Ancient tomb excavation traces

Everyone held their breath in shock, and the entire space instantly became completely silent, like a cold morgue.

This reminds me of a fairy tale I heard as a child. In the story, a little boy got lost and found a wooden house in a dark, misty forest. The door was ajar, and a faint light shone through. He imagined a kind old woman lived inside, but when he went in, he was met with a hideous and wicked old witch. This thought sent a chill down my spine.

After standing there for a long time, we caught our breath and straightened up. Bao Cai stammered in the darkness, "It's...it's terrifying. This...this bronze wall...it cracked open by itself...could it be a ghost...a ghost opening a door?" Just as he was speaking, I heard a strange panting sound. The sound came from a cramped place, but disappeared in an instant. Just as I was wondering if I had misheard, my sensitive nerves twitched, and I heard an extremely muffled sound, like a thud.

I was puzzled and quickly made a shushing gesture, saying to Bao Cai, "Don't speak, there's a noise..."

Upon hearing this, Bao Cai widened his eyes and covered his mouth, looking like a comedian. If it weren't for the tense situation, I would have really told Bao Cai: With such expressive faces, you should switch careers and become a comedian.

However, just as we listened intently without making any move, the entire space returned to an unbearable silence.

Chen Yi frowned and asked me in spoken language, "What's going on?" His reaction made me think that the commotion just now might have been just my hallucination again.

I sighed and asked, still unwilling to give up, "Tell me, didn't you hear any strange noises just now?"

"A sound? What sound?" Bao Cai asked in confusion.

Looking at his terrified expression, I shook my head and said with a wry smile, "No... I've probably been too nervous lately..." In fact, this feeling of being overly sensitive is not good. It makes me feel like I'm not in a good enough state of mind to handle danger, and I always overreact.

Sigh... I sighed deeply in my heart. After calming myself down, I regained my composure. I realized that I was originally going to open the door directly in front of me, but I didn't expect the bronze wall on the west side to open inexplicably at this moment. This situation was too puzzling. First of all, what I didn't expect was that this seamless and highly precise bronze wall was actually a door. Secondly, according to my original calculations of the "Five Elements" mechanism, it shouldn't be wrong.

Where exactly did things go wrong? Facing the faint light emanating from the bronze wall, I controlled my breathing and moved closer to the bronze wall at the White Tiger position.

Just as I moved forward, the priestess whispered a warning: "A flickering flame, once extinguished, means death... I advise you not to go in..." Her voice was low in the echoing space, but even so, in this square bronze antechamber, her voice, however soft, was amplified infinitely.

I stopped. Her eyes reflected the faint firelight, making her features appear deep and unsettling. She seemed preoccupied, her brows furrowed, as if she knew what was about to happen.

Old Tiao was the most skeptical of us. Hearing the Miao shaman's words, he scoffed and pulled out his machete, saying, "Don't listen to her! The ancient tomb is already fraught with danger. If what she says about 'death when the light goes out' is true, then we'd be dead by now! Let's go in and see what's inside ourselves; it's better than being clueless like this!" Before we could reply, Old Tiao crouched down and carefully moved to the bronze wall. Just as he reached out to open it, the young Taoist priest cried out urgently, "Wait!"

Old Tiao was usually a bold man, but in this eerie atmosphere and space, he was highly focused. Startled, he dropped his machete with a deafening crash. The sound was jarring in the well-acousticed anteroom, making my heart pound. I felt as if I were exposed in the most obvious place in this strange location, utterly unsafe.

After a moment of calming his racing heart, the old man regained his senses and asked the young Taoist what was wrong. The young Taoist replied, "We were originally going to open the bronze door at the Xuanwu position, but the west door has unexpectedly opened. There must be something wrong inside." As he spoke, the young Taoist turned his gaze to me.

I agreed with him, so I nodded. He pondered for a moment and continued, "I was thinking that there might be other outsiders here besides us, but thinking about it carefully, this person is familiar with the ancient tomb and shouldn't be someone who just came in to dig."

"How...how can you be sure?" Old Jiu showed a rare hint of nervousness.

The young Taoist priest looked at us and said, "Just now, Brother Feng discovered fresh soil inside the sacrificial vessels. I also examined the broken soil on the Yellow Dragon mechanism, and it hadn't been there for very long either. Most importantly, I just heard breathing sounds from people other than us. Based on these, I deduce that there are long-term residents here, that is, tomb keepers!"

Hearing the young Taoist priest mention panting, my scalp tingled, and I quickly said, "So what I heard just now wasn't a hallucination!"

The young Taoist priest nodded, and I said with a hint of complaint, "Then why didn't you say so earlier?"

"I don't want to alert them, nor do I want to create panic. Besides, I've been thinking about this ever since I heard the sound..." the young Taoist said calmly, glancing around with a hint of wariness. "Furthermore, that living person might be hiding somewhere, silently watching us..."

His words sent chills down my spine. Bao Cai gasped and said, "So, the fortune teller means... this door... this door was opened by a person?"

The young Taoist priest did not answer, but his somber expression said it all.

I frowned slightly, looking at the young Taoist priest. I suddenly realized that the ancients, despite their young age, all made themselves seem incredibly profound, just like my ancestors. He was only in his early twenties, yet he held the highest position in charge of the tomb raiding sect, which made me feel inferior.

