Chapter 27 Lies

As soon as I heard this, a thought seemed to flash through my mind as if I had suddenly figured out a hidden clue. “Did these two people actually switch at the last minute?” I asked in surprise.

Poker-Face nodded and then looked at the corpse. “This man was deliberately deceiving King Shang of Lu the whole time. He wanted to use King Shang of Lu’s power to try and achieve immortality himself.”

“How do you know all of this? It almost seems like you’ve experienced it yourself.”

Poker-Face shook his head, “I haven’t experienced it myself. When I was robbing a Song Dynasty tomb a few years ago, I found a complete set of silk books from the Warring States Period. They actually turned out to be Tie Mian Xiansheng’s autobiography. After explaining all aspects of his plan to King Shang of Lu, he set fire to his own home and then threw a beggar’s body into the flames to make it look like he had burned to death alongside his family. After that, he pretended to be a beggar and escaped death. King Shang of Lu knew that something was off about the whole thing but there was nothing he could do about it. Tie Mian Xiansheng waited for King Shang of Lu to be buried and then easily snuck into the tomb, dragged King Shang of Lu’s unresisting body out of the jade burial armor, and put it on himself. King Shang of Lu had gone through such painstaking efforts to get this far, but it all went to Tie Mian Xiansheng in the end. He probably never expected such a thing to happen.”

“So if King Shang of Lu’s corpse was dragged out of the armor, doesn’t that mean another blood corpse was created?” I wondered. “So is there another one somewhere in this place?”

“He didn’t write about it in his autobiography but it’s possible that King Shang of Lu wasn’t in the armor long enough to become a blood corpse.” There was an uneasy look in his eyes. “He only mentioned it briefly. There aren’t too many details about it since the incident is only a part of the biography.”

I looked at Poker-Face. I didn’t know why but I suddenly felt like this last sentence was a lie. I glanced at Uncle Three and saw that he also didn’t seem to believe him either. He must not have wanted to tell us something and came up with a lie, but exposing him now wouldn’t do anything.

After Poker-Face finished speaking, he quickly regained his expressionless face as if he had finished a task. Then he stood up and said, “It’s almost dawn. We should leave this place.”

“No, we haven’t found the ghost seal yet,” the fat guy said. “Do you see all this good stuff? It would be pointless for us to leave now without taking any of it with us.”

Poker-Face gave him a cold look, apparently still feeling a little hostile towards him. The fat guy shrugged it off and said, “Ok, ok. But how about taking this jade burial armor with us? It may be the only one of its kind in the world. I only have everyone’s best interests at heart.”

He actually had a good point. Uncle Three smacked him on the butt and said, “Then why are you dawdling? Hurry up and get it done quickly so that we can get the hell out of here.”

I suddenly lost interest in the whole thing and didn’t want to help them so I closed my eyes and decided to rest for a bit. But at this time, a few drops of water suddenly fell on my face. I thought it was raining at first, but when I looked up, I saw the blood corpse’s strange face peeking over the edge of the jade bed, those two pupilless eyes mere inches away from my forehead.

I leaped up in fright right as the blood corpse’s head continued rolling to the edge of the jade bed and fell to the ground. It almost seemed like something was inside of it. The fat guy wanted to go over and take a look but Poker-Face grabbed him and said, “Don’t move. Just observe it from here first.”

The fat guy nodded, but at this time, a very small red corpse-eater chewed its way through the blood corpse’s scalp and crawled out. Da Kui looked at it and cursed, “Shit! Such a small one dares to show its face in front of me?!”

He raised the crowbar in his hand to swing at it but Uncle Three immediately grabbed him and shouted, “Fool! This fucking thing is a corpse-eater king. You’ll be in trouble if you kill it.”

Da Kui was stunned and said in a disbelieving tone, “Is such a small one really a king? Are those big ones not depressed at the fact that they have to follow such a small king?”

Poker-Face was also very surprised by this thing’s sudden appearance. He tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Let’s get out of here quickly. If the king is here, I won’t be able to repel the other corpse-eaters. This is a very tricky situation!”

