Chapter 117: Mirror Palace

Dead bodies were the most ordinary thing for Chenpi A'si. Not to mention the dry and wet corpses dug out from the sand, even the people he had killed would be too many to count casually. When he turned over and saw it was a corpse, he felt relieved, thinking to himself: where did this poor devil come from to die here, already turned into dried squid, still scaring people.

Even as he thought this, Chenpi A'si still held that iron pellet in his hand. His skill of shooting iron pellets with his bare hand was something he had trained himself since childhood; it could be called a perfect shot every time. Moreover, the speed at which he flicked the pellet was extremely fast; an ordinary person might not even see his hand move before his eyes were blinded.

Looking at the Miao tribesman's attire, he had been dead at least two or three years, if not ten. His clothes were basically tattered, but fortunately a large amount of ferns and creeping vines had wrapped around him, preserving the characteristics of Miao clothing. Yet exposed to sun and rain, how had this corpse not rotted away completely, instead giving a somewhat dehydrated feel?

The corpse's belly was still heaving. The more Chenpi A'si looked, the more he felt something was wrong. A person like him had his own special way of doing things. If it were me at that time, I would have definitely turned and run. But Chenpi A'si had believed since childhood in striking first. As the thought turned in his mind, he had already shot three iron pellets in rapid succession—"pa pa pa"—all hitting the corpse's belly. He thought, no matter what you are, kill you first and talk later.

The iron pellets had tremendous force, almost cutting the corpse in two. As the lower half fell off, Chenpi A'si saw a mass of yellow non-lethal slime inside, wrapping a large number of eggs. Many of the eggs had already hatched, and piles of white worms writhed within. Around the edges hung something very familiar to him—honeycombs. Immediately afterward, a swarm of ground wasps crawled out from the tears in the corpse.

Chenpi A'si cursed, thinking, damn it, so ground wasps had made a nest inside the corpse. Ground wasps were highly venomous and extremely ferocious. Now he was in for trouble.

As he watched a black mist rise and the ground wasps begin to thicken, Chenpi A'si had a flash of inspiration. He pulled out his ever-present PLA folding shovel from his bag, fiercely scooped up a handful of wet mud from the ground, and slapped it over the corpse's broken opening, sealing all the emerging ground wasps inside. Then he turned and ran.

The ground wasps that had already burst out swarmed after him. He beat at them with his clothes while running around wildly. Fortunately his shovel move had been fast, so he only paid the price of a few welts. When he finally stopped, panting, and brushed off the remaining ground wasps on his body, he no longer knew where he had run to.

Chenpi A'si pulled out the wasp stings from his body, the pain making him grimace. He was still wondering how ground wasps could build a nest inside a human corpse. These poisonous wasps were usually underground, like ants. Deep in the rainforests of Guangxi, sometimes you could see beehives as large as hills; people mistook them for anthills and opened them looking for ants, and before they realized what was happening, they were wrapped up into a ball of bees.

In places like Guangxi and Yunnan, there were too many things about insects that the world did not understand. Chenpi A'si could only blame his own bad luck. As he treated his stings, he looked around. After climbing over a hill, he suddenly froze.

He saw a huge stone pagoda lying at the base of the hill in front of him. The pagoda body was estimated to be hexagonal (indistinguishable), majestic in scale, with dense eaves and wide beams. Scraping off the moss and tangled plants with a knife revealed exquisite relief carvings on the pagoda body. But clearly this pagoda

The pagoda body, top, and spire had all collapsed to the ground, broken into N sections. Because the body was too heavy, a large part of it was pressed into the rainforest soil, and countless trees beneath the pagoda were crushed.

Chenpi A'si was experienced and knew that a pagoda generally consists of an underground palace, a base, a body, a top, and a spire. The spire at the very top should have a Sumeru seat, upward lotus, inverted bowl, finial rings, and a jewel; some also add a canopy, halo, upward moon, and jewel above the finial rings. In short, there should be a spherical object on top of the pagoda, which was quite valuable.

He moved along the pagoda body to the edge of the spire. When the spire fell, it might have collided mid-air with a huge "spruce" tree, causing the spire to break in half and plunge headfirst into the ground. The Sumeru seat shattered. Chenpi A'si examined the damage and determined that the jewel must have become a "jewel pancake," completely ruined.

He returned to the pagoda base, where half of a broken wall remained. Climbing inside, he found a pile of rubble. Below must be the underground palace. Unfortunately, not only had it been sealed off during the pagoda's construction, but it was also buried under a large amount of debris and broken bricks from the collapse. With only a folding shovel, digging into the underground palace would take half a year.

Chenpi A'si looked at his compass. When he came down, it was dusk, and the sky was already very dim. Now the moon had risen. He hadn't lit a torch and had walked so far that he didn't know how to return. It seemed best to pretend to be lost and wait for the Miao people to rescue him. Thinking this, he first built a large bonfire at the pagoda base using broken branches and dead leaves to attract attention, then climbed to the highest point of the remaining base to see what the surrounding area looked like.

