Chapter 147: Main Text Chapter 149: Tongue

Main Text Chapter 149: Tongue

I noticed the celestial omens were odd; tomorrow also falls on a special day, it must be opened at midnight, or else there may be a major upheaval—but Shirley Yang doesn't buy any of it. I said it would come out, and for nothing I let her ridicule me once. On the glazed roof of the Lingyun Heavenly Palace I've already once tossed a person over; still, I'd better not mention it now, but I hope this operation will succeed and allow us to retreat safely.

Thinking of this, I pointed at the pond and said to Pangzi and Shirley Yang: "I once fell into this pond water, although hastily, I have a rough grasp of the terrain here. Our current position is near the nose of the wrecked heavy bomber in the pond—that is, the breach I saw on the pond bottom lies about twenty degrees off from here, not far away."

Shirley Yang said: "Lao Hu, do you think the passage below is a tomb corridor? If the entire underground palace were flooded, that would also be troublesome, but the key is our oxygen tanks are too small to sustain us long underwater."

I told Shirley Yang: "In the mountain gap I saw, there are many submerged strange‑creature remains; even if not near the tomb entrance, it is likely a passage leading to the Xuan Palace, at least definitely some underground facility of the mausoleum. I guess the Xian King's Tomb underground palace is shaped like a well or a return character, not a flat straight push‑forward; even if this section of the tomb corridor is submerged, the Xuan Palace remains in a completely sealed environment."

Earlier we had devised multiple plans for every possible structure of the king's tomb; now fully prepared, we put on our diving masks, took out some baijiu and drank a few sips to raise our body temperature.

Shirley Yang held the underwater‑specific lighting gear, the 'Poseidon's Gleam' diving probe lamp, and went down first.

I was about to follow her down, but saw Pangzi lagging behind, hesitating, so I grabbed him and urged him to move quickly. Then I dove headfirst into the water.

I don't know why, but I felt the pond water at night was much colder than by day; underwater it grew even darker and chillier. The three of us determined our direction underwater and felt our way toward the heavy bomber's position. Because there is a large 'water eye' in the pond, being sucked into it in the dark would be extremely dangerous, so we kept to the edge. Occasionally large schools of fish startled by us would dart past before our eyes; the pond bottom, which normally looked like emerald crystal, appeared in the darkness as another world entirely.

Shirley Yang, swimming ahead, suddenly turned back and signaled us; she had found the breach torn open by the aircraft. I swam forward two meters and saw Shirley Yang holding the 'Poseidon's Gleam', its beam shining into the crack connected to the aircraft's nose.

The 'Poseidon's Gleam' is useless on land, but its special function works powerfully underwater; in the pitch‑black pond water its beam suffers no distortion, and within a sixteen‑meter radius anything it illuminates becomes as clear and bright as daylight.

The cave is just as I saw in daylight: several stone beasts with bared teeth and claws guarding the tomb; outside, the bomber smashed through a stone wall, suggesting this connects to the tomb passage, though the stone gate of the king's tomb passage is not visible—any distinctive features on the pond bottom may be concealed by aquatic vegetation. The dragon claw at the vortex likely belongs as a unit to the tomb gate's beast head; if we focus on that huge claw we could probably locate the gate, but since there is already an opening here, it saves us some trouble.

I nodded at Shirley Yang; regardless of whether this is a tomb passage, let's go in and see first. Shirley Yang wanted to go in first, but I worried something might happen inside, so I took the 'Poseidon's Gleam' from his hand and led the way into the opening.

I followed the waterway in the tomb passage forward for a stretch, then glanced back—Shirley Yang and Pangzi had also followed in. Suddenly I felt a pang: normally, in such a situation Pangzi would volunteer to rush ahead, but this time for some unknown reason he kept falling behind, keeping a distance from us, which is abnormal; yet being underwater makes it hard to ask what's going on.

This tomb passage isn't long; it's a gentle upward stone stairway, with some simple carvings on both sides—funerary motifs. The stone way gradually rose above the water level, and I lifted my head out of the water to see a large stone platform ahead, where shadowy figures seemed to stand in ranks of men and horses. Here the 'Poseidon's Gleam' loses its effect, so I switched again to the 'Wolf Eye'.

In fact, the stone platform bore several green‑copper figurines of men and horses partially submerged in water. Shirley Yang also surfaced at that moment, looked at the bronze carriages and horses on the stone way, and immediately asked me: "Are these bronze figures the ceremonial guard of carriages and horses placed before the Xuan Palace gate?"

I was awed by those dark‑green bronze soldier figurines; we stood at the side of the stone way, where the water had scattered many large stone slabs eroded by immersion—evidently the mausoleum's preservation is not promising. After a pause I nodded and said: "That's right—these are the bronze carriages and horses that escorted the Xian King to heaven, plus thirty‑six officers."

It appears the place we entered is a construction‑stage earth‑and‑stone work road used when building the king's tomb; at that time they had to dam the large and small water veins of the Insect Valley and chisel the mountain upward from the pond bottom.

At that moment I heard water splashing behind me again; I turned and saw Pangzi surfacing from below, without turning on the head‑lamp switch, nor rushing to join us as usual—instead he stood silently in the water, keeping his distance, his body above the surface retreating into the darkness so that the light on my helmet could not reach his face.

Seeing his abnormal behavior, my heart turned cold halfway; I hurried through the water toward him and asked: "Why aren't you turning on your helmet's tactical lamp? What are you trying to do hiding in the dark?"

