Chapter 10: Ancient Corpse

  I walked out of the exam room in a daze, and the strong sunlight pierced my eyes. At this moment, I suddenly woke up with a start. Oh no, it's all over, I actually fell asleep during today's exam, and I even forgot how many questions I answered. My mind was filled with doubts, how could I have fallen asleep when I was clearly thinking about the problems? No matter how hot the weather is, I've never felt drowsy before. Time ran out without me writing anything, I'm probably doomed to fail, if I have to retake it, I'll lose face in front of my uncle and aunt. I walked back to my dorm with my head hung low in despair.

  Pushing open the dormitory door, Wu Shihong, Li Lin and Wang Xuebing were all flipping through books as if to see how they did on their exams. I took a look at them and sat down with a thud, hanging my head in shame and burying my face in the computer desk.

  "Hey, Nie Yu, what's wrong with you? Are you possessed by a ghost? I've never seen you so down. Didn't do well on the exam, huh? Don't worry if you didn't do well, just study hard next time!" Wu Shi Rong hurried over and pulled my arm, saying with a smile. I ignored him and crawled onto the top bunk to sleep, not knowing where the drowsiness came from, and slept all the way until the next morning. Not doing well on the exam had ruined my mood, so I spent the entire weekend holed up in the dorm preparing for a retest.

  On Monday morning, I arrived at the classroom door and my classmates were already seated. My heart was racing with anxiety. Professor Liu asked me to retake the course and I still had to ask San Shu for tuition fees, which made me extremely annoyed. Zhao Yun'er in the front row turned around and waved at me, and I forced a smile. At this moment, Professor Liu walked in.

  "Classmates, today is Monday, and the results of last week's freshman exam have been released. I will now announce the scores. Those who did not do well should not be discouraged, strive to work hard..." Professor Liu said as he read out the exam results... "Nie Yu's overall score ranked third in all subjects!" After hearing this, I almost fainted, it was a miracle! Who would have thought that sleeping could also get high scores. My heart was secretly laughing, but at the same time, I felt inexplicable. And what I didn't expect even more was that Wu Shirong actually got second place, and Zhao Yun'er got first place in the whole class.

  "Beautiful girl, you're really a study tyrant! You actually got the first place in the exam. How did you study? Can you teach me?" As soon as the bell rang after class, I hurried to Zhao Yuner's side.

  "Nothing, maybe I was just lucky, the part I read happened to be all tested, and what I didn't read wasn't tested!" Zhao Yuer said as she stood up, picked up her bag, and we walked out of the teaching building together.

  "Hey! You did great, coming in third. Shouldn't you be treating us to lunch?" Wu Shirong chuckled and ran up from behind, but when he saw me walking with Zhao Yuner, he tactfully left."

  "Zhao Yuer, do you think what Professor Liu said the other day counts? If we rank in the top ten, we'll be sent to the experimental class for further study." Recalling Wu Shirong's interception of Professor Liu a few days ago, I suddenly had an ominous premonition.

  "Nie Yu, I didn't think you were so timid despite your tall stature. What he says will definitely count, at least you won't have to retake the exam. Nothing else to do, I'll head home first, this afternoon I'm going shopping with my mom in town. Bye!" With that, Zhao Yuer drove away in her dad's Audi.

  That night, I couldn't sleep no matter how hard I tried, and it wasn't until dawn that I finally dozed off. When Wu Shi Rong and I arrived at class, Professor Liu called us to his office, where Zhao Yun Er was also present. Professor Liu told us that he had actually been joking the day before, fearing that we wouldn't study hard and come up with bad ideas. He said that we could indeed attend the experimental class, as long as it didn't interfere with our regular coursework. Upon hearing Professor Liu's words, the three of us nearly jumped for joy, and along with several other classmates, a total of ten of us prepared to enter the archaeological professional experimental class.

  The next morning, we joined the experimental class smoothly according to Professor Liu's arrangement. The current project of the experimental class is a very large ancient tomb. We were assigned to assist the archaeological team with manual labor, collecting samples and sorting out some data.

  That ancient tomb is very large but has no name, it is said to be of the Ming Dynasty, and its location is at the foot of Fengling Mountain. Our group of ten people took the school's big bus and set off early in the morning.

  Sitting on the bus, watching the scenery flying backwards quickly, I thought of things from before. Second Uncle was possessed by an evil spirit and still hasn't been found, Little Sister was cursed and is still unconscious, Second Aunt is still keeping watch over Little Sister, her mood must also be very bad. Thinking about these things, my mood started to feel oppressed again.

  "Driver, stop the car, I can't take it anymore! My stomach hurts!" Wu Shi Rong covered his stomach and walked to the driver's side from the back row, bent over in pain. His face was twisted into a painful grimace.

  The driver looked at him helplessly, shook his head and stopped the car. Wu Shi Rong quickly got out of the car and disappeared into the grass by the side of the road. I also got out of the car, and in front of me was Feng Ling Mountain. This mountain is called Feng Ling Mountain, with high peaks, but surrounded by plains. The cemetery is at the foot of the high mountain, surrounded by dense low trees and bushes. There is a large river upstream of Feng Ling Mountain, and the water hits the surrounding rocks, making a deafening sound. The driver stopped the car, we brought all the tools, and walked in together. Just as we were walking inside, a female teacher came from the opposite direction.

  "Hello, everyone. We are from the Archaeology Department of Haicheng University. My surname is Wang, you can just call me Teacher Wang. Are you new here?" The female teacher was very pretty, she wore a sun hat, a work uniform, boots on her feet, and a big badge on her chest with her work ID.

