Ancient tomb excavation traces

(Sima, the programmer, thanks Mr. "sidneyliu" and Mr. "白卿竹" for their generous donations. The programmer will continue to work hard. Thank you for your support, readers...)

Behind the bronze door was a hole, presumably intentionally left by Sima Yan to allow the mountain monster to break free, thus creating a mechanism for the stone figurine. There we saw the head of the monster emerge. Its facial features were flattened on its tongue-like body, surrounded by dense red bumps, making it look exactly like a giant sea cucumber.

During the struggle, the red fleshy threads in the "Mountain Tai Sui's" mouth had all returned to its rim. The red threads were curled up, about the thickness of a little finger, like the tongue of a chameleon when it hunts. Bao Cai said that the reason for the change in the threads was like animal evolution. Because of the stone figurine designed by Sima Yan inside, the "Mountain Tai Sui" had to stretch out its tongue, turn it into a thread-like shape, and then suck blood.

The ferocious creature has now completely fallen silent, as a spear has pierced its vital organs directly into its head.

Chen Yi wondered, "Could that person in armor be a spy inside the zombie, sent to rid the people of this menace?"

At this moment, it was impossible to tell whether they were friend or foe, human or zombie, so to be on the safe side, everyone pulled out their knives.

At this moment, Chu Ba stared intently at the man, muttering to himself, "Why does this person look so familiar?"

Bao Cai shouted, "Wait! I recognize that crossbow! This man is the strange guy who almost killed Fatty Chen on the suspension bridge!"

Because the knife was in his back, Chen Cai hadn't seen the strange man's face or equipment clearly. Now, reminded by Bao Cai, he gripped the knife and cursed, "Damn it! It's that wicked thing! Damn it, when I was confused, I was thinking of becoming a ghost and haunting this ugly monster. Now look what's happened! If I don't chop this traitor into mincemeat, I'm not 'Chen'!"

Although I had the crossbow of the Eight Witches' descendant, the man's tall and imposing figure didn't seem like the strange man on the suspension bridge. Just as I was wondering who he was, the man approached us. Chen Tai angrily raised his knife and charged forward. Just as the two were about to clash, the masked man grabbed Chen Tai's shoulder. Chen Tai, usually incredibly strong, was rendered helpless by the man's grip.

The young Taoist priest and I exchanged a glance, never expecting the strange man to possess such strength. Looking at Chen Yu, he frowned, trying to break free, but the man spoke up: "Hey, why are you all just standing here? Why don't you come in? And Yu, if you want to chop me into mincemeat, that's too cruel!"

When the masked person spoke, all six of us were stunned, and goosebumps suddenly rose on my skin. At that moment, time stood still, and everyone stood frozen in place, as if in a dream.

"Boss Feng!" Chen Yi was the first to react and shouted excitedly.

That's right... that voice belongs to my ancestor who was close to me during the late Eastern Han Dynasty. I stared at him in disbelief. He released his hand from Chen Yu's shoulder, lifted the mask on his head, and muttered, "It's quite hot wearing this!" He put the bronze mask on the ground with a look of disgust. I thought to myself, "He's really too carefree. Playing a dress-up game in an ancient tomb."

Although his attire was strange, we were overjoyed to see him alive. On the eighth day of the lunar month, we hugged him tightly and exclaimed, "Chief Boss!"

The old ancestor patted him on the back and glanced around, as if looking for something.

Chu Ba recognized the target he was looking for and said with a hint of sadness, "Ninth Brother is already..."

Upon hearing this, the old ancestor paused slightly, a fleeting look of emotion crossing his face, but he quickly regained his composure and asked, "How did Ninth Brother die?"

Hearing this, a wave of guilt washed over me, and I replied in a low voice, "He was turned into a Gu person... and then we saved him..." I hesitated for a moment, then the ancestor looked at me and immediately understood. He gestured for me not to say anything more, and then comforted me, saying, "Little rascal, I know Lao Jiu's character. He's a true man of our Tomb Raiders..."

