Chapter 60 Variant

I leaned against the coffin and put my flashlight aside so that it would illuminate my body. Then, I rubbed more dust all over me. There wasn’t any water here, so all I could do was cover my body in the dust and then rub it off.

This wasn’t a method of my own making but a technique that had been handed down since ancient times. In fact, when I was in the desert so long ago, I also had to take a sand bath.  

After the slimy liquid on my body was rubbed off, I began to feel severely nauseous. I grabbed my discarded pants, took out some Chinese medicine from the back of my belt—it was wrapped in tinfoil and looked a bit like donkey-hide gelatin—and started chewing it furiously.

It was a detoxifier that had a lot of wine and sugar in it to replenish one’s energy. I kept six of them in a pouch on my belt.

After everything was done, I was completely exhausted. The air in this place was very cold and felt like it was piercing right into my bones now that I was naked. Plus, my heart couldn’t handle my rapid movements and was beating extremely fast. I didn’t know whether I would live or die, but now all I could do was wait.

I soon lost consciousness, but I eventually woke up again because of the cold. I was shivering and had apparently fallen to the ground at some point.

I raised my hands and looked at my nails. The base of my nails were all blackened, which meant that they were dead. I’d have to pull them out at some point so that they could regrow, but they were still good for now since they weren’t directly falling off. I pressed them a few times and figured that I could still use them.

Fingernails were very important to human beings, especially because most hand movements required them. At the very least, I couldn’t live without nails right now.

I moved around a little bit and found that the medicine had worked. My nausea and dizziness had eased and my nosebleed that had flowed all over my chest had finally stopped. But I still couldn’t get up. I could only lay there and start replaying everything that had happened just now.

When did Ping Lian come in? When was he swallowed by that giant corpse?

Was it Ping Lian’s blood that had poisoned me? What happened to him? Not only did he become like that, but his blood was full of that stinking poisonous fluid.

At this time, an image popped into my head. When he couldn’t find us outside, he must have followed our scents into the grave robbers’ tunnel. After entering, he saw a giant corpse standing in the dark like a ceramic figurine. Tail wagging, he curiously went over to check it out but was bitten and swallowed as soon as he walked over.

Or, maybe he had already been possessed long ago and came in here to be swallowed? Didn’t Jiang Siwang say that dogs and cats had to be killed when they came to this place?

Don’t tell me…if you don’t kill them, they’ll become possessed and climb into the mouth of that giant corpse all by themselves?

But then what? Would they shed their skin and turn into some kind of evil thing like the one I saw just now?

I figured that Ping Lian’s skinned state, coupled with that giant corpse, was very similar to the Heavenly Palace. It was even a bit like a variant. But I had no evidence, so I didn’t dare jump to conclusions.

Poker-Face and Fatty definitely didn’t fight that snake-like creature, so they must have avoided it. Otherwise, their marks wouldn’t have been so neat. Based on the current situation, there appeared to be a big opponent here that was definitely after my scent.

But I wasn’t panicking since there were marks here telling me to meet up with the two of them. Now I was just worried about whether I could wear my clothes or not.

As I lay there thinking about these problems, I stared at the ceiling and slowly started to relax. But as I was looking, I noticed that the human-faced Buddha statue was above my head, and there appeared to be a fairy above its head. This little fairy was a decoration, but her eyes were looking at an oblique angle.

I quickly got up and followed the direction of her eyes until I reached the mural behind the coffin.

I immediately used my fingernails to scrape the mural away, but my nails ended up cracking open during the process. I hit my head against the mural to try and suppress the pain.

At this point, all I could do was take the broken brick fragments on the side and use them to scrape away the mural at that spot. Soon, a small bit of text appeared.

It was just a simple hint: The corpse in this outer coffin is a woman. Her identity is unknown. She must have been a good dancer before her death since there are many reliefs of dancers on the outer coffin. She has been dead for a long time before being transported here. The Tangut calls her Cai Gudong.

That giant corpse just now was so big. Didn’t it come out of this coffin? Why were dancers being brought up again? Was this a two-meter-tall dancer?

I felt that it was strange, but at this time, I finally noticed the content of the mural and paused.

Even though there was a giant hole in it, I found that I could still understand this mural.

It was related to feng shui, but it had especially in-depth feng shui content. How could it appear in a non-Central Plains area?

There were five black objects painted on the mural, but few people would be able to tell what they were now. Fortunately, it was recorded in Grandpa’s notes.

I pondered over it for a while and then suddenly had an epiphany. I looked back at this underground palace and immediately understood everything.

<Chapter 59><Table of Contents><Chapter 61>

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So… I did a thing o(≧▽≦)o

There are apparently websites where you can get stuff printed into book format for personal use (I guess like for unpublished authors and stuff). I personally like holding a book in my hand so I decided to try it out and went a little wild (⌒_⌒;). I had to pick random pictures for the covers because I obviously don’t hold the copyright to the legit book photos but I still think they turned out well. I’ve been geeking out for like the past 30 minutes lol