Flowers of the Departed Souls - Chapter 26

Chi Ziming decided to take a bold chance. No matter what the danger, he had to go into the cave and look. Whether dead or alive, they were undoubtedly still in there. If he himself encountered danger, it would fulfill his wish; he would smoothly enter the third near-death state. But he didn’t want Luo Bozi and Kelou to have any more accidents. Too many people had died these past few days.

Just then, he suddenly remembered the jade piece. He had been afraid of losing it and touched it; it was still there. In the dim cave entrance, the jade suddenly emitted a strange light, like a bright lamp, illuminating the interior of the cave. Chi Ziming felt it was truly magical, and at the same time, he recalled what Ke’er had once said: this jade piece was spiritual; the more it encountered yin, the stronger it became, and the more it encountered yang, the weaker it became.

Holding the jade piece, he walked into the cave, feeling as if he were carrying Aladdin’s magic lamp. Inside the cave was a strange, pungent smell. On the ground and rock walls were clumps of black, gooey substances, very much like bird droppings. Why didn’t these birds clean up their own doorstep? Birds were birds after all, far different from humans.

Chi Ziming’s mind was filled with these chaotic thoughts as he carefully advanced, afraid of stepping on bird droppings, or stepping on something terrifying. It appeared to be a natural limestone cave. Water containing calcium bicarbonate dripped from the cave ceiling. As the water and carbon dioxide evaporated, the precipitated calcium carbonate accumulated to form stalactites, flowstones, and cave flowers. Originally, it must have been beautiful, but due to possible surface contamination, it looked a bit dirty.

After walking for a while, the view suddenly opened up. Inside was a large underground pool. However, he hadn’t seen Kelou, Luo Bozi, or carrion vultures along the way. He found it strange. Did this place have other hidden secrets? Chi Ziming was very puzzled.

He saw a handle on the opposite side of the pool, and someone sitting upright there, but it was too far to see clearly. He softly called out for Kelou and Uncle Luo, but there was no response. So he stepped on the rocks in the pool and walked to the other side, where he saw a man of about forty sitting on a stone seat.

Around the rock walls were murals that looked extremely ancient but whose specific patterns could still be discerned. They depicted scenes of ancient people cultivating rice, fishing, hunting, gathering, making pottery with fast wheels, and weaving. What era could this scene be from? It didn’t look like the Ming or Qing dynasties at all, Chi Ziming thought.

There was also a giant face sculpture, human-sized, with a very simple, abstract face, ear piercings, and braided patterns on its head. It looked like a very primitive human face sculpture. Chi Ziming estimated it might be thousands of years old.

He walked closer to the man. “Uncle.”

Chi Ziming casually pushed the man, who then fell straight down. He was clearly dead. What terrified Chi Ziming was not that the man was dead, but that he had no legs. His lower body was completely empty. Because he was sitting on a stone bench, his lower body was covered by clothes, so it wasn’t immediately apparent.

Who was this person? How did he die here? Where did his legs go? And where were Kelou and the others? Where exactly did they go? At this moment, he felt a pair of eyes silently watching him from behind. He suddenly turned around and found another person sitting on a smooth stone, but a moment ago, it had been empty. He rubbed his eyes, and this person was looking at him with a pair of cloudy yellow eyes. He shivered all over. Luo Xiaofeng’s grandmother? How was Grandma Luo here?

He tentatively called out “Grandma Luo,” wanting to know if she was alive.

“Are you calling me?” In the deep cave, Grandma Luo’s aged voice sounded even colder, startling Chi Ziming.

“That’s great! So you’re still alive…” He felt a little inappropriate after saying this, so he quickly asked, “Where’s Xiaofeng? Where is she? And Kelou and Luo Bozi also went in just now; have you seen them?”

“Which question do you think I should answer first?”

Chi Ziming thought for a moment. “Xiaofeng, where is she?”

“Oh, she’s waiting in the secret room. Do you want to go see her?”

“Secret room? There’s a secret room here too?”

Grandma Luo didn’t answer but pressed her finger on the stone seat she was sitting on. Only then did Chi Ziming notice a circular indentation, a switch, with patterns on it. From the outside, it was indistinguishable from the stone seat; it was integrated. At this moment, the giant face sculpture behind them suddenly split open in the middle. It was a door.

