Chapter 54 Trap

Apparently, there was a balance trap set up beneath the stone astrolabe. The weight of the immortality pills and their location on the star map had been calculated so precisely that you had to follow a certain order to remove them if you didn’t want to set the trap off. Otherwise, the balance would be upset, the astrolabe would tilt, and the trap would be triggered, thus causing a chain reaction. The jade burial armor on the surrounding corpses would fall off first, and then the bodies would transform into blood corpses.

This cave could be considered the most important sacred place of the Queen of the West’s people. If it was invaded, the core secrets of the royal family would be in danger of being exposed, so they set up this terrifying trap in order to completely wipe out the enemy.

With the entrance now sealed and everyone at the bottom of the cave surrounded by these corpses, we were now in a desperate situation.

Uncle Three’s men were paralyzed with fear, but we weren’t any better—even Fatty and Poker-Face had gone deathly pale. I didn’t think my grandfather had ever experienced this kind of situation either, at least, there was nothing written in his notebook about how to deal with a thousand corpses transforming into zombies at the same time. Damn, is there an EMBA⁽¹⁾ program for grave robbing? I wondered.

At this time, a series of “gegegege” sounds suddenly came from a group of mummies close by, followed by another, and then another until soon the sound was everywhere. At the same time, I saw that the dry skin on the mummies was starting to fall off, as if they really were about to rise from the dead.

Mop looked at us and yelled, “What the fuck are you guys looking at? Hurry up and think of a solution! What should we do?”

Fatty cursed, picked his gun up from the ground, and said, “What should we do, you ask? Now we compete to see who can live longer.”

“Bullshit, I don’t want to die! Come up with something quickly, or I’ll shoot you.” Then he pointed the gun at Fatty.

Fatty checked to see how much ammo he had before saying, “You can surrender to them and see what happens, but it might not work—we’re so deep underground that even God will have trouble coming down here.”

With that said, he moved a little closer to the nearest group of corpses, raised his gun, and opened fire. Several of them were blown away in an instant, their dried skin blasted off to reveal the purple skin underneath. But even though the bullets hit, we could see that only a few small holes had been made in their flesh.

Fatty seemed to regain his usual attitude, as if he had accepted his fate despite the lingering feelings of fear. It took him firing three more times before Mop and his men finally came to their senses and started helping, buying us a few extra minutes.

As Fatty reloaded, he walked over to me, took out a signal flare, and handed it to me while saying, “Make sure the light doesn’t go out. But don’t shoot up, shoot at their faces instead. We’re going to follow the example of the five heroes of Mount Langya!”⁽²⁾

“Up?” I looked up at the ceiling and suddenly had a flash of inspiration as I remembered the first story my grandfather had written in his notebook. What did he say?

Grandpa’s first reaction at that time was to run towards a tree, because he didn’t think the blood corpse could climb it!

If blood corpses couldn’t climb trees, then they couldn’t climb walls, let alone rocks. With that thought in mind, I immediately said to the others, “We have to find a way to climb up! Climb to the suspended furnace. Since they were able to keep it up there without any stairs around it, there must be another way to get to it.”

Now that there was a glimmer of hope, everyone immediately jumped into action. Fatty shouted at us not to panic, saying that those with guns would buy time while the rest looked for a way up.

I immediately rushed to the nearest bronze vessel, thinking that I could climb up and get a better look since they were so tall.

But when I reached the top and looked around, I immediately realized that I was wrong—if there was a way to climb up there, we would have already seen it. Moreover, I knew that the ancients adhered to the design concept of objects moving, not people. This meant that the suspended furnace had not been built up there, but had been hoisted up, and the process for doing so must have been carried out below. So, it would be impossible for us to go up there because once this furnace came down, we wouldn’t have the strength to pull it back up.

But as I was standing on the bronze vessel and looking around, I suddenly realized that we didn’t have to climb so high. We only needed to climb to a place where the blood corpses couldn’t reach, and these bronze vessels were perfect for that.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I immediately shouted at the others. Everyone immediately reacted and climbed onto the nearest bronze vessels.

