Chapter 33 Reconciliation

From here, the noise sounded a little different from before—there was a slight echo, as if it were coming from a deep place. I could also clearly feel that the bronze chain was vibrating slightly in rhythm with the sound, as if the other end was connected to a giant’s artery.

This kind of phenomenon was enough to give me chills, especially because I couldn’t feel any kind of wind blowing up from below. It wasn’t like the two of us could cause such a heavy bronze chain to vibrate so rhythmically either. What could possibly be in the darkness below that would affect these bronze chains like this?

Boss Wang quietly listened, a thoughtful look on his face. I figured that if he had never experienced such a thing before, he should have been more afraid than I was, but when I looked at his expression, I found that he was surprisingly calm, as if he were thinking about something.

As we continued to hang there at an impasse, the sound eventually fell silent and the bronze chains stopped vibrating. For some reason, I found myself breathing a sigh of relief and relaxing, but that almost caused me to lose my grip on the chain.

Boss Wang still didn’t react and just hung there for a while, quietly thinking. Then, he pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a hard drag before pulling a small glow stick from his pocket. After shaking it twice, the whole thing began to emit a fluorescent glow.

Not knowing what he was planning on doing, I stared at him coldly, but when the glow stick reached its brightest, he simply threw it down into the abyss. As we both watched, that green light became smaller and smaller, a tiny beacon of light in the surrounding darkness.

It continued falling and soon disappeared from our line of sight. I thought it would keep falling until it completely disappeared into the darkness, but when it was right on the edge of our field of vision, it suddenly hit something with a bang. The light bounced off of that thing, flew to the bronze wall off to the side, fell down again, and then instantly disappeared.

Sure enough, there really was something hanging about fifty or sixty meters below the bronze chains. Unfortunately, the light from the glow stick was too weak so all I could see was a rough outline of the thing. It seemed to be a crystal coffin with a yellowish tint to it, or maybe it was a common Shang sarcophagus that had been made from a translucent yellow stone.

At this time, Boss Wang suddenly tilted his head up and gave me a challenging look. Then, he flicked on his lighter, loosened his belt, and slid down the chain. As he soon entered the darkness below, all I could see was that small, dwindling light.

I didn’t know why, but after thinking about it for a moment, I suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right. Not only did Boss Wang seem to know what was going on, but he also seemed to be very prepared. He was the kind of person who had seen all kinds of strange and exotic things, so maybe he already knew what was below and wanted to take it for himself? I suddenly remembered what Lao Yang said to me before, and knew that I couldn’t let this thing fall into Boss Wang’s hands like this. I quickly pulled my hunting knife out of the root it was lodged in and then slid down after him.

Although my speed increased as I descended further into the abyss, it soon started to decrease when I got closer to the bottom. I also noticed that the tree roots that had been wrapped around the chains above didn’t reach this far down. It took a little over ten seconds to reach the place where I had estimated that object to be. Seeing the small flame of Boss Wang’s lighter stop below, I immediately tightened my legs around the chain and stopped my descent.

I looked down and saw that Boss Wang had reached the end of the chain, but there were still a few meters between him and the place where the glow stick had hit just now. He was leaning down, using his lighter to examine the object, but it was too difficult to see its overall shape because the light was too weak. The only thing we could make out was that it was a yellow crystal-like object hanging in the air.

I turned the flashlight up to its brightest setting, pointed it towards the object, and only then did the whole scene become clearer.

To my surprise, the thing hanging under the bronze chains wasn’t a sarcophagus, or even a coffin, but a huge amber rock shaped like a coffin. Not only did it look like it had formed naturally, but it was also very transparent—when the flashlight shined on it, the light that was reflected back turned a glossy gold color and even the slightest shift in the flashlight’s beam was enough to fill the whole space with dazzling colors.

The four bronze chains hanging down from above went straight into the amber. As I looked at them, I noticed that there seemed to be a human-shaped black shadow inside the amber. This figure was very blurry, so it was hard to distinguish its head from its shoulders. All I could make out was that the shadow’s shoulders were raised high, like two humps, and its whole body was curled up in the fetal position.

