," said Huo Ying calmly, "but that patch of mud."

  Cheng Shu nodded 'Right, at first neither of us suspected it was the mud's problem, until my arm started reacting'

  Cheng Shu felt his arm start to itch while studying the brooch, and at first he didn't take it seriously until the itching became unbearable. Cheng Shu then realized something was wrong and had Huo Ying rinse his arm with water as well.

  The mud on the surface was washed away, but the arm that came out wasn't clean. Upon closer inspection, a layer of fuzz like rotting food had attached itself to the arm, piece by piece, like the livor mortis that appears after death.

  Cheng Shu quickly calmed down. He immediately decided that the most important thing was to find a way to leave here as soon as possible, and the two of them could no longer feel their legs itching, and it was estimated that even their sense of touch would disappear in a while.

  After a search, apart from a brooch, there were no other gains, it seems that the exit is not below.

  Cheng Shu looked around in a circle, pushed his head with his hand, and a layer of gray soil fell off. Cheng Shu was surprised to find that it was actually made of template, but the surface was covered with a thick layer of mud for camouflage. It wasn't very loose, but it could be pushed open with force.

  Two people held flashlights in their mouths and used all their strength to push upwards. They just overlooked one thing, their feet were also sinking down bit by bit. It wasn't until they sank to their knees that they realized it.

  According to the depth that Uncle Cheng felt with his hand, this depth should have stepped on the corpse below, but at this time, the two people couldn't even touch the bottom. The walls on both sides were also very far apart, and they couldn't grab onto anything.

  The mud, the more they struggled, the deeper they sank. Before long, only half of their bodies were left outside. Huo Ying was surprised to find that the corpse worms in the mud had disappeared. Had they all returned to the corpses where they were raised after being frightened?

  At this time, the silt began to flow forward slowly like a river.

  Cheng Shu and Huo Ying couldn't struggle, they could only move forward with the water flow. After walking for a while, they saw that there was actually an eddy in front of them, at this time, the mudslide suddenly accelerated its speed, sweeping both people into the eddy.

  The mud sealed the two people tightly, without any gaps to breathe. A whirlwind of dizziness, just as they were about to suffocate, suddenly felt a weightlessness behind them, and then heard a splash, both people fell into the water.

  After a big splash in the water, it took a lot of effort to climb ashore. Huo Ying lay on one side spitting out the mud from her mouth, then washed her face in the water, wiping her mouth and taking a look around.

  Just where they fell was a pool of water, surrounded by things that hung down like icicles.

  It dawned on me that this must be the same place as the White Bone Cave we experienced before. They just took a wrong turn and had to go through that awful ordeal again.

  Cheng Shu wiped the mud off his face and looked up. The gap where the two people had fallen was no longer visible. In an instant, the gap had automatically healed itself, except for some sediment that had fallen with the two people, nothing else had fallen down. Before they could even think about what had just happened, another discovery caught their attention.

  What happened next was similar, and Cheng Shu and Huo Ying also found that the stalactites were stuck with human bones.

  Cheng Shu noticed the abnormality of the stalactites at a glance and reminded Huo Ying to leave the place quickly. The two of them simply cleaned up in the water pool and left in a hurry. So, they didn't see the murals on the wall, nor did they understand the story behind them. What's strange is that after the two people came out of the water pool, the strange itch on their bodies disappeared. I remembered when I fell into the water earlier, and those white bones kept away from me after I came out, it seems there must be something in the water.

  Cheng Shu said he saw a pile of white bones broken on the ground and guessed that we should have walked ahead of them.

  "How come you two arrived before us?" Logically, they should be walking behind us. When we just arrived at the entrance of Tongtian Hall, I saw light shining from the windows upstairs, which made me very puzzled.

  To be honest, I'm also wondering about this matter. After we found that hidden passage, we kept moving forward but never heard any noise.

  "What hidden passage? What hidden passage are you talking about? Didn't you come from the stairs at the corner?"

  Cheng Shu and Huo Ying exchanged a glance, shook their heads in confusion.

  It turned out that we were not walking on the same road, Cheng Shu said that they found a hidden door on the wall, and with a push, it opened, the road ahead was smooth and unobstructed, and soon they arrived at Tongtian Temple, they came out of the secret passage and directly reached the second floor of Tongtian Temple.

  It seems that there are many roads leading here. The Temple of Heaven has half of it connected to the mountain behind, and there must be more than one road in the temple leading to the mountain.

  "We hadn't even had time to go downstairs and take a look, when we heard someone downstairs, so we turned off the flashlight and listened to the movements downstairs." Uncle Cheng said slowly, "I didn't expect it was you guys, really a bunch of silly kids."

  After finishing speaking, Cheng Shu looked at us and smiled, Ma Si Zhe also followed with a awkward smile.

  I suddenly remembered something. 'Right, Uncle Cheng, we found on the wall of that cave...'. Before I could finish speaking, Ma Si Zhe immediately took over my words and said 'found wood ash with sandalwood'

  I was stunned for a moment, and Mu Mu nodded 'Yes, there is that sandalwood ash'

  Ma Si Zhe explained it like that, obviously not wanting to let Cheng Shu know about the existence of that mural. I don't understand why they want to keep it from Cheng Shu and them, but since Ma Si Zhe said so, there must be a reason.

  It is unclear whether Jiang Liu pretended not to hear or deliberately ignored it, in any case he did not say anything more.

  Perhaps after experiencing what happened before, Jiang Liu and Cheng Shu also felt a rift in their relationship, so they chose to stand on our side.