Chapter 71 Ah Xi

Even though it had been decades since that moment, I still broke out in a cold sweat for Grandpa Si.

When I first started listening to Black Glasses tell the story, I never thought that things would be so reversed. But now I suddenly understood why he had talked so much about the course of events leading up to it.

If I hadn’t looked at this matter with Grandpa Si’s mindset, it would have been impossible for me to understand why a person like him would be at the end of his wits.

After Jiwei finished speaking, Grandpa Si reacted immediately and even spent a few minutes carefully thinking about it. Naturally, he didn’t believe it at first. Jiwei had come to that conclusion using divination, but could such a thing really be trusted? Chen Pi Ah Si obviously didn’t believe it.

But Jiwei was obviously very confident in her divination skills. In order to prove that her divination was correct, she turned and climbed up to the bridge deck.

What happened after that fully corroborated Jiwei’s statement. After she went up, there was no danger at all. The others also went up one by one and found that the same was true. Chen Pi Ah Si, being the most cautious, continued to hang under the bridge until the very end before finally going up, still full of doubts.

At the end of the bridge, there was only a single bronze drum coffin. Since Ah Xi had fallen into the abyss, there was nothing else on top of the bridge.

This bronze drum coffin had three layers and was stacked in a special way. It was a special type of coffin used by the local ethnic minorities. Based on its large size, it must have contained elephant bones, but there was nothing else special about it.

And regarding the ghost-hitting-a-wall situation, it was actually the result of the bridge rotating as soon as an external force was applied to it. This mechanism actually wasn’t complicated at all, but there’s no need to elaborate on it here.

In short, they walked on the bridge for more than an hour without encountering any danger. What Jiwei said before was correct—this ancient tomb was just a relatively ordinary one.

At that time, the mood was very strange. These people were all grave robbers, but none of them had the heart to open the coffin. Instead, they all sat on the bridge deck and thought about a certain problem.

What the hell was Ah Xi?

Chen Pi Ah Si even recalled the small details of all the times he interacted with Ah Xi in the past. Ah Xi was clearly a person who had no flaws at all, so then why was he no longer human after coming here?

What exactly had Chen Pi Ah Si been hanging out with for so long? Was it a monster?

At this point, Black Glasses stopped talking about the specific story regarding the tomb. It seemed like he was going to take a short break here and then continue forward—or rest longer—because his whole body relaxed and he began rubbing his joints. At the same time, he said to me, “Out of all the stories we’ve heard about going underground, this is the only thing related to monsters. Now, this ‘we’ isn’t referring to me or my companions, but all of Changsha, all of those in the Chinese grave-robbing industry, and all of those in the Mystic Nine.”

“Were they certain that Ah Xi was a monster?”

“Grandpa Si couldn’t tell, of course, not to mention details such as the fact that he started to develop a great fear of the companions around him. All we know is that in order to get the answer, he ventured back to Changsha and went to Ba Ye, a man he thought he would never ask for help.”

“Then did Ba Ye give him an answer?”

Black Glasses looked at me, “Do you believe that there are monsters in this world?”

I shook my head; I didn’t believe it.

“Then do you think that people like me or Mute⁽¹⁾ could be considered monsters in human form?” He asked. “Did you see those grotesquely shaped corpses along the way? How did they come about? When they were alive, were they considered human or monster?”

“Deformed corpses and transforming corpses are one thing, but nonhuman creatures with intelligence that can hide their true forms is another matter. You want me to believe that there are supernatural beings in this world that can sneak into the Mystic Nine and rob tombs with people? I absolutely don’t believe it,” I said. “Don’t keep me in suspense. You said that this secret is very important to me, so hurry up and tell me what it is.”

“Ba Ye made two hexagrams and asked two questions,” Black Glasses said. “The Qimen Eight Calculations method is very special, and the rules for asking questions are very strict. The answers to these two questions caused Ba Ye to have greater doubts about the truth of this matter.”

<Chapter 70><Table of Contents><Chapter 72>

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TN Notes:

(1) Remember, Black Glasses’ nickname for Poker-Face is Mute.

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Ok peeps, this is it. Final warning. As of right now (2/18/2023) “Ghost Banquet” is officially on hold.

Rejoice! Back to updating as of 4/12/2024