I had never seen anything like this before, so I stood there frozen for a moment, completely speechless. But Boss Wang was surprisingly calm. After observing it for a moment, he slipped down and tried to step on the amber.

“No, don’t!” I hurriedly shouted at him.

Boss Wang looked back at me in confusion.

“I’ve never seen such a big piece of amber before,” I quickly explained. “It might actually be rosin. If you step on it, it may break.”

Boss Wang sneered at me, “You don’t know jack shit. Amber? This is a corpse cocoon.” With that said, he finally stepped on it. As it turned out, the corpse cocoon really was strong—after shaking a bit, it showed no signs of breaking.

When I saw that he was fine, I was unwilling to get left behind and loosened my legs from around the chain. As I slipped down towards the amber corpse cocoon, I gripped my hunting knife in my hand. I was planning on putting it back in my belt since I knew it would be difficult to walk on this slippery amber cocoon with a flashlight and a dagger in both hands.

But I didn’t expect Boss Wang to get the wrong idea—when he saw me coming down, he immediately became alert and snapped his belt in front of his chest, clearly ready to fight. I was so startled that the knife, which I had originally intended on putting back in my belt, was instinctively raised into a defensive position in front of me.

For a while, the atmosphere between us was extremely tense, but neither of us moved. This was mainly because we both knew that in a place like this, even the slightest mishap would result in something more than a simple kick to the ground. After all, we were currently standing over an abyss. No matter how strong you were or how fierce your temper was, all it would take was a second or two to fall to your death.

But when all was said and done, Boss Wang was still a middleman in the industry—he would weigh the pros and cons before deciding on how to act. After remaining at a stalemate for a while, he eventually waved his hand and said to me, “Young man, at this point, we should both take a step back. There’s nothing to gain from killing each other. Plus, it won’t be good if either one of us dies here. This isn’t the kind of place you can get out alone.”

I looked up and found that he was right—it was going to take at least two people to climb out of here. As long as we were both down here, he probably wouldn’t dare touch me. Otherwise, his death might be more miserable than mine. But this man was very cunning, so I knew that I couldn’t trust him too much.

I slowly lowered my knife, made a gesture of reconciliation, and briefly explained what happened with the radio interference before. That way, both sides could take a step back and come to an understanding. After all, I also had murderous intentions just now, so it would be impossible for him to lower his guard so easily.

Boss Wang had a skeptical look on his face as he took out his walkie-talkie and turned it on. The quiet space suddenly erupted with a series of high-pitched static noises. The sound was so harsh that it almost sounded like a person screaming hard enough to tear their vocal cords. Boss Wang was so startled that he quickly turned off the walkie-talkie with a curse, “What the fuck?”

I was also terrified. Considering how harsh the sound was just now, this place definitely had to be very close to the source of the interference. It was hard to believe that such a terrifying sound existed in this world. If I had listened to it for a few more seconds, I might have gone crazy and jumped.

Boss Wang looped his belt back around his waist and said to me, “This time, it was my mistake. As you know, most of us who work in this business can never be too careful.” He then pointed to his swollen face and added, “Young man, you pack quite a punch. How about we call it even this time and settle our personal grievances later? What do you say?”

I couldn’t help but sneer to myself—he had finally revealed his true nature. I was now certain that from the beginning, he must’ve been planning on killing us once we got out of this place. All his talk was merely a tactic to buy time. But we both still needed each other right now, so I simply nodded and threw the flashlight to him as a gesture of goodwill.

Although we made a temporary truce, I still didn’t dare to get too close to him, lest he suddenly decide to push me off. He obviously shared the same concerns, as evidenced by the way he kept glancing at me. With this tacit understanding that the other couldn’t be trusted, we both stayed on guard as we carefully crouched down and examined the corpse cocoon beneath our feet.

There were a lot of naturally-formed veins on the surface of the corpse cocoon and the inside wasn’t very transparent, so it was impossible to see the corpse from the outside. I figured the only way we’d be able to see it was to either get an X-ray of it or break the cocoon open. But the strangest thing was the humanoid shadow inside—it must’ve been a human corpse, but the shape of this body was too strange. No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t appear to be human at all.

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