  "Hello teacher, I'm Nie Yu, this is Wu Shi Rong, next to him is Zhao Yun Er, and that's Professor Liu..." After a brief self-introduction, we followed Professor Wang into the ancient tomb.

  This ancient tomb is located at the foot of Fengling Mountain, with a stone gate that opens on both sides. As you walk in, it's a dark and long rectangular passageway. The passageway has rows of light bulbs hanging from the top, and after walking further, there are three more large gates before reaching the tomb chamber. This tomb chamber is extremely large, with over a dozen large tombs inside, each consisting of several small rooms. Underneath the rooms, there are even drainage ditches, where clear water flows continuously. In the distance, under the bright lights, many archaeological team members are busy cleaning up the inscriptions on the ground with brushes and small shovels. The three of us also rushed over to help.

  "Nie Yu, come and see what this character is. Do you recognize it?" Zhao Yuer held a small brush in her right hand and a water bottle in her left hand. She poured the water onto the stone slab on the ground and then gently brushed away the dirt with the brush. Her squatting posture was really sexy, and I stood opposite her, unintentionally catching sight of her obvious "career line".

  "Hey! What are you looking at? I'm asking you to read the words on the ground, what's with staring at my chest?" As she spoke, she quickly adjusted her clothes and stood up, then slapped a handful of mud onto my face with her left hand.

  "It's really not intentional, the key is that angle is too obvious, I'm really embarrassed and won't dare next time!" I quickly explained, actually just now it wasn't intentional to tease her, it was just too obvious so I took a glance. Then I looked at the words on the ground, they were all ancient people's complex characters and not even the Republic of China's complex characters, I didn't recognize a single one, so I had no choice but to take out my phone and take a photo to study when I got back.

  "Nie Yu, come quick and see what I've found! I've made a major discovery!" Wu Shi Rong shouted at me excitedly, as if he had discovered treasure. Zhao Yun Er and I rushed over to him. We saw his hands digging into a pile of mud, occasionally flushing the soil with water.

  "What's up? Have you found any treasure?" Zhao Yuer was also attracted by his shout.

  "I feel like it's a round ornament, maybe some kind of jade stone, there are several, about five or six. If it's gold or jewelry, we'll be rewarded!" Wu Shi Rong said as he reached in with his hand to dig out the objects, but the mud pile seemed quite deep and no matter how hard he dug, he couldn't pull them out.

  "We two will help you with it, and if we make a contribution, it will be the credit of both of us!" I said, picking up the small shovel and moving quickly. Before long, I dug out more than a dozen round things. Zhao Yuer hurriedly took over the water bottle and sprayed them. The round things touched the muddy soil on the surface and fell off, revealing four clear big characters - "Coca-Cola".

  "Damn it, what the hell is this thing? This must be something that the teammate in front lost. You've been holding onto it for half a day and still haven't asked anyone where it belongs or tried to find its owner yourself?" I was driven crazy by this idiot.

  "Haha, you're really funny! I bet the Pepsi tomorrow will taste better than it does now, silly!" Zhao Yuer said with a smile, and couldn't help but laugh so hard that she doubled over at the waist.

  The three of us continued to clean up the texts and ceramic fragments on the ground, and before we knew it, it was almost noon. We ate boxed lunches outside the tomb chamber and then went back to continue cleaning.

  "Nie Yu, we're now cleaning up No. 6, but it's almost done and there's nothing much left?" Wu Shi Rong stood up and rubbed his waist.

  "I feel the same way, it's almost a day now, except for those few Pepsi bottle caps, there's nothing else to discover, just a few words that I don't recognize, let's clean up No. 6 and then head to No. 7 after we get back to school and hand it over to our project group." After saying that, I pulled Zhao Yuer's hand slightly, and the three of us walked towards the entrance of tomb No. 7 together.

  The No. 7 tomb entrance is next to the No. 6 tomb entrance, and the previous archaeological team had not cleaned up here before. As we set up lights forward, we moved the tools at the entrance of the tomb chamber inward. The No. 7 tomb entrance was damaged, and there was a thief hole on top, about half a meter square in size. We slowly cleared the rubble and soil along the entrance of the thief hole, and it was almost cleaned up in less than an hour. Then there was a thick layer of silt, several tens of centimeters thick, with a smell of rot emanating from it. The tomb chamber, which is close to the riverbed, had water dripping down from its top continuously.

  "Look! What's that?" Zhao Yu'er suddenly stopped her actions with a tense expression, and shone her flashlight inside. To our surprise, there was a coffin. We both shone our flashlights on it. The coffin had a stone lid, the entire thing was made of stone, and the lid was flipped over and leaning against the side of the coffin board. I held a talisman to ward off ghosts in my hand, and slowly walked towards it.

  The space above the coffin was very narrow, with water dripping down constantly. At this moment, I remembered the time when I went to Hong's house to drive out evil spirits with my second uncle, and I couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. I quickly took out the talisman that I had prepared for driving out evil spirits, turned on the flashlight and shone it over there, and a strong smell of rot filled the entire narrow and damp space. As I looked closely, I saw a skeleton that had already rotted away and was no longer recognizable.

  "Is that a corpse? Be careful not to get yourself killed!" Wu Shi Rong also shone his flashlight over, and upon discovering the body, he was frightened and hid behind Zhao Yun Er.

  The ancient corpse was no longer an ancient corpse, but a skeleton that seemed to have almost turned to ash. The blurry marks were like rotten mud. However, the round skull was still clearly visible, and just as my flashlight shone on the only intact bone, a flash of light suddenly burst out.