Chapter Fifty: The Coffin Opens

I turned my head and found Fatty looking at me with utter contempt in his eyes. "If he doesn't want to open this coffin, that's his business. People always have their reasons for their own decisions—why do you care so much? It's not even his family's coffin. If you want it open, find a way yourself."

After hearing Fatty's words, a sudden clarity dawned on me. He was right—why did I always rely on Peanut? When did I pick up this habit, damn it? Thinking back, throughout this journey, whenever we ran into trouble, it was almost always Peanut who solved it for me. With such a capable person by my side, I'd unwittingly become dependent on him. So when Peanut said he couldn't open this coffin, I barely gave it any thought and immediately assumed I couldn't either.

Fatty's reminder made me feel as if I'd found myself again. I swore inwardly that this time, I would figure things out for myself.

I turned back, determined to study the coffin made of blood-red dawn redwood, glancing at Peanut as well.

Peanut hadn't continued toward the door, and I felt a bit amused, thinking, "Just you wait and see." Yet, when it all truly unfolded, I realized how foolish it is to act purely on impulse.

At that moment, Fatty came over and slapped my shoulder. "Kid, if you need help, your Fatty here can always bestow some golden wisdom."

"You don't have any idea either, do you?" I muttered, squatting down to check beneath the coffin for any clues.

"That's because you're not sincere enough," Fatty suddenly chuckled. "Let me tell you, I've already thought of a possibility."

I couldn't help but look up at him. Fatty, noticing my expression, tapped the coffin lid and glanced back and forth between Peanut and me. "Little Bro is probably a pro in tombs like me. When we see a coffin without mortise nails, our first instinct is to assume it can only be opened by pushing down from the top edge. But we've already tried that, and it's impossible to move. However, there’s no sealing clay or lock in the seams of this lid—if it doesn't defy logic, then this coffin can't be truly sealed. If we can't open it, maybe we're just applying force in the wrong place."

As Fatty spoke, Peanut's face showed an unexpected expression. His eyes fixed on Fatty, pupils narrowing slightly.

I stood up at once. "You mean, we need to try pushing the coffin lid from a different direction?"

"Exactly," Fatty continued. "Whoever built a tomb of this standard must have thought every aspect through. Like Little Bro said, this isn't the main chamber. Making too much noise would only expose things. Instead, subtle tricks might be more effective. Look at this coffin—over four meters long, more than a meter wide, and heavy as hell. No one's going to carry it away. If someone tries to open it by conventional means and fails, they're bound to find it suspicious. Given the environment here, most would simply give up out of caution."

At this point, Fatty's reasoning made perfect sense to me. His way of thinking was actually very straightforward: if the left side doesn't work, try the right; if the top doesn't work, try the bottom. So simple that even a five-year-old could think of it. In contrast, experienced tomb robbers might let their expertise and other factors blind them to this basic approach.

Excited, I prepared to move to the opposite side from where I'd stood before and try pushing the coffin from there.

Fatty immediately stopped me.

"What? Didn't you say to try a different direction?" I checked my position—it was indeed the opposite side.

Fatty pressed my hand back down. "Things might not be that complicated, but they're not as simple as you think, either. Let me remind you, kid—whatever's inside this coffin, it might still be able to move."

My hands started trembling. Damn, how could I have forgotten that?

"Yuan Jie, let it go," Peanut suddenly said calmly. "If there's really no other way, I can carry you—climb up the cliff from outside."

I turned to look at him, puzzled by his reluctance to let me open this coffin. But oddly enough, after hearing him say that, I felt a strange calm settle over me. My mind was remarkably clear in that moment, and I quickly realized Peanut was right. Instead of racking my brains here, letting him carry me up would be safer. It would be dangerous, and I’d feel even more useless, but after all, my goal was to save my father.

Yet, in this moment of clarity, it also struck me that entering this ancient tomb felt like stepping into a vast riddle. Everything was deeply connected to my father. The secrets of his profession—I could understand why he kept them from me. But somehow, it seemed there was more to it than that.

... "Yuan Jie, you don't need to be afraid. For you, this is just a process—a process you must go through… One day, you'll beg me to take you to see that person."

What did Tan Wei mean by those words? Every time I recalled them, a deep discomfort crept over me.

At this very moment, I suddenly felt that inside this tomb, in this blood-red dawn redwood coffin, might lie the answers I sought.

When Peanut told me the legend of the ancient Yelang Kingdom, he mentioned a mysterious force guarding the "world" of the Yelang undead chieftain. If this "world" was indeed this place, then perhaps the same force, the one who fitted this chamber with an iron door, might be my father.

It sounded far-fetched—a mysterious ancient kingdom, a tomb raider two thousand years later, how could there be any connection? Still, Tugo sought out my father, and Tan Wei's words proved my father knew this place intimately. Then there was Peanut, and the "game" that led us down here. What was really going on?

By now, my mind was made up. I had to open this coffin, no matter what it took—if I couldn't push it open, I'd break it; if I couldn't break it, I'd burn it. Whatever it took, I was going to see what was inside.

Slowly, I lifted my hands and placed them on the scarlet coffin lid. Beside me, Fatty's breathing grew noticeably rapid. His hands tensed, perhaps ready to pull me away the moment it opened, or maybe just on guard. The tomb chamber was eerily silent, the only sound the faint rasp of my palms against the coffin lid.

I drew a deep breath, then hurled all my strength into my arms and hands. But as soon as my muscles tensed, before the force even reached my shoulders, the coffin lid suddenly exploded with a tremendous crash and flew off in my direction.

Fatty and I stood there, dumbstruck. Neither of us could believe that the coffin lid, which had refused to budge before, had now flown open on its own. Our expressions were rigid with shock—because this could only mean one thing: something inside had pushed the lid open. My mind went blank, my gaze involuntarily rising, bracing for some bizarre thing to leap from the coffin.

But we waited and waited, who knows how long, and nothing emerged from the coffin. Fatty, body taut, slowly leaned forward to peer inside, then froze as if struck by some hidden force.

I couldn't bring myself to ask what he saw, but I heard his perplexed hiss. After a moment, I stepped forward to look as well.

The coffin was enormous—a four-meter space could house any corpse. Yet, precisely because it was so large, what lay inside looked all the smaller.

If I'd had an iron mallet in hand, I’d have smashed it against my own head, for what I saw was so astonishing, so confounding.

Just as Fatty had described, a coffin made from blood-red dawn redwood is meant to receive the corpse first. So, inside this one, there were no decorations at all. In fact, it looked rather disordered—wood splinters and shavings scattered everywhere, the red hue patchy, as if some disease had infected the wood.

Fatty slapped his forehead, peering inside as if hoping to spot whatever had caused the earlier disturbance. But he was doomed to disappointment, for the coffin was utterly empty—not even the knife that had been pulled in earlier was there. The only thing inside, lying in the center atop a layer of wood dust, was a single sheet of dark yellowed paper.

"Well, damn, I nearly pissed myself and it's just a lousy piece of paper?" Fatty finally exclaimed.