Chapter 340 One Percent
Shen Yuexi stepped on the withered leaves on the ground, and the thick pile of leaves made a crisp crackling sound.
She and Xiao Zhuo had passed through the outermost part of this dense forest before, saving Feng Zhang from being chased by a tiger. At that time, she had no idea how deep it was inside. As far as she could see, there were only trees, and there was no path under her feet, making it impossible for her to tell the direction.
Looking up at the sky, dim sunlight filtered through the gaps between the heavy branches, casting specks of light on the dead leaves on the ground.
"Doctor You, you are not deliberately taking us around, are you?" She called out to Doctor You who was walking in front.
Doctor You tucked his hands into his sleeves and turned around to say, "What's the point of me taking you around? I'm already over sixty years old and I can't run away. This road leads to that place, so don't be so anxious."
Ji Yunyan, who was guarding him with a sword, said, "Sister, I'm here. He can't get away."
Doctor You nodded and said, "Miss Ji is the one who sees things clearly. This place is extremely secretive. If it were so easy to get to, it would have been discovered by the villagers of Daliang all these years ago."
Mei Dai was beside Shen Yuexi. They shook hands and walked side by side. After walking for a while, Mei Dai asked, "What's the smell in the wind?"
Hearing this, Shen Yuexi sniffed and indeed, she could smell a faint fishy odor in the wind. She seemed to have smelled this smell before.
"It smells like a tiger," Doctor You said without turning his head. "There is a tiger here."
As soon as these words were spoken, Shen Yuexi couldn't help but become nervous. Mei Dai's grip on her hand also became a little tighter. Ji Yunyan looked around vigilantly.
"Yes, there was once," Doctor You muttered, "The master sent two tigers to guard the entrance. After they finally gave birth to a cub, you killed it."
Shen Yuexi quickly did the math in her head. She and Xiao Zhuo had encountered one large tiger and one small one. Three minus two, there should be another large tiger.
"Where is the other one?" She looked around nervously.
Ji Yunyan was a skilled swordsman, and her presence was actually more effective than Xiao Zhuo's. But for some reason, she just felt guilty.
"Dead of old age," Doctor You said, turning back and laughing. "It's an animal; it can't live this long like humans. Don't worry, everyone. If there really were another tiger, I'd be the first to be eaten. I'm here."
After turning a corner, a flat patch appeared ahead. Beyond it was a small hill. At the foot of the hill lay a stone cave, more than a meter tall and dark, its depth unknown. Near the entrance, grayish-white bones were scattered on the ground.
Shen Yuexi swallowed and closed her eyes involuntarily.
"Don't be afraid, sister. These are all bones of wild animals." Mei Dai comforted softly, "I can see clearly that there are bones of rabbits and pigs."
Doctor You walked to the entrance of the cave and stopped: "The entrance is in this cave."
Shen Yuexi opened her eyes and said, "Isn't this a tiger's den?"
"That's right, right here. It's in a place like this, where ordinary people can't find it." Doctor You spread his hands. "I've already said it. If this place wasn't hidden, it would have been discovered long ago."
Ji Yunyan held the sword in one hand and lit the fire stick she carried with her in the other. She said to Doctor You, "Lead the way. Don't try any tricks."
Doctor You smiled, took the fire stick from Ji Yunyan, walked into the cave, and Shen Yuexi and others followed behind.
The cave was spacious enough for three people to walk side by side. The stench, however, was even stronger. The light from the ignition source cast a flickering light and shadow on the jagged stone walls. Shen Yuexi covered her mouth and nose with her hands as she walked in twists and turns for a while, kicking over a few piles of dry bones along the way. Fortunately, she knew they were from wild animals, so she didn't get startled.
She said to Mei Dai, "Sister Mei, the ground in this tiger's den is quite flat."
Mei Dai groped along the stone wall, "This wasn't formed naturally; it was dug out by humans. Later, the tigers used it as a nest."
"There is no road ahead." Ji Yunyan turned and said to the two of them.
Doctor You said, "Don't shout. Hold the fire for me."
Ji Yunyan took the fire, and Doctor You knelt on the ground, reaching out and groping around. After a while, he hooked an iron ring on the ground, grabbed it with both hands, and tried to lift it, but it didn't move.
"Please help me, I'm old and can't lift it." He said.
Ji Yunyan stepped forward and grasped the iron ring with one hand, and the two of them pulled upwards together. A large, thick iron plate slowly lifted up, revealing a dark passage underneath. A tinder shone on the edge of the passage, revealing several steps.
As Shen Yuexi approached the entrance, she felt a chilly, chilly wind rushing up from below, a pungent and unpleasant smell. Having never been to a place like this before, she felt a little frightened and said, "Is this it?"
"Of course." Doctor You fixed the cover with Ji Yunyan's help, took the tinderbox, and walked down the stairs first. "I'll lead the way, you just follow."
Doctor You was first, Ji Yunyan second. Mei Dai took Shen Yuexi's hand and said, "Sister, let's follow too."
"That's right, you can't get a tiger cub without learning the tiger's blood." Shen Yuexi gave herself courage and walked down the mossy steps carefully.
After walking down sixty or seventy steps, the view suddenly opened up.
Shen Yuexi looked at the space illuminated by the fire in surprise. She could not believe what she saw. Even Ji Yunyan and Mei Dai showed shocked expressions.
