Chapter 15 Floating Corpses

The ancient corpse wrapped in white gauze must have been soaking there in the dark depths of the water for many years. The white gauze had long since become tattered, and it was impossible to tell whether the corpse was a man or a woman. There was still quite some distance between them, so the corpse’s features were all blurred, and it was impossible to see how it had been preserved.

Uncle Three broke out in a cold sweat, but immediately calmed himself down—this was a shipwreck tomb, so it wasn’t surprising that a corpse would be floating here.

Uncle Three gradually moved his hand away from Xie Lianhuan’s flashlight, but then he saw another corpse appear in the cold white light. It was floating beside the first one in the dark, gloomy water and appeared to be wearing the same outfit.

Uncle Three, suddenly having a bad feeling, continued to move the flashlight and found that there were actually a large number of corpses floating in the darkness below. There were as many as thirty or forty of them, all dressed in the same fluttering white gauze. The sight was enough to chill him to the bone.

Because the flashlight had been turned on, it was now impossible to tell where the glowing green dots were coming from. But the scariest part was that the corpses weren’t floating in the same spot—they were slowly moving right towards Uncle Three and Xie Lianhuan.

Uncle Three’s heart was about to leap out of his throat and his head inside the airtight helmet was covered in a cold sweat. He told himself that it was a good thing he grabbed Xie Lianhuan when he did—if they had swum over to these corpses and turned on their flashlights, he probably would’ve died of a heart attack. These corpses must have been soaking here for nearly a thousand years. Ordinary ones would have disintegrated after soaking in the water for so long, so how could these still be floating here? Could they have turned into zombies?

Since they were going underwater and he didn’t expect any trouble, he hadn’t prepared anything at all. It never even crossed his mind that they might encounter such a dangerous situation, so he didn’t even bring a donkey’s hoof with him. He started cursing that bastard Xie Lianhuan for bringing him here, but what Uncle Three forgot was that he was the one who decided to involve himself in this matter.

He looked at Xie Lianhuan again and saw that the other man also had a frightened expression on his face. This made it all too obvious that his reckless approach just now stemmed from his lack of knowledge of what the real situation was like. It seemed that the foreigner didn’t tell him what he might encounter down here.

Uncle Three’s thoughts raced like lightning as he came up with several possible scenarios of what might happen next. By this time, the group of corpses had gradually come closer, their white gauze drifting slowly in the water as they continued moving in that slow manner. If not for the surrounding darkness and their blurred facial features, it would have looked like a scene of immortals roaming among the clouds in the heavenly palace.

Uncle Three looked at them and came to a sudden realization.

He dove down a few meters until he was closer and then carefully examined them.

The ancient corpses didn’t appear to be completely decomposed. Although their facial features were indistinct, he could still make out their general appearance. There were more than a dozen of them, all stuck in various poses with some holding trays, some playing flutes, and others playing zithers. Although they were as stiff as iron, their graceful postures were unparalleled. That was when Uncle Three realized what he was seeing.

On the murals in many ancient tombs, there would often be a scene of the tomb owner leaving their mortal body behind and ascending to heaven. The gates of heaven would be wide open, revealing a group of immortals who had gathered to welcome the new addition. Auspicious clouds would be floating in the air and divine birds would be soaring in a sky that was shining brightly. In such murals, a picture of “heavenly masters dancing and making music” would be painted above the steps the tomb owner would take to ascend to heaven. The picture usually depicted countless old immortals in heaven playing various instruments together, such as flutes and zithers.

But the tomb owner here obviously felt that the usual mural wasn’t enough, so they recreated it using dozens of real corpses. The sight was simply unbelievable.

He immediately understood why Xie Lianhuan was looking for these ancient corpses—these heavenly masters were placed along the route the tomb owner would take to ascend to heaven, so if they followed the corpses, they would definitely be able to find the exact location of the tomb owner.

Off to the side, Xie Lianhuan finally seemed to calm down and signaled for Uncle Three to follow him, but his jerky movements showed just how nervous he was.

Uncle Three tried to calm his racing heart. Now that he knew that such an amazing place existed, he didn’t feel as panicked as before. Part of him wanted to keep moving forward, but they hadn’t made sufficient preparations for such a long journey, which meant that he had the perfect excuse to retreat. But that wasn’t a big deal—it wasn’t like the tomb could run away.

Plus, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that they were currently in a seemingly endless abyss. It was impossible to guess where those ancient corpses had drifted from and how long they had been moving in the water. If the two of them rushed to follow the trail, there was no telling how much time they would waste. In fact, they may even run out of oxygen. It would definitely be unwise to keep going.

