Ancient tomb excavation traces

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We stepped back completely, and the thing below screamed, its voice like that of a pitiful infant, sending chills down our spines.

Chen Yi said, "A big guy with a loli voice, that's the most unbearable thing ever. If I had a gun, I'd want to shoot it into a hornet's nest!"

"I want to too! I can't stand it, this sound is like ultrasound!" I covered my ears, feeling that if I listened any longer, the noise would make my seven orifices bleed.

However, before the first wave of torture was over, the creature unleashed another powerful attack. It slammed against the bronze wall of the interlayer, seemingly trying to break free, causing the bronze chamber to tremble. This time, the tremors were much stronger than before, and the tomb guardian beasts that remained on the platform fell off, losing their previous ferocity.

I can't imagine how huge that thing was, but I have a feeling that if it wanted to eat people, it could definitely swallow all six of us whole.

Just as we were stumbling and struggling to find our footing, something red and rotten surged forth from the coffin-shaped darkness, revealing part of its true form from the pit opening.

As it appeared, the dead people the young Taoist priest had mentioned being fed also poured out. Their mouths were wide open, forming an "O" shape, their hand bones were in a struggling posture, and their flesh seemed to have been corroded away; clearly, they had died in great terror. I thought to myself: if I were to become like that, I'd rather just smash my head against the bronze wall and end it all.

Bao Cai was so frightened that he fell to the ground, screaming repeatedly until he could no longer make a sound. At the same time, a banging sound came from the bronze wall with red lines in front of us. Now the entire space was filled with a deafening clanging sound, making everyone feel weak and their minds go blank. I cried out in panic, "No way? There are two?"

Chen Yi was also extremely agitated. He hurriedly asked the young Taoist priest, "Little Celestial Master, where did this thing come from?"

The young Taoist priest stood before me and said sternly, "This is a mountain spirit, commonly known as the Mountain God."

"What! That thing is a 'mountain spirit'!" I was utterly astonished. I looked at Chen Yi, who also had nightmares about it, and he was looking at me with the same look of surprise.

In fact, when we were two years old, we experienced something about a "mountain spirit". This incident was accompanied by a terrifying story, which caused me to have a high fever for several days. I had never been that sick before. I had diarrhea and vomiting, and I also had a loss of appetite.

It all started when I was a child, during summer vacation. My parents were busy with work, and the Chen family and my family had been friends for generations. We had also gotten along well as children, so we were sent to my grandfather's house in the countryside. My grandfather had a lot of research work to do and rarely had time for me. Chen and I were bored, so we went to the stream to catch crabs.

Beside the stream was a bamboo grove, beyond which lay lush, verdant mountains. Just as we were getting into the swing of catching crabs, a few older boys arrived. They were already in junior high school then, and they were quite bold and daring. They said catching stream crabs wasn't very interesting, and we might as well go up the mountain and have some fun.

I grew up with a traditional education, so I didn't blindly want to go into those deep mountains and forests just because I was playful; I was afraid something bad would happen.

But Lao Tiao couldn't stand people mocking us for being cowardly, so he dragged me up the mountain with them.

Back then, we weren't very tall, and once we entered the woods, our vision was completely obscured by the thickets of reeds. Chen Yi's fleshy face got several cuts. One of the smug guys even got bitten by an insect; he cried and screamed for a long time, only to be met with a disdainful look from Chen Yi.

As we ventured deeper into the mountains, we discovered a cave. One of the young men, seeing that Chen and I showed no fear, tried to scare us by calling it a "tiger cave." Later, my grandfather explained that it was actually a place where villagers used to take refuge and store food during wartime years ago.

"Tiger Cave" left an indelible psychological scar on me when I was a child, but in reality, the most terrifying thing was far more than that.

When we finally saw "Tiger Cave," it was already dusk. Although the days are long in summer, the light in the forest is not good. In addition, the guy leading the way got lost, so we wandered around in circles and couldn't get out of the loop.

After a long and arduous journey, it slowly grew dark. We hadn't brought any lighting equipment when we went into the mountains, so several of us huddled together, some crying, some going crazy, and everyone was on edge.

At that moment, Chen Yi put on the airs of an elder brother. He told the younger men not to rush into tears, and then he distinguished the directions and prepared to lead the way.

Chen Yi has a good sense of direction and shouldn't make mistakes, but he was still disappointed that time. When he went down into the woods, he kept walking down the same path and couldn't find his way out.

The other oldest one, having been influenced by his parents' superstitious beliefs since childhood, insisted that it was a "ghost wall." When I heard the word "ghost," I couldn't help but feel a chill.

Just as they were anxiously crying and shouting, I noticed a strange shadow. The shadow was crouching and lurking in the grass. Chen thought it was a wild boar, so he told everyone to climb trees to hide.

But upon closer inspection, it was actually a hunched-over person. I remember when he peeked his face out of the bushes, one of the children who was crying the loudest fainted from fright. Chen Yi was also terrified, but he kept protecting me.

The man had disheveled hair, a strange smile on his face, and kept excitedly muttering, "The mountain spirit is so kind, the mountain spirit is so kind, send me a few boys!" As he spoke, he slowly approached us, like a creepy uncle who wanted to eat people.

I remember that his tone when he pronounced "Shan Tai Sui" was very strange, even a bit perverted.

