Chapter 20 Insect Brain

The gray insect eggs were stuck to the inside of the cranial cavity in a dense cluster, looking like bee eggs in a beehive. The sight was very disgusting.

Uncle Three, unlike like ordinary people, didn’t feel afraid at this time. In fact, he actually became even more interested and got up to take a closer look.

Under the light of his flashlight, the gray eggs seemed to become translucent. Uncle Three poked them with his knife and found that they were as hard as a shell, and seemed to have dried out.

What are these things? He asked himself. Considering how many eggs are in this thing’s cranial cavity, maybe they’re parasites?

It was pretty common for parasites to be in the bodies of ancient corpses—especially in corpses from Loulan⁽¹⁾—but they were generally found in internal organs. How could eggs appear in the cranial cavity? Moreover, this thing’s skull was full of them. What kind of bug was it? Whatever it was, it was too creepy…

Uncle Three was severely lacking when it came to scientific knowledge, and in terms of culture, he mostly relied on Chen Wen-Jin to save face. So, whenever he thought of bugs or ancient bugs, images of caterpillars and similar things appeared in his mind. After thinking it over, he theorized that when this bug entered the cranial cavity, the person was already dead. Otherwise, they would have suffered immeasurable pain as the insects grew in their head. These eggs probably belonged to carrion insects, not parasites.

This is a huge discovery, Uncle Three said to himself as he remembered what Chen Wen-Jin had told him about the intangible value of archaeological discoveries. In archaeology, finding ancient books, customs, or tombs that hadn’t been discovered by their predecessors was considered a big deal. Of course, this kind of thing meant nothing to Uncle Three, but for archeologists, it would boost their reputation and status in the archaeological community and ensure that their name was recorded in the annals of history.

He personally had no interest in such things, but he was a man in love at the time so his thoughts immediately turned to Chen Wen-Jin. He figured that if he gave it to her, she might find some use for it; otherwise, he’d just leave it here since it didn’t hold any monetary value.

With this thought in mind, he pulled out a cowhide bag, which he used to carry the things he salvaged while diving. There was a hole at the bottom that could be plugged or left open to let the water drain out when he was climbing out of the water. Uncle Three plugged the hole, pulled the skull off the body, grabbed a few of the broken bones, and stuffed them all into the bag. Then he slung the bulging bag over his shoulder and climbed out of the iron vat to see what Xie Lianhuan was up to.

After experiencing two scares back-to-back, he was feeling on edge and his greed was long gone. He didn’t even dare to touch the coffin again. This tomb chamber was so fucking weird that he didn’t want to stay any longer. If Xie Lianhuan was finished taking his photos, they should hurry up and leave.

At that moment, he completely forgot that Xie Lianhuan’s oxygen tank was running low. If he had remembered, he would have known that getting out of there was going to be difficult.

But when he climbed out of the iron vat and returned to the iron coffin, he suddenly realized that something was wrong. First, he couldn’t see Xie Lianhuan—he wasn’t in the spot where Uncle Three had left him, nor did he appear when Uncle Three swept his flashlight around the area—and second, Xie Lianhuan’s flashlight was lying on the ground, its flickering light illuminating a nearby mural.

Uncle Three immediately froze, his whole body breaking out in a cold sweat. He had seen too many scenes like this before—whenever something happened to someone in an ancient tomb, their flashlight was always found lying on the ground. When he acted as an information broker in the past, he had heard too many stories of people going missing in tombs. That was why he immediately tensed up as soon as he saw the flashlight lying on the ground.

When he climbed into the vat just now, did something happen to Xie Lianhuan? Maybe the younger man accidentally set off a trap?

Uncle Three didn’t hear any strange noises just now, but he was in the vat and wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening outside.

How could you tell if someone was experienced? With situations like this. If it were me, I would have definitely run over, picked up the flashlight, and started calling for Xie Lianhuan. But Uncle Three had already determined that something had happened, although he didn’t yet know what it was. He pulled out his knife again and got into a defensive stance as he walked towards the iron coffin, looking for Xie Lianhuan.

He hadn’t been in the iron vat for long, so if something had happened to Xie Lianhuan, he should still be near the coffin.

Moving quickly but cautiously, he walked around the iron coffin and immediately saw Xie Lianhuan lying on the ground behind it. He was curled up into a ball and lying completely still. Uncle Three pointed his flashlight directly in the other man’s face, but there was no reaction. He scanned the surrounding area again but didn’t see anything out of place.

Strange, there don’t seem to be any signs of a trap being triggered. Why is he collapsed here? Uncle Three looked around in surprise, but still didn’t see any signs of movement around him. He quickly stepped forward and lifted Xie Lianhuan up.

Xie Lianhuan had completely lost consciousness, so his limp body was nothing but dead weight. Uncle Three placed his fingers against Xie Lianhuan’s neck and found that he was indeed alive, but when he checked him over, he discovered that the back of the other man’s head was hot. He turned him over and glanced down at his hand, only to find that it was covered in blood.

Fuck! Uncle Three immediately froze. How is this possible? It looks like someone actually knocked him out.

But they were in an ancient tomb. There were no mechanisms in ancient tombs designed to knock a person out, and it wasn’t like a zombie would be kind enough to do so either. The only thing that could stun a person was another person.

As he was lost in thought, Uncle Three suddenly felt an extreme chill envelop his whole body. He quickly turned to look at the darkness around him. No way… Is someone else here? 

<Chapter 19><Table of Contents><Chapter 21>

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TN Notes:

(1) Loulan, aka Kroraina, was an ancient oasis town on the Silk Road near Lop Nor (it was also the name for an ancient kingdom). Info here.