Chapter 160: Endless Dead Loop

Their faces were all ashen. We looked around, and the more we looked, the more certain we became. Our footprints were all over the ground. This was indeed the tomb chamber where we had found Shunzi's father earlier. But strangely, how had we walked back here?

The tomb passage was straight. When we walked, we didn't make a single turn. Four people and one corpse could all attest to that. Logically, after walking for twenty minutes, we absolutely should not have returned to the starting point. This was simply too bizarre—it was like a ghost wall.

Fatty was muttering uneasily. He looked at the entrance of the tomb passage we had come from and said, "Could it be that as we walked, we unconsciously turned back? Damn, this is sinister."

Panzi said, "No way. If we had turned back, it's impossible that none of us would have noticed. In my memory, we walked straight the whole time. The passage isn't long and has no forks. There's no reason for us to be mistaken."

Fatty said, "Then it's damn ghost wall. Shunzi, is your old man playing tricks on us? You need to teach him a lesson—we're on serious business here."

Shunzi was furious at Fatty: "Stop talking nonsense."

I stopped them. Now was really not the time for arguing. I was drenched in cold sweat because I felt that the thing I least wanted to happen might have already happened, but I still didn't dare be completely certain. I said, "Don't argue. There's only one way to see if we really turned back—let's walk it again."

They exchanged glances. Seeing my expression, they probably sensed something was wrong.

At that moment, I was already thinking of the expressions of those mummies—that despairing look. Could they have been trapped and died here in this way? Without food, no matter how they walked, they always returned to the same room. It was too bizarre. But my intuition told me I might have guessed right, and what had trapped them to their deaths was now happening to us as well.

What I had to do now was either confirm my premonition or deny this terrible feeling in my heart. So I impatiently walked into the tomb passage. The others quickly followed me.

Since we had already walked it once and confirmed there were no traps, this time we walked very quickly. I almost jogged at the front, my eyes fixed on the path on both sides, making sure there were no forks and that I hadn't inexplicably turned back.

This time, in less than ten minutes, we ran the entire distance. When I felt we were about to see the end of the passage, I was almost constantly praying, hoping my premonition wouldn't come true. But in the end, when I saw that almost identical jade gate, my heart immediately went cold, and cold sweat started pouring out involuntarily.

As we entered the gate, Fatty rushed to the gold mountain and then knelt down, covering his face. I ran up and saw six corpses and all the things we had laid out... We had returned again.

My premonition had come true. On the premise of being 100% certain that there were no forks or turning back, we had walked straight and still returned to the starting point.

Fatty was tired from running and panted heavily, "This is a ghost wall, absolutely a ghost wall. No matter how we walk, it's a loop. Both ends of this tomb passage lead to this chamber. This time we're going to see Shunzi's dad. Shunzi, talk to your old man—tell him not to mess with us, or we'll leave him here and go on our own."

Shunzi was already too astonished to bicker with him. I was also flustered, constantly turning to look at the walls around me, but I didn't know what I was looking for.

"Calm down! Calm down!" Panzi was panting heavily on the side. "Don't panic. Third Young Master, didn't you say yourself that Wang Zanghai's tricks are at most just little schemes to create psychological pressure? We must not fall for this even knowing that. Now we have to stay calm. There must be something wrong somewhere."

When Panzi said that, I suddenly felt as if I had been doused with cold water and became much clearer. The feeling of despair immediately faded. I quickly nodded and said, "You're right. This must be a mechanism. We confirmed in the Underwater Tomb that there's no such thing as a ghost wall. Wang Zanghai is good at using clever mechanisms to create an eerie atmosphere. If you don't know the details, it's easy to be led by the nose by him." As I spoke, I rubbed my face vigorously to free myself from that suffocating feeling.

Actually, I was saying these words to myself. After I finished, I didn't even know what I had said.

Later, when I thought back to this moment, I felt that I must have already sensed things were beyond my control and was using these words to hint to myself not to give up.

