Chapter 151: Twins?
Hearing Uncle Tai’s words, Lin Yan and Wu Xie fell silent. To be honest, they had already thought of this result when they saw Uncle Tai and Master Liang walking out from under the waterfall, but confirming the deaths of the two people still made them a bit uncomfortable.
Lin Yan had originally been a bit vigilant about whether the remaining few people might pop out, but upon seeing this corpse, he probably also thought of the fate of the other two.
The person in the coffin was in a twisted shape. Although there was no sight of the coffin full of fresh blood, the multiple tears in the jacket and the bone fragments poking out everywhere proved how violent it had been before this person died—or rather, before the body was moved—basically only that head was intact on the whole body.
Master Liang let out a scream and hid behind Uncle Tai, pointing at the other two coffins with his finger: “Th-this, this inside wouldn’t be those two of theirs, right?”
Uncle Tai let out a long breath. Although his heart skipped a beat inwardly, he still prepared to open the other two coffins. He now only hoped that the coffins inside wouldn’t be Er Mazi and the other one, otherwise this place…
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be easy to leave now.
Master Liang’s hand was brushed away by Uncle Tai, and the whole person nearly lost balance and fell onto the coffin. As soon as his hand touched the coffin, it was like touching a hot coal and getting burned; he retracted it at extreme speed and took two steps back. It seemed that if he didn’t know which way to go, he would have already been trembling in fear and wanting to flee first.
Looking at Master Liang’s deathly pale face, Wu Xie could only give him a look that said to pray for himself.
Uncle Tai silently repeated the action of opening the coffin, and in just a few minutes, he opened the coffin lid of the small coffin next to it. Sure enough, inside was another familiar face. The difference was that this face was now restored to intact, but the body was twisted just like the other corpse.
He mustered up courage to look at the back of the corpse’s head, only feeling a chill all over his body.
The mark where Er Mazi had been shot by his handgun was gone.
Either the person inside wasn’t Er Mazi, or someone had deliberately made Er Mazi’s corpse like this. But how was that possible? Repairing a corpse wasn’t that easy; even the top embalmers couldn’t restore a corpse—at least the head— so perfectly without materials.
Er Mazi’s eyes were half-open, but his face wasn’t ferocious. The expression on his face showed a strange smile; at first glance, it looked like he was looking at him.
Uncle Tai secretly gritted his teeth and mustered courage to look at his neck side, only to discover that the place bitten by the little white zombie was smooth, without even a bloodstain.
Could it be that this person really wasn’t Er Mazi, just someone who looked very much like him?
At the thought of this possibility, Uncle Tai couldn’t help but breathed a sigh of relief. He thought, there was only one path down here; moving the corpse from the bottom of the pool here in just a few short hours and then doing funeral makeup on it was simply impossible. But why did someone who looked almost exactly like Er Mazi appear here? And how to explain the corpse next to it?
Could it be that their group wasn’t just followed by Wu Xie and the others, but there was another group secretly following them, all for this tomb?
But that didn’t make sense either? Uncle Tai carefully looked at the seal of the coffin. If he wasn’t mistaken, this coffin hadn’t been opened for at least over a hundred years. And from the look of the corpse…
He probed the skin on the corpse’s face and hands again with his hand, confirming that the time of death was no more than a few days.
This…
Seeing Er Mazi’s corpse, Master Liang’s legs gave out and he nearly sat on the ground. He looked in fear at the third coffin. When he saw Uncle Tai unconsciously wanting to open the third coffin, he didn’t know where he got the strength from and suddenly pounced over: “Don’t! Don’t open it! I know who’s inside!”
Uncle Tai snapped out of his thoughts, coldly and ruthlessly slapped away his hand, and went straight to open the third coffin. Wu Xie watched this scene, a bit of intolerance in his eyes. Seeing Master Liang and Uncle Tai’s expressions, he guessed that these three coffins contained the people from Uncle Tai’s group, besides these two in front of them.
The first corpse should be the one who was unexpectedly reduced from their team before going down the waterfall, very likely the owner of that head they saw in the fish’s stomach at that time…
No, wait? The head in the fish’s stomach? That head!
