Chapter 66 Grave Robbers’ Tunnel

I was just about to start crawling forward, but when I heard him ask this, I couldn’t help but duck my head. I had been so nervous just now that I was ignoring it, but in fact, when we were in the corridor down below, I could feel that the wounds I got from the arrows were showing signs of inflammation. They had felt really itchy at the time but now they seemed to have gotten better. I lifted my shirt and looked at the wounds, only to find that the redness and swelling had already subsided and there was nothing strange about them. “I did feel it,” I said to him, “but it’s not itchy anymore. It’s very humid here so maybe you’re just sensitive to the moisture in the air.”

Fatty scratched himself furiously and said, “Is there any way to treat this temporarily? I was sweating so hard earlier and now my whole body is itchy.” As he spoke, he kept rubbing his back against the wall, leaving bloody streaks on the stone behind him. I immediately felt that something was wrong and hurriedly asked him to show me. He turned around while twisting his upper body so that his hands could keep scratching at the itch. I smacked his hands away and then shined my flashlight on his back, only to see some kind of white mold growing from the wounds made by the arrows earlier. It was so disgusting that I simply blurted out, “Fatty, how long has it been since you last took a shower?”

Fatty scoffed, “Shower? Why are you asking that? It’s personal. I don’t have to answer that.”

“I can tell you haven’t fucking showered for days. Listen, don’t be alarmed but your back seems to be covered in some kind of mold—white mold, to be exact. It could probably be considered one of the few wonders of this world. If you let it keep growing for a few more months, you might even be able to grow a longevity mushroom.”⁽¹⁾

Fatty listened in confusion before saying, “What, white mold? Mold can be white? Quit beating around the bush and just say it. What’s going on?”

I glanced at Poker-Face and saw that he was frowning. It seemed that the situation wasn’t good so I didn’t dare continue messing around. Poker-Face squeezed closer and pressed his hand to Fatty’s back, causing black blood to ooze out from the wounds. “We have a problem,” he whispered to me. “There was something wrong with those arrows.”

I found it a little odd. I had also been shot with those arrows earlier so logically speaking, my condition should be the same as Fatty’s. Could I have inherited some special trait from my grandfather that made me immune? I quickly showed Poker-Face my own wounds and gave him a questioning look.

He examined my wounds and then clicked his tongue—it seemed he was also unable to figure out what was going on. Fatty, who was starting to become scared at this point, immediately turned to me and asked, “What mold?! You aren’t making any fucking sense! Where’s the mold growing?”

After he said that, he immediately reached to feel his back but I quickly grabbed him and said, “Don’t move. You seem to have some kind of skin disease. Let us take a closer look at it for you, but don’t scratch it. Otherwise, you’ll leave a scar.”

He was itching so badly that he couldn’t bear it so I said to Poker-Face, “He can’t go on like this. We have to find a way. I’ve heard that some people with skin diseases can’t resist the urge to scratch themselves and end up committing suicide!”

“I want to fucking kill myself now!” Fatty cried out. “This itchiness is killing me! We can follow Guan Yu’s example and scrape my bones in order to heal my wounds.⁽²⁾ Just gouge out a few pieces of flesh for me. I can handle it.”

I had also suffered from a skin disease when I was a child so I knew a home remedy, but it was a bit disgusting. “There’s no need to dig out your flesh,” I said to him. “It’s not like you have any extra anyways. And I’m not Hua Tuo.⁽³⁾ But I do have some lotion that might help so let me apply it for you. It may hurt a little but try to bear with it.”

Poker-Face froze for a second but Fatty just snorted and said, “You city people are so delicate. Who brings fucking lotion to go grave robbing? Next time, you might as well just bring a deck of playing cards instead. That way, we can play a few rounds when we’re trapped.”

Of course, I wasn’t really carrying around this kind of thing so I just spit two mouthfuls of saliva on Fatty’s back, put on my gloves, and started smearing my saliva on his wounds. Unexpectedly, Fatty couldn’t bear the pain and let out a shout as soon as the saliva touched his wounds. He jerked forward and immediately started swearing, “What the hell are you smearing on my back?! God damn, you might as well gouge my flesh out instead! Now I really will go to meet my maker.”

I saw how effective the pain was at distracting him and said, “Looking at your state, the pain is better than the itching. Do you still feel itchy right now?”

Fatty continued to wriggle around for a while before calming down and saying in a surprised voice, “Hey, Young Wu, that stuff is really effective. I feel so much better already. What brand is it?”

Thinking he might kill me if he knew that I had smeared my saliva on his wounds, I quickly said, “Don’t be such a girl. Let’s go.”

Poker-Face smiled in amusement before shaking his head. It was the first time I had seen him with a genuine smile on his face instead of his usual bitter one, and I couldn’t help but feel that he had become a little more human. It seemed that he just needed to interact with people more.

But his smile quickly disappeared behind that blank poker face again and then he motioned for us to keep up. The three of us continued crawling up the tunnel in the amount of time it would take to smoke half a cigarette when Poker-Face suddenly said from the front, “There’s a fork in the path.”

I squeezed my way up and saw that there really were two passages leading to the left and the right. I used my flashlight to take a look at the one on the left and saw that a brick barrier had been set up a little further inside, essentially rendering this a dead end. It seemed that the area on the other side of the bricks was the tunnel that Poker-Face and Fatty had taken when they escaped from the ear chamber. I didn’t know why it was sealed off. Maybe Xie Lianhuan had been afraid that something would come out of that coffin?

But since it was sealed, that meant that he had escaped using the tunnel on the right. Poker-Face seemed to have the same idea as me and pointed towards it at the same time I did. Without saying a word, the three of us continued crawling.

