I pointed to where the shuikao was laying off to the side. Fatty vomited again and then crawled over, bumping into the leather figurine woman on his way. He felt in front of him and scolded me, "Mr. Naïve, why didn’t you tell me there was something here?"

After I helped him up, he touched the shuikao and found that it had ripped.

"Fuck me." He picked the shuikao up with a curse and pressed it against me, as if he wanted me to put it on. I immediately stopped him. "What are you doing? It's full of parasites. Are you going to suck them out of me?"

"This thing is the only way out," Fatty said. “You have to wear it."

"I'll end up just like you if I wear this, fucking crazy," I scolded him."I can't fucking wear it,” Fatty said. “If I could, I’d put it on and take you out. Let me tell you, this is part of a big array set up by an expert. This is a feng shui object called a ‘guilaiyi’ (1). The expert left it here because he was afraid we wouldn’t be able to get in and out in the future. This shuikao was left for us."

I was baffled. His theory was exactly the same as mine. Fatty was cunning, but I still couldn’t believe he had understood it before me. But what the fuck was this theory? Was this “guilaiyi” thing some kind of folk spell? It’s wasn’t anything I had heard of before.

Moreover, this tomb wasn’t the kind of feng shui tomb that was built like a maze. We were trapped because of our own stupid mistakes. Although we had narrowly avoided death by using our previous experience, there was no denying the fact that I had slacked off when it came to feeling fear and staying vigilant.

I never thought that one day, I would slack off in such an extremely dangerous environment. I thought I was the type of person who would never slack off, but what our ancestors said really made sense.

This introspection made my blood run cold.

I looked up at the leather figurine woman and felt my hair stand on end. But it was just a visceral reaction; I didn’t feel any fear at all. I suddenly realized that this carelessness would get me and those around me killed, but I couldn't overcome myself.

"Hey,” Fatty said, “I told you to read more books, but you wouldn't listen to me. Don’t underestimate this tomb just because it looks simple. It's actually very unique. Think about it. If the three of us"—he looked at Liu Sang—"and this thing didn’t set off those detonators up top, how could we get down here? Let's not talk about people who were born way before us. Even Xie Xiao Hua—that shameless, rich ingrate— wouldn’t have been able to come down, right? We've never been in a tomb under a mudflat before. First, we have no experience; second, we have no equipment; and third, we have no logic. Even if it hadn't caved in and we had managed to find the tomb's location, what would we have done to get down here? Can you answer that?”

I thought about it and knew he was right. Diving suits couldn’t get through a mudflat and this was different from grave robbers’ tunnels that were dug in the mud. The tunnels could be dug down, but the mudflat would immediately fill the holes in. It was like being in the desert. If the tomb was found, going down would be a big problem and would require a large engineering team to dig the mud up.

"So, this tomb is a unique one. It’s impossible for outsiders to get in. It could even be argued that it’s absolutely impossible to rob it. But your Uncle Three did it, which means he must’ve used nefarious means,” Fatty said. "At that time, there really was an expert here. If it weren’t for my love of science, I would’ve really thought that it was the Five Ghosts Transportation ritual. But when I saw this shuikao, I thought of another possibility."

"Did they use an underground river to come in?" I asked him.

Fatty shook his head, "This was an amazing expert. Give me a second and I’ll tell you. After that, we’ll use the shuikao to get out of here."

****

TN Notes:

(1) Translates as something like “return garment”