This time, finding the exit was a bit more difficult. The previous chamber above was empty except for six petro-monuments, and we searched for quite a while. Now, with over ten thousand weapons spread out on the floor, the difficulty level had increased a lot. In the end, Boss Hao took charge again and discovered a bronze secret latch on the chamber wall. He called out, "Po Jun, this one's for you."
Unlike the chamber on the previous level, the third chamber was right next door. As Po Jun opened the door, a wave of grayish-black gas surged out. His expression changed immediately upon seeing the dark aura. He shouted, "Corpse aura…" Reacting incredibly fast, he retreated quickly, and the moment his feet touched the ground, he turned and ran back to us. The black aura almost engulfed him.
Boss Hao grabbed me and the still-dazed Sun Fatty, urgently saying, "Go up, back to the previous level!"
Dampness? Poisonous dampness? I didn't quite understand at first, but seeing Boss Hao's tense expression, I guessed something had gone wrong and followed him back to the chamber holding the petro-monuments. Once inside, Boss Hao didn't hesitate and pointed to the hole we had entered through. "Climb out, quickly!"
We returned to the deep pit where Sun Fatty and I had fallen earlier. Po Jun immediately took off his jacket and used it to block the entrance to the chamber. Though Po Jun's jacket was large, the hole wasn't small either, so I took off my jacket as well, basically sealing the entrance.
"Boss Hao, what's going on?" Sun Fatty asked, gasping for breath.
"Everyone step back a few paces, stay away from the entrance," Boss Hao said after seeing Po Jun's precaution. "The chamber we opened was likely where the sacrificial burial corpses were placed. I didn't expect the corpse aura to be this strong. Seems like the legend about King Baijie being buried with three thousand child attendants is probably true."
Sun Fatty said, "That Baijie — a king in life, still having three thousand kids to serve him in death — damn, he sure knew how to enjoy himself."
Boss Hao took out a small plastic bottle and poured four yellow pills, handing them to us. "Hold these under your tongues. Don't swallow — these are to resist the corpse aura." I took one and held it in my mouth; it tingled like Sichuan pepper powder.
"Boss Hao, I think I already inhaled some just now. Is it too late to take the pill?" Sun Fatty coughed as he spoke.
Seeing no corpse aura seeping from our clothes, Boss Hao finally relaxed. He glanced at Sun Fatty and said, "If you had inhaled that concentration directly, you'd have collapsed on the spot."
I said, "The chamber below is filled with corpse aura. Looks like we can't go down now. What's next? Wait for Director Ouyang to send help?"
"No need," Po Jun explained. "Air and corpse aura counteract each other. In about half an hour, the aura will be completely broken down. Looks like that door leads to the main tomb chamber. I was careless not to expect we'd get here so fast. Had we been prepared, we wouldn't be in such a mess."
After half an hour, Po Jun cautiously lifted the edge of his jacket, confirming no corpse aura escaped, then fully opened it and said, "Wait here a bit. I'll go in and scout first."
"You stay here. I'll go in," Boss Hao said, stepping ahead of Po Jun. "Listen, I'm the boss here. I'll call you in when it's safe. Otherwise, stay put."
Without waiting for a response, Boss Hao slipped into the hole.
While Boss Hao explored the chamber for the second time, the three of us started talking. Sun Fatty said first, "Po Jun, you don't run into corpse aura that often, right?"
"It's not that easy to encounter corpse aura. This is my first time too. Before, I only saw artificially created corpse aura by Ouyang Pianzuo at the Bureau. Corpse aura can't just form anywhere — it needs enough space, airtight sealing, no exposure to sunlight, not too humid or dry. Burial sites that are extremely Yin or extremely Yang won't have it either. Even old hands at the Bureau with ten years of experience might never have seen it with their own eyes," Po Jun replied, sitting down from exhaustion.
"I hear you. Sounds really hard to come across. But me and Da Sheng ran into it on our first mission. That chance doesn't seem so small, does it?" I said, feeling a bit frustrated.
Po Jun said, "That's just your luck. Old Gao once said, if you could just dig any grave and find corpse aura, the odds would be like winning the lottery."
Sun Fatty wanted to say more, but Boss Hao's voice came from the chamber, "Come on in, it's safe now."
We entered, and the dense corpse aura had completely dissipated. Boss Hao was standing at the stairs leading to the second chamber, waiting for us. Following behind him, the four of us entered through the half-opened door Po Jun had just opened.
Just as Po Jun predicted, the door led to King Baijie's tomb chamber. The chamber was huge — so massive that I felt like I had stepped into the Bureau's underground second level.
Inside, it wasn't only King Baijie lying there. Surrounding a gigantic coffin were thousands of already desiccated corpses, packed tightly together. After thousands of years, no wonder the corpse aura had been so strong.
Compared to the dry corpses in the Water Curtain Cave, these were on a whole different level. Sun Fatty, standing beside Boss Hao, noticed something was off. "Boss Hao, wait, those are the three thousand attendants you mentioned? They don't look like it at all."
Unlike the dried corpses we saw a few months ago in the Water Curtain Cave, there was none of that eerie, violent aura here. I scanned the room with the Heavenly Eye; these bodies were all clean and dry, with no traces of lingering spirits. Even if there had been vengeful souls, they would have reincarnated thousands of years ago. What remained were just thousands of dehydrated meat husks.
With Hao Wenming and Po Jun nearby to bolster our courage, Sun Fatty also tried examining several bodies. After looking at five or six, he noticed something odd. Hao had said there were three thousand child attendants buried with the king, but nearly all these corpses had full beards — these were definitely not children. If anything, they looked more like the children's fathers.
