Chapter 140: Interlayer

This was a completely unexpected situation; everyone panicked.

Panzi flipped up the folding shovel at his waist with one hand, jumped into the pit, swung it and chopped, but Fatty's feet were flailing around and he didn't hit, instead striking a rock on the side, sending sparks flying. Fatty saw how hard Panzi was swinging and yelled, "You son of a bitch, aim better! Don't cut off my feet!"

Panzi also yelled, "You son of a bitch, don't move, or I'll start from your thigh!" As he spoke, he swung again, but unexpectedly missed again.

Fatty yelled, "Switch! Switch! This guy has it in for me, he's taking personal revenge."

Ye Cheng and Monk Hua jumped down to help, trying to hold Fatty's legs. Unexpectedly, Ye Cheng hadn't even stood steady when he suddenly sank as well—another section of the stone corridor below collapsed, and he dropped down entirely.

This was just making things worse. Monk Hua quickly grabbed him, but he himself lost balance, stumbled, and bumped into my hand that was holding Fatty. Given my awkward angle, I couldn't get a good grip, and with the bump, I lost hold, and Fatty was dragged down entirely.

Things happened too fast, and with poor light, it was all so chaotic. A few people tumbled into a heap; Fatty rolled like a meatball and crashed to the bottom of the pit. Dragged by him, Panzi and I fell heavily onto the slope of the brick pit. At that moment I sensed something was wrong. Before I could stand up, I heard a continuous crackling sound coming up from under the brick layer.

My face turned pale upon hearing it—I was all too familiar with this sound. It was the sound of large-scale longitudinal cracking of frozen stone materials during building stress tests.

Before I could figure it out, there was a sudden jolt around us, and the whole pit sank sharply. The stone corridor below the pit collapsed. Before anyone could react, we all lost balance and slid down the slope like on a slide, wrapped in bricks, tumbling into the depression formed by the collapsed wooden corridor.

Before I could congratulate myself on my foresight, my butt went numb as I landed on a slope and started sliding straight down. Fortunately, I was tied with a rope, which held me tight and stopped me from sliding further. Then bricks from all sides came raining down on my head.

My butt hurt badly. Covering my head, I tried to sit up, but the slope was too steep; my feet couldn't get any leverage. I pushed aside bricks with my hands and asked if others were okay. No one answered; I only heard a series of curses and the clatter of bricks.

When the bricks finally stopped, I could lift my head. Looking around, it was a mess. Some flashlights were buried under the bricks, others had tumbled down the slope into the deep darkness. Fortunately, these German-made mountaineering flashlights were sturdy; not one had shattered. However, only faint light seeped through gaps between people and bricks, still not enough to see anything clearly. All around was pitch dark. Above, I could vaguely make out a large hole—the break in the stone corridor—where we had slid down.

This should be the space underneath the main hall of the spirit palace, suspended above the steep rocky slope. We had landed on the steep slope; if not for the ropes, we would have rolled all the way to the bottom.

Ye Cheng was hanging next to my head, quite battered. I grabbed him and asked if he was okay. He replied, "I've had lunch," clearly stunned by the impact.

Monk Hua shouted in the dark, "Careful, there might be a zombie here. Grab your weapons, get your hoofs out! Fatty, where are you? Is that thing still holding your foot?"

Fatty was at the very bottom; all of us and the bricks had fallen on him, and it was rough. His groans came from the pile of bricks: "Still holding on, almost up to my thigh. I've got him clamped. Hurry up and pull me out, dammit, or your Uncle Fatty's dick is done for!"

"That's my hand!" Panzi cursed from the side.

"Damn it!" Fatty said angrily. "You couldn't pick a better time to pull that pervy move?"

Without flashlights, those not pinned had to grope in the dark, pushing bricks down the slope. Panzi dug me out first, but his hand was clamped by Fatty and couldn't be pulled free. We kept digging, and soon Fatty was also dug out. Relieved, he gasped, "You murderous bastards really didn't hold back. Lucky I've got my holy fat, or I'd have been a goner."

