Chapter 164: Rhino Horn Lamp

Thinking back, I had no idea how frayed my nerves must have been to say those words so earnestly and then use lip reading to prevent the ghost from hearing—under normal circumstances, or even with a little less pressure, such a thought would never have occurred to me.

This was actually inevitable: after all the time and countless experiences we had endured to reach this point, we found ourselves trapped in a hopeless situation without any discernible cause. Not to mention the long road ahead and the question of how to return, the immediate predicament had clogged our thinking, leaving many problems unconsidered and unseen.

In hindsight, I could have thought of many solutions—for instance, using the compass and watching the needle's changes as we walked through the tomb passage; the moment we reversed direction, the needle would definitely move. But at that moment, aside from a few fixed thoughts, my mind was a complete blank. That was why I ended up attributing the possibility to a ghost's trick, and at the time it didn't seem ridiculous or absurd at all—it even felt a bit eerie.

Fatty and Shunzi were even worse off than me. They were completely infected by my expression, their faces turning pale one by one as they swallowed their saliva. Fatty also used lip language and said, "Are you sure? I told you so… So what do we do now?"

My thought at the time was that the logical basis of this tomb passage was untenable, so the cause of this phenomenon must be unrelated to logic. But if it wasn't a dream, everything else was bound by logic. That meant what we were seeing or hearing was likely an illusion, making it hard to say what our surroundings actually were. The only way four people could simultaneously experience an illusion, I believed, was the power of an "evil ghost." Only an "evil ghost" could defy logic and trap people so flawlessly with no loopholes.

Here, "evil ghost" was just a convenient term to refer to any force beyond our understanding—a force that clearly must exist.

But if there really was a "ghost," we were helpless because we couldn't see it and naturally couldn't deal with it. Even if we cursed or tried any method, it would have no effect at all. This became one of the situations I hated most: knowing the problem was all around us, yet being unable to fight it, with no point of leverage.

At the time, I also had a very naïve thought: we didn't know what kind of force this was. If it was unconscious, that was troublesome—it had no mind, so even if we used tricks, nothing would work unless we could directly confront it. If it was a vengeful ghost, it would be easier because it could think, and we could force it to reveal itself and make mistakes.

After discussing it repeatedly, Fatty insisted that the ghost was very likely one of the dried corpses in front of us. Perhaps someone's soul couldn't let go of worldly affairs and was still wandering here. Seeing people to keep it company, naturally it wanted to play tricks, but we didn't know which corpse it was.

Fatty first ruled out Shunzi's father—after ten years without seeing his son, the old man wouldn't joke with his son's life—so it had to be one of the other six.

By then I already felt a bit ridiculous, but we were at a dead end and had to try anything. So I walked up to the corpses, made everyone kneel, folded a few paper gold ingots from scrap paper, and burned them one by one for each corpse. While burning, I kowtowed and said, "I am Wu Sansheng's nephew. I need to find my third uncle urgently. Whoever among you is casting a spell, please accept the paper money and let us go. We're really in a hurry. If not, keep this Fatty here to play with you and let the rest of us out."

Fatty flew into a rage when he heard that. Panzi and Shunzi immediately grabbed him from both sides to hold him still. Fatty yelled, "Wu Xie, you despicable bastard! I'll bite you to death!"

After I finished reciting, I looked around. Nothing changed at all—the corpses didn't change either. Realizing it was useless, I waved for them to release Fatty. Fatty nervously scanned the surroundings and found nothing different, then sneered, "See? Uncle Ghost is fair. He doesn't care for your lousy money."

I replied, "Maybe he doesn't care for you either. Honestly."

Shunzi then spoke up, "No, maybe we should think differently. Look, my father is here. Even if someone wanted to harm us, my father would help. Now it's useless, so maybe the one causing trouble isn't any of these people."

Under normal circumstances, such a childish statement would have made me laugh, but now I listened seriously and even considered its possibility. After thinking, I said, "Maybe your father has already left, or there's more than one culprit and he can't fight them. But I also suspect it might not be any of these people. These are all adults, and they had good relationships with my third uncle. They wouldn't play pranks or pull this kind of trick. It might be a small ghost whose corpse isn't here."