Wu Xie’s whole body got goosebumps, nearly jumping up on the spot! He grabbed Lin Yan and signaled with his eyes: This place is off!
Lin Yan looked at him inexplicably suddenly acting like facing a great enemy: Isn’t it just opening a coffin? Even if it’s Uncle Tai’s former teammate… what’s the big deal?
Wu Xie glanced around and saw Lao Yang leaning over to Uncle Tai’s side to join in the excitement. He shook his head slightly, planning to talk about it later, and first discuss with Lin Yan. So he pulled Lin Yan back two steps, hiding in a slightly dark place: “Do you still remember—”
Seemed like his voice was a bit loud? He saw Lao Yang and Uncle Tai turning back suspiciously, quickly signaling them to continue opening the coffin, putting on an eager but lazy-to-act expression. After they turned back to continue, he communicated with Lin Yan with his eyes: Do you still remember that head we saw in the fish’s stomach?
Lin Yan nodded, asking him puzzledly: What’s wrong?
Wu Xie glanced at the twisted corpse in the coffin and slightly raised his chin: That head looks just like this person’s! Did you think of where it’s wrong?
Lin Yan hadn’t thought of it at first, but with this reminder, he immediately felt his hair stand on end too.
Right! When they saw that head, it had already been in the fish’s stomach for no short time, squeezed so that flesh and bone were fused together, the entire skull deformed. How could the appearance still be recognizable? Looking again at the corpse in front of them, although also oddly shaped, an adult compressed into a small coffin, not only was the appearance clear, but there wasn’t even a wound on the neck!
So how did this person die, and who exactly was he? Did two identical people exist in this world?
Watching Uncle Tai go to open the third coffin like he was in a daze, Wu Xie saw that everyone’s attention wasn’t on him. Enduring the disgust, he used the dagger to lift open this person’s clothes, wanting to see how he exactly died.
Lin Yan saw him flipping left and right on the corpse, focusing on searching several wounds on the corpse, sweating profusely. He couldn’t help but softly stop him: “Alright, stop searching. You’re not a real coroner anyway. Besides, even if you find the cause of death, what then? Isn’t the key point now how two identical people appeared?”
Wu Xie searched around and couldn’t find a fatal wound, feeling a bit deflated. Hearing Lin Yan’s words, he gritted his teeth and shook his head: “No! I still have to find his cause of death. I have a premonition that his cause of death is very important to us! Regardless of whether he’s the original person or not, the time he died here should be no more than one or two days. I don’t believe he was placed here for no reason; there’s very likely some mechanism inside. Finding the cause of death would give us more preparation, right?”
Lin Yan thought about it; what Wu Xie said made sense. Although whether this corpse was the real person needed verification, his death here was a solid fact. If they could find the cause of death, it would benefit them, at least more defense against possible mechanisms, right? At least it could save their lives then?
Searching the surface all around, although the corpse was full of wounds, no fatal wound could be found. Since not on the body surface, probably only… Wu Xie did a few seconds of mental preparation. This was his first time doing this kind of thing; a bit stimulating and a bit disgusting…
Lin Yan watched him place the dagger on the corpse’s chest cavity and slice down… His throat moved, swallowing down the nearly dry heave feeling. Wu Xie didn’t react much; if he broke down on the spot, wouldn’t that make him seem too weak?
However, as a bloody smell and faint rotting odor hit his face, he still quietly retreated two steps, distancing himself from everyone a bit… Huh? Seems like there’s someone else like him? He glanced at Master Liang next to him who was lost in despair, and couldn’t help feeling some comfort… Seems like he wasn’t the most useless one?
As soon as the chest cavity was cut open, Wu Xie was stunned. Wasn’t something missing inside this person? The internal organs were barely all there, but this heart—he looked silently at the heart in the middle of the corpse’s lungs, involuntarily rising a doubt: This… still human?
“What’s wrong?”
Lin Yan saw Wu Xie freeze right after starting, still endured the disgust and stepped forward two steps to peek inside. This peek made him show the same expression as Wu Xie: “Huh?”
