Chapter 14 Zombie Column
Running in such a spacious and smooth corridor, I suddenly felt relaxed. While running, I would occasionally shine the flashlight into the ear chambers on both sides. There was nothing inside, but skeletons whose flesh and skin had rotted away. Their pairs of empty black eye sockets, reflected by the light, seemed to be staring at us with hostility, which made me feel cold.
Lin Yuxi had sharp eyes. In addition to discovering the skeleton, she also saw ancient cold weapons such as swords, spears, and halberds. She frowned and said, "There are numbers A, B, C, and D on the door of each ear chamber. This looks a bit like a cave for storing troops. I said you are just making it up. Our place has never been a strategic location since ancient times. How could the court raise troops in the mountains, and even raise them in ancient tombs? It's unheard of."
She shook her head and said that when she was looking up historical data in this area, she accidentally discovered that the White Lotus Sect was very rampant in this mountainous area during the Qing Dynasty. They were a folk "bandit sect" that had been banned by the government since the Song Dynasty and had been secretly carried out among the people. The most famous in their history was the Red Turban Uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, which revolted under the banner of the "Ming Wang". Zhu Yuanzhang was born here at the time and opened the Ming Dynasty. But after he founded the country, he turned around and suppressed the White Lotus Sect.
The White Lotus Sect has many factions and countless branches. They believe in different gods, including Buddhism and Taoism. There is no unified belief, so the branches in different places are kings. Lin Yuxi speculated that this cave might be a hiding place for a group of White Lotus Sect members at that time. Later, they gradually weakened, and the court vigorously swept them. In the end, some fled and some died. They turned this hiding place into a tomb, which could be regarded as a resting place after death.
I don't know much about history. I've only heard about the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. As for the White Lotus Sect, I know almost nothing about it except for a little bit of it. But Lin Yuxi's story was so vivid that I listened with great interest. I just treated it as a story. Before we knew it, we ran through this corridor, which was about a hundred meters long, and entered an arched round door.
"Oh no, I was so busy telling you about history that I forgot to remind you to pay attention to the traps on the road..." Lin Yuxi sounded quite nervous.
After hearing this, I felt like banging my head against the wall. We have come all the way here safely, why are you still so nervous? But looking at this girl's slightly innocent look, I couldn't bear to hit her. I laughed and said, "It's not too late to mend the fold after the sheep have been lost."
"Why mend the fence? It's not broken at all!" She only then realized that she had spoken a little too late and felt a little embarrassed.
I looked back, but the zombies hadn't caught up yet. I could only hear the clear sound of footsteps echoing behind me. In the sound of footsteps, there was also the creepy crawling sound of black-browed vipers. They wouldn't be able to catch up for a while, so we didn't need to rush in rashly. We had to wait until we had a clear view of the situation inside before making any plans, so as not to run into the female corpse drinking tea again.
I turned back and lay on the door to peek inside. I found that it was different from the tomb on the right . It was not arranged with a front hall and a back room. The space inside was very large, which was beyond our expectation. The terrain inside the door was slightly lower, which made the cave ceiling look particularly high and wide. Due to the limited range of the flashlight, I could only see the tip of the iceberg.
In the torn black curtain, I saw men wearing coarse linen clothes and wrapped in white cloth on their heads, lined up in columns in an orderly manner. They all held red tasseled spears in their hands, the red tassels looked like blood, and the spear tips were shining. They were densely packed and had a great momentum. These people didn't know whether to live or die, but they had one strange thing in common: each of them had a yellow talisman stuck on his forehead.
Lin Yuxi took a breath and said, "These are all zombies!"
Actually, I guessed it. If it wasn't a zombie, why would the talisman be stuck on the forehead? Besides, so many people gathered in the ancient tomb deep in the mountain. They were either filming a movie or dead. I couldn't help but be surprised. The owner of this tomb must be extraordinary. He was probably a leader who commanded thousands of troops when he was alive. After his death, he wanted these soldiers to become zombies to continue to guard his coffin.
"There are so many zombies. Let's go back and find a way out." Lin Yuxi was timid.
I thought to myself, there is no way back. I heard the jumping and crawling sounds. The zombies and black-browed vipers were chasing us and were in a state of panic. I quickly calmed down, took a look at the situation inside and said, "Although there are many zombies inside, they are all suppressed by the talisman. As long as we don't alarm them, nothing will happen. At present, this is the only way to Huashan. We have to bite the bullet and rush in. Whether we live or die depends on our luck."
"To be honest, when I was running towards the river with you, I stepped on dog shit." Lin Yuxi said shyly .
I comforted her even more after hearing this: "God has a good eye and gave you the bad luck in advance. I was the one who was dragged into the river by the devil..." At this point, I suddenly remembered that after falling into the river, she was entangled with me, and her shoes were washed away and floated in front of me. "Fuck you, there was dog shit on your shoes at that time, and I poured a few gulps of water on your shoes..."
Just when I was about to vomit, a cold breath hit my back with the sound of jumping steps, and I shivered involuntarily. I ignored everything and rushed into the cave with Lin Yuxi on my back, running down the slope. The further I went, the more thrilling it felt. The space inside was too big, and there were too many zombies with yellow talismans on them, and I couldn't count them at all.
We didn't dare to get into the zombie column, lest our human breath would wake them up, so we ran to the right along the outer edge of the team. Fortunately, the ground was flat and there were no debris or obstacles, but we wasted some time at the door, and the zombies that were chasing us were very close. I didn't dare to look back at the appearance of this thing, but I could estimate that it was only five or six meters away.
I was running forward as fast as I could when suddenly a slender black shadow fell from the sky in front of me. It landed on the ground with a thud and began to wriggle. I saw it clearly and was almost scared to death. How could there be a black-browed viper here, and it actually lived on the top of the cave? I raised my head and glanced up while hurriedly braking.
There were a few wriggling black shadows on the high cave ceiling. They didn't look like many, but this thing didn't care about the number. One was enough to be deadly. I stopped for a moment, and the zombie behind me jumped behind me like a flash of lightning. I only heard Lin Yuxi scream "Ah" and then there was no sound. I thought it was not good, so I turned left and rushed into the zombie column.
Unexpectedly, a huge force behind me pulled Lin Yuxi off my back. I failed to hold her back, but stumbled into the zombie column and bumped into two zombies. Fortunately, they just shook a few times and then stood firm. I turned around to see what was going on. Lin Yuxi was grabbed by the back of the neck by the zombies, like a chicken, and was lifted up in the air, struggling and kicking, with her mouth wide open and no sound coming out.
