Chapter 47 Lots of Hair

A few strands of hair in an underwater tomb that could still move… most people would immediately think of a ghost. Fortunately, that stone slab was separating us, so even if there was a ghost, it couldn’t get through.

Fatty seemed unwilling to give up when he couldn’t catch the strands of hair and actually pointed his flashlight into the gap to try and see what was behind it. I wasn’t as brave as him—it wasn’t like there was a lack of horror movies involving hair—so I just moved further away from the slab while keeping an eye on him.

He leaned in to look at it closely, as if he really saw something. Then he seemed to pause in confusion before pulling himself together and leaning in for a closer look. This time, his reaction was much stronger—he suddenly recoiled, swam back several meters like he was running for his life, and then turned around and shook his fist at us desperately. At first, I thought he was going to hit me, but then I remembered what it meant. Shit! I thought to myself. This is the sign for us to run for our lives!

But nothing seemed to have happened just now. I reflexively looked back and saw that the stone slab blocking our path was suddenly rising upward and a black mass was seeping out from the ever-widening gap below. I hurriedly swam a few steps back, thinking that it was some kind of poisonous water, but when I took a closer look, I felt my jaw tense up from fright—that black mass was actually human hair!

Fatty saw that we were reacting slowly and swam back to pull us along. It was only at that moment that we came back to our sense and swam for our lives. But we were underwater, so the more nervous we were, the more energy we consumed and the slower we swam. I was so panicked that I couldn’t keep my movements in sync so I just followed Fatty’s method of using the wall as a springboard. Although it wasn’t very elegant, it was a lot faster and felt nice to have something solid beneath my feet.

We did this about twenty times before we came to the first turn in the passage. Fatty grabbed us and motioned for us to hide behind the corner, indicating that we should assess the situation first.

We were all breathing heavily as we hurriedly looked back. My God! The entire tomb passage behind us was full of hair that was moving in a dark, massive tangle. I felt my throat tighten at the sight of it. How many years would it take to grow so long?! Fatty cursed, picked up the speargun, took aim at the center of the black mass, and fired. He probably thought that the spear could pierce through it, because when he saw it fly quickly for six or seven meters before suddenly slowing down and getting tangled in the hair, his face turned pale.

But the spear still played a role. The hair actually seemed to be sentient and recoiled before surging back up and thrashing around like something was about to come out of it. As we immediately became alert, Fatty loaded another spear and got ready to get closer to it and fire another shot. But at this time, the hair suddenly seemed to shrink and surge up again, and then I saw a dead man get pushed out from the deepest part of the hair.

The man was wearing the same diving suit as us so I thought that maybe he was one of our three missing people. I took a quick look and saw that his nose and mouth were full of hair, and even his two eyeballs had hair sprouting from them. It was obvious that he had suffocated to death. But now his body was swollen and bloated from being underwater, which made for an ugly sight.

As soon as I saw this, I felt my scalp go numb. This hair was obviously very strange so I wanted to hurry up and get as far away from it as possible. I moved to pull Fatty along, but when I looked up, I found that he had disappeared. Feeling shocked, I quickly looked around and saw that he had already swam far away and was waving his fist at us from a distance.

I cursed in my heart, how dare you run to a safe place first and then warn us! I hurriedly motioned for Bald Zhang and A Ning to follow and then went after Fatty. He was still complaining about our slow response so I went up and kicked him in the ass. Fatty didn’t agree with this treatment and moved to fight me but A Ning came between us and quickly pointed to the passage behind us. As soon as I looked, I knew that running for our lives was more important right now. But once we made it out, I’d definitely fucking settle things with him.

At this time, the oxygen sensor in my hand vibrated. I looked down and saw that things weren’t good. It had been nearly half an hour since we came down here and our breathing was too fast. This meant that our oxygen consumption was several times higher than usual and that we had used a little too much. I calculated how much time we had left and knew that the situation was very bad. If there was no progress, we’d have to go back the same way we came in. Otherwise, we’d all run out of oxygen. But I didn’t want to leave like this, especially if I couldn’t even find the ear chamber that Uncle Three had mentioned.

At this time, Bald Zhang, who had been bringing up the rear, suddenly grabbed our belts like a crab and rushed to the front. As he caught up to Fatty and pulled him to a stop, I saw that his eyes were practically bulging out of his head. This man knows more about the structure of ancient tombs than I do, I thought to myself. Did he find a clue?

