Daomu Biji: Restart

I asked Xiao Hua what he meant as Fatty protected Jin Wantang's corpse for fear of it being taken from him.

"Have you opened it?" Xiao Hua asked me.

Generally speaking, after a body is wrapped up, it won’t be opened for viewing and will be cremated as soon as you could make it outside. And judging from the weight of the dehydrated corpse right now, it was almost mummified and should look relatively scary.

When I shook my head, Xiao Hua said, "I know you don’t want to accept it, but if the body stays in this place for a long time, strange things will happen. I hope you’ll get rid of it."

I glanced at Fatty, who shook his head. "Tell me about the situation and I’ll consider it at my own discretion,” I said. “Generally, I won’t consider discarding the body of one of my companions."

Xiao Hua used his flashlight to take a look at the body on Fatty's back. "I can't tell what the situation is. The corpses here change without any rhyme or reason." He looked at the surrounding rocks and added, "This is where the dragon vein is located. According to ancient theories, different dragon veins will cause corpses to change in different ways. This is something you ought to be aware of."

When I nodded, he continued, "This is because the energy and surrounding mountains change as you move along the dragon vein. There are good and bad areas along the dragon, but you’re now in the dragon vein itself. There’s no way to know the shape of the feng shui array for each area like you can if you’re up top. Plus, the energy below is very chaotic so the changes in the corpses here are totally incomprehensible."

He leveled me with a look, "The bodies of those who came before us were opened for some reason and they turned into a lot of strange things that are very dangerous."

I looked at Fatty again, but he just shook his head. "A Hua, I know you’re the level-headed type, but if I abandon Tang Tang in this place, I don't think he can make it back."

Xiao Hua sighed, "Then I suggest you open it and make your own decision after taking a look. If the corpse has dried up, you can take it with you. But if the body has changed, you have to make a choice."

Xiao Hua's people didn't lower their guard at all, so I knew they must have suffered a loss before. I gave Fatty a look and he made an OK sign, which meant that he would check later.

Xiao Hua continued to look at Poker-Face as he said to me, "You all made a huge mistake in coming here. The final outcome is that you’ll receive the heavenly gift."

"We’ve found a solution," I said.

"That’s what you think,” Xiao Hua said. “Do you really believe your enemy is as logical as you?"

Xiao Hua and I were both very intelligent, but we did things in very different ways. I looked at him and signaled that I was willing to listen to him. He looked at Poker-Face's bag and asked me, "Did you bring that stone in?"

When I nodded, he said, "We also brought two in. At that time, there were a total of six stones in there. Did you give it much thought? These stones should have been something the Zhang family members brought with them to help themselves. They knew that they could only walk inside with this thing, but did you ever wonder why they committed suicide in that place?"

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't know, either. Didn’t you investigate when you came across this doubt?"

At that time, I thought it was for the purpose of setting up a magical array or something, but now that I thought about it, the idea seemed a little stupid.

Xiao Hua looked at the people in his team, "I have a theory. I don't know what these stones are, but I don’t think the Zhang family brought them in from the outside. Instead, I think they brought them out from the deepest part of this dragon vein." Xiao Hua turned and looked me in the eye, "When they were returning from inside the dragon vein, they suddenly decided not to take the stones out, but they chose to commit suicide."

They didn't abandon these stones because they knew that they’d be heavenly gifted without them, but they also didn’t dare to take the stones outside.

If that were true, then they could only live in endless darkness for the rest of their lives. Maybe they struggled for a long time before deciding to end this never-ending torture at that spot.

But why didn't they dare take the stones out?

According to Xiao Hua's theory, these stones had their own terrible problems.

I knew Xiao Hua wouldn’t tell me just one of his theories, so I asked him “What's your conclusion?”

"My conclusion is that this is something only the Zhang family member behind you knows." Xiao Hua looked at Poker-Face, "I don't know why, but you have a very deep relationship with the bronze door. This whole incident—this place—is full of a primitive atmosphere, but many of the details are related to the Heavenly Palace. Does what happened here have anything to do with the bronze door?"

Poker-Face looked at Xiao Hua and remained silent. "Is that huge black spot the same thing as the huge bronze door?" Xiao Hua continued to ask.