Chapter Sixty: Corpse Insect

  He hadn't made much preparation, as Tian Qi just planned to take a look this time. His purpose was not to visit the tomb, but to find out why the villagers were killed overnight and solve it, which would also resolve his karma. As for the treasure in the tomb, he didn't care at all. Grave robbing is a sin that harms one's 'yin' virtue, and generally, those who do it don't end up well. It's a major karmic debt, and having no descendants is actually the lightest punishment. Severe cases can affect many generations of descendants, even those not in the direct line, making it difficult to avoid, like a curse that doesn't know how many reincarnations it will take.

  Of course, even if you want to rob a tomb, you need to have the ability to do so. Different professions have different specialties, and Tian Qi asked himself that he didn't have this skill.

  Tian Qi held the yin-yang mirror, Chou Shen carried a black rod, and Yingying brought some insect-repelling medicine. Although it might not be useful, it could come in handy at any moment.

  Pangzi wanted to let Tianqi take the black jade, but Tianqi didn't want it. He already had a yin-yang mirror and that was enough. If he knew what would happen later, even if it was Yan Yan giving him the Buddhist beads, he would have taken them at the time.

  Ma Wen arrived right on time, just at noon. Because the timing was tight, there wasn't much "flow" of conversation either. Tian Qi and Qiu Shen followed Ma Wen as he walked.

  "Qige, Chou Shengxue, you guys be careful and just take a look around before coming back," said Yingying.

  The temple is actually located in the center of the village, not far from the waterfall. The three people arrived quickly. The spring water flows down from a height of about 5-6 meters, although it's not as spectacular as a river, and the flow isn't that big. However, over time, it has formed a deep pool below, with an unknown depth. Tian Qi also saw a mutated old fish in the river.

  Was he supposed to swim across from the deep pool? Tian Qi thought in his heart, because when he got here, he didn't see any road that could continue forward.

  However, Ma Wenzhong signaled for them to follow him and they arrived at the edge of the waterfall, where they crawled in along the wall. Possibly due to its proximity to water sources, the vegetation there was extremely lush.

  Tian Qi also looked at each other with a deep hatred, then followed in, unexpectedly the position close to the mountain wall was behind lush plants and there was a very narrow path, and the road was very smooth, not many plants, Tian Qi also saw some red scars, is this the blood of those killed mutated animals?

  Ma Wen led the way in front, Tian Qi and Qiu Shen followed behind, walking to the right of the waterfall, a very narrow path leading forward appeared.

  The road above was all rocky walls, not open to the sky, and the spring water flowed over it, so it was very dark inside. Tian Qi and Qiu Shen took out their flashlights and shone them inward. If it were Fatso, wanting to pass through this one-line-sky road would be quite difficult, he'd have to suck in his belly to walk, and some places seemed even narrower, Fatso would likely scrape his body if he forced himself through, Tian Qi thought.

  But Ma Wen, who was walking in front, hurried out and pointed at the flashlight in Tian Qi's hand, gesturing anxiously.

  "You mean we should turn off our flashlights, right?" Tian Qi guessed.

  Ma Wenzhong nodded, pointing his finger at the rocks on the road ahead. Tian Qi shone his flashlight and, oh man, the rocks were covered with a dense layer of black beetles. Wherever Tian Qi's light landed, the beetles started to stir, making one's skin crawl with goosebumps.

  Seeing Tian Qi's action, Ma Wen hurriedly stopped him. Tian Qi immediately turned off the flashlight because it was a bit far away and he didn't see clearly what kind of insect was on top.

  "That might be a corpse worm," Qiu Shen said.

  Is it a corpse worm? Tian Qi's heart was startled, but the number is too many, it seems that all of them are on the rock wall above, this one is not short either. Just now he used his flashlight to shine and didn't see the end, of course, it's related to the road being too narrow and not very straight, but it looks like the distance is definitely over 20 meters, or even longer. If the rock wall above is all corpse worms, the number will be geometric.

  Carrion beetles, also known as burying beetles, have an appearance that is sometimes black in color, and sometimes iridescent blue, bright orange, yellow, or red. Their bodies are flat and soft, suitable for crawling under the carcasses of animals. They usually lay their eggs on the carcass of an animal, and after the larvae hatch, they rely on the brown-colored nourishment from their parents for two to three days. When burying beetles feed on the carcass of an animal, they constantly dig into the soil underneath, eventually naturally burying the carcass underground, hence their name.