Panzi had no time to bicker and said, "What about the thing on your foot?"

In the dark, Fatty moved his foot, seemed to feel around, and said, "Gone! Can't be still holding after that fall. Probably got knocked down the slope. How the hell can there be a zombie in a place like this?"

Monk Hua said, "It's definitely still nearby. Everyone be careful, grab your black donkey hooves, and let's find the flashlights first!"

I hurriedly felt under the bricks for a flashlight, fumbling without success. But Ye Cheng beside me found one and pulled it out of the pile, suddenly lighting up the area. He immediately shone it downward.

I was right below him, blocking the light annoyingly. Just as I wanted to tell him to dim it, I suddenly saw Ye Cheng's face turn green instantly.

Seeing his expression, I immediately started to break out in cold sweat, thinking, Could it be right next to me again? I gritted my teeth and turned my head, and abruptly saw, right by my shoulder, only a foot from my nose, a strange, dried-up, blue-purple face protruding.

I yelled "Ah!" in fright, recoiled, grabbed a blue brick with my left hand and smacked it. No idea if I hit, then turned and started climbing up.

By then, the other flashlights had been dug out, and suddenly everything lit up. I climbed a few steps up, but with Ye Cheng right above, there was no room to avoid him, and I slid back down. I looked to the side and couldn't help but gasp.

On the steep cliff beneath the spirit palace's main hall, rough terraced protrusions had been built. On these protrusions sat frozen blue-purple corpses, arranged almost neatly layer by layer, like arhat statues in a temple. They were huddled together, dense and numerous, with hideous faces. By their build, they had clearly frozen to death. All were seated in the lotus position like monks. The shadows stretched endlessly, and there was no telling how many there were.

Ye Cheng, the most timid of us, trembled and said, "Holy crap, is this a corpse depository for monks' golden bodies?" As he spoke, he seemed to go weak all over. Chenpi A'si held him steady, waved his hand, and said to him, "Don't be afraid, they're just corpses." Then he pointed at my feet. I looked down and saw, among the bricks beneath us, a mummy that had been crushed into powder.

"The dead here are frozen solid like stone, and crumble at a touch," Chenpi A'si said. "These things can't possibly turn into zombies anymore. There shouldn't be any zombies here."

"Then what was that thing that grabbed my foot?" Fatty asked Chenpi A'si. "Your foot might have just gotten caught on a corpse's hand by chance. Otherwise, if it were a zombie, do you think you'd still have your leg? If you don't believe me, look at your own pant leg."

Fatty looked down at his pant leg that had been grabbed. Sure enough, there was a torn hole, and a dry hand shaped like a hook was in the brick pile not far from his feet. I picked it up and looked; it was rock hard, impossible for it to reach out and grab someone's leg.

Instantly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Panzi even let out an exaggerated sigh: "With such little courage, you'd even mistake what you see."

Fatty was furious, but wanted to retort and couldn't find a reason, so he just sulked, muttering, "That hand really did grab my foot. I can't tell the difference between a hook and a grab? Whatever, don't believe it then."

We shone the flashlights around. This was the area under the main hall; the space was large, but because the corpses were densely packed, we couldn't see the end. Other than the corpses, there was nothing else suspicious.

Panzi asked Monk Hua, "How come there are so many dead people here? I've never even heard of this."

"Judging by the look, it should be a burial compartment. This... I completely don't understand. No imperial tomb from any dynasty is like this... Who are these dead people?" Monk Hua muttered to himself.

Suppressing my fear, I shone the flashlight on one of the dead. I found that the corpse's facial features were still fairly well preserved, eyes closed, face covered in wrinkles, but with no beard. The entire body was covered in a thin layer of ice. What was frightening was that the skin of these ancient corpses was blue-purple, and their mouths were wide open, revealing fangs.

"These might not be human," Fatty observed. "Look at those teeth—if they kissed someone, they'd scrape off their skin."

