I watched as Fatty stuck practically his whole head inside the monsters mouth. The fact that we had been possessed for a few days and weren't able to eat or drink anything during that ti was probably why Fattys chin was slightly smaller. Otherwise, his head definitely wouldnt have been able to fit.
When he kept urging to stick my head in, I beca angry. "Although I have a small face, Im not a finger! Do you think youre picking a nose or sothing? Co out first!"
Fatty ca out and rubbed his face. His hair was all ssed up and his face was flushed as he said, "Well, I was trying to make out with you. Just hurry up and co over here."
I looked at the hole and wondered if he was ssing with . But when I thought about the atmosphere of the past few days, I felt that Fatty wouldnt go that far. If he was ssing with right now, then he definitely had to be possessed.
At that mont, I suddenly felt my body break out in a cold sweat. I looked at Fatty carefully, worried that sothing was controlling him. Maybe this thing had co here to make do sothing dangerous, such as sticking my head inside a thousand-year-old stone monsters mouth.
Fatty looked at as I walked over to him. "Give a quick answer: which of your feet has athlete's foot?"
Fatty looked at my expression. We had been together for so long that it only took him a few seconds to understand my intentions. "I only have athlete's foot when I wear Martin boots, but I don't usually have it. Mr. Nave, answer quickly: what do you eat to make you fart easily?"
There was no such thing since my whole family had good stomachs and intestines. He laughed at the indignant noise I made and then we both glanced at Poker-Face. We had never dared to involve him in this kind of ga before, so after thinking about it, we decided to just forget about it. If Poker-Face was possessed, then there were only two outcos: one would be like what happened with the "heavenly gift" and he would just leave silently; the other was that he would lure us into doing sothing, which we would discover imdiately as soon he spoke more than two sentences.
I put my head into the stone monsters mouth and found that the whole thing was actually hollow. It appeared to be the top of a particularly long pillar, and when I stuck my head further in, I could see that the area underground was pitch black.
"Fatty, when you say you know why this place is called the Sea of Black Lights, is it because it's pitch-black inside?" I asked angrily.
"Your eyes arent good. Co here." With that said, he pulled out, grabbed a glow stick, and stuck it into my mouth. Then he put my head back inside the stone monster's mouth and I saw a bronze lamp at the bottom of this pipe, which was at least twenty ters below ground.
I'll describe it again. The exposed part of the monster stone lantern was just a lamp holder, the rest of the stone lantern that was stuck into the soil was hollow, this hollow pipe went at least twenty ters into the soil, and at the bottom of this hollow pipe was a bronze lamp.
The sheer depth alone was amazing. I knew that it was impossible to see the bottom of this narrow, twenty-ter-long passage with just a glow stick, but I could see that the walls of this stone pipe had a few particularly smooth surfaces that had been skillfully polished. I could tell just by the light of my glow stick that these surfaces seed to reflect off of each other like mirrors.
But even so, the light was obviously very weak, so I could only see an unlit lamp deep underground.
"This lamp was placed twenty ters underground, which doesn't make any sense. First of all, what would this lamp illuminate? Even if the light could penetrate from deep underground, it would be extrely weak. It wouldnt be able to illuminate anything at all. Moreover, itll automatically extinguish as soon as carbon dioxide accumulates," I said as I pulled my head out of the stone monsters mouth.
"If its twenty ters below ground, its obviously used to illuminate the underground area. Or maybe its a feng shui practice? Is that underground lamp ant to warm the earth?" Fatty asked.
As soon as he said that, his expression changed and he said to , "Do you rember that when we saw Old Bing and the others bodies, they were all stuck in the soil? And based on what happened afterwards, we inferred that they had done it themselves?"
"What do you an?"
"Look at how dark it is below. Isnt this lamp showing them the way? It guides the souls of the dead into King Yamas underground palace."
"If King Yamas underground palace is twenty ters below ground, then you might as well say its in our villages septic tank," I retorted. But Fatty said that those people had dug their way underground and this light was also placed underground. Maybe they were connected after all.
