Chapter Sixty-Three: The Endless Corridor

The boat continued to glide across the water for another half hour. Fortune favored us; we encountered no larger azure dragonfish and arrived safely at the entrance to the North Mountain Pass of the Heavenly Lake. Zhang the Grim waved his hand beside him, and his companion turned to shout, “Stop the boats.” Only then did the three rubber dinghies pull up alongside the stone wall.

Seated on the planks, we glanced at the two boats behind us—they were clearly less battered than ours. “Regroup here,” Zhang said in a low voice, which his attendant repeated loudly.

“Third Brother, I think we should rest once we’ve crossed this mountain pass,” Lord Dragon remarked.

Zhang shook his head, “I have an uneasy feeling. I doubt this pass will be easy to traverse.”

His words sent a chill through us; sweat broke out cold on our foreheads. Was there some monstrous fish lurking in the gorge?

Kaleidoscope wiped his brow and hopped onto our boat, wearing an annoyingly smug smile. “Third Brother, please don’t start chanting funeral rites. This route is trouble enough as it is—we’ve never suffered such setbacks.”

Zhang snorted coldly, saying nothing, but his displeasure was palpable. After a moment’s silence, he replied, “Do I look like I’m joking?”

Kaleidoscope sensed Zhang was at the brink of erupting, so he swallowed his grievances, nodded, and returned to his boat to chew on compressed biscuits.

Zhang’s words cast a pall over the team. I mused that he was a walking storm cloud—every time he spoke, awkwardness followed, and no one dared contradict him.

So we rested on the boats for half an hour. When our bellies were full of dry biscuits, Zhang glanced at his attendant, retrieved the radio, jumped onto the second boat, and handed a radio to Master. “Our boat will go in first. You wait outside. If nothing happens, follow us in.”

Master hesitated, then nodded.

I cursed inwardly. Sharing a boat with Zhang meant joining a suicide squad—he was determined to drag us down with him.

Zhang returned, noticed my sour expression, and eyed me askance. “What’s wrong? Got complaints?”

I sighed and shook my head.

He looked at Mengya with a mocking air. “I’m only considering the fact that you have a bodyguard behind the scenes.”

His words left me embarrassed; he was teasing me again, implying I relied on a woman—a laughable thought. I forced a bitter smile.

Zhang said no more. With a wave, his attendant dipped the oars, and our boat’s prow turned straight toward the mountain pass.

“What’s going on?”

As soon as we entered the gorge, I felt the temperature drop sharply. I shivered. The north side of the mountain was shaded, but such a sudden chill was unnatural.

The pass was only about fifty meters across; from entrance to exit, daylight was visible. Zhang whispered, “Hurry up.”

The attendant nodded and sped up.

We traveled for what felt like ages, yet the boat had not reached the exit.

“There’s definitely something wrong. We’ve been gliding here for half an hour and haven’t stopped moving,” I whispered to Zhang.

He said nothing, but his grave silence showed he understood the severity. After a moment, he said quietly, “Stop the boat.”

The attendant complied, laying aside the oars and sitting on the deck.

Zhang stood, scanning the surroundings. The stone walls appeared unremarkable. Suddenly, he leaned over and reached beneath the water at the wall’s edge. When his hand emerged, it held a pale skull, which he presented to me.

I recoiled in fright, staring at Zhang in horror.

“It seems there’s trouble here. We may not make it out of this mountain pass.”

His stern face filled me with dread. From the golden mask to this watery ordeal, if I’d stayed out of this business, would I have faced so much turmoil? I sighed—curiosity killed the cat, and this time it might take Mengya and me with it.

Mengya, who had been silent, saw our dismay and waved her hand. “Master, Qiutong, despairing won’t help. Something just came to mind.”

I blinked, “What is it?”

“Remember that audiobook we listened to? The popular novel DMBJ. It mentioned a listing method. Why not try it here?”

I nodded. In desperate times, one must try anything.

Mengya produced a marker and a sheet of white paper, setting them atop a box—she had come prepared.

Zhang looked puzzled. I explained the novel’s plot to him, and he nodded.

“I think we first need to confirm whether we’re actually moving through the pass,” Mengya said, writing “Question One: Are we advancing?” on the paper.

“That’s easy,” Zhang said, unstrapping his long knife and scoring the stone wall with a deep gash. The blade’s steel was excellent. Holding the knife, Zhang seemed uneasy, inspecting the wall as if he’d noticed something odd.

“What’s wrong, Master?” I asked, sensing his unease.

“I keep feeling there’s something strange about this wall, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

The mountain wall was damp, covered in green moss. The oddity was the uneven distribution of moss—it looked like an abstract painting, as if someone had smeared green paint across a canvas.

I shook my head, seeing nothing unusual. “Let’s test it first.”

Zhang nodded. He signaled the attendant to row, and we moved on the water for five minutes. When we stopped, we looked at the wall—the knife mark Zhang had made was gone.

“We are indeed moving,” Mengya said, checking off “Question One: Are we advancing?” “Let’s list possible situations in this gorge.”

She looked at me. I nodded, “If we’re moving, could it be a ghost wall?”

Mengya nodded, writing “Ghost wall?” on the paper.

Zhang snorted, “That’s easy to verify.” He took out an old coin from the Song dynasty, a “Da Guan Tong Bao.” As mentioned before, during the Shao Valley incident, a Qianlong coin broke the ghost wall. Old coins and ancient jade are traditional talismans among tomb explorers; they keep such coins handy.

Zhang threw the Da Guan Tong Bao forward. It splashed into the water and sank. Nothing changed.

The attendant rowed for five more minutes, but we still hadn’t reached the other side.

Mengya marked an X next to “Ghost wall” to indicate it was not the cause. She lifted her head and said, “I believe it’s a countercurrent,” writing “Countercurrent in the water” on the paper.

I nodded. Her theory was that an undercurrent beneath us was returning the boat to its starting point, and we couldn’t perceive it from onboard.

“How do we test it? Surely you’re not asking us to get in the water?” I asked.

Mengya looked at Zhang. “Master, do you have any ideas?”

He was silent, staring at the wall in deep thought. After a long pause, he steadied himself and looked at Mengya. “Do you have more paper?”

Mengya nodded, tore a sheet from her notebook, and handed it to Zhang.

Without a word, Zhang folded the paper into a little boat. I thought to myself: he’s got a childlike streak, folding boats at a time like this. Wait—a paper boat? Suddenly I realized—if we set the paper boat afloat, we could see whether there was an undercurrent in the water.