Uncle Three finally pulled himself from his thoughts and stopped Xie Lianhuan, signaling to him that they should go back. It was too dangerous to go any further now; their lives were too important to risk.

But Xie Lianhuan suddenly seemed to come to a decision (impulsiveness is a common trait among spoiled rich kids; it seems that I also have such a problem) and, without waiting for Uncle Three, swam straight for the group of corpses.

Uncle Three turned his flashlight on and off several times, trying to signal him to wait, but Xie Lianhuan completely ignored him. Seeing this, Uncle Three cursed to himself—this guy was probably trying to ditch him.

Xie Lianhuan had been coerced into bringing him along on this dive, and obviously wasn’t happy about it. Now that they were so close, he must have simply decided to ditch Uncle Three and keep going alone.

Even if they weren’t close, Xie Lianhuan was still his relative and kind of like a younger brother to him (Chinese people tended to be very protective when it came to blood relatives and those younger than them). So, Uncle Three couldn’t leave Xie Lianhuan alone at this time. All he could do was suppress his anger and try to catch up.

(Speaking of which, I don’t know how many times I heard Uncle Three say things like “there was no other choice” and “I had to”. The way he kept repeating it made me find it a little odd—it was almost like he was subconsciously emphasizing his reluctance to follow Xie Lianhuan. In fact, based on my understanding of Uncle Three’s personality, he wasn’t the kind of person who could control his curiosity and retreat at such a time. I suddenly felt that Uncle Three may have been largely responsible for Xie Lianhuan’s subsequent death.

The reason I thought so was because Uncle Three looked after me for a while when I was a kid. At that time, he was called out for a job, but he couldn’t take me in with him so he used a rope to tie me to the side of the road. He left me out there in the sun all day, and I almost got heatstroke. Afterwards, he bribed me with a lot of saltwater popsicles⁽¹⁾ and asked me not to tell anyone about it. I wasn’t very sensible at that time, so I didn’t say anything, but based on this incident, it was clear that when Uncle Three was younger, he had a terrible personality and very little self-control.

When I thought of Xie Lianhuan’s bloody words on the wall of that undersea tomb, I found it hard to believe that Uncle Three would deliberately harm him. But when I heard this, I couldn’t help but start to feel anxious.)

After this, the pace of the story became much quicker.

Uncle Three tried to keep an eye on his oxygen consumption while struggling to catch up with Xie Lianhuan. But the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became—he had never been to an underwater tomb before, so he didn’t really know what to expect.

Xie Lianhuan was basically flying through the water, diving so fast that Uncle Three, who wasn’t very good at diving, soon fell behind.

It became obvious that Uncle Three wouldn’t be able to keep up, so he just focused on following the light of Xie Lianhuan’s flashlight up ahead. He swam through the dark for more than ten minutes, unaware of the many strange objects that were starting to appear all around him. When he did finally notice them, he found that they were all broken wooden structures, such as carved windows and wooden beams. There were thousands of pieces, all highly decayed and encrusted with white salt.

Then, in the middle of these floating objects, Uncle Three saw a huge lopsided shadow that looked like a monster.

The corpses floating in the water seemed to lead straight towards this thing. Xie Lianhuan had already passed them all and was now hovering close to that huge black shadow. In the light of his flashlight, Uncle Three gradually saw the true face of that thing.

It was the bow of a giant ancient ship, which appeared to be stuck in the reef. Uncle Three felt that the term “giant” didn’t do the size of the thing justice, but it was all he could come up with.

The wreckage of the bow extended out from the reef, stretching more than two hundred meters on both sides. The whole structure was completely deformed, with the warped bow completely encrusted in white salt and patches of coral. If not for the strange shape of the thing, one might think that it was the skull of a huge sea creature.

The row of corpses led straight towards the wreckage and soon disappeared into the dark water. Uncle Three finally caught up with Xie Lianhuan, the combined light of their flashlights giving a clearer view of the wreckage.

On the deck, Uncle Three saw a carved wooden pagoda half embedded in the reef, along with the huge ship’s masts, which were tilted like they might collapse at any moment. A cracked and deformed white marble stone door could be seen in the pagoda, sitting wide open like a huge mouth that was waiting for them to throw themselves into a trap.

<Chapter 14><Table of Contents><Chapter 16>

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TN Notes:

(1) Saltwater popsicles (sometimes referred to as “sea salt popsicles”) are a traditional Shanghai homemade food. Made of salt, sugar, starch, and water, they supplement the human body’s lost salt during hot summer days.