Back to Square One

  The direction of our actions was decided by a coin toss, and the three of us embarked on our first adventure with high spirits. We weren't afraid; instead, we had an insatiable desire for mystery. Indeed, this village did have a great secret, and we finally began the process of tomb raiding, overcoming all dangers and difficulties that lay ahead in exploring the unknown realm.

  I suddenly caught a familiar scent and stopped in my tracks. They also stopped immediately, looking at me with confusion.

  "How long have we been walking?" I asked.

  "Half an hour or so, what's wrong? Tired? Your body really isn't good." Coffin said jokingly.

  "Coffin, when that bronze statue shook you open just now, didn't something break on your body?" I asked.

  "How did you know? I took out that lighter from my pocket and it exploded with a 'bang'."

  The lighter mentioned by the coffin is a common plastic one sold on the street for 1 yuan. This is the smell I'm smelling now. After walking so far, it's impossible that the smell hasn't dissipated yet.

  "Take a look at these bronze statues, are there any marks we left earlier?"

  Three people turned on their flashlights and shone them one by one. Until the fifth time, they saw a big "X" mark. It seemed that we had been walking in circles all along, but why didn't we feel like we were turning? We had always been moving forward in a straight line, and the light from our flashlights had never been blocked. I expressed my doubts to the other two people.

  "It's strange, I thought we were walking forward all along, how did we end up going in circles?" Pong said.

  "That's the legendary ghost wall. Are we going to have to take the Bagua steps to get out?" The coffin wanted to make some explanations.

  "That sounds good, but who understands it? Don't always talk about those professional terms, we're not professionals at all." I got a bit flustered.

  "Do you still remember our physics class in middle school?" I thought of something again.

  "What does this have to do with anything?" Peng asked.

  "To determine whether an object is moving or not, a reference point is needed for comparison. As we move forward, we naturally take these 'monks' as the reference point. If each of these bronze statues has a slight angle that is imperceptible to the naked eye and rotates slightly, it will create an illusion that makes us think we are walking forward when in fact we are just turning around in circles."

  They seem to agree with me on this point. After bowing his head in thought for a moment, the coffin asked another question:

  "Isn't this place originally round? And we're just really going in circles, all the suspicion is our overthinking."

  Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. Only by using the most foolish method to prove it, first walk out one person, thirty steps later stop and wait for the next one to come over me before walking another thirty steps, and so on, see if you will turn back again.

  I'll go first, I'm the oldest in age. In this kind of environment, there's no such thing as seniority, only those who are older have the final say, it's a rule that people have followed since they were young.

  I let the two of them shine behind me, and I stepped forward one step at a time. At the thirtieth step, I turned around to see that they were still shining, so I waved my flashlight at them twice, and they also waved back at me from afar. I quietly waited for them to come over, but those two beams of light didn't move an inch. I waved my flashlight again, but there was no response. 'Are these two little rascals intentionally teasing me?' I thought to myself.

  "Hey, hurry up!" My voice echoed through the entire space. I shouted again, louder than before. This can't be right! Earlier, I could always feel the light from their flashlights, never extinguished, but now there's no sign of movement at all. A strange place, a solitary person... my scalp tingled as I thought, if only I could be back home sleeping with my wife, how comfortable that would be.

  Those two lights began to move towards me, it seemed they had made enough noise and started moving forward. But again, the light didn't seem like the kind emitted by a flashlight, which is bright and piercing to the eyes. Instead, it was very soft and gentle, floating and fluttering towards me. Could it be ghost fire? But these were copper men, where would there be dead people? I couldn't help but think of the ground beneath my feet, the earth that we often neglect since we arrived. Wasn't the yellow soil under my feet now covering the buried dead? And weren't these monks here to hold a memorial service for those who had passed away?

  I didn't dare to think so much, turned around and ran away, the flashlight in my hand shaking up and down, sometimes shining on the ground, sometimes on people's faces, as if mocking my ignorance. I don't know how long I ran, suddenly a house appeared in front of me.