The fire was still gushing out of the tomb tunnel. The originally cold and damp tomb passage instantly began to heat up. It was so stuffy that every grain of water vapor in the air began to become warm, making it difficult to breathe.
I know that this is because the oxygen is decreasing.
This tomb was built just to suppress demons. No one cared about the preservation of the corpse. The sealing was not good, which did not affect breathing. However, it was dozens of meters underground, and the air circulation speed was not fast. Under such intense burning, this little oxygen was obviously insufficient.
It won't take long before the oxygen here will be consumed completely!
"Let's go! Leave this place first and wait until the fire is out!"
I wiped my face fiercely. Because of the high temperature, a layer of greasy stuff attached to my skin. It was not sweating at all. I think it was just refining human oil.
"Burn it! Burn it well!"
Brother Yaozi stood up with the help of Zhang Xinya, grinning and saying, "It's been a mess all along the way, this fire will burn it to ashes, no matter what's in the tomb, this fire will clean it up!"
We retreated quickly, but only Lao Bai was frustrated and kept hitting the ground, "Puh" and spewing the filth from his mouth. That scene... It was really hard to understand. This was the first time I knew that it was like to spit shit with a mouth full of shit. But in the end, Lao Bai's mouth was dry and it was more difficult to breathe. He coughed repeatedly and didn't dare to hesitate any more. He crawled and chased after us.
We retreated all the way to the door of the mechanism, which was far enough away from the tomb, so we stopped one after another.
"Damn it, it's all dried up!"
Old Baimao picked at the stains on his body impatiently, the stench was overwhelming, frowning and muttering: "Didn't they say that this place has been sealed for thousands of years? Even if there is a cesspool in the tomb, it should have dried up long ago. How come all it spewed out is dung? There can't be any living things in the tomb. After thousands of years, there is nothing to eat or drink, so they should have starved to death long ago!"
"It's hard to say. The ritual officer always has some unexpected means. Who knows what's going on in the tomb? Besides, you've seen the water burial tomb. Isn't there any food or drink there? So many water scorpions survived."
Brother Yaozi teased, "If you ask me, this is pure retribution. You are not a forgetful person, and you have forgotten about Old Man Dong. You drooled over his craft of making paper figurines, but it was a pity that Old Man Dong's craft was passed down from generation to generation, and it was passed down to men, not women. You wanted to learn from him, but he refused to accept you. As a result, you were resentful. In the middle of summer, when he went to the toilet, you leaned on the wall and threw a bundle of firecrackers into the pit. The explosion was much worse than your current situation..."
Lao Bai looked at Brother Yaozi with red eyes. He was very dissatisfied with Brother Yaozi's re-mention of the immoral and smoking things he had done in the past, but he couldn't say a word of rebuttal. He looked at Brother Yaozi angrily and buried his head to continue picking the feces residue on his body.
We really didn't have the energy to laugh at him, so we each chose a place to lie down and rest.
The fire was burning all the time, and it was getting bigger and bigger.
God knows how big the tomb is, how much methane is accumulated inside...
In the dark tomb passage, there is no concept of time. The only standard we can use to measure time is my changes.
From paper man to human, and then from human to paper man...
I remember that I changed four times!
In other words, four days passed like this.
Hunger corroded us like a nightmare. I was born in New China, grew up under the red flag and lived in a peaceful and prosperous era. How could I have experienced this in my life? I was dizzy and weak from hunger. In the end, I couldn't feel my heartbeat. It was at this time that I realized how happy I was in the past. No matter how hard it was, at least I could eat a full stomach.
There was a burning smell in the air. The fire made the tomb passage in front hot like a red-hot frying pan. The bodies left by the corpse soldiers were roasted and stinked. The smell would probably make any full person sick.
I inexplicably felt that it smelled a bit fragrant...
