Chapter 86: Thousand Coffin Cave

I hazily opened my eyes and found myself lying on the ground, surrounded by pitch blackness. I touched my wrist; the flashlight tied to it was gone.

My body rested on a cold, flat surface, and beside me there seemed to be the sound of flowing water. What place was this? I took a deep breath, and memories began to appear in my mind bit by bit—the waterfall, the boiling hot spring, the corpse hanging from iron chains. Suddenly a white flash passed, and the scene from before surfaced in my mind.

I seemed to have fallen straight down the cliff along with the water, and then plunged into a pool below. The water was ice cold, completely different from the boiling hot spring. At the moment of entry, my ears suddenly went quiet, and then I remembered nothing else. I guessed I had hit something when I fell into the water and knocked myself out. Falling dozens of meters into water, if your posture is wrong, it's no different from hitting concrete pavement.

I touched myself; I was still wet. Had I been carried here by the current after falling down the waterfall, or was I simply dead and arrived at the underworld?

I tried to stand up, but as soon as I raised my head slightly, there was a thud as my head hit something. The pain made me see stars. I quickly felt with my hand; above me seemed to be a flat panel. I wondered, why was it so low here? Had I been swept into a crevice between rocks or under a boulder?

I felt around and realized it wasn't that. All around me within a foot were rough wooden planks. I knocked; behind them was hollow. In such a small space, I could only turn over while lying down, unable even to raise my head or stretch.

I pushed against the top to check the thickness of the boards, but found that the top board could move. I pushed with effort, and with a bang, a ray of light suddenly appeared in the darkness. I raised my knees, gently moved the board aside, and sat up. When I looked outside, I was stunned.

This was a white marble stone chamber, with torches burning in each of the four corners, illuminating the surroundings brightly. I looked up at the ceiling, which depicted two intertwined pythons. And I was sitting inside a coffin! The coffin lid was tossed aside by me.

Damn! What place was this? Who put me in a coffin?

I stepped out of the coffin and looked around, growing more and more puzzled. The white marble material, the python-carved ceiling—almost identical to the tomb chamber of the Underwater Tomb. Could this place also be connected to Wang Zanghai?

I walked around a bit and found even stranger things. At some point, someone had changed my clothes into a rubber suit similar to a wetsuit, the kind divers wore in the 1980s. I became even more curious—where the hell did they get such an old-fashioned outfit?

I pulled a torch from the corner and walked out of the chamber. Outside was a corridor. One look and I gasped, "Ah!" Good heavens! A straight white marble corridor leading to three jade doors at the end—exactly like the Underwater Tomb!

What was going on? How had I come back? My scalp tingled and my thoughts became chaotic. Was this really a tomb chamber that looked like the Underwater Tomb, or had I never left the Underwater Tomb at all? My god, what exactly was happening? I rubbed my face hard, raised the torch higher, and carefully examined the surroundings, trying to find any flaw. If it was a similar tomb chamber, there must be something different.

Above the corridor was a wooden framework, like scaffolding, with planks laid on it, forming a crude bridge across the corridor to avoid triggering traps. I didn't know who had set it up. I carefully climbed up and crossed to the other side. In the middle, the jade door of the rear hall glowed with torchlight, while the left and right side halls were pitch black.

At this moment, I thought of Old Yang. He had jumped down with me from the waterfall. I fell into the pool and was unconscious for so long, ending up in this inexplicable place. What had happened to him?

Thinking this, I walked toward the door from which the firelight came. The light was quite bright, seeping out from under the jade door. As I reached the door, I heard sounds from inside. When I pressed my ear to the door, I heard a cough.

Then a person's voice said, "What should we do? Open the coffin or not?"

Another voice, sounding very reluctant, said, "Third Uncle said not to touch anything here for now. Let's listen to him."

As soon as I heard these two voices, I froze. The first speaker was Poker-face, but I couldn't recognize the second. What? Had he also come to this place?

But what surprised me even more came next. I immediately heard a third person's voice. That person said, "Wu Sansheng is still sleeping; we're just opening it for a look. What harm could it do? I'll stand with Little Zhang."

I didn't fully understand what they meant, but the third person was unquestionably a woman.

What did these words mean? It sounded like Poker-face wanted to open a coffin, while another person was hesitant because of Third Uncle's warning. Then a woman stepped up to support Poker-face. I was completely bewildered; had Poker-face already found Third Uncle?

While thinking, I crouched down and peered through the crack in the door, trying to see who was speaking inside. Unfortunately, the view through the crack was limited. I only saw the back of a woman, wearing a wetsuit the same color as mine, with a petite figure and a large braid.

Then I heard a fourth voice say, "What about Qi Yu? That kid is really something, running off to who knows where. Are we just going to leave him here?"

Hearing this, I was suddenly stunned. Qi Yu—that name sounded very familiar. It seemed to be one of the names on the list at the beginning of Third Uncle's notes. Wait, no?

I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Qi Yu—this name wasn't just familiar; it seemed I had heard it often. I had a very peculiar feeling. At that moment, the woman in the crack moved a step, clearing a space. I suddenly saw Poker-face standing beside a black coffin, holding a crowbar. Then a woman walked over. When I saw her face, I was so shocked I almost dropped the torch in my hand.

