Chapter 55: The Hozen's Premonition
After walking for a few more minutes, the monkey in front stopped moving forward for some reason, and then Luo Mei also stopped.
"What's wrong? Is there something in front?" asked Du Yunzhang, who was following Luo Mei.
"Wait, there seems to be a turn ahead." Luo Mei said.
"Just turn, and keep going. Why stop?"
"Since the monkeys have stopped, why do you still dare to move forward?" Luo Mei turned around and glared at him.
"I don't understand. Why do you trust this monkey so much? Just because it stops, you stop. Just because it chirps, you think there's danger."
"Old Du, this time I have to believe it." At this time, Yin Chuan stood on Luo Mei's side.
"You? What basis do you have for saying that?"
"Don't forget, along the way, wherever we turned, either a trap was triggered or the person at the end of the team disappeared inexplicably. Doesn't this explain the problem?"
"You don't mean to say that in this tomb... someone might die just by turning a corner, do you?"
Linlang and the other three followed behind, and hearing them discussing the traps around the corners, they couldn't help but become interested. "I agree with Luo Mei's assessment. The previous scenes are convincing enough. Besides, in a tomb passage like this, where danger is rife, every bit of caution is a plus."
"But... I'm not saying this without reason," Du Yunzhang explained to Linlang. "When Fan Zheng abducted you into this tunnel just now, you probably didn't get this far, right? Since Fan Zheng got what he wanted and released you, he should have continued to go deeper into the tunnel. We shouldn't have found any other passages along the way since we came in, so Fan Zheng must have turned around here and headed forward. Since he's fine, why should we worry?"
Everyone thought Du Yunzhang's words made sense. If there were a trap ahead, Fan Zheng, who had moved forward first, should have triggered it long ago. But there was no sign that he had fallen into an ambush.
"Maybe he was lucky enough not to trigger the trap," Luo Mei said after thinking for a moment, "After all, he's alone and has a small target, so it's unlikely he'll step into a trap or something. But with so many of us, who knows who might get caught, and everyone would get killed."
Both of them sounded reasonable, and Yin Chuan and the others were unsure whose side to side with. Just as everyone was stuck at the corner, the monkey in the front suddenly stopped squawking and began to retreat. At first, everyone was focused on deciding what to do next, so no one noticed the monkey's unusual behavior. It wasn't until the monkey slowly retreated to Yin Chuan's side that Luo Mei noticed it.
"Hey? Monkey, what are you doing?" She couldn't help but ask when she saw the monkey's strange behavior.
But the monkey seemed not to hear, and its speed of retreat suddenly increased. Luo Mei reached out to grab it, but unexpectedly, the monkey twisted its body extremely quickly and dodged Luo Mei's hand, which made Luo Mei extremely surprised. Then it jumped at a high speed and landed on the arm of the fourth concubine.
"Ah! What is that?" The fourth concubine screamed, shaking her body involuntarily, waving her arms, trying to pull the monkey off her body. Yin Chuan rushed forward to help, and finally drove the monkey away with a combination of shouting and threatening. Luo Mei took the opportunity to grab the monkey by the back of the neck and pinched it hard. The monkey squeaked twice in pain, but when it saw that it was its owner glaring at it, it calmed down.
"What happened just now?" Linlang asked, "Why did it suddenly go crazy?"
"Who knows? I want to ask too." Luo Mei was also a little puzzled.
"Hmph, I've always said this kind of beast is unreliable. You still have to act according to its will? We might just die at its hands."
Luo Mei punched Du Yunzhang's arm and said, "All you do is make sarcastic remarks. Can you please shut up?"
"Hey! You attacked me even though you couldn't win the argument? Luo Mei, you haven't changed at all from your domineering and rude attitude back then!" Du Yunzhang said angrily.
Luo Mei no longer paid attention to Du Yunzhang, but gently stroked the monkey's crown. "Monkey, what are you doing? Is there something in front that scares you?"
Although the monkey calmed down and looked well-behaved and pitiful, it did not respond to Luo Mei's questions, and did not make any noise or make any noise.
Before Luo Mei could continue questioning, the fourth concubine behind her suddenly screamed, "Ah! My box! Where is my box?"