  If it's just a single tapeworm, it's not scary at all. In fact, the number of tapeworm species in the world is decreasing, and Tianqi even learned about this when he was studying in the US. The US has already listed tapeworms as an endangered species. Although China isn't that severe yet, such a large number of tapeworms is probably very rare too.

  "Take a closer look, are you sure that's a corpse worm? Maybe it's some kind of 'tide' worm?" Tian Qi said. After all, corpse worms were usually found on the ground or in shallow soil, and he had never seen one on a rock wall like this before.

  Chou Shen furrowed his brow and thought for a moment, "It should be about 80% certain, it's the kind I've seen before."

  Seemingly understanding Tianqi's idea, Ma Wen shook his head vigorously while pointing at Tianqi's flashlight.

  Looking at Ma Wen's tense expression, Tian Qi didn't open the flashlight again. Chou Shen said that with 80% certainty, it was almost a sure thing. And if they really startled those insects and made them all fall to the ground, not to mention just the three of them, even if they brought over all the mutated animals, it wouldn't be enough for them to eat. Although their individual strength was small, there were many of them, and without saying that they would be eaten in an instant, leaving no bones or residue behind, it wasn't a good situation either.

  To pass through this road, one has to walk sideways. Ma Wen is in the front, Tian Qi is in the middle, and Qiu Shen is at the back holding a black stick. They can't turn on their flashlights, it's pitch dark all around, and there's water constantly seeping out of the cracks in the rocks, dripping onto their hands and faces, icy cold and piercing to the bone.

  There are also occasionally falling corpse insects, which is okay if they fall on the body, and can be gotten rid of immediately. If they fall on the neck, the corpse insect will bite without hesitation, and it will also hurt the body to jump up. Tian Qi caught one in his hand and confirmed his speculation, finding that these corpse insects are slightly larger than normal ones. Three centimeters is already considered large for a normal corpse insect, but these seem to be over five centimeters long. It's unknown whether they were affected by the resentment like the mutated animals outside, but the concentration of resentment here is much lower, and it's unclear what the reason is.

  Slowly getting used to the darkness, and with the dripping sound of the spring water, Tian Qi could see some things, at least he could see Ma Wen who was leading the way in front of him. He didn't look up, fearing that a dead insect would fall onto his eyes.

  They had been walking for about twenty minutes, Tian Qi estimated. His watch didn't have a backlight function, nor did Qiu Shen's; they were the same watches their instructor had given them. So he didn't know exactly how much time had passed, and the road here was really too narrow, making it not easy to lift his hand to look at his watch either.

  As he walked, Tian Qi suddenly found that Ma Wen's figure had disappeared in front of him. He might have taken a detour, so he quickened his pace and went forward, then saw Ma Wen standing at the exit, where the location was relatively spacious, a semi-circular small "cave".

  Ma Wen stood in the 'cave', without walking out, he pointed his hand at the sun.

  Tian Qi suddenly understood what Ma Wen meant. It had already been several days since he came out, but Tian Qi found that the scenery outside the cave was not as he imagined.

  Since it can make a village's generations guard here, it must be a grand tomb. In front of the tomb should be a well-built path, with stone statues and other things on both sides. However, what is in front now is not like that. Except for some plants, the main structure here is wall after wall, the paint on top of the walls has already been damaged, but there are still red traces.

  This made Tianqi think of the Forbidden City's purple wall, also known as the Palace Museum, a symbol of China. Tianqi remembered it clearly, even the numbers were clear: the wall was 10 meters high, 760 meters wide from east to west, and 960 meters long from south to north, in a rectangular shape, with a total area of over 720,000 square meters. Inside the Forbidden City, there were more than 9,000 rooms, grand halls, overlapping palaces, carved beams, and painted rafters. The four corners of the Forbidden City all had exquisite corner towers, known as "nine ridges and eighteen pillars", exceptionally beautiful.

  "Could it be that the owner of this tomb is from the Ming or Qing dynasty? Looking at its scale, it's not small at all. It might even be above the level of a prince," Tian Qi said.

  "Look at the height and color of the wall, it's indeed a bit similar. Although we didn't see the corner tower, don't you think there's something off about this building?" Qiu Shen said.

  Tian Qi was also thinking about this issue, the Forbidden City's city wall is surrounded, but the city wall here is a bit complicated, with various 'intersections', more like a 'labyrinth', yes, that's right, it's a 'labyrinth'.