When the old ancestor spoke, his face was almost expressionless. Seeing him like this, my heart ached slightly. If this expression belonged to the young Taoist priest, I would find it normal, but it was the old ancestor's, which made me feel a little sad. Because of the time I've spent with the old ancestor, I've found him to be a free-spirited and unrestrained person, acting on impulse. Seeing him like this reminded me of what Chu Ba had said: the old ancestor was actually heartbroken, very heartbroken, but he couldn't show it too much because he was the highest leader of the Tomb Raiders Sect; some emotions were best left unsaid.

Looking at his forced smile, I couldn't help but feel sad, but thinking back, perhaps this is the kind of indomitable spirit that the Tomb Raiders should have.

Chen asked him how he got here, and the ancestor pointed to the left. Only then did they realize that the door of the Yellow Dragon Mechanism was already open, which meant that he had come following our path.

Bao Cai asked him about the crossbow, and the old patriarch said, "I just happened to see a scoundrel trying to cause me trouble. I was in a hurry to find you, and I didn't have time to waste with him, so I killed him." As he spoke, the old patriarch looked at Chen Tiao and said, "Tiaozi, are you going to seek revenge on that person?"

Chen Yi said, "That damned thing tried to play dirty tricks on me, and almost got me killed."

Upon hearing this, the old ancestor laughed and said, "In that case... then don't worry, I'll cut off all ten of his fingers." After saying this, he took off his armor and took out a nameplate from his waist. Upon closer inspection, the nameplate belonged to Liang Jiu.

He said with a hint of regret, "At the time, I hoped that the sign was just dropped by Lao Jiu and picked up by him. If I had known earlier that he had turned Lao Jiu into a Gu person, I would have definitely torn him to pieces."

Upon hearing this, I felt a surge of warmth in my heart, and even Bao Cai looked at the ancestor with utmost reverence.

It turns out that after his ancestor was poisoned, he spent some time in the ancient tomb to recover. After that, he groped his way to find us. Unexpectedly, he ran into the descendant of the Eight Witches on the way, and almost without a fight, he killed the man.

He was carefree and had a bit of Zhou Botong's mischievousness. Seeing a rice dumpling wearing armor, he became interested, peeled it off, and put it on himself. Wearing armor all the way here unexpectedly served as camouflage.

Just now, he arrived at the antechamber where we were, discovered the Yellow Dragon mechanism, and entered the main coffin chamber. Seeing a large hole and the body of a mountain spirit on the bronze floor, and hearing loud noises coming from the west chamber, he immediately realized that we might be inside and in trouble.

He discovered the secret from the arrangement of the eternal lamps on the bronze wall. Following his words, I realized that on either side of the hidden door we had just entered through, there were two ancient and powerful eternal lamps. They were quite different from the eternal lamps we had seen before. The difference was that their lights flickered, seemingly emitting light, but without any illumination. The longer I looked at them, the more chilling they became, resembling those "cold green candles"①. Having been tricked by eternal lamps before, I dared not stare at the flames for long.

Looking down, the bronze base of the eternal lamp is long and narrow, like the main beam of a celestial palace. On the pillar to the right, a dragon and a phoenix are coiled, soaring upwards through the clouds, their mouths facing the eerie flame at the top of the eternal lamp.

This phoenix is ​​the symbol of Mi Ling that I saw earlier. It appeared on the bronze gate of the main coffin chamber, originally forming a circular pattern with the mermaid (Wu Xia). Now, looking at the majestic and imposing appearance of this dragon, Chen Yi analyzed that the dragon might represent Sima Yan. The young Taoist priest agreed, because at that time, there was a folk rumor that Sima Yan was a silver dragon in disguise.

The exquisite craftsmanship of the bronze eternal lamps drew repeated praise from Chen, who said he had never seen such fine workmanship in his life. However, what truly caught our attention was not the lamps' magnificence or rarity, but rather the fact that the two lamps differed in both shape and placement, seemingly carrying some deeper meaning.

Cold Green Candle①: Will-o'-the-wisp, phosphorescent light.