Ghost Stories Series 10

Chapter 54

"Ah!" I cried out softly and covered my eyes with my hands.

"Ah!" Just as I cried out, I heard someone else scream in agony on the street outside.

"Delin!" Kurada jumped up, still clutching a bloodstained knife, and rushed out the door.

"Kurada!" I hurriedly lowered my hands from my eyes and rushed out the door after him. But by the time I got outside, Kurada had vanished without a trace.

The stone-paved street was completely silent.

It felt as if I was the only person left in the entire city.

"Oh my god!" Facing the empty street, I slowly squatted down.

9. Ancient City Mummies

I walked slowly down the street.

I feel a little dizzy and can vaguely hear many sounds.

Suddenly, a large pool of blood appeared on the street in front of me, and drops of blood extended into a house next to it. I trembled slightly and slowly peeked out from the half-open door.

Suddenly a dark figure lunged at me!

I screamed and instinctively reached out my hands to push the shadow away.

The tentacle was a warm body, and a sticky, sweet-smelling liquid clung to my hand. When I pushed it, the body fell backward.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. It was Delin lying on the ground! His eyes were wide open as he stared at me, a deep hole in his chest, blood still oozing out.

I found my hands covered in blood, Delin's blood.

What about Kurada? He came out to chase after Delin after hearing his voice. Now that Delin is dead, what happened to Kurada? I can hardly imagine.

"Kurada!" I shouted as I ran into the street. "Kurada! Kurada! Where are you?"

“Purple…Yue…” I faintly heard Kurada’s voice, as if it were coming from the direction of the palace.

I started running through the streets toward the palace, calling out Kurada's name as I ran, but I never heard his voice again.

The palace drew closer and taller in my sight, constructed of enormous stones. The gates were arched, two massive stone doors carved from single blocks of rock, each adorned with intricate carvings. On each door was a colossal beast, an animal I had never seen before, with the head of a deer, antlers of an ox, the body of a horse, and the tail of a leopard.

Actually, these weren't what I saw at the time; they were what I saw in a dream. I was running forward at an extremely fast speed and couldn't see these things clearly, I only knew that the palace was enormous.

I suddenly stopped running because the two doors of the palace were closed.

I was breathing heavily, staring at the two tightly closed doors.

“Purple…Yue…” I faintly heard Kurada’s voice again, and I was sure that the voice was coming from inside the palace.

"Kurada! Kurada!" I shouted at the door.

With a creak, the two doors in the palace suddenly opened inward.

As the door opened, a multitude of voices suddenly rushed towards me. They were the voices of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people that I had heard in my dreams before. These voices were mixed with angry and discordant notes, and they gave me a splitting headache.

Behind the open palace gates stood a hunched old man in a short black robe and a round metal hat. His face was like a mummy's, with deeply sunken eyes and a toothless mouth like a giant black hole. He grinned and said to me, "Welcome back, Aridonna!"

Just like in my dream!

But I couldn't care less about any of that at the time. Luffy was dead, Delin was dead, Kurada was gone, and this old man who looked like a zombie was here. Could he be the murderer? While I was standing there in a daze, the old man inside the door was gone.

I hurriedly followed behind and rushed into the palace.

"Who are you?" I shouted in the empty palace, but there was no one else's voice except my own echo.

With a "boom," two massive stone doors slammed shut behind me. I quickly turned around, but there was no one in the hall. Who had closed the doors? Cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

In the center of the palace was a huge stone platform, more than half a person's height. On the platform was a stone chair, and on the chair sat a mummified corpse wearing a crown. He was also wearing armor studded with jewels, and his right hand held a thick sword with fine blood grooves on the blade.

On either side of the stone bench, there are two mummified corpses of guards holding spears, their eyes wide open, still standing straight.

My eyes searched the palace, but I saw no sign of any living person.

My clothes were soaked with cold sweat.

"You're finally back, Aridonna!" Just as I was looking around, I suddenly heard a familiar voice, the one from my dream that had pierced through all other sounds and reached my ears most clearly.

I quickly turned around to look for the voice, only to find it was the mummified corpse sitting on the stone chair, wearing a crown!

Yes, the sound came from his mouth!

I stared blankly at the mummified corpse, as if trapped in a nightmare, unable to move. I saw light flickering in the deep-set eye sockets of the corpse, and its dry, purple lips began to slowly part, revealing a strange smile on its face: "I knew you would come back. I've been waiting for you for a long time, for a very long time."

"Ah!" I screamed, covering my head with my hands and shaking it frantically. I told myself, "This is just a dream, wake up, wake up!"

"Squeak".

There was the sound of a door opening again. I hurriedly turned around to look at the palace gates, but the two doors remained tightly shut.

Just as I was wondering where the door noise came from, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a dark figure flashing past on my right. I quickly turned my head to the right and saw a small door open. The dark figure outside the door darted past, and it must have been the hunched old man in the black robe.

I glanced again at the mummified corpse sitting on the stone chair in the palace. He looked the same as before, with no light in his sunken eye sockets and no grin.

So I turned around and ran towards the small door on the right. I ran with all my might, afraid that before I could reach the small door, it would close and trap me forever in this empty, quiet hall filled only with mummified corpses.

As I rushed out the door, I tripped over something and fell forward.

"Ouch!" I cried out in pain, but I immediately scrambled to my feet at lightning speed because I had landed right on top of a dried-up corpse!

The feeling of standing up wasn't much better than the feeling of crawling on the ground.

Because, as I looked around, I saw that the whole place was full of mummies!

This is a courtyard, with some stone flowerpot-like objects in it, presumably used for planting flowers and trees in the past. However, the sheer number of mummies in this courtyard is unbelievable!