"Not human?" Ye Cheng's face went white again. "Then what? Monsters?"

"Could be legendary yetis, only these don't have fur," Fatty started bullshitting.

"Bullshit," Monk Hua barked. "Monsters or yetis? These corpses had their teeth filed down. That's an ancient Shamanic custom — later, it was too much trouble, so they used masks instead. These certainly aren't Ming Dynasty Jurchens. Look at the clothes on the corpses — all very primitive, not Jurchen or Mongol style. And see, some are wrapped in linen. These are mummies formed by ice burial."

I recalled the ice burial pits I'd seen the night we camped in Xiaosheng Valley. "Could these be the ancestral remains from ice burials that Wang Zanghai dug up when he excavated the mountain to build the tomb?" I said.

Monk Hua nodded. "Definitely right. This womb-shaped cave was probably a burial ground for ancient locals who practiced ice burial here. But Wang Zanghai's site plan turned it into a fake accompanying tomb. These corpses must have been dug out when the cave was excavated."

Fatty asked, "If it's really like you say, why not just burn them? What's the point of putting them here?" "Who knows? These mummies are so terrifying. Shamanism has many primitive, eerie rituals and curses, all said to require the use of corpses. This arrangement might be tied to shamanic sorcery. Maybe something weird will happen. Perhaps the reason we can't find our way out up above is because of these corpses. We'll have to be careful."

I remembered the corpse formation in the Qinling Mountains. It seemed any place packed with corpses had this kind of ghost-wall phenomenon. Could evil magic really be at work? Shamanism isn't a full religion; it's actually primitive sorcery — meaning it has practical value, closely linked to pharmacology and spiritual worship. My knowledge of Shamanism was limited to the dancing shamans in Qing dynasty palace dramas. However, it's said that shamanic sorcery, like Chinese Qimen Dunjia, was partially lost in history. Some good elements were absorbed into Tibetan Buddhism, while evil parts vanished suddenly. Ancient texts show many early shamanic rituals were extremely sinister and twisted, with much about curses and corpses, intricately connected to Gu magic. And the Ku people believed in Gu magic. Is there something in common between them?

After hearing Monk Hua's words, Fatty said in sudden realization, "No wonder I felt heat under my feet the whole time in this spirit palace, and felt uncomfortable all over. Turns out there's all these stiffs buried underneath. Old Man Wannu's heart really is rotten to the core."

Monk Hua said, "I'm just guessing too. The most important thing now is how to get out. Let's split up and look around — is there an exit?"

Then Monk Hua added, "But be careful. This place looks eerie no matter how you put it, so there'll definitely be safety hazards. And these cliffs are too steep — if something happens, there'll be no escaping."

Everyone agreed. Fatty couldn't wait any longer. A few of them unclipped their carabiners, picked up their flashlights, and spread out, carefully searching the steep canyon walls.

Walking among so many corpses wasn't pleasant, but oddly enough, the more corpses there were, the calmer you felt. Maybe when fear reaches a certain point, there's a sort of contrarian emotion.

The corpses were packed extremely tight, with no walking space between rows. We nearly had to squeeze through the gaps between the bodies. There were old and young ones, all frozen solid like purplish-blue rock. I saw some still wearing bronze ritual tools, all completely rusted green. Almost all the bodies' lower halves had fused with the rock beneath. To move one, you'd have to break it apart.

After searching for a while, I found nothing in my direction. Watching myself drift further from the others, I felt uneasy. I was just about to pretend I was done and go back to the hole to ask the others' results when I heard Panzi yell, "Fat ass, what are you doing?"

Following Panzi's voice, we looked toward where Fatty had been searching. We saw Fatty had stopped searching at some point, and instead, down among the pile of corpses, he was squatting facing us with a sinister look, expressionless, mouth open. At first glance, his face had taken on a purplish-blue tinge, just like the surrounding corpses. No telling what the hell he was up to.