Chapter 17
Fatty didn't dare do anything to that mirror, so he had to go back the way he came. However, things didn't go as smoothly as he thought and he walked back for several hours without finding an exit.
Although the tunnel seemed pretty straightforward, he couldn't reach the exit by any means. No matter how he ran or shouted, there was always a dark tunnel in front of him.
At that time, he felt that the tunnel was alive and could change its shape arbitrarily to tease people. Perhaps their behavior eventually angered the tunnel and it would let him die in despair like this.
He was at the brink of despair when he suddenly saw a savior. It was the deep pit that he had blown out on the rock wall in front of the tunnel.
He remembered the location of the pit should have been at the entrance of the tunnel, and since the tunnel was dug at an angle into the mountain, the rock in this section wasn't hard.
At this time, Fatty showed his ferocity. He divided all the explosives he carried into more than ten pieces, trying to forcefully blow out a path. He blew six or seven meters deep into the cave, and although he didn't blow out the pa.s.sage, he did manage blow out a shadow of a person in the rock.
He remembered our experience in the miners' cave from that time and directly smashed the outer stone skin and then smashed the stone man to death. Then he squeezed into the crevice where the stone man had been moving and climbed all the way for several days. He finally found the way out. But he didn't expect that the crevice was so small that he couldn't squeeze out and had to wait there for four days before we showed up.
After listening to Fatty's account, I looked to the sky and felt extreme discomfort from the bottom of my heart.
It was a chill. An extreme chill, and I knew deeply where it came from.
Fatty's overall narration, including all the details, gave me a sense of déjà vu.
In fact, it wasn't only déjà vu, but something I knew by heart.
Fatty's experience in this cave was very similar to that
When Uncle Three was at the bottom of the sea, he also encountered a very strange situation. After he went to sleep, he found that all the people he was with had disappeared and his location had changed. He also discovered strange phenomena and left the place by himself.
I felt some confusion because I was a little uncertain about these things, but one thing I was almost sure of—whether it was in the undersea tomb, the Heavenly Palace, or here, the style of the "traps" was very similar.
According to previous investigations, almost all of these techniques originated from the ghost craftsman w.a.n.g Zanghai.
In those days, w.a.n.g Zanghai first repaired the Heavenly Palace, then built the undersea tomb for himself, and now, almost the same technology appeared here.
I had a lot of bits and pieces to determine, and I didn't know if w.a.n.g Zanghai was the source of these technologies. If he was, then he was really too good. But at the same time it was also possible that he was a very talented craftsman. When he helped the people of Eastern Xia repair the imperial tomb, he learned many structural designs and then used them in the construction of his tomb.
w.a.n.g Zanghai couldn't be alive now, so had his skill been pa.s.sed on to the Zhang family or to Yangs.h.i.+ Lei?
Geographically, the Zhang family was said to be a mysterious ethnic group in the northeast, close to the Heavenly Palace, while the Yangs.h.i.+ Lei family was located in Guangdong, close to Xisha.
There were two possibilities: the first was that when w.a.n.g Zanghai was active in Eastern Xia, he left or spread these technologies due to an accidental opportunity; the other was that these technologies were handed down to fishermen along the coast when w.a.n.g Zanghai was building his huge treasure s.h.i.+p for the undersea tomb.
I preferred the first one. The Zhang family used these technologies near the ancient building, which obviously fit better with the whole mechanism system. As for Yangs.h.i.+ Lei, all we had so far was that they designed this ancient building. We had only found a large number of architectural designs— not mechanical designs— which was very telling.
If we didn't return to the original moment, no one would know the truth of history.
I also thought of Poker-Face's extensive knowledge of the business, and there were all sorts of strange feelings in my heart. Fatty had said that he had a very definite hunch—the mechanism's structure here must be huge and all-encompa.s.sing, which was also why Poker-Face didn't find the trap. Similarly, when the whole room moved in the undersea tomb, Poker-Face didn't find it.
But I could almost be sure that with Poker-Face's IQ, even if he didn't feel the mechanism behind the operation, he should be able to guess the general situation based on his experience in the undersea tomb.
But why didn't he say anything?
He always had his own purpose, which was the key. I bet he could even guess the operation of the overall mechanism and proposed to look in the cave outside because he knew how to crack it when he saw it.
However, he was a person who wouldn't let others die, and he must have come back to save Granny Huo and the others and brought them into the ancient building. However, instead of bringing Fatty along, he sent him to another place.
What was the purpose of this?
He sent Fatty to a place where he would see them, so Fatty could know they were still alive. Was this so Fatty could convey this message?
There was no reason, since Fatty sending this message would certainly increase our efforts to save him. But if so, Poker-Face shouldn't be so stupid, he should at least leave a clear message.
I can't figure it out. Everything seems to indicate that he was trying to prevent Fatty from entering the ancient building.
This feels terrible. The only reason why Poker-Face wouldn't bring Fatty into the ancient building would be because he knew this was a journey with no return. However, with Poker-Face's skill and energy, his determination of whether to go back or not basically wouldn't change.
Poker-Face thinks they're going to die.
But Granny Huo and others were brought in. Did Poker-Face think it was ok for them to die? He and Granny Huo had a lot of memories I know nothing about, and the old woman in her nineties was still around. It seems that their respective problems are so big that they have to be solved, and it doesn't matter if they die.