Chapter 10: The Silhouette

I paused for a moment, carefully observing my surroundings. When nothing untoward happened, I continued forward, though the scare had left me unsettled. I quickened my pace, thinking it was best to leave this place as soon as possible. With that in mind, I pressed the tips of my feet against the ground and used my lightness skill to move swiftly toward the edge of what appeared to be a pit.

Of course, the so-called "lightness skill" was nothing like the fantastical leaps from television dramas. It required something solid for leverage, allowing the body to move quickly and nimbly, but not in any supernatural way. Soon, I caught sight of the pit’s edge. My foot tapped a stone at the rim, and my body arched over like a swallow in flight. With another powerful push, I employed the "Treading the Waves" technique my father had once taught me—layer upon layer, breaking through the air with each step, ascending higher by using every available foothold. Effortlessly, I reached a large stone at the pit’s edge and steadied myself.

Glancing back, I marveled at the sheer size of the burial pit. The number of skeletal remains inside must have been in the tens of thousands. How many lives had been lost here? How many wronged souls perished in this place? The thought sent a shudder through me. Standing here made me uneasy; something felt profoundly wrong, and I was filled with dread.

Darkness pressed in from all sides, with only the faint beam of my flashlight cutting through it. It was a small, handheld torch, and the battery was already waning after the journey so far, its light growing dim. In such gloom, I could hardly distinguish my location and could only forge ahead in a single direction.

As I walked, a surge of excitement welled up in my chest. This seemed to be the legendary passageway I’d heard about. The walls were hewn from stone, smoothed to a polish, and, to my astonishment, seemed untouched by the ravages of time—preserved in perfect condition. My luck, it seemed, was not so bad after all. By chance, I had stumbled into the tomb's passageway.

Before long, faint glimmers of light appeared ahead. Looking closely, I realized that every few meters along the passage, a perpetual lamp was set into the wall. I’d heard of such lamps before, though their glow was faint and mysterious. I didn’t have the mind to study their construction in detail.

I switched off my flashlight and continued onward. Though the light was dim, it was enough to see by. The passageway was broad, at least ten meters wide, and the walls bore no special markings—only some carved patterns whose meaning I couldn’t decipher.

Suddenly, I sensed someone ahead—yes, someone was standing there. In the gloom, I could make out their silhouette with surprising clarity. The figure stood about fifty meters from me, absolutely still. By the glow of the perpetual lamps, I could make out that he wore modern mountaineering gear. That eased my nerves a little; had he been dressed in ancient clothes, I might have been truly afraid. Since he was clearly a modern man, I felt a bit more at ease.

But in the next instant, cold sweat broke out all over my body. Why would anyone else be here? Was this the person who pushed me into the pit, or the one whose footsteps I’d heard earlier? An inexplicable tension gripped me. I drew my black-gold ancient knife and called out, “Hey!”

My voice echoed loudly in the passage, but the figure ahead didn’t move, didn’t react at all. I called out again—still no response.

I tightened my grip on the black-gold knife and approached cautiously. If this was the person who pushed me, he was certainly no friend. Friend or foe, I couldn’t tell yet. But as I got within ten meters of him, I realized something was wrong.

He was unnaturally still. Even the most motionless person would betray some sign of life, but at this distance, I could see there was none. The dim light revealed him clearly: his head bowed, his body leaning forward as if something unseen was propping him up.

Steeling myself, I moved closer. Only then did I see the truth—he was dead. The exposed skin at his neck had turned black, a sign he’d been dead for some time. What was holding him up was a long spear, rusted through, jutting from the stone slab beneath him. Was this a hidden trap in the passage?

Thinking this, I carefully checked my footing but found nothing amiss. As for the dead man, there was little else to see; he must have been dead for a year or two, and his face was no longer recognizable. I was no longer afraid of corpses, especially in a place like this—I’d seen worse.

He wore a full set of Nike mountaineering gear, all of it far more advanced than mine. I gingerly searched his pockets and found a black notebook, which I tucked away to examine later. I continued searching, curious about who he’d been, and was shocked by the sophistication of his equipment.

His backpack was full of imported supplies—canned goods, compressed biscuits, all still edible. I silently thanked him. There were also items like a folding entrenching tool and a compact toolkit, all high-end imports. What stunned me most was the pistol at his side—a genuine Type 54 with two magazines and over fifty rounds of ammunition. The serial numbers on the barrel had been deliberately filed off. This deepened my curiosity; this was not equipment an ordinary person could obtain, especially not during the recent crackdown on illegal arms. This man’s identity must have been anything but ordinary.

Yet I found no identification, no ID card. Around his neck hung a necklace with a black tag, seemingly made of silver, engraved on one side with a wolf’s head and on the other with the number “23.” I didn’t know what it meant. Many people have tattoos to signify their identity, but this man’s body had decayed too much for anything like that to remain. Other than the supplies, I found nothing. I decided to leave the necklace; the dead deserve to keep something.

Ah, the notebook. Perhaps it held some clues. My curiosity piqued, I retrieved a Wolf-Eye flashlight from his backpack, set it to its lowest setting, and switched it on. To my delight, the battery was still strong—these imported goods truly were reliable.

With the new light, the area brightened, and I leafed through the notebook. Most of it was filled with numbers—codes, perhaps, undecipherable without a key. Still, there were a few written notes:

Inventory: 2 killed in action, 1 non-combat death, 2 accidental deaths
November 12, 1996: Officially entered the tomb, one remaining.

The rest was a jumble of symbols and numbers. From what I could gather, there had been six of them. Entering the tomb was a term I’d heard before—a bit of grave robbers’ slang. It meant to break into a tomb. It seemed that by the time they entered, only this man remained. The year was 1996—the year before last—so he’d been dead almost a year and a half. They’d entered in winter, during the snowbound months. How had they managed? Surely the tomb guards would have noticed. With the strength of my clan, they would never have been allowed so deep.

Reading further, a few terms in the notebook caught me by surprise: Candle Nine Serpent, Corpse Flower, Mass Grave, Black Merman. I’d encountered most of these before, except for Candle Nine Serpent. From the description, it seemed to be a giant serpent—could it have been the black snake that attacked me outside?

It was possible. There wasn’t much more I could decipher—most of the notebook was in code. I decided to keep it for later study.

I gathered all the useful supplies, opened a can of beef—my hunger was sharp and the food tasted especially good. I even found a few packs of cigarettes, stale but still smokable. I silently thanked the dead man again. The spear pinning him was jet-black and faintly glowing green; I dared not touch it, or I would have liked to lay him to rest.

With the backpack slung over my shoulder, I set off again. Now, with my equipment complete and a pistol at my belt, I felt a surge of confidence. Even more astonishing, I found a pack of military TNT in the backpack—these people were certainly not ordinary grave robbers.

After walking a while, I reached the end of the passageway. Before me stood a massive door. Running my hand over it, I could tell it was made of bronze, dark and imposing, with two monstrous figures carved into its surface—one with a serpent’s head, the other unrecognizable. The door itself exuded a sense of awe.

There was something different about this section of the passageway: it was taller, and there was no seam between the door and the stone around it. It looked as if the door had grown naturally from the rock itself, without a trace of human carving.