To be honest, I had never crawled for such a long time before and I was already sweating like a pig. I knew it wouldn’t have been so tiring or painful to crawl through a normal dirt tunnel since there was nothing but dirt under you, but the tunnel here had broken brick fragments underneath. Crawling over them was pure torture and I could feel my knees burning from the pain. It seemed that there were still benefits to being a human; I’d have to strive to be a human again in my next life.

As my thoughts were spinning wildly, Poker-Face had already stopped and was motioning for me not to make a sound. Fatty couldn’t see what was happening up front and asked me softly, “What’s wrong?”

As I quickly shushed him, Poker-Face suddenly turned off his flashlight. Fatty and I were quick to catch on and immediately turned ours off as well, plunging us into complete darkness. I was very calm at this time, and even my heart rate didn’t accelerate (when I thought about it later, I realized that almost being crushed to death by the walls just now had left such a strong impression on me that I had already overcome my fear of this ancient tomb). I still didn’t know what Poker-Face’s intentions were, but in an ancient tomb like this, it was always best to listen to him.

We remained quiet long enough for our breathing to slow down and our sweat to dry, but at this time, I was alarmed to find that I could hear the sound of someone walking on the bricks above us. It seemed that we were already below the back hall or the corridor leading to it. Who was this person? Could it be A Ning? Or maybe it was Uncle Three?

While I was guessing, I suddenly felt an itchy sensation on the back of my neck. I anxiously started to wonder if there was mold growing on me as well. I hurriedly touched it with my hand and found that there was a wet lump stuck to my neck. Thinking that Fatty had pushed his sweaty head closer to mine, I swore and pushed back at him hard, but when I pulled my hand back, I found that there was a sticky substance under my nails and it was giving off a faint fragrance.

Completely disgusted, I wiped the substance off on the bricks beside me while telling myself that Fatty must have used too much hair oil on his mess of hair. If we ended up finding a pool of water later, I’d definitely make him wash his hair clean. For all I knew, that oil had been on his hair for several months now.

As I was thinking this, my neck started to itch again. I didn’t know what this damned fatty was doing but I became so angry that I immediately grabbed him and pressed him up against the wall. But at this time, I suddenly realized that something was wrong—why was Fatty’s head so small? When I carefully got up and touched it, I felt my heart thump. Why did that wet lump feel like hair? I touched two more lumps and found that they seemed to be hair that was all tangled together. And to make matters worse, my outstretched hand ended up getting caught in the tangled hair. I swallowed and immediately broke out in a cold sweat. Fatty certainly didn’t have that much hair so whose hair was it?

I suddenly found it difficult to breathe as I recalled the human-eating hair we had encountered in the watery tomb passage before. But I didn’t dare turn on my flashlight since that thing seemed to be just a few centimeters away from me and I would see it as soon as I turned my light on. I knew I definitely wouldn’t be able to stand the shock of it. But as I was thinking this, I suddenly felt a slender, wet hand touch my face. It was ice cold and its fingernails were very sharp. I felt all of my hair stand on end and my facial muscles started to twitch involuntarily.

Those sharp fingernails scratched my neck and then retreated, but I could feel that thing’s head move closer to me in the next second. I clenched my teeth in disgust as its wet hair stuck to my face, but right as I was about to explode, I suddenly heard a female voice come from within the mass of hair and whisper in my ear, “Who are you?”  

The voice was extremely quiet but I could hear it as clear as day. Just as I was starting to feel frightened, the woman suddenly pressed her body up against me, moved her hands over my shoulders, and then wrapped her slender arms around my neck. Even through my instinctive trembling, I could tell that this woman was very petite. I was completely dumbfounded. With her mouth pressed so close to my ear, I could feel how cold her breath was as she said to me, “Please hold me.”

When I heard these words, it was like I was a man possessed. Although I tried hard to resist, my hands wouldn’t listen to my brain at all and I had my arms around her waist before I knew it. But this position was even worse—I could feel that this woman wasn’t wearing anything at all and her skin was cold but surprisingly smooth. Feeling confused, I couldn’t help but blush. But at this time, the woman’s mouth moved to my chin and I felt her lips press against it twice, as if implying that I should kiss her. I completely lost control and was just about to kiss her head-on when Poker-Face’s flashlight suddenly turned on. When I saw the “thing” I was hugging to my chest, all of my hair stood on end and chills ran up and down my spine.

<Chapter 65><Table of Contents><Chapter 67>

****

TN Notes:

(1) Also called Ganoderma lucidum or Lingzhi. It’s a reddish brown fungus with a varnished kidney-shaped cap and stem that gives it a distinct fan-like appearance. It’s used in traditional Chinese medicine and is said to promote longevity (though it hasn’t really been proven). Info here.

(2) Guan Yu was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during China’s late Eastern Han dynasty. He was once injured in the left arm by a stray poisoned arrow. The bone ached even after the wound healed so a physician said that the poison had seeped into the bone. In order to fix the problem, they’d have to cut open the arm and scrape away the poison from the bone. Guan Yu then stretched out his arm and had the physician perform the surgery while he dined with his men as if nothing was going on. Info here.

(3) Hua Tuo (c. 140-208) was a famous doctor at the end of the Han Dynasty. He’s recorded as being the first person in China to use anesthesia during surgery. Besides being respected for his expertise in surgery and anesthesia, he was famous for his abilities in acupuncture, moxibustion, herbal medicine, and medical Daoyin exercises. More info here.

****

Red alert, Wu Xie’s chastity is at stake! Go protect your man Poker-Face!!! Q(`⌒´Q)