Chapter 57: Raising Corpses with Corpses

  Liangzi didn't say a word, took out a bundle of rope from his bag, jumped up and threw it upwards with a flick of his wrist.

  He threw it in a slightly biased direction, and saw that Black Face quickly shifted two steps under his feet and caught it directly in his hand.

  Liang Zi and I immediately gave a thumbs up, then saw Hei Lian tie one end of the rope to his waist, throwing the remaining rope down again, shouting at us: "I'll swing the rope, you two use force to pull."

  I and Liangzi hadn't reacted yet, when we saw Heilian's body leap up, directly jumping into the vat and disappearing from view. The rope immediately followed him, slipping a large section into the interior of the vat.

  Liangzi quickly picked up the rope on the ground and wrapped it around his own hands, I also went up to grab the rope tightly, ready to exert force at any time.

  At that moment, I clearly felt the rope in my hand swing slightly, and immediately shouted: "Pull..."

  Liangzi was in front and I was behind, turned around and put the rope on my shoulder, using all my strength to pull outward. But I didn't expect the other end of the rope to be so heavy, it took the two of us to barely move forward step by step.

  My shoulder immediately transmitted a severe pain, but I didn't dare stop. I bit my teeth and used force while turning my head to look up. Slowly, as we moved forward, finally someone's head appeared, then a hand stretched out from the edge of the jar and waved at us.

  "Wait..." I quickly loosened the rope and called out to Liangzi who was using his strength.

  I went to look at the top of the giant vat again, and saw that Hei Lian's face was covered in a thick layer of mud-like substance. A person stood on the edge of the vat, and judging from their appearance, it should be Zhou Huan. However, her entire body was covered in deep green sticky liquid, making it impossible to see her features.

  I estimate that the giant barrel's rim is very thick, seeing Hei Lian pull Zhou Huan up onto it with a square shape, then stretch out his hand to pull the rope up section by section, finally tying one end of the rope around Zhou Huan's waist and starting to slowly lower him down.

  I and Liang Zi saw the situation, quickly went over to respond, after Zhou Huan came down, she was hugged and put on the ground.

  Not having had time to go and see how she was, he again heard Hei Lian shouting loudly above his head, untie the rope, there's another one...

  We're already confused, what's with another one?

  The rope had just been untied when Black Face jumped down again, and the two of us could only temporarily give up checking on Zhou Huan and grab the rope to continue.

  After a while, Hei Lian gave the signal again. Liangzi shouted loudly: "Let's go..." The two of us started pulling the rope with force for the second time.

  I didn't expect it to be even heavier this time than last time. The two of us couldn't budge it at first, and when we used too much force, we almost fell over ourselves.

  "What's going on? Is this a tug-of-war competition!" Liang Zidao cursed loudly, took a deep breath, and exerted himself once again.

  The rope finally moved, but it was extremely heavy. I felt that my shoulders were rubbed raw, yet I still grasped it tightly and didn't dare let go.

  Liang Zi also seemed to have used up all his strength, his body leaning forward so much that he was almost about to fall to the ground, and the blood vessels on both arms had all bulged out.

  The two of us pulled with all our might for a while, and when I turned my head back, Black Face finally caught up. After letting go of the rope, we both sat on the ground panting heavily.

  Go back and look at the black face on the jar, his whole body has been completely covered with that sticky liquid, and he is also holding a rectangular object, which can't be seen what it is?

  Hei Lian didn't bother this time, directly hugging that thing and jumping down. This person's kung fu was indeed good. At such a high distance, if it were me, I would definitely get hurt badly.

  I don't have the mood to care about anything else, hurry up and go check on Zhou Huan's situation. Who knows what's in that jar, it looks disgusting with all the sticky stuff.

  I saw Zhou Huan's face was still clean, but she was unconscious, thinking she had suffocated, and quickly went up to press the Renzhong point.

  My fingers had just pressed on her abdomen when Zhou Huan grabbed my arm with that sticky hand and said weakly, "I'm fine, I'm just a bit tired..."

  "My goodness, you scared me to death." I was overjoyed and didn't even care that she was so dirty, quickly helping her sit up and gently patting her back.

  After Zhou Huan's breathing became even, she asked: "How did you all come down? Who saved me?"

  "It was the captain who saved you, the captain he..." I just wanted to tell Zhou Huan that Hei Mian might have recovered, but when I looked up, I found Hei Mian sitting on the ground again, starting to space out, and it was like he was a completely different person from before. Liang Zi was using his jacket as a towel to help him wipe off the sticky liquid on his body.

  Zhou Huan looked at Hei Lian's face and didn't ask any more questions. She grabbed me and stood up, and I quickly took off my camouflage jacket to help her wipe it clean.

  "This sticky stuff has a strange smell, like oil, very slippery. As I wiped it off, I asked Zhou Huan: 'What is this stuff? How did you fall into that big vat?'"

  It turns out that Zhou Huan wasn't very clear about what had happened before either...

  At that time, I thought the iron chain was moving after it, Zhou Huan went down alone to check, when she estimated that she had gone down halfway, suddenly felt a black shadow flashing behind her, and then she was caught by something. Her clothes were hung in mid-air.