In front of everyone was a dark corridor, with rooms with carved lacquer and painted pillars on both sides. If it weren't for the stone wall above their heads, Shen Yuexi would never have believed that there was such a complex of buildings underground.
Doctor You used a tinder to light the torches on the corridor one by one. "Are you all shocked too? The master started this when he was nine years old, and it took three years just to have people dig this underground cave."
Shen Yuexi looked left and right along the corridor, only to see rows of rooms stretching out. Even the corridor was not a single line, and there was actually an intersection in front. Looking left and right at the intersection, there were still various rooms.
"What are these rooms used for?" She pushed open the door of a room and looked inside.
There was a bed, a table, a screen, and a bookshelf inside, which looked very much like the rooms in the Chinese mansion she remembered.
Mei Dai pushed open the doors of the rooms on the other side of the corridor and inspected them one by one. She said, "Sister, these rooms are arranged like those in Fengqi Palace. This is where the Empress meets with the concubines... This is where she sleeps... This is where she practices dancing."
"As expected of a virtuous concubine, you remember it clearly," Doctor You blew out the tinderbox. "Some of the rooms here are decorated exactly like those in Duke Pei's mansion, and some are decorated exactly like those in Fengqi Palace."
Shen Yuexi asked, "So Wen Yi has lived here underground for so many years?"
Doctor You chuckled and said, "If we want to make the fake look real and deceive the world, there must not be any flaws. Even Duke Pei and his wife and her sister must not be able to tell them apart."
Shen Yuexi was a little puzzled and asked, "Where did Pei Jingyun find such a similar woman? Even if they looked alike, her parents shouldn't be able to tell them apart."
Doctor You smiled but did not answer.
At this time, on the other side of the corridor, Ji Yunyan said, "Come and see, there is a stone door here."
A few people walked over, and Ji Yunyan touched the stone door and asked, "What's behind this door?"
Doctor You said, "Behind the stone gate is the answer to Shen Yuexi's question. The master spent several years searching for this answer. I'll look for the mechanism. After so many years, I can't remember it clearly."
Shen Yuexi stood in front of the stone gate in confusion and said to Mei Dai, "Pei Jingyun spent so much effort just to let Wen Yi enter the palace in her place."
Mei Dai nodded and said, "I never thought she would go to such lengths to achieve her goal. She actually dug out such a large space underground."
"Found it," Doctor You shouted happily, "I'll open the door right away."
He fiddled with it in the corner for a few times, and there were a few rumbling sounds from inside the stone door, followed by the sound of a mechanism turning, and the stone door slowly rose.
Just now he said that behind the stone door was the answer to Shen Yuexi's question. Shen Yuexi was very curious about what was inside, and as soon as the stone door rose, she couldn't wait to bend down and look inside.
The first thing that caught her eye was a skeleton dressed in a lake green palace dress. Its white eye sockets stared at her strangely. A centipede poked its head out of the eye sockets, looking around and shaking its tentacles.
Even though she was a veteran, she was still frightened. Before she could scream, skeletons dressed in various clothes rushed towards her.
The three of them were women after all, and they were caught off guard, so they were frightened to death. Shen Yuexi and Mei Dai screamed and hugged each other tightly, and even Ji Yunyan squatted down.
After the noise subsided, Shen Yuexi raised her head tremblingly, looked around, and then quickly buried her head in Mei Dai's shoulder.
Countless skeletons, in various poses, lay scattered around the three of them, piled up in layers. Several skulls were rolling slowly on the ground, and if there were more, they would have buried them all.
Damn, being surrounded by so many skeletons at once, if she wasn’t knowledgeable, she would have been scared to death.
"These dead bodies," Ji Yunyan, a warrior and the bolder one, spoke first, "are all women. They seemed to be crowded behind this stone door. They rushed out all at once after the stone door opened."
Someone spoke, and Shen Yuexi grew a little bolder. After all, they were all dead, and there were no ghosts or gods, so there was nothing to be afraid of.
Mei Dai also recovered, stood up and brushed off the centipede that was wriggling on her sleeve, then pulled Shen Yuexi out of the pile of skulls: "Yun Yan, these dead... I understand."
Shen Yuexi covered her chest with her hands, still feeling her heart beating violently: "Who are they?"
"They were all Wen Yi once." Mei Dai said slowly.
"Ah?" Shen Yuexi didn't understand what Mei Dai meant for a moment, "It's all Wen Yi?"
Mei Dai pointed to her and said, "Sister, look, these skeletons are all women. They are all about the same height and have similar skeletons..."
Shen Yuexi immediately understood why Wen Yi was able to hide the truth.
Doctor You had been right when he'd said the answer lay behind the door. These were all women Pei Jingyun had found to look like her; she'd counted over a hundred. But with so many women, most would eventually experience changes in their appearance and shape as they aged, making it impossible to conceal their identity. In the end, only Wen Yi succeeded.
Just to make Wen Yi a person who could conceal the truth from the world, so many innocent women were buried in the dark underground.
"Where is Doctor You?" Shen Yuexi suddenly discovered that Doctor You was missing.
Ji Yunyan stamped her feet and said, "What a mistake! He took advantage of the chaos just now and ran away!"
The three of them were looking around in panic when they heard Doctor You's voice from somewhere: "Haha, I've already sealed the exit. You guys will starve to death here like that meddlesome poor scholar."
Then the earth fell silent.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com