Chapter 302: Pitfall

"What is it?" I asked.

"Don't know. It's right at the edge of the pit." Fatty looked at me and suddenly said, "A thief never returns empty-handed. There might be something good. I gotta go down and check it out. Wait for me a few minutes."

I was furious, but now I was the only one here. He wouldn't listen to me, telling me to hold Poker-face while he went into the water to search. There was nothing I could do except tell him to hurry.

But it wasn't easy. Most of the tiles were buried beneath the fragments. Searching through the pottery shards wasn't like in the sea where the sand was soft. Here, the shards were sharp, and being at the mouth of the pit, any movement sent them sliding inward, making it hard to keep balance. The surface ones were okay, but digging deeper was very difficult. Sometimes you'd spot a shard you wanted to turn over but couldn't pull it out, as if it was rooted there.

After digging a few times, Fatty seemed to have found his target. He surfaced for air, then dove back down, forcefully thrusting his hand into the hollow he'd dug among the shards, prying outward. He hadn't pried twice when suddenly he shuddered and yanked his hand back, blood streaming from it.

"Damn it!" I thought with alarm, wondering if he'd been bitten by some kind of king. But I saw no sign of poisoning in Fatty; the wound just seemed quite deep. He sucked on it once, switched hands, and forcefully pried again, pulling out that bone, then surfaced.

"What happened?" I asked from the side.

"Son of a bitch, this bone seems to have thorns. It hurts like hell." Fatty sucked on his finger while shaking dry the skull he'd fished out, signaling me to shine the miner's lamp over.

I muttered, "See? You brought this on yourself." I walked over to give him light. Just as I reached his side, I suddenly heard a series of dull gurgling sounds beneath me, followed by a string of bubbles rising up.

Both Fatty and I were startled. The bubbles paused for a moment, then another series of gurgles came up.

"Holy crap, damned if I can't admire you. Your fart is like a rocket launcher—and a burst fire at that. That's some serious noise." Fatty covered his nose.

I was baffled too. I looked around and said, "Screw you, I didn't fart."

"If you didn't fart, why is it so stinky? What kind of smell is this? Even shit would be asphyxiated by you." Fatty frowned.

There was indeed a stench around. I smelled it and was startled—this was definitely not the smell of a fart. Though I couldn't place it at the moment, my subconscious told me something was wrong, as if trouble was coming. I was about to say "let's go" when suddenly I lost my balance. Water splashed, and as if stepping into a void, I sank straight down into the water.

That was extremely sudden; in an instant the ground beneath my feet vanished. My first reaction was that I'd slipped, so I kicked my legs trying to stand again. But then the whole underwater area erupted in bubbles. The pottery shards under my feet started moving, sliding straight toward one spot, making it impossible to stand steady.

I was terrified. I immediately realized what was happening and quickly pulled up my legs, turning over to dive underwater. Fatty also dove in, and we plunged into the water.

Sweeping the miner's lamp around, I saw that the bottom beneath my feet had collapsed. A huge hole had opened up, connecting with the pit next to it, forming a very large deep hole. All the surrounding shards and bones were sliding toward the bottom. Turning back, I saw Poker-face being dragged into the pit by the collapse. His legs were tightly wrapped in the shards, unable to pull free, as if something was grabbing his feet and pulling him down, trying to drag him to the bottom.

Just now we hadn't paid attention to Poker-face. Actually, it was always him looking after us; we weren't used to looking after him. Seeing his legs trapped in the fragments, already up to his thighs, it was clear he'd been caught in the collapse the moment it happened. He gave no reaction, blankly letting himself sink with the tiles.

Seeing that he was about to be swallowed into the pit, Fatty and I quickly went to help. Each of us grabbed one of his hands and pulled upward. Fatty couldn't use much strength with one hand, so he bit the miner's lamp and used both hands. The two of us kicked hard in the water and pulled him out.

In a situation like this, if he were alone he'd be dead. But with two or three people, it wasn't a big accident. Poker-face was lifted up and started coughing. Fatty said, "See? I told you your farts are powerful. They blew a hole right through the bottom. Next time you're about to fart, remember to give a warning so you don't hurt others."

Gasping for breath, I cursed, "You're still picking on me at a time like this? Later I'm gonna settle this with you."

"Look at you. Not the least bit humble about taking advice!" Fatty shined the miner's lamp at the bottom. The collapse below slowly expanded, but some of it stopped. Soon a hole about half a basketball court in size appeared before us, pitch-black, like a huge mouth ready to swallow us. Bubbles occasionally rose from below, and a foul stench filled the air.

I remembered that this was the smell of marsh gas. This hole must have existed originally. Perhaps there had been wooden beams or something on top that, even after decay, still maintained a fragile balance. Without external force, that balance could last a thousand years. But once any disruption occurred, the beams would collapse. The pit that formed might have been caused by a beam breaking, and Fatty digging tiles at the edge triggered a chain reaction.

"Son of a bitch," Fatty said, "how come it seems like everything under here is hollow?"

It shouldn't be deep, but the water had been stirred up and was murky, so we couldn't see the bottom. I said, "Below might be a false floor built earlier to prevent ghost-head jars." Seeing him walk toward the edge again, I said, "Be careful. A moment ago I stepped on solid ground and suddenly it collapsed. Damn it, maybe the whole area under here is empty. Now that a piece has caved in,

"As long as you don't fart, we'll be fine," Fatty said. "Hey, what's that?"

I followed his flashlight and saw something floating up from the pit.

"Back off," Fatty warned. I pulled Poker-face back reflexively, and Fatty focused the miner's lamp on the thing.

Those things came up quickly, soon surfacing at the opening. By then we could see clearly: they were rotten wood and branches, mixed with a lot of unidentifiable cotton-like debris.

These must have been sediment trapped under the mud, stirred up by the falling pottery shards, along with plenty of muddy water. For a while, visibility near the opening kept getting worse.

Fatty fished out a few pieces, branches tangled with trash, covering his hand with stinking mud. He tossed them far away and said, "Damn, we've churned up the bottom muck of this mud hole. Stinks to high heaven! Could this be an old cesspit?"

I said, "Your family would use a cesspit this big? If you took a crap here, a slip could kill you instantly. Could you even manage to shit in it?"

Fatty was just being ridiculous. If this were a cesspit, crapping would be more nerve-wracking than bungee jumping. I doubt even elephants would use it. The ancestors of the Queen Mother of the West couldn't have tortured themselves like that, could they?

"Maybe the queen wanted her people to stay vigilant in times of peace, so she made them keep full alert even while taking a dump," Fatty said deadpan.

I knew Fatty was joking, but I couldn't laugh at all. The stench was overwhelming—it had to be the accumulated odor of rotting human heads.

I urged, "Let's go, it's too dangerous here!" We covered our noses and were about to leave when Fatty fished out something else from the water. This time it wasn't a branch. He "huh'ed" and held it up: "Holy shit, look at this!"