The Mystic Nine

Chapter 34: The Sound of Opera Outside the Mine Shaft

At dusk, Old Man Zhang came back and threw the trussed up old man in front of Zhang Qishan. The old man had a pockmarked face and kept his head lowered as he sat there trembling.

Zhang Qishan thought of the chief's lynching punishment, and knew why he was so afraid. Lieutenant still hadn't come up yet, nor had those who had gone down with him, so he couldn't help but worry.

The others searched the entire camp, but found nothing.

Zhang Qishan used a torch to burn the shacks along the riverbed for three or four miles, and Qi Tiezui was relieved to see the raging fire flowing out like a river. The only body left now was the one that had been moved out of the shack. While waiting for Lieutenant to come back up, Qi Tiezui turned the body face up again and watched it flip itself back over. He had done this eight hundred times, and Zhang Qishan felt like the corpse was about to jump up and start scolding him if he flipped it over again.

The soldiers standing nearby thought it was strange and asked him what he was doing. Qi Tiezui said, "This could be the Japanese's secret weapon. You see, if the two bodies are tied back to back, they'll keep rolling. If a bomb was tied to them... do you know how terrible that would be on the battlefield?"

"Do they turn in the same direction every time? If not, isn't there a fifty percent chance they'd roll back to your position?" When one of the soldiers asked this, Qi Tiezui showed a sudden enlightened expression.

Zhang Qishan was questioning the old man while waiting for Lieutenant, but the old man refused to answer. All he would say was that they had the wrong man and he hadn't stolen anything from the mine. As for the dead here and what happened in the camp before, he pretended not to know anything.

After reaching this stalemate, Zhang Qishan felt like something bad had happened to Lieutenant, and couldn't concentrate anymore. The old man saw that Zhang Qishan looked a little impatient while standing at the entrance to the mine shaft and suddenly asked, "Sir, do you have friends in the mine?"

When Zhang Qishan looked at him coldly, the old man immediately felt that he had made a mistake and quickly bowed his head. Zhang Qishan said coldly, "If you have something to say, say it quickly."

The old man shook his head, too afraid to say it. Zhang Qishan glanced at Old Man Zhang, who quickly grabbed the old man. Zhang Qishan squatted down and stared at the old man's face, "Say it, don't say it. Either way, we'll take you to the mine to have a look."

The old man suddenly tensed and shook his head desperately. "I can't, I can't, I can't go in the mine over there at night. Hurry up and tell your friends to come up. It will be dark soon."

"Why?" Qi Tiezui asked.

"No one knows, but this mine is divided." The old man said. "You definitely can't go in at night, and you can't find your way back out once you do. The older generation said that when the mine was dug to a certain depth, the mountain would come alive and eat at night. Sir, if you don't believe me, just look at how many people died here. Don't think that all of them died outside. Most of them actually died below."

Zhang Qishan couldn't listen anymore and shook his head, "Shut him up." With that said, he signaled a command and someone picked up the corpse. He then took the lead and went all the way down the mine shaft. When he landed, it was pitch black and he couldn't see any traces of the others under the torchlight. He shouted, "Lieutenant!" The people who had followed him down were also calling, and their voices echoed in the tomb passage.

Then, he seemed to hear something.

He motioned with his hand to stop everyone, and even the old man who was still stubbornly begging for mercy quieted down. In the ensuing silence, they heard a strange sound come from the depths of the mine. The sound was continuous and varied in pitch, but it wasn't someone talking. It was someone singing opera.

"So mysterious." Zhang Qishan was amused.

Qi Tiezui leaned forward and said, "Not necessarily, Fo Ye. Listen to the words. It's Er Ye's song. This seems to be something arranged for us."

Zhang Qishan never understood opera and couldn't make sense of the words, so he asked his men to spread out in the tomb passage and see where it was coming from. They ended up finding a tunnel leading downward, where the singing appeared to be coming from. He grabbed the old man and asked, "Where does this shaft lead?"

The old man had been listening to the song and looked extremely terrified as he said, "There's a big cave under the mine with a Taoist temple in it, but I don't know when it was built. That's where everyone started to die."

After he spoke, the old man suddenly saw Qi Tiezui's bag and was stunned. He looked between Qi Tiezui and the bag and asked, "This gentleman... are you also a Qimen feng shui master?"

Qi Tiezui frowned and nodded, and the old man immediately started kowtowing, "I've been waiting for you! Sir, your ancestor came here earlier and told me to give you a message."

Qi Tiezui felt his heart clench, unsure of what the old man meant. "What is it?" He asked.

"That expert said you have to look at this in reverse, and—" he whispered the rest in Qi Tiezui's ear.