Chapter 41 Last Night

My eyes returned back to the holey mountain in front of me. It really did look ugly.

The holes must have been grave robbers’ tunnels that had been dug during the previous dynasties, but I didn’t understand why there were so many of them. If a grave robbers’ tunnel had already been dug, then most people would have just used it instead of digging another one. Moreover, the grave robbers’ tunnels here were so big that ox carts could fit through many of them.

I glanced at Poker-Face—he was still resting with his eyes closed—and then said to Fatty, “Give me your analysis.”

Fatty looked at the holes and said, “If the leader wants to know, then I won’t hold back. These Mongolian grave robbers are short-sighted.”

I gave him a light smack and he said, “Ok, ok. Jokes aside, I think there’s something wrong with the soil here. These grave robbers’ tunnels probably collapse right after they’re dug.”

“There’s another possibility,” I said. “There might not be a tunnel connecting the tombs below.”

Fatty touched his chin and looked at me. “Isn’t this a pile of lunch boxes stacked together? What kind of burial method is this?”

After thinking about it, I felt that there wasn’t a basis for our inference, but these holes could at least prove one thing—this underground palace should be so different from what we were used to that our previous experiences may be useless.

But why didn’t Shen Qianjue mention this?

I knew at the time that she was hiding something, but now I was certain that she had intentionally withheld information. But was there really anything here worth hiding?

Generally, people withheld information for two reasons: it would either hurt them or make things messy. I just didn’t know which one applied here.

“Up to this point, we know that Shen Qianjue and her partner are the only ones who went to this underground palace and made it out of the grassland,” I said to Fatty. “So, it must be very dangerous. If I go in and have an accident, I’ll never know what happened last night. Do you have the heart to let me die not knowing that secret?”

Fatty looked at me, looked at Poker-Face again, and then shoved some nearby dead leaves aside. I immediately found that there was a hole under the pile of dead leaves.

When I squatted down to the entrance of this hole and looked at it, I smelled a horrible stench. “Last night, a lot of things happened,” Fatty said. “I’ll have to tell you the story in several parts. The first part was when we were carrying you away. As we were running, something was chasing us underground. We were pretty sure those things were going to pop up out of the ground, so when we saw a tree, Little Brother carried you over to it.”

“And then?” I looked at him and asked.

“Then, those things began climbing the trees. My eyes kept wanting to roll into the back of my head, so I had to keep slapping myself to stay awake,” Fatty said. “That’s why I didn’t exactly see what those things were. But they definitely seemed humanoid.

“I was climbing slower than Little Brother, so when I saw that you had lost consciousness and I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore, I decided to sacrifice myself to save you, Mr. Naïve. So, I jumped.”

I looked at Fatty. He was making a particularly majestic expression as he looked at the snow-capped mountain in the distance, “That’s what brothers do.”

“Why didn’t you die?”

“Little Brother jumped down, too. But I didn’t make a smooth landing and ended up falling through a hole as soon as I hit the ground. After falling straight down, I found that the ground here was all hollowed out and I landed on a bunch of things.” Fatty continued, “I turned on my flashlight and God, what a sight. I had fallen amongst countless bodies wearing ancient clothes. They were all a little fat and completely wrapped up in moss that was covered in mercury.”

“Was it a burial pit?” I asked. “Bodies that have been embalmed using mercury are usually in such places.”

“No! These bodies were all crawling! They were moving very slowly, but I could definitely tell that they were crawling like insects! Those deathly pale bodies and flesh squeezing against flesh were especially strange,” Fatty said. “Then, just as I was trying to observe everything carefully and gather intelligence, Little Brother jumped down, grabbed me, and ran away. But the hole was very deep, so Little Brother couldn’t drag me all the way up and ended up having to drag me deeper into the hole.”

When Poker-Face was dragging Fatty further into the hole, something suddenly rushed down from above. Fatty looked back. At this time, his flashlight was pointing to the area behind him, so when he looked back, he saw all those ancient bodies avoiding a bunch of black figures that had just jumped down.

Those black figures obviously moved much faster and started chasing after them, incessantly following them through various passages. Fatty was confused and disoriented so he couldn’t remember how many of them Poker-Face had killed. He only said that when he finally came out, he was on top of the mountain.

After that, Poker-Face went back, pulled me off of the tree, and dragged me here.

“But this little scene doesn’t seem like such a big deal,” I said to him.

Fatty sniffed his body and told me to take a whiff. When I did, I suddenly smelled a strange scent.

“All the soil in the hole has this strange scent,” Fatty said. “I think it may be—”

My eyes widened and I looked back at Poker-Face. He had opened his eyes and was looking at Fatty, who immediately said, “Anyways, we spent half the night in that smelly mud because of you.”

I felt sad for a while, but for Poker-Face’s sake, it was really best to just let it go.

On the one hand, I felt very apologetic, but on the other hand, I kind of wanted to laugh.

“But we still learned something,” Fatty said. “I think those black things are like sheepdogs. They’re underground and are herding those fat bodies in ancient clothes.”

“They’re really herding corpses?”

Fatty nodded. “Basically, these fat bodies were buried here like some kind of livestock. They must have some uses, but I don’t know what those black humanoid things are.” He threw my backpack to me, “Don’t worry about it for now. When it gets dark again, let’s go into the underground palace.”

<Chapter 40><Table of Contents><Chapter 42>

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*Rattles cage* Wu Xie! Did you or did you not jump Poker-face last night?! Tell us, Fatty! (╯°益°)╯彡┻━┻