Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 60

The bronze cooking vessel cast a massive shadow under the light. The five bodies that should have been lying in that shadow had vanished completely, clothes and all. Even the bodily fluids left behind from decomposition and oxidation were gone.

A large hand named Fear gripped Tang Yu’s insides tightly. She mechanically turned her head to look at Song Lengzhu, feeling a sense of unreality, as if she were living in a dream.

What was happening? Was she hallucinating?

Song Lengzhu’s brow was tightly furrowed. It was the first time Tang Yu had seen such a grave expression on her face, which meant the current situation was not optimistic. It wasn’t a hallucination.

Before even activating her precognition, Tang Yu’s mind had already conjured countless possibilities of what might happen next—for instance, the corpses reappearing behind or above them to launch an attack.

It was better not to think about it. The moment she did, danger seemed to lurk everywhere. The hair on Tang Yu’s arms stood on end, and her muscles automatically tensed. The expression on her face was surely no better; not screaming out loud was the last shred of her fortitude.

“Fear clouds judgment. Calm down.” Perhaps sensing Tang Yu’s distress, Song Lengzhu spoke up to remind her.

Song Lengzhu’s voice was deep, not the high, thin pitch common among women, nor was it raspy or magnetic. It possessed a broader, fuller range, resonating from deep in her throat, which made it sound solid.

In the tomb chamber, such a voice had a magical, reassuring quality. Tang Yu’s consciousness returned a little, and she quickly activated her precognition ability.

Thank goodness there was someone else here. If she were trapped in this tomb alone, she would have scared herself to death before any corpse could kill her.

But contrary to her imagination, the bodies did not appear, much less attack them.

This brought no relief; instead, it made the situation even more bizarre, like a time bomb hanging over their heads.

Song Lengzhu was much more composed. She moved away from the stone door and walked toward the bronze vessel, intending to investigate.

Tang Yu reached out to grab her, then thought better of it and followed closely behind Song Lengzhu instead.

They had only taken two steps when a rumbling sound suddenly erupted from the stone door behind them, like a collapsing skyscraper, the echo reverberating violently.

When the two looked back, the stone door that had been opened was now closed again, fitting seamlessly with the surrounding stone wall as if it had never been opened.

Tang Yu felt something was off. When they first opened the door, it hadn’t made such a loud noise.

Now, the two of them were stuck, unable to advance or retreat. After a moment of indecision, Song Lengzhu decided to check on the anomaly of the corpses first.

Returning to the area behind the bronze cooking vessel, Tang Yu felt a sense of dislocation. The stone slab floor was perfectly clean, showing no signs that bodies had ever lain there. Song Lengzhu crouched down and wiped the stone floor with her index finger.

In the light, her finger was coated with a layer of fine stone dust. The floor was clearly still in its natural state of dust accumulation.

Inspired by this layer of dust, Tang Yu looked back at where they had been standing. The ground, which should have shown faint footprints, was completely bare. They had been walking around for so long; the dust should have been disturbed.

Song Lengzhu mused, “This isn’t the original tomb chamber.”

She examined some details on the cooking vessels, confirming her theory.

Although the items in the tomb chamber were identical, the degree of decay of the grains and soup was different. The new back chamber they were in now might have originally been in a better-ventilated location, as the signs of food decay were more pronounced.

The most direct evidence was that the entrance to the passage they had dug to get in was gone.

Now, the two could be certain that they had unknowingly triggered some mechanism in the tomb.

“They probably built identical chambers on the left and right, and a shift occurred at some point. There’s a mechanism here,” Song Lengzhu said as she walked. Thinking back, the only time the mechanism could have been triggered was when they moved the stone door.

Silent and masterfully crafted.

Song Lengzhu felt a headache coming on. She had originally thought this royal catacomb would just have a complex structure, but she hadn’t expected the tomb builders to include such ingenious contraptions. These mechanisms were certainly not made for the tomb’s occupant to play with; they were left for future tomb raiders.

This raised the tomb’s danger level exponentially. Mechanisms left for tomb raiders would not be gentle or harmless. If they couldn’t prevent people from entering, they would do everything possible to stop them from leaving.

If even the back chamber on the periphery was fitted with these frightening devices, one could only imagine how perilous the main tomb would be.

In complete contrast to Song Lengzhu’s growing gravity, Tang Yu’s heart finally breathed a sigh of relief. Just mechanisms, not reanimated corpses. That was much easier to accept.

But now their way back was gone. They could only brace themselves and move forward, hoping to reunite with their respective teammates as soon as possible to increase their chances of survival.

Tang Yu approached the stone door again. It hadn’t changed; it was the same as they had seen before.