At this time, the little red corpse-eater suddenly made a “zizi” sound and shook its wings out. Then, it seemed to catch sight of us and suddenly spread its wings and flew right towards us.

“It’s poisonous!” Poker-Face shouted. “If you touch it, you die! Get out of the way!”

Uncle Three immediately turned and ran over to us, but Da Kui, who was behind him, was already a little dimwitted. Instead of rushing over as well, he stood there for a minute and then actually reached his hand out and reflexively grabbed the bug. He stood there frozen for a moment before suddenly letting out a blood-curdling scream. Then, the hand holding the bug instantly turned a bloodred color that quickly spread up to his arm.

“He’s been poisoned!” The fat guy shouted. “Cut off his hand—quickly!” As he spoke, he immediately moved to grab Poker-Face’s sword. Poker-Face was still very weak from his earlier battle, so when the fat guy hit him, the black sword fell from his hand. The fat guy lunged to catch it but his whole body suddenly sank to the ground as soon as he wrapped his hand around the hilt. “Damn, why is it so heavy?!” He cursed and tried to lift the blade several times but failed to do it.

But by this time, it was already too late. Da Kui’s whole body was contorted in pain and in just a few seconds, all of his skin had turned a bloodred color as if it had suddenly melted off.

He looked at his hand with a terrified expression on his face and opened his mouth like he wanted to scream, but no sound came out. When Poker-Face saw that I wanted to go over and help him, he quickly grabbed me. “You can’t touch him,” he said through clenched teeth. “You’ll die if you touch him!”

Da Kui became even more terrified when he saw that we were all backing away like he was some kind of monster. He immediately rushed towards me with his mouth wide open as if he were shouting, “Help me!” I was so frightened that I couldn’t move a single step and Uncle Three had to rush over and pull me out of the way. Da Kui ended up pouncing on empty air, looking much like a crazy person, but then he quickly turned and leaped towards Pan Zi. But Pan Zi was already in bad shape and couldn’t react at all.

“Not good!” The fat guy shouted before suddenly making a grab for my gun. Even though I was shocked, I knew that he was planning to shoot Da Kui so I quickly grabbed it back from him. But during the ensuing struggle, the gun suddenly went off with a loud bang and the bullet pierced Da Kui’s head. His whole body trembled and then fell to the ground with a thud.

My ears filled with a buzzing sound and I dropped to my knees. Everything had happened so fast. A person who had been fine just moments ago had suddenly become like this. My mind went blank and I didn’t know what to do.

The little red corpse-eater made that “zizi” sound again, crawled out of Da Kui’s hand, and shook its wings out. The fat guy cursed and started running towards it right as Poker-Face shouted, “Don’t!” But it was too late. The fat guy had already reached the purple jade box, picked it up, and smashed the bug.

For a brief moment, the cave was deadly silent and not a single sound could be heard. Poker-Face immediately grabbed a handful of stone dust from the ground and sprinkled it on himself while shouting, “Hurry up and run or it’ll be too late!”

The fat guy looked around, saw that nothing was happening, and asked in a baffled voice, “Why do we need to run?”

The words had barely left his mouth when the originally quiet cave suddenly became noisy as countless “zizi” sounds rang out all around us. Then, from the depths of those large and small openings on the cliff, we saw one, two, three, ten, one hundred…countless bluish-green corpse-eaters rushed out like a tide. The sheer scale of their numbers was so immense that it couldn’t be described in any human language. I saw wave after countless wave come pouring out, the ones in the back crawling over top of the ones in front. Their numbers were so overwhelming that it was like they were blotting out the sky and covering the earth.

I stood there frozen at the sight of them but Uncle Three smacked me on the back of the head and yelled, “Run!”

He then put Pan Zi on his back and started shouting at the fat guy when he saw him make a move to pick up the purple jade box, “Do you not care about your fucking life?!”

The fat guy saw that he wouldn’t be able to reach the box and immediately grabbed the gold-trimmed silk scroll instead, stuffing it into his pocket as he ran.

We all started scrambling up the tree, which was actually very easy to climb since it was covered in an abundance of messy vines and protrusions. Even someone like me with my limited skills was able to make it more than ten meters in one go.