These mummies were lying or sitting, some lying on their backs, some lying face down, and some stacked on top of each other.

So many mummies! I got goosebumps all over.

But for some reason, seeing so many mummies here, although I felt a chill, I wasn't really scared, unlike when I saw the mummies in the rooms and palaces of the city, which gave me an indescribable sense of fear.

What's even stranger is that all of these mummies were women!

Could this be a palace maid? Or perhaps the concubine of the man wearing the crown?

Strangely, these mummies didn't seem to have died together. I examined them closely; their clothing had long since turned to ash, so I couldn't expect to glean anything from it. However, some of them wore different bracelets, and some even wore earrings. These ornaments were of completely different styles—some were exquisite, while others were rustic. Some wore a large number of pieces of jewelry, like the elaborate and ornate jewelry of the Miao people in my country.

After carefully observing these mummies time and time again, I made another surprising discovery.

These mummies all looked about the same size and build, making me think they were selected from a performance troupe.

Could these mummies have been actresses in this palace? But how could they have died in this courtyard? Perhaps, when disaster struck, they were waiting outside the gate, ready to offer their dances and songs to the crowned man in the main hall?

I made wild guesses.

Right now, I'm so engrossed in studying these mummies that I've forgotten why I came here in the first place. "Purple... Yue..."

I vaguely heard Kurada calling my voice again. I quickly stood up and listened carefully to the source of the voice. It seemed to be not far from this courtyard, but it was as if there was something between us.

I began searching the courtyard.

The courtyard was enormous, but everywhere in it were mummies, the mummies of women.

I stepped over the mummified corpses, trying my best not to disturb them. They had long since died here. Even now, I can't imagine what kind of disaster could have caused everyone in this city to die and turn into mummies.

“Purple…promise…”

The voice seemed to come from a corner of the courtyard.

I looked towards that corner, the place with the most mummies; the entire corner was piled high with them. I was certain from the sound I'd just heard that Kurada's voice was coming from that corner.

My back started breaking out in a cold sweat again.

I cautiously walked to the vicinity of that corner, clasped my hands together and bowed to the mummified corpses: "I've moved you all a bit, please forgive me. I will definitely burn incense for you when I get back, please forgive me!"

As I recited this, I thought to myself, this isn't China, and I wonder if the ghosts here eat incense and fire.

After I finished reading, I began to move the mummies aside one by one. Actually, I was terrified doing this, but thinking that Kurada might be in danger, I couldn't care less about my fear.

The mummies were very light. I carefully picked up their bodies, lifted them up, and placed them against the wall.

In no time, I had moved most of the mummified corpse away.

"Ah!" As I reached for one of the mummified corpses inside, her head suddenly fell off! It rolled onto the ground.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it. Please forgive me!" I was covered in cold sweat, muttering some strange words that I didn't even know what they meant.

"When Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva was practicing the profound Prajnaparamita, he perceived that the five aggregates are all empty, and thus transcended all suffering and distress. Shariputra... He can remove all suffering. This is true and not false. Therefore, he recited the Prajnaparamita mantra. The mantra is: Gate Gate. Paragate. Parasamgate. Bodhi Svaha." As I arranged the mummified corpse and attached her head to the body, I recited the Heart Sutra. This was thanks to my habit of listening to Buddhist chants in my spare time, and I had copied a bunch of these things onto my computer.

As I slowly recited these words, my sandalwood Buddha bead bracelet gradually emitted a pale light, the green jade gourd also emitted a pale green light, and the scriptures on it emitted a golden light.

I don't think I'm that scared anymore.

The mummies have been mostly removed.

“Purple…Yo…” I heard Kurada’s voice again. I was sure the voice was coming from this corner, but the mummified corpse was gone. The corner was completely empty.

Where is Kurada?

Is he behind this wall?

I searched carefully again, but found nothing new. I remembered some adventure stories I had read before, where there were always some mechanisms or tricks on the walls. So I moved closer to the wall and slowly ran my hand along the stone wall to see if there were any bumps or uneven spots.

The stones were extremely smooth, and I even touched the crevices between them, but I couldn't find any mechanism.

"Damn it, everything in the books is a lie!" After working so hard all day, I felt a bit tired, so I sat down against the wall.

"Ah!" I jumped up as soon as I sat down on the ground; something had pierced my flesh.

There seemed to be no living people here except for the mummies, so I didn't care about appearances anymore and rubbed my buttocks where I had been pricked. My hands were warm. Sigh, the skin was broken and bleeding. What was trying to ambush me?

I turned my head to look at the spot where I had just been sitting, and there was a stone carving shaped like a bamboo shoot, with a small part of its head sticking out of the stone, about two inches high. It was in the corner of the wall, and if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't notice it. If you looked closely, you would think that the corner of the stone was not laid properly, so a corner was sticking out. But my intuition was that it was placed there on purpose.

"You're a menace!" I kicked the stalagmite hard, but I immediately clutched my foot. "Ouch, that hurts so much!"

My big toe is longer than my other toes, so it always gets injured first when I kick something.

Just as I was jumping around in frustration, I noticed a black hole had appeared in the wall! When did the wall open? And without making a sound?

I jumped up and looked at the hole that had appeared in the wall.

A man stood in the dark cave, his face like a dried corpse, his mouth grinning: "You've finally found this place."

This person was actually the hunchbacked old man who had just been standing at the palace gate!

"You murderer!" I screamed. "Where did you put Kurada?"

"You shouldn't worry about others, just take care of yourself first!" The old man laughed even harder, and he stretched out his hand to me, his long fingernails looking like sharp knives.