Chapter 27 of Yunding Tiangong: Arrangement

By the time we rushed over, it was too late. Pan Zi had already fallen and disappeared. The cave was spinning, and the flashlight couldn't illuminate the situation at the bottom, so we didn't know whether he was dead or alive.

I was so excited that I wanted to jump down, but Fatty was faster than me. He grabbed the rope on his feet, pulled out his saber, and jumped into the hole. He disappeared in an instant. I wanted to jump again, but Monk Hua stopped me, saying that the diameter was too small, and even if I jumped down, I couldn't fight back. If it worked, Fatty could save the people by himself. If not, I would die if I jumped down.

I coughed and looked into the hole, but I couldn't see anything. I heard the sound of the fat man sliding down. The rope above was quickly pulled into the hole, and I couldn't help but feel anxious.

After a minute, the rope suddenly stopped, and then there was a vibration from the other end of the rope. Then the fat man suddenly shouted from deep below: "Pull the rope!"

We quickly pulled the rope and pulled it up with all our might. Soon the fat man appeared dragging Pan Zi. Pan Zi was still kicking, and it was obvious that the fetus had not let go.

Chenpi A Si asked us to move aside, frowned, took out an iron bullet in each hand, and fired one at Pan Zi's ankle and then hit the corpse's head hard. The corpse then screamed and let go, but immediately wanted to rush up after letting go.

Chenpi A Si didn't give it a chance. He hit it with another iron bullet, which knocked it to the ground. It turned over and rushed forward again, but another iron bullet hit it, and this time it rolled down.

We took the opportunity to pull them both out of the cave, and several people immediately moved away from the cave entrance. Hua Heshang took up the engineer shovel and waited on the side. Sure enough, within a few seconds, the thing suddenly jumped up again. Hua Heshang slammed it down with a "bang", and we heard a scream and quickly fell into the depths of the cave.

The fat man looked pale, panting as he said to Pan Zi, "See? It seems your wife likes you more."

Pan Zi was terrified and waved his hands: "No more talking, let's call it even." He then asked Monk Hua: "Is this fucking hole the nest of a fetus? If so, I'll blow it up so that it can be reincarnated as soon as possible."

Monk Hua waved his hands and said, "No, a corpse is not an animal, so where would it get a nest? This hole is indeed strange. What did you see when you fell in just now?"

The fat man said, "I didn't bring a flashlight, so I couldn't see anything, but I touched several stone slabs. This cave must have been built by humans."

Man-made? Monk Hua seemed a little concerned, and I turned my attention back to the big hole.

The hole looked a bit like a well, and it was pretty deep. I thought it was an abandoned pile hole well, but it wasn't. The diameter of the well mouth was a bit large. The pile hole wells at that time could not have been dug to this extent. There were traces of repairs and chiseling on the edge of the well hole, and there were volcanic lava holes that were not naturally formed. I took a look and found that the corpse inside was gone. It seemed that it fell inside. I don't know if it was beaten to death by Monk Hua. This thing is not very powerful except that it looks a bit scary.

The well wall had some stone slabs inlaid at the beginning, but they disappeared later. It was very uneven, a bit like the inner wall of the human duodenum. Wind blew in from the well, mixed with a hint of dampness. I looked inside for a few meters and it was pitch black. I didn't know where it led to.

The fat man was surprised when he saw it. "It looks a bit like the entrance to a cellar in the Northeast. Could it be the place where the craftsmen used to pickle cabbage when they were building this spiritual palace?"

Monk Hua ignored him and felt the hole with his hand: "The wind is blowing from here. This well is not solid. It must lead to somewhere."

The fat man asked, "Could it be the back door leading to the Heavenly Palace and the Underground Palace, the secret passage between the three-headed dragon you mentioned?"

I whispered, "The three-headed dragon scheme has been proven to be fake, and even if it is true, the secret passage should be in the underground palace, how can it be opened here?"

