Chapter 23

The elastic climbing rope around Fatty’s waist suddenly tightened, digging into his flesh as it was pulled. Fatty looked at the mud overhead and cursed, “It’s like diarrhea! Hurry and go!”

“Hold your hand out!” I shouted at Liu Sang.

But he had vomited so much that he was completely unconscious. He could hardly hold onto the rock wall, let alone reach out to help us.

“Go!” Poker-Face whispered.

I clenched my teeth and tried to gather my strength before stepping on Fatty’s shoulder and jumping onto the cliff. I grabbed onto one of the reliefs but hit my forehead and almost fell.

Poker-Face jumped up, rotated a hundred-and-eighty degrees in the air, and then landed under me. Fatty threw out the other end of the rope to Poker-Face, who handed part of it to me. As the two of us gripped the rope tightly, Fatty jumped into the muddy water and the boat was washed away in an instant.

The two of us held onto the rope and pulled him to shore. In less than three minutes, the flare fell into the muddy water and plunged the surrounding area into darkness.

“Stick to the wall!” Fatty shouted.

I pressed myself hard against the cliff wall as a shower of mud came pouring down. The massive force came out of the darkness and slammed into the cliff wall, suddenly filling my mouth and nose with mud.

I used all my strength to turn around, found a gap in the cliff behind me, and stuffed my face into it. I could take two or three breaths at first, but after that, my lungs were overwhelmed by the oppressive force behind me.

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move.

The mud pressing me against the rock wall was so much heavier than water, and my ribs were pressing my lungs so painfully that I couldn’t even cry out. I felt as if all my internal organs were going to be squeezed out.

Then, everything became very quiet.

All I could hear was the sound of my bones grinding together, the beating of my heart, and the mud squeezing itself into my ears. I knew that the mud had breached my inner ear.

My lungs kept twitching and my mind went blank. Endless panic suddenly erupted like a black hole.

This kind of vivid fear replaced my previous calm. After going through so many adventures and experiencing so much by myself, I didn’t know when I no longer felt afraid of these kinds of scenes. I could talk and laugh and do what I needed to do in times of danger.

But I remembered that my grandfather had written in his notes that this was probably abnormal.

I had slowly forgotten what this line meant and thought that I could handle any kind of situation. But it wasn’t until this moment that I suddenly realized what I was facing again. My head was suddenly full of images of when I first went down into a tomb, which I hadn’t thought about for a long time. Before the fear of death, there was no difference between a novice and a veteran.

All this happened in about three or four seconds. Then, I suddenly felt the pressure loosen and the rock wall under my body crack open. The huge pressure behind me forced me and the mud into the new opening and I faceplanted on the ground. It turned out that the rock wall was hollow and there was a steep slope inside. The mud didn’t lose any momentum as it poured in and swept me end over end down the slope.

I lifted my head and took a breath, but ended up getting a mouthful of mud in addition to the much-needed oxygen. As I coughed violently, the full-body spasms squeezed the mud out of my ears. I didn’t know how long I was swept along by the raging river of mud, but I finally came to a stop. I immediately used all my strength to stand up and started vomiting. All that came out was mud.

I patted my waist and found that I still had four cold fireworks on me. But I needed to save them, so I pulled my lighter out of my pocket and flicked it open. The faint light could only illuminate a tiny area, but I could see enough to tell that I was in a tomb passage, which was full of sea cockroaches. When the light appeared, they all frantically scurried away.

I looked at my watch out of habit. Within thirty seconds, I quickly took stock of everything I had. There were four cold fireworks, seventeen glow sticks, four boxes of universal matches, and six packs of hardtack. I’d lost my gun, but I still had more than thirty bullets and my Kukri with me. Everything else was lost, though.

I looked behind me, but the passage was completely blocked by mud. I unscrewed my Kukri’s handle and pulled out a whistle from the inside. I was just about to blow it when I heard a very clear and boisterous sound coming from the depths of the tomb passage. It sounded just like an underground market, but the passage in front of me was completely dark without a hint of light.

I thought for a moment and then lowered my whistle.

I took a few steps forward, but saw something standing in the middle of the tomb passage. It had a fixture on it that made the whole thing look very unusual.

<Chapter 22><Table of Contents><Chapter 24>

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For those that care, we’re about halfway through episode 5