As soon as the stone door closed, Big Mouth Rong took out a chalk line and snapped a few black lines across the stone door. He explained that this was a coffin-sealing corpse suppression method. No matter how powerful the cat specter was, it was still just a corpse. Sealing the door was the same principle as sealing a coffin—it wouldn't be able to get out from here. However, we had to be wary of it escaping through the pit and circling around to block us again. He urged everyone to quickly find a way out and escape the Dead End Village.
Beyond the door, there was only a long tunnel, so we followed it forward. The ground was littered with messy footprints, indicating that many people had been here before. Up ahead, we found a women's hiking shoe. Xiao Ying picked it up and examined it. Although she didn't say anything, her serious expression suggested she knew whose shoe it was.
I figured it belonged to Xiao Xiang, so I didn't ask.
The tunnel gradually rose in elevation until it reached a dead end, with just over a meter separating us from the ceiling. There were visible water stains here, a clear sign that someone had been here recently—likely Wu Long. But since this tunnel was a dead end, where could Wu Long have gone? This left us all baffled.
It was the little ghost girl who had the sharpest eyes. She told me there must be an exit here, but it was hidden, so I should search carefully. Little Knife and Big Mouth Rong glared at each other like fighting cocks, bickering while pretending to look for an exit. Meanwhile, Xiao Ying tapped on the stone wall with her hand as I crouched down and searched carefully with a flashlight where Wu Long had lingered.
After searching for a long time, I still couldn't find anything suspicious. The water stains, however, didn't seem to have been left by people but appeared to seep from the ground. I called Little Knife over and borrowed his dagger. With force, I stabbed into the wet spot. "Thunk!" To everyone's shock, the blade pierced through the stone surface and sank a few centimeters. What kind of stone was so fragile?
I pressed harder, but the dagger wouldn't go any further, as if it had hit solid rock. Frustrated, I pulled it out, and a trickle of water followed through the hole. That's when I realized this was actually a crack in the stone, filled with soil and camouflaged by the constant water seepage. Without that stab, we'd never have discovered the clue.
Little Knife took his dagger back and told me to step aside. Squatting down, he dug the soil out of the crack until he could fit his fingers inside. With a strong pull, he lifted a stone slab about a foot square. Beneath it was a pool of water, seemingly a water source rather than an exit, much to our disappointment.
But as the muddy water initially mixed with the dirt cleared up, I suddenly noticed a piece of green brick below. My heart skipped a beat—how could there be green bricks here? This meant it was man-made!
I motioned to the others, and all three heads leaned in together. Xiao Ying, avoiding the crowding, nearly pressed her face against mine. The scent of her perfume and the warmth of her breath brushing my cheek stirred something inside me.
"Ah! Sealing brick!" Big Mouth Rong exclaimed in surprise.
What? A sealing brick? I'd heard of those—they're used to seal tomb doors. Could we be at the entrance to the Ghost King's tomb? Big Mouth Rong shoved me aside and snatched the dagger from Little Knife. He dug a few times, pulled out a green brick, and nodded. "Yep, it's a sealing brick. This could be the Ghost King's tomb!"
Little Knife's face lit up with excitement. "The Ghost King's tomb? Does that mean we'll find his coffin?"
"Dream on! The Ghost King's tomb is bound to be perilous. Once we go in, we might never come out. We should find another way out." Big Mouth Rong, visibly terrified, tossed the green brick back into the hole.
Xiao Ying frowned. "There's likely no other way out besides here. Besides, my cousin must have entered the Ghost King's tomb. We should go in and take a look."
Big Mouth Rong grinned widely. "Think for a second. The sealing brick is intact. How could your cousin get in? You think he's a ghost?"
"Exactly! Your cousin couldn't have gone into the Ghost King's tomb," Little Knife unexpectedly agreed with Big Mouth Rong.
I thought to myself, whether Wu Long was in there or not, Xiao Xiang definitely was—after all, the little ghost girl had said so. I didn't argue with them and reached in to remove the green brick, followed by another one. Seeing my determination, Big Mouth Rong and Little Knife said they would go their separate way. If I wanted to enter the Ghost King's tomb, that was my business. With that, they headed back along the tunnel to search for another exit.
Xiao Ying knelt beside me to help remove the bricks and frowned. "Something doesn't feel right."
"What's strange?" I asked while removing another green brick.
"That shoe we found earlier—it looked like Xiao Xiang's. I know her shoe size, but the sole was spotless—no mud or dirt at all!"
I froze, looking up at her. "Are you saying someone deliberately left the shoe here as bait to lure us into the tomb?"
Xiao Ying nodded, then shook her head, her expression confused. "Those corpses we found earlier felt strange too. How could they have ended up here?"
Her words made me realize how illogical it all was. Entering the underground palace meant first encountering the elder and junior Fu Shou ghosts. How could six defenseless students make it to the water pit area? Even if the underground palace had several entrances, it was crawling with spirits. Traversing it unscathed seemed impossible.
There was only one explanation. Xiao Ying and I spoke simultaneously: "The cat specter!" That had to be it—someone had guided them into the water pit to feed the cat specter. The thought sent chills down my spine. Who could be so wicked as to sacrifice six children?
At that moment, Big Mouth Rong and Little Knife came running back, screaming in panic. Their faces were pale with terror, and they were gasping for breath. Little Knife shouted, "Big Mouth's corpse-sealing spell is garbage! The cat specter is about to break through the stone door. We've got no choice now—do or die!"
Really? "No choice" somehow led them to "do or die"? Did their family's Liangshan grow on top of Mount Hua?
There was no time for banter. They both crowded around, helping to remove the surface stones. In no time, we cleared a one-meter square hole. Big Mouth Rong was the first to go down, muttering about how he'd followed his grandfather into ancient tombs to capture zombies when he was ten, explored tombs on Mount Mang with his father at thirteen, and caught two "rice dumplings" in a Tang dynasty tomb by himself at seventeen.
Little Knife followed, cursing, "If you're so great, why don't you deal with the Ghost King's 'dumpling' later?"
Their bickering left no room for us to speak. When we descended, Xiao Ying grabbed my hand. Her hand felt cold. I squeezed it gently. "Don't be scared."
"With you here, I feel at ease," Xiao Ying whispered.
Her words warmed my heart. Having a beautiful girl trust me felt like an honor, even if she was lying.
The wall behind the sealing bricks was vertical. Once we angled ourselves downward, we found a tomb passage. It was damp but free of standing water. The water had flowed from outside the sealing bricks and likely came from an underground stream adjacent to the Ghost King's tomb. Now that the sealing bricks were removed, the stream trickled slowly into the passage.