Before Pangzi could answer, I had already lunged forward; my helmet's light fell squarely on his big face. Pangzi merely gave me a hey‑hey cold chuckle, his hand out of the water suddenly jerked up—he was now holding a gleaming 'Paratrooper Knife'.

That chilling laugh made my skin crawl; I was shocked—how could Pangzi laugh like a woman? Who is this person? Only then did I realize that ever since the sky turned completely dark, Pangzi hadn't spoken to us, always lurking nearby muttering something; though I had tested glutinous rice on the glazed roof of the Heavenly Palace, if a fierce ghost truly possessed him, why would the rice be useless? The blade of the 'Paratrooper Knife', reflecting the light from me and Shirley Yang, looked like a pool of autumn water wrapped in a silver gleam, arcing downward from above.

All this happened in an instant; Shirley Yang was also frightened by the sudden turn of events and cried out: "Be careful."

Seeing Pangzi swing his knife to stab me, I knew that if we really fought it would be hard to knock him down; I had to act fast without hesitation, so I immediately employed the 'Seize‑the‑Enemy' technique drilled in the unit—using advance as retreat, I flung my body at him, one hand gripping his right shoulder, the other forcefully lifting his elbow joint; before his arm could exert force to resist, I neutralized his power point, the moment my hands touched him I gathered all my strength into his right shoulder and drove my whole body forward, slamming Pangzi to the ground at once.

I seized Pangzi's 'Paratrooper Knife', clamped his body with my legs, leaving only his head above water, thinking for sure this fat bastard had been possessed by a fierce ghost; once the sky turned pitch‑black his true form would show, intending to harm our lives—if we had noticed even a moment later, perhaps Shirley Yang and I would already be lying dead here, and Pangzi wouldn't survive either.

I shouted at that 'Pangzi': 'You ghost‑turned whore, dare to harm people—take a black donkey hoof first!' As I spoke I reached into my carrying bag for a black donkey hoof, but found nothing; my glutinous rice was gone too—apparently I had tossed my share in the Lingyun Heavenly Palace, leaving me with nothing at all.

Pangzi continued to shriek with a ghastly woman's laugh echoing between the stone walls of the tomb passage; I shouted angrily: 'You damned thing, if you keep laughing don't blame me for getting rough—I still have a bunch of peach‑wood nails I haven't used yet…'

Shirley Yang, seeing me and Pangzi locked in combat nearby, noted that though the fight was fierce it was brief, yet something was very odd, and she blurted: 'Lao Hu, hold off on attacking—Pangzi is very strange.'

I kept Pangzi restrained while he thrashed and shrieked, and in the midst of the struggle I told Shirley Yang: 'He's certainly strange—he… he's damned‑well possessed by a ghost; you'd better think of a solution fast, I can't hold him.'

Shirley Yang said: 'It's not a ghost; it's a problem with his vocal cords or tongue. In ancient times the origin of head‑lowering technique lay in southern Yunnan, where there exists a kind of tongue‑lowering that controls a person's voice, similar to Thailand's tongue pot.'

While speaking, Shirley Yang had already produced a vermilion‑tinged 'Corpse‑binding Rope', intending to join forces with me to subdue Pangzi, then pry open his jaws to see what was on his tongue.

Having just seen Pangzi apparently possessed by a ghost and feeling anxious, hearing Shirley Yang's words I realized Pangzi really was odd: his mouth kept issuing laughter while his face showed stark panic, utterly mismatched with the ghostly chuckle—perhaps his consciousness hadn't been lost and he had just tried to draw his knife to cut his own tongue? I, however, took it as him trying to stab me with the blade and flung him to the ground; yet since he hadn't lost consciousness, why didn't he signal me openly instead of lurking behind causing trouble?

Realizing this, I immediately understood, stopped Shirley Yang, and saw no need to tie him up yet; knowing Pangzi's nature all too well, I yelled at him: 'You damned fool, are you crazy from poverty? I ask you—did you pick up something by chance from that shamanic robe?'

Pangzi gave a sinister, ghost‑tinged chuckle, then glanced askance at his own leather pouch on his chest, blinking repeatedly—that was the 'Hundred Treasures Pouch' we had picked up in the Fish Bone Temple, always carried by Pangzi. I immediately reached into the pouch, felt around, and pulled out a dark‑black object, narrow and flat, with a level end on one side and a rounded‑point tip on the other; to the touch it felt hard yet tough, its surface already somewhat jade‑like, and on the flat side were a few milky‑white specks that, illuminated by my mountaineering helmet's lamp, revealed a faint layer of reddish‑yellow hue.

For a moment I couldn't tell what it was, holding it up I wondered aloud: 'Is this some kind of jade? Black jade is quite rare.'

Shirley Yang replied: 'No, it's a human tongue… the tongue of a Shan‑female shaman from the Yi peoples.'

Having heard it was a human tongue, I nearly dropped it into the water in my haste; I quickly dried this blackened, jade‑like 'tongue' and tossed it to Shirley Yang, saying: 'I'm a bit allergic to this thing—you take it for now…'

Just as Shirley Yang was about to reach out to take it, a piercing, shrill laugh echoed from the depths of the tomb passage—roughly the direction of the underground palace—like the fierce ghost of the Heavenly Palace had already entered the lair of the Underworld Hall; Shirley Yang was also startled by that eerie laughter and jerked her hand back, causing the piece of 'tongue' to fall into the waist‑deep black water.