The Mystic Nine

Chapter 36: Splitting the Big Coffin

This mine shaft was very deep, and had been dug at a thirty-degree angle. The footholds were all grooves that had been smashed out of the stone, which were worn and slippery after being used for so long.

Old Man Zhang had been here for a long time and had some experience in climbing these kinds of tunnels, so he was further ahead.

The old man was second in line, with the others following, making it very cramped. The biggest issue with crawling in the tunnel was everyone's shadows. The light from the torches and lanterns up ahead was blocked by people's bodies, which created indiscernible shadows everywhere.

Zhang Qishan took off his gloves, touched the tunnel wall, and found that it was different from grave robbers' tunnels from before. These tunnels had been made in a much cruder fashion, only focusing on speed and stability. When they were on the cliff, they could see a lot of scattered snake-eye stone clusters, which were the scattered minerals that hadn't formed on the vein. They had been left there because they had a lot of impurities and weren't valuable enough to mine.

They had been walking for almost an hour, but didn't seem to be close to the bottom. There weren't any signs that the tunnel had stopped or branched off anywhere, and the sound of the opera singing was flickering in and out with the changing airflow in the tunnel.

"Why is it so long?" Zhang Qishan asked.

The pockmarked old man replied, "Sir, this isn't long at all. Snake-eye stones are buried deep, so it takes several miles to find a vein."

A nearby soldier asked: "If we're holding torches in the mine, will it explode?"

"It's not a coal mine. There's air flow. The miners even used flame lanterns for many years. You have nothing to worry about." Old Man Zhang said.

He had just finished speaking when the opera singing up ahead suddenly became louder, startling everyone. The pockmarked old man tried to retreat, too frightened to go down any further. Old Man Zhang stopped and said, "This is it." He then told the people behind him to hold his feet while he hung upside down and held the torch out to look around.

Zhang Qishan pushed aside the people in front of him to get a look, but couldn't see past the overlapping silhouettes. All he could make out was the exit of the tunnel, which led to a huge space that must have been the main mine. When the torch was lowered down, the firelight reflected off something that appeared to be water.

Old Man Zhang jumped out of the exit and slid down the rock wall, landing in the water that reached his waist. As soon as it was stirred up, it gave off the stench of stagnant water.

Zhang Qishan also jumped into the water, leaving Qi Tiezui alone at the exit. Zhang Qishan raised his torch and found that the mine was about four or five meters high, indicating that this vein was quite large.

The others used their lanterns to illuminate the surroundings and found that they were standing in the main vein. They could see all the unmined snake-eye stones everywhere on the rock walls. The top of the mine was vast and empty, and the clear echoing sounds of opera singing were coming from the darkness in one direction.

"What song is this?" Zhang Qishan asked. Although it was Er Yuehong's song, he still couldn't recognize it. He had been to Er Ye's shows several times, but he never really paid attention.

"Splitting the Big Coffin." Qi Tiezui replied. "After listening more closely, it sounds like Er Ye, but there are still some mistakes."

As he spoke, he looked around and saw that the snake-eye stones were absorbing the light from the torches and lanterns and giving off a glow. The dark mine above was filled with stars that were neither bright nor dim.

"'Splitting the Big Coffin' is a very strange piece of work no matter what era you're in. It's from Feng Menglong's 'Stories to Caution the World' and tells the story of Zhuang Zhou, who faked his death and pretended to be a noble in order to try and seduce his widowed wife. The widow fell in love with this noble, so they ended up getting married. In the middle of consummating their marriage, the noble got a headache and said he needed human brains in order to make the medicine. Zhuang Zhou's wife went to his tomb and opened the coffin to take her late husband's brain so the noble would be able to make the medicine."

"That's quite the setup." Zhang Qishan said, while secretly thinking that it was a satire of the Nine Gates' business.

Once the Zhang family began walking in the direction of the song, Qi Tiezui finally jumped into the water. He looked up and saw that reinforced wooden beams had been stuck in the mine one right after the other, withstanding the pressing weight from above.

He frowned. He had seen this scene in the weasel spirit's terrifying vision before. He kept thinking that the weasel spirit had shown him the situation in the depths of the mine, and now it appeared to true.

He kept trembling as he silently followed after the group. Sure enough, hanged people started to appear on the beams, just like the ones he had seen in that nightmare.

The old man had been leading the way, but refused to go any further and kept trying to retreat. When Old Man Zhang gripped him tightly to prevent him from escaping, he said, "Sir, Sir, the Taoist temple is up front. This is the part of the mine where people started dying. Those who got close to the Taoist temple are all dead."

Zhang Qishan looked up at where the corpses were densely hanging like flags and thought it was strange. He pushed aside their legs and continued on, soon finding that the area in front opened up into a huge cave. There was an immortal gate in the middle of the cave that was about five people high, with a huge stone tablet in front of it that said: Five Hundred Dragons.

There were a lot of stone statues behind it that were separated on both sides, along with a building that had eaves. This building was also as tall as five people, but it was tilted and distorted. Much of the paint had cracked and was flaking off, and it was covered in a white dust.

In fact, the whole cave was covered in this white dust, which stretched on as far as the eye could see.

Zhang Qishan paused. It looked like a Taoist temple, but it wasn't. It was an ancient tomb.

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End of The Mystic Nine.