Chapter Forty-Two: The Worst Case

Puzzled, I followed behind. As soon as I turned the corner, my heart sank. Gazing at the end of the burial passage, I couldn’t help but quicken my pace and run forward.

“How can this be?” I pressed my hand against the rock at the end of the passage and turned to look at Fatty.

He’d said he fell down along some steps, so there should have been a stone door at the back of this passage, and beyond that, a stairway. Yet, what lay before us was nothing but solid rock, thick and impenetrable. No wonder Fatty had reacted the way he did earlier—clearly, he himself couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

“I definitely fell right here, but after all these days, I just haven’t been able to find the way I came down,” Fatty said with a wry smile, then squatted down again to continue smoking.

The hope that had suddenly welled up in me was just as quickly extinguished. I stood there, at a loss, not knowing what to do.

“To be honest, this tomb doesn’t feel like a place meant for burial,” Fatty muttered. Strangely, his words echoed what Peanut had said before.

“Oh? Then what do you think it’s for?” Peanut turned to ask.

“You two clearly haven’t seen much of the world,” Fatty replied, putting on an air of expertise. “A proper tomb should be sealed tight. Think about it—a royal or a high official would go to great lengths to build a mausoleum, hoping it would last as long as possible. But here, every design includes a natural ventilation system. Haven’t you noticed the airflow since we came in?”

Though my mood was bleak, I couldn’t deny Fatty’s point. All throughout the tomb, the air was surprisingly fresh, and there was hardly any musty smell. It really was odd.

Seeing me deep in thought, Fatty grinned. “That’s not even the strangest part. What’s truly bizarre is that everything in this tomb—stone towers, wooden coffins—looks like it’s been perfectly preserved. The signs of decay are too faint.”

For some reason, a chill ran through me as he spoke.

“The Western Han Dynasty—two thousand years ago! Even if you put a lump of gold here, it’d have started to crumble by now. Yet, you’ve seen it yourselves: the towers, the coffin behind you—none of it looks like it’s been sitting here for two millennia. If the dates aren’t wrong, then someone must’ve been maintaining it, protecting everything from decay.”

Fatty’s comment made my skin crawl. Two thousand years—who could possibly maintain a tomb for that long? Seven hundred years from Qin Feizi to the First Emperor was hard enough to believe, let alone two thousand. What, did they hire a tomb caretaker? Impossible.

Noticing the disbelief on my face, Fatty added, “That’s why this place is so uncanny. And it’s fitting that you can’t find the way back.”

Suddenly, an idea struck me, and I asked, “You can’t find the way back down, but why haven’t you left? The entrance is just behind the passage, isn’t it?”

Looking at Fatty, covered in dust and grime, it was clear he’d been here a long time. But with the main entrance just beyond the passage, he couldn’t have been stuck here all this time, could he?

Fatty’s expression suddenly turned desolate. “There’s no way out.”

Peanut’s brow furrowed. “This isn’t good,” he said abruptly, then sprinted toward the stone door. I immediately chased after him.

We both reached the stone door and looked ahead... and I breathed a sigh of relief. The door was still open. As we ran over, I’d feared things had taken an impossible turn. After all, with a door and a passage, it wouldn’t make sense for Fatty to remain trapped here, playing dead. But as I took two steps forward, my heart turned cold.

The stone-paved path that had been there was now gone; under the light of the flashlight, all that remained beneath our feet was a yawning abyss. My mind went taut in an instant. I glanced at Peanut, but his face was just as solemn.

I suddenly realized I’d made a tremendous mistake.

Earlier, Mouse had mentioned that when they turned back, one passage had become three. This meant the paths we’d taken might not have existed originally. We’d been following roads that had appeared from who knows where—and so it was only to be expected that they could vanish just as suddenly.

“The more treasure a tomb holds, the harder it is to retrace your steps,” Fatty called from behind us, patting me on the shoulder with a laugh. “Don’t despair. If all three of us die together, at least we’ll have partners for card games on the road to the underworld.”

Suddenly, all strength left me. Things had finally come to the very situation I’d most dreaded: the path was lost, and we couldn’t go back.

We returned to the burial passage. Fatty led us into a side chamber with an empty coffin and told us to make ourselves comfortable, lighting a torch and acting as if this place were his home.

While he played host, he unfolded a tattered cloth from inside the coffin and laid it in the center for us. Seeing his mischievous grin, I half expected him to actually propose playing cards.

“As my guests, you’ll be well taken care of,” Fatty declared, pulling a plastic bag from his pocket. He shook out a few compressed biscuits, kept one for himself, and handed the rest back into the bag. Then he broke his biscuit into three pieces, offering one each to me and Peanut.

“Eat up! After a good meal, your host here can tell you stories from The Plum in the Golden Vase,” he joked, licking his biscuit bit by bit.

My mood had been bleak, but Fatty’s antics made me smile despite myself. I took out a pack of beef jerky from my bag, tore it open, and sniffed it theatrically.

Instantly, Fatty’s eyes went wide. He must have been hungry for days, because he stared at the jerky, lips trembling, saliva pooling at the corners of his mouth. “W-what’s that?” he stammered, drooling uncontrollably.

Unable to watch any longer, I tossed the jerky to him. In a flash, his expression transformed; he plunged a hand into the bag and seized a fistful of jerky, ready to stuff it into his mouth—only to stop short. He put most of it back, taking out just one strip to lick at slowly.

“What’s wrong with you?” I frowned. “We’ve got plenty more in our backpacks. Just eat.”

Fatty shot me a look. “Miss, do you know how long we might be stuck here? Even if your packs were full, it’ll run out eventually. A bag of jerky like this can last me a week.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t laugh anymore. My sense of crisis had clearly been too weak.

Peanut lit a cigarette and handed the rest of the pack to Fatty. “Now’s not the time to worry about how long the food will last. Since you fell down from above, there must be a way up.”

Fatty took a cigarette, lit it, and tossed the pack back. “But we can’t find it. What else is there to do, climb up the cliff behind us?”

Peanut just smiled and said nothing. Watching him, I couldn’t help but think, given his skills, maybe he really could climb his way out.

“It was just you before. Now there are three of us—surely we’ll find something,” I said, though I realized I barely had the strength to stand. “And hey, Fatty, my name’s Yuan Jie. Stop giving me random nicknames.”

Fatty grinned. “Yuan Jie, Yuan Jie. So you’re Miss Yuan. I wasn’t wrong.”

I realized this was the most I’d smiled since entering the tomb. The three of us shared a small meal, even splitting a can of beer—a rare luxury. It wasn’t enough to fill anyone, but I couldn’t eat much anyway. I simply leaned against the coffin in silence.

Fatty lay down and started snoring almost immediately, while Peanut sat smoking quietly.

For some reason, I sensed something different about Peanut now. He sat in the corner, arms wrapped around his knees, eyes fixed on the flickering torchlight by the door. No matter your mood, there’s always something in your expression, especially your eyes, that reveals what kind of person you are, what you’re thinking, what you want, or where you wish to go. No matter how you try to hide it, there’s always a trace.

But now, Peanut’s eyes were perfectly calm. He seemed like a completely different person from before—so distant, so still, that it was as if I were looking at a statue. For a moment, I felt an immense gulf between him and me, as if he was no longer the person I’d come to know over these past few days.

But then I realized—what did I really know about him, anyway?

Aside from his name, where was he from? How had he ended up at my family’s old house? What was his relationship with my father? Why was he helping me? How did he know so much?

I knew nothing at all.