Chapter Eighteen: Soul Lock

  I took down a few more books from the bookshelf, blew off the dust on them, and took a few photos with my camera. I wanted to show them to my colleagues in the office later and see if we could gain some new insights. Maybe there's something I didn't understand or missed.

  "You can have a photo exhibition after you go out" Marceau always sneered at me for bringing cameras to the grave. He kept teasing me in various ways. I didn't have time to bother with him, and just took pictures of my own. It's strange that so many books record only one thing? This is completely unnecessary! Is it possible that what's truly important isn't the content, but the books themselves? I casually put away a book, planning to take it out later and study it, to see if there's any difference in the paper.

  Ma Si Zhe, who was standing beside me, seemed to have suddenly remembered something. He leaned his body sideways and took out an object from his pocket. I took a look, it was a silver pendant. It seems that Ma Si Zhe had sent them away just to show this thing to me.

  "Where did it come from?" I took it over casually.

  "Earlier, the corpse's body was smooth," said Marx casually.

  "This is an occupational disease of yours, why do you always think there's something on a corpse that can be taken?"

  "Never mind, it's not important." Ma Si Zhe took the pendant away again. "Look at what's on this pendant," he said, stretching out the pendant in front of my eyes. Only then did I take a closer look at the design on the pendant.

  The pendant's style is very ordinary, a common silver lock-shaped pendant. However, the pattern on it is quite unique and doesn't resemble the usual carvings of plants or flowers. This pendant has a circle of characters that I couldn't understand. They are different from the texts recorded in the book earlier, and these characters are so obscure that I couldn't even recognize which language system they belong to. I consider myself an expert in ancient languages, but at this moment, I'm at a loss.

  "What did you see?" Ma Si Zhe asked anxiously. I shook my head, and the anxious Ma Si Zhe slapped his thigh.

  "With your IQ, even if someone sold you a number, you wouldn't be able to count it."

  I'm a bit angry. Can't you see I know you, and you know me? What's written is what it says.

  "What's written is unimportant, what's important is that one is missing"

  Ma Si Zhe said that the thing called "Yin Soul Lock" was originally a pair. Whoever obtained this lock could put the child lock on the person they wanted to curse and wear the mother lock themselves, thus controlling that person's behavior every 15th of the month.

  This was originally a token of love between couples, but later became a kind of sorcery. Whether it's true or false, no one knows. At that time, people generally believed that they could fulfill their wishes with the help of mysterious powers.

  It seems that this corpse downstairs had cast such a curse when he was alive, whether it was for his lover or something else I don't know.

  "What do you think is the identity of the mummy under this building?" I asked Ma Si Zhe thoughtfully.

  Ma Si Zhe shook his head, "I know what you're thinking, it's impossible that the corpse is the Nǔwā mentioned in the book. The Nǔwā is the highest ruler of the Hani people and can be said to be the faith of this nation. The corpse of a Nǔwā would not be placed so obviously in the main hall, it's extremely disrespectful."

  Listening to Ma Si Zhe, it seems to make sense. 'How do you explain the four ocean creatures on the first floor?' I don't know what to call those four bronze statues, so I'll temporarily use this name as a substitute.

  "Maybe it's similar to the status of the Four Heavenly Kings" Ma Si Zhe speculated

  The Four Heavenly Kings are Buddhist guardian deities, so it can be said that the four statues should also be the four great guardians of the religion worshipped by this nation. However, I am really curious about what religion this nation worships and how they have such bizarre guardians.

  "The rest of the way can be thought about later, Uncle Cheng and the others will come up soon." Ma Si Zhe finished speaking, put the lock piece in his pocket, stood up, and walked out.

  I followed behind, and suddenly felt something flash by in the darkness. I turned my head to look, but found nothing again. Marx called out to me from the doorway, and I walked out of the door with suspicion, slowly closing it behind me.

  In the darkness, a pair of eyes flashing with scarlet light flashed by.

  Ma Si Zhe and I walked out of the darkroom, feeling like the light outside seemed a bit dimmer.

  "Where is this bright light coming from?" I really suspect there are fluorescent lights in here.

  "You said it might be something like the Nightglow Skull from before"

  "Night-glowing seaweed?" Ma Si-zhe nodded.

