oni tsubo

Capítulo 3

“They…are…gangsters…” Little Rascal’s jaw was trembling. Wang Tie immediately flared up. “You bastard!”

So what if they're gangsters?! I'll still fuck their mothers!

In his rage, he spoke a little louder than Liu Dalai had. The dark-faced man glanced at him and then nodded slightly. The two youths behind him immediately waved their hands.

Suddenly, more than thirty burly men charged at Wang Tie without a word. The two sides were a hundred meters apart, but the men rushed at him in the blink of an eye, as if they were participating in a world track and field competition. They quickly scattered the battle-hardened self-defense group members around Wang Tie with punches and kicks, and then, before Wang Tie could even realize what was happening, they kicked him.

This iron-willed man, who had become the most famous person at the foot of Dazang Mountain by defeating Liu Dalai in one fell swoop, was completely powerless to fight back.

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [10]: Before the members of the Self-Defense Corps had even arrived, those strong men had already brandished a gleaming machete.

The machete struck and injured people; in the blink of an eye, seven or eight people from Wangzhuang had fallen injured.

A machete was held to Wang Tie's neck. He was lifted up and a blow, like being smashed down with a twenty-pound sledgehammer, pierced his abdomen, heart, and brain. Wang Tie felt a blackout before his eyes, and stars flashed before his eyes. Then came two more punches.

With just three punches, he was beaten so badly that he coughed up a mouthful of blood and was no longer able to fight back.

He was dragged in front of the dark-faced man and thrown to the ground.

*** *** ***

"I know you. Your name is Wang Tie, you're quite capable, and you have a reputation." The dark-faced man looked coldly at Wang Tie, who was unable to stand, and smiled slightly—a smile that sent chills down one's spine. "I'm a very reasonable, civilized, and refined person. I would never do anything like slashing or killing. Considering you're a celebrity from Wangzhuang, I'll forgive you this time. From now on, you must remember: speak politely, courteously, and refinedly."

He spoke very politely. But just as Wang Tie breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the matter was over, an even more polite remark came out.

"—Cut off his tongue."

The two youths behind him immediately moved. The one on the left suddenly pulled out a small dagger, while the one on the right reached out, dislocated Wang Tie's jaw, and with two fingers, pulled out Wang Tie's tongue; the dagger on the left immediately slashed at Wang Tie's tongue.

From the issuance of the command to its execution, it took less than thirty seconds.

But at that very moment, another order was issued.

"—Let him go."

The one speaking was the old man surveying the cemetery by the light of the torch.

His voice wasn't loud, just loud enough for the two men carrying out the order to hear. Their gestures immediately slowed, and they looked at the dark-faced man. The dark-faced man waved his hand, and the two men immediately sheathed their daggers and placed them on Wang Tie's cheek.

Wang Tie collapsed/fell to the ground.

This time, he finally understood what fear was.

But he wasn't afraid.

—Absolutely not afraid!

The old man walked up to Wang Tie with a kind smile, bent down, and said, "Young man, you're from Wangzhuang. Do you know how the round hole in front of your ancestral grave came about?"

Wang Tie spat out a mixture of blood, stomach acid, and saliva, and despite the pain, he actually stood up. "—It was the people from Liu Village who did it! Stand up for them? Bah! Come on! Let's see if the people from this surrounding area will let you off the hook."

The old man frowned. "Young man, I've heard of the people from Liuzhuang. They can't dig a hole like this. Have you explored how deep this hole is?"

"No!"

The old man nodded, then turned to look at the dark-faced man. "Has anyone from the Gentleman's Sect come by recently?"

"Yes. More than 30 people crossed the border last month, and more than 10 people stayed behind. Among them, six are tomb raiders, and we haven't contacted them yet."

"—This is the exit. If someone is truly lost in the mountains, they can get out from here." The old man frowned, his fingers trembling slightly, and continued, "The graves in this area are all hollow, and groundwater flows here. If a person is underground, as long as there is oxygen and they don't lose their will to survive, they should be able to live for two or three months without much trouble. You'd better get a few members of the Gentlemen's Sect to go in and take a look. Apart from them, no one else can find them."

The dark-faced man paused, then asked, "Aren't the people from Liu Village good enough?"

