Daomu Biji: Restart

I knew it was the thunder god statue I saw before. It must’ve quietly crept onto my back when I passed by it earlier.

I reached behind me and grabbed it to try and tear it off, but its hand was as strong as a steel bar.

My surroundings were dark and the ground collapsed again in an instant. I was thrown about two or three meters and hit the wall as the entire tomb passage collapsed. I scrabbled for purchase but couldn’t catch anything and ended up falling deep into the tomb passage below. I landed sideways in the mud as gravel pummeled my face. When I got up, I found that there was a layer of mud at the bottom of the tomb passage that reached my thighs.

I got up, spit out a mouthful of mud, and shouted, "Fatty, on your fucking back!"

At that time, I heard a lot of noise coming from all around me. Although I couldn't see anything, I felt as if I was in a huge market. I went to put my hands over my ears, only to find that the thing on my back was already covering my ears. I didn’t know if these sounds were really coming from my surroundings or from the thing on my back.

All my hair stood on end and I immediately used my Kukri to slash towards it. Sparks went flying everywhere.

Fatty didn't respond, and I wondered if he had fainted.

During my crazy struggle, I stepped on empty air and suddenly found that the bottom of the tomb passage under the mud wasn’t actually flat. It seemed that there was a deep pit hidden there. When I stepped in it, I immediately began to sink into the mud.

I couldn’t resist at all. The mud’s suction was too strong to fight and I started to sink deeper as I struggled forward for a while. By the time my foot touched solid ground again, the mud had reached my chest. I reached behind me again, but found that the thing was gone.

At that moment, the noise disappeared from around me and almost immediately started up again in the far depths of the tomb passage. This time, it sounded profound and ethereal.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t know what was going on, but it seemed as if the thunder god statue had been transmitting the sounds from the depths of the tomb passage directly into my ears just now.

I shouted for Fatty, but still didn’t receive a response. I did hear my cry echoing back, which meant that this place was very big and definitely not the small tomb passage from before.

I took a deep breath, forced myself to calm down, and pulled one of my cold fireworks out of the mud. I couldn't obey Fatty's order anymore, so I set the cold firework off.

As the orange light illuminated my surroundings, I immediately found that I was no longer in a tomb passage. I was in a huge space where about eight liberation trucks could be arranged side by side. It was the main path they had used to transport stones and other materials to the tomb.

The entire path had been buried under so much mud that it looked just like a mudflat. The only thing left exposed was a row of figurine-like heads poking out of the mud.

I couldn’t see what they were, but these figures reminded me of the Terracotta Army (1). There was row after row of heads, and I was smack dab in the middle of them. I didn’t know where Fatty was, but there definitely should’ve been a giant hole overhead. Did he not fall down?

I couldn’t move and could barely even lift my feet up. I needed to pull myself out of the mud first, so I looked around to see if there was anything I could use. I saw a figurine head close to me, so I reached out, grabbed it, and then pulled myself over.

After pulling myself out, I lay on the mud and slowly started to sink again. I quickly clamped my feet around the figurine’s body under the mud before I was completely submerged.

But when I did this, I found that something was wrong. It wasn’t a burial figurine under the mud, but a strange thunder god statue that was holding something. I stuck the cold firework in the mud and stretched out my hand to touch whatever the thunder god was holding. It was a corpse.

This was a burial pit, not the main path to the tomb.

When I pulled my hand out of the mud, I saw some hair under my nails. The corpse’s hair hadn’t rotted away since it had been protected by the mud.

Just as I was wondering why Fatty told me not to turn any lights on earlier, I looked at the burial pit’s wall. It was covered in eye-patterned murals, and all the eyes seemed to be staring right at me.

Poker-Face's knock suddenly came from somewhere off to the side, sounding much closer than before.

Fatty still didn't respond.

****

TN Notes:

(1) The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Wiki link here