1
The flashlight beam fell on the corpse’s gray-green skin, and I instinctively took a step back. An irritated voice immediately sounded behind me.
“I told you to hold the flashlight. How can you not even manage something this simple?”
The director ordered me to face the camera, clearly displeased. His scolding echoed through the underground chamber.
The variety show *Treasure Hunting Through Archaeology* had begun filming yesterday. To make it feel more authentic, they’d chosen an ancient tomb as the location for the live broadcast.
The star of this episode was Lưu Viện, a famous sports goddess from extreme-adventure variety shows.
And why had I been invited? The director said it was only to boost viewership. Branded a “fragile flower,” I was now the laughingstock everyone online was waiting to see panic and humiliate herself.
I held the flashlight and apologized for spacing out. “Sorry. I lost focus for a moment.”
Lưu Viện glared at me and muttered, “You’re already spacing out, and you expect anyone to count on you?”
I said nothing, glancing at the livestream comments:
[Lưu Viện really is a tough woman!]
[She’s not scared in a creepy place like this. She’s definitely better than someone else.]
[What right does that woman have to be on this show? All she does is drag everyone down!]
Lưu Viện glanced at her phone, raised her chin, shoved me aside, and said coldly, “If you’re scared, stay back. Don’t piss your pants and embarrass us!”
She’d never liked me. We were about the same age and had similar reputations, so we were rivals in the industry, in a way. But in recent years, she’d been busy appearing on variety shows and hadn’t had many noteworthy roles. So when the script for the Best New Actress award was already written for her last time, I ended up taking home the prize instead.
Naturally, she’d come to get revenge on her own turf.
And it was obvious she’d already succeeded halfway. The whole crew had started ostracizing me, without even trying to hide it.
“Everyone, move it! If you can’t keep up, we’ll leave you behind!”
I walked behind them without a word, breathing in the gloomy air as my fingers brushed the pendant around my neck.
It was an heirloom from my grandfather. It even had a simple name: the Gold-Seeking Talisman.
So their plan wasn’t going to work.
Of course I wasn’t scared. I’d been here once as a child, after all.
The ones who should be afraid were the carrion-eating insects under their feet.
2
The tomb entrance lay behind an abandoned temple. Every so often, voices echoed from inside.
If carrion eaters like these were living in a place like this, it meant plenty of people had died here, and these creatures were probably highly sensitive to the smell of humans.
To be safe, I quickly took out a bottle of perfume.
This perfume contained a special herbal blend that kept all kinds of insects and underground creatures away. It was an essential item my ancestors carried whenever they entered dangerous places.
I looked around, then called out to Lưu Viện. “There might be venomous insects here. Do you want—”
Before I could finish, she suddenly covered her nose and shoved me.
“Are you crazy? You’re wearing perfume underground? Trying to show off? Do you think we’re filming a movie?!”
I suppressed my anger, offered her the bottle, and explained, “It’s a family-inherited herbal preparation. It repels mosquitoes and insects.”
But she immediately hurled the bottle at the wall. It shattered, and its contents spilled out.
Lưu Viện looked at me with open disdain.
“We’re not as weak as you. We’re not scared of a few bugs.”
After all, she was always cultivating her “tough woman” image. Now, in front of the cameras, she deliberately raised her voice: “We have to break the stereotype that women are weak and really improve women’s status!”
With that arrogant look and contemptuous tone, she didn’t realize that… in a place like this, the weak didn’t survive.
“…”
Reading that kind of feel-good, “chicken soup for the soul” speech left me speechless. Looking down on people for being thin and weak—wasn’t that just another kind of discrimination?
Besides, the main tomb chamber was home to spiders as big as people. I wondered if those counted as the “mosquitoes and bugs” she’d just dismissed as nothing.
But reality slapped her in the face faster than I’d expected. According to the map, we hadn’t even reached the main tomb chamber yet, but the directors’ group up ahead had already started scratching themselves all over.
“It itches! And it hurts, too!”
“Me too. It feels like I’m being burned. Did something bite me?”
Everyone turned to Lưu Viện, who’d been going on about leading the way. She grimaced, scratching her back nonstop as she tried to say, “They’re just a few bugs!”
She hadn’t even finished before she gritted her teeth, tore off her jacket, and screamed uncontrollably, “Damn it! I’m itching like crazy!”
The director turned to look at me. When he saw I was completely fine, he frowned and came closer.
“Tiểu Bạch, do you have any insect repellent left?”
