Chapter 30 New Progress

The herdsman didn’t understand and waited for me to speak. I pondered over this question for a while, but my mind was blank.

I may have been in good condition the past few times, but after several cycles, it was possible my brain had been damaged. That was fine, though. In fact, sometimes I was more powerful when I was a bit stupid.

First, I would realize every time that the ancient corpses weren’t the key to stopping the heavenly gift.

Then, I would have an epiphany about what was blocking the heavenly gift and leave right away without telling the herdsman.

Why didn’t I tell him? I personally hated riddles, so if I knew the answer, I should have told him just in case.

But why didn’t I tell him? And what did I go back out for? What was the reason I had to leave right away?

Earlier, I came to the realization that I woke up from the heavenly gift because I touched the hand of that ancient corpse. This was the key factor behind my belief that there was bronze in the ancient corpse’s body. If that wasn’t the case, then why did I wake up at that time?

In my chaotic memory, that strange claw-like hand appeared many times, but wasn’t that hand part of the ancient corpse?

And why hadn’t I received the heavenly gift yet?

My first thought was that there must be something in this space preventing the heavenly gift from working—it wasn’t these ancient corpses, but something else in this small space with us.

I continued looking at the surrounding cave walls as the herdsman kept talking, “When you get to that crevice, tell yourself not to bring water back to save me and then you’ll be free. You can carve those words on your chest. Just say that I’m a bad person so that you won’t feel guilty.”

I kept silently pondering over the issue while thinking to myself, are Poker-Face’s thoughts usually so tangled like this? How does he handle so many threads?

Claw-like hand, claw-like hand, claw-like hand, details, details…

Well, in my vague memory, the hand that reached out to me wasn’t a human hand. That thing definitely wasn’t human, and it was trying to tempt me into holding its hand.

I eventually grabbed that hand, and then I woke up.

The mummy’s hand I had been holding when I woke up was the hand of a human corpse.

These two were not the same thing.

That inhuman claw-like hand was trying to lure me in, and I took the bait.

That action must have hurt me, but what harm did I suffer as a result of it?

I immediately started to take off my clothes. The herdsman looked at me in confusion and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I have a slight problem with my character, that is, after I’ve done something big, I’m not so afraid of death, don’t care so much about my body, and am very decisive in doing things. It may not seem like it, but this may actually be problematic,” I said to him. “If I was as timid and scared as I was when I first started in this business,⁽¹⁾ then what I would be thinking about now wasn’t saving people or sacrificing myself, but instinctively worrying about whether my body was injured or affected by the previous heavenly gift.”

I took off all my clothes and began checking my body everywhere—were there any injuries? Then, I felt something on my back, between my shoulders and waist.

Sure enough, there was something there. Just as I sighed in my heart, the back of my head suddenly started to go numb.

I found that the thing on my back was a dry hand, not a human hand, and the length of its fingers definitely wasn’t human. It also seemed to be stuck to my back.

Not only could I touch it and feel the base, but I also found that it seemed to be growing on my back like one of my limbs.

I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. This was cold sweat borne from fear, which I hadn’t felt for a long time.

Ok, looks like I guessed right. I touched that claw-like hand back then and now it’s growing on my back.

This was obviously the first time the herdsman had seen it, because he immediately shrank back nervously.

I continued to touch that hand and found that there was something else at its base, right under my skin. “I’m going to turn around now,” I said to him. “You have to help me see what’s on my back, ok?”

As I slowly turned around, the herdsman looked at my back and groaned.

“Tell me, what is it?”

“On your back, under your skin, a claw-like hand like the claws of an ancient corpse is growing,” the herdsman said.

“Tell me something I don’t know. There should be something else,” I said to him.

“That hand, it’s reaching towards me. This thing can move!” the herdsman cried out.

<Chapter 29><Table of Contents><Chapter 31>

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TN Notes:

(1) He means when he first started grave robbing if you didn’t get it.

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Us:

The herder:

Wu Xie: