Ancient tomb excavation traces

I followed the young Taoist's gaze and saw Bajian lying face down on a tree branch, his body wrapped in old vines. Beside him, a female corpse was hanging. This female corpse was different from the rotting corpses we had seen before. She was hanging upside down, and her whole body was dried up, as if she had been bled out before she was alive and had now decomposed into a dried-up human body.

From a distance, her facial features are no longer fleshy, just like the outer layer of a palm tree, dry and coffee-colored. Her clothes are different from our ancient Hanfu; they are more lively and dynamic. I once saw a friend wear a similar style of clothing for a performance; she is a Xinjiang dancer.

However, with Hachiken high up in the tree, I didn't have time to investigate the identity of the dead man. When Hachiken saw that we had discovered his location, he excitedly made "ee-ah-ah" sounds, but he couldn't speak because a thin vine was also wrapped around his neck. Moreover, in his current critical condition, if he moved even slightly, it would pull on the vine around his neck, and he might fall directly off the branch and hang himself.

I told him to calm down and stay in his original position, but Bajian was already deathly pale with fright, and the entire branch was trembling because of him. This was understandable; besides the fallen corpses, there seemed to be several undead hiding nearby. These undead were very strange; they didn't rush to kill those they captured, for reasons unknown.

However, the young Taoist priest quickly provided an answer. He said that the living dead are spirits who died tragically in life, and after death remain neither dead nor stiff, unable to reincarnate, their minds filled only with resentful memories. There's a folk belief that these undead beings, driven by their painful memories, will seize living people and reenact their own gruesome deaths to find satisfaction.

Upon hearing this, Bao Cai exclaimed in surprise, "Even the dead can be so perverted? This is truly an eye-opener!"

Qiuyue added, "There is indeed such a saying. I guess it won't be long before your companions are thrown down and strangled to death."

"What do we do? The vines are covered with upside-down living dead. The tree is so tall, how are we going to get up there?" I asked anxiously.

The young Taoist priest glanced around and finally stopped at one spot, saying, "There are no living dead on this vine. I'll climb up and rescue Brother Wang. You all be careful. These living dead are observing us and tormenting our minds. Once they've finished fooling us, they'll attack us directly."

"No way!" Bao Cai exclaimed in horror, "You play with dead people like this?"

Qiu Yue said calmly, "Stop yelling. We've already entered this ghost formation. There's no way we can escape now. You can only pray that Master Ku successfully destroys the bell, and that we can save our own lives before that happens."

I never expected Qiuyue to be so cunning, but what she said was very true. I looked up at the female corpses hanging down and a sense of collapse welled up in my heart. How could we possibly save our lives when surrounded by so many living dead?

The most wonderful thing I can think about right now is that these things aren't in a hurry to kill us, so we still have time to eke out a living. But if we face them, even if we don't die immediately, the souls living inside our bodies will probably be scared out of their wits. Thinking about it this way, it's better to just die and stop torturing ourselves.

Just as I was feeling discouraged, the young Taoist priest had already climbed the vine. The little fire monkey was truly a clever creature; seeing we had no torches, it leaped from the branch near Bao Cai's place to the top of the vine the priest was clinging to. This not only dispersed the restless undead but also provided light for the priest. However, without fire, Ba Jian was in trouble. The shadows hidden behind the trees slowly emerged, preparing to attack him, giving us a warning.

Qiuyue noticed this as well. She took out a plum blossom-shaped hidden weapon and said, "I wonder if it can shoot that far!" As she spoke, she jerked her arm, and the plum blossom dart spun rapidly and disappeared without a trace.

At first, I didn't know her purpose, but then I heard several screams. Bao Cai and I looked up and saw something falling from the very top of the treetop, knocking down some leaves. As it fell, a hole appeared in the dense canopy, and a soft, bright white light shone in, almost hitting Ba Jian. This light caused the undead that were about to attack Ba Jian to shrink back. Ba Jian, being incredibly clever, realized the undead feared light and immediately wriggled his body, moving closer to the light source. He whimpered, seemingly anxious, urging us to hurry and save him.

The female corpses that had been forced back failed to achieve their goal and began to scream sharply. The screams were piercing and heart-wrenching. I covered my ears, and at the same time, all the female corpses hanging on the vines echoed the screams in a strange manner.

