Chapter 159: Shadow Path

Shunzi and Panzi were stunned speechless, muttering to themselves, "Holy shit, what's going on? Did we take the wrong door?"

"No!" Fatty and I, having experience, immediately understood what was happening: "The tomb passage shifted. While we were in the tomb chamber, the old passage moved somewhere else, and a new passage moved here."

"They can do that?" Panzi's jaw dropped.

"Yes!" Fatty and I both nodded emphatically, thinking to ourselves that there was much more to it—in a tomb designed by Wang Zanghai, anything could happen, and there was no need to be surprised.

I felt a bit scared but also somewhat relieved, because once the passage changed, I suddenly understood why Shunzi's father and the other mummies had been trapped alive in the gold. If you didn't understand Wang Zanghai's schemes, the bizarre shifts in the tomb chambers and passages here would drive anyone mad. We had nearly lost our minds to the tricks in the underwater tomb, but once we understood the principle behind the sudden passage shifts, it wasn't frightening at all.

With this change, the crossroads we came from must have vanished, and going back was impossible. Though I didn't know what lay at the end of this new passage, if we stayed put, our fate would surely be the same as those corpses.

At that moment, I figured the worst case was that the passage ended in a dead-end with nothing there—no big deal. The corpses trapped here probably faced the same situation: no explosives, the path they came from suddenly disappeared, naturally leaving them at a loss, with that look of despair on their faces.

Thinking back on it later, I was still too naïve. The depth of despair on those corpses' faces indicated that the situation they encountered was far more bizarre than I imagined, and my thoughts back then were far too simplistic.

The situation was far more bizarre than I could have imagined, and what I had thought at the time was far too simplistic.

I shared my thoughts with the others and explained the principle of the passage shift to Panzi and Shunzi. They finally caught on, wearing expressions of "so that's all it is," but Panzi thought further ahead and said, "If that's the case, theoretically the structure of this underground palace would be infinitely complex. Would we end up like being trapped in a Rubik's Cube—once we enter, we can never get out?"

I told him not to worry: "Probably not. Honestly, Wang Zanghai's tricks are just meant to put psychological pressure on tomb raiders. It's not easy to actually trap someone to death. I figure most of them died from mental breakdowns from the torment."

Anyway, we had to walk this newly appeared passage and figure something out. If we really couldn't find a way out, as Fatty said, we could first determine a direction and then blast our way out step by step. Now that we had explosives, we had much more confidence.

With that, I took the lead into the passage, and Fatty and the others followed closely. Immediately, I felt something was off. The murals on both sides were too creepy—so many large-headed shadows, as if these things were standing all around us, making it extremely uncomfortable. I suddenly wondered if at the end of this secret passage there was actually one of these things, and when its shadow fell on the wall, we would definitely not notice.

But since we'd already entered, backing out would be too embarrassing. I had to steel myself and walk at the front, trying not to think about these things. Soon, the tomb door behind us was out of sight, and we were in a place with no visible end in either direction.

Panzi, walking behind, asked Shunzi about his father and the expedition team. Shunzi told him a bit, and Panzi said to us, "Just now, all the stone seals we passed had blast holes from directional explosives—the latest technique. That means they didn't come in the same way we did. It seems there's definitely more than one way out of here."

I said, "Definitely. Look how fast A Ning and her group moved. They took a different route and still got here before us—that tells you something. We lost out because we had too little intel." But I had no idea where A Ning and the others had gone. They must have reached that treasure chamber too. Did they also encounter the passage shift? Did they enter the same passage as us? And what about Third Uncle—was it the same for him?

I had no confidence at all. We had followed Third Uncle's signals into the underground palace, but there were no follow-up signals. It seemed that after entering the palace, even he might have been flying blind.

Talking as we walked, after about twenty minutes, the flashlight beam ahead showed a reflection, indicating the end of the passage. We all tensed up, immediately quieted, slowed down, and crept forward bit by bit. Soon, another jade door appeared at the end of the passage.

When the door first came into view, I was jolted—it was identical to the previous one. But then I thought, in ancient tombs, most doors were made by the same craftsman, so of course they'd look similar. The stone was still of high quality, and there was also a hole blasted through the bottom, just like before.

It seemed someone had been here before. That was good—whoever it was, it was a good thing for us. At least it proved there were no traps.

We filed through again. Since we didn't have many cold flares left, Fatty didn't use one this time; instead, he lit several fire sticks. We looked around and were taken aback.

Behind the door was a room identical to the previous treasure chamber. Piles of gold and silver treasures formed small mountains, and four massive pillars stood in the four corners—the layout was almost exactly the same.

I thought to myself that this underground palace had more than one such room. How much treasure was piled up here? No wonder the Dongxia Kingdom, despite its weakness, could still build such a magnificent tomb palace—they had hoarded so many treasures. It seemed all authoritarian regimes had this trait: Genghis Khan's treasury lies beneath the Mongolian grasslands, Hitler's Nazi gold is rumored to be buried in Tibet, and the Jurchen Great Jin's Yelü brothers' treasure is right here.

As I was lost in thought, Fatty suddenly yelled my name, startling me.

I thought something had happened and looked over. He was standing on a gold mound, mouth wide open, trying to speak but choking on his words. I hurried over and was also shocked to see several corpses curled up among the treasures.

I asked in confusion, "Shunzi, how many fathers do you have... no, how many people were in your father's team?" Before I could finish, I saw something that made my blood run cold. Next to the corpses, neatly placed among the gold items, was a row of objects. I shone my light on them—they were exactly the same items we had sorted out in the other treasure chamber, in the same order and category.

Fatty couldn't take it anymore and lit a cold flare, illuminating the entire chamber. We went down and took a closer look. These were clearly the things we had just taken out.

Fatty exclaimed in horror, "What's going on? This... someone is imitating our actions...?"

I frowned, stood up, and looked around the room. A familiar feeling washed over me, and I said dumbfounded, "No... we came back to the same place ourselves. This is where we started!"