Chapter 37

Chapter 37: The Tomb of Emperor Hui of Jin [5]

Translator: Xah

Editor: Ayish

Pei Qing pulled up Su WanTing, who fell to the ground and later picked up the bones on the ground with one hand.

Because it had just rained, the river had risen; the bones had been impacted on the bank and washed white. Pei Qing studied the bone in his hands with a flashlight. Su WanTing had fallen heavily and her body was covered with mud. Seeing this virtue[1] of Pei Qing, her face was somewhat ugly and shook her arm that Pei Qing held to support her.

“Are you all right?” Pei Qing asked after he came back to his senses.

Su WanTing stared at Pei Qing and limped to the car.

Pei Qing frowned.

“How is it?” Zhang Qiu saw Pei Qing’s expression was not right. “Is there something wrong with this bone? Human’s? ”

Pei Qing shook his head. “It’s not human.”

Zhang Qiu could not say for a moment whether he was disappointed or grateful. He was disappointed that they had not found the right place, and that there were no dead people here.

Bald Head at front came over, grabbed the bone from Pei Qing’s hand and looked at it for a moment. “It’s right here.” He came here seven years ago and made a special mark at the beginning, but it was a long time ago so he almost missed it in the evening.

“This is the animal buried in the tomb.” Bald Head finished saying and looked gloomily at the mound across the river. “Something must have happened.”

“Ignore it first. Go in and have a look.” After Pingquan finished, the Liu brothers swiftly took out the inflatable rubber boat from the car and looked at Zhang Qiu. “You have it in the car’s bonnet too.”

Zhang Qiu assumed that these people were veterans, they worked very quick and efficient. He and Li Shu inflated the rubber boat while Pixian Hui Wang and Pei Qing checked the baggage and divided it into four small essential bags for everyone to carry. Everything was ready. Bald Head flashed a flashlight to signal that they could go down the river.

The river was very calm and the air was fresh after the rain.

As he approached the mound, Zhang Qiu felt uneasy and his heart was beating violently. Li Shu took Zhang Qiu’s hand and said, “Cold?”

“No, it just doesn’t feel good.” He couldn’t say how it felt. The Little Zongzi in his bag showed his head. He had just woken up; his small hand covered his mouth and yawned and his sleepy eyes were still covered with a light black circle around it. When he saw the distant place, he shouted excitedly twice; who knew what he was saying but he sounded very happy.

Zhang Qiu was interrupted by Little Zongzi’s appearance, and his uneasiness faded.

The rubber boat leading the way in front of them went around a little, and Zhang Qiu’s group followed closely, only to find a completely different world[2]. They turned around once against the mound wall and there was a narrow gap in the middle, which was just wide enough for their boat to pass by.

“There’s something under the ground. You have to be careful.” Bald Head said, on the boat ahead.

Zhang Qiu thought to himself that this person looked fierce but in fact was not bad, giving a head start and warning to them.

The more they went inside, the more strange the feeling was. There was a kind of fishy smell but yet mixed with light fragrance, particularly sweet and unctuous kind of fragrance.

“Do you guys smell anything?” Zhang Qiu’s head was a little swollen and as soon as he turned his head around, his heart stopped suddenly. On the boat behind him was a pitch-black dried zongzi. A dried black hand climbed up the edge of the boat from in the water. Li Shu and the rest did not see it, he opened his mouth and shouted, “Li Shu, Li Shu!”

The shriveled zongzi jumped straight up. Zhang Qiu punched it, pulled out a dagger from his waist and heard Li Shu’s voice.

“Zhang Qiu, you’re still not coming down?!”

The voice was heard from behind him, Zhang Qiu looked over. Who knew when Li Shu, Pixian Hui Wang and Pei Qing, had run into the water. Li Shu waved to him with a worried expression on his face. “Still not coming here quickly, waiting for the zongzi to eat you?!”

“Come down, Zhang Qiu.”

“Come down!”

The ‘came down’ sounds incessantly filled his mind. Before his eyes, the dried black zongzi had changed from one to three. Zhang Qiu gritted his teeth and jumped violently into the water. As a result, he was dragged by the zongzi behind him. The black zongzi had a fierce look in its eyes, as if it wanted to eat him, and without thinking he stabbed the zongzi with the dagger in his hand.

Thump!

Zhang Qiu was frightened to death when the dagger was snatched away. Suddenly, his neck ached and his eyes blurred. After two or three seconds, he heard a sound.

“Song Bao.”

“Baba.”

When he opened his eyes, there was no black zongzi in front of him. It was Li Shu. His neck felt painful. He turned around and saw Little Zongzi on his shoulder with his two pointed tiger’s teeth exposed, and they were stained with blood. Suddenly he felt blank, “What’s happened to me?”

“Be careful!”

“Boom–”

It’s the sound of someone falling from boat at the front. Zhang Qiu saw it was Su WanTing. The rescuer’s voice had not yet been shouted out, and a dark shadow had jumped down. It was Pei Qing.