Soon, everyone had climbed up. I could see more and more of those blood corpses rising up, but when I took a closer look at them, I realized that something was wrong—they were all very tall. The height of these bronze vessels clearly wasn’t enough to escape them, but there weren’t any taller ones that I could see. Even shooting from a high vantage point could only temporarily slow the approaching blood corpses, and not for long either—in the light of our miner’s lamps, we could see that several of those strange faces were already very close to us. I couldn’t even imagine what it looked like in the places where the light couldn’t reach.

Just as we were on the verge of despair, Fatty suddenly shouted, “Guys, we’re going all in!” Then he pulled out a few detonators and continued, “I’ll run toward them, clearing a bloody path with the explosives, while you guys cover me from behind. Then we’ll charge straight through them.”

“Where did you get those?!” I shouted.

“Didn’t I say last time that I would never go into another tomb without explosives?” Fatty snapped back. “These are from my private stash!”

Although this method was tantamount to suicide, I could still see a glimmer of hope, so I replied, “Let’s do it!”

“There are only four detonators and we’ve got a lot of distance to cover,” Fatty explained. “Everyone must keep up—if you fall behind for even a second, no one will save you!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he lit the fuse and threw out the first detonator. I watched the smoking detonator disappear among a group of mummies before quickly crouching down. Almost at the same time, there was a loud explosion, followed by a shock wave that sent several blood corpses flying. We covered our heads to avoid the flying rubble and debris, hearing a dull clanging sound as they hit the bronze vessels below us and dented them. When I dared to look up, I saw that a hole had been made in the wall of approaching blood corpses.

Fatty jumped down and immediately threw the second detonator while shouting, “Go!”

We immediately jumped down from the bronze vessels as another explosion sounded again. This time, there were no bronze vessels to provide cover, and the flying debris came at us like bullets. Several of us even got knocked aside by the blast. Fatty, ignoring the pain, jumped up and threw out another detonator. The men with guns finally remembered what they were supposed to do and looked around, immediately shooting down the blood corpses rushing towards us.

We desperately continued pushing forward. As another explosion went off, it felt like we were in a war movie—we threw ourselves to the ground, waited a second for the shock wave to pass, and then got up and kept running. Ears ringing, I couldn’t help but think this was how the soldiers must have felt during the Battle of Triangle Hill.⁽³⁾

“This is the last one!” Fatty roared. “Let’s go!”

As he spoke, he threw the detonator towards the stone slab blocking the entrance—it had to be powerful enough to blast through the stone; otherwise, everything we’d done just now would have all been for naught.

We desperately pushed forward, waiting for the expected shock wave to hit us, but the detonator never exploded. Fatty, who had been running up front, suddenly stopped and turned to shout at us, “Sorry, my bad! It’s a dud!”

The blood corpses around us immediately started to close in, filling the air with the smell of gunpowder and the acrid stench unique to blood corpses. Everyone moved closer together, forming a tight circle. “Shoot the detonator!” I shouted.

“I can’t see it!” Fatty shouted back. “They’re blocking it!”

At this time, Poker-Face suddenly leaped up, stepped on Fatty’s shoulder, and launched himself into the air. He landed on one of the blood corpse’s shoulders, locked his knees around its neck, gave a hard twist until its head came off, and then kicked it into the approaching crowd of blood corpses. As they went flying back, we finally had a clear sight on the detonator.

Fatty moved very quickly, firing off a shot with a flick of his hand. But we were standing too close to it this time—the detonator immediately exploded, sending everyone flying as the brunt of the blast hit us.

The world was spinning before my eyes as I rolled to my knees and vomited, but I gritted my teeth to try and keep myself from fainting. When I finally managed to stand up, I saw that the stone slab blocking the entrance hadn’t been destroyed. There was now a big hole in it from the explosion, but when I took a closer look, I found that the slab had been reinforced with bronze.

It’s over, I thought to myself as I looked at the blood corpses surrounding us. This is really the end. But before I could steady my resolve, there was a sudden loud noise behind us, like the clanging of a temple bell. It shook the whole cave, knocking us and all the surrounding corpses to the ground. When I looked back, I saw that the chains holding the huge suspended furnace up had been unable to withstand the vibrations caused by the explosions and broke, causing the furnace to fall from the top of the cave and crash to the ground. The furnace’s immense weight actually smashed a big hole in the cave floor, but judging by how deeply the furnace was embedded, there seemed to be a hollow space under the floor.