That person—wasn't it Wenjin? Oh my god, what was going on? Although I had never seen her in person, Third Uncle had many photos of her that I had often seen, so I recognized her at a glance. No doubt about it.

My confusion had reached its peak, and I almost pushed the door open to ask them clearly. But just then, I heard a man say, "This underwater tomb is so huge; it's no easy task to find him. I think we should just give up and carve marks along the way. If he sees them, he'll naturally follow."

"That's the only option now. Since no one objects, I'll open the coffin and see what the tomb owner really looks like." Poker-face raised the crowbar, ready to strike. Just then, a roaring water sound suddenly came from the left side hall, startling me.

Everyone in the rear hall turned their heads. A man asked, "What's that sound? It seems to be coming from next door!"

"Let's go! Check it out!" Poker-face put down the crowbar and ran toward the door. I saw that and quickly turned, ducking into the right side hall, stamping out my torch on the ground. Almost at the same time, I saw the group run out of the rear hall, and then a woman screamed, "Look! There's a pool here!!"

At this point, I was certain that this was the story Zhang Qiling had described to me—what happened after Third Uncle fell asleep. But he hadn't told it this detailed. How was I experiencing it firsthand? Was it an illusion? Had I come back through a time tunnel? Or had my soul returned?

While my mind was wandering in confusion, I suddenly saw a person holding a firelighter coming down from the bridge above the corridor, stealthily hiding behind the jade door of the left side hall and peering inside. I took a closer look and realized it was a younger Third Uncle. He seemed very troubled, with his brows tightly furrowed.

After a while, the voices of Zhang Qiling and the others gradually faded away; they must have been entering the spiral staircase in the pool. Third Uncle blew out his firelighter and slipped into the jade door. My heart was pounding. I thought, could I really learn what happened afterward through this method? Deciding not to care whether it was illusion or dream, I quickly followed. Just as I pressed against the left side hall's door, hoping to peek inside, suddenly a flash—Third Uncle came out of the door again and immediately grabbed my throat, whispering, "So it was you following me!" Then his hand tightened, firmly clamping my windpipe.

In panic, I wanted to shout, "Third Uncle! I'm your nephew!" but couldn't utter a word. In desperation, I grabbed his collar and tried to choke him back.

As we were strangling each other, a voice said, "Old Wu, wake up. Are you having a nightmare?"

I shuddered, and suddenly darkness fell before my eyes. I found that everything around me had vanished, and Old Yang was slapping me.

I sighed—it turned out to be a dream. I turned my head and saw that I was lying on a pebble beach with a campfire burning beside me. Liang Shive was warming himself by the fire, and when he saw I was awake, he gave me an awkward smile.

I pinched my nose bridge hard, feeling very strange. How had I had such a bizarre dream? Was it truly "what you think by day, you dream by

Old Yang saw that I was in a daze and still wanted to hit me, but I kicked him away and cursed, "Are you addicted to hitting me, you bastard? Hurry up and tell me, what place is this?"

Lao Yang pulled a flare gun from someone's bag beside him and pointed behind us. I turned to look and saw that the pebble beach was very small, with another drop-off behind it—a cliff. It seemed the rock vein containing this underground waterway was a stepped downward structure, and some parts had experienced mountain movement, creating a series of faults. Lao Yang fired a flare with a "bang" toward the top of the cliff, illuminating the scene below it.

At first I didn't understand what I was seeing, but when I did, I was stunned. My mouth fell open, and I could hardly believe my eyes. A dozen feet below the cliff was a large natural cave, densely packed with coffins, row after row. In some places they were stacked several layers high, easily over a thousand of them—truly a spectacular sight.

"This… what is this place!" I exclaimed. "My god, it's like a coffin warehouse!"

Liang Shiye walked up beside me and said, "Based on my experience, this might be a Gaopo Miao cave burial site."

Gaopo Miao? Aren't the Gaopo Miao in Guizhou?

Liang Shiye shook his head and said, "Before liberation, there were quite a few small villages nearby, home to many ethnic minorities, including a small number of Miao. This suggests that historically, there was a Miao settlement here. Look at these wooden coffins—they're just nailed together from rough planks, very different from Han Chinese coffins. I'm confident my judgment is correct."

I didn't know much about this custom, only that some Miao groups have long practiced "cave burial" as a funeral tradition, using natural caves as tombs. The coffins of deceased relatives, regardless of gender, are placed in the cave in an orderly fashion, layer upon layer. The lower ones rot and collapse, and the upper ones continue to be added on top, so the higher the coffin, the more recent the interment. Only family members over sixty, married, and who did not die a violent death, from an infectious disease, or away from home could be buried here.

The number of coffins here was astonishing, possibly spanning several hundred years. The lowest ones had completely rotted into dirt, and even the topmost ones were very old. Probably because cremation was promoted after liberation, no new coffins had been added since.

As he spoke, the flare in the sky had reached the end of its arc. In the instant the light went out, I thought I saw something unusual among the coffins.