Chapter 42: Raging Sea: Hair

That grave robber's tunnel was not far from the boat. I saw a large pit blasted into the seabed, and the tunnel was at the bottom of the pit. I thought to myself, this was indeed Third Uncle's doing. We searched around the tunnel first; there were no signs of collapse. It seemed Third Uncle's skill hadn't deteriorated.

I also saw several stone anchors, just as Third Uncle had described, but I couldn't be sure they were the ones he mentioned.

The traces of the underground palace that Third Uncle had mapped out were still there. Zhang Tu and I carefully noted them. Judging by the position of the tunnel, it seemed to be dug toward the side chamber; the bricks there should be relatively thin.

We searched for about five minutes, but it seemed there was no need to look further. Fatty waved at me, asking if we should go in now. A Ning checked her dive watch and nodded.

Our equipment now was much better than twenty years ago; we were all lightly equipped. At the entrance, we checked our gear and the agreed-upon signals one last time. Once everything was confirmed, Fatty steadied himself and was the first to duck in. We switched on our dive lights and followed, diving in five or six meters in one go.

This tunnel was very irregular, sometimes wide, sometimes narrow. As I swam, I looked at the tunnel walls; the more I looked, the stranger it seemed. It didn't look like it was dug by humans. If Third Uncle had dug it, he would have made each shovel stroke neat and tidy. But the marks on the wall were messy and pitted, more like an animal had dug it.

We swam with difficulty for over twenty meters. The light from the entrance could no longer reach us. At that moment, the tunnel abruptly changed direction and went straight down vertically. I couldn't help but find it strange. Since we hadn't reached the tomb yet, why change direction?

Unable to speak, I couldn't express my doubts. We rested for a moment at this vertical shaft. Fatty made a careful gesture to us and then swam down first. I watched his light go deeper and deeper until it became a tiny dot. I clicked my tongue in amazement, thinking, how could it be so deep?

Then he flashed his light from below, indicating it was safe. We immediately followed one by one. I looked at my dive watch; we were already over ten meters deep. I had never dived this deep before and didn't know if my body could handle it.

Down below, a large space had been excavated. We immediately saw the tomb wall, which had a large hole broken into it. I became even more puzzled: the hole was so irregular, not like the careful block-by-block removal typical of grave robbers. Some bricks were even cracked from impact. Fatty looked at me, and I looked back at him; we both blew a few bubbles. He pointed at the broken bricks and made a monkey gesture. I knew he was trying to say: this hole might have been dug by a sea monkey, not by grave robbers.

I nodded in agreement and pointed at the underwater gun on his back. He took it off, released the safety, and swam into the hole.

This was my second time entering an ancient tomb. Although I was a bit excited, recalling the previous experience made me feel uneasy. Especially underwater, the resistance on my limbs was great; if we encountered danger, I probably wouldn't be able to flee as quickly as on land.

The tomb passage was much larger than I had imagined. I turned up the brightness of my dive light and also switched on my waterproof flashlight. Following behind Fatty, our lights were very bright and illuminated a long distance; the whole passage lit up. I saw on the tomb wall the human face reliefs that Third Uncle had described. Not only that, but on the foreheads of these faces were carved strange animals, very finely detailed. As I swam and looked, the more I saw, the stranger it seemed. Most of these animals were tomb guardian beasts, but they all had no eyes carved, which looked a bit eerie.

At that moment, I suddenly saw that on the forehead of one of the human faces, it seemed to be carved with three snake-browed bronze fish. My heart tightened. I quickly tugged at Fatty to make him stop, and then studied that relief.

Fatty was in a hurry to go deeper and was very impatient. He didn't know what I had found. He turned around, glanced a few times, saw nothing noteworthy, and waved urgently. I asked him to wait, leaned in to look closely. I saw three snake-browed bronze fish connected head to tail, forming a ring. Each had a different shape. I could see that two of them were in my bag, and there was one with three eyes that I had never seen before. I didn't know what it signified. Below the fish, that face was different from the others; it was clearly a feminine face. But because a lot of things were attached to it, the face looked somewhat disfigured, making one uncomfortable.

