Chapter 46 Corpse Country’s Underground Banquet

The four words “Corpse Country boundary marker” were actually in two different columns, but Fatty forced them together when he read them aloud so they sounded a little childish.

The two Chinese characters for “Corpse Country” had obviously been engraved on the stone slab, and the sentences before and after them were: “dig an opening to the east” and “lead the corpses to surround it so that it becomes the Corpse Country’s city”.

According to my understanding of ancient Chinese writing styles, this word was almost never used, so it must not be a specific noun but more of an adjective. The former “corpse” character referred to real corpses, while there was a certain possibility that the latter “corpse” character meant something like “existing but not playing a role”. So, Corpse Country was a country that existed but didn’t have any practical significance.

But there had been cases where epitaphs sometimes referred to tombs as countries. I vaguely remembered that there had been a tomb owner who had the opportunity to become the leader of a vassal state, but his ambition wasn’t realized in the end. So, he claimed that the area where his tomb was located was a country, which he would enjoy after death. We had seen some miniature clay sculptures of a city in that tomb, along with clay figurines of common people that were only the size of a thumb. The figures in the murals were also very small so that he could paint a vast territory on the walls of his small tomb.

There was a very big secret in that tomb. I had gone down with an archaeological team, but I didn’t look inside the coffin when it was opened, so I didn’t know who the tomb owner was or what the secret was.

But in any case, a miniature world with a vast territory was just sad.

After coming all this way, we finally encountered some Chinese characters, so I figured we should continue digging the stone tablet out. Our predecessors may have been obsessed with money, but we were more concerned with gathering intelligence and saving our own lives. I tried to dig the stone tablet out, but found that the soil layers above and below were in a very critical state. As a result, I had no choice but to give up.

We continued moving forward, the process almost the same as mine clearance. We could fling the soil out whenever we encountered a relatively solid place, but when we encountered a place with particularly soft soil, we had to gently dig like we were cleaning out the mountain’s ears. As soon as we managed to create a passable space, we started reinforcing the tunnel with tree branches.

My attention was so extremely focused at this time that it was like I had the professional brilliance of a construction worker. Although my knowledge of mechanics could be considered average, when it came to simple reinforcements, I could quickly figure out whether our safety was guaranteed or not.

Finally, at around three o’clock in the morning, the entrance to the underground palace appeared in front of us.

The entrance turned out to be a rock wall that had been destroyed at some point. We were probably at the core of the mountain, and the underground palace was an artificial cave that had been dug out of the rock. Now there was a dog hole leading into this cave that was filled with soft soil. After we cleared it away, the entrance was fully revealed. It was dark inside and the temperature was very low.

No matter how many times I had gone through this, I still got goosebumps. It didn’t even matter that I knew a bunch of people had already been in this underground palace before.

From behind me, Poker-Face lit a flare and tossed it through the entrance. The flare ended up falling, which meant that there was a bit of a drop from the entrance to the floor of this underground palace. I listened to the sound of it landing and figured that it was about six or seven meters, which wasn’t a huge problem. I threw one end of the rope to Fatty, watched him tie it around his waist, and then poked my head through the hole.

The first thing I did was look around with my flashlight. This underground palace was very big, and I could see a lot of things illuminated in my flashlight’s glow. Sure enough, there really were tables full of people, just like a banquet. The flare below was still burning, so I could see that the ground was made up of slate.

This was definitely the underground palace that Shen Qianjue had mentioned.

I used the rope to lower myself down. The place where I settled was full of murals, so I tried to step on the spots where the murals had already fallen off. When I landed on the ground, I immediately turned my flashlight to its highest setting and looked around. I saw a very tall structure that looked like an archway or hengmen⁽¹⁾ standing on the central axis of the whole hall.

The banquet was taking place behind this archway, the scale so large that my flashlight’s beam was filled with countless ceramic figurines.

Even the square area outside the archway was filled with all kinds of ceramic maids, dancers, attendants, and hundreds of opera figurines in strange outfits. They seemed to be resting as they waited to receive orders, which created an extremely vivid scene. If all of these people were really living, I was certain that I’d also like to drink in such a good atmosphere.

There was a huge plaque on the archway that had three words carved on it: Corpse Country Banquet.

Fatty copied me and also came down cautiously while Poker-Face just jumped down directly. He landed without a sound, so I wasn’t even aware that he had come down yet when he suddenly appeared in my flashlight’s glow and scared me.

This underground palace had a very high ceiling and was surrounded by extremely exquisite murals. And just as Shen Qianjue had said, there weren’t any other rooms. This entire underground palace was just one huge wide-open space.

I noticed that the murals were well preserved, so I figured they had to contain a lot of hidden information. I believed from the bottom of my heart that everything we had experienced so far would be unveiled in this underground palace.

We didn’t dare rush to the other side of the archway because I clearly sensed a special feeling coming from the other side. Moreover, the visibility over there seemed to be slightly lower than where we were currently standing.

I wanted to turn around and look at the murals on our side first, but Fatty tapped me on the shoulder and showed me some of the figurines. I pointed my flashlight at them and saw that some of those figurines had been marked with lipstick.

The lipstick marks I had seen on that figurine in the grove were incomplete, but they should have been the work of Shen Qianjue and her partner. And now that the ones I was looking at were complete, I could tell that they seemed somewhat similar to the pattern formed by sliding three fingers through sand at the same time.

This appeared to be their own symbol. I didn’t know what it meant, but it was probably something simple like “this is valuable”.

“This is the end point,” I said to Fatty. “All of our clues led to this underground palace. So, where did those who are still alive go after they entered this underground palace? Whether we can find the clue pointing to this information depends on how meticulous we are.”

Xiao Hua and the others must have been here already. Some moved on while most of them died here.

I began using my peripheral vision to look at the darkness nearby. When I found that it was fine and surprisingly clean, I turned to look at the murals I wanted to check out just now.

I still looked straight at it the first time, but then I immediately looked at it out of the corner of my eye. This was an unconscious move on my part, but I took a deep breath when I realized that the two images I saw before and after I used my peripheral vision had definitely changed.

Assuming that there were twelve people depicted on the mural when you looked straight at it, there appeared to be thirteen when you used your peripheral vision. This extra person couldn’t be seen when you looked straight at the mural, but his appearance made the meaning of the whole thing completely different.

<Chapter 45><Table of Contents><Chapter 47>

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TN Notes:

(1) Architectural style from early in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-476 BC). It’s basically two vertical pillars supporting one horizontal beam or slab. Just think of it like a gate: