Chapter 45 The 'Person' in the Village

  The wound on my hand started bleeding non-stop, and this time it might have been bitten too hard, and for a while, I couldn't stop it. As I watched the vines being slowly attracted by my blood, I had a feeling of digging my own grave.

  I tried to move my hand away from myself, so as not to stain it on my body. Gradually, the surrounding vines began to become restless and slowly gathered towards my hand.

  I looked up to see the white-bearded old corpse slowly being entwined by vines, unable to move. But I wasn't in the mood to laugh, and I figured that would be my ending soon too.

  I watched as the hand in front of me got closer and closer, closer and closer. Just when it was about to wrap around me, it stopped moving right in front of me. I stared blankly for a while, not an illusion, indeed stopped, and began to withdraw back.

  I didn't have time to think about what was going on, I had to quickly get out of the beard. I kicked my feet back against the vines, and the reaction propelled me onto the step, but there was nothing on the step for me to grab onto, so I swung right back again. I didn't give up, using both feet to push off once more, with the same result, slamming back again even harder.

  Ma Si Zhe shone his flashlight at me from below and asked in puzzlement, "What are you doing? Hurry up and think of a way to come down!"

  My waist was tightly wrapped by that beard, and it was very difficult to speak. After struggling to get out the knife, I held it in my hand and measured the current height, but after hesitating for half a day, I still couldn't bear to do it.

  The current height is not high, but if I fall down, it's enough for me to bear. However, being suspended like this isn't a solution either. I gritted my teeth and kicked again with the intention of cutting off the whiskers when I landed on the stairs, using the stairs as a buffer.

  But my abacus didn't ring, I was indeed swept away, but the beard wasn't cut off. Not a single one was broken, only about a dozen or so were still connected, I saw that the situation was not good, and hurriedly shouted "make way"

  Then, it smashed to the ground with a loud crash.

  Ma Si Zhe and Huo Ying didn't have time to ask about my injuries, they pulled me up from the ground and stuffed me into a hole. The hole was so small it wasn't even as wide as my shoulders, but I was pushed inside anyway.

  The last one to come over should be Huo Ying, who pushed me and Ma Si Zhe over. After that, Huo Ying easily squeezed over. I crawled out of the hole, patted the dirt off my body, and rubbed my shoulders which were almost crushed.

  In front of me is a narrow path of graves, in front of me are murals like graffiti. Oh my god, how did I end up back here again.

  "Is this a construction site again or have we walked back here?" Ma Si Zhe was also puzzled.

  Huo Ying walked over and said 'We're back again'

  The crevice on the top of our heads has closed, but this is clearly where we fell from. I looked back at the small hole we crawled out of, which had been blocked by Huo Ying with stones again. How did we end up here after crawling out from under that coral? Logically speaking, that coral should be above us, and its roots should be in the third layer, but this is the fourth layer.

  I got it!

  This is the fourth floor, no mistake. We drilled out from the bottom of the coral reef, no mistake either. I neglected that the coral would move. When we were inside, the coral moved back down at an imperceptible speed and we ended up back here again.

  Ma Si Zhe listened and felt it was unbelievable. 'Isn't this the same as the principle of an elevator? We finally managed to get up, but were sent back down by this thing.'

  "It's probably not that simple," said Huo Ying, staring at a fixed point.

  I followed Ho Ying's gaze and saw that what should have been on the upper floor had run down here.

  How did this bronze mirror end up here?

  I was just about to go forward and take a look at what's going on when the copper mirror in front of me suddenly moved, spinning until my eyes were dizzy.

  The copper mirrors kept changing positions and finally lined up in a row, sticking to the mural.

  The copper mirror no longer moved, and the three of us slowly approached. There was nothing on the surface of the copper mirror, no villagers, no scenery. Everything I saw before had disappeared. I even doubted whether this was the same copper mirror I saw before, if it was just a similar appearance that would be easy to explain.

  But then came a change which made me realize that this was indeed the same bronze mirror I had seen before.

  The people on the copper mirror began to appear slowly again, one face after another became clear. I took a closer look and it was indeed the villagers again.

  I turned back to look at Ma Si Zhe and Huo Ying, both of whom also looked puzzled.

  "This thing is like a television," Marx Zhe said after thinking for half a day.

  I knocked on the copper mirror and shouted loudly, "Yehua! Yehua! Can you hear me?"

  The person in the mirror is like a walking corpse, expressionless and constantly moving. He mutters something to himself, but it's clear that no one hears what I'm saying.

  I wanted to go around behind the mirror to see if there was any mystery, but found that the mirror had already become one with the wall.

  I reached out to touch it, but couldn't even find a seam. This is strange, this mirror was clearly moved from behind, how can it fit so perfectly?

