Hutong fantasma

Capítulo 2

II. Wang Jia and Wang Mu were here

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [6]: The topsoil has been swept away.

It is a yin-yang symbol. Between the black and white eyes are lines and characters.

Xiao Ding nudged a member of the archaeological team next to him, "Those patterns...?"

“It’s a character. A compound character in the form of a talisman.” The man stared intently, replying casually, “It’s… the tomb master, A Dong… what does that mean?”

Xiao Ding was taken aback and looked at the old professor.

The old professor looked at Liu Zhihu, who had jumped up, and stared at his lower back.

Liu Zhihu leaped to Xiao Ding's side, looking like he knew everything, and said, "Generally speaking, the name of the person buried in the tomb is the name of the person buried there. But if it is written in the form of talismanic characters, it means 'tomb guardian.' Usually, you will find tomb guardian characters around the 'tomb guardian,' which describe the name and life of the person buried in the tomb, along with tomb guardian talismans and tomb guardian artifacts."

But if it's written in complex talismanic script... well, that's quite rare. As far as I know, its meaning should be a hidden incantation. However, according to legend..." Professor Yin suddenly asked, "Your tool—" "No mistake!" Liu Zhihu said, "It can reveal the most important things in the tomb in advance. In my opinion, at most it will only contain some talismanic texts and religious artifacts that are of interest to the religious community; nothing else. It's all just busywork."

Turning to look at Xiao Ding, he continued, "There's no such deity in legends. In Taoism, the only ones who can be called 'Ding' are the Six Ding and Six Jia arts and the Six Ren Divine Ding in numerology. While these can exist as methods of prediction or in the legendary realm of time travel, they're inappropriate as tomb-guarding inscriptions. In the entire five thousand years of Chinese history, there's no famous deity called 'A Ding.' Therefore, I don't know its exact meaning." He paused, seemingly remembering something, and looked at Professor Yin. "Professor, I just walked around about a hundred times. This tomb is astonishingly large!"

He emphasized, "Absolutely no mistake! You can verify it!"

Professor Yin asked with a smile, "What is 'one hundred'?"

"What do you mean by 'one hundred'?" Liu Zhihu looked at Professor Yin awkwardly. "...What does that mean?"

Is it a foot? A zhang? A meter? A li? A kilometer?

Liu Zhihu paused, feeling even more awkward. "One hundred is one hundred, why make such a fuss? You'll know once you dig!" he muttered, "—Nobody's ever asked me that before!"

Professor Yin smiled slightly, "I believe it. It does indeed have one hundred. But what exactly is one hundred? What is the benchmark for measuring it? This is very important."

Liu Zhihu was stunned.

"So, what is it called?" Professor Yin asked again.

A look of alertness flashed in Liu Zhihu's eyes. "It's called 'Infallible'." He made a gesture with his right hand behind his back, and several villagers immediately crowded behind him, shouting, "Yes! It's called 'Infallible'! It will never make a mistake!" As they shouted, they quietly took the "Infallible" and passed it from one to another. The last person pretended to look around and climbed up. As soon as he reached the ground, he ran away like a startled rabbit.

Liu Zhihu finally breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s used to analyze underground formations. What does your science say? – Wherever there’s metal, there’s electromagnetic induction? Is that right? Wherever there’s air, there’s a life force? Right?” He deliberately turned his back to Professor Yin and the archaeological team, bent down to look, and revealed the object wrapped in a gray-black cloth behind his waist to everyone, to show that “it’s definitely still there.” He patted the gray-black cloth behind his waist, “It’s just something for judging the transmission medium. It’s useless to you.” As he spoke, several villagers dispersed, and he turned back to face Professor Yin.

This behavior was tantamount to burying one's head in the sand. Professor Yin, however, didn't seem to care. He smiled, feigning ignorance, and said, "Its common name is indeed 'Infallible.' It means that it's more reliable than any precision instrument and is unaffected by electromagnetic interference. However, yours doesn't seem to be the genuine article, does it?"

Liu Zhihu was stunned for a moment, "—Do you have the real thing?"

Professor Yin shook his head. "It's made of a plant's fruit kernel, deep-sea fish mucus, a platinum-yttrium alloy, and some other unidentified alloy. It's priceless. It's impossible for a genuine one to appear now. The original is at the Moscow Scientific Research Institute, obtained by Academician Vasilyev in the 1960s, and then mysteriously disappeared. It's said to have ended up in the United States. Yours has a high degree of numerical error; there's no benchmark. The original has a scale marked on it, and it displays different scales under different conditions, so it's basically infallible."

"Yes! Yes!" Liu Zhihu's eyes widened. "Can you do it? If you can, I can immediately give you the addresses of several tombs of true emperors, all of which are incredibly valuable!"

"No. I have a friend who did hundreds of experiments, and none of them worked. The two best ones were only about the same size as yours."

※※※※※

The friend the old professor mentioned was Xiao Ding's mentor.

She knew the reliability of such a thing, and thus, her eyes unconsciously filled with tears.

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [7]: --The Lord of the Tomb, A Ding

(Is my brother already dead?)

She looked at her palm.

The palm slowly transformed into a translucent, jade-like surface; a raised ring appeared. Yet, within the crystal-clear ring, nothing could be seen.

She circulated her internal energy again. A layer of blisters slowly rose in her palm, as if scalding water had been splashed onto it. The blisters grew larger and larger, and in her palm, she could only see two extremely blurry figures sitting quietly; nothing else was clearly visible.

※※※※※

At 5:30 p.m. on December 20, dusk was falling and the evening clouds were gathering.

People dug up loose soil.

The loose soil resembled a long crack; digging along the crack revealed only loose soil. Half an hour passed, and the setting sun, lifeless and indifferent, performed its final duty in the west, as if weary of this ever-changing cycle of day and night, only wanting to quickly "set behind the mountain." As the setting sun revealed its last rays of brilliance from behind the burial mountain, searchlights shone into the carefully excavated grave.

A rectangular pit, three meters wide and seven meters long, gradually took shape, but a narrow natural crack appeared in the center of the pit.

This place is already 23 meters below the ground.

As dusk finally descended with the setting sun, the grave had been cleaned once more. The time was 6:12 PM. Just then, the soil collapsed, cracking into a half-meter-wide fissure. The crack was wide and long; under the spotlight, it was revealed that the bottom was hollow!

At the same time, Xiao Ding suddenly felt a piercing pain surge up.

She held out both palms, both already covered in blisters. The blisters were rapidly expanding, eventually becoming hemispherical. Under the bright light of the searchlight, the inside of the blisters appeared to be green!

A bleak green!

She stared intently.

There is an image within.

"Like" changes.

Left Palm: Two well-dressed men sit in a dark room. One opens his palm, and the other looks. These two are none other than Wang Jia and Wang Mu. —Change— The two open their palms in the passageway. In Wang Jia's palm, there is a group of indistinct figures walking, sitting, and stilling. —Change— The two walk. They walk incessantly. —Change— They continue walking, then collapse to the ground, unconscious. Wang Jia's face is revealed, like a skeleton. —Change— The bubbles burst!

A surge of synesthesia overwhelmed me, and tears welled up in my eyes.

Through her tear-blurred eyes, she looked toward her right palm.

—The right palm of the Jade Palm Remote Measurement Technique.

There is only one person in the palm of the hand, and only one image is frozen in time.

That person is the older brother: Adiu—Ding Dada.

The older brother lay quietly, his arms raised high; he had four hands, two black and two white.

The blister on my right palm suddenly burst.

Without a doubt, it was the earth's energy that was restraining her "Jade Palm Immortal Mirror".

However, the sudden release of the earth's energy caused her to receive information that had been stored for a long time and was eager to be released. This is why the phenomenon that only occurs when the "River Reversal Technique" is used to its limit occurs.

However, today she can mainly use the "Jade Palm Remote Measurement Technique," so why can she only see her brother? Could it be that there really is only her brother in the tomb? Where are the others?

Brother A-Ding, the master of the tomb, has actually become the master of the tomb?

That's right—the "Jade Palm Remote Measurement Technique" requires a disseminator, and if Wang Jia and Wang Mu are still alive, then only they can spread the information.

—But are Wang Jia and Wang Mu still alive?

※※※※※

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [8]: Of course I'm still alive.

From every perspective, they have to survive:

They had mastered the art of "seclusion," no longer worrying about food and drink, and hadn't encountered any deadly traps. There were also no germs in this tomb that could cause illness. Neither of them had any despondent thoughts of dying; of course, they had to live.

They were actually walking the "Path of Gods" of the "Tower of Babel," and being "gods," they should naturally be different from humans and ghosts. Since the two had no conflict of interest and didn't kill each other, they were naturally destined to live.

They also possess a "treasure map." As the author of this book, since he has included them as one of the three main storylines of "tomb sweepers, tomb raiders, and outings," and arranged them with the other two groups in a work, he naturally wouldn't let one of the three main storylines be "broken" so easily; they must survive.

