The sudden noise startled Yu Qing into dropping his torch, and he grabbed his sword hilt.
He quickly relaxed, however, as light flared inside. Someone had lit a tinder tube. One of the laborers dipped the head of a torch into a broken pottery jar, then held it to the flame. The oil-soaked wrapping immediately caught fire, brightening the cave considerably.
The smell of lamp oil wafted out.
Yu Qing understood the source of the noise. Someone had broken a jar of lamp oil. As Meng Wei had said, there should still be plenty of oil inside, even near the entrance.
He picked up his torch from the ground and crouched to squeeze inside.
The others outside, alerted by the commotion inside, also relaxed. Mu Aotie, carrying a torch, quickly jumped down and entered the cave. Nan Zhu carefully brought up the rear.
Clatter!
A few more scattered pottery jars were broken. Those who had entered dipped their torch heads in the oil to save for later use.
With several torches burning, the entrance was now brightly lit.
Tilted, collapsed stones half-blocked the opening, with daylight peeking through. The group held up their torches and looked around. Beyond lay endless darkness.
The ground was littered with loose rocks and oil jars. Further ahead lay clothed skeletons, fallen dead.
“Judging from the excavation marks at the entrance, this doesn’t seem like a normal underground palace entry. It appears the Yu Department back then never found the true tomb passage entrance, but instead forcefully drilled a hole into the mountain,” Nan Zhu commented, looking around.
As soon as he spoke, the six laborers turned to look at him. Their eyes seemed to say, “Is this fatty about to start his chatterbox mode again?”
Sure enough, Nan Zhu turned and fixed his gaze on them. He stepped forward and asked, “Your previous names were probably fake. What should we call you now?”
The six ignored him. They knew that once they engaged, this one might ramble on endlessly.
One of them looked at Yu Qing and asked, “Shall we go deeper?”
Where else could they go but deeper? Yu Qing nodded.
The six laborers immediately formed a formation. Three moved ahead in a triangular arrangement, holding torches to clear the path. Another three followed behind with torches, protecting Yu Qing and his two companions in the middle.
The crudely carved passage was not spacious, accommodating at most three people walking abreast.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie stayed close behind Yu Qing, to his left and right.
“Sigh…”
They had not gone far when a woman’s melancholy sigh suddenly rose, long and laden with grievance, clearly audible. It clearly came from the dark depths of the passage.
Yu Qing froze, thinking he had misheard. But looking around, he saw that all nine of them, himself included, had stopped simultaneously. Each person’s eyes showed inexplicable emotions as they stared into the dark depths ahead.
What did this mean? It meant all nine had heard it.
Where had a woman come from in this tomb, sealed for over a decade or two? Especially in this environment.
Inexplicably, all nine felt their hair stand on end. The chilly sensation of this space became increasingly clear and profound.
The nine had barely entered the ancient tomb and hadn’t gone far before they were shaken.
“Among all the stories about ancient tombs, have you ever heard of this situation before?” Nan Zhu asked.
They all shook their heads. They had never heard of it.
Yu Qing raised his hand, lit his torch from someone else’s flame, then swung his arm and threw it. The firelight shrank with a whoosh, landing on the ground far ahead before reigniting.
Everyone’s gaze followed the thrown flame. Apart from fallen skeletons on the ground, they saw no woman.
So the group continued forward, remaining highly alert to their surroundings.
Passing a skeleton, they saw a weapon beside it. Nan Zhu called out, “Those of you without weapons, you can borrow one from the ground.”
He had previously hoped to see these people unarmed. Now he felt uneasy seeing them without weapons.
These laborers had indeed not brought weapons to Jian Yuan Mountain.
The person at the front heeded Nan Zhu. With the tip of his foot, he hooked up a large blade from beside the corpse and grasped it in readiness.
The group walked to the burning torch on the ground ahead. Yu Qing bent down to pick it up, then threw it out again, once more illuminating the path ahead.
When they encountered more skeletons along the way, another person at the front picked up a weapon from the ground.
“Wasn’t it said that fire burned through this underground place? The clothes on the skeletons are still intact, and the passage shows no signs of fire damage at all. What’s going on?” Nan Zhu couldn’t help muttering again.
No one answered him. They continued forward. Reaching the burning torch on the ground again, Yu Qing didn’t need to throw another. The ones clearing the path ahead had already thrown one out…
At the cave entrance, one laborer sat watching. Seeing those who had gone deep into the cave completely disappear from sight, he quickly got up and squeezed outside. He jumped onto the piled boulders and nodded to Meng Wei.
Meng Wei looked around. “I’ll continue keeping watch here. You go back quickly to report to the Master.”
“Yes.” The laborer swiftly flew away.
In the nearby mountain forest, the Jian Yuan Zhai group lurking and observing carefully hunkered down.
Seeing the departing laborer, Cui You asked Qin Jue beside him, “Chief Manager, Yu Qing and the others have gone in. Should we go in too?”
Qin Jue looked up at the sky, somewhat puzzled. “That’s Jian Yuan Mountain’s forbidden area. In broad daylight, with eyes watching openly and secretly, how do we enter?”
Cui You: “Should we wait until dark?”
Qin Jue looked at the surrounding mountain forest. “Let’s see Jian Yuan Mountain’s reaction first.”