I shook my head and calmly pointed to the broken bottle.
“That was the only one. Ms. Lưu smashed it.”
Lưu Viện’s face immediately darkened as she heard everyone complain.
“If you didn’t want to use it, you could’ve left it alone. Why smash it?”
“Exactly! We wanted to use it, too!”
Lưu Viện’s face flushed red, and she stammered, unable to respond. She stepped back and kicked a stone, setting off a tremendous bang behind her.
The main tomb door swung open.
3
Everyone gasped and hurried to compare what they saw with the map.
“It really is the main tomb chamber!”
“Where did you find the mechanism? Ms. Lưu, you’re amazing!”
Lưu Viện, who’d been flustered a moment before, immediately puffed out her chest and patted it. “There aren’t any more bugs in here. Don’t worry!”
I looked around, and a chill suddenly ran through me.
The room was shaped like a half-moon, with a coffin at its deepest point—a layout that didn’t match the map at all. In feng shui, this kind of arrangement was called a “Back-to-the-Master Tomb,” a place where baleful energy gathered and anyone who entered would suffer a terrible disaster.
This wasn’t the main tomb chamber. It was a hidden room we’d accidentally opened. Even when I’d studied under my grandfather as a child, I’d never been here.
Lưu Viện had stumbled on it by sheer luck. But she was right about one thing: there were no insects here.
But there was something even more terrifying.
I hurriedly took three candles from my bag, went to the southeast corner, and began lighting them.
“The candle-bearer lights; the ghost blows out.” This was a rule passed down by my ancestors.
But before I could light the third candle, Lưu Viện suddenly rushed over and kicked them over.
“What are you doing?” I stood up, unable to hold back…I was furious.
She didn’t care in the slightest. Instead, she pointed scornfully at the camera. “Bạch Chu Chu, this is a science program. Why are you pulling these feudal superstitious stunts?”
I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm as I explained, “This isn’t superstition. It’s a matter of respect and reverence.”
“Besides, they’re just three candles. Even if you don’t understand, you should still show some respect, shouldn’t you?”
Lưu Viện rolled her eyes and casually picked up a candle, tossing it onto the coffin lid. “This place is full of dead people. What’s there to be afraid of?”
As she spoke, she shoved me aside and stepped forward. But then she suddenly stopped short.
The candle she’d thrown hadn’t fallen to the ground. It was standing upright on the coffin lid.
Even stranger, its flame hadn’t gone out. Instead… it had turned green.
Lưu Viện’s face immediately went pale.
4
The flame of this candle held a specific meaning.
If nothing changed, it meant the tomb was safe and there was nothing here carrying baleful energy.
If the flame went out, it meant the master of the tomb didn’t welcome us. We had to leave at once to save our lives.
But there was one other possibility: the flame could turn green.
That meant the baleful energy was overwhelming, and the tomb’s master wouldn’t let us leave easily. My grandfather had encountered this twice: the first time, he lost a brother; the second time, he lost an arm. Because of that, my family had to give up this path to fortune.
“If the candle flame turns green and stands still on the coffin lid, then this expedition is sure to end in disaster.”
Lưu Viện didn’t believe any of it. She pulled out her phone to look it up. “It must be some kind of chemical reaction! Are you deliberately trying to pull some creepy trick?”
Everyone else began pulling out their phones, too. I opened the program’s livestream and saw that the comments there were full of mockery as well:
[Ha ha, I can’t believe people still believe in ghosts and supernatural stuff in the twenty-first century!]
[Isn’t that just something from novels? Who’s stupid enough to believe it?]
[Does Bạch Chu Chu have a brain? Pulling this feudal superstition stunt here!]
[A candle changing color? It’s obviously a trick to make the show more dramatic!]
But right after that, a knocking sound rang out, silencing both the livestream and the film crew.
The only doors in this place were iron gates, but the sound was clearly someone knocking on wood. And the only wooden thing here… was the coffin in front of us.
Lưu Viện put down her phone and looked around. “What was that sound?”
The knocking grew louder, then turned into pounding. Dust and bits of stone fell from the coffin, but the candle remained upright, without so much as a flicker.
Everyone began to realize something was wrong. The livestream comments flooded with messages:
[Oh my God! Is there someone inside the coffin?!]
[Are you dreaming? This coffin hasn’t been opened in hundreds of years. How could there be anyone in it?]
[That candle is so weird. Why doesn’t it fall over?]
[Could the old stories actually be true?!]