Sure enough, he motioned for us to follow him. Fatty immediately protested, but he had behaved so badly just now that we all ignored him. With no other choice, he fell into line behind us.

Bald Zhang clumsily swam back a few meters and pointed to a tomb wall that was sunken in a little bit. As it turned out, when Fatty used it as a springboard just now, it ended up caving in a little bit.

I was overjoyed when I saw it. After looking back and forth, I confirmed that this was indeed the end of a long passage. The mechanism Uncle Three had mentioned should probably be here, but as soon as it was triggered, the water would flood in through the wall like a tsunami. Uncle Three had been wearing a helmet back then so he was fine, but we were only wearing diving goggles. Once we were caught up in the vortex, there was no guarantee that we wouldn’t bust our heads open on the tomb wall.

When I looked back and saw that the hair hadn’t caught up to us yet, I decided to warn the others first. But at this time, Bald Zhang—not knowing about the danger—suddenly pressed on a section of the wall. I didn’t even have time to react before a bunch of bubbles suddenly gushed out.

I knew as soon as I saw them that we were in trouble. I honestly didn’t expect that Bald Zhang’s ability to get into trouble was even worse than Fatty’s. I didn’t even have time to issue a fucking warning before I felt a huge force slam into my back and then push me into the hole in the wall. The stream of water was spinning into a whirlpool and I immediately understood what Uncle Three had been talking about at that time—all of my internal organs seemed to have been thrown to the side and I felt as if I was stuffed into the drum of a washing machine. After spinning around a few times, I was so dizzy that I couldn’t see anything clearly.

I don’t know how long it took, but when I came back to my senses, my whole body felt like it was falling apart. My neck especially was in a great deal of pain. Fortunately, it didn’t break with all that spinning and even my respirator was still in my mouth. I took a closer look at my surroundings and found that it was pitch black all around. The others were below me and also seemed to be just as dizzy, especially Fatty, who was still spinning around in circles as if he were a ballet dancer.

I looked at the wall of the well we had been dragged into and found that it was made of high-quality Han white jade. Based on the fact that such good materials had been used here, I figured we must have reached the inside of the undersea tomb. In fact, we might even be in the pool of water that Uncle Three had mentioned seeing in the middle of the ear chamber. I kicked my feet and swam up until my head suddenly felt warm and I breached the water’s surface.

It was pitch black all around. The beam of my diving headlamp was so concentrated that it could only illuminate a single spot so I turned it off and replaced it with a flashlight. As I took a closer look at the tomb chamber, I found that it was rectangular with sharp edges and corners. Except for the fifty-star map painted on the ceiling and a few carved cornices, everything else looked simple and unadorned.

There was no coffin bed or coffin inside so that meant that we were probably in one of the ear chambers. I looked around but didn’t see any other exit, only a stone door on the left that was connected to an outer corridor.

The chamber walls were made of very cheap white clay. There had originally been some colorful murals painted on them, but unfortunately, they were so badly corroded by the dampness that I had no way of knowing whether they had depicted Forbidden Women or not.

On the floor of the tomb chamber were about a hundred pieces of porcelain that had been buried together with the deceased, among which were several very valuable blue-and-white Yunlong porcelain jars. At this time, I suddenly noticed some footprints on the ground, which looked like they had been left by wet feet stepping on the dusty floor. They looked relatively fresh, so I figured they probably belonged to Uncle Three.

I measured the air quality before giving the others the go-ahead to come out of the water one at a time. After A Ning climbed up, the first thing she focused on was these footprints. “Were these left by grave robbers?” She asked.

I frowned, unable to answer her because I suddenly saw that among these footprints, there was a very conspicuous barefoot one. But the strangest thing was, this footprint was very small, as if it had been left by a child who was no more than three years old.

I had never heard of grave robbers bringing small children along with them so I called Fatty over to come and take a look. He had a lot of experience so I figured he might know what was going on.

Fatty also looked a little puzzled and said, “Don’t worry about its size. The footprint itself is abnormal. Take a closer look.”

I examined it again and found that there was a yellow wax-like substance that seemed to be coated on the footprint. I scraped it off with a knife, smelled it, and couldn’t help but feel stunned. “This is corpse wax…!”

<Chapter 46><Table of Contents><Chapter 48>　

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Hooray! We’re finally in the tomb! And on Wu Xie’s birthday apparently. What impeccable timing~~