Chapter 68: Human-faced Spider Nest, Golden Abacus Mummified Corpse
Over here, Hu Ba Yi and Wang Pang Zi hurriedly untangled the spider silk wrapped around Da Jin Ya’s ankle, and the three of them quickly came to Su Mo’s side.
“Master, did you scare all these big spiders away?”
Su Mo nodded:
“They’re just some insects hiding in the darkness, ignore them for now!”
After saying that, Su Mo raised his hand and shone the wolf eye flashlight ahead.
But ahead was a triangular cave entrance, covered in spider silk nearby, clearly the haunt of these human-faced spiders.
Hu Ba Yi and the other two saw the cave entrance covered in spider silk and couldn’t help but shiver:
“So much spider silk, there must be plenty of big spiders inside!”
“Master, how about we don’t go in?”
But Su Mo shook his head and strode forward.
Hu Ba Yi and the other two had no choice but to follow him ahead.
Entering the cave entrance, the triangular cave ahead turned out to be a man-made structure, entirely built by hand inside.
The space within the structure was as large as seven or eight rooms, covered not only in spider webs and spider silk but also littered with many corpses captured and drained by human-faced spiders, including both animals and humans.
Wang Pang Zi walked over and poked at those human corpses with the entrenching tool. These human-shaped corpses were wrapped in spider silk like mummified bundles. Peeling back the spider silk revealed the corpses still retaining their gruesome death states, faces twisted in agony, clearly having suffered extreme pain before dying.
Furious, Wang Pang Zi grabbed his lighter and lit the spider silk nearby.
The human-faced spiders’ spider silk was extremely flammable, and with the wood in the cave’s man-made structure being very dry, the cave quickly turned into a blaze, with many small spiders hidden behind the silk instantly burned into fireballs, writhing and crawling in the flames.
Hu Ba Yi couldn’t help but curse loudly:
“Dead fatty, why are your hands so quick? We’re still here, aren’t you afraid we’ll all turn into roast pigs!”
Wang Pang Zi had seen the gruesome deaths of these people and recalled that the son of the old couple under Dragon Ridge must have died here too. Plus, the suspended soul ladder on the way had filled him with rage with nowhere to vent, so he directly lit the flames.
At this moment, seeing the cave filled with fire, he couldn’t help but feel a bit scared.
Fortunately, the space here was large, and the wooden structure and spider silk burned quickly, without turning the entire cave into a sea of fire.
But suddenly in the big fire appeared a huge human face, several times larger than the giant human-faced spider that Su Mo had killed before!
Hu Ba Yi and the others were instantly terrified, thinking it must be a giant human-faced spider unafraid of fire?
But that giant human face gradually fully emerged from the flames—it was a huge bronze cauldron, with a large eerie human face carved in relief on it!
Fatty’s eyes lit up at the sight of the bronze cauldron:
“Damn, after being here so long, we finally see a piece of grave goods. Carrying this out would probably fetch a lot of money!”
Hu Ba Yi laughed:
“Forget about carrying it out—even if you could, the cops would lock you up the moment you sold it. Western Zhou bronze ware is a national treasure; getting caught means you’re a target!”
Wang Pang Zi cursed:
“Damn it, finally see something good, but can’t take it. I’ll check if there’s treasure inside!”
Saying that, ignoring the flames still burning around, he strode toward the bronze cauldron, but midway stepped on a corpse drained dry by the spiders, stumbling and nearly falling.
That mummified corpse didn’t know how long it had been dead, its face still frozen in a twisted expression of pre-death agony, mouth agape, eye sockets two black holes, looking extremely terrifying.
Wang Pang Zi cursed his bad luck and was about to kick the mummified corpse aside when his toe hit something behind it, making him go “Eh?” as he bent down and pulled out a cloth shoulder bag from behind the corpse.
This was a coarse cloth shoulder bag commonly used by travelers in the past, the kind with two bags slung over the shoulder. Wang Pang Zi pulled out the shoulder bag and shook out everything inside.
The shoulder bag contained seven or eight candles, a stack of talismans, even some old German-made dry batteries, a bottle of Yunnan Baiyao, and a section of black donkey hoof…
Hu Ba Yi saw these things and couldn’t help but be startled:
“This one looks like a tomb raiding senior!”
“More than that!”
Wang Pang Zi said, actually pulling a mojin’s talisman from the mummified corpse’s pocket.
This was an absolutely authentic mojin’s talisman carried by a Mojin School Lieutenant, made from a pangolin claw!
Under the light, this mojin’s talisman was pitch black and transparent all over, shimmering with a lustrous glow, its tip sharp and pointed, the claw inlaid with gold thread in a through-earth pattern, engraved with ancient seal script that read exactly:
Mojin!
Hu Ba Yi was greatly shocked.
Legend has it there were only six mojin’s talismans passed down, but three were lost by the Ming Dynasty, leaving only three in the world today—one with Xue Li Yang, and Da Jin Ya had previously given him and Wang Pang Zi two, which later turned out to be fakes.
Now with this real mojin’s talisman, Da Jin Ya’s two fakes looked utterly ridiculous!
Hu Ba Yi held this mojin’s talisman, his fingers trembling slightly:
“It really is a Mojin School Lieutenant senior, but we don’t know who this person is!”
Su Mo sighed:
“Speaking of which, this person actually has some connection to you—he’s your grandfather’s Second Martial Uncle Golden Abacus!”
Hearing this, Hu Ba Yi was shocked.
His grandfather’s master was Sun Guofu, the third disciple of Zhang Sanlianzi, the old scholar in the tomb raiding trade at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
Zhang Sanlianzi tomb raided his whole life, with remarkable skills, and unearthed the complete Sixteen-Character Heavenly Divination from an ancient tomb, combining it with secret arts like the Dragon Finding Formula from ancient texts to write the Sixteen-Character Yin Yang Secret Art, a wondrous book, truly a singular figure of his generation.
Zhang Sanlianzi took only four disciples: the eldest, Flying Rat who later became Monk Lechen; the third, Sun Guofu, master of Hu Ba Yi’s grandfather; the fourth, Iron Mill Head; and the second was this Golden Abacus that Su Mo mentioned.
Hu Ba Yi extremely trusted Su Mo, and hearing him say this mummified corpse was Golden Abacus, his face immediately turned solemn. He knelt beside the mummified corpse, kowtowed three times to it, then carried Golden Abacus’s corpse on his back.
“Master, since this is my grandfather’s Second Martial Uncle Golden Abacus, I have to take him out and give him a proper burial!”
Su Mo knew Hu Ba Yi was very loyal and righteous, which was why he had unhesitatingly accepted him and Wang Pang Zi before, so he nodded.
