Chapter 15: Seven Stars: Fart

Immediately, we were plunged into absolute darkness. All around us, aside from the terrifying clucking sound, was nothing but the rapid beating of my own heart. During this time, all my attention was focused on that sound. I heard it getting closer and closer, and a very strange, fishy stench appeared in the air.

I was almost suffocating with fear. As the sound grew clearer, I felt like a death row inmate waiting for execution. Suddenly, in a daze, the sound disappeared! My heart skipped a beat. Had it discovered us?

After a full five or six minutes, an extremely eerie but clear "cluck" suddenly appeared right beside us, so vivid—my god, it was almost at my ear! My scalp instantly tingled and I desperately covered my mouth to keep from screaming. Cold sweat soaked through my clothes.

Those few minutes were sheer torment. My mind went blank, not knowing whether death or life awaited me. After about thirty more seconds, the sound finally began moving away. I sighed inwardly—thank goodness, there was finally a glimmer of hope. Suddenly, with a "pfft," some bastard actually farted at that moment.

The sound abruptly stopped. At the same time, the miner's lamp lit up, and I immediately saw a huge, monstrous face almost pressed against my nose. Two pupil-less eyes stared straight into mine. I was so startled I stumbled back several steps. Just then, Poker-face shouted, "Run!" Fatty, though seemingly clumsy, was actually very agile. He rolled on the ground, hoisted Panzi onto his back, and bolted. I followed behind, yelling, "Damn it, Fatty! Was that you who farted?!"

Fatty's face turned bright red. "Damn! Which eye of yours saw this lord fart?"

I said in annoyance, "I tell you, you're a real jinx!" Just then, Fatty up ahead suddenly shouted, "Ah~~!"

Startled, I was about to ask what he was "ah"ing about when suddenly my feet found nothing. I also yelled out "Ah!" The miner's lamp had been left behind, and after several turns I could barely see anything. It seemed the path had suddenly vanished. I couldn't see how deep it was below, and it felt like I was falling into a bottomless abyss.

But that sensation was quickly replaced by a sharp pain in my butt. As my head spun, a sudden flash of light came as Fatty turned on his Wolf-Eye flashlight. I looked and saw that this was another stone chamber, very crude, similar to the one where we had fought the corpse beetles earlier, but because of the different size, I knew it was definitely not the same one. However, Fatty was very tense and said, "What a small world! This place isn't going to be infested with bugs too, is it?"

I thought, with Poker-face around, at least we don't have to worry about bugs. I turned around—damn, he was gone! Had he taken a different path? I quickly tried to recall, but realized that in the confusion earlier, I hadn't even noticed whether he had followed us. Then I thought, that monster we faced—whatever it was—it wouldn't just let us escape. He must have stayed behind to hold it off for us. I had no idea if he would make it out alive.

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. At this rate, we'd all die sooner or later. Fatty inspected the surroundings, then put Panzi in a corner and sat down himself, rubbing his butt and saying, "By the way, I need to ask you something. Are you guys also here looking for the Ghost Seal?"

I was baffled. "Does something like that actually exist?"

Fatty listened carefully for a while; it seemed nothing was chasing us. He said in a low voice, "What? You don't know anything, yet you dared to come down into this tomb? Do you have any idea who this Lu Shang Wang was and what he did?"

Hearing this, I felt I might get some information out of him, so I asked, "Wasn't he just a minor feudal lord? I've only heard that he could summon ghost soldiers to fight."

"Bullshit," Fatty said, glancing at me contemptuously. "Let me tell you, this so-called Lu Shang Wang and his so-called summoning of ghost soldiers to fight is all a huge lie. The secrets hidden in this ancient tomb—if I don't tell you, you could guess until your head splits and never figure it out."