The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 17: Hole

That small hand matched Pan Zi's description perfectly—it had five fingers that were all the same length and its wrist was extremely thin. It looked absolutely terrifying.

The fat guy kept gesturing at me not to move but I actually wasn't feeling afraid. After all, if a person encountered too many emergencies back to back, he would remain calm instead of panicking. In fact, it almost felt like I was being pranked at this time. I suddenly felt really annoyed and wanted to grab that hand and bite it hard, but I still had my sense of reason, which was telling me to stay put and keep from moving.

The fat guy used Pan Zi's gun to poke at the hand in an attempt to try and get it off my shoulder, but as soon as the gun got close to it, the hand moved like a snake and wrapped around the gun, pulling it back. The fat guy refused to let go and actually started a tug-of-war with that hand, his big butt shaking as he fought to stand his ground.

I quickly moved to help him. The fat guy was very strong by himself, but even with my help, we could only reach a deadlock with that small hand. Pan Zi saw that we couldn't hold on anymore and suddenly drew his arm back and threw his knife to the fat guy. The fat guy cursed, but he quickly took the knife and used all of his strength to slash down at the hand, scraping off a chunk of flesh with one move. The hand immediately let go and flung itself wildly into the darkness, its movements reminding me of a snake. Its hasty retreat meant that there was no longer resistance on the other end of the gun so the fat guy and I ended up falling flat on our backs with our feet in the air.

The fat guy might have been as round as a pig, but he immediately jumped up and chased after the hand. As it turned out, there was a very deep crevice in the wall where the hand had retreated to. The fat guy tried to squeeze himself into it, but the entrance was too small for him to fit through even though it looked quite spacious on the inside. Frustrated, he waved his hands around before punching at the stone wall in anger. To our surprise, that strong-looking stone wall actually broke apart very easily.

"Look!" He cried out. "There's a big passage in this hole!"

We gathered around as the fat guy used his flashlight to take a look. There really was another passage inside this crevice, but it was dark and we didn't know where it led to. Who would have thought there would be such a small passage hidden in the shadows of this wall? No wonder those corpse-eaters were so elusive before.

Pan Zi touched the entrance to the passage and said, "It looks like it was dug out by hand. Could it be a passage for those corpse-eaters to move through?"

"You're saying those corpse-eaters are inside?" The fat guy had originally wanted to plunge into the hole to take a look, but he hesitated as soon as he heard Pan Zi say this.

"Don't worry," Pan Zi said softly. "When Little Brother was treating my wound just now, I smeared some of his blood onto my hand. Look," he pointed to a small bloodstain on his hand. "You guys can use a bit of spit to smear some of it on your faces. It'll definitely work!"

I couldn't help but laugh, "You're so fucking immoral. He saved your life!"

Pan Zi revealed an embarrassed smile as he said, "I don't know why, but when I saw his blood dripping on the ground at that time, I couldn't help but think that it shouldn't be wasted."

The fat guy didn't understand what we were talking about and asked, "What? Is that young guy's blood that powerful?"

We both nodded and told him about what happened in the corpse cave. The fat guy immediately became very interested in the bloodstain on Pan Zi's hand and said with admiration, "That's amazing! If I have that when I go grave-robbing in the future, I'll definitely be more awesome. Hell, if any ghost dares blow out my candle, I'll make him kneel on the coffin lid." As he spoke, he looked like he was itching to gouge out that small bloodstain from Pan Zi's hand.

Pan Zi ignored him and said to me, "I don't know what the purpose of this small opening is, but since we can't get out of the stone maze, I think it's our only hope. Why don't we go in and take a look?"

I looked at this small opening, which seemed to have an ominous air about it. I didn't think it was a good idea to go in considering how it could only accommodate one person at a time and it was giving me the creeps, but if we didn't take some sort of action, the only thing left to do was to wait here to die. So, I nodded in agreement. The fat guy took off his belt, tied it to his leg, and said to Pan Zi, "Just hold onto this belt. I'll take the lead."

Without saying another word, he bent over and went into the hole first. Then, Pan Zi grabbed the belt and went in as well. I swallowed past the lump in my throat as I watched them disappear into the darkness. Then, I sent up a quick prayer to the gods, bolstered my courage, and also went in.

The fat guy crawled very slowly in front of us. There were some places he almost couldn't get through, but he eventually managed by holding his breath and wiggling his butt until he was free. Pan Zi not only had to suffer from being dragged along behind him, but his face was directly in line with the fat guy's ass. "You better not fart again," he warned him.

The fat guy was panting for breath and didn't have the strength to answer. He was the type of person who was very talkative, so when I saw that he was unable to say anything, I knew right away that he must've been exhausted.

In this way, the three of us continued crawling through the passage like worms. I didn't know how long we had been crawling before the fat guy suddenly whispered, "There's light!" He immediately sped up, but the fast pace pulled at Pan Zi's wounds. It hurt so much that Pan Zi shouted at him, "Take it easy!" But the fat guy continued to speed up, a feat that was almost a miracle considering his body size.

I also saw that the light was getting stronger and stronger and thought to myself, have we finally had a stroke of good luck? Does this small hole actually lead to the surface?

After a few more minutes, the fat guy finally crawled out of the hole, but as soon as he went out, I heard him shout, "Shit!!! Where the hell are we?"