The vibrating hum of the furnace was making my head go numb, but the corpses didn’t seem deterred at all—they continued closing in on our little group, some of whom couldn’t even stand up.

“Retreat!” Poker-Face shouted. “I’ll distract them.”

It seemed the only reason we weren’t completely surrounded yet was because we had blasted our way through. This meant that if we wanted to go back, we’d have to act quickly.

“Knife!” Poker-Face shouted at Fatty.

Fatty, without pausing his shooting, took out his knife and threw it. Poker-Face caught it in mid-air, drew the blade across his palm, and pointed the wound at the blood corpses. They all immediately turned towards him, as if attracted by his blood. He started to move away from us and climb up the steps, and for some reason, those blood corpses immediately followed him.

Taking advantage of the moment, we quickly retreated towards the embedded furnace, and I shouted at him, “What about you?”

Poker-Face ignored me, but Fatty quickly grabbed me and started pulling me along behind him. By the time we reached the hole in the floor, Poker-Face had disappeared in the swarm of corpses, leaving not even a trace of his shadow behind. “Damn,” Mop said, “What a loyal friend!”

I grabbed his gun and cursed, “Fuck loyalty!” before trying to rush back over there, wondering how they could let him sacrifice himself like that? But before I could go anywhere, Fatty quickly grabbed me and shouted, “Little Brother, we’ve made it!”

Suddenly, I saw Poker-Face rise up from the swarm of blood corpses, run up the nearly vertical cave wall like a god, and leap out of the tight encirclement. Taking advantage of the momentum, he rolled to a place where there weren’t as many blood corpses, leaped back up, and then, staying close to the ground, swiftly passed through the crowd of blood corpses until he reached the edge of the giant furnace.

Uncle Three’s men stared at him in shock, but Poker-Face just stood up and said to us, “These blood corpses haven’t tasted blood yet, so their joints are still stiff. If they were soaked in blood like the one we saw in the Lu Palace, we wouldn’t have been able to run away. Now stop gawking and see if there’s somewhere we can escape to.”

Only then did we come back to our senses and look around—the sunken pill furnace was now surrounded by a series of deep cracks that seemed to go through the whole floor, making it obvious that there really was a hollow space down below. We probably didn’t notice it before because the entrance was blocked by the stone astrolabe.

We were out of choices by this point, so we pressed up against the pill furnace, clung to the patterns on its side, and climbed down.

Below was a mezzanine that was only about half a person’s height. The ceiling was so low that we couldn’t raise our heads even when squatting, and the floor was full of rubble. After we climbed down, we immediately gathered some of the rubble and used it to block the gaps. It was only when they were all filled in that we dared to breathe a sigh of relief and collapse to the ground, utterly exhausted. I took stock of myself and found that I could barely hear anything and the world was still spinning before my eyes.

Chen Wen-Jin immediately tore off a strip of her jacket to bandage Poker-Face’s bleeding palm.

Fatty looked around with a lantern, revealing that we were in a very small stone cavity, which had also been excavated by someone. It was only about six or seven square meters in size, but the presence of the embedded pill furnace made it even smaller. It was so bad that we couldn’t move our arms or legs around at all.

“Fuck, what do we do now? Will those things die on their own?” One of the guys asked.

“Under normal circumstances, the sun would take care of them, but there’s no hope of that happening down here. We have to find another way out.” As Fatty spoke, he swept the lantern around the small space, looking for clues. During one sweep, we all suddenly noticed something engraved on one of the rock walls. At first glance, it looked similar to the letters Poker-Face used to make his marks, but this one was more of a sentence rather than a single mark.

Everyone leaned in closer, and Fatty said happily, “Little Brother, take a look at this. Does it mean there’s a way out of here?”

Poker-Face leaned over and looked at it, his expression immediately changing. We asked him what it meant, but he just shook his head and remained silent. Based on his expression, though, I could tell that he understood it.