Saying that, if it really was as I described, it would be hard to handle. Because we couldn't see where the ghost was—it might be clinging to our backs and we wouldn't know. Not being able to see it meant we had no way to start. Thinking this, I sighed and asked, "Does anyone have any method—even a folk remedy—to see ghosts?"

Panzi said, "I heard that if you smear cow tears on your eyes, you can see ghosts." Fatty laughed and said, "Well then, the task of finding a cow is entrusted to you."

"No, maybe we don't need cow tears to see," I suddenly recalled a method. "But Fatty has to make a sacrifice."

Fatty tensed up. "You're not thinking of killing me and sending my soul to negotiate with the ghost, are you? I won't agree. If you kill me, I'll definitely conspire with the ghost and make things even worse for you!" The guy had come up with yet another idea. I was exasperated. "Where are your thoughts going? I just want to borrow your *mojin* talisman."

"What do you want to do?" Fatty clutched his chest. "This is genuine stuff. Can you afford to damage it?"

"A *mojin* talisman is the most evil-repelling thing in the world. If it were genuine, how could we have ended up in this situation? I've already looked at it—it's fake," I said. "Hurry up and give it to me."

"Fake?" Fatty took it off and examined it closely. "Are you sure?"

"Of course. It's made of rhinoceros horn. I'm in this business—how could I not know? Look, a genuine pangolin-scale *mojin* talisman gets darker with wear. See your rhino horn? It's already turning green. I wouldn't lie to you."

"Damn! No wonder I've been so unlucky!" Fatty cursed angrily. "That bastard cheated me again! No wonder it never worked. If Fatty gets out of here alive, I'll tear his shop apart or I'll change my surname!"

I took the *mojin* talisman from Fatty, comforted him a bit, and then he asked me what I planned to do with it—whether I was going to press it on a corpse's forehead.

I said, "There's an old legend called 'Rhinoceros Candle Reveals Spirits.' Have you heard of it?"

Fatty was puzzled. "Isn't that the Hong Kong movie from a few years ago?"

"Something like that," I nodded. "If you burn this thing and use the light, you can see ghosts. Of course, I've never tested it, so I don't know if it's true."

At that point, I felt absurd myself, but since cow tears had already been mentioned, why not rhinoceros candle? It was like grabbing at straws when desperately ill. Before Fatty showed up with his idea, mine was the only feasible option—I had to try it.

There's a record in the *Book of Jin*: "Jiao returned to Wuchang. At Niuzhu Jetty, the water was so deep it couldn't be measured. People said there were monsters beneath. Jiao then lit a rhinoceros horn to shine on the water. In a moment, he saw aquatic creatures emerging in strange shapes. That night, he dreamed someone said to him, 'We are separated by the realms of light and darkness, but you have illuminated us by your intent.'" The general meaning is that ancient Chinese believed burning rhinoceros horn could illuminate spirits and monsters. Maybe the old saying has some use.

Saying this, I took out the smokeless stove and placed the *mojin* talisman on it to burn. At first, it wouldn't catch, but then a strange odor began to emit, and peculiar light flickered in the green flames.

I lifted the smokeless stove, raising it high to illuminate as much area as possible. We all turned our heads, searching for anything that hadn't been there before. We walked around the tomb chamber but found nothing, and the others saw nothing either.

"Maybe the ghost is hiding far away," Shunzi said.

"No, the legend says if it's a ghost blocking your way, it's clinging to your back." We checked each other's backs again, but still nothing. Fatty muttered, "Damn it, I told you that old legend is worthless. Waste of my *mojin* talisman—didn't reveal a thing."

Panzi sighed in defeat, "Looks like this trick is useless too. Probably there's no ghost. We've run into the fifth scenario: no logic to follow, not a single clue, not even a reference point. What should we do now? This time we might really be done for."

I sighed inwardly and was about to speak when Fatty suddenly made a silencing gesture. Panzi also signaled for everyone to shut up. My eyelids twitched as I followed Fatty's gaze upward. There, on the ceiling of the tomb chamber, a black "child" vaguely appeared.