What was terrifying was that the withered corpse hanging upside down next to Bajian also started to convulse. Her dry flesh was stuck to her skull, and her exposed teeth made a "clucking" sound, which sent chills down one's spine. Not to mention Bajian, who was surrounded by them and waiting to be slaughtered.

Logically speaking, such withered corpses should be completely dead and no longer possess such demonic power. However, as the young Taoist priest said earlier, these people are all things within a deadly formation. Their souls are trapped, curled up in this damp and dark place, surviving in a different way that is neither human nor ghost.

He previously said that this formation was called the "Corpse Demon Formation," which could keep the sacrificial dead within the formation and also prevent some people who accidentally entered the forbidden area, or those who came specifically for the ancient tomb. These people would be tortured to death, leaving behind resentment, and would be trapped in this place, becoming tools for guarding the tomb, along with the earliest sacrificial victims.

This vicious cycle turned the place into a place where corpses piled up and resentment lingered. Generally, no one who stepped into this place could leave alive. Therefore, the common people called this kind of place "cannibalistic land" or "ghost pit".

Thinking of this, I shuddered. At that moment, the vine on which the little Taoist was standing suddenly trembled. It turned out that a living corpse had climbed onto his vine, trying to stop him halfway. When the little fire monkey saw this, it hissed anxiously.

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At the same time, something happened to Bajian as well. Although he was hiding under the light source and the rotting corpses could not get close, the vine that was entangled with the withered corpse was the main branch of the small vine on Bajian's neck. Her struggle could have cost Bajian his life.

Bajian clutched the thin vine around his neck, trying to ease the tightening and suffocation, but the withered corpse moved too much. He was being pulled away from the branch by the vine, his face turning red. It was unclear whether he was a vengeful spirit in his past life, but in this life he was being punished, with those deadly things always trying to get to his neck.

He rolled his eyes as he was hastily pulled down, half his body almost suspended in mid-air. The young Taoist priest was extremely anxious, but he was too preoccupied with his own problems, and we were too far away from him to do anything but worry.

The fatal thing was that Bajian's upper body quickly escaped the light shining from above. The rotting female corpses chuckled a few times and slowly crept around another branch, creeping up to Bajian's upper body.

In the blink of an eye, the female corpse that was about to climb down the vines had somehow slid down several meters away, about two or three meters from us.

The situation was incredibly tense, and my heart skipped a beat. In a crisis, women are calmer than men. Qiuyue reached out and led us closer to the source of the light. At that moment, I didn't dare breathe and followed her backward. My face touched something furry and itchy. Instinctively, I ran my hand through it. At first, I was only focused on being scared, but now, recalling the feel of the furry thing, my heart clenched as if electrocuted.

I glanced upwards in horror, and besides the usual stench of a rotting corpse, I saw a strangely pale, dead face. Surrounded and contrasted by countless black objects, this face stood out starkly! I swallowed hard, and saw her silently looking down at me, a sinister smile playing on her lips.

At that moment, her face was only about fifty centimeters away from me. I was enveloped by her head, couldn't see my companions, my mind went blank, and I almost felt like I was dead.

Just at this critical moment, someone suddenly pulled me out of the dark circle. I was in a state of complete terror and numbness, and now that someone was pulling me, my tense nerves snapped. My legs went weak, and I knelt on the ground and vomited violently. This vomiting completely released all the fear that had accumulated.

The person who pulled me was Qiuyue. We were under the circle of light, and the rotting corpses dared not approach, but their ugly faces were right in front of us, never leaving. I never imagined that this small circle of light would become our last resting place, but if I stretched out my foot and revealed even the slightest opening, I would be swallowed by the darkness and decomposed by the female corpses. This scene reminded me of the movie "Riddick" starring Vin Diesel, where there is a scene with people huddled in the dim light and monsters waiting in the darkness.

Right now, Bao Cai's situation wasn't much better than mine. He was pale with fright, trembling all over, and unable to utter a single word. Ba Jian was cornered and about to fall. The young Taoist priest gripped the vines with one hand and drew his peach wood sword with the other, preparing for a desperate fight. Qiu Yue looked around, the curved blade in her hand gleaming coldly. At this moment, facing the indescribable danger and turmoil, a wave of despair washed over me. I didn't know what our fate would hold. (To be continued.)

I like tomb raiding.