“Wait, what’s that in your hand?”

Chi Ziming quickly hid the jade piece. “Heh heh, it’s my phone. The phone’s light is a bit bright, so I’m using it to illuminate.” Grandma Luo said nothing more, and Chi Ziming slowly walked towards the face-shaped door. He didn’t know that Grandma Luo, still sitting upright, was now smiling a deeply enigmatic smile.

After Chi Ziming entered, he gasped in surprise. Inside were neatly arranged jade artifacts and black pottery wares. These various jade artifacts included bi discs, cong tubes, huang pendants, and jade ornaments, but none were the jade yue he carried. These jade artifacts were also carved with mysterious bird and beast patterns, emitting a faint glow. Chi Ziming was not an expert in jade, but he felt that the jade here didn’t seem fake, and it might have a very long history, not just ordinary market-circulating pieces. If his classmate who dealt with jade was here, he would definitely be very excited.

Chi Ziming thought for a moment, took out the jade piece from his body, and found that its color, shape, and pattern looked very similar to theirs, appearing to be jade artifacts from the same era. Could the jade artifacts here also belong to the ancient Liangzhu Kingdom? Why were there so many here?

However, he noticed that these jade artifacts didn’t seem to be randomly placed. They formed a particular arrangement, one very similar to the layout of burial offerings he had seen in an archaeological film. A strong sense of unease suddenly welled up in his heart. Burial offerings?

At this moment, he suddenly remembered his purpose for coming here and felt ashamed.

“Xiaofeng, Xiaofeng.” He called out to Xiaofeng, but there was no echo. At this moment, he felt as if there was something behind those large black pottery pieces. When he walked closer to look carefully, they were actually two highly decomposed corpses, accompanied by a foul stench. He felt a shock, and his stomach cramped, almost making him vomit. But he managed to hold it in, and after identifying them, he was relieved that it wasn’t Luo Xiaofeng, nor Kelou or Luo Bozi. Oh, how stupid of me; even if it were them, they wouldn’t have decomposed so quickly. At this moment, the face-shaped door behind him suddenly closed.

He rushed over and slammed against the door, but it wouldn’t open. “Let me out! Let me out!”

The door seemed to be cast from metal; no matter how he pounded it, it remained motionless. At this moment, he thought he heard a groan. He stopped. The groan continued, faint but clear in the confined space. Chi Ziming’s hair stood on end. Who else could be in this ghostly place? Had a zombie resurrected?

The thought of being trapped in a secret room filled him with infinite dread. He forced himself to remain calm, swallowed hard, but couldn’t stop his voice from trembling. “Who? Who’s in there? Come out!”

The voice still stubbornly came through. Regardless, he had to fight his way out. Chi Ziming followed the sound and found another secret room inside. He took out the jade piece to illuminate it, only to see someone completely bound by ropes, lying on the ground, struggling. Heavens, there was actually a living person here! He rushed over to untie the ropes. It was Luo Xiaofeng, and a towel was stuffed in her mouth.

“Xiaofeng, why are you tied up here?” He quickly removed the towel and untied Luo Xiaofeng. After Luo Xiaofeng shook off the ropes, she pulled a photo from her pocket. “Look at this.”

This photo seemed to be of Grandma Luo when she was younger, and it was clearly cut from somewhere, its edges uneven. “She’s your grandma, right?”

“Yes, this was taken in 1994, a photo with my grandpa. But her photo isn’t displayed in the hall. Do you notice anything different about her compared to now?”

Chi Ziming carefully examined the photo. The woman in it indeed looked very much like the current Grandma Luo, just a bit younger in appearance, after more than twenty years. However, he truly felt that something was different. At this moment, his gaze fixed on her eyes. The eyes in the photo were clear, with distinct whites and pupils, very regular. But Grandma Luo’s eyes outside had very closely set pupils, appearing somewhat skewed, commonly known as crossed eyes.

“These eyes—even if one’s appearance ages, a person’s eyes shouldn’t become increasingly skewed, right?”

He suddenly realized that the old woman outside was not Luo Xiaofeng’s grandmother.