The sudden smell of blood in the tomb passage put us on high alert. We didn't bother to look at the murals and niches on either side anymore and quickened our pace forward.
Soon, a three-way intersection appeared in front of us. In addition to the central tomb passage, the two sides were also identical tomb passages, all made of bluestone and painted with white walls and black tiles.
Looking at the fork in the road ahead, Song Laosan asked in confusion, "That's strange. How can there be three tomb passages in one tomb? Could they lead to the main burial chamber and the side chambers respectively?"
I shook my head slightly: "Jin tombs are generally divided into several parts, including the tomb passage, the corridor, and the burial chamber. Even if there is a side chamber, it should be near the main burial chamber. It is impossible for different passages to separate them at the end of the tomb passage. I have never seen a tomb passage like this before."
The monkey pointed to the tomb passage directly in front of us: "Since we've never seen it before, why don't we go take a look? Didn't the feng shui master say during the burial that three main roads should lead through the center?"
Sasha didn't know what we were talking about, but seeing the direction the monkey was pointing, she added, "The smell of blood is coming from this tunnel."
I smelled the pervasive stench of blood in the air and offered my analysis: "As the monkey said, the southwest road leads to the center. The ancients believed that earth is the most abundant element, and the four directions of heaven and earth are divided into four paths: southwest for gods, southeast for birds, northwest for beasts, and northeast for ghosts. The southwest represents the direction of the gods; if one goes southwest, then one's soul goes straight to heaven. But I think that of these three tomb passages, two are fake, or rather, secret passages full of traps, designed to prevent tomb robbers."
“We came down here to track Duan Jinyan. The smell of blood ahead at least means they’ve been this way.”
Song Laosan pointed to the passage in the middle and said, "We need to go inside and take a look. With the people ahead of us scouting ahead, we shouldn't be in too much danger."
When Ivan heard that we were going on an expedition, he volunteered to take on the responsibility of security, and led the way with his gun.
This is a square domed passage. After walking a short distance, I saw several large iron balls suspended by chains in front of me. These iron balls were covered with spikes, and they must have fallen from the dome after triggering a mechanism.
The monkey followed behind Ivan, looking at the fallen rocks and stray arrows scattered all over the ground, and couldn't help but exclaim, "Damn, this isn't a tomb passage, it's practically an ancient battlefield!"
"Quiet! Keep quiet and don't accidentally trigger any mechanisms!"
I walked through the tomb passage, my heart pounding with fear.
At this moment, there were open firing ports and traces of hidden weapons everywhere on the ground and on the walls on both sides, but there was no blood on the ground. We didn't know how Duan Jinyan and the others got through here.
During the march, Ivan kept pointing his flashlight ahead. When he saw a wall at the end, he immediately stopped as I instructed.
"Pfft!"
I took a step forward and suddenly felt something soft under my foot. I lifted my foot and saw that it was the eyeball that had been crushed.
"Holy crap! Is that an eye?"
The monkey was startled by what was at my feet and shone its flashlight around: "There's no blood here, so how did an eye suddenly appear out of nowhere?"
Seeing that the ground ahead was no longer littered with stray arrows and falling rocks, I cautiously moved forward: "There must be some other traps ahead, I'll go check!"
The monkey, still worried, followed me closely: "I'll stay with you!"
The further we went, the stronger the smell of blood became. It wasn't until we got closer that I realized there was a staircase leading down to the end of the tomb passage, and the "wall" we had just seen was actually a sealing stone that had fallen from a height.
The walls on both sides have been cracked by the impact of the boulder, and a lot of sand has been piled up under the boulder.
The monkey covered its mask with its hand: "The smell here is terrible. Could it be that our companions who came down earlier avoided the traps, but were all killed by these stones?"
At this point, I was about 70% sure. The group that came down first was Duan Jinyan and his group. After listening to Monkey's analysis, they panicked for a moment and quickly walked to the edge of the sand pile to start clearing the soil.
When the monkey saw what I was doing, it squatted down and started to help. But as soon as we dug away the top layer of sand, we found that the sand underneath was soaked with blood.
"vomit!"
As I was digging, the monkey next to me suddenly gagged. I turned my head and saw vomit spraying out through the gap in his mask.
Looking again, I saw that he was holding a piece of intestine and another internal organ covered in sand, the origin of which I couldn't tell.
"Smack!"
In this extremely tense moment, a hand suddenly grabbed my arm.
Feeling the slippery, cold touch of that hand, my scalp tingled, I swore out a curse, and abruptly retreated.
"Splash!"
As I backed away, the sand in front of me collapsed, and the arm that was holding me emerged from the sand.
Hearing my shout, Song Laosan was the first to appear on the stairs: "Xiao Duan! What happened?"
I instinctively tried to shake off that bloody arm, but then I noticed he was wearing a Longines watch on his wrist. Still shaken, I cried out, "Third Master, come down and help!"
"They're here!"
Song Laosan quickly figured out the situation and started running over to help me dig in the sand.
In just a few seconds, we dug through the sand and revealed a black-haired Asian man underneath.
"Uh...uh..."
The person below had a face covered in blood and sand, and his mouth was full of sand, from which he was groaning hoarsely.
Seeing that the man was still alive, I immediately sped up: "Keep digging!"
The monkey, who was gagging nearby, forced back its urge to vomit and stopped me: "Young Master Duan, don't dig anymore! This intestine in my hand is his..."
It was only after the monkey reminded me that I realized the stairs we were on were individual steps, and this person had been dug out facing us. The distance from his head to the wall could not possibly be the length of an adult.
Old Song was more experienced than me. When he heard that the man was about to die, he immediately took out adrenaline from his medical kit and gave him an injection. Then he took out a water bottle and washed the man's face.
The water, mixed with blood, flowed onto the ground, and I finally saw the man's true colors.
He looked to be about forty years old, with a scar on his forehead and a sunken eyelid on his left eye, but it wasn't an old injury.
I deduce that when he was squeezed, his eyeball was blown out by the pressure, which must have been the one I crushed.
"Hiss—"
After about ten seconds, the man's breathing gradually calmed down. He opened his remaining eye and looked at us, managing to squeeze out two words: "...Save me!"
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