Daomu Biji: The Mystic Nine - 1Chapter 26

Qi Tiezui had always been skeptical of the saying that people’s legs would go soft whenever they were extremely afraid. But in this moment—even though his mind was extremely clear and he could feel a tingling in his legs—he really had no strength. He kept trying to pull himself up, but it was useless—his hands and feet kept getting caught in the rotten cotton wool that had been soaking in the black water for so long.

It was so nauseating he felt his scalp go numb.

He stiffly held himself up with his hands as the faint flames illuminated a minuscule area. The upside-down shadow was three steps in front of him and slowly leaning its head over bit by bit, causing his mind to race. If his legs went soft now, he would be finished…

But just as soon as he had that thought, his mind immediately went blank.

At the same time, he noticed a strong, sour smell permeating the cold air. When he had first come in, there weren’t any peculiar smells besides the mustiness that was common in places like this, so it had to be coming from the shadow in front of him.

It wasn’t until later that Qi Tiezui thought he had been caught up in a nightmare at this moment.

As the shadow approached little by little, its face was gradually revealed in the light of his flare, but Qi Tiezui’s eyes couldn’t seem to focus and he couldn’t get a good look at it. It became more and more difficult to breathe, and he felt as if he was going to suffocate.

At that moment, something suddenly fell out of the darkness and hit him on the forehead, knocking him out of his confused state.

He immediately came to his senses and turned his head to find that it was the expert’s bronze mirror that had hit him. He had no idea why it had fallen, but now it was innocently laying off to the side.

He felt the tension in his heart loosen, and wondered if the expert had set this up. Just as he started to relax, however, the sputtering flare went out and plunged the whole space into complete darkness.

He immediately broke out in a cold sweat. Although he couldn’t see anything now, he instinctively rushed to the corpse jar with the hole at the bottom and jumped in.

He slid down like a cannonball, free-fell for half a second, and then fell heavily on the crossties below. As expected, he twisted his ankle, but he didn’t have the time to worry about it now.

All the flares below had also gone out, but there was a small light in the distance that had to belong to Lieutenant. Qi Tiezui quickly picked himself up and limped forward, tripping over the railroad tracks more than a dozen times since he couldn’t see anything. He called out as he approached, but he found that Lieutenant was standing there without looking back at him.

Qi Tiezui couldn’t help getting angry and hurried over to show Lieutenant his wounded leg: “Lieutenant, what are you staring at? Look at my leg! If things go wrong, there will be no more Ba Ye!”

Lieutenant didn’t look back, but continued to stare straight ahead, as if he were fascinated by something. Qi Tiezui also followed his line of sight, and found that there was a huge underground river in front of them that was six or seven people deep. Wooden beams had been placed on all sides of the tunnel to reinforce it, and many of the beams had also been placed above the river.

There were countless people hanging from the beams, all of whom had wires wrapped around their necks. It was clear to see that their cervical vertebra had been broken.

The beams and corpses extended all the way down the tunnel in a seemingly endless row, just like restless souls suspended in the air.

Lieutenant’s flare couldn’t reach that far, so they could only see the vague outlines of the shadows.

“These are the local miners. They’ve all been hanged.” Lieutenant said coldly. “The bodies have dried up, so they must have been here for some time.”

Qi Tiezui was stunned, but at that moment, he noticed that the other end of the red thread had already appeared.

It was tied around Lieutenant’s neck.

Qi Tiezui frowned. He didn’t see any women’s fingernails on it, which was odd. He tried to move forward and get a good look at it, but ended up tripping again. He looked down at the rusty railroad tracks under his feet and noticed that they had been built very neat and didn’t look like a temporary track at all.

He immediately remembered his own feet and started panicking again, “I’m not dead yet! My feet! Take care of my feet first!”

As soon as Lieutenant turned to look at him, Qi Tiezui looked up as well. At that moment, all the hair on Qi Tiezui’s body stood on end and he almost cried out. He found that it wasn’t Lieutenant’s face he was looking at, but a weasel’s face.

Qi Tiezui immediately turned and ran, regardless of the direction. He ran until he was out of breath, and only stopped when he couldn’t run anymore.

He was cold, his wet clothes were practically frozen to his body, and it was dark all around. He felt around a bit and found that the railroad track was still under his feet.

He immediately lit a flare and looked down at his own feet, gasping for breath and wondering what was going on. He turned back to see if he could find Lieutenant’s light again, but realized that there wasn’t any light in either direction. He didn’t know where he was.

After carefully trying to recall the whole incident, he found that his memory was kind of hazy. He had been distracted at that moment, so he wasn’t sure if what he had seen was real. He walked forward with the flare and called softly, “Lieutenant?”

He hadn’t even taken a few steps before a man came up behind him, blew out the flare, covered his mouth, and dragged him into the corner. As he was rendered motionless and dragged away like a dead fish, he heard Lieutenant say in his ear: “Sorry, Ba Ye.”

Qi Tiezui was relieved when he heard Lieutenant’s voice, but just as he was about to speak, he suddenly felt a blow to the back of his head. His vision went dark and he quickly lost consciousness.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when Qi Tiezui woke up in daze, he could smell the rich aroma of hot pepper soup mixing with the fragrance of chili peppers. He opened his eyes and found that the sun was shining outside and there was a roof overhead. He raised his head up and saw Zhang Qishan sitting nearby. They appeared to be in a tall Miao building, where Lieutenant and Old Man Zhang were cooking.

He sluggishly tried to sit up, only to find that he had been tied up and couldn’t move.

“Fo Ye, Fo Ye, are you going to cook and eat me? Why did you tie me up? How did I get out? What about Lieutenant?” As Qi Tiezui asked all these questions, Zhang Qishan turned his head and looked at him coldly without saying a word. Lieutenant silently grabbed a chicken from outside and put it in front of him.

Qi Tiezui and the chicken stared at each other, both feeling baffled.