Chapter 52: Eerie Tomb Passage
After diving down to the place, they discovered that this tomb-robbing hole was actually quite large, big enough to fit two Fattys with room to spare. However, the group didn’t rush in; they first noted down the position of the underground palace that Wu Sansheng had mapped out, then filed in through the cave entrance one after another.
Leading was Fatty, followed by Wu Xie and Lin Yan, with A Ning bringing up the rear. This time, the two older experts didn’t come down; only Wu Yong and Zhang Hao followed them down. Lin Yan was quite curious at first; if he remembered correctly, in the original story, the only ones who went into the tomb were A Ning and the protagonist trio. So what was the deal with this Wu Yong? But then he thought, if he hadn’t guessed wrong and this really was a Wu Family member, bringing him down wasn’t a loss—at least if A Ning tried to screw them over, they’d have an extra helper.
Less than five meters into the cave, the light from outside was almost completely blocked by them, about seventy or eighty percent, so they could only proceed with searchlights on. The environment inside the tomb-robbing hole was also not quite what they had imagined. Wu Xie had been through Jishi Land, which was originally a water tomb-robbing hole too, but compared to this one, it was much better—at least it wasn’t varying in width and height randomly.
Suddenly, Fatty, who was swimming at the front, stopped. Following his searchlight beam, the group discovered that at the end of the tomb-robbing hole there was actually another tomb-robbing hole, but this one went vertically downward. The light couldn’t reach a few meters in, so they couldn’t see how deep it was.
Fatty made a gesture meaning he would go down first. So they watched as the beam of light represented by Fatty gradually descended, becoming almost a tiny dot, before the signal for safety came through.
By then they had already descended over ten meters, and their bodies were starting to feel the pressure. Of course, this pressure was mostly felt only by Wu Xie. The others were all seasoned experts who worked out in the field long-term, so their physical condition was stronger than his no matter what. Lin Yan didn’t count—that was an exception; honestly, he didn’t even know how strong his physical condition was now. But setting aside moves and experience bonuses, beating Wu Xie should be no problem?
At the bottom of the tomb-robbing hole was the ancient tomb’s curtain wall. Following the light, they could clearly see a large hole above, with some bricks and outer layer remains scattered beside it. Seeing that familiar shape, Lin Yan and Wu Xie exchanged a glance: How was it so similar to a sea monkey? They still vividly remembered the wooden door on the ghost ship that had been smashed by a sea monkey back then—these two holes looked too alike, they couldn’t help but think about it.
Fatty, on the other hand, knew about their encounter with the sea monkey but couldn’t form any specific impression of such a creature just from descriptions, so he only thought it was because the tomb-robbers were unprofessional or had run into some danger, causing them to smash this hole open. So he made a gesture signaling danger ahead, first unloading the speargun from his diving gear and holding it in his hand, then carefully probing inside.
After entering, the tomb passage was much larger than they had imagined, with relief sculptures carved on the walls on both sides, shaped like human faces but with various animals carved on the faces—eerie was that none of them had eyes.
The others followed Fatty straight ahead without looking sideways, but Wu Xie was interested in these things, so he kept pulling Lin Yan to slow down along the way. With this slowing, he unknowingly ended up at the rear, and it was only after A Ning poked him that he snapped out of it.
A Ning made a gesture telling him to hurry up. He hesitated, then pointed at the relief sculpture to indicate he wanted to study it a bit. Zhang Hao, who was beside him, swam over at this point, signaling A Ning to go ahead first—he could stay with the two of them here for a while. A Ning hesitated but agreed, signaling them to hurry up, then turned and caught up with Fatty and Wu Yong ahead.
Although Lin Yan didn’t know what Wu Xie had discovered, he knew that anything catching Wu Xie’s attention was definitely not trivial, so when Wu Xie pulled him along, he didn’t object—maybe he could even deduce something about the original story from it. After all, what he could basically remember now was just who went down and who came out, then Mute Bottle went missing and A Ning escaped. As for what happened at the bottom of the tomb or what they found, it was impressive enough that he could vaguely recall they found Xie Lianhuan!