“There’s something wrong with the smell.” Li Shu just finished, Da Liu in the boat at the front also jumped down, and Xiao Liu was waving a dagger wanting to kill Pingquan. Zhang Qiu, who saw it, was cold sweating. He just seemed to stab a zongzi with a dagger before, he then quickly pulled Li Shu’s arm to see.

“Nothing. You had a flashlight in your hand.” Li Shu soothed.

Zhang Qiu did not have a dagger on him. Just now, he fantasized that the flashlight was a dagger. He hit Li Shu several times, but he was not injured.

The boat in front had turned over and Pingquan and Xiao Liu were fighting each other. However, the three of them had the real daggers in their hands with a sinister face, at first glance knew they were in illusion; but they saw the other party was zongzi and they started to fight with no effort.

“Xiao Jiang, watch your Daddy.”

After Li Shu jumped down, Zhang Qiu shouted a word of caution, only to find that the whole surface was water and except for him on the boat, others were in the water. Bald Head, Su WanTing, Pei Qing were not even seen. Pixian Hui Wang and Li Shu pulled the Liu brothers and Pingquan apart, turned the capsized boat, and threw the unconscious people on it.

Pei Qing, Su WangTing and Bald Head were missing.

Zhang Qiu knew that Li Shu and Pixian Hui Wang were going to go into the water. He was thinking and Pei Qing emerged from the water while pulling Su WanTing out of the water. After a moment, Bald Head also came up. His face was bloodstained, like someone had grabbed it. The wound was deep and the blister was a little white. He carelessly wiped his face, stared at Pei Qing, and went to the boat in front of him.

“Go out of here first.” Li Shu finished saying and jumped on the boat.

Zhang Qiu stretched out his arms and pulled several people out of the water. When Pei Qing arrived, Pei Qing handed Su WanTing in his arms to Zhang Qiu.

“Pull her up first.”

Zhang Qiu always thought it was strange that Pei Qing was kind to Su WanTing, but it was not surprising that Pei Qing was a soldier with a humanitarian spirit of helping others in his bones.

“Here we are.” At the front, Bald Head shouted roughly.

Zhang Qiu flashed a flashlight around him. There was no way at all. It was a sealed earth wall. There were some narrow platforms on both sides. It was dangerous for even a person to stand on it.

At the front, Bald Head ‘papa’ slapped several people, and Zhang Qiu felt his face hurt when he heard the sound. It was too hard, but it did work. Several people woke up quietly and looked at each other, and they knew that the sweet and delicious fragrance in the water had something wrong with it.

Pingquan and Da Liu were injured badly. Their boat was turned over and their bags fell into the water. Bald Head just fished out for two bags, but there was no first aid kit in them. Zhang Qiu threw his over. Bald Head looked at him, Zhang Qiu felt a little goosebump and he heard Bald Head thanked him.

After dealing with the wounds, they rested on the boats for a while.

Su WanTing woke up, looked across the water and scolded Bald Head. She was stopped by Pei Qing. She looked at Pei Qing and said something. Zhang Qiu didn’t hear it.

Li Shu’s eyes stayed on both people for a few seconds, and then he took his eyesight back. Zhang Qiu approached him and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“Are you hungry, have some biscuits.” Li Shu took out the compressed biscuits and water bottles.

Zhang Qiu thought Li Shu had found something, but he didn’t expect to ask him if he wanted to eat. He was disappointed. He immediately chewed the biscuit. He broke half of the biscuit and put it in his bag for Little Zongzi to eat. He heard the sound of ‘ka-cha’ in it. Zhang Qiu was hungry too, he went ‘ka-cha’ together.

Pingquan in the front boat was asking Bald Head what had happened just now and whether there was something like that seven years ago?

“Seven years ago, it went smoothly. When I came in, there was no fragrance smell. It was smelly. When I picked up the box in the pit, the Zongzi suddenly moved. There was something in his mouth. I didn’t dodge from it and that’s left me with this scar.” Bald Head touched himself on the top of his head.

It turned out that the squire zongzi left the scar. Bald Head didn’t sound like it was a fake statement.

Zhang Qiu finished eating the biscuits and the others rested. Bald Head flashed a flashlight under the water. “It’s about two or three minutes from here. There’s no need for an oxygen cylinder, but it was seven years ago, so I’m not sure now.”

“I’ll go down and have a look first.” Pei Qing took the lead.

Li Shu glanced at Pixian Hui Wang and said, “I’ll go down with you.”

Pei Qing didn’t have any objection. Bald Head went down there too. Finally, three people dived in. Pixian Hui Wang looked up and down at Su WanTing quietly and approached Zhang Qiu. Just now, Li Shu had glanced at Pixian Hui Wang and they reminded to each other that the woman was not right, so he should stay to protect Zhang Qiu.

Zhang Qiu did not see Pixian Hui Wang and Li Shu exchanging glances. He held up his watch and waited for Li Shu to come up. Just after five minutes, he heard the water ripples.

“Li Shu?”

The water splashed. Sure enough it was Li Shu. “Five minutes back and forth, you can go down.”

Su WanTing, who had been waiting eagerly, jumped down first. It looked like she was good at swimming, and after a moment, no sound of movement could be heard.