Because when I walked that tomb passage just now, the sensation was too real. I actually couldn't imagine how a mechanism could achieve this phenomenon. The first thing that came to my mind was the movement of the tomb chamber or the passage, but that was impossible. I immediately dismissed it. We were walking not slowly. If the chamber could move, how fast would it need to be? The passage was even more impossible—if we were inside it, any vibration would be detectable. But if it wasn't the passage or chamber moving, then this was inexplicable.

Although I kept telling myself it was a mechanism, in my heart I already knew something was wrong—this couldn't be explained by mechanisms. However, saying it out loud was still beneficial to the others, at least to reduce panic. But I underestimated Fatty and the others' psychological endurance. Panzi was much calmer than me. He wiped his sweat and asked me, "Regardless of whether it's a ghost wall or a mechanism, we have to deal with it. What now? Should we walk it again?"

I gritted my teeth. "Let's walk again! Damn it, this time we'll walk slower and carefully feel any movement under our feet or around us. I don't believe there's no flaw."

So we entered the tomb passage again. This time we walked for forty minutes, and before we reached the end we knew we had failed, because the tomb gate was exactly the same, and we had felt nothing along the way.

After that, we entered it again who knows how many times, all ending in failure. I gradually began to feel the despair of those corpses, and everyone's faces grew worse.

I felt that continuing like this was no solution. After returning to the chamber, I told them to stop walking. Since we had walked so many times, we had basically ruled out everything else. This mechanism must have been set up in a way we could never have imagined.

Fatty was almost exhausted, but he still insisted on continuing to walk. His idea was that perhaps at some moment the original tomb passage would return, and then we could escape.

When Panzi heard this, he only said, "Give up that hope. That original tomb passage will definitely not come back."

As he spoke, he glanced at the mummies on the side, the meaning clear: those mummies had walked into the passage countless more times than we had, yet they still died trapped. So walking the passage was useless. Even walking it ten thousand more times would be useless. We shouldn't count on such luck.

Fatty immediately deflated. He sat down and said, "According to you, we're done for, aren't we? These people here must have tried everything. If we do the same, it's useless too."

Panzi said, "Don't think like that now. If you think that way, you might as well just ram your head into a wall and die. Wait until we've done everything possible before giving up hope. Now while we still have strength, we should think of a way out."

I remembered the matter of corpse food and asked, "Should we ration the food now? We need to prepare for a long struggle. The longer we can survive, the greater our chance of getting out."

Panzi sighed and shook his head. "Third Young Master, to be honest with you, we're actually worse off than them. Our food is almost gone. At most, I see only two meals left, and not even enough to fill us. I think we don't need to ration. Eat as we need to keep our energy up. I reckon if we can't get out in two days, then there will be no other way left. We'll have to use explosives. If that doesn't work, then we'll just have to wait for someone to collect our corpses."

Two days. My heart trembled. How long had these mummies been here? Could we get out in two days? I really had no confidence at all.

Fatty's stomach was already growling. He asked Panzi, "Comrade cook, can we have an early meal? I want to deal with the thing that's distracting me first, so I'll have strength to think about other things."

When Fatty said that, we all felt hungry. Panzi had no choice but to light the stove and cook. Our food was actually just dry noodles left. They were okay when first eaten but wouldn't last long. Fatty complained about no meat. I said there were frozen ribs; if he could eat them and Shunzi didn't mind, then we wouldn't either.

After eating, our bodies warmed up and our spirits were high. We started pondering the problem. I recalled the entire process of descending into the underground palace—it had been extremely thrilling. I hadn't expected that even after entering the palace, things would still be unstable. This underground palace must have a central design concept by Wang Zanghai. What could it be?

The underground palace was arranged in a hui-shaped layout, with the spirit hall at the center—the most strictly regulated area. Wang Zanghai certainly wouldn't dare tamper with that. Elsewhere, around the hui-shaped palace, there were

I tried to estimate the vertical and horizontal distance we had descended, using my estimate of the size of the underground palace to determine my position, but this seemed very difficult. We had lost our bearings in that underwater passage, not knowing the direction, and heaven knows what direction the opening we finally came out of faced.

While I was rapidly racking my brains, Fatty, who was also pretending to think about things, suddenly had a look of sudden realization and said to us, "I've got it!"