Not sure if it was Wu Xie’s illusion, but he always felt that although these relief sculptures were mostly similar, there were still some subtle variations in the details.
Hmm? He suddenly stopped, because he saw something familiar on one human-face relief sculpture.
It was the snake-browed bronze fish!
The snake-browed bronze fish that had come out of the treasure box in Lu King’s Palace—he had kept it on him ever since, so familiar he couldn’t be more familiar. And on this human-face relief sculpture was not one, but three! Three snake-browed bronze fish linked head to tail, forming a closed ring! And below this ring was a broken woman’s face!
He tugged Lin Yan, signaling him to look.
Lin Yan recognized it at a glance too and exchanged a glance with Wu Xie: Isn’t this the snake-browed bronze fish? How is this underwater tomb related to it? Did your Third Uncle mention it?
Wu Xie nodded: Third Uncle said one of the snake-browed bronze fish was discovered in this tomb passage! He said it was something left by outsiders, not part of the tomb itself, but now looking at this relief sculpture, it’s not necessarily true! He also said the bronze fish from Lu King’s Palace had no relation to this one, but now I think the relation is huge!
Lin Yan nodded: But Lu King’s Palace and here shouldn’t be ancient tombs from the same era, right? Could there really be some connection between them?
Wu Xie shook his head: I don’t know either. Looks like we’ll have to search inside the tomb—hope there’s a clue!
Zhang Hao, whom they had forgotten for a good while, saw them nodding and shaking heads and really couldn’t understand what they were doing. Seeing everyone ahead had swum far off, he hurried over to pat their shoulders, signaling them to catch up first?
Seeing no other clues on this relief sculpture, Wu Xie nodded and led the way forward.
Fatty and the others were already over ten meters ahead. The relief sculptures on both sides of the tomb passage were still the same, except now the eyes that had been closed on the faces were gradually opening.
Wu Xie caught up to the front and was startled by the open-eyed relief sculpture caught in the light, hurriedly patting Fatty’s shoulder to signal him to watch out for mechanisms.
Fatty turned his head, silently asking what was wrong? Wu Xie pointed at the open-eyed relief sculpture, then at the previous ones, signaling there was something wrong with the eyes. Fatty, bold from his skill, swam right up and knocked on it, scaring Wu Xie and Lin Yan into backing away. Wu Xie was afraid there really was a mechanism. Lin Yan knew Fatty had bad luck but figured it was just a false alarm.
Fatty knocked all over that relief sculpture and didn’t get even a fart out of it. Seeing this, the others, who had retreated with Wu Xie and Lin Yan, gradually gathered around. Fatty turned back and saw everyone hiding far away, silently rolled his eyes: Heh, a bunch of cowards!
After confirming it was safe, the group continued forward, but now it was still Fatty leading, while Wu Xie and Lin Yan with Zhang Hao had fallen to the rear. Wu Xie felt that relief sculpture definitely had an issue, just didn’t know where, so staying at the back made it easier to react on the fly. Zhang Hao didn’t know what was going on; he’d followed them before, but now he surprisingly couldn’t shake them off.
Lin Yan knew Zhang Qiling wasn’t bothered yet, but Wu Xie felt uncomfortable with an extra person behind him.
Soon, the tomb passage reached its end—unexpectedly a huge stone slab, completely bare without even characters on it. Wu Xie saw this somewhat familiar scene and suddenly recalled the mechanism in Lu King’s Palace leading to the tomb center. Aside from the inscriptions and relief sculptures around the tomb chamber, it was exactly the same! It could be said that the Warring States tomb built on the Western Zhou tomb and this underwater tomb were the work of the same person. Or rather, the same lineage!
This connected the two bronze fish!
He swam to the front and gestured to Fatty and the others, who were still knocking on the stone: There definitely aren’t any mechanisms on the stone—search around it!
(Today I must get them in there!)