  It's not impossible that the glowing seaweed would emit light when stimulated by light. It just wouldn't be as bright as it is now.

  I lifted my head and was startled. I actually saw myself up there.

  Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the rooftop was composed of many large pieces of copper mirrors. Miraculously, the copper mirrors still shone like new after all these years. Each piece of copper mirror was inlaid with small stones at the joints.

  "So it was"

  "Huh? What does it mean?"

  I explained to Ma Si-zhe, 'That piece of stone should be the glowing cat's eye, a type of stone that grows near volcanoes. When it encounters heat or light, it glows. The brightness of the stone itself is not great, but when reflected by this copper mirror, it's different.'

  Ma Si Zhe patted me and said "Alright, Sun Yi has grown up"

  "My theoretical knowledge is still quite adequate." I felt a bit proud of myself, finally being able to put it to some use.

  A giant in language, a dwarf in action. I knew he wouldn't let me off so easily.

  I chose to refuse and continue communicating with him, glanced around, upstairs not many I and Ma Si Zhe just walked in the secret door, each door is exactly the same, do not know what other secrets are hidden behind the doors.

  I was watching as Ma Si Zhe snapped his fingers in front of me.

  "I just looked at it, except for this door, the others are all decorations and can't be opened." I stared at Ma Si Zhe in surprise, this kid is going to become a fairy now, I think he can see through everything at a glance.

  "Don't look at me with that idiotic expression, any normal person can tell what you're thinking." I was about to scold him when someone yelled from downstairs, telling us to go down.

  When Ma Si Zhe and I went downstairs, they were surrounding the incense burner in front of the Buddhist altar.

  "What's wrong with it, what's wrong with the incense burner?" I asked as I walked.

  "It can't be moved," said Jiang Liu.

  "What's the point of moving it?" I blurted out, momentarily brain-dead. Only after speaking did I realize that the key issue wasn't why we needed to move it, but rather why this small-sized incense burner couldn't be moved.

  I tried to lift it from the Buddhist altar, but no matter how hard I used my strength, the incense burner didn't budge. Ma Si Zhe asked me to move aside and also tried to lift it, with the same result.

  This is strange, this thing is bronze, even if it's full of incense ash, it shouldn't be that four big men can't lift it. Huo Ying scooped out the contents of the censer and placed them in her palm.

  "It's a grain of cereal, it's already slightly carbonized" She fiddled with the thing in her hand.

  "It shouldn't be" Ma Si Zhe didn't believe in evil, stretched his hand down to the bottom of the incense burner, but found nothing except for grains. Ma Si Zhe patted his hands and shook his head at Cheng Shu.

  "Cheng Shu, have you figured out what identity this mummy is?" Ma Si Zhe asked, brushing off the dust from his hand.

  "This corpse is dressed in Hani ethnic clothing, but it's actually a Han person," said Cheng Shu as he looked at the female corpse.

  I feel puzzled, why is there a Han person wearing Hani ethnic clothing standing here.

  "Why do Hani people worship a Han person? I don't understand."

  "This is not an offering, this Han person was tied up." Cheng Shu looked at me and continued to say "Do you see the red rope on the female corpse's head? This is a binding technique. Wrapping a red rope soaked in chicken blood around the neck of the corpse can bind this person to this grave, making her soul unable to escape from here forever. As for why this binding technique was used, I don't know."

  I remembered the lock that Ma Si Zhe showed me earlier, the Soul Lock. The people of this tribe tied up the female corpse here in order to control another person? What kind of conspiracy is this, and why go to such great lengths?

  It wasn't until later that I realized that what I'm seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg in this massive plan.

  Cheng Shu naturally wouldn't know why this female corpse was bound here, because that lock piece is now in Ma Si Zhe's pocket.

  Cheng Shu said that someone needs to go up and lift the female corpse, to see if there's anything else on her back. Ma Si Zhe suddenly squatted down and started coughing violently, as if he was about to cough out his lungs. Jiang Liu leaned against the wall, started patting his shoulders, and said "I'm so tired from doing so much work just now". I looked at He Ying, then looked at Cheng Shu, rolled up my sleeves, steeled myself, and climbed onto the Buddhist altar.