The fat man said, "You don't understand. This is called making a feint to the east and attacking in the west. Didn't you hear what Chairman Mao said? The most dangerous place is the safest place. Maybe this is the strategy of 'barking'."

The fat guy couldn't remember Wang Canghai's name for a moment, so he gave him a nickname. I almost laughed when I heard it. He said unhappily: "Please be respectful. After all, Wang Canghai is also the master of this school. You should call him the Grandmaster when you see him. And that was not said by Chairman Mao, but by Chu Liuxiang."

The fat man said, "Don't talk about recognizing your ancestors. What ancestor? If he recognizes me, I won't recognize him. Let's not talk about this anymore. What should we do with this cave? Should we go in and take a look? Maybe what I said is right. That corpse will be a disaster in the future. If it makes a nest in this cave, it may harm people. Let's go down and kill it."

Monk Hua shook his head and said it was impossible: "Since the Dragon Seat is fake, there is no need to dig through the three mountains. This makes sense. They simply don't have the manpower and energy to do such a huge project. It would be difficult for them to build a Cloud Top Palace. This hole is here, I'm afraid there is a lot of knowledge."

I saw that his eyes were shining and he obviously had an idea, so I asked him to speak it out so that we could discuss it.

Monk Hua said: "This is just a preliminary idea, you may not believe it."

The fat man said, "It's okay, just speak out first. If there are any mistakes, the comrades will help you correct them."

Monk Hua laughed and nodded, "Okay, then I'll tell you about it. Let's not talk about other things for now. For the time being, the opening of this cave is located in the area below the spirit hall, which is very intriguing. You think, the opening was made here for concealment. And the wind blows out, which means that this cave is a passage leading to somewhere. Look, the traces of chiseling on the cave wall are all reverse chisels, which means that this hole was opened from the inside, not from here. Based on these three points, according to our experience, we can infer that this may be a passage, and it may be a retreat left by the craftsmen who repaired the tomb for themselves. If the ancient tomb is sealed, they can escape from here."

I asked curiously, "A paidao? No way, so there is still an underground palace underneath? Although this is not a three-headed dragon, there is still a tomb built for burial?"

Monk Hua shook his head and said, "It's unlikely. We didn't find the entrance to the underground palace under the tomb-sealing stone. If there is an entrance to the underground palace, it must be there. If there is no entrance, there is definitely no underground palace. This is an eternal truth. Building the entrance outside the Feng Shui position is very disadvantageous to the owner."

The fat man said, "The man who called Wangwang behaved very erratically. Maybe he just built the entrance somewhere else."

Monk Hua waved his hand and said, "Don't think so complicated. Wang Canghai is still limited by the times. If he doesn't even follow the burial sutras and acts recklessly, we will die ten thousand times and it won't be enough."

I thought so too. If you don't even follow the burial rules, then there's no need to consider Feng Shui. Just like Genghis Khan, you can just dig a hole somewhere and bury it. After thousands of horses trampled it, no one has found it until now. I asked him, "Since there is no underground palace below, where do you think this path leads to?"

Monk Hua said, "By elimination, first, this passage was built under this fake tomb, so it must have something to do with the craftsmen of Yunding Palace. Second, where else could such a passage be built nearby? Without a doubt, it could only be the underground palace of Yunding Palace! So my conclusion is that the passage is most likely dug all the way from the underground palace of Yunding Palace at the foot of Sansheng Mountain."

I immediately shouted, "How is this possible? This is too far. If they really want to dig a drainage tunnel as a retreat, they don't have to dig the opening here. They can just dig it directly to Sansheng Mountain. Wouldn't that save a lot of effort? And how long would it take to dig such a long drainage tunnel in the mountain? At least 20 to 30 years, right? Is such a project possible for humans?"

