Chapter 188

Main Text Chapter 190 B Plan

Pangzi's expression was one of relief; I think this isn't his fault, he's been holding it in for so long, not bursting his bladder is already good. I saw Pangzi give me a wink; our little signal system is incomprehensible to outsiders, only I can understand. He's asking me, now that we've been discovered, what should we do? I pointed upward, signalling Pangzi to climb higher on the red pillar, climb a bit more, then wait for my signal to launch a sudden attack.

After I also shifted my angle behind the pillar, the guilt-eating hungry ghost had already tracked the scent over; I hid behind the pillar and saw clearly: this creature's mouth was covered in blotchy bloodstains, its face resembled a cat's, even closer to a leopard's, its body roughly humanoid, except it couldn't walk upright.

I secretly observed, feeling it resembled the musk rats commonly found in Tibet, yet unlike ordinary musk rats that look like black kittens, it was much larger and its whole body was white; in inland legends, some beasts that live long enough turn their hair white like humans.

But at this moment I couldn't dwell further; that white evil-ghost-like guilt-eating Baru had already arrived beneath the red pillar where Pangzi was, carefully sniffing the urine trail Pangzi had left. Since Pangzi had urinated through his pants, his scent was stronger, and the guilt-eating Baru sensed a richer smell above, so it wanted to lift its head and look up.

I thought if this creature lifted its head and saw Pangzi above, our surprise ambush plan would fail, so I stepped out from behind the pillar and suddenly shouted at the guilt-eating Baru: "Hey… have you never seen someone pee and poop anywhere?"

The white, fuzzy guilt-eating Baru was startled by the sudden sound, jerking its head back; its two eyes gleamed like bolts of lightning in the moonlight. I thought, "Your eyes are bright enough—let's see if they can handle this." I raised the Wolf Eye flashlight, its intense beam shooting straight into the guilt-eating Baru's eyes. The Wolf Eye is a tactical flashlight, usable not only for illumination and aiming, but its greatest feature is that at close range, direct frontal exposure can cause instantaneous blindness in the naked eye.

Some animals' eyes are extremely sensitive to light; that's why they can see their surroundings clearly at night. The more sensitive they are, the stronger the reaction when the Wolf Eye's beam hits them up close. The guilt-eating Baru was hit squarely, instantly losing its vision and emitting a series of eerie cries like an old mountain owl.

This trick works only once; I couldn't miss the chance, so I shouted at Pangzi on the pillar: "What are you waiting for? Hurry up and body-slam!"

Pangzi heard my signal, eyes closed, and jumped down from above, landing squarely on the guilt-eating Baru. If an ordinary person took that blow, they'd have Pangzi's guts forced out of their mouth, but this beastly guilt-eating Baru didn't care, struggling to get up. Pangzi shouted, "Commander Hu, this trick isn't working—this guy is really tough!" Before he finished speaking, he was flung off, Pangzi rolled twice on the ground to dodge the guilt-eating Baru's blindly swiping claws.

We wanted to seize the moment while its eyes were temporarily blinded to make a run for it, but our position was poor—the exit to the Guardian Dharma Hall was blocked by it. If we wanted to leave Guge Royal City, the only way down the mountain was this path; the other exit of the Samsara Temple is a rain‑eroded, salt‑corroded broken wall over ten meters high, impossible to descend in a hurry. If we kept attacking, we have no weapons; we wouldn't mind throwing rocks like the Jade Warriors of Wolf Tooth Mountain, but we doubt that would finish it off, and once its eyes recover we'd lose the initiative.

I glanced around, already forming a plan, I waved at Pangzi and pointed to the black iron door inside the secret cave; close that iron door first to keep it outside.

The two of us dared not make a sound, tiptoeing toward the secret cave, but we overlooked one problem: although the guilt-eating hungry ghost's eyes were still dazzled by the Wolf Eye's strong light, its sense of smell remained sharp, and the urine odor on Pangzi practically became our beacon.

The guilt-eating Baru had now recovered from the earlier flash‑blind panic; it seemed to erupt in rage at the sight of any living thing, charging straight at Pangzi. Seeing the situation turn bad, Pangzi and I took off running, but our bodies blocked the moonlight, leaving pitch black ahead. I tripped over a broken wall, planted a hand to push myself up to keep running, then felt something fuzzy under my right hand; I grabbed it and saw it was a black musk rat.

Pangzi clumsily followed behind me; I tripped and also dragged him into a stagger. I grabbed Pangzi's collar, struggling to rise from the ground, when I saw two cold lights flashing behind us—the guilt-eating Baru's eyes had fully recovered. I hurled the little musk rat at it; it seized the rat with its hand, clenched its five fingers, instantly crushing the musk rat, then tossed it into its mouth and began to chew.

I reckon this thing, whether zombie or beast, probably has a habit of not eating live prey—it must kill first, then feed. In these ruins of the royal city, though it looks deathly silent, many nocturnal or shadow‑dwelling creatures lurk, including musk rats and snow spiders; if we had touched just a snow spider earlier, we might already have been poisoned. The secret chamber behind the black iron door is unfathomable, but it's our only retreat; we must steel ourselves and duck inside first.

