Chapter Fifty: Previous Misjudgments

Now, at last, I understood why the heights of the burial pits varied.

That was a face carved from a single massive stone. What we saw as a hollow was actually the mouth of a face stretched to the extreme. The sculpted visage was rugged and rough, with many edges left unpolished. Yet, it was precisely this that made it appear strikingly real.

It was as if a desperate soul, moments before death, was howling skyward. The eyes of the stone face stared unblinkingly at the heavens, and its muscles seemed to twitch right before us. The terror, the rage—all etched deeply into every detail of that face, seared into both my and Fatty’s hearts.

The face tilted slightly toward us, the wide-open mouth seeming to roar in fury. Fatty and I felt like two ants before a giant, frozen in fear.

The flare’s light grew dimmer, and the face gradually faded into the darkness.

As the shadows enveloped us once more, the sound above grew even more piercing.

Suddenly, Fatty looked at the gaping mouth before us and said, “Let’s just jump inside.”

I’d been shaken badly moments ago and took a few seconds to respond.

“Is it safe in there?” I asked uneasily.

Fatty sighed, a bitter smile crossing his face as he glanced upward.

“Safe? You think standing here is safe?” He lowered his head and stared into the stone mouth. “We’ve got nowhere else to go. Besides, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Fatty exhaled sharply. “I’m almost out of stamina. I probably caught a chill sleeping here earlier, and my legs are stiff. If danger comes, I definitely can’t run. At this point, whether I live or die, I’m planning to jump in.”

He then turned to me. “What about you?”

Seeing the pallor on his face and the cold sweat on his brow, I realized he was right. That thing above us would attack sooner or later. The flare had given us a rough view of the surroundings; the corridor above might be an option, but it would take time—and that thing was likely waiting there.

Listening to the noises overhead, I knew I had no time to hesitate. Gritting my teeth, I nodded to Fatty.

Seeing my decision, he said no more and grabbed the edge of the corridor, climbing down. I followed, and soon we stood at the mouth of the stone face.

Using the smokeless lamp to illuminate, I saw inside what appeared to be a steep slope—its angle at least sixty to seventy degrees.

Fatty went first. Strapping on his backpack, he gripped the stones beside him and lay back.

“We’re probably going to slide all the way down. Be careful,” he warned, then let go.

The sound above grew louder; I dared not delay. Mimicking him, I lay back in the stone mouth and started sliding down.

At first, the descent was slow enough for me to control with my hands and feet. But the pit was so vast that my hands could only rest on the stone slabs beneath me. Not far down, both my palms were scraped raw.

“Are you okay?” Fatty called from below. “It’s steeper down here. Watch out—don’t fall and land on me.”

“Couldn’t you say something more encouraging for teamwork? Don’t worry, if I fall, I’ll take you with me.”

Throughout the slide, our banter was the only way to stay connected. Yet the slope grew more unstable, and soon there was no room for talking. We focused on keeping our backs as close to the surface as possible.

On a slope this steep, a single tumble would surely break our necks. Worse, we had no idea what awaited below. If some starving monster lurked there, Fatty and I would be walking right into its jaws.

I thought I would accelerate endlessly, but soon the terrain leveled out. When I saw Fatty’s head, I realized I could already stand.

Still, whether from exhaustion or something else, I felt reluctant to rise.

Sliding slowly to Fatty’s side, I called out to him.

“Fatty.”

No response. Panic flared, but just as I was about to call again, I heard his steady snoring through his nostrils.

“Damn, he’s really asleep.” I glared at him, but I myself felt barely able to stand. Ahead lay a flat path; the silence around lulled me into relaxation, and my eyelids began to droop.

In the end, I had no memory of falling asleep.

In the dream, I sat in a room watching television in black and white. A woman, pure white from head to toe, sang an opera—one I had heard a few times before.

Just as I leaned forward to see her face, a man appeared beside me. For some reason, he seemed very tall in my eyes. His face was blurred as he looked down and said, “It’s time to go…”

At the same time, his hand rested on my shoulder. Turning, I noticed the strange black glove on his right hand.

“Hey, wake up! It’s time to go!”

Faintly, I heard Fatty’s voice. Opening my eyes, I saw him shaking my shoulder vigorously.

“Damn, you’re even less useful than me, the injured one.” When he saw my eyes open, Fatty let go.

