I screamed and pulled my hand back reflexively. It was the most annoying thing to touch something in the dark that I couldn't explain. Moreover, when I touched the hand, I felt that the owner of the hand must be dead, because the skin was cold and swollen, and there was no sense of life.
I suddenly remembered that I had some tinder on me, so I quickly lit one. With the help of the firelight, I saw a corpse lying there. There was a big wound on his stomach, and there were many corpse beetles surrounding the wound. Each of these corpse beetles was as big as my palm and was green in color. From time to time, some smaller corpse beetles crawled out of his mouth and eye sockets.
I felt sick. It looked like this man had been dead for about a week. He must have been the victim of the last tomb-robbing team. Could it be that he also died here because he discovered the mechanism? When I thought of this, I hurriedly found the battery in the dying firelight and put it in the miner's lamp. It actually lit up again. I breathed a sigh of relief. The boss said that this miner's lamp can withstand impacts of more than 3 meters. It seems that he really didn't lie to me!
With the light, I looked around. There was nothing in this place. It was very simple. It was a square cellar with stone walls made of irregular stones. There were many holes like exhaust holes on the walls. It was pitch black and I didn't know where they led to. Cool breezes blew from time to time from those holes.
I immediately checked the body. It was a middle-aged man, about 40 years old, with a torn abdomen, which looked like a fatal injury. He was wearing camouflage uniforms, and his pockets were bulging. I took out a wallet from it, which contained some money and a note from the station. I continued to feel around, and on his belt buckle, I found a steel stamp with a line of numbers engraved on it: 02200059. There was nothing else that could prove his identity.
I put his wallet in my pocket, planning to study it myself when I got out.
The architectural style here is very similar to the ancient tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and it also looks a bit like a temporary escape passage. I think it is unlikely that someone would build a tomb on top of someone else's cemetery. Maybe this is the escape route that the tomb builders left for themselves!
In ancient times, especially during the Warring States Period, if you participated in the project of building aristocratic tombs, it was equivalent to death. You would either be poisoned or buried alive with corpses. However, the wisdom of the working people cannot be ignored. Most craftsmen would make a secret passage for themselves to escape. I swept the light and saw a very narrow door on the wall on one side, but this door was still a little high from the ground. There was a wooden ladder underneath, which was rotten. I estimated the height and it was impossible for me to jump up. At this time, I saw a face suddenly poking out from the passage.
When I saw him, I was overjoyed and shouted, "Pan Zi! It's me!"
Pan Zi was startled and saw me, but instead of looking happy, he seemed to have seen something horrible and almost fell down the passage.
I was wondering, Pan Zi suddenly pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. I knew something was wrong. Did Pan Zi mistake me for a dumpling? I was wronged! I yelled, "It's me, Pan Zi! What the hell are you doing?"
Pan Zi seemed to have heard nothing. There was a loud bang, and the gunshot was surprisingly loud in the cave. The bullet whizzed past my ear and hit something behind me. A pool of smelly stuff splashed on the back of my head. I turned around and saw several green big beetles lying on the wall, and some big beetles were looking up with murderous intent. Some of them had already climbed to the ceiling above my head, only a dozen centimeters away from my head.
I was just about to step back a few steps to get away from these big bugs, when suddenly, two bugs on the wall flew over like springs and almost instantly arrived in front of me. At the same time, there were two loud noises, and two bullets flew over my head, blowing up the two bugs in mid-air. They really did blow up, and my face was covered with the body fluids from the bugs. At this time, I heard Pan Zi shout, "I'm running out of bullets, what the hell are you still standing there for? Come over here quickly!"
With Pan Zi as my backer, I felt more confident. I turned and ran. Pan Zi fired another shot, probably killing another one. I was already at the wall. Pan Zi stretched out his hand, and I jumped and grabbed his hand. Fortunately, the stone wall was very rough, and my feet had a place to rest. Pan Zi pulled me up, but before I could stand firmly, Pan Zi's pistol came out from under my crotch, and he fired another shot. The shell jumped out and hit my crotch. I screamed and almost fainted. I cursed: "Your grandfather, you want to castrate me!"
Pan Zi cursed, "Damn it, between a dick and life, of course life is more important!"
I suddenly realized that the mining lamp was not in my hand. I looked back and found that it had fallen down. The light source was surrounded by large and small corpse beetles, a large green mass, and I didn't know where they came from. I asked Pan Zi: "How many bullets do you have?"
He felt in his pocket, took out a bullet, and couldn't help but smile bitterly: "There is still a glory bullet." Before he finished speaking, a corpse beetle jumped onto the stone road and made a "squeak, squeak" sound towards us.
After all, Pan Zi had been a soldier, so he had good adaptability. He simply turned his gun into a hammer, holding the gun barrel, using the wooden butt as a hammer head, and flattened the bug with one blow. He then kicked it down, but this was not a long-term solution. More bugs crawled up, and although we kicked and knocked them, a few of them still crawled onto us, and their hooked claws took away a piece of flesh in one go.
I said to Pan Zi, "Let's run. There's no way to stop so many of them." Pan Zi asked, where to run to? I pointed to the back and said, "There must be an exit behind. Look at this tunnel. It must have been used by the tomb builders in ancient times to escape. As long as we run along this, we will definitely get out."
Pan Zi cursed, "Bullshit, you nerds just think everything in the book is right. Let me tell you, I have walked all over this road, it is simply a maze, I finally got to this place and it is a bit better. If I retreat any further, I don't know how long I will have to wander around!"
I was shocked and wondered if I had guessed wrong. But in this situation, I couldn't think about it anymore. I saw more and more insects and shouted, "That's better than feeding them here!"
At this moment, there was a sudden gurgling sound, and another person fell from the secret door above, pressing on the bugs. The sudden impact scared the bugs away, and the man stood up cursing: "My ass, damn, what kind of door is this, why does it open downwards?" He shone the flashlight around and shouted: "Damn! What the hell! Why are there so many bugs!!"
When we looked over, we realized that this was the same gold thief who had just scared us in the main tomb.
The corpse beetles had surrounded us again, very quickly. This man was quite capable. He used the flashlight as a wolf's head, hitting one at a time. But it was of no use. Soon his back was covered with bugs. He screamed like a pig being slaughtered and reached back to pull the bugs off. At this time, Pan Zi suddenly took out all the fire sticks in his arms, lit them all, and then jumped down. I didn't even have time to stop him.
He rolled over on the ground and landed next to the boy. The corpse beetles were afraid of fire and jumped away one by one. However, the tinderbox was not a long-term fire-starting tool, and the fire was very small after the series of movements. Pan Zi shouted, "Do you have any more?" I felt my arms and found that there were still a few left. I made up my mind and thought, damn it, I'll just give it a try. I jumped down like Pan Zi, but unfortunately I didn't have enough skills and fell into the pile of corpse beetles. The tinderbox in my hand slipped out of my hand and fell into the pile of corpse beetles. Pan Zi cursed, "My grandpa, you are trying to kill me!"
I quickly got up and ran to their side. The corpse beetles were afraid of fire and didn't dare to rush over for a while, but as the fire grew dimmer, their encirclement became smaller and smaller. I couldn't help but swallow my saliva and thought to myself, "It looks like I'm going to have to give up."