Hao had already noticed this when he entered. It seemed that over thousands of years, the legend had become distorted.
The ancient records and materials passed down from the Gu Zhi Kingdom were very limited to begin with, and after nearly three thousand years of loss, what remained was even less. The story of three thousand child attendants came from a mural in the Longmen Grottoes. Now it seemed that mural was more symbolic than literal, not entirely reliable.
Hao Wenming didn't have time to entertain Sun Fatty's doubts. "Forget about that for now — first, let's find the secret passage. We can figure out how the 'children' turned into 'old men' once we get out."
Because the tomb chamber was so huge and packed with corpses, it was hard to know where to start searching. Po Jun went to the center and tapped the coffin. "Hao, why don't we try opening the coffin first? Maybe the secret passage is inside."
Hao hesitated, "Be careful not to damage any burial items inside. It'll be hard to explain if we mess them up."
Sun Fatty suddenly perked up when he heard about opening the coffin. "No problem, I'll be gentle. La Zi, help me out."
I reluctantly stepped forward and lowered my voice, "Are you crazy? Is the King in there your relative? It's just a coffin. Why are you so excited?"
Sun Fatty rolled his eyes and answered in the same tone, "You're the crazy one. This is a royal tomb from the Shang and Zhou periods. Guess what's inside? Even a simple chamber pot could be worth millions!"
"Even if there's a money tree inside, everything belongs to the state — what does it have to do with you?"
Sun Fatty gave a sly smile and ignored me, heading toward the massive coffin.
I followed him. The floor was covered with corpses, and as I stepped over one, I didn't lift my foot high enough and snagged a corpse's hair. "Shhhrrk!" My pants got torn.
Hair or steel wire? How could it be so hard? I was stunned. I crouched down and pushed aside the corpse's hair, only to be shocked by what I saw inside. I shouted, "Hao, come see this! Why is there a giant nail in his head?"
"A nail?" Hao Wenming frowned and came over. Following my gesture, he saw a yellow nail head protruding from the corpse's skull.
Po Jun leaned in and said, "What is that? Could it be a soul-binding nail?"
Hao's face darkened. "You can't tell just by looking. Pull it out."
Po Jun nodded, took out a dagger, placed its tip against the nail head, and slowly applied force. He pulled out a nine-inch-long nail about as thick as a pen. "It really is a soul-binding nail. Impossible — with these nails, the three souls and seven spirits should never leave the body, turning the corpse into a living zombie." He said this to Hao Wenming, who stared at the nail without replying.
The nail had been in the corpse's head for thousands of years. Pulled out just now, it had no rust at all. On closer inspection, it was made of gold, carved with symbols similar to the talisman on my handgun at my waist.
Hao Wenming took the nail in hand and furrowed his brows deeply. "Check the other corpses for more nails like this."
After searching the hair of more than ten bodies, we pulled out about a dozen similar nails. Each one was almost identical to the first.
Sun Fatty picked one up and weighed it in his hand. "Not pure gold — the weight's all wrong."
"Of course not pure gold," Po Jun said. "Each nail weighs about 100 grams. Three thousand nails would be 300 kilograms of gold. Gu Zhi Kingdom only had about a hundred thousand people and a landmass over a thousand li long — exhausting the treasury to collect that much gold would be impossible."
He pulled out his telescopic baton, extended it, and struck a nail. The nail broke with a clear snap, revealing a lead core. "See that? The outside is gilded, but inside it's lead." Then he looked at Hao Wenming. "What does it mean that the King nailed his burial companions with soul-binding nails?"
Hao Wenming spoke quietly, "It wasn't the King." He tore open the clothes of a nearby corpse. Well, "tore open" was an exaggeration — the fabric was so rotten it crumbled to dust at his touch. The corpse's throat, heart, and navel each had a small wound.
"Just as I thought." Hao sighed and pointed at the three wounds. "These are soul exit points. In the past, some people died but their souls couldn't leave their bodies, causing them to become restless dead. By making small cuts at these three points, the soul would be forced out uncontrollably."
"Wait, I'm confused," I interrupted. "Hao, the nails we pulled out are soul-binding, but these wounds are soul-exit points. So which is it — binding souls or letting them out?"
Hao Wenming stared at the three wounds for a moment, then after a few seconds said, "Probably two groups of people — one drove the nails, and the other opened the soul exit points."
Sun Fatty sneered, "Really? Like you actually saw it with your own eyes." Po Jun poked him and said, "Quit talking nonsense. Listen to Hao."
Hao continued, "That iron sword we found in the chamber probably belonged to the second group. The wounds on the corpses match the sword."
"Forget it — let Ouyang Pianzuo and the others worry about this after we get out." Hao Wenming stopped paying attention to the corpses and turned to the huge coffin. "Let's open the coffin and see what's inside." Though he said that, I saw him secretly hide a soul-binding nail.
The four of us each grabbed a corner. Hao counted, "One, two, three!" We pushed with all our strength, but the coffin lid was unbelievably heavy, as if welded to the coffin — it wouldn't budge.
Sun Fatty slapped the coffin and said, "Is this coffin wood or concrete? Not even a twitch."
His words caught Hao's attention. He tapped the coffin surface a few times. "Clang!" The sound was metallic.
Sun Fatty jumped, "An iron coffin?"
"No, not iron." Hao picked up a nail and scratched the lacquer. Beneath the surface was a bronze pattern. "It's bronze. Why isn't it a moon-embracing jade coffin?"