  "Sun Yi, come over and take a look." Hearing Ma Sihe call me, I put aside my doubts and walked over.

  What's wrong?

  "Don't this pattern look a bit familiar?"

  Ma Si Zhe pointed to a place on the copper mirror, I took a look, and there was a hole the size of a fist on the copper mirror. The edges of the hole had some strange patterns. The more I looked at it, the more familiar it seemed, suddenly!

  I remembered! I quickly took down the backpack from behind and rummaged through it desperately.

  "What are you looking for? Do you remember where you saw it?" Ma Si Zhe asked.

  "Ah, the copper ball, that copper ball. The flower patterns on these two are quite similar."

  "Ah yes, I said I've seen it somewhere before."

  After searching for half a day, I finally found the copper ball. I placed it at the entrance of the hole and compared its size, and indeed it was just right. I adjusted the direction, aligned the pattern, and carefully put the copper ball in.

  Two floral patterns are cleverly combined into a character - Dian.

  I looked at this word and got goosebumps all over my body.

  Then the copper ball seemed to be sucked in, and I heard a loud clang. Next, the copper mirror slowly opened to both sides, we exchanged glances with each other, and stepped inside.

  All adjectives are unable to describe my current mood. My hand is slightly trembling, I don't know if it's because of the pain from earlier or the fear now, and using another hand to press down on it doesn't help either.

  I don't even need to look, I can guess what expressions Ma Si Zhe and Huo Ying have on their faces right now.

  Yes, I walked into the world in the copper mirror.

  The people in the village are now all in front of me, and the scene at this moment is just like what I saw in the copper mirror. It's just that I didn't expect that without that layer of obstruction from the mirror, the impact on people would be so different. I watch them walking back and forth expressionlessly in front of me, with a sudden urge to slap myself to see if it's all just a dream.

  They seem to ignore our existence, as if they hadn't seen us, wandering around on their own.

  "Are we also supposed to pretend to be expressionless, so as to show that we are one of them?" Ma Si Zhe swallowed his saliva and said cautiously.

  I coughed lightly, unsure of what to say in this situation.

  The people in front of me, I don't even know if it's suitable to call them people, but let's just call them that for now. The people in front of me seem to be very busy, their footsteps never stopping, looking flustered, constantly picking things up from the ground and then putting them down again after a while.

  I plucked up the courage, tiptoed to one of them and stretched out my hand in front of him. To my surprise, he passed directly through me!

  I was so frightened that I fell to the ground, these people all didn't have physical bodies, could it be that what I saw is the nourishment of food that Uncle Cheng talked about?

  Grandfather must have done something before, which made their physical bodies come back to life, but for some reason they didn't make it here, resulting in the people in the village being neither human nor ghost. My intuition tells me that it should be right here.

  Finally found it, what should I do now? What can I do to complete this last step? Countless grass mud horses are galloping in my heart, trampling out a vast grassland. I would like to roll around and celebrate this great moment.

  But Ma Si's words brought me back to reality.

  What's the time now?

  I just remembered that this thing goes crazy after 12 o'clock. I looked down at my watch and the dial was almost shattered, the second hand wasn't moving either. The woman who sold me the watch clearly told me it was waterproof, so why did it stop working?

  "It's already past midnight, and it will soon be dawn," said Huo Ying in shock.

  "How did you know"

  Huo Ying pointed to the wall opposite, I took a look and found that every place on it was written with the twelve earthly branches.

  The twelve earthly branches were a method used by people in ancient times to calculate time. The twelve earthly branches are divided into Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai. Among them, the hour of Zi is around midnight now.

  And in front of me on the wall were written the twelve earthly branches, but I looked at them for half a day and still couldn't figure out how to tell the time.

  "But how can you tell it's almost twelve o'clock?"

  "Look at the movements of those people, they seem to be picking something up and putting it down again." I nodded, and Huo Ying continued, "Take a look at where they pick things up from and where they put them down."

  He Ying said, I saw that they were all picked up from under the Hai character and put under the Zi character. The person who put them down walked to one side, while those who didn't put them down were still lingering behind.

  Although the order was chaotic, each person only put it once. I roughly counted the people who were still wandering behind and there were less than a hundred.

  Now, all the excitement when I first found this place has turned into anxiety. I started to carefully examine the layout of the tomb chamber. Even though I knew that the people here couldn't see me, I still cautiously avoided them, trying not to bump into them.

  Huo Ying went to study the twelve earthly branches on the wall, looking for a way to stop their movement. I and Ma Si Zhe searched both sides, not letting any corner go unchecked.

  The tomb was very empty, except for these people there was almost nothing. Just as I was at a loss, the voice of Ma Si Zhe came like thunder.

  "Sun Yi, there is an altar here."