He saw the corpse’s heart was there, but already turned into a pile of meat paste. Real bright red meat paste, mixed in the blood water, impossible to fish out. If not knowing that was the heart’s position, he would really suspect what that small pile was…
“So, this is his real cause of death? Is there something in this tomb that can attack the internals without injuring the body surface?”
Wu Xie nodded dazedly, couldn’t help but get a headache. The cause of death was probably known, but the murder weapon still unknown! This heart shattered so strangely, not like stuffing dynamite inside and exploding, more like putting it in a meat grinder—he used the dagger to pick up some tissue to observe—indeed, shredded just like freshly ground beef mince, just missing the seasoning…
Exactly what thing could achieve the same effect? Could it be… He pried open the corpse’s mouth, but looking left and right, couldn’t find any traces.
“You suspect the thing entered from their mouths?” Lin Yan saw Wu Xie like this and also leaned in to observe. But like Wu Xie, he found nothing.
“Did you dis-discover something?”
Lao Yang turned back at this time, leaning on the coffin behind them and said to them: “We dis-discovered some very—very strange things.”
Wu Xie straightened up, looking at Lao Yang whose face looked as uncomfortable as if he ate shit, and then at Uncle Tai who was silent but with an ashen face: “What’s wrong?”
“You’ll know when you look.”
Lao Yang saw him straighten up and made way for him to go observe the two coffins behind. Wu Xie saw Lao Yang’s demeanor; although he had a not-so-good premonition, after hesitating a bit, he still wiped the dagger clean on the corpse’s clothes, put it away, and went over there.
Among the remaining three coffins, two were people he had seen: Er Mazi from the underground river time and that middle-aged man. These two hadn’t been seen after coming down, and dying was reasonable. But looking at Uncle Tai’s expression… could it be like that person buried in the fish’s stomach, the “them” who died here had a different death method from the original deceased?
Looking at the two corpses’ pale faces and necks without wounds, he had reason to suspect their cause of death was also heart shattering.
But upon seeing the third corpse, he threw this question to the back of his mind.
He sucked in a cold breath, his gaze shifting back and forth between Uncle Tai and the corpse, asking him incredulously: “Uncle Tai, shouldn’t you explain? Not really twins?”
The reason was none other; in the last small coffin, there was unmistakably Uncle Tai’s twisted body!
Uncle Tai gave a bitter laugh, shook his head, and said hoarsely: “I don’t know what’s going on either. I’ve lived my whole life and never heard of having a twin brother. I just checked; all the things on this ‘me’—let’s just call him this ‘me’ for now—all match mine exactly, just like a second me in the world. Looking at him is like looking in a mirror…”
Unfortunately, this mirror was dead. Wu Xie looked at Uncle Tai with a strange expression; now he understood why Lao Yang had that look earlier— if it were him, he’d be equally baffled.
Could clones really exist in this world? Having read a few sci-fi novels at least, with the classic novel trope playing out now, the impact on Wu Xie was huge. He had barely accepted zombies existing in the world, barely accepted that ancient formations were real, and now did he have to accept clones too? This really wasn’t some disguise?
He unwillingly reached out to rub the corpse’s face. Uncle Tai gave a bitter laugh: “No use. At first I suspected it was a disguise, thinking it was done too realistically… But later I discovered this is his original face, the same as mine. Not just the face; I checked other parts of the corpse, even the moles’ positions are identical! I can say, if this person weren’t already dead, if he replaced me, probably no one would notice!”
At this time, Wu Xie suddenly remembered something, started pulling Lao Yang back until retreating to Lin Yan’s side before stopping, forming a triangular standoff with Master Liang and Uncle Tai.
He signaled Lao Yang to be alert, reached out and drew Lao Yang’s handgun pointing at him, vigilantly asking: “Then you tell me, how should we confirm now that you haven’t been replaced? You know, before we came down, we had no contact with you. Even if your whole team was replaced, we wouldn’t know!”
Master Liang was dumbfounded. He was just scared by the corpses for a moment; what happened? He tremblingly glanced at Uncle Tai and “his” corpse, scared and leaning toward Lin Yan’s side, but blocked midway by several big rats, tearless: “You fight your fight, don’t involve me! I haven’t been replaced!”