I stood, feeling a stabbing ache in every bone. Fatty was already boiling water on the smokeless stove, with dried meat in a small pot.

I asked why he was cooking the meat when it could be eaten dry.

He said we had just recovered and needed some cooked food to replenish ourselves.

We sat before the stove, and the aroma from the pot made me realize how much I had wasted before.

“By the way, have you checked around?” I asked Fatty.

His expression darkened. “Not yet. Let’s eat first.”

“What do you mean, ‘later’?” I felt something was off. “What have you found?”

Seeing my seriousness, Fatty sighed. He stood, took a backup flashlight from his pack, and gestured for me to follow him deeper into the darkness.

After just a few steps, I saw a stone tablet over two meters tall.

It was covered in inscriptions, but I recognized very few characters.

Fatty shone the light on the tablet. “Don’t bother reading. This is Small Seal Script. You don’t need to know most of the characters—just these three.”

He pointed to three characters on the tablet.

I glanced at them but didn’t recognize them and felt embarrassed to admit it.

Fatty rolled his eyes. “Are you really a college graduate? Fine, I’ll tell you. These three characters are ‘Zhuge Ke.’ The next two are his courtesy name, ‘Yuanxun,’ followed by his biography.”

I said, “So this really is Zhuge Ke’s tomb?”

Fatty nodded and motioned for me to continue.

As we moved forward, I noticed two somewhat damaged stone lions. Though I knew nothing of such things, they didn’t seem very majestic.

Further ahead, the decay was almost ruinous.

We entered a narrow burial passage flanked by two side chambers on each side. The burial goods were scarce, and none were well preserved.

I felt puzzled. Professor Chen had said the tomb was grand, so why did everything here seem so mismatched? It was completely different from what we’d seen before.

Entering another chamber, Fatty pointed at a pile of rotten wood. “This is it—the main burial chamber.”

“What?” I nearly dropped my eyes. “Here? No way, this place is way too shabby.”

“Shabby? The tablet, the passage, the side chambers…” Fatty kicked the pile of broken boards. “The coffin’s all here. This has to be Zhuge Ke’s tomb.”

I couldn’t judge, nor could I accept Fatty’s explanation. “Then why would they build the outside so well but make the main chamber so careless?”

“Outside, inside—” Fatty said, “From that stone tablet to here, it’s all Zhuge Ke’s tomb, the entire thing. Understand?”

“The entire tomb? Just this? Then what’s outside?” I was completely lost.

Fatty said, “I don’t know. But I did find something interesting.”

He aimed the flashlight at a corner of the chamber. I looked and saw a moderate-sized hole, apparently dug recently.

Suddenly, it struck me—“Could this be the tunnel Professor Chen and the others dug?”

“Definitely.” Fatty moved toward the pile of fragmented coffin boards. When he shifted the top board aside, I saw a long metal box.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s something wealthy families used to place under coffins in ancient times—usually bronze or gold and silver items—to elevate the tomb owner’s status.”

Fatty pressed on the box; it cracked open a little, but he seemed to struggle. I stepped in to help.

With effort, we finally moved the iron lid aside, wiping sweat from our brows.

“Don’t bother looking. Someone already took everything inside,” Fatty said.

Though the box was empty, I noticed several lines of writing on it.

“What does it say?” I asked.

Fatty replied, “I’m not an expert here, so I can’t read everything, but it seems to be instructions for tomb raiders like us. It says the box is gold and can be taken, but asks that whatever was inside be left behind.”

“Gold?” I thought. Such a heavy gold artifact, an antique—how much would that be worth? But I was more curious about what had been inside. “So there was something even more valuable inside?”

Fatty snorted. “You forgot the Snow Crane Feather Fan? I bet that’s what was originally kept in here.”

I froze. “The Snow Crane Feather Fan was kept inside here?” Suddenly, an odd feeling crept over me.

There was the tunnel, the smashed coffin, the missing body, and the empty gold box. If the fan had been here, then whoever took it must have been Professor Chen and his team.

But that didn’t add up. Weren’t they after the Snow Crane Feather Fan? If they had already taken it last time, why would they come back?

According to Wei Lin, once they got the fan, they should have immediately gone to find the Three-Day Stash.

Though unconfirmed, one thing was certain: Professor Chen and his team did not leave empty-handed last time.

Looking around the chamber, I suddenly felt as if we had been led into a trap.

(To be continued...)

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