"What are you talking about?" the fatty exclaimed, "Master Xiang, your friend's words are too harsh!"
I shook my head helplessly and found a place to sit down.
Fu Honglang and Stone were still examining the corpse.
We hadn't wasted much time on the way here and were exhausted.
I took out a compressed biscuit from my backpack, tore it open, and ate it in a few bites.
The fatty shuffled over and sat beside me, saying, "Master Xiang, how do you think we'll get out of here later?"
"We'll get out the same way we came in," I replied.
"Ah? So we have to go back to the stone bridge?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
"But those corpse beetles..."
"Why are you thinking so much? When the boat reaches the bridge, it will naturally straighten out; when the cart reaches the mountain, there will be a path," I said. "Don't be scared either. With Brother Fu and the others here, we'll be fine."
"I'm not scared, it's just..."
"I'm going to rest my eyes for a bit. Stop babbling." I interrupted the fatty, pretending to close my eyes to sleep.
I cracked open one eye and saw the fatty looking helpless, so he obediently sat beside me.
About ten minutes later, Fu Honglang and Stone finally finished dealing with the corpse.
They salvaged everything usable from the body and then moved the corpse aside.
"Everyone rest for ten minutes. After ten minutes, we'll continue on our way," Fu Honglang said. "Stone, go scout ahead."
"Okay."
This stone chamber only had one passage leading forward. Stone acknowledged and plunged in without a word.
It had to be said that tomb raiders were indeed bold.
Seeing that Fu Honglang's mood was a bit unnatural, I stood up, stretched, and went to his side to ask, "Brother Fu, sister-in-law and the others should be fine. Don't worry..."
Fu Honglang glanced at me and sighed, "This time, it's really hard to say."
"En?"
"Do you know how that person died?" Fu Honglang asked, pointing to the corpse not far away.
I shook my head, and he said, "If I'm not mistaken, he was scared to death..."
"Scared to death?" This surprised me.
"I didn't find any fatal wounds on him..."
My mind was a bit jumbled for a moment. What had that person seen to be scared to death?
Logically speaking, it was very difficult for a person to die of fright.
"This place is a bit strange," Fu Honglang said. "Little brother, I'm very grateful that you accompanied me on this trip. If anything happens later, you can..."
"Brother Fu, this is not the time for these words. Since I came with you, I must help you find sister-in-law. Don't think too much about it. No matter what happens, if you don't leave, I won't leave," I said firmly.
In a place like this, if Fu Honglang and Stone were gone, our chances of escaping with Wang Yang and the fatty would be slim.
Just the corpse beetles alone were something we couldn't deal with.
Moreover, at a time like this, the most important thing was unity. If anyone had other intentions, it would be easy for disaster to strike in a critical moment.
To put it bluntly, since we had descended into this place, we had to trust each other.
"Little brother, I've made you my brother," Fu Honglang said earnestly, patting my shoulder. "Rest for a while, I'll go look around."
After he left, Wang Yang sidled over, "What were you two talking about?"
I glanced at him, "Nothing much. Brother Fu is just worried about his wife..."
Wang Yang scanned the surroundings. "Have you noticed anything familiar about this place?"
"En?" I looked at him in confusion.
Wang Yang said, "The stone bridge we just crossed, did you notice the inscriptions on it looked familiar?"
"I didn't pay attention," I said.
"They are Banpo pottery symbols," Wang Yang said. "Do you remember we saw them in Yuncheng last time?"
His words reminded me. When I was in Yuncheng with Wu Tingxiu and the others, we had accidentally entered a stone altar.
There were Banpo pottery symbols there too. Could there be a connection between these two places?
"Qianzhong and Yuncheng are not far apart. Do you think these two places might be connected?" Wang Yang asked.
I thought carefully. "Could these two altars have been built by the same group of people?"
Wang Yang nodded. "I think it's very possible."
I couldn't quite figure it out. Who exactly built this place?
What was the purpose of building these altars?
The main issue was that there was too little information to make any deductions.
As I pondered, I suddenly thought of someone!
Why was Fu Honglang's wife, Mao Guizhi, so insistent on coming to this place?
Was it really just for the Seventy-Two Mystery Tombs?
Since she was determined to come here, she must have done some prior understanding and investigation.
In other words, she definitely knew more.
It seemed that to understand what this place was used for, we could only find out by finding Mao Guizhi.
However, where this woman was, and whether she was alive, were both unknowns.
If my wife were like this, I would probably be in a bad way.
Stone had been gone for a good half hour, and Fu Honglang was getting restless, so he told us to pack up and move on.
We were all traveling light. We quickly shouldered our backpacks and followed Fu Honglang towards the passage.
Just as we entered the passage, the fatty tugged on me, "Master Xiang..."
"What now?" I asked impatiently without looking back.
"Master Xiang..." the fatty called out again, pulling on my clothes.
I turned to scold him, but saw the fatty repeatedly giving me eye signals, his face pale.
He gestured with his lips for me to look over there. Following his gaze, I saw nothing.
Just as I was about to ask him what he was doing, he stammered out two words: "Corpse..."
"What about the corpse?"
As soon as I asked this, I suddenly remembered something and looked sharply at that spot again, only to find that the corpse that had been placed there was gone!
I turned back, intending to call out to Fu Honglang, but he had already walked quite a distance ahead, with Wang Yang following close behind.
This meant that only the fatty and I were still at the entrance of the passage.
I gritted my teeth and said to the fatty, "Let's go, don't worry about it..."
With that, we quickened our pace to catch up, the fatty darting ahead of me.
Walking at the rear, I felt goosebumps all over my body.
I had a constant feeling that something was following me. I looked back almost every three steps.
After walking a considerable distance and seeing that we were catching up to Fu Honglang and the others, I breathed a sigh of relief. I instinctively looked back, and a ferocious face was almost pressed against my nose!
In an instant, my mind went blank!
I let out a scream and fell backward onto the ground. The beam of my flashlight flashed across that face...