Fatty had asked earlier what kind of "story" the ancient architects were trying to tell. I didn't have a clue at the ti, but now, I suddenly had a bit of inspiration. Unfortunately, it wasnt clear enough yet.
But everything seed to be related to the undergroundthe banquet was underground, people were digging underground, and this lamp illuminated the underground. It all seed to indicate sothing, but what was it?
I put my head into the stone monsters mouth again and ca up with another question: what about the carbon dioxide in this structure? There was no way to light the lamp, so was there a tool to light it from above? But that felt a little strange. There definitely had to be more than one lamp in this place. Plus, lights were usually placed alongside roads, so did that an
At the ti when the body was to be interred in the coffin, the demon monk used so kind of sorcery. There were dead people crawling underground, and the people aboveground went to light these underground lamps in order to guide the underground corpses as they dug through the soil.
The speed at which these corpses crawled underground was very slowjust like earthwormsbut there must have been a lot of them.
This kind of scene was just too strange to imagine.
I didn't find any more evidence, so I pulled my head out of the stone monsters mouth. After looking at Fatty and then at Poker-Face, I asked, "Little Brother, is this sothing we learned about before?"
Poker-Face's attention had been focused in the direction we were headed in, but he turned his head and nodded.
What, do you know sothing that I don't? Fatty asked.
"In the past, there was talk amongst the eldersespecially Changshas Huangtudian(1) areaabout local grave robbers who used special techniques to lead zombies out of the tombs and aboveground, I said. So of them would dig a fire pit a hundred ters away and cover it with an iron top. Theyd lure the zombie aboveground and directly lead it into the fire pit. So were just directly led away. It was a very long process since it would take two or three days just to move one ter. After the zombie was lured away, these grave robbers would go down and rob the tomb. They said that they were taught by Taoist priests."
"So youre telling that these lights really lead underground corpses all the way here? But why?"
"If we could read Mongolian characters, we might be able to find out. But for now, we can only move on and ask a more important question: where are these bodies being led to? Are they being led out of the valley or did they co from outside and are being led deeper into the valley towards that behemoth?" As I spoke, I couldnt help thinking to myself, even though Mongolians are nomads, is it possible that they were also able to herd corpses?
This place was called the Sea of Black Lights, so in other words, all the lights were there, they just illuminated an underground area. So, even if there was a sea of lights, the night here would still be pitch black.
After that, I put the glow stick in my mouth and stuck my head back into the stone monsters mouth again. But I got distracted and ended up dropping the glow stick. I watched as it fell all the way down to the bottom of the stone pipe and hit the bronze lamp.
I pulled my head out and rubbed my cheeks. Its fine, I said to myself. Now I can take a closer look.
I stuck my head back in, wanting to take a closer look at what was going on below and see if I could figure out how the structure dealt with the carbon dioxide. But as soon as I stuck my head in, I found that the glow stick was gone and the underground area was completely dark.
I felt my heart tense up and imdiately knew that sothing was wrong. This kind of thing won't go out so quickly. Why is it suddenly gone?
I pulled my head out once more and looked at Fatty, who said, "Try again."
I took another glow stick, gripped it in my teeth, and moved my head towards the stone monsters mouth again. But as soon as I straightened my head, I saw a black face in the pipe in front of . It was a palms width away and seed to have co up from the depths of the pipe.
This pipe was twenty ters high, so it was impossible for a human body to get in it. How did this face co up?! Did it have a twenty-ter-long neck?! And where on earth did it co from?!
That face had an extrely cold expression as it looked at .
I was so scared that I shouted and imdiately tried to pull my head out, but unfortunately, it got stuck.
At this ti, that dark face was almost pressed up against my face.
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TN Notes:
(1) Huangtu ans loess (the yellow sandy soil typical of north China) and dian ans inn/shop/store.
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If you all couldn't tell, after reading this chapter, I decided to change all the "Black Sea of Lights" references to "Sea of Black Lights". It just seems to make more sense.
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