Monk Hua explained, "A huge project like Yunding Tiangong would have taken sixty to seventy years, or even several generations to build in ancient times. I think it is not impossible that the craftsmen inside secretly dug a drainage channel when they knew they would die in the end. As for why they opened the exit of the cave so far away on another mountain, they must have had their own reasons. We will definitely find out if we go down and take a look."

Ye Cheng, who had been listening, asked, "Monk, are you sure about your idea?"

Monk Hua paused and said, "To be honest, I dare not say, but I think it is worth a try. It is better than going out and running again. Now all signs show that this is a passage. If I am wrong, there is another place below. It is not a bad thing to enter. This kind of passage is not the first time we have seen it. It should not be dangerous. No one will set up a trap on the way to escape."

I thought about it and found that Monk Hua's statement was very attractive. First, the Feng Shui here was too confusing. I couldn't figure out what Chenpi Ah Si and the others said. I was not interested in whether the Feng Shui here was good or bad. Second, I didn't know how Ah Ning and the others were doing. We had wasted a lot of time. Until now, we still didn't know the purpose of Uncle San's arrangement of this "going to the ground". If I lost everything because of this, I would really let him down.

Another consideration is that Shunzi may now basically know what we do. He is standing aside silently and not saying a word, but he is not stupid. I have been watching his hand and his knife has never left his hand for more than two feet, which means that this person is already on guard against us. Once he returns to the village, who knows what he will do? He may sell us out immediately. Chenpi Asi must have considered this. If we have to come out of the mountains and come back, the first thing we must do before entering the village is to kill someone to silence him or bribe him with a large sum of money. If we look for a guide at that time, we may not be able to find one. If you go to the snow-capped mountains once and come back by yourself without a guide, who will take us in again? Secondly, there are probably not many people in the village who can take people to the snow-capped mountains.

After discussing it, several people weighed the pros and cons, but they still disagreed. Ye Cheng was afraid of the corpse and was determined not to go ahead. Pan Zi also thought it was weird. Fatty and I thought we could give it a try. Monk Hua went to ask Chenpi Ah Si, saying, "Old man, why don't we make a move?"

Chenpi A'Si kept sitting there with his eyes closed listening to us. Monk Hua asked him several times, but for some reason, he didn't respond at all, as if he had fallen asleep.

The fat man couldn't help himself, so he patted him and said, "Old man, say something and stop pretending to be cool." After the push, Chenpi A Si shook a bit, but still didn't open his eyes.

When Monk Hua saw this, his face changed. He ran up and grabbed the old man's hand. His face turned pale. The fat man also ran over and touched the old man's neck. His face also changed color and said, "Fuck, he's dead!"

When everyone heard this, they were all stunned. What? Dead? How is that possible? Wasn't he fine just a few minutes ago?

But when we saw the fat man's face, the sweat on Monk Hua's forehead, and Chenpi A'si's unresponsiveness, we all realized something was wrong and everyone gathered over immediately.

The old man on one side seemed to be stiff, sitting there with his eyes closed, motionless, like an ice sculpture.

I touched Chenpi Ah Si's wrist, but I couldn't feel his pulse. I just felt his skin was dry, astringent, and terribly cold. The flesh inside seemed to be stiff.

Is he really dead? I was horrified. While we were studying the pit, Chenpi Ah Si was sitting here, and his heart slowly stopped beating?

Although this is consistent with the way of death due to hypothermia, hypothermia requires at least 20 minutes of low temperature to actually die. We were only sitting there for less than five minutes, how could he suddenly die? This doesn't make sense.

I still had a glimmer of hope in my heart. Fatty was unreliable. He only touched Chenpi Ah Si's neck, so it was too arbitrary to judge that he was dead. It was possible that he was just in shock. He ran too fast just now. How could a 90-year-old man bear it?

However, Monk Hua frowned, pried open the old man's eyes, and shone the flashlight behind him. His expression became uglier and uglier, and finally he looked back at Ye Cheng and shook his head.

