Chapter 11: Lost in Direction

Chapter 11: Lost in the Maze

Zhang Sanlu and Man Shan followed his gaze and saw, illuminated by the faint firelight ahead, the triangular mark Zhang Sanlu had made earlier with a stone on the cave wall.

Both their faces changed dramatically as they hurried forward. The mark on the wall was unmistakable, and the stone used to make it still lay on the ground.

“We’re trapped... we can’t get out...” Man Shan slumped to the ground, his teeth chattering, suppressing his sobs as if afraid to disturb something lurking in the shadows.

“Stop crying!” Zhang Sanlu said irritably. If it had been only him, he might have suspected another hallucination, but now all three were experiencing the same thing—it was not just his own mind playing tricks.

Man Shan quickly bit his lip, choking back tears, but they still streamed down his cheeks, silent and relentless.

“Senior brother, I... I think I’ve heard the others mention this before. It’s called ‘ghost walling,’” Qiu Ming whispered, his voice barely audible, as though he feared something overhearing.

Had it been before they came here, Zhang Sanlu, despite his mental illness, would surely have dismissed Qiu Ming’s superstition. But after all the strange, inexplicable events they’d endured, his capacity for acceptance had grown.

“Is there any way to break it?” Zhang Sanlu asked hurriedly.

“They mentioned a few methods. One is simply to wait until dawn, when the rising sun dispels the ghost walling.”

The three looked up at the cave ceiling.

“Uh... another is to use a child’s urine or black dog’s blood. Those are believed to ward off evil and can supposedly break the ghost walling.”

“I’ve heard that too—black dog’s blood wards off ghosts,” Zhang Sanlu recalled from old novels and films. “But there’s no black dog’s blood here. Would human blood work?”

Man Shan’s face went pale as chalk, terrified by his senior brother’s suggestion paired with his current appearance.

“Uh... haha... Senior brother is joking. If there’s no black dog’s blood, we can use a child’s urine... I think Man Shan and I qualify,” Qiu Ming swallowed, avoiding Zhang Sanlu’s hollow left eye, forcing a dry laugh.

“What are we waiting for, then?” Man Shan quickly turned away, fumbling with his belt toward the wall. Qiu Ming wedged the torch into a crack in the stone, then turned to the wall, struggling with his trousers. But after a while, neither moved.

“What’s wrong?”

Zhang Sanlu waited, but seeing no progress, grew anxious. “I... I can’t pee... sob...” Man Shan turned, his face twisted in misery.

Qiu Ming said nothing, but soon the sound of trickling echoed in the silence.

“There it is, finally!” Qiu Ming seemed, for the first time, to find his relief so vital.

“But that alone won’t do. The passage is so long—you two can’t pee the whole way. Are there any other methods? Let’s try them all.” Once Qiu Ming and Man Shan had finished, Zhang Sanlu pressed.

Qiu Ming thought hard, then clapped his hands. “I remember—another is foul language: shouting curses to dispel the surrounding gloom and impurity.”

“That’s good. We can curse as we walk.”

Zhang Sanlu led the way, and the three began cursing as they moved forward, voices rising and falling, hurling every insult imaginable—mongrel, blockhead, useless wretch, bastard of Nigran, lowborn servant... All manner of dialect curses tumbled forth.

They cursed until their mouths were dry and their throats hoarse, but still, there was no exit in sight.

“Qiu Ming, are you sure you’re still a virgin?” Zhang Sanlu, frustrated, felt anger boiling inside him, longing for a ghost to appear and fight him—anything to break the stifling silence.

He kicked several stones, sending them skittering across the cave wall with a clatter.

“Damn it, if I catch whoever’s playing tricks, I’ll skin them alive and make a lantern out of them, light the sky with it!” Zhang Sanlu growled, tugging at his bundle.

Dragged to this cursed place for no reason, carrying his own head on his back—the more he thought, the angrier he became. Suddenly, he ripped the bundle from his back and hurled it forward with all his strength.

A loud thud echoed ahead as the bundle containing the skull struck something, startling Qiu Ming and Man Shan.

But the torchlight in Qiu Ming’s hand now illuminated a wall.

“No... no way ahead?!” Qiu Ming shivered; the ghost walling was gone, but the path had ended. Would they have to turn back? That would lead them right back to the alchemical chamber filled with jars of human heads!

“Senior brother, what do we do now?” Qiu Ming and Man Shan looked at Zhang Sanlu, faces twisted in despair, barely holding back tears.

Zhang Sanlu picked up the round bundle, slung it over his back, and began inspecting the cave wall.

At the base of the wall lay a pile of rubble.

“There’s a hole here! Bring the torch over!” he called.

Qiu Ming and Man Shan hurried forward. In the flickering light, they saw a small opening in the lower left corner of the wall, hidden behind the rubble.

“Help me dig.” Zhang Sanlu began moving stones.

Qiu Ming and Man Shan quickly propped up the torch and joined him. After clearing the stones, they dug at the earth around the opening, soon widening it to a large hole, tall enough to crawl through.

The three stared, dumbfounded, at the pitch-black entrance—it wasn’t the path they had come by.

“Do we really crawl in there, senior brother?”

“Could it be a dead end? Should we turn back instead?”

Zhang Sanlu eyed them, tightened the bundle on his back, and frowned. “If we go back, we’ll never get out.”

“Who cares if it’s a dead end! Go! I’ll lead, Man Shan in the middle, Qiu Ming last!”

“Senior brother...” Qiu Ming, miserable, looked at the impenetrable darkness behind him and hesitated. “Maybe I should go first. At least then I won’t have my back exposed...”

“Fine, you go first, I’ll bring up the rear.”

Qiu Ming quietly agreed, hesitated, glanced back once, then crawled awkwardly into the hole, his cloth shoes flashing at the entrance before vanishing.

Seeing Qiu Ming go in, Man Shan extinguished the torch Qiu Ming handed him, tucked it in his belt, and followed.

Zhang Sanlu brought up the rear.

The tunnel was lower than expected, but still allowed them to prop up their torsos as they crawled; it felt wider than it was tall. The darkness was absolute, so deep that even Zhang Sanlu’s sharp vision could barely make out a hand’s breadth in front of his face. Not even the sound of insects or rodents could be heard.

The tunnel was so silent that even the faintest breath seemed unnaturally loud.