Upon seeing the monkey appear in my sight, I rushed up and hugged him, my lips trembling so much I couldn't speak.

Just minutes ago, I had prepared myself to die here.

I didn't expect to run into my own people again so soon.

This is the best example of turning adversity into opportunity.

When Song Laosan saw me, he was very excited: "Xiao Duan, what are you doing here? Where is everyone else?"

"I don't know! We entered the Demon Monk's Tomb through the main gate, but we triggered a mechanism in the tomb passage and fell to this spot!"

I patted and slapped the two of them to make sure they weren't hallucinations before I breathed a sigh of relief: "What have you two been through? Why are you in this demonic monk's tomb?"

"We can't explain your question either."

The monkey looked completely bewildered when he brought it up: "After I fell from the Void Tomb, I landed in a stone cave. The cave was like a maze, extremely narrow. In order to survive, I looked for a way out and then I met Third Master. As soon as we met, we heard gunshots. Following that direction, we found Zhao Bo's body."

"Zhao Bo is dead too?"

I heard that all of Wei's disciples were dead, so I quickly asked, "How did he die?"

“When we found Zhao Bo, he had fallen into a larger space through a cave. There was no other way out of that space. If we went down, we would not be able to come back up. We could only see his body from a distance. The cause of death was unknown.”

Song Laosan glossed over Zhao Bo's matter, saying, "Since you fell down from the tomb passage, it means there's a way out, right? Can you think of a way to get everyone out?"

I sighed: "This is a dead end. Once you fall, you can't get back up. If there really was a way out, so many people wouldn't have died."

Upon hearing this, Song Laosan pointed at the monkey and said, "Damn it! I shouldn't have believed you, especially with that 'men on the left, women on the right' thing! We should have blown up the road on the right!"

The monkey stubbornly retorted, "Bullshit! If we hadn't listened to me, would we have been able to find Young Master Duan? If I really had to choose, I'd rather die here with him than run away alone!"

Old Song was so angry at the monkey that his chest heaved: "Yes! You're so great! You're so high and mighty! Now look what's happened, none of the three of us are going to run away, we'll just stay here and keep these corpses company!"

I had initially thought that if the two of them blew open the stone door, they could get me out of there. But when I heard their conversation, I suddenly realized something was wrong: "Stop arguing. From what you're saying, the area outside the stone door isn't a tomb, is it?"

"Outside is a cave with two stone doors, but we only have enough explosives for one blast."

When Song Laosan learned that we were trapped here, his eyes were filled with despair: "I observed for a long time and found that the stone door on the right was well-made with a neat cross-section, more like a passageway to the tomb. But this stupid monkey insisted on saying that men should go left and women should go right, and insisted on blasting open the stone door on the left. Now look what happened, you've been blasted out! Now we have no chance at all. The three of us should find a place as soon as possible, get into position, and wait to die!"

After meeting my two companions, I didn't want my newly ignited will to survive to be extinguished, so I encouraged them, saying, "There's always a way out. As long as we don't give up, we'll definitely be able to leave this place! Come on, take me to see that stone gate first!"

"No chance. I just conducted a thorough inspection, and there are no mechanisms around that stone door. Rather than mechanisms, it's more like a single, solid sealing stone. Without explosives, it's absolutely impossible to open!"

Looking at the corpses scattered on the ground, Song Laosan smiled bitterly and said, "There aren't even any tools here. The three of us can't possibly dig them out with our bare hands or bite them with our teeth, can we?"

"If we give it a shot, at least we still have a chance. If we do nothing, we'll just become vengeful ghosts when we die!"

Seeing Song Laosan's dejected look, I grabbed his arm and pulled him outside without saying a word: "Let's see first. Don't be so discouraged before we reach a conclusion!"

After stepping out of the stone gate that had been blasted open, I felt that the temperature outside was even lower than inside, at least ten degrees below zero.

As the two said, the space was a natural cave filled with wood, which looked like scaffolding used during construction and wood that had been brought in but not used.

The stone gate that Song Laosan mentioned is right across from the cave.

This door is the same as the one we used to enter the Demon Monk's Tomb. It was also a door frame that had been carved out and wedged inside, without any gaps. It was also carved with two fierce-looking monsters and had many inscriptions on it.

Seeing the contents, I roughly made a deduction: "Third Master is right, this is not a stone door, but a sealing stone. If I'm not mistaken, the real tomb is behind this sealing stone. The tomb owner felt that these working slaves were not worthy of being buried with him, so he sealed them outside the tomb chamber. The door gods and inscriptions carved on it should be to suppress the ghosts of these slaves and prevent them from disturbing the tomb owner."

When Song Laosan heard what I said, his eyes looked as if he wanted to devour the monkey alive.

The monkey, as carefree as ever, asked, "Young Master Duan, since there's a tomb behind this sealed stone, could you think of a way to open it?"

I reached out and tapped the sealing stone, then shook my head: "This door shouldn't be too thick, but it'll be very difficult for us to open it! Didn't Third Master say that we don't have the tools or explosives to break this solid bluestone? The only solution I can think of right now is for the three of us to take turns hitting this stone with our own stones."

"What do you mean, the Foolish Old Man Who Moved Mountains?"

The monkey scratched its head: "If Wei Shengnan were in there, we could have children and let them grow up so we could continue carving."

"What kind of talk is that?" Old Man Song glared at her. "Even if Wei Shengnan came, could she survive until the child grows up without food or water?"

I was utterly speechless after hearing their bizarre conversation: "I'm going to strike the sealing stone to send a signal. If Wei Shengnan and the others manage to enter the tomb and hear the sound, they might be able to rescue us."

"That's all we can do."

Old Song sighed deeply: "What a disaster! Everyone says that bringing women into tombs never ends well. I should never have come down with Wei Shengnan. What am I, a member of the Songzi Sect, doing here chatting with you guys?"

The monkey rolled its eyes: "Can you stop acting all righteous? Didn't you just slip and fall?"

"Alright, let's get to work!"

I divided the grains in the bag between the two of them to replenish their strength, took the monkey's water bottle and gulped down two mouthfuls, then picked up a stone.

And so, the three of us stood guard at the edge of the sealed stone and began taking turns knocking on it.

An hour later, the monkey, rubbing its aching arms, came to my side and said, "Young Master Duan, could you take my place for a bit? My arms feel like they don't even belong to me anymore!"

I sat on a wooden stake, shining a flashlight on the judge's record to read it, and said without looking up, "Let Third Master go."

"Xiao Duan, what time is it? You're still reading that lousy book! What, are you planning to tell stories in the underworld after you die?"

Song Laosan glanced at me sideways: "Don't forget this is India. Even if we die, we can't go to the Chinese underworld! We won't even be able to speak the language down there. Who are you going to talk to?"

"Got it!"

I saw a passage in the Judge's Record and suddenly looked up: "I've found a way to open the seal!"

Song Laosan jumped up immediately: "Really?!"

"No way?!" The monkey tilted its head and looked at me, its expression quite aggrieved: "So all that time I was hammering stones for an hour was just for exercise?"