Legend of Fu Yao

Everyone saw what that thing was after it stopped. It was the corpse of a naked girl, with her head slanted and hands hugged around her legs. There was not a speck of hair on her, and her skin complexion was unusually white, almost like the color of the stalagmite. As such, no one noticed the corpse when it was buried under the roots of the rock formation.

“Quzhizhang ¹ human sacrifice?” Meng Fuyao mumbled to herself.

In the past, she had participated in archaeological excavations at The Guangfulin Site of Ancient Culture and encountered such burial mounds before. However, this corpse was abnormal. Though the limbs were bent, the corpse was not facing upwards or sideways. It was at that moment that she remembered that she was in an alternate world, and the way how dynasties changed, or the cultural habits of the present world, differed from her past. The skills she had learned, such as dating techniques in archaeology, lithology, and taboos about tombs were no longer applicable in the current context. She could only utilize her instinct and basic inferencing skills, based on her experiences in past excavations.

For example, it was unusual for this girl that was sacrificed to be buried alone in the stalagmite. Meng Fuyao carefully checked and realized that the thing was actually a very thin layer of jade. It was likely that a huge piece of jade was hollowed out in the middle and the girl’s corpse was put inside.

Under scrutinization, Meng Fuyao realized that the corpse’s finger was slightly tilted and pointing towards a direction. Meng Fuyao straightened the corpse, and as expected, the finger pointed to the bottom of the stalagmites, where a hole appeared due to cracks in the rock formation.

The wind blew out from the bottom of the hole and circulated around the empty cave. Everyone glanced at the corpse that was as white as jade quietly lying by Meng Fuyao’s foot. They felt very uncomfortable, as they stared at the pale-green luminescence of the corpse’s flesh under the shine of the stalactites.

Ji Yu helped the soldier who pushed down the stalagmites to stand up. The soldier was only momentarily stunned earlier on, and now embarrassed, he shyly looked down. Everyone smiled knowingly at him – even for one who had experienced a hundred battles, in this thousand-year eerie tomb of the Gun Tribe whereby every step could signify danger, it was only normal for him to be shocked at seeing such a thing.

However, as the soldier took another glance at the thing, he gave a loud cry once more.

“Her head was tilted up just now! Not in this way!”

This cry touched a nerve in Meng Fuyao. Ji Yu frowned and asked, “Were you so shocked that you saw wrongly?”

“No!” screamed the soldier. “I saw it with my own eyes. She looked up and gave me a look. Her eyes were green, so I, so I… ”

“Burn her,” said Zhan Beiye. He walked over in big strides, his sword pointing towards the corpse. As a red beam of light flashed past the blade, the corpse tried to roll away as if it sensed danger, but it was blocked by Meng Fuyao’s knife.

“This should be the ‘Guard Door Virgin’ of the Gun Tribe. They would always choose a girl born in the Yin year, Yin month and Yin day and separate her from her parents. Every day, she is fed cheese made from goat milk and mixed using a secret recipe, to keep her complexion crystal-clear. When she turns five, she would be cruelly killed and used to guard the entrance of a tomb. This thing is extremely resentful, and we must get rid of it.”

“No,” Meng Fuyao said after some thought, “If this thing could be disposed by burning, the Gun Tribe wouldn’t have used her to guard the tomb. There must be something up their sleeves to place her here.”

She looked around and spotted a tortoiseshell that was attached to the pouch hanging on Ji Yu’s waist. She felt a sense of joy and said, “This is good stuff. Come, offer it to us.”

Ji Yu was evidently uncomfortable. He hesitated for a moment before taking it down. Meng Fuyao laughed and said, “Your little lover gave you this? Don’t worry, I will explain it to you in the future.”

Ji Yu’s face turned slightly red, and he looked away. Seeing such a demeanor coming from a resolute youth like him, she could not help but laugh even harder in a teasing manner. Everyone smiled knowingly, and the tense atmosphere in the sinister cave was slightly assuaged.

Meng Fuyao split the tortoiseshell into two, one of which she pinched into a powder form and sprinkled it over the corpse. Suddenly, the corpse contracted and raised its head!

Her green eyes flashed an ominous light in the darkness. There was no focus in her eyes, but she looked like she was staring at everyone. Upon coming into contact with her murderous glance, a cold burst rose from everyone’s abdomen. A faint yellow light emerged from her transparent stomach, and the light flashed brighter and brighter, like a cluster of eerie colors.

The temperature suddenly rose, as though someone was boiling soup in the vicinity. There was no steam, but everyone could feel the heat crawling into their bones.

All of them stepped back, but Meng Fuyao did not move. Zhan Beiye stepped in front of her, but Meng Fuyao pushed him away and said, “You have too much Yang in your body. This thing is afraid of you, and more trouble might arise. Don’t worry, nothing will happen.”

She took a step forward, looked into the pair of green eyes and said in a low voice, “Go.”

As the tortoiseshell powder landed on it, the green eyes slowly turned white and the stomach bloated, as though there was something in the body that wanted to burst out but could not. The collisions created loud bangs while the faint yellow light flashed continuously, gradually disappearing only after a long while.