Cui You: “We came to drink wedding wine. Are we just going to keep watching here?”
Qin Jue: “Send one person back. When the wedding celebration is about to begin, come report immediately.”
Cui You immediately pointed to one person, telling them to go back first…
Despite having six torches lighting the way from front and back, those in the passage could still feel the oppressive weight of the darkness.
They still saw no woman ahead, but that woman’s sigh remained heavily pressed upon everyone’s hearts.
Yu Qing’s vigilant eyes scanning the surroundings occasionally caught the “small movements” of the three men ahead. He noticed that the hands holding their weapons seemed somewhat itchy, occasionally rubbing the backs of their hands against their clothes.
At first, only one person had this movement. Now all three had successively developed it, drawing his attention.
He occasionally looked back at the three laborers behind him and found that those three showed no such abnormality.
After walking more than a li, the passage suddenly ended ahead, diverting Yu Qing’s attention. He found the way forward blocked by something.
Drawing closer, they saw it was actually roots of varying thickness, interwoven so densely that not a gap remained.
“Rock surrounds us on all sides. Where did these roots grow from?” Nan Zhu muttered.
The laborer at the very front seemed somewhat impatient. He suddenly swung his blade and struck. Bang! A breach was cut. Holding the torchlight up to it, they saw space indeed lay behind the opening.
The one wielding the blade struck several more times in succession, and soon blasted open a hole.
This reckless commotion made Yu Qing frown secretly. Were they truly unafraid of disturbing whatever lay underground, or what?
The three clearing the path ahead held their torches and squeezed through one by one. After receiving signals that all was clear, Yu Qing and the others followed in succession. They then found themselves in another space.
The walls were built of neatly stacked long stone blocks. The floor was paved with large stone tiles. The orderly underground passage was spacious, easily accommodating three carriages abreast. The capacity of this space astonished the group.
Compared to the passage they had entered through, this was clearly the original part of the ancient tomb’s underground palace.
By torchlight, the passage stretched endlessly ahead and behind, with no turns in sight. Nan Zhu clicked his tongue in amazement. “Judging by this passage alone, the scale of this underground palace is evident. To create such grandeur underground, how much labor and resources must the builders have spent? Was this really built by that Guan Fengyang?”
One laborer stared at Yu Qing and asked, “Without a target location, are we just wandering aimlessly?”
Yu Qing was silent for a moment, then replied, “Find the main burial chamber.”
According to the records on the cloud map, the clue for the target location consisted of only four words: “the place of shared burial.” In this vast underground palace, only the main burial chamber should most closely match this description. He could only try searching for it first.
The group set out forward again. Amidst the flickering light and shadow, even a slightly farther distance was darkness.
Silence. Only the footsteps of several people. No so-called evil spirits were seen.
They had not gone far when Yu Qing increasingly felt something was wrong with the three laborers ahead.
Their abnormal movements had become too obvious. They kept rubbing their eyes, as if they couldn’t see the path clearly.
The torches swayed chaotically. The hands holding the torches constantly scratched the hands holding the blades.
The people behind all noticed something abnormal. Yu Qing said in a deep voice, “Stop!”
Starting from him, the people behind all stopped. The three ahead, however, seemed not to have heard. They continued scratching their itches and moving forward.
This was somewhat bizarre. Nan Zhu shouted, “Li Dahao, stop!”
Of the twenty or so laborers who had come to Jian Yuan Mountain, he could call out every name, because he had chatted with each one for a long time, though the names he remembered were probably all fake.
With his loud voice, the three ahead seemed to finally hear. They successively stopped, then turned around, still scratching. They scratched with anxious urgency, and also rubbed their eyes from time to time. Their consciousness already seemed abnormal.
The three men’s hands had already scratched until they bled, yet they continued scratching. The sight was shocking.
Most bizarre were the three men’s eyes. The whites of their eyes had lost all color, completely black. In the torchlight, they appeared black and shiny, like black gems.
Yu Qing and the others held their breath, speechless, all stunned.
Before long, Yu Qing slowly turned to look behind him. Sensing the torchlight swaying behind him, he turned to see a familiar scene. The three people behind had also begun the scratching movement. Because of their comrades’ condition across from them, they too seemed to realize something. Their expressions were full of terror.
One person simply dropped his torch, sat down cross-legged on the spot, and circulated his energy to treat himself.
The other two, seeing their companions’ terrifying state, feared they would follow in their footsteps. They quickly dropped their torches and followed suit.
The brightness in the passage immediately dimmed considerably.
Yu Qing suddenly looked sharply at his two senior brothers. Finding their behavior normal, he breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie, who had turned to look behind, saw that the three behind were also abnormal. They were all stunned.
Among the three torches still held aloft, one swayed over. The laborer holding it constantly twisted his head left and right, unsmoothly, as if the bones in his neck were stuck. He hobbled toward Yu Qing and the three others, his voice hoarse as he pleaded, “Water, do you have water? I’m thirsty. Give me water to drink.”
His voice had indeed suddenly become dry and hoarse, even more raspy than Nan Zhu’s.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mu Aotie asked with a grave expression, about to go over and check his pulse.
But Yu Qing suddenly moved, pressing down on his shoulder and pulling him back. “The weapons he picked up may be problematic. Don’t let him touch you. The situation is unclear. For now, don’t touch them.”