This was the scary part. I instinctively rejected this cognition because I felt that this thought alone was enough to turn me from a human into a beast. After all, it was a corpse, and it was a corpse of the same kind. But as the hunger continued to erode, the burnt smell smelled more and more fragrant, and a certain thought in my heart became stronger and stronger, and I kept resisting.
It turned out that the distance between humans and beasts was only a few days at most without food or drink.
We searched through the backpack and only found half a bar of leftover chocolate.
Lao Bai was the meanest. He said he wanted to test it for us to see if it was poisonous. He stuffed the whole bar of chocolate into his mouth at once. The thing was at least more than ten centimeters long, which made him vomit non-stop. He slurped it in his mouth and took it out again. He shamelessly said it was not poisonous and asked us if we wanted it. If we didn't, he would eat it all.
I jumped up and slapped him to the side. After much persuasion, I snatched a large piece. At this time, I didn't care about disliking him. I drooled at the sight of the thing, but after a moment of hesitation, I still separated the snatched little bit, leaving only a little for myself, and gave the rest to Brother Yaozi and Zhang Xinya.
My master has been meditating. He was obviously hungry and his face was pale, but he was calmer and calmer than us. He just touched my head and smiled and said he was not hungry. He forced my mouth open and stuffed the remaining bit into me. At that moment, I almost cried, but I held it back.
We really couldn't hold on any longer. After a few people discussed it, we could only go back the same way to see if we could find what we left behind.
Lao Bai had the most physical strength, so this job naturally fell on him.
He left for a full four or five hours. When he came back, he was wet all over and looked miserable, but he was carrying a large bag of things in his clothes.
He said that the water in the pool had all poured down, blocking our retreat, and it had almost become a swamp. He had tried to swim across, but unfortunately, he was too weak and was particularly exhausted in the water, and he almost drowned...
In other words, in our current state, we can't even get out!
Bang!
Lao Bai threw the package he held in his arms to the ground, and the thing instantly fell apart, revealing pieces of hard lumps that were white and bluish.
Isn't this white clay?
But the white clay has now been baked dry.
"Eat this!"
Lao Bai sighed and picked a relatively clean piece and stuffed it into his mouth.
"It's edible."
Brother Yaozi saw that Zhang Xinya and I were a little dumbfounded, and laughed: "This is kaolin, which people in the old society also called Guanyin soil. People often ate this during famines..."
If he wanted to talk about Guanyin soil, I have really heard of it.
It's ok to eat a small amount of this stuff, but if you eat too much, you will die of bloating. It has no nutrition, but it can relieve hunger.
However, eating soil is more acceptable than eating zongzi, even though this soil is picked from the coffin board.
I was so hungry that my eyes turned green. I didn't care what it was. I just stuffed it into my mouth and choked and rolled my eyes.
Don't even mention the taste of this thing. It makes a "crunching" sound when chewing it. Moreover, we haven't drunk any water in the past few days, and the tongue coating is as dry as a file. I can't swallow Guanyin soil in my mouth. I chewed it for a breath and white flour spurted out of my mouth...
After much persuasion, I ate two fist-sized pieces. I really didn't feel hungry, but my limbs were still weak and I often saw double vision.
After all, we are not people of the old society, we did not grow up in hardship, and we do not have the body to endure hardship. After the Guanyin soil entered our stomach, we had a reaction not long after. It hurt so much, and our stomach was hard, just like a stone was stuffed inside, and we couldn't even poop...
Lao Bai was more comfortable. After all, he had been developed by a big thick tube. He ate and pooped, and it was very comfortable. But his butt was a little hurt. I saw that he was bleeding all the time.
Relying on this Guanyin soil, we lasted another whole day. When I became a human again, the fire in the tomb was finally extinguished.
"Let's go!"
Brother Yaozi struggled to stand up. After a few days, in such a bad environment, his wounds were still healed. He was much better than me. He helped me up and walked forward: "Since we can't retreat, let's move forward. Whether we can survive depends on whether we can survive!"