Unlike the other marks, which had been carved next to open passages, this one had been carved on a solid rock wall. Fatty felt around the area to see if he could find any gaps, but ultimately came up empty. At this time, Poker-Face moved closer and traced the seams on the wall with his abnormally long fingers. Then he picked up a rock and started smashing it against the wall. The wall cracked like rice paper after two blows, and when he pushed it, a narrow hole only large enough to accommodate one person suddenly appeared.

“Why is there a grave robbers’ tunnel here?” Fatty asked in surprise.

“It’s not a grave robbers’ tunnel, it’s a channel that was used to create the trap mechanism above us. The operating components are inside here,” Poker-Face explained, already crawling inside.

We all looked at each other before following after him one by one. Less than ten meters in, the channel suddenly changed to an almost vertical drop. We couldn’t turn around in the narrow space, so we had to crawl down headfirst. Just as I felt like I was about to faint from all the blood rushing to my brain, I suddenly heard the sound of water.

If there was water, then that meant that this channel was connected to the drainage system here. We all immediately sped up and soon reached the end of the channel, only to find that a stone was blocking the way. Poker-Face slammed his body against it several times until it finally fell away, rolling down into the darkness and landing with a loud splash.

We poked our heads out and saw a wide waterway in front of us. The current was gentle, the water only appeared to be about waist height, and it was clear enough to see the stone slabs at the bottom.

Poker-Face climbed down first, with the rest of us following him down one by one. As soon as we entered the water, we noticed a lot of movement beneath the surface—countless bugs, disturbed by our sudden appearance, were scattering in all directions. It startled the others so much that they almost opened fire.

I was also shocked to see that this waterway was full of small, flesh-colored bugs. They didn’t have any shells and were nearly translucent, which made it difficult to see them lying at the bottom of the waterway. Luckily, they didn’t seem to be aggressive based on how they fled as soon as we moved.

After everyone was standing in the waterway, we started to look around. There was an iron gate upstream, behind which was a pile of branches and other debris that had been carried here by the current. There was nothing but darkness downstream, making it impossible to tell where it led to.

We walked over to the iron gate and shook it, but found that it was too sturdy to break.

“What is this place?” One of Uncle Three’s men asked.

“Based on how deep it is and how much water passes through it, it may be the main channel leading to the bottommost reservoir,” Chen Wen-Jin said. The words had barely left her mouth when someone suddenly cried out. We all turned around and saw that further downstream, in the middle of the waterway, was a statue of a human-faced bird. It was more than two meters tall and seemed out of place in a place like this.

When we walked over to it, I saw that it was almost exactly the same as the one I saw in the rainforest. I was just about to take a closer look at it when Poker-Face suddenly sucked in a sharp breath, walked around the statue, and started heading downstream. We all exchanged a look before immediately following after him.

<Chapter 53><Table of Contents><Chapter 55>

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TN Notes:

(1) An executive master of business administration (EMBA) degree is designed to be pursued by current senior executives (so those who are already skilled in the business). While a conventional MBA may prepare someone to enter a management career, an EMBA is intended to teach a current leader how to be a more effective manager.

(2) Mentioned back in chapter 22. Five heroes of Mount Langya is a famous story (some say a myth) about five soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who fought the Imperial Japanese Army atop Mount Langya during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After running out of ammo, they began throwing rocks, supposedly killing dozens. They then committed suicide by throwing themselves off the top of the mountain to escape capture by the Japanese. Two of the Chinese soldiers survived, but all others perished. Here’s a more detailed (and probably biased) account.

(3) The Battle of Triangle Hill, also known as Operation Showdown or the Shangganling Campaign, was a protracted military engagement during the Korean War. The main combatants were two United Nations (UN) infantry divisions, with additional support from the United States Air Force, against elements of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) 15th and 12th Corps. There were 2 days of preliminary air strikes, followed by intensified Republic of Korea (ROK)-American bombardment across the 30 km (19 mi) front line, which was further followed by a rolling barrage. The concentrated bombardment succeeded in clearing the foliage on Triangle Hill and Sniper Ridge, destroying most of the above-ground fortifications, and also disrupted PVA communication lines, eliminating all wired and wireless communications in the area. So basically, it was pretty intense.