When I heard Manjing's question, I explained to him, "You've seen Ping'an Village as you do. It's poor in resources and isolated from the world. It's already difficult enough for everyone to make a living, so I don't think there would be any burial goods here."

Manjing shook his head: "Brother, you misunderstood me. I meant, does that mean everything stored here must be dead?"

I rolled my eyes, speechless. "What are you talking about? This is the cemetery of Ping'an Village. What else would we bury if not the dead?"

"Something's not right about this place!"

Manjing stopped abruptly and turned his gaze to the deep pit: "I just saw someone move down there."

If it were in the past, Manjing saying those words would have given me goosebumps, but hearing him say it now, I felt no unease at all: "Are you sure you really saw a corpse moving, and not just seeing things?"

"That's not possible."

Manjing scratched his head: "But when I was walking forward just now, I really saw a figure moving down below, but when I looked again, I couldn't find that guy anymore."

I swung my flashlight around the pit of corpses a few times, and looking at the flickering light and shadow, I said, "It's already dark here, and the flickering light and shadow below can easily create illusions."

Manjing glanced at the pit of corpses and nodded: "What I just saw was similar to this, perhaps I was mistaken."

While we were talking, Qu Ruilin had already walked a long distance and stopped at a spot on the edge of the mass grave.

I saw them stop, so I quickly walked over and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just that the bodies start to diverge from here."

Qu Ruilin pointed to the corpses in the pit and said, "As we walked along, the desiccation of the corpses in front of us was gradual, giving the impression that they were brought in batches, generation after generation. But here, there is a serious gap!"

Following the beam of Qu Ruilin's flashlight, I saw that the corpse in the pit had indeed undergone a tremendous change.

The corpses we saw earlier, apart from their pale skin and slight shriveling, looked just like living people at first glance.

Starting from this row, the corpses below are like mummies with their bandages removed, all skin and bones, and their colors are mainly red and brown.

The changes on the corpse were clearly contrary to common sense. I tried to speculate: "Could it be that during the development of Ping'an Village, some major changes occurred, causing a group of people to leave the place, or that for some special reason, the bodies could not be transported back to the village for burial, thus causing this tearing?"

"No way! Judging from the size of this place, this mass grave has probably been there for over two hundred years, and these mummies must have been formed at least five hundred years ago, with a three-hundred-year gap in the layers! I can't think of any situation that could have allowed the people of Ping'an Village to hide for three hundred years!"

As Qu Ruilin spoke, he used his foot to test the sturdiness of the edge of the corpse pit: "The corpses here have such a large fracture, something must have happened. I have to go down and take a look."

"Together!"

Seeing Qu Ruilin set off, I hesitated for a moment before deciding to go down and take a look as well.

We all come from prominent families, so none of us are afraid of corpses.

I put on the gas mask that Wei Shengnan handed me, and quickly descended to the bottom of the tunnel by pulling on the rope.

The moment my feet touched the ground, I suddenly felt my body sink downwards.

I turned the ground up with my foot and found that it was covered with a thick layer of sawdust. It was because of the layer of loose soil on top that it looked like the ground before.

There is a phenomenon in academia called the uncanny valley effect.

This phenomenon refers to the fact that the more similar a humanoid object's appearance is to humans, the more fear it can evoke.

I don't know if this phenomenon is accurate when applied to corpses, but after seeing those lifelike corpses here, I did have a very terrifying feeling.

Seeing these mummies now actually lessened my fear considerably.

Although I knew the pit was full of corpses, the mummies at least told me they were completely "dead".

Over time, these people who once lived in the world just like us are now completely isolated from it.

Apart from this physical body, they left no trace in this world. Their past joys and sorrows, as well as the insurmountable obstacles in their eyes, have all turned to dust with the passing years.

All that remains are the bones standing there, and the layer of skin covering them.

After observing the mummies up close, I turned to Qu Ruilin and said, "These are just ordinary corpses. There's nothing unusual about them. Although we don't know why there are gaps in the layers of these corpses, they are indeed just ordinary mummies. They don't seem to have any direct connection to what we're investigating."

"No, there is still a connection."

As Qu Ruilin spoke, he drew his dagger and walked toward a well-preserved corpse.

I saw Qu Ruilin's movements and stepped forward to block him: "We didn't come down here to rob graves. Destroying a corpse without cause goes against the ancestral precepts of the Four Sects. You must know that, right?"

"Among the four families, your Duan family is the least worthy of mentioning the word 'rules'!"

Qu Ruilin instinctively retorted, then, seemingly remembering our partnership, explained, "I didn't intend to destroy the body; I just wanted to verify a hypothesis."

When I heard him say that, I moved aside.

Qu Ruilin walked up to a corpse that hadn't turned into a mummified body, scraped the corpse a few times with his dagger, and then looked at the blade: "Just as I thought."

I don't know what Qu Ruilin is thinking, but since I've stayed, I naturally won't let go of the opportunity to get clues: "Have you found anything?"

"Wait a little longer."

Qu Ruilin didn't answer my question. After wiping the blade, he turned around and walked to the several mummified corpses, examined them carefully, and asked me, "Have you noticed that besides being dry, this space has another characteristic?"

"cold!"

Although I didn't come here to rob tombs, out of professional instinct, I've been paying attention to the environment since I arrived in this space: "Although this is an underground space and the insulation is good, the temperature is a bit too low."

"That's right, because the environment here has been altered by humans. There's an underground riverbed beneath our feet that has been diverted, which causes a significant drop in temperature in this space! The reason there are so many wood chips, lime, and charcoal here is to keep the area dry while utilizing the underground river to create a low temperature."

Qu Ruilin tapped the mummified corpse in front of him with his knife: "Moreover, our previous deduction was wrong. The mummified corpses here are not due to a fault line."