I hid behind Chen Yu, my body stiff. Chen Yu looked up and said in a trembling voice, "Get out...get out...otherwise...otherwise I won't be polite to you." Actually, he was also very scared, his legs were shaking like a leaf, but since childhood he had treated me like his own younger brother and always stood up for me, even when we encountered a madman.

The madman chuckled, his eyes fixed on us. The rest of the guys scattered and hid behind us. He continued, "I offered my daughter to the Mountain God, and the God promised to give me a son. Hehe, my son has finally come, finally come..." As soon as he finished speaking, he pounced on us, his face showing that manic smile.

Chen Yi and I hid from him, but he gradually lost patience and became extremely violent. I remember him looking like he was possessed by a demon.

We couldn't escape him at all; he chased us like a ghost, constantly muttering "son...son..."

At that moment, one of the boys was grabbed by the neck by the man, his long fingernails digging deep into the boy's skin. The old man went to help but was violently thrown away. In that critical moment, I saw a flashlight beam. I shouted excitedly, and it was the family members who were anxiously looking for the group of junior high school boys. But the vicious and monstrous man who had been shouting "Mountain God" vanished without a sound, as if he had never been there at all.

The child who fainted from fright is still mentally unstable. The other children were so scared they wet their pants, but Chen Yi and I were the only ones who managed to recount the events incoherently. When the villagers heard what we said, they stared at us in disbelief and whispered among themselves.

I remember one of the old women mysteriously approaching us and telling us that what we had encountered was related to a mountain spirit. She said the mountain spirit was cunning and greedy, and that it would make deals with wicked people, exploiting their weaknesses to get what it wanted. The old woman also said that the madman we met had died a long time ago.

When we heard this answer, Chen Yi and I were so frightened that our faces turned pale. The person was dead, which meant that the madman we encountered might be a "ghost"?

The old woman nodded strangely and continued, saying that the man's name was Huang Shi, and he was originally from a wealthy family in the county town. He had a remarkable mother who was very conservative and had a strong desire to control, which made Huang Shi weak.

Later, Huang Shi married a beautiful wife and was supposed to become a responsible and independent man, but he still couldn't escape his mother's control. Then, tragedy struck; it's said that his young wife gave birth to three children, all girls.

The old lady was displeased and began to mock and ridicule her daughter-in-law, even verbally abusing her three granddaughters. Given the prevailing societal preference for sons in those days, it's easy to imagine how unbearable it was; the young woman couldn't take it anymore and chose to commit suicide.

Huang Shi was devastated upon receiving the news, but his elderly mother offered no words of comfort. Instead, she urged him to find another wife and have more children. Huang Shi had deep feelings for his youngest wife, and after her death, he remained melancholy and never remarried. His mother, eager for a grandson, continued to pressure him. Eventually, Huang Shi could no longer bear it and took his three daughters into the mountains, settling in what was then known as "Tiger Cave," a place where people had hidden during wartime.

It is said that when the man who went into the mountain saw Huangshi, he was already out of his mind. He grabbed people and said that he saw "Mountain Tai Sui" and that "Mountain Tai Sui" would bring him a son and that his wife could be resurrected.

In those days, many people were still very superstitious, so when they heard the words "Mountain Tai Sui," they all ran away and dared not go up again, except for a hunter who made his living in the mountains. When he went up the mountain to hunt, he unexpectedly discovered four hideous and extremely disgusting corpses at the entrance of the tiger's den.

Logically speaking, no wild animal in the mountains could turn a person into that appearance, so after the old hunter came down from the mountain, the story of "Huangshi and the Mountain Spirit" spread in the village... and Chen Yi and I unfortunately encountered this.

I remember that Grandpa arrived late. When he saw how frightened we were, he said it was nonsense. But Chen and I didn't think so, because we did see Huang Shi, who was said to have died during that period, and the mentally unstable young man did have scratch marks on his neck.

This incident lingered in my mind, like a nightmare that I never imagined would one day become a reality… At this moment, a strange feeling suddenly welled up inside me, as if it were destiny. Things that happened in my childhood, I've come to understand more clearly as I've grown up. At first, I thought it was just hearsay and exaggerated, but unexpectedly, the legendary "Mountain Tai Sui" is right beneath our feet.

The mountains and rivers and the primitive, freehand-style strange faces on the square pattern are actually referring to this "Mountain Tai Sui". It is cast on the bronze ground, as if it is written with the words "There is a vicious dog inside, strangers do not enter".

If it weren't for what happened in my childhood, I would have thought this was just a warning, but hearing it from that strange old woman: "Mountain spirits are mysterious beings; they make agreements with people and fulfill their requests..."

This makes me wonder: Sima Yan must have also made some kind of sinister pact with that "mountain spirit." He offered up living people and had its patterns cast on the bronze ground; his obsequious behavior must have had some purpose. Just like Huang Shi, if what happened back then is true, Huang Shi might have wanted to use the lives of his three daughters to make a pact with the "Mountain God" in exchange for his son and his dead wife.

In the end, they all died. Although I didn't want to believe they were devoured by the "Mountain Demon," after seeing the corpses that had just surged out, I felt they were almost identical to the dead bodies the old woman had described. The reason for this tragedy might be that Huang Shi wanted a son too much, so he was bewitched and fell under the spell of that demon, ultimately losing his life along with his three daughters.