Chapter 9: Corpse's Frightful Soul

  It wasn't until then that I started to feel fearful, fortunately there were people all around me, which made me feel slightly at ease, and I didn't dare look at the wall again, afraid of seeing something challenging appear once more.

  "It seems like a stone room ahead," Zhu Baozi stopped in his tracks and said.

  "Turn on the flashlights." Liu Wei said, walking forward. Originally, only Zhu Baozi and Old Liang at the back had their flashlights on. Hearing Liu Wei's words, everyone turned on their flashlights, and it suddenly became much brighter. Through the light, they clearly saw a stone room about five square meters in size appear before them. However, the entrance to the passageway was more than a meter above the floor of the stone room. If they had been walking in the dark, they would have definitely fallen down. Zhu Baozi held his flashlight in his mouth and patted the wall with both hands to check for any mechanisms before jumping down.

  The stone room is as if it was carved out of the rock, perfectly natural without any traces of inlay, with a large stone table placed in the middle and nothing else.

  "This is an ear chamber, and I estimate that the main chamber is just next door." Zhu Baozi said as he looked around.

  Liu Wei nodded and walked out of the ear room exit. Not long after, he heard Liu Wei curse, "Damn it, what's going on?"

  I followed Shi Tuo out quickly, and I was also stunned at a glance. Outside the ear chamber, there were actually five channels that were the same as the place we had just passed through. Usually, outside the ear chamber is the main chamber, but why are these still channels?

  "What's going on? I don't know what to do either! The old man never told me there was a passage outside the ear chamber!"

  "Isn't this the ear chamber?" I muttered to myself.

  "Isn't the ear chamber supposed to be like this?" Zhu Baozi walked over from behind, his face also looking extremely unpleasant.

  "Does Mr. Lin have a good way?" Liu Wei suddenly turned his head and looked at me.

  I felt a bit uneasy, I've never been to a grave before. What's the point of asking me? It's better for you to make two choices and flip a coin to decide! But I didn't dare offend them either, so I pretended to think about it and said "How about we split up?"

  Liu Wei sneered and shook his head. I shrugged my shoulders: "What else can we do? Let's go through one channel at a time!"

  "Mr. Matsuda, it's come to this," I said, and Liu Wei turned his head to say to the little Japanese guy.

  "Let's go!" said Matsuda with a nod.

  I just realized that Liu Wei had fooled me again. He was afraid someone would suggest splitting up, so he forced me to come up with this plan. Looking at Liu Wei's smile, I felt a chill in my heart. In this era, thugs are not scary, but what's scary is when thugs have culture. It seems like Liu Wei is a cultured thug.

  Zhu Pangzi glared at Liu Wei and walked into a nearby passage. It didn't take long, only about five minutes, before they arrived in another ear chamber, but this one had no exit, only five identical passages.

  "Damn it, how did we end up walking in a maze again." Zhu Baozi cursed angrily.

  Liu Wei took out a dagger and drew a mark at the entrance of the passage, saying "Don't enter the passage with a mark, enter the next one."

  Walk along a passage and make a mark until you enter the third ear chamber, where you can find an exit. The ear chamber has no more passages, only two stone gates that are slightly ajar.

  Zhu Baozi walked over, pushed the stone gate open, and creaked as it opened. A layer of ash fell from the top of the gate, covering Zhu Baozi in dust. He spat twice, wiped his face with his hand, and muttered a curse under his breath. But I still felt that the falling ash was a bit suspicious. Before I could think carefully, I heard Zhu Baozi's voice: "Finally walked out."

  The stone pulled me out, although it was dark and I couldn't see anything, but judging from the echo I heard, the stone chamber should not be small.

  Soon, Liu Wei and others also walked over, opened the flashlight to look around, "How does it seem like it's been stolen?" Liu Wei muttered. I took the flashlight to shine around, and in my heart, I agreed with Liu Wei's idea. Although the burial objects were all in the master bedroom, the front hall should have some valuable things too! How could it be empty? Moreover, many broken copper vessels had obvious signs of being smashed.

  "Huh, is this a candle?" Zhu Baozi said, shining his flashlight on a cylindrical object over a meter high beside the wall.

  On the top of each cylinder, about the thickness of a wrist and the length of a middle finger, was placed a white candle. I shone my flashlight around and found that every 1.5 meters or so, there was one of these cylinders, with the candles on top roughly the same height.

  "Come, light up." Zhu Baozi lit a candle with a lighter, and Lao Liang and the others also lit candles one after another. Soon, the entire stone room became bright and warm, with the candles emitting a faint white glow and a fragrance.

  "This should be a whale that has been boiled down into tallow and made into candles." Matsuda said, pinching the candle with his fingers.

  I patted the copper cylindrical object beside me and thought to myself: It seems this is a candle holder, I wonder if it can be sold for some money. The stone room was about over 100 square meters, with murals carved on both sides that could be used as flower hangers. Near the wall were scattered wooden fragments and broken copper utensils, the wooden fragments were sealed with wax, it seemed like they weren't naturally weathered but rather intentionally damaged.

  "Damn it, looks like someone really has been here." Zhu Baozi also cursed.

  "Huh, what's that?" Old Liang suddenly pointed to a corner of the stone room and said.

  As we took a closer look, it seemed like a red ball, but the distance was too far and the candlelight couldn't reach that far. We had to move closer. Zhu Baozi pulled out his gun and turned on his flashlight, step by step approaching the red ball. When we got close to the red ball, I felt a wave of nausea and fear in my heart that I couldn't shake off. What was this supposed to be? It wasn't a red ball at all! It was a bloodied corpse with holes all over its body, the blood had already turned black. What's even more terrifying is that from the torn shoes and clothes, it was clearly Liu Ran's corpse! He died in the forest, how did he suddenly appear in the tomb? Was something bringing him back? I believed there were many people who shared my thoughts, Liu Wei and the others all pulled out their guns and turned on their flashlights to carefully observe our surroundings. I tightly grasped onto Shi Tou's clothes, refusing to let go.

  Zhu Baozi's face looked extremely ugly, but he was also very brave and walked up to Liu Ran's body, took out a coat and covered it with it. He probably didn't want to keep staring at Liu Ran's body either, even if he had the courage, looking at him for too long would make him collapse. Just then, the coat that Zhu Baozi threw down moved slightly, I pointed at Liu Ran's body and said "It's moving, it's moving."

  Zhu Baozi was also startled by my words, quickly turning his head, raising his gun, and his overcoat moved again. The sound of the handgun's safety being released kept ringing out, Zhu Baozi couldn't help but fire a shot, suddenly a black shadow darted out from inside the overcoat and rushed towards Zhu Baozi.

  "Fake, fake, faked it." I also raised the military shovel in my hand, and my tense legs were trembling.