Furthermore, now that we've concluded that the opening of the western bronze wall was caused by human intervention, it's not as simple as me misjudging the mechanism.

We can still be wary of dealing with the dead, but dealing with the living who have lived here for a long time is really not a good idea, because they are in the dark and we are in the light. If they are evil-hearted and make a slight attempt to harm us, we won't even know how we died.

We went over the matter of the cracked bronze wall again, and finally concluded that the tomb keeper probably didn't want us to enter the main coffin chamber, so he opened the door to the White Tiger position. However, what was inside that door, and whether there was any danger, remained unknown. The witch's earlier warning indicated that she knew a lot, but couldn't openly explain everything to us, and could only offer advice.

After this analysis, I suddenly felt that the scene behind the gap was terrifying, and the faint light seemed to carry a hint of conspiracy.

Did that person really exist?

Is his goal simply to divert our attention?

What lies behind the bronze wall?

This thought gave me a terrible headache. Recalling the image of the witch holding a scythe, the unease I felt was indescribable. It was the same tension and fear I felt in front of the stone gate when Xue Wei and Bao Cai were in modern times. It seemed to be a premonition of the death I was about to face, and perhaps the first one to die among us would be the curious Chen Yu...

I glanced up at the cold, eerie bronze statue of the witch, and the adventurous spirit in my male comrade's blood ignited. I bit my lip; my feelings were like a girl watching a horror movie—terrified, yet still unable to resist the urge to experience the most thrilling scenes.

"Go and meet that living person?" I looked at the gap, not expecting the words to come out of my mouth. I smiled bitterly to myself. Perhaps it was because my mind had been hardened by repeated dangers. Now, when faced with fear, I was afraid, but I no longer thought of hiding or relying on my teammates.

"We could have gone in already!" My words echoed the old man's sentiments. He complained, "If we keep standing here indecisive, my heart is about to burn with anxiety!"

I turned my head and looked at the young Taoist priest again. He seemed to understand us, and nodded, saying, "Alright, it's easy to dodge a spear in the open, but hard to guard against an arrow in the dark. Let's have a go!"

The three of us exchanged a knowing smile, as if we shared a tacit understanding.

At this point, only Bao Cai remained hesitant and timid. He glanced at us and said, "It's obvious there's something wrong inside. Why do we still have to bite the bullet and go in? Isn't that just suicide?"

Chen Yi sneered, "Coward, haven't you seen those horror movies? If there were any living people in this ancient tomb, he'd definitely target the lone ones. We're already inside; if you just stand here, who knows what might happen next? Don't ask me to save you then!"

Upon hearing this, Bao Cai panicked. He immediately darted behind Chen Yi, forcing a smile, and said, "Go...go in...we're all in this together..."

Looking at his fawning face, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But when my gaze fell on the Miao witch, her expression was extremely anxious.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

She hesitated for a long time, then looked at me with her beautiful eyes and said, "Don't go in..." Her tone was so sorrowful that it seemed as if she was trying to keep her lover.

"Do you know something?" the young Taoist priest asked.

She shook her head, repeating with a sorrowful expression, "Don't go in, you'll die... you'll really die!" Her voice was very soft, as if she were only saying it to us.

"Have you been here before?" Chen Yi was exasperated. The witch didn't answer. Suddenly, she walked to the bronze door and blocked the gap with her body, saying, "Young Master Feng, you've saved me several times. Believe me, I won't harm you. This tomb isn't as simple as you think. I advise you to leave..."

"How is it not simple?" Chen Yu pressed.

The priestess, abandoning her usual aloofness, said, "There are many things I have no choice in, and that's all I can tell you..."

She spoke with great sincerity, and when she said the words "helpless," her voice choked with emotion, filled with a poignant and indescribable feeling. Faced with this situation, I realized that as a descendant of this ancient tomb, the witch's words of advice were all she could say. If she said anything more here, someone as devout as her ancestors would probably feel she was blaspheming the spirits of her forefathers.

I am grateful that she could say these things, whether it was to get us away from her ancestors' graves or to genuinely try to save us, because through her repeated acts of help, I've discovered that this girl isn't completely cold-blooded; perhaps she's just wearing a mask to disguise herself.

However, we had already made up our minds, and there was no turning back. When we told the priestess we wanted to go in, her face stiffened, and she looked at us in disbelief. But then she seemed to accept the fact and silently stepped back, looking pitiful.

In that instant, I couldn't help but grab her hand, like an older brother grabbing his younger sister. Her hand was enveloped in mine, her shoulders hunched, and her body froze completely. I held her tightly and smiled slightly, "Hey, little girl, you're so cunning. What if you know the mechanisms inside and trap us there? That would be bad. You stay with me!"

The priestess paused for a moment after hearing what I said, then stared at me intently with her large eyes, remaining silent, yet conveying something without uttering a word.

For a moment, I felt a sense of confusion, because the Miao witch's gaze was gentle, completely different from her usual cold demeanor.

I gave her an awkward smile, but unfortunately, this girl's hands weren't as smooth as most girls'; they had many thick calluses, suggesting she had suffered a lot. As I held her hand and turned around, she was looking at me with a hint of girlish shyness on her face.

Upon seeing this, I immediately turned around, thinking bitterly: Damn, could she really have taken a liking to me? I, Feng Liu, don't want to incur a debt of affection in the late Eastern Han Dynasty; it's something I can never repay!