"I'm telling you, Old Zhang, you can't just spout nonsense like that!"
Fatty's eyes widened in disbelief. "How could it be such a coincidence? The graves in the Ten Deadly Tombs are connected through underground caves?"
Not just Fatty, but all of us found it somewhat surreal.
When we were searching for the ninth tomb, which was Gao Xianzhi's, we had to exert tremendous effort, wandering around the Qinling Mountains for a long time before we finally found it. After a series of dangers inside Gao Xianzhi's tomb, we had largely given up on the idea of finding the tenth tomb. The tombs in the Qinling Mountains were truly perilous, and we were not even confident about surviving, let alone anything else.
"There's no mistake!"
Zhang Jinya showed us the compass, its needle trembling slightly, pointing in an unclear direction, which was very strange. "Look, the magnetic field here is very unstable. The evil burial site must be here, and judging by the general direction it's pointing to, it should be inside this ancient tomb!"
"It seems we have no choice but to dig into Helian Hui's grave."
Fatty grinned, patted my shoulder, and asked me, "Little Tian, your Ge family knows the most about the Ten Deadly Tombs. Is there any mention of the tombs being connected by underground caves?"
I shook my head with a wry smile. How would I know such a thing? The first person to discover the Ten Deadly Tombs was actually my ancestor, but he must not have known much either; otherwise, he wouldn't have recorded it so vaguely in the "Secret Techniques of Faqiu." The only useful piece of information was that it originated from the Ten Deadly Formations during the transition from the Shang to the Zhou Dynasty, adapted from those formations. As for the specific layout and calculations, I had no idea. The "Secret Techniques of Faqiu" didn't record it, so I knew even less about whether there were caves connecting the tombs below.
Hearing my response, Fatty waved his hand dismissively and said it didn't matter. We should just go ahead and explore Helian Hui's tomb.
After some discussion, we decided to enter Helian Hui's tomb first. After all, we were trapped here, and it seemed that breaking through the Ten Deadly Tombs was really our only option.
Once we had made our decision, we began to rest and recuperate on the spot. Rosa took out some bandages and simple medical supplies from her backpack, and we all started tending to our wounds. If anyone looked the worst, it was definitely me, bitten into a bloody mess by the pig-faced giant bats, with three or four dozen wounds of various sizes all over my body. I had been struggling to stay alive and hadn't noticed the pain, but now that I relaxed and Rosa started cleaning my wounds, I shivered in agony.
We rested there for about three or four hours, and during this rare moment of downtime, I took out my phone, which had been stuffed in my backpack, and turned it on to check the time. There was still no signal, but at least I could see the time. It was already past eleven o'clock on the night of July 30th, leaving only one day until the mysterious woman's appointed time and the date on the marriage letter...
My thoughts were in disarray. I was trapped in the Ten Deadly Tombs, yet the issues I was facing had not been resolved. The rightful owner of the marriage letter who had pressed down on my bed at midnight had not appeared, and I still had no idea what the mysterious woman really was. The smiling corpse and the ghostly old woman who had been on my back were also nowhere to be found. In short, everything was still a fog of mystery, and I couldn't understand why I, having just received a broadsword, had attracted so many troubles!
Gurgle!
At that moment, Fatty's stomach suddenly growled. He scratched his head sheepishly, "Sorry, I was born with a big appetite, and I'm a bit hungry now."
Fatty's noise snapped me out of my thoughts, and I looked down, chuckling bitterly.
Do you think you're the only one who's hungry?
We're hungry too, but where can we find food in this situation? The dry food we brought was lost during our hasty escape, and now all that was left in our backpacks were some tools.
"I know where to find food!"
Fatty seemed to have an idea, his eyes lighting up. He jumped up from the ground, crossed the sacrificial pits, and went to the hole we had initially crawled through. After lifting the backpack that Zhang Jinya had used to block the hole, he sneakily crawled out and peeked around. Then he excitedly told us that the pig-faced giant bats had left. After saying that, he crawled out through the dug hole, his large rear end sticking out. I thought he was going to retrace our escape route to retrieve our lost bags for food. I was about to persuade him not to go and to just endure the hunger for a while, but he didn't give me a chance to speak and quickly left. After a while, he crawled back through the hole, carrying several pig-faced giant bats.
Seeing him bring back the bodies of the pig-faced giant bats, I immediately asked him what he was planning to do.
"Eat!" Fatty said matter-of-factly. "You don't know, do you? This stuff is damn tasty, tastes just like mutton. When I was trapped in a large tomb in Inner Mongolia, I survived more than ten days by eating these things until we managed to dig our way out. So I have a soft spot for them. I haven't had it for a couple of years in the city, and to be honest, I've really missed it!"