  My action was like a magical elixir, and in an instant Marx stopped coughing and Jiang Liu was no longer tired. They both stared intently at me as I picked up the female corpse.

  The female corpse's entire body had turned a dark greenish-black color, with her joints clearly visible as they protruded from her dry skin. Her eyeballs had long since dried up and fallen out, replaced by two dull, lifeless glass eyes. I couldn't bear to face her directly, so I carefully lifted her up sideways, but unexpectedly, despite being desiccated and shriveled up like this, she hadn't lost any weight at all.

  Cheng Shu told me to lift it up a bit more, I gritted my teeth and supported the female corpse's armpits, making an effort to lift it up. This time the female corpse was even closer to me. With her eyes against my nose tip, I tried my best to avoid looking at her, but still could see her dry skin and unusually long fingernails. I smelled a very sour smell, wrinkled my nose, and tilted my head back, hoping that Cheng Shu could take a look quickly.

  Cheng Shu seemed to have seen something, and reached out to pull down an object from the waistband of the dry corpse. I took a look, it was a silver bell. The bell was about the size of a bottle cap, probably because it was on the female corpse's back, we hadn't discovered it before. The bell was still shining, without any dirt or impurities.

  Cheng Shu shook it, and the bell emitted a clear and crisp sound. In the empty Temple of Heaven, it echoed. Who knew that Jiang Liu heard this sound and shivered. It didn't seem like a simple chill from the cold, but rather like being electrocuted, suddenly and violently.

  We all looked at Jiang Liu, who knew that his eyes would emit a faint green light at this moment. I exchanged a glance with Ma Si Zhe. It seems that what we saw before was not an illusion, and Jiang Liu is indeed not right.

  Jiang Liu stared at the bell in Cheng Shu's hand, panting heavily like a bull in an arena. Ma Si Zhe and I both took a step back.

  "What's wrong with him?" asked Huo Ying. I shook my head, indicating that I didn't know. The first time I found something was off about him was in the cave, where his pupils suddenly became long and thin, like some kind of feline animal. Later, Ma Si Zhe saw him again, and according to Ma Si Zhe's description, it should have been similar this time, with a faint green glow emanating from his eyes.

  At this time, the light that had been shining down from upstairs suddenly disappeared, and the first floor of Tongtian Hall was plunged into darkness. Jiang Liu's eyes became even more terrifying in the dark. Jiang Liu took a step closer to us, and we could only retreat backward. As I walked, I bumped into Huo Ying, and when I turned my head to look at her, Huo Ying shook her head at me, indicating that there was no place left behind us.

  At this time, a sound came from upstairs, and I felt particularly familiar with it, as if I had heard it not long ago. The Jiang Liu in front of me seemed to be attracted by the sound, turned around and looked towards the stairs.

  But then, from the upper floor, a group of red-eyed creatures suddenly flew down and surrounded Jiang Liu. For a moment, the first floor of the great hall was filled with the high-pitched cries of those things and Jiang Liu's beast-like roars.

  I turned on the flashlight and wanted to take a look at what was going on now. The moment the flashlight came on, I finally saw clearly what those things flying down from upstairs were.

  It was the bat we saw earlier in the Wan Nian Deng tunnel. This time it's much bigger than before. Blood-red eyes, sharp teeth protruding from its lower jaw. It seems to be a variant of the previous one.

  Who knew those mutant bats were attracted to the light of my flashlight and flew towards us. I suddenly remembered that last time it was fire that drove them away, so I quickly asked Ma Siqi to take off his jacket and started rummaging for a lighter.

  It just occurred to me that the lighter is in Jiang Liu's hands. Looking at Jiang Liu's current situation, I don't dare ask him for it either.

  "We can't set it on fire, all the pillars and beams in Tongtian Hall are made of golden nanmu wood. If we're not careful, this place will catch fire and the flames will be uncontrollable. Even if we drive away these bats, we'll still end up getting burned to death."

  As we were talking, a bat flew in front of me, opened its mouth and let out a sharp cry, making my teeth ache. Dizzy and disoriented, I saw something on the bat's body.

  That thing is stuck to the bat's belly like a snail.