  Zhou Huan was suspended in mid-air and didn't dare to resist, afraid that she would fall down and get killed. However, the thing holding her suddenly accelerated downwards, and finally Zhou Huan was thrown into that large vat.

  She found that the jar was full of deep green sticky liquid, and if she fell into it, she would suffocate to death. Fortunately, the buoyancy of the liquid was very strong, and Zhou Huan kept her head tilted back, trying hard to stretch her head out, and her hands were desperately slapping against the wall of the jar to prevent herself from sinking in. When we came down, she had almost held on.

  I heard her finish and felt a wave of relief. Fortunately, there was Hei Lian in it. If it were just me and Liang Zi, Zhou Huan would have definitely drowned by now.

  "What on earth got you in there, and it looks like it can still fly?" I asked.

  "Hmm, I initially thought it should be a bird too, but I didn't hear the sound of flapping wings. Besides, how big would a bird have to be to grab a person?"

  "It's not necessarily so, in this strange place, nothing seems unusual, let's all be careful."

  Zhou Huan simply dealt with the sticky liquid on her body and then ran to Hei Lian's side to ask about his situation, but Hei Lian had returned to his silly appearance and completely ignored her.

  I'm also very confused, this black face is sometimes extremely brave and sometimes speechless, I don't know if he's really stupid or playing with us.

  Zhou Huan saw that Hei Lian was still not recovering, so she let Liang Zi help take care of him while she started to look around the place.

  At this moment, I suddenly remembered that Hei Lian jumped into the vat for the second time and brought out something. When I turned around, I found that thing was not far behind me.

  I called Zhou Huan over and the two of us examined it together. I saw that this thing looked like a rectangular box, and its body was also covered with that deep green sticky liquid.

  Zhou Huan's equipment pack had been lost, which she had taken off in the big vat to reduce her weight, so she asked me for a dagger and scraped it on that rectangular object, revealing a very smooth surface.

  I reached out and touched it, and it didn't seem like wood. It felt cold to the touch, very much like jade or some other kind of stone material.

  As Zhou Huan continued to scrape away the mucus, a whole piece of jade stone surface was exposed. I suddenly had a strange feeling that its length, width and height looked like it could just fit a person inside. Could it be... there's a corpse in here?

  Zhou Huan estimated and I thought the same, she just paused for a moment, then accelerated the scraping speed of the adhesive liquid. I also went up to help, after we cleaned up all the adhesives on this object, a jade box with a faint glow appeared.

  Zhou Huan said excitedly: "I understand, if we're lucky enough, the body inside should be that of 'Wan Chong Shou', and it's clear that this jade thing is a coffin, and that big jar is a burial urn."

  I listened to her finish and felt a bit far-fetched, asking: "This 'Ten Thousand Insect Hand' is such an awesome character, with his own army and insect protection, but this coffin is too shabby!"

  "Shabby... I don't think so, this should be the most luxurious coffin I've ever seen."

  "What's the meaning of this? This big mouthful is already considered luxurious?"

  "Of course, it won't be that simple. The tombs of the emperors throughout history are famous for their grandeur and magnificence, but in reality, they just buried some gold, silver, jewels, and some ministers and slaves. But this 'Wan Chong Shou', although not a well-known king or noble, his tomb is also quite luxurious."

  I listened to her finish, looked up at the deep pit, and then looked at those jars of different sizes, feeling that Zhou Huan had exaggerated a bit. It didn't look luxurious here at all.

  Zhou Huan saw my disdain and continued to say: "Before, I didn't notice it and thought those secretions were just a kind of oil. Now I understand that according to how I was thrown into that giant vat by an unknown creature, these secretions should all be people transformed... This is called using corpses to raise corpses..."

  "What's gotten into you! Can't you speak clearly?" I asked her, hearing that she was being so cautious.

  "In other words, the viscous liquid in this large jar is all the oil and fat transformed from human flesh after death. It's estimated that 'Wan Chong Shou' used some kind of medicine to prevent these corpse oils from rotting, and it's precisely these corpse oils that are used to preserve the corpse hidden inside this jade coffin, which can be said to be imperishable for ten thousand years."

  I was covered in goosebumps by Zhou Huan's words, which were also a bit nauseating. He asked again: "Then do you think how many corpses can turn into this jar of corpse oil?"

  Zhou Huan also looked up at the giant jar, and sighed with emotion: "This can't be counted, but judging from the size of the jar, there are no more than 10,000, or at least 8,000..."

  My god, are you kidding me? One million people turned into corpse oil, and then put this insect-raising old monster in it for nourishment. This is simply luxurious to the extreme!

  Thinking of this, I felt a wave of nausea and quickly said: "Let's hurry up and open the coffin, find what we're looking for and leave as soon as possible. This place may not be safe, let's not linger."

  Zhou Huan also thought of this and didn't waste any more time, preparing to open the jade coffin.

  I called Lianzi over to help, and we felt around the coffin wall for half a day, but didn't find any seams, just like this coffin was fully enclosed.

  "What a broken coffin, it doesn't even have a lid. In my opinion, we might as well smash it open and be done with it, to avoid the trouble."

  "Wait, we can't smash it open. The thing we're looking for is probably inside and it might get damaged if we force it open. Let's search again, there must be a gap somewhere."