I was disgusted by what Fatty said and quickly told him to stop.
Fatty chuckled and ignored me, taking out a dagger and starting to skin the two dead pig-faced giant bats. I noticed he seemed to specifically target the area on the wings, only taking the cartilage at the tip of the wings. His movements were skilled, and he could pick out several pieces of cartilage in a few quick motions. It was clear he had eaten this before.
Rosa and Zhang Jinya also came over and, without a word, joined Fatty's ranks. They crawled out and picked up a pile of bodies left by the pig-faced giant bats, then came back and started selecting cartilage.
I was speechless. But looking at the ferocious appearance of the pig-faced giant bats, I really couldn't bring myself to eat them, so I simply sat down quietly with Zhou Jing, who was also silent. At that moment, I felt a bit envious of Princess Kinskaya, who had been silently following us. Being a ghost had its advantages; at least she wouldn't be troubled by hunger.
By then, Fatty and the others had picked out a pile of cartilage. They pulled out a bunch of weathered and very soft ropes from the bound skeletons in the sacrificial pits, piled them up, and lit them on fire to roast the cartilage. Surprisingly, the pig-faced giant bats were indeed quite robust. Once they were placed over the fire, the cartilage sizzled and began to drip with oil. It didn't take long before they were ready. Fatty popped a piece into his mouth, crunched it a couple of times, and smiled, "That's right, this is the taste. But these bats here are much fatter than the ones I encountered in Inner Mongolia. Just one word: delicious!"
As he spoke, the scoundrel even stuffed a piece into the mouths of me and Zhou Jing.
Instantly, a disgusting gamey taste spread through my mouth!
Is this what you call tasting like mutton?
Where's the resemblance apart from the gamey taste?!
"You'd better eat some!"
Just as I was about to spit it out, Rosa suddenly spoke up, "Fatty is looking out for you. We're about to enter Helian Hui's tomb, and no one knows what's inside. We might even get trapped in there. It's best for you to eat and replenish your energy now, to enter the tomb in the best condition!"
I was stunned by her words, glanced at the other three, and then, gritting my teeth, chewed a few times and swallowed the piece of cartilage in my mouth. Although it was disgusting, Rosa's words made sense. In this place where neither heaven nor earth would respond, survival was indeed the most important thing.
And to tell the truth, after eating a few more bites, it wasn't that bad. The main issue was getting used to eating bat at the beginning. Once I overcame the mental barrier, it became more acceptable. My taste buds got used to it, and the chewy texture was actually quite satisfying. So I urged Zhou Jing to eat as well. Despite his young age, Zhou Jing was much stronger than me, a man in his twenties. After hesitating for a moment, he closed his eyes and started eating voraciously.
It must have been around 1 a.m. on the 31st when we finally had our fill and felt a bit of our energy returning. Zhang Jinya suggested we should head into the tomb sooner rather than later, considering our current state and equipment weren't suited for prolonged waiting. Thinking it over, we agreed that made sense, so Fatty got up to examine the two marble tomb doors.
The structure of these doors wasn't complicated; they essentially used a semi-automatic capstone for locking. This mechanism had been around since the Spring and Autumn period, persisting all the way to the Qing dynasty. Even the tomb of the famous eunuch Li Lianying used this kind of anti-theft mechanism—the capstone would use its own weight to automatically lock the door from the inside, making it impossible to open with external force.
How could such a common tomb anti-theft mechanism pose any difficulty for Fatty? He pulled out a crowbar key from his bag, which was essentially a piece of rebar twisted into shape. From the side, it looked like a rectangle without its longer sides, attached to a particularly long handle, designed for prying open tomb doors with capstones.
Holding the crowbar key, Fatty positioned the half "口" shaped steel vertically, sliding it into the crack of the door. After a few movements up and down, he hooked onto the capstone inside and pushed forward fiercely. A loud "boom" echoed from within the tomb as the two marble doors swung open.
Instantly, a musty smell enveloped us.
"Damn it, this tomb isn't built as well as Gao Xianzhi's!" Fatty cursed under his breath, covering his nose. He then took a lighter from his backpack and tossed it into the long corridor behind the tomb doors. With a strong throw, the lighter traveled several meters before it hit the ground and immediately went out.
Seeing this, Fatty's face turned pale, and he said in a grave tone, "I think we should sleep here before going in. Damn it, entering now is a death sentence for anyone!"