Monk Hua had some medical knowledge, and when we saw him shaking his head, we immediately took a deep breath, knowing that there was no mistake, he was really dead.

Pan Zi asked softly, "What happened? How did he die?"

Monk Hua sighed. It was unclear whether he was saying he didn't know or didn't want to talk. He sat down on the ground with a gloomy face. The fat man pulled Pan Zi and said, "You are so old, you can die in any way."

I couldn't help but sigh. It was indeed too much of a stretch for a 90-year-old man to come here. It was reasonable to say that this happened by accident. Chenpi Ah Si probably didn't expect that he would die like this. This was his retribution.

My grandfather died suddenly in the same way. I was having a meal at the time. One minute he asked me to get him some wine, and the next minute he was gone. My father said that many tomb robbers had their hearts damaged to a certain extent because they were exposed to a lot of tomb energy in their early years, so most of them died like this when they got old. Well, this is the most comfortable way to die.

We were all a little bit at a loss. On the one hand, Chenpi A Si was their leader, and now that he was dead, there was no point for Ye Cheng and Hua Heshang to stay here. On the other hand, we got a great deal and arrived here smoothly, but Chenpi A Si was dead and Men Youping was gone. It would be difficult to rely on Fatty and Pan Zi to lead us.

While I was thinking quickly, Chenpi A Si suddenly trembled. I was startled, thinking it was a conditioned reflex of the corpse moving, but I didn't expect that with a "snap" sound, my neck was tightly grasped by him, and at the same time, he suddenly straightened up and opened his eyes.

We were all shocked. Ye Cheng slipped and fell five or six meters. Fatty and Pan Zi also stepped back. Fatty screamed, "He's a zombie!"

I hurriedly tried to pry my hands apart, but I didn't expect that the old man's hands, which were like withered branches, were extremely strong, like a pair of pliers, and I couldn't even move them. I hurriedly coughed and shouted, "Bring... the hoof, quickly!"

Before I could finish my words, Chenpi Ah Si suddenly let go of my neck, pushed me away, and cursed, "What are you talking about?"

My mind was already in a mess, and I quickly retreated behind the fat man, but he blocked me from passing. At this moment, I suddenly thought, something is wrong, can a zombie still talk? I looked at Chenpi Ah Si again, and it was obvious that his spirit had improved and his breathing had recovered.

We looked at Chenpi A Si with puzzled expressions, not knowing what had just happened. Fatty even glanced at Chenpi A Si, very puzzled. But at this moment, Chenpi A Si seemed to have returned to normal, and there was no sign that his pulse had stopped beating just now. It seemed that what we saw just now was an illusion.

Monk Hua was stunned for a while before he reacted and asked, "Grandpa, are you okay? What did you just do..."

Chenpi Ah Si seemed to have no idea that he had just died once. He looked at him in confusion, lit a cigarette, and said, "What?"

Monk Hua looked at Chenpi A'si's expression and felt a little dizzy, not knowing what to say.

Chenpi Ah Si glanced at him coldly and said, "Don't worry, I won't die so easily."

I looked at Chenpi Ah Si's appearance and tone, which were the same as before, and he didn't seem to be possessed by a ghost. Suddenly, I felt that I was being tricked by him. But why would he play such a trick? He is so old.

Chenpi Ah Si suddenly "resurrected" and no one reacted at once. But looking at his appearance, we couldn't hold him down for an autopsy to see what was wrong. I began to wonder if Monk Hua and the fat man had made a mistake. It was hard to feel the pulse of an elderly person, and the two barefoot doctors might not have touched the right place. Chenpi Ah Si was old after all, so it was normal for him to be dazed occasionally.

Several people looked confused, but none of them could show it.

Although Monk Hua was puzzled, he was relieved when he saw that Chenpi Ah Si was fine. He then told him what we had just discussed. Chenpi Ah Si looked at the ice cave and pondered for a while, then said, "It makes sense. It seems worth a try."