Ancient tomb excavation traces

The young Taoist priest frowned and said, "Indeed, the evil aura has intensified. Could this be...?"

"What is it?" I asked curiously, lying down under the tree roots and turning my head to the side.

The young Taoist muttered to himself, "No matter what we did to them, we couldn't kill them."

Ku Shi added, "Then it must be because they didn't grasp the key point."

The young Taoist priest said, "You can say that, but you can't say it that way either..."

Ku Shi and I were confused, and we both looked at him with suspicion. The young Taoist priest, staring at the commotion outside, explained, "They didn't attack us immediately just now, probably because they were going to complete this third transformation, like a snake shedding its skin. These things grow very fast, and what causes their transformation might not be themselves, but some kind of host."

"A host?" I exclaimed in surprise, "They should already be hosts, so what else is residing inside them?"

The young Taoist priest turned his gaze to me and asked, "You've witnessed the parasitic possession of Gu worms and Gu-type magic. What do they have in common?"

Without thinking, I replied, "They all used insects!" As soon as I said that, my eyes widened in surprise, and I exclaimed, "You mean, these strange infants might also have some kind of insect residing in their bodies?"

The young Taoist priest nodded solemnly and said, "So we can't kill them, because the real host hasn't died."

"How could this happen..." I lowered my head, somewhat incredulous.

The young Taoist priest said, "Various evil arts have different names in different places. This may be a kind of art from the Western Regions, called '蜧蛊' (1i, a black snake in ancient books that can cause venom). The insect used for 蜧蛊 is not like the poisonous gu from Miao territory, which requires the killing of multiple poisonous insects. It only uses one kind of poisonous insect, called '毛斑蓝' (Mao Banlan), which the locals call '死降' (Si Jiang)! It is the most poisonous insect in the Western Regions."

"Hairy-spotted!" Oh my god, I immediately thought of the poisonous insects in the meat dumplings I saw inside the tower. The name is so similar to the insect itself. Just thinking about those insects covered in dense fine hairs makes me itchy all over.

"So, in which part of the baby's body does this worm reside?" Master Ku grasped the key point.

The young Taoist priest said calmly, "Throat..."

"No wonder... When I saved this kid just now, I cut off its neck, and it stopped reacting. So that's why," Master Ku said in realization.

The young Taoist priest turned his head and looked at Master Ku, saying, "If you only cut off its neck, the hairy baby might not be dead. It will break free from its original host and seek a new host. So if we really want to deal with these strange babies, we have to stab its throat directly. If we see a thick, purplish-black liquid, it means the hairy baby is dead."

"I saw this kind of insect when I was in the Demon Tower. It was quite big and covered in hair. I just couldn't understand how this kind of insect could be residing inside the monster baby's body." I expressed my confusion.

The young Taoist priest turned his gaze back outside and said, "It might be a kind of hope. Those strange infants are about the same size as ordinary babies, but because they are already dead, they are swollen and lifeless, making them look larger than ordinary babies. But if they are host bodies, then it is possible that these children were real people, and after their death, someone wanted to use the hairy bodies to bring them back to life."

Upon hearing this, I exclaimed in shock, "This method of rebirth is disgusting! Look at what they've become!"

The clerk sneered, "You must not be married yet, kid. If your child were to die and become a cold, lifeless corpse, wouldn't you, as a father, wish for him to be resurrected?"

Although Ku's words were unpleasant to hear, they reminded me of Stephen King's novel, *Pet Sematary*, where a father, hoping to resurrect his young child, digs him up from the grave and buries him in a mysterious and eerie Native American cemetery. This sounds simple, but the process is incredibly arduous and terrifying, pushing the limits of human endurance. Yet, in their desire to see their children again, parents are willing to take the unconventional path, just like the monstrous infant we see before us—a product of their parents' extreme hopes.

I once heard my grandfather say that a quarter of the tombs of the Loulan people contained children under the age of ten, who generally did not live to old age. Therefore, under the harsh living conditions of flying yellow sand, the Loulan people began to seek favorable living conditions, hoping to live long and to continue their descendants.

Having roughly understood the changes in the strange infants, we cautiously peeked out from the tree roots like groundhogs. On Bao Cai's side, only Qiu Yue observed the strange infants' movements, but she soon buried her head in the tree crevice as well. The strange infants had begun to cry out, their cries much hoarser than before, like ducks with laryngitis, unable to make a sound, constantly whimpering. But even this hoarseness was incredibly piercing, like sawing wood, "hissing...hissing..." It was anything but crisp, driving us mad with anxiety.

It seems the little Taoist priest was right; there was indeed something in their throats, and that thing was causing trouble, making these hosts scream in agony. I couldn't stand seeing such a miserable scene, and just as I was about to shrink back like Qiuyue, my knee was suddenly hit by something cold. I screamed in fright, fell backward, and my heart stopped for a moment before pounding wildly again.

I thought that the area hadn't been cleared when I hid inside, and that what grabbed me was the strange infant that had already fallen inside. Realizing this, I instinctively kicked wildly. The little Taoist priest and the treasurer saw this and both bent down to help me, but then I heard the thing in the darkness cry out in frustration, "No...no..." However, because of my violent reaction, it didn't have a chance to speak.

"Young master, stop kicking! You're going to kick Brother Liu to death!" Hearing this voice, I stopped and paused for a moment.

Then a voice, barely audible, complained, "Hey... I... I wasn't even killed by the monster baby, but you kicked me to death first. You... you... you're too sensitive."

The young Taoist priest took the torch he had tucked into a crevice in the tree and shone it into the darkness. The man, seeing the light, shrank back. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed Bao Cai; he was shielding his face with both hands, looking utterly dejected.

I smiled, then leaned back apologetically and said awkwardly, "You... how did you get here? Is there some kind of connection between the tree roots and the ground?"

Bao Cai, still upset from his earlier ordeal, crawled out from behind the tree and, once in our more spacious area, dusted off his sleeves with a reproachful look. He then began rubbing the wound I had inflicted on him. He acted like a big kid, innocently trying to get me to say a few kind words, but I didn't have the heart to be sentimental and comfort him right now.

Qiuyue couldn't stand Baocai's aggrieved look any longer. She glared at him, hugged the fire monkey, and answered my question, saying, "The little monkey led the way. We saw it crawling over, so we followed. We didn't expect the gap in the tree to be a passage."

Although I thought the trees here were tall and their roots exposed, as thick as giant pythons, I never expected that there was a hidden world beneath the roots, especially the spot where we hid. It was a huge tree crevice, like a tree hole, big enough for several people to squat in. This tree hole was about 1.5 to 1.6 meters deep. But a tree crevice is still a tree crevice; it's impossible to walk standing down there, you can only crawl on your knees.

The young Taoist priest held up his torch, shone it behind him, and turned to say, "I've never seen trees like these before, but thinking about it carefully, the roots are all intertwined, and there are cracks under the trees. Could they symbolize dragon bones? If we follow these cracks, we might just reach an ancient tomb." (To be continued.)

I like tomb raiding.