Chapter 7: No Turning Back
Xiao Xi's high-intensity flashlight was of good quality. It didn't break even after falling two or three times. The light was as dazzling as ever. I bent over and walked forward a few steps, collecting the remaining talismans that fell on the ground and wrapped them in a tattered plastic bag to prevent them from getting wet by the water droplets on my body. Then I picked out a folding switchblade, a lighter, and a small makeup mirror from the scattered debris, and put the remaining cosmetics and mobile phone aside.
"Hey, that's my iPhone 5..." Xiao Xi ran over and picked up the phone with a distressed look on her face.
"Well, are you iPhone 5 or iPhone 6? They are all rubbish to me.
"Bah! You're crazy about it. This is an Apple, it costs thousands of dollars." Xiao Xi said as she wiped the water droplets and dirt off the phone with the corner of her clothes.
I stood up and shone the flashlight towards the end of the corridor, then smiled and said to her, "How many dollars can your apples sell for? Are they golden apples or jade apples?"
"I'm not going to talk to you anymore, you old-fashioned guy." Xiao Xi angrily put the phone into his pocket.
"Shh!" The sound sounded even weirder, so I asked her to be quiet and walked forward with my back bent. Xiao Xi then kept her mouth shut and followed behind me. This time I had learned from the previous experience, and I was afraid that this girl would attack me from behind again, so I turned around and shook my head at her, asking her to walk side by side with me.
She understood what I meant, glared at me and pouted, then came out from behind and walked forward shoulder to shoulder with me.
This passage is about 20 meters long. Because of the dark and gloomy atmosphere everywhere, even with a bright flashlight, we still couldn't see what was at the end. We carefully moved forward step by step as if we were walking on a landmine, and then we could see clearly that it was two closed bluestone tomb doors. The left stone door was carved with a picture of the sunrise in the east, and the right door was carved with a pattern of stars and moon in the sky. I don't know much about ancient tombs, and I don't know what these mean. I only heard rustling sounds coming from behind the tomb door.
This sound sounded like some kind of animal crawling, or something rubbing against each other. I was puzzled. How could there be a sound in a tomb buried deep under the mountain where the people inside had been dead for many years? If it was the ghost, it was almost scared to death by the yellow talisman just now, so how could it dare to come out and die again?
After thinking about it for a while, I said to Xiao Xi, "Why don't we go back the way we came and get out of the water. Anyway, the dead guy has been scared, and the water is still quite safe."
Xiao Xi seemed to be also confused by this strange sound, but she rolled her eyes, shook her head and said, "I can't go back. You have heard that there are traps in ancient tombs, right?"
I nodded. I heard Uncle Chen say this, but the problem is that we haven't gone in yet, so why bother about what kind of traps there are.
Xiao Xi looked back at the passage and said, "This is a tomb passage. This passage means that only the dead can walk on it. There is no turning back."
I thought to myself, this little girl is just talking nonsense, trying to trick me into thinking I know nothing, right? Although I only graduated from junior high school, I am not illiterate, and I am a bit of a hooligan. I have heard of several stories about ancient tombs, including the one about Sun Dianying blowing up Cixi's tomb. Didn't he enter through the tomb door?
So I asked her, "If this road cannot be turned back, then after the coffin is carried in, how will the people helping with the funeral get out? Won't they all be buried alive in there?"
Xiao Xi looked at me sideways, as if she was looking at a fool, and I only heard her explain: "In ancient times, tombs were based on status. Ordinary people, even if they were rich, could not build such a large scale. Only generals, princes, or the royal family had the financial resources to build tombs of this size. Do you know how much manpower and material resources are needed to build a tunnel in the belly of a mountain? Therefore, such large tombs must belong to upper-class nobles, and there will be a large number of valuable burial objects in the tombs. In order to avoid being discovered by tomb robbers in the future, they would choose to seal the people carrying the coffin in the tomb as burial objects.
But not all of them are so cruel. There is also another "Yin Yang Road" built for the coffin bearers to come out, and then it is immediately sealed without leaving any trace. Although the tomb passage is called the "Yellow Spring Road" and cannot be turned back, it is just a saying. In fact, the real reason is to prevent theft. There are many traps on the tomb passage. Once someone passes by, they can't come back, otherwise they will die miserably. Many tombs can only be entered but not exited for this reason. "
I almost believed her words after hearing them speak so logically. But no matter how mysterious her words are, they can't fool me. The tomb passage is full of traps, and you can only enter but not exit. I think this girl is making it up. If there really are traps, they would just kill the person in the tomb passage. Why play hide-and-seek and then kill him later? What's the point of anti-theft? Isn't it to prevent people from entering the tomb? It's not in line with common sense to not kill people in the tomb passage, but to allow tomb robbers to enter the tomb through the tomb passage, mess up the coffin and the body, and let the deceased rest in peace.
I lowered my head and said, "No matter how much you say, I have decided to turn back."
Seeing that I didn't believe her, Xiao Xi got a little angry. She took out her cell phone, took off her coat, and threw it into the center of the tunnel. With a "click" sound, the stone slabs on the ground instantly split to the sides, revealing a dark trap below. I was startled and was about to speak when I saw the four or five-meter-long stone walls on both sides of the trap rumbled and slowly closed in the middle. Even if someone fell into the trap and survived, when they climbed up again, they would be crushed to death by the stone wall or the exit would be blocked.
I was completely shocked. Fortunately, this girl was kind-hearted. Otherwise, if she let me go back, I would be dead. My heart was pounding as I asked her, "How do you know all this? Are you a tomb robber?"
Xiao Xi smiled proudly and said, "I'm not a tomb robber. Aunt Ting likes to look for treasures in ancient tombs. I help her collect information about ancient tombs in various places. Over time, I have learned a lot about ancient tombs. I have helped her look up a lot , so I know that this tomb passage cannot be reversed."
I said since they can't turn back, wouldn't that force the tomb robbers to go into the tomb? Even if they can't get out, they can turn the ancient tomb upside down? Xiao Xi shook her head and said that there were also traps on the tomb door, and there was a corridor behind the tomb door, where the traps were even more vicious and absolutely impossible to get through. I said, don't show off, we should open the tomb door as soon as possible to find a way out, and when the ghost recovers, you will become its ghost head, and I will have to be its bridegroom. Don't you know what traps are on the tomb door? Then do it.
It seemed that Xiao Xi had not yet fully demonstrated her knowledge. She rolled her eyes at me, then turned around to look at the two tomb doors, asked me for a lighter, and lit a fire to smoke the stone door on the right. As the fire rose, a wisp of green smoke rose, which was choking and unpleasant. Xiao Xi had already covered her mouth and nose, and I quickly held my breath. After a while, the smoke dissipated, Xiao Xi extinguished , let go of her hand and said, "It was the poison powder applied on the stone door. It can kill people instantly if it touches the skin." After the fire, the toxicity evaporated.
As he spoke, he reached out and pressed the part that had just been burned by the fire, and then told me that there might be more than just poison on the tomb door, and there might be other more sinister mechanisms, such as crossbows, falling rocks, and poisonous gas, which were hard to guard against. He told me to be smart and to retreat quickly if something happened, but not to retreat more than ten feet.
