Chapter 8

Chapter 8

We followed the narrow tomb passage forward. In a low voice, Grandfather Murong explained that this tomb should have a very traditional rectangular-ring layout, with the main burial chamber right at the center. Once we turned the corner up ahead, there would definitely be a stone door.

“I’ve explored at least a few dozen tombs like this. Sect Master Qiao, look, this-”

Grandfather Murong gripped his flashlight, his eyes widening in shock.

Where the stone door should have been, there was instead a small square clearing of about two square meters. On that patch of ground, dense clusters of rats writhed and rolled their fat bodies, letting out shrill squeaks.

Even the smallest of those rats were as big as my shoe. Their eyes were bloodred, and their sparse fur had fallen out in patches, exposing gray skin underneath. When the light hit them, they didn’t run. They just kept biting and tussling with one another, their chaotic squealing loud enough to make my head ache.

My heart tightened, and I immediately thought of the words on the wall.

“Eat those rats.”

Grandfather Murong was stunned. “Huh?”

“Sect Master Qiao, do we really have to do that?”

“Grandfather, did you forget the lines on the wall when we came in?”

Murong Yue recited the three rules from memory.

“Do not feed raw meat to the corpses; if you see a ten-year-old child, close your eyes immediately; eat those rats.”

Then she frowned in disgust and backed away, pressing herself against the wall.

“Those tomb robbers probably saw so many rats in here and made up those lines. That’s seriously disgusting. Why are there so many rats in this tomb?

“It’s normal for there to be rats. Ancient tombs are dry and warm, and lots of rats like building nests in them. But I’ve really never seen this many before. There’s a food street not far from here, so these rats probably turned this place into their base camp.”

Grandfather Murong swept his flashlight back and forth over the pile of rats.

“Sect Master Qiao, what do you think?”

“In feng shui, when snakes and rats tunnel through a tomb, wealth will not enter the household. It’s an extremely inauspicious sign of ruin and decline. When this happens in an ancestral grave, the descendants tend to be combative and easily become thugs and hooligans.

“Most large tombs have some kind of method to keep snakes, rats, insects, and ants away. If nothing else, even that green plaster clay is mixed with mugwort. There shouldn’t be this many rats here.”

I took a yellow talisman from my bag, flicked both hands to ignite it, and tossed it into the rat swarm.

“Squeak, squeak, squeak-”

Their fur caught fire, and the rats shrieked as they scattered in all directions. A few rushed to my feet and suddenly changed from their previously docile temperament, opening their mouths to bite at my shoes.

I kicked hard against the wall, crushing the rats against it.

The rats spat out a large mouthful of blood. Even the blood was strange-it was actually green. The moment it splashed onto the upper of my shoe, it gave off a sharp, nauseating stench of rot and fishiness.

Murong Yue went, “Urgh-”

“That stinks! Who stepped in crap?”

Even stranger, the rat had clearly been kicked to death by me, its belly split open, but when it fell to the ground, it got back up as if nothing had happened and lunged at me again.

“Sect Leader, something’s wrong with these rats!”

Grandfather Murong smashed a rat to death with his Luoyang shovel. It had been flattened, yet that flattened rat still crawled back up and tried to bite him.

There were already so many rats to begin with. How were we supposed to fight them like this? We couldn’t kill them all.

At that moment, I deeply regretted not bringing Hua Yuling with me. Lately, she’d been studying that ancient Miaojiang text like her life depended on it, though I had no idea how far she’d gotten. If she were here, dealing with snakes, insects, rats, and ants like these would be as simple as lifting a finger.

All I could do was throw fire talismans while chanting fire incantations, frantically tearing rats off my body. These rats were huge, and their teeth were sharp. With the slightest carelessness, my arm was bitten several times.

Off to the side, Murong Yue had long since started screaming nonstop, slamming her body into the wall with loud bangs.

Like a headless fly, she crashed around blindly. With her eyes squeezed shut, she rushed into the pile of rats from earlier, then suddenly screamed. Her body dropped through the air, both hands flailing wildly as she fell.

As she went down, many rats were crushed beneath her and tumbled away. On the ground, a pitch-black opening was revealed, with several steps extending downward into a darkness whose end couldn’t be seen at a glance.

Only then did I realize that beneath that pile of rats was actually the entrance to a staircase.

Grandfather Murong scrambled and lunged over in a panic.

“Girl, are you all right-”

Grandfather Murong rolled down the stairs, and I followed right behind him, jumping down several steps at a time. I lit a few more talismans to drive away the surrounding rats.

Murong Yue lay sprawled on the ground, looking ahead with a dumbstruck expression, her eyes filled with immense shock and excitement.

“Where did you fall? You crazy girl, say something. Did a few rats scare you stupid?”

Grandfather Murong plucked several rats out of Murong Yue’s hair and tossed them aside. Then, following her gaze, he raised his head. The moment he saw what lay ahead, he too seemed to be frozen in place, his mouth hanging open and his body completely motionless.

“Yellow-gulp-”

Grandfather Murong swallowed nervously.

“Yellow Heart Timber Collection?”