That situation was so incredible that I still remember it to this day. After Liu Sang looked at the leather figurine woman, a series of peculiar-sounding words from that ancient language came out of his mouth.
"Climb inside!" Poker-Face ordered us.
I couldn't believe that a leather figurine woman was telling Liu Sang where to go and then Poker-Face was translating an ancient language for us. It certainly seemed like a far-fetched theory, but that was how things were looking at the moment.
Fatty thought about it and decided to let the leather figurine woman be the trailblazer. He stuffed it into the hole and said, "Sister, you communicate with them." Then, each of us took a rhinoceros horn candle and climbed into the hole.
Fatty had learned his lesson last time and refused to be the last one in, so I brought up the rear. Liu Sang had also recovered a lot by this time.
As we crawled forward, we found that those leather figurines that had blocked the tunnel before had all disappeared. We quickly crawled to the place where the distance markers had appeared on the walls and kept moving forward. Fatty said to Liu Sang, "Brat, don't hold back if you hear something."
Liu Sang scolded, "Fuck you and your bad luck. I want to get out of here quickly. I don't have time to joke with you."
We soon passed the location of the immortal door from before. I had thought that everyone up front would go through it, but they didn't. Instead, they climbed deeper into the hole.
"Don't look back." Poker-Face's reminder from up front made my blood run cold. This hole was like a highway; it was impossible to retreat. If we did, there would be countless leather figurines crawling towards us from behind. Although I didn't know if this time would be different from the last, Poker-Face's warning indicated that he had determined that something may have already appeared behind me. But he really didn't have to worry. I could only look back when I got to a place that was a little more spacious. The farther I went in, the narrower this tunnel became.
"You guys are so full of shit right now. You better not to drop the ball!" I said through clenched teeth as I kept crawling.
I didn't know how long it took. Fatty's candle burned out first, then mine, and then Liu Sang's. Finally, all the candles burned out and we fell into absolute darkness.
We still had lights on us, but our surroundings would remain dark even if we turned them on. We wouldn't be able to see any other sources of light besides the rhinoceros horn candles. Liu Sang eventually asked, "Do you feel like the darkness around us is alive?"
I didn't know what he meant, so he went on to explain, "They're all bugs. These bugs are flying in dense clusters all around us. I can hear very subtle sounds. What we're looking at isn't darkness, but a dense insect fog. We think there's no light, but it's actually just being blocked by them. Only the rhinoceros horn candles can drive them away."
I waved my hands, but it was useless. I couldn't feel such tiny bugs hitting my hands at all. Or maybe I had already gone blind.
We didn't talk much after that. I was able to determine that Liu Sang was still crawling in front of me based on the sounds he was making. His breathing and heartbeat were the clearest sounds I could hear.
I wasn't very scared at first. In fact, I initially felt a sense of security in this place where the rocks surrounded me. But after three or four hours of not being able to stretch out my hands and feet, my claustrophobia came back.
The real fear started to set in after ten hours; not because of the external environment, but because of my own imagination.
I had been crawling into the depths of this rock for seven hours and felt as if this tunnel would never end.
We had already crawled past the area where Fatty had peed before. Having reached this point, there was no need to feel reserved; it didn't matter if everyone's pee and poop piled up. At the end of the day, any urine had turned into sweat on our bodies.
We probably wouldn't be able to go back, but I didn't dare look behind me anyways. Even if I could turn around, I would just end up back in the South Sea King's tomb. In the dark, all we could eat were sea cockroaches and those shellfish that looked like hands. The only advantage was that those things wouldn't be finished off in a short amount of time. But the most likely possibility right now was that the four of us would be trapped in this silent passage and no one would know that we died here.
After crawling forward for at least five hours, my sense of time and any sounds reaching my ears seemed to disappear. I could only continue crawling forward numbly. After moving like this for a long time, I found that I couldn't feel anyone in front of me. The intense fear that surged up made me crawl forward crazily until I finally touched Liu Sang's foot again.
I didn't know how long it took before Fatty said, "I've got it!"
I thought there was an exit and asked, "You found a way out?"
"Distance marker!" Fatty said. "I can feel a distance marker on the stone wall."
I was surprised that there was a marker in such a deep place. Fatty was silent for a moment as if he were trying to feel it out, and then he said, "I don't know this marker."
I urged them to move forward so I could feel the surrounding rock walls. I quickly found what Fatty was talking about and suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. Although I didn't know this distance marker, I knew it was a unit on the dinglan ruler.
Dinglan rulers were tomb-building rulers that contained the netherworld's units of measurement. The word that had been carved onto the wall here was "suffering".
This was a Han Dynasty tomb, so the dinglan ruler hadn't been invented yet. This word must've been carved by an expert from the Qi family, but why use a dinglan ruler?
Was it a hint that we had reached the netherworld?
But the most important thing right now was that I had left that fucking ruler in the South Sea King's tomb!