Zhang Qiu grabbed Little Zongzi out of his bag. The little guy’s face was covered with biscuit dregs and happily called Baba. Zhang Qiu asked Li Shu, “Can Xiao Jiang swim?”

Li Shu nodded and Zhang Qiu had just calm down and then he heard Li Shu’s calm supplementary, “I haven’t seen a zongzi drowned anyway.”

Zhang Qiu:…

Li Shu is really the son of the pit.

Zhang Qiu took Xiao Jiang out of his bag and swept back his wet curly hair which stuck on his little head. His face was full of excitement. He had no problem playing with water. Zhang Qiu felt relieved. “When we go down, grab Daddy’s clothes tightly, understand?” Don’t be washed away by the current.

“Undertooth[3].” Little zongzi nodded his head.

Pixian Hui Wang smiled and said, “As expected of a loving mother.” After that, he went into the water.

Zhang Qiu followed while suffocated in anger. He found that recently, Er-Sao mouth cannon[4] skilled was getting stronger, could not be more censure QAQ.

Li Shu took him into the water, and the more he went down, the pain in his ears and breathing was almost unbearable. Just before he could not bear it, he had already arrived. His foot stepped on the tomb passage and the door was open. All but Pixian Hui Wang who was waiting for them.

Zhang Qiu took out Little Zongzi and saw the smile, just knew that he was all right.

The tomb passage was tilted upward. After walking for twenty or thirty meters, the water was only in at the middle the calf and stomach. Fighting and swearing could be heard faintly.

“Stinky bitch don’t think I’m afraid of your dad that I don’t dare to hit you.” It was Bald Head’s voice, “Don’t blame me for killing you if you dare doing something behind my back.”

“Bald Head, forget it. We took the money to take place of others to avoid calamity. Say less.” Pingquan persuaded.

Then heard Su WanTing snorted, “It’s up to you.”

Zhang Qiu came in and saw Su WanTing slipping a delicate pistol back into her waist. The action was so skilled that she looked like she had been trained, and she should be good at it. Otherwise, she would not provoke Bald Head or talk like that.

Pei Qing stood in front of Su WanTing, heard their footsteps, and quickly walked to them at a brisk pace.

Zhang Qiu was now on guard against Pei Qing. He was a friend of Lu Feng. He didn’t mention meeting Su WanTing when he went to the auction before. But he had been protecting Su WanTing for several times along the way. It was said that love at first sight was not very similar, and the other side showed a kind of magnanimity, which was really quite strange.

“What’s wrong?”

“Small things.”

For instance: right now Pei Qing, who tried to gloss things over, seemed to know something but didn’t tell them. Su WanTing, Bald Head and the others, plus Pei Qing seemed to be a group, or more accurately, although Bald Head and Su Wan Ting were in together, there were gaps, more like profit-driven, but Pei Qing really helped Su WanTing.

It was getting more and more strange.

Zhang Qiu could not understand; he simply did not want to tangle with Pei Qing’s relationship with Su WanTing and looked around. This should be an accompanying tomb. Su WanTing’s corpse of slave that her dad Su Zhicai wanted should be here, but now the coffin was open, and there was no body of slave.

“Don’t tell me, he run away?” Zhang Qiu felt a little foolish after asking. He listened to Bald Head’s explanation. At first, he came to pry open the coffin. The slave in the coffin was a dried corpse. From beginning to end, he did not make a sudden movement to turn into a zongzi. Instead, it was the tomb’s owner, the squire in the main tomb that made a sudden movement.

“Wait a minute.” Li Shu suddenly said, “You guys listen.”

Bald Head was a little impatient. “Nothing was hear–” His words were halfway before his face changed, only to hear ‘thump’ sound from a distance, like someone tapping the coffin board, and the sound became louder and clearer.

Zhang Qiu could not help but think of Jin LaoDa, who was sealed up. When they left, there was a regular knock of ‘thump thump thump—’ in the coffin.

He did not know if he thought too much, but the tapping sound of this frequency really coincided with the memory in his mind. Zhang Qiu’s heart tightened. For a time, no one spoke in the tomb. The thumping sound was getting louder and clearer, and the thing inside seemed to be about to break the coffin.

“At that time, I clearly separated the squire zongzi’s head, and the coffin lid was thrown aside. Right now, what is it?” Bald Head’s voice was a bit loud.

Zhang Qiu listened, the squire zongzi’s head was separated by Bald Head, and died thoroughly, while the slave was a dried corpse, so now who was at the bottom of the coffin, knocking?

Bang!

Bang!

Thump!

The sound of the coffin lid falling to the ground, and the knocking sound came to an abrupt halt.

The thing inside was coming out.

---

Footnote:

[1] generally used to indicate that others look down on their manners, behaviors, styles, etc.

[2] place of charm and beauty; scenery of exceptional charm

[3] Understood. T/N: Xiao Jiang haven’t perfected speech yet. That’s why it’s ‘Baba’ instead of ‘Daddy’[baba]

[4] throwing insult; laser mouth; someone who like to tease and ridicule

  Previous | TOC | Next