Pangzi and I retreated into the interior side of the iron door, not even having time to look at the space beyond, and hastily pulled the door shut. Pangzi saw the door's construction and immediately groaned: this door opens from the outside, there's no bolt inside, and you can't brace it with your body—you can only pull it backward, and even strength won't help.

Just then, a tremendous force from outside yanked the iron door open; Pangzi and I exerted all our strength to brace the two doors, and Pangzi said to me, "This trick isn't working either, Commander Hu—do we have any emergency backup plan?"

I told Pangzi, "We have a B Plan too—since we can't get out and can't stop it, let's just mess around with it, fight to the death."

Pangzi said, "You should have said that earlier—when it couldn't see, we ought to have attacked; now I might just let it come in. We've gone all‑in—beheading is nothing but wind blowing off a hat, let's go out and duke it out with it." He started to release his grip and open the door.

I hurriedly stopped Pangzi: "When did you become so earnest? I was just saying that—we need to preserve our fighting strength, we can't go head‑to‑head with this thing." I kicked the two iron chains on the ground; I'd hauled them in while running inside, having grabbed them from outside where they were locked to the Silver-Eye Buddha Statue outside, used to secure the iron door. Now I'd pulled them inward, effectively adding two lever arms to the door‑closing mechanism.

But I never intended to close the door from inside to keep the guilt-eating Baru out; the iron door is already a ready-made lever. I told Pangzi we would leave a gap in the door; no matter which part of the creature pokes in, you just wrap the iron chains around your waist and throw your weight backward with all you've got, no holding back, to crush it to death.

The guilt-eating Baru outside gave us no time to deploy; its claws slipped through the gap, prying the door open wide, its head and one arm already inside.

The timing was just right, and Pangzi and I shouted together: "Ura!" We exerted all our brute strength, tensed our muscles, pulled on the iron chain, causing the iron door to tighten quickly, and the creaking sound of bones being crushed came out. The sin‑eating Baru felt the pain, wanted to struggle but couldn't, its neck was jammed; even with immense strength it could not move, yet it refused to give up, one hand incessantly scratching at the iron door, while the half‑arm that had reached inside the door flailed wildly at us.

Pangzi, in order to muster full strength, lifted the silver‑eyed Buddha statue and wound the iron chain around his waist, but this shortened the distance—the Baru's claws already reached Pangzi's belly, only a few millimeters away from being disemboweled. I hastily pulled out a lighter, lit it and scorched its arm; the Baru was burned so badly it could not bear the pain, yet unable to move, it could only let out a desperate wail.

Pangzi and I had both been cadres of the Red Guard; in our bloodstreams one could say we had harbored a blood‑thirsty, destructive impulse since childhood, but in later years these impulses had been suppressed by social morality and ethics. Yet at this moment they were unconsciously stirred, awakening our primal bestiality: we treated the enemy with winter‑like harshness, the more painful the foe's screams, the more energized we became. After finishing the deed, looking back we thought ourselves frightening, but at the time we didn't think much of it—until the lighter's fuel ran out, scorching the Baru until its flesh was utterly shredded; the head and half‑shoulder it had thrust into the door were almost torn in two, dead beyond death, and only then did we stop.

Pangzi and I had just exerted all our strength; doing so at such a high altitude was dangerous, we felt our breathing begin to grow labored, and neither of us could move a step, so we lay down where we stood.

I lay on the ground and smelled no foul odor here; if this secret cavern really were the hell of the Reincarnation Sect, we ought to leave at once, for who knows what else might be lurking—but we were out of strength, and moving about while short of breath could provoke a severe altitude reaction, so I could only switch on my flashlight with one hand and shine it around.

The space inside the black iron door was filled with white bones on the ground—human and animal alike; the walls were riddled with caves of various sizes, small enough for creatures like musk rats to crawl through, large enough for a Tibetan horse bear to squeeze into, though their positions were high enough that ordinary people could not climb up; directly overhead was another cavern, its mouth an irregularly chiseled circle like a shaft, possibly leading to the palace on the mountain peak, where anyone who offended royal authority would be hurled down by the guards from above.

I was examining the terrain when Pangzi beside me said, "Commander Hu, look at what kind of skin this is?"

I exclaimed, "What kind of skin? Whose skin is it?" Glancing over, I saw Pangzi pull a huge swath of black, shaggy fur from beneath him; I took it and looked it over—it didn't resemble the hide of a Tibetan horse bear, nor human skin, the hair was too plentiful; perhaps it was the skin of a wild man?

I gave it a shake, and from the fur fell a piece resembling a human skull cap—like half a skull—but the bone layers were astonishingly thick, no human could have such thick bone; I gave it a squeeze and it felt soft, not like bone at all. Pangzi and I found it increasingly odd, so I shone my flashlight on it and saw that the surface was densely covered with what seemed to be many characters; although they were not the strange script of the dragon‑bone heavenly book, we still couldn't make out a single one.