By this point, all of those corpse-eaters had already swarmed around the base of the tree. When I looked down and saw that the whole area below me was a bluish-green color, I couldn’t help but think, shit, oh my God. If I fall down here, not a single bone will be left.

Then, the corpse-eaters gathered together as if they had conscious thought and suddenly began jumping up. They climbed the tree much quicker than us and were soon at our feet.

The fat guy, who was climbing above me, suddenly looked down and asked, “Didn’t you say that this Little Brother’s blood is more powerful than mosquito repellent? Why is it useless now?”

My mind was still filled with the image of Da Kui falling down just now so I didn’t want to listen to anything the fat guy had to say. Seeing that I had no interest in answering him, the fat guy started cursing at me under his breath. But at this time, I suddenly felt a pain on my lower leg—a corpse-eater was biting my calf. I immediately kicked it off and looked down. The corpse-eaters that were madly scrambling to climb up the tree looked similar to a boiling pot that was overflowing.

At this time, Uncle Three shouted from above, “Explosives! There are still explosives in the bag beside the jade bed!”

“Where is it?!” I asked.

Uncle Three cursed, “You don’t even know when you were the one fucking sitting beside it?! It’s on the left!!”

I looked down but couldn’t see the bag of explosives amid the sea of corpse-eaters at all. I fired a few shots but only ended up sending a few bugs flying. At this time, Poker-Face suddenly took out a few fire sticks from his pocket, lit them, and threw them onto the jade bed. Although the bugs were no longer afraid of his blood, they were still afraid of fire. When they saw the fire coming down, they quickly got out of the way with a swoosh, forming a large circle around a backpack that was suddenly revealed.

The fat guy had several insects clinging to his butt and shouted, “Shit, hurry up and shoot! I can’t take it anymore!”

“Fuck no!” Pan Zi shouted from above. “There are too many explosives in there! We’ll all die if you blow them up!”

I saw more and more corpse-eaters crawling up and knew that hesitating any longer would definitely be hazardous. “There’s no time to think about it!” I shouted. “If we die, so be it!” Then I gritted my teeth and fired at the backpack.

The ensuing explosion went off in an instant. I heard a loud noise, my body rocked back and forth, and it felt as if my chin, butt, and thighs had been hit by a pile driver all at once. Then, my whole body was swept up by the shockwave and I slammed into something. My thoughts were muddled, there was a coppery taste in my throat, and then I spat out a mouthful of blood. My vision was dark, there was a faint buzzing in my brain, and my ears couldn’t hear anything at all.

It took me a long time to recover, and when I could see again, I found that a lot of the corpse-eaters below had been swept away by the shockwave. I looked around but didn’t see anyone else so I hurriedly used my arms and legs to keep climbing up. Earlier, I had coated myself in a layer of that powder from the stone platform below so those ghost-hand vines moved out of the way as soon as they saw me.

But at this time, a loud noise suddenly came from below. I looked down and saw that those corpse-eaters had once again gathered like the tide. When I saw how fast they were crawling, I knew that it wasn’t good—I would have to keep climbing no matter how much pain my body was in. I hurriedly closed my eyes and put all of my efforts into climbing.

It wasn’t long before I saw that I was almost to the gap in the cave ceiling, but then I suddenly felt a sharp pain on my back. I turned my head and saw that a corpse-eater had leaped up and was savagely biting my back. I turn around and shot it to pieces but then another bigger one latched onto my thigh. I clenched my teeth and beat it off with my gun, but it quickly grabbed a nearby branch and tried to jump up again. I shot it to smithereens but then a third and a fourth one immediately jumped up.

I saw that I was only a few steps away from freedom and thought to myself, go ahead and bite. You can’t kill me in such a short amount of time. When I reach the surface, you guys are going to suffer.

As I moved to keep climbing, I felt a sudden pain in my hand that was holding onto a nearby branch. I turned my head and saw a bloody face suddenly peeking out from behind the tree trunk. Its two eyeballs, which looked like they were about to burst out of their sockets, were staring straight at me.　

<Chapter 26><Table of Contents><Chapter 28>