I wanted to study it further, but A Ning behind me was urging me on. I had no choice but to continue swimming forward. Fortunately, that carving appeared again at intervals, so I could still take a few more looks. But after looking repeatedly, I didn't find anything more. I just vaguely felt that something was off.

As I watched, when I counted the fifth appearance of that face relief, I finally noticed the problem. I remembered that on the first stone slab, the face's eyes were closed. On the second slab, the eyes seemed to be opening a bit. By the third and fourth slabs, the eyes were opening wider. Now on this fifth one, the eyes were almost fully open.

I felt something was wrong. I grabbed Fatty and told him not to go forward. Then I took out the underwater writing board and wrote: 'The faces on the tomb wall are gradually opening their eyes. I'm afraid there's a problem!' After writing, I pointed at the wall. Fatty touched the face, shook his head, and wrote back: 'I didn't notice. They're just stone reliefs; inside is definitely solid rock. You're overthinking it.'

I shook my head firmly and told him to raise his gun. Seeing my serious expression, he complied. Soon after, I saw the same relief appear ahead. Fatty, a bit scared by what I said, stopped and first shone his light on it. That stone face's eyes were now fully open, the face facing forward with a straight gaze, looking somewhat dull. Fatty shone his light back and forth, but nothing changed. He plucked up his courage, went over, touched it, and then gave me an 'all clear' gesture.

I swam over and looked. It was indeed solid stone, nothing special. I poked its eyes with my finger, but no reaction. I shook my head in self-deprecation. It seemed this was just a trick by the tomb's designer to scare off possible grave robbers, or perhaps it had some special meaning. I had scared myself for no reason. How embarrassing. Fatty patted me, signaling me not to think too much and to hurry up.

We continued swimming forward. I remembered that Third Uncle had

My mind raced. Swimming straight ahead like this wouldn't solve anything—I had no idea where this tomb passage led; it might even be a loop. If we got lost in here, we were done for. I calculated that Third Uncle could see the last person in a single glance, so this must be a very long corridor. We'd turned several corners already, and there were only two such corridors in the whole place. Figuring out the way wouldn't be too difficult, but it would take some time.

Just then, Fatty up ahead stopped. I couldn't brake in time and bumped into his rear. Thinking something had gone wrong ahead, I tensed up and leaned in to look. It turned out the tomb passage had ended, blocked by a stone slab.

The stone slab was bare, with no writing or relief carvings. I felt around for a long time but couldn't find any mechanism. I scratched my head in frustration. A Ning wrote and asked me: "How can it be a dead end?"

I wrote back: "There's a hidden stone mechanism nearby. Let's look around for any loose sections of the tomb wall."

They all nodded. Fatty started tapping here and there, carefully examining the human-faced reliefs. I tried to recall all the clues I had noted down, even using my dagger to probe every gap along the edges. But there was no progress—the stone slab still stood there, immovable.

I felt a bit dejected and turned to see how Fatty was doing. I found him just standing there in a daze. I patted him and wrote: "Found anything?"

He looked at me with a strange expression and wrote back: "Do sea monkeys have hair?"

I had no idea why he was suddenly asking that, and I couldn't help but laugh. I honestly hadn't noticed whether sea monkeys had hair or not. As I recalled, their entire heads were bald and covered in scales.

I told him the truth and asked why he wanted to know. He pointed to a crack in the wall. Following his finger, I immediately saw a strand of black hair drifting out from the gap between the stone slab and the tomb passage.

I was stunned. How was this possible? Was someone leaning against the other side of the stone slab?

Fatty, being bold, reached out to tug at it. To our surprise, the hair suddenly retracted back into the gap. Fatty glanced at me and wrote: "There's a ghost behind the stone slab."