The director hurriedly raised the camera, but ahead lay a bottomless staircase that stretched endlessly upward. There was no railing, and it was pitch-black, like a chasm.
I took off my glove and tossed it down, but even after a long while, I heard no echo.
It looked like anyone who slipped and fell would be smashed to pieces.
“Do you want to come with me?”
I turned to look at Lưu Viện. She glanced at the camera, then, at a loss for words, stepped forward. “Let’s go!”
The flashlight cast a dim glow. Every so often, I took something off and threw it ahead to make sure there were no traps before continuing.
But the whole way, things went so smoothly it was frightening. The entire building curved upward in a spiral, finally ending at a stone door. Just as I was about to push it open, a faint sound suddenly came from the other side.
“Knock… knock… knock.”
Three distinct knocks echoed through the passage.
Lưu Viện cried out, then shouted, “Is anyone in there?!”
12
I looked at the jagged marks on the stone door and the clean gap around it, and a bad feeling suddenly crept over me. This place was in the middle of the mountains. The ground was damp, and moss grew all around, yet the door alone had no trace of wear. The only explanation was that it was opened often. But this was a tomb—how could anyone be alive here?
Before I could think it through, a clear voice came from behind the door again. “Is anyone there?”
Though the voice answering us sounded unhurried, I could tell it belonged to a middle-aged man.
Lưu Viện was overjoyed and immediately stepped forward to open the door.
Inside was a vaulted chamber, with a red wooden coffin at its center. There was a small opening, about a meter across, above the coffin, through which faint moonlight shone. This had to be the gourd-shaped tomb’s dragon’s head, and the only way out aboveground.
Beside the coffin stood a gaunt man in climbing gear. He stared at us in surprise. “There really are living people!”
He stood in the darkness, his face indistinct. Waving at us, he explained, “I came here to climb, but I slipped and fell into this hole. I haven’t been able to find a way out.”
“Then you can come with us. We’re an archaeological team…” Lưu Viện said, starting toward him, but suddenly a crisp sound rang out beneath her foot.
She pointed her flashlight down. Her legs suddenly gave way, and she dropped to the ground. “What… what is this?”
A ring of white bones surrounded the coffin. There seemed to be twenty or thirty skeletons, and from their skulls and shapes, it was clear they were human.
A terrifying, bizarre thought kept spreading through my mind: the dead coming back to life, why forbidden magic had been used to imprison her, and why mercury had been poured into the bodies of all the slaves. It wasn’t to bring blessings upon their master, but to ensure they could never find peace in the afterlife.
Trembling, Lưu Viện reached out toward the man. “Come here, quickly!”
But in the very next instant, I yanked her back and dragged her outside.
Today, the missing parts of the book *Grave Fiend* would finally be pieced together. Maybe I’d found the ending to that story.
In the empty tomb, a crow croaked several times from the mouth of the cave.
I drew the dagger I’d brought and raised it before me, staring at the figure in the darkness. “Stop pretending.”
“King Thọ.”
Lưu Viện hadn’t even had time to react when the figure suddenly warped. Its skin peeled away layer by layer until it became a charred corpse.
A shrill laugh rang out, as if it could no longer make a sound and had to force it from its body. “Heh heh heh heh heh! You’re an interesting one, young lady.”
I’d guessed right. The tomb and the formation built back then had indeed worked. King Thọ had achieved his goal, and this wasn’t a case of the dead coming back to life. These were immortal corpses that had lived for a thousand years!
I drew a deep breath, steadied myself, and faced him. “Did you kill all these people?”
He let out a piercing laugh, his body gradually sticking to the wall. “Of course. But they had so little meat, they weren’t enough to fill me up. You’ll end up just like them.”
I hid the dagger in my sleeve and pulled Lưu Viện back toward the stone door. “I have one more question.”
“Why imprison the consort?”
He stretched longer and longer, his whole body clinging to the wall. His voice suddenly rose. “That vile woman! I gave her the chance to live forever, but she incited a rebellion, wanting to lead the people to kill themselves to defy me!”
A chill ran down my spine. When a country is left with nothing but slaughter, war, and cruelty, isn’t immortality just another form of torment?
13
The police were surely still searching for us, but all I had was a dagger… None of us was a match for him.