The old man slowly shook his head. "Them? — It's difficult." He paused, then continued, "Xiao Ding, I'll leave this to you for now. Try to get the government involved; don't do it yourself. You've made a bit too much noise this time. If you keep causing trouble, unless…" He stopped there, turning to look at Wang Tie. "Young man, isn't there someone in your village named Wang Jia or Wang Mu?"

Wang Tie was startled and looked at him warily.

“Go find them and help Xiao Ding,” the old man said, pointing to the thin, frail little girl. “They know her. They’ve met once before.” He then pointed to the dark-faced man. “From now on, if you have any problems, go to him. Get to know him. His name is Lei Zhenyu. Don’t hurt each other’s feelings anymore.”

Having finished speaking, the old man left without waiting for a reply.

In the darkness of night, with flickering firelight, their footsteps seemed to float in mid-air, and they themselves appeared as if they were immortals riding the wind, gracefully departing.

The dark-faced man waved his hand, and immediately more than ten burly men followed the old man away. He smiled and said, "Wang Tie, I apologize for any offense I may have caused earlier. Don't take it to heart. I've heard a little about your affair with Liu Zhuang. You're in court, aren't you? No need to rush, Liu Zhuang will drop the lawsuit in a couple of days. Let's meet another day."

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned and left.

Moments later, the torches were swallowed by the night, and only when the light disappeared completely did groups of Wangzhuang villagers, armed with weapons, arrive, shouting loudly.

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [11]: -- People are all smart.

Wang Tie really couldn't blame the villagers.

If anyone's to blame, it's only themselves—they're not even as useful as Wang Gouzi.

*** *** ***

On the 27th, Wang Tie was too badly injured to report the crime on behalf of his mother. On the 28th, someone brought Wang Tie a large amount of medicine and a red envelope containing 20,000 yuan, politely telling him it was just a small token of their appreciation. On the 29th, Wang Badai was buried, and as usual, all the prominent figures in the village attended. Wang Tie and Cai Yin had no choice but to go.

On this day, Cai Yin accepted a gift of one thousand yuan and had no choice but to mourn.

His mourning touched everyone, including Wang Ma's already broken heart.

That night, Wang Ma took medicine and died, leaving behind a suicide note:

Tiezi:

Auntie went downstairs. She had hoped that Jiamu and his brother would grow up to be decent people, but their father was too cruel, leaving her no way out. Auntie went downstairs to reason with their father and ask Jiamu and his brother to come back.

Listen to your aunt's advice: dig up the ancestral graves in the village. Only there is the gate to the spirits and ghosts, where your aunt can bring them back. They'll be waiting there. But you must dig it up quickly! If you're too late, they'll never come back.

My aunt will do so today.

The moment Cai Yin saw the suicide note, she fainted again. In her unconscious state, she heard Wang Ma's voice: "My child! Don't run around. I'll change you up right away."

At the same time, everyone present had a strange feeling: it seemed that Wang Jia and Wang Mu were in a dark room, watching them.

*** *** ***

The police chief was not dismissed. After more than ten days, the families of the missing persons seemed to have calmed down and resigned themselves to their fate. Those who had jobs continued to go to work, and those who didn't were busy with their own lives. But every day, someone would go to the police station to ask if the case had been solved.

Missing person posters were plastered all over the streets, and television and radio broadcast announcements of their whereabouts frequently. Police officers worked tirelessly to gather information, while search teams continued their all-out search in the area from Dazang Mountain to Dashi Mountain.

The initial urgency had vanished, replaced by a sense of unease. But the eighteen people seemed to have disappeared into thin air, without a trace.

The cause of the fatal accident at the Shikeng Overpass remains unknown.

According to witnesses, people were running around like madmen; survivors said they had no idea what they were doing.

On National Day, a conflict broke out between the garrison and the armed police. The reason was simple: the latest police rats, which the armed police had painstakingly trained, were eaten by police dogs from the garrison and the public security department.

Of course, the garrison and police were also unhappy.

—The best police dog died of poisoning shortly after eating a police rat.