Everyone frowned. What was this crazy concubine going on? What happened to that box that no one else was allowed to touch?
"Haven't you been holding the box tightly?" Du Yunzhang asked back.
"It's gone! It's gone! It must have been stolen by the damn monkey! Where is it? I must strangle it to death!" The fourth concubine's face was ferocious, as if she was possessed by an evil spirit.
"You dare! If you touch it, I'll kill you!" Luo Mei's eyes widened as she glared at her fiercely. The two of them faced each other, the atmosphere in the tomb filled with tension, as if a fight would break out between the two women in the next second.
Du Yunzhang was not worried about Luo Mei, but he was afraid that she would injure the weak Fourth Concubine without any caution, and he would have to take care of more wounded people on the way back.
"Hey, Madam Four! Is that your box?" Yin Chuan pointed at Luo Mei's feet at the right moment. Everyone looked down and discovered a square box lying crookedly on the stone ledge in the shadow.
The fourth concubine leaped over, her body so agile that it looked nothing like her original self. She pushed Luo Mei aside, bent down to pick up the box, and hugged it tightly in her arms. "My box! I finally found you! I finally found you!"
Luo Mei was both helpless and amused. "Hmph, you're not going to cause trouble anymore, are you?" Then she said to Du Yunzhang and Yin Chuan, "Forget her. What should we do next? Should we continue forward, or find another way out?"
"Find another way out? Look, since we entered this tomb passage, what other way is there? Now the tomb chambers containing the five coffins have collapsed. What other options do we have?" Du Yunzhang replied. "In fact, Fan Zheng has already paved the way for us. What else do you have to worry about? Do you have to trust this monkey?"
Luo Mei was still a little hesitant. She felt that the monkey had a reason for stopping at the bend. But now that the retreat was blocked, they couldn't just stand there and do nothing.
"Let's go, move forward!" Luo Mei finally made up his mind.
"Get out of the way. I'll go to the front." Du Yunzhang pulled her and prepared to force his way through.
Luo Mei grabbed Du Yunzhang's wrist and said, "When is it your turn to be a hero? Get behind me! Follow me obediently." After saying that, he raised the Luoyang shovel forward, tentatively turned the corner, and continued to move forward, but his pace was obviously much slower than before.
Du Yunzhang knew she was a strong-willed person, so he shook his head helplessly, then grabbed Luo Mei's monkey from the ground and followed closely behind. Yin Chuan called out to Linlang, the fourth and fifth concubines, and the others to get up and set off quickly so as not to be left behind by those in front.
At first, Luo Mei didn't notice anything unusual after turning the corner. She held the lantern in her left hand and used the Luoyang shovel in her right to blaze a trail. Even though the lantern couldn't reach very far, she felt reassured with the shovel. But after only a few steps, just as Linlang, the fourth and fifth concubines at the rear, had turned the corner, there was a sudden flash of light, as if something had suddenly blocked Luo Mei's path, startling her.
"Ah! There's a mechanism!" Luo Mei couldn't help but scream.
As soon as she said this, everyone behind her stopped involuntarily and squatted on the ground subconsciously.
"Luo Mei! Be careful!" Du Yunzhang reminded her from behind.
After a moment's silence, there seemed to be a regular "tapping" sound coming from Luo Mei's body, which was a bit weird and even unbelievable.
"Luo Mei...what's wrong with you? What kind of mechanism is this?" Du Yunzhang asked impatiently.
"Don't...don't move...all of you...don't move!"
From her intermittent words, Du Yunzhang seemed to have heard that the "tapping" sound was the sound of Luo Mei's upper and lower teeth chattering. This made Du Yunzhang even more puzzled. "What did you see?" he asked.
"Lao Du, we really can't move forward for the time being." There was also fear in Yin Chuan's tone.
Du Yunzhang became more and more curious. He snatched the light from Luo Mei's hand and shone it forward. When he saw clearly what was blocking the way, he was so frightened that he almost dropped the lantern.
In the middle of this narrow tomb passage, there were two corpses hanging upside down, one on the left and one on the right. One was short and the other was a one-armed man.
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