※※※※※

Below the rectangular pit, three meters deep, lies a narrow chamber seven meters deep. At midnight, Liu Zhihu volunteered to go down and investigate, turning on his headlamp.

There were cigarette butts. Paper ash. Fragments of clothing. Feces. Handprints. And eight large characters: "Wang Jia and Wang Mu were here."

There are no two people or their remains, and no way to get out.

So where exactly did Wang Jia and Wang Mu "swim" to?

Wang Jia and Wang Mu had no idea where they had wandered off to.

But they also discovered five characters. Five compound characters resembling talismans: The Tomb Master, A Ding※※※※※, kept looking at the picture, looking at the picture over and over again. When two small white dots (Tong Rong, Li Jun) disappeared from the picture, the "picture" suddenly became disordered.

At this point, the small white dots on the image have dispersed.

Within the red line resembling a mountain stream, there is a dazzling little white dot, emitting a brilliant light, constantly bouncing and flashing, as if it wants to break through the picture. The brilliance is so great that even when Wang Jia is looking at the picture alone, he can see it clearly.

The other two small white dots, not far away and above it, flashed with a dazzling array of colors.

Several layers above, there are nine small white dots. Their color is faint, seemingly about to merge with the red line and become part of it. Yet, the more you look at them, the brighter they become.

In addition, there were eight small white dots next to the red line that led to the mountain stream. However, after Wang Mu carefully observed with his eyes open and closed for a long time, he discovered that these eight small white dots could not lead to the "mountain stream" at all. Not only were they separated by multiple layers, but even at the same level, there was a faint, abnormal color blocking them.

It was at this moment that Wang Mu saw the words.

The two men looked at the picture and talked. While looking at the picture, Wang Jia asked, "Amu, are these 'little white dots' people? If so, why is that 'mountain stream' full of little white dots? Are the 'mountain stream' full of people? Even if the 'mountain stream' is only a few kilometers long, even if there's only one person every ten meters, there must be hundreds or thousands of people, right? -- How is that possible!"

"It's 'stream,' not 'mountain stream'!" Wang Mu corrected.

"Okay, it's a stream. But what are those little white dots? Are they ghosts?"

"Why can't I see it?" Wang Mu asked, puzzled. "Your skills are inferior to mine. How can you see something I can't even see? There's only one person in the stream, a white dot!"

"Forget it." Wang Jia didn't want to argue anymore. "Whether it's more or less, as long as there are people, that's fine. It's just the two of us, and I always feel a little scared. If there are more people, even if we die together, we won't be lonely, right?"

Wang Jia smiled wryly, but Wang Mu was greatly inspired by this and asked, "Wang Jia, tell me—if we had been willing to wander around a little longer back then, we might already be famous and wealthy. We wouldn't be wandering around this godforsaken place, would we? But you wouldn't listen to me and insisted on dragging me along. Now look what happened! If we can't get out, we'll die a natural death; if we do get out, who will believe our bizarre experience? This place was discovered by the two of us, so we should at least apply for a patent after we get out and name it 'Wang Jia and Wang Mu Divine Palace.' It's much better than those crudely made ghost palaces or hellish places, isn't it?"

His thoughts were disjointed, and it was difficult for anyone but himself to understand what he was trying to say. But after so many years with his brother, what couldn't Wang Jia understand? He knew: First, his brother was still resentful about not being able to dismantle the underground prostitution ring; second, his brother was subconsciously worried about his life and death; and third, his brother was thinking about the "fame and fortune" he would gain after getting out.

Therefore, he also used a jumpy, leap-of-thought approach to answer each question.

“Amu, if I don’t pull you along, do you really think you can capture those people? What’s the point of capturing them? You ignore fighting and killing, but you’re interested in these harmless prostitution and prostitution. Do you really think this is your job?”

If I don't pull you away, I reckon the only one getting arrested by the police will be you, the big-time customer. Internationally, it's common to leave a mark on someone's territory; if you want to become famous, I think you should just leave another mark. Didn't you already write 'Wang Jia and Wang Mu were here'? Why not leave those eight characters everywhere you've been?"

"Heh! That's a great idea!"

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [9]: Wang Mu got excited and immediately walked to the stone wall, wanting to use the hardness of the stun gun to carve the mark "Wang Jia Wang Mu was here" on the stone wall.

That's how he came to see the words.

Five talismanic compound characters.

Lord of the Tomb, Adin

※※※※※

The narrow chamber is 33 meters above the ground.