Based on what he had seen from "Wofo Ridge" and his current view, the area he was in should be the patch where the trees grew very chaotically. The ground was probably a bit lower than the surrounding area. This was because, when backfilling the "mixed fill" of the underground palace, due to Guangxi's special climate, the soil had too much moisture and hadn't compacted. As the moisture seeped down, many air bubbles formed in the soil, and when a major vibration occurred, the mud layer, like a leavened steamed bun, collapsed.

From this, Chenpi A'si deduced two things: first, the underground palace was large but not deep—it could definitely be dug into within twenty minutes. Second, the soil should be relatively soft and wouldn't consume too much physical strength.

At this point, he hesitated: should he open the underground palace now or come back later? It seemed that returning another time wouldn't be too difficult, but like all tomb raiders, Chenpi A'si absolutely couldn't suppress his curiosity knowing there was something down there. Finally, he gritted his teeth. "Mom's fart, screw it, I'm claiming whatever's down here. If those Miao barbarians find me here, I'll kill them all and throw them into the underground palace—no one will ever know."

Chenpi A'si unfolded the folding shovel. He hadn't brought a Luoyang shovel and couldn't locate the exact spot. Moreover, pagodas were rare—there were no coffins inside, so locating wouldn't help. Relying on instinct, he started digging a tunnel against the pagoda's base.

Soon he dug down to the ceiling of the underground palace. It wasn't stone but a whole tree trunk squared and made into a wooden roof. Overjoyed, he used a wire saw to cut off a corner. The fallen wood piece dropped into the underground palace, and soon he heard it land. He hurriedly shone his flashlight inside.

The "Mirror Palace" was symmetrical from top to bottom—meaning however many levels the pagoda had above, the underground palace had the same number below. Thus the underground palace was extremely deep. Looking down from above, there were no floors between the levels, and the very bottom was pitch black.

When the flashlight beam passed over, there was a white, mist-like something that was impossible to describe.

Chenpi A'si recalled what the Miao people said about an evil spirit being suppressed under the pagoda, and a trace of worry arose. But it vanished instantly. His blood was hot and his head feverish. Feeling that the air in the underground palace was fine, he hooked his legs over the curved wooden roof and, in an inverted hanging hook, lowered himself headfirst into the underground palace, putting all his weight on his two arches.

After hanging upside down, he first adjusted his position and shone the light on the other side of the curved wooden roof. This kind of underground palace was functional and wouldn't have mechanisms like ancient tombs or many decorations. Chenpi A'si looked around and found that on the other side of the curved wooden roof, on the ceiling, there was a large amount of scripture.

The scripture was carved into the curved wood and filled with vermilion lacquer. It was in Sanskrit. Chenpi A'si couldn't even recognize many Chinese characters, so of course he couldn't understand what scripture it was.

But he instinctively felt that it should be something like demon-suppressing or evil-subduing texts. He couldn't help but mutter to himself: Could there really be something sealed down here? Looking further down, he could see more clearly. Each level had a ring of protruding extension, and from top to bottom, they looked somewhat like stairs. On each level was a ring of life-sized painted arhat statues in monk robes, their colors flowing and exquisite. All the statues' faces were lowered, looking down at the very bottom of the underground palace. The whole underground palace had over ten levels, filled with arhats in various poses—at least a hundred of them.

The nearest arhat statue wasn't far from him. Hanging upside down, Chenpi A'si suddenly felt a chill when he saw the arhat's expression. It turned out that all the arhat statues had their eyes rolled up, revealing the whites, with an indescribably grim expression—different from the usual ones.

Upon closer inspection, he realized it was an illusion caused by the corneas being painted so realistically that the flashlight light reflected too strongly. But when his flashlight swept over them, the arhat statues instantly became ferocious, as if their expressions were changing, looking extremely terrifying. He really wondered if the designers had intended that effect.

So Chenpi A'si felt very uneasy looking at these arhats, and although he didn't understand exactly what he was afraid of, he began to have thoughts of retreat.

He continued moving his flashlight around below, trying to see something besides the arhat statues. Suddenly, his hand froze, and the flashlight's beam stopped at one spot.

On the protruding level about six or seven floors away, he spotted an unusual arhat statue. This one was different from the others: its face wasn't looking down, but raised, directly facing Chenpi A'si, staring straight into his eyes. When the flashlight illuminated it, a ghastly white face was revealed for a moment; if it hadn't been motionless, he would have almost thought he'd seen a ghost.

Chenpi A'si was suddenly terrified, cold all over, and couldn't move at all. He felt his legs begin to weaken and himself start to slide down.

Speaking of ghosts, Chenpi A'si wasn't really afraid. He had killed so many people; one could say he was extremely guilty. Why hadn't any of them come for revenge? But people of his era were all somewhat superstitious. Chenpi A'si believed that he had managed to get by all these years thanks to his ancestors' protection.