At last, every question had an answer. His words kept echoing in my mind, exploding like a bolt of lightning.
“Finished asking your questions? You can die in peace now!”
With that, he pressed himself against the wall and lunged at me. His four long, slender limbs moved like a spider’s, dodging the light. In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of me.
Lưu Viện was completely terrified. I grabbed her hand and shoved her out through the stone door. “Run!”
“Go open that well! It’s our only chance of survival!”
The moment she turned around, I suddenly raised my dagger to block King Thọ’s claws. The force nearly knocked me off the steps.
Up close, I could finally see that the figure before me no longer had a human shape. His skin was pitch-black and cracked like the trunk of a dying tree. All that remained on his face were empty eye sockets, without pupils.
What was the point of living in a form like this?
I twisted aside, quickly dodged him, and darted to one side. The dagger in my hand slashed across his face, nearly cleaving it in half.
Yet he seemed not to feel any pain and charged at me again.
I’d had training, but in a real fight, my skills amounted to little more than flailing around. All I could do was keep dodging.
A thousand years had changed his shape. Like a spider, he charged at me on all fours.
I couldn’t dodge in time. His claws pierced my arm. Pain blacked out my vision, and I fell to the ground.
Moonlight streamed in through the opening. I shoved the coffin lid and collapsed onto the ground, when suddenly I heard a sound.
A police siren!
The police were here!
But the monster had already lunged at me. Through the tear in his face, I could see fangs, and he rushed toward me.
Then, in the very next instant, a powerful figure charged in through the stone doorway…
The figure clamped its teeth around King Thọ’s neck. I stared, then braced my hands against the ground and struggled to my feet. Only then could I make out the dark figure. It was the consort.
In the blink of an eye, the two of them were locked together, thrashing wildly as the corpse fiend let out a bloodcurdling scream. No matter how fiercely the creature struggled, the consort refused to let go. She seemed crazed, biting and tearing at him relentlessly.
Moonlight fell across her terrifying, empty eyes, but somehow I understood what she meant to do. She wanted to save me.
Footsteps sounded behind me. The director and the other crew members were helping one another up. “That thing seemed to go crazy. As soon as we opened the door, it bolted!”
As they spoke, they looked up and saw the scene before them. Everyone froze.
Two corpses wrestled, their limbs tangled beyond recognition. The consort had no legs, and clung to King Thọ with her teeth locked around his neck. All around us, the only sound was their screams.
Everyone fell silent. Then the thrum of rotor blades came from overhead.
The police had sent a helicopter, but from above, all they could see was dense forest. They couldn’t pinpoint our location.
I took off my jacket and rolled it into a ball. Then I ran over and took the director’s lighter from his pocket. “This thousand-year farce ends now.”
I lit it and hurled the flaming bundle at the two corpses.
A roar like a demon’s cry from hell rang out. The two corpses were quickly engulfed in flames, their bodies shrinking and twisting. The fire surged up through the narrow opening. Before long, the police sirens grew louder and louder.
When the lights came on, a ladder dropped down from the mouth of the cave. We were saved.
14
The livestream ended right then, and the director hurried up the ladder.
Lưu Viện picked up my bag and handed it to me. She looked unhappy, but perhaps to save face, she said nothing and left.
I turned and started up the ladder, climbing slowly. I looked back at the smoke-filled tomb, when suddenly a flash of light caught my eye.
It was the human-faced insects.
Beneath the moonlight, they gradually formed into two figures in red robes, bowing to heaven and earth on a raised platform.
Perhaps that was what beauty looked like before all the tragedy.
The show received an overwhelmingly positive response and even became famous worldwide. However, for certain unavoidable reasons, the recorded video had to be edited to remove scenes that couldn’t be explained by science.
Though there was no original footage, that day’s livestream still became a legend in many people’s hearts.
Just when I thought it was all over, black pustules began to appear on the wound the corpse fiend had made in my arm, spreading farther and farther along my veins.
I knew it was corpse poison from a thousand years ago.
The production team invited me to take part in their next show. This time, they would film in a dense forest in Qinghai, where, according to the book on the Grave Fiend, lay the most mysterious tomb beneath the sea.
And that place was also rumored to hold the antidote to corpse poison.
—THE END—