Meng Fuyao had been staring at it anxiously. Seeing the light disappear, she heaved a sigh of relief. She passed the remaining half of the tortoiseshell to Ji Yu and said, “The tortoise shell is a sacred treasure that fends off evil spirits. It is one of the favorite items of tomb raiders so keep it properly.”

Walking towards the opening of the hole, Meng Fuyao said, “We can go down now.”

Ji Yu snatched the tortoiseshell and held it tightly in his palms. He was about to slide down the hole, but Meng Fuyao stopped him, carefully inspecting the hole before saying, “Don’t slide! Keep your arms and legs on the walls in a spider posture and slowly go down. You must not choose the easy way out and slide down!”

Heeding her advice, Ji Yu slowly climbed down the wall, and the rest followed. Zhan Beiye refused to let anyone go after him and insisted on being the last.

Meng Fuyao was at the center of the group. While she walked, she touched the mud around her and suddenly ordered, “Quick! Extinguish the lighter!”

She spoke in a tense voice, causing everyone to tremble. The soldier who was holding on to the lighter blew out the flame and asked Meng Fuyao, “Why?”

Meng Fuyao’s eyes shone as brightly as stars in the darkness. She did not directly answer the question and only said, “Go down first. If I’m not wrong, there’s something below.”

The hole was not very deep, and soon after, light shone from below. As the hole shifted left, it became wider, and it was impossible for everyone to maintain the spider posture. They faced the wall instead and moved down by stepping on protruding stones. After another ten meters or so, Ji Yu suddenly shouted in surprise, “Ah!”

At the same time, everyone shut their eyes.

A magnificent light shone brightly.

Five strokes of light – red, blue, green, yellow and purple – shot out from the bottom of the hole. From far away, it looked like a rainbow-colored cloud rising out from the depths of the darkness, looking astounding, rich and crystal-clear.

It was an unprecedented, gigantic gemstone mine, its value incalculable.

What everyone was shocked at was not just this.

There were enormous and towering pillars of crystal, and their tips were as sharp as swords. These pillars were slanted in a criss-cross pattern, spreading as wide as a forest, standing tall and mighty. It was not hard to imagine that if everyone slid down as they would habitually do, they would have been penetrated by those sharp crystal pillars and ended up becoming an eternal sacrifice to the Gun Tribe’s tomb.

Though the forest of crystals looked astounding, they were the deadly weapons that had been stationed here for thousands of years, waiting to take away the lives of humans.

Indeed, at the northwest corner of the crystal forest, there were a few sets of skeletons hanging from the crystals, with postures looking like they were in pain. Those skeletons must have belonged to tomb raiders from long ago who had dug a hole down but unfortunately died. Everyone shivered as they looked at those skeletons as though they saw themselves hanging there.

Zhan Beiye spoke softly behind Meng Fuyao, “How did you know that there was this thing down here?”

How did she know? Meng Fuyao smiled. All tombs built had precautionary measures to prevent tomb raids, such as quicksand, concrete blocks, mercury, fake coffins, stone-blocked doors, etc. In tombs that were built on mountains, there was the precedence of making use of natural conditions to kill raiders. Meng Fuyao recalled that she had once excavated a tomb of the Warring States period, which had made use of a rock formation. Hence, she took caution.

This was her professional instinct that could not be explained. Zhan Beiye did not question, but suddenly, he let out a very soft sigh.

At that point, the group had already reached the end of the hole, and Ji Yu jumped down into the cave of crystals. The cave was brightly lit, and the walls were studded with mica and agate gemstones. Shining as brightly as the crystals, long shadows of the gemstones were projected on the ground. In front of the forest of crystals, there was a painting of a gigantic and strange bird.

The bird looked like a white crane but its feathers were red, and there were strange patterns on its body. It had only one leg and a long, white beak.

Meng Fuyao looked up at the painting and mumbled, “The ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ had such a record: there is a bird with its shape like a crane and one foot. It has red patterns, a black body, and a white beak. Its presence signifies an impending fire… This is the God of Fire, Bifang.”

Zhan Beiye suddenly walked up and took a whiff of the surroundings. His expression instantly changed.

“Kerosene oil… ”

“Yes, the painting is hollow and filled up with the highly-flammable oil.” Meng Fuyao quietly spoke. “If I’m right, there is probably a string below the painting that leads to the opening of the hole, where an explosive soil is.”

“So you that’s why you told us to extinguish the lighters?” Zhan Beiye’s turned serious. “And not just this. That girl’s corpse could not be burned as well. Once we burned it, the ground beneath us would explode, right?”

Meng Fuyao smiled without saying a word, but deep down, she felt a chill because of the Gun Tribe. The designer of the tomb must be insane. Just the girl’s corpse incorporated three methods that could have killed them. He had predicted that such an inauspicious thing would be destroyed by people who entered the tomb and the methods were usually none other than burning or chopping. Hence, he had buried this string that connected to the painting so that once there was fire, it would trigger an explosion from the bottom. If the tomb raiders decided to chop up that corpse instead, there would be venomous insects in the belly to wipe out everyone. Even if someone managed to survive, they would probably let down their guard and slide down the hole, right onto the deadly tips of the crystal formation.

At that moment, Zhan Beiye also understood the dangers that they went through and said, “Fuyao, you saved us thrice.”