By the 10th, villagers in the townships had given up their assistance and were demanding compensation from the county and municipal governments. The reason was that the police dogs and rats seemed to recognize people, specifically biting them. Some of the police dogs even had rabies, and the rats were even more venomous; those bitten, even if they didn't die, would become vegetative. People criticized the government: "Why use foreign breeds to train police dogs? Are Chinese dogs inferior to foreign dogs? Not to mention, they even brought in a bunch of American rats to cause trouble. Chinese rats are hated, but American rats can be police? Bah! They're blindly worshipping foreign things and colluding with foreign powers..." By the 12th, a national-level geologist, accompanied by two assistants, had circled over Dazang Mountain in a helicopter for a day, poring over a large amount of data. The following noon, he solemnly announced: "There must be numerous karst caves in the Dazang Mountain area; the ancient buried mountains in the Shixian area must contain valuable high-yield oil fields; and the locations of the ancestral graves in the various villages of Dazang Mountain are the best locations for high-yield oil wells."

On the 17th, it had been a month since he went missing.

At noon, a renowned qigong master and person with special abilities, who was famous both at home and abroad, circled several times in a helicopter and pointed out: "What does the Great Burial Mountain look like? It looks like a person lying down! It looks like a woman!"

—What is the ultimate technique in the world of prediction? It's "catching shadows and chasing the wind"!

—What does all this signify? It signifies that the buried woman is about to rise from the dead! Those people must have undoubtedly disappeared here! They entered through the woman's mouth, passed through her throat and intestines; if digested, they would be lost forever. They would never come out again. But they will not be digested. They have become/must become—the "fetuses" conceived by this woman, and then be born.

—Where were you born? From the ancestral cemetery in Wangzhuang. The terrain there splits into two sides, yes, that's it…doesn't it look like it?

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [12]: III. The Web of Fate

The playing cards and paper had all burned away. People emptied several backpacks, tore the contents into strips, lit them, blew them out, and let them smolder. Lighters wouldn't ignite, but the flashlights and batteries that hadn't been discarded came in handy again. The discarded batteries miraculously regained a weak power, emitting a faint glow—especially the battery in Du Liu's flashlight, whose bulb had shattered; it seemed to have regained power as if it were brand new. The moment the light appeared, the crowd cheered again—because they discovered that the earthen wall and the ground ahead were rising upwards.

—We're almost out!

Everyone cheered. But Du Liu, Chen Xing, and A Ding all had an extremely strange feeling: they weren't about to get out. They had already entered the underground. What they were about to face was—the Yellow Springs.

In that instant, the earth shook and people fell to the ground.

The tremors continued, and a tremendous sound came from behind; people no longer hesitated and fled for their lives. When the tremors stopped and people came to their feet, there was no road behind them.

But there is still a way forward.

It was a road whose destination was unknown. But at this point, they had no choice but to walk. They could only continue, forward, downward.

*** *** ***

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Finally, it stopped going up and stopped going down.

By this time, everyone's backpacks were almost empty. Only Tong Rong's backpack contained seven biscuits, two pieces of bread, a sausage, two packets of instant noodles, four dried noodle cakes, and ten pieces of chocolate. There were also two jugs of "water" that had been drunk and excreted, which smelled nauseating.

This is all of the eighteen people.

The first open space appeared during their journey. People sat down to rest, and Tong Rong began to solicit opinions on how to distribute the food and "water".

A strange sound suddenly appeared.

It sounded like digging.

As the eighteen people listened in astonishment, six round holes suddenly appeared in the earthen wall, each emitting a beam of blinding blue light. Then something flew out, and the six holes disappeared.

When people recovered from their shock and turned on their flashlights, they discovered that the backpack containing food and "water" that had been placed in the center was gone.

—It was as if they didn't exist at all; the eighteen people were just sitting around an open space discussing how to eat and drink their fill.

With a crisp sound, the flashlight in Du Liu's hand suddenly went out.

It was pitch black.

Pitch black. Silence.

A strange, chilling voice rang out. "Who are you? —Where do you come from?"

This voice was even colder and more ruthless than when Chen Xing drew his sword and demanded water from the crowd! Just hearing this voice was more terrifying than facing ten Chen Xings who had torn off their masks.

This is just the sound.

I haven't seen anyone yet.

*** *** ***

Finding someone is simple—just follow the scent of life. But in this labyrinthine palace where the mechanisms constantly shift and change, in this pitch-black place where you can never predict what you'll encounter next, finding people takes a hundred times more effort. If it weren't for the chance encounter with the "node" of the palace's shift, the leader believes that even if he had a hundred years, he still wouldn't have been able to find those people.