As she pushed the stone door, Tang Yu devoted a part of her attention to observing the back chamber for any changes, but this time, the tomb chamber remained still.

The stone door flipped open as easily as before. Both of them sighed in relief. Although the door had made a terrifying noise earlier, it hadn’t sealed the tomb shut as they had imagined.

The back of the stone door was still carved with that bizarre mural. Tang Yu didn’t want to look at it a second time and stepped out into the tomb passage.

The passage before them was square and paved with stone tiles, each of a uniform size. The walls were lined with what appeared to be ever-burning lamps. Upon closer inspection, Tang Yu realized the lamps were held by kneeling attendants with human bodies and snake heads, their hands holding up bronze candlesticks. The lamps contained some kind of oil, its composition unknown, and were unlit. A lamp was placed on each side of the passage every meter.

Tang Yu’s camping lantern was sufficient, so she didn’t pay the lamps much mind. She stepped onto a square tile in the passage, paused for two seconds, and lifted her foot to another tile, but hesitated to put it down.

Since Song Lengzhu had warned her about mechanisms, Tang Yu was on her guard. She couldn’t deal with ghosts and gods, but she could handle mechanisms.

After feigning the motion of stepping down, her mind automatically played a scene of her being pierced by crossbow bolts.

This tile was a no-go. Tang Yu retracted her foot.

Song Lengzhu had been about to remind Tang Yu not to step carelessly, but seeing that she wasn’t truly reckless, she held her tongue. She stepped forward, subtly positioning herself slightly in front of and to the side of Tang Yu.

“Follow me,” Song Lengzhu said in a low voice. “If you’re unlucky enough to step on a trap, the first thing to do is run forward. The passage is narrow, so the traps won’t be set too densely. If you can run past it, you have a chance of survival.”

With that, she prepared to move forward.

Tang Yu was stunned. What was this? Was Song Lengzhu actually being kind enough to lead the way for her? No, she must find her clumsy and be afraid of being implicated if she triggered a trap.

Tang Yu was unwilling to be placed in the position of the weak. Besides, when it came to dodging traps, Song Lengzhu was definitely not as skilled as she was.

Tang Yu grumbled reluctantly and held her knife horizontally in front of Song Lengzhu, stopping her from moving.

Then, with an air of great importance, she crouched down, patting and touching the ground, tapping left and right with Startling Dragon, acting like an expert at finding traps.

Under Song Lengzhu’s skeptical gaze, Tang Yu stepped on five floor tiles in a row, completely unharmed.

Every time Tang Yu stepped forward, Song Lengzhu broke out in a cold sweat. But after five consecutive times, she hadn’t triggered any mechanisms. Looking at her winding path, it was clear it was the result of careful consideration, not a lucky fluke.

The way Song Lengzhu looked at Tang Yu changed, and she gradually came to believe that she was genuinely skilled with traps.

How many more surprises did this little zombie have that she didn’t know about?

Tang Yu, however, was not as relaxed as she appeared to Song Lengzhu. In her precognitive visions, this tomb passage was fraught with peril. Contrary to what Song Lengzhu had said, the traps in the passage were extremely dense. Three consecutive tiles were set with three different traps: crossbow bolts hidden in the side stone slabs, walls that would press inward, and even more bizarrely, the ever-burning lamps on both sides would suddenly light themselves, and the toxic gas from the smoke would cause people to lose their minds and run amok in the passage, ultimately triggering all the traps and dying a horrible death here.

What a vicious method.

Tang Yu glanced back at Song Lengzhu, her eyes filled with terror. She had overused her ability and was momentarily having trouble distinguishing reality from her visions. The image of a bl00d-soaked Song Lengzhu from one premonition still lingered in her mind.

Tang Yu shook herself back to the present, blinked, and saw Song Lengzhu watching her, safe and sound. For the first time, a feeling of joy arose in her. Why did this tall, straight figure look more and more endearing?

Song Lengzhu followed the tiles she had stepped on, walking toward her. In a moment, they were standing on the same tile again.

Tang Yu paused her advance. She needed a break. The oxygen in the tomb passage was already thin, and her prolonged use of her brain was causing a dull ache in her temples.

Taking advantage of the break, Tang Yu opened the camp chat to remind Jin Ye to be wary of traps in the tomb passages. Jin Ye and the others didn’t have such a heaven-defying ability, so their situation was clearly much more dangerous.

Jin Ye was stunned for a moment, then said, “Tomb passage? We haven’t reached a passage yet. We found the raider’s tunnel that Chen Deming dug earlier and came down into a room full of musical instruments.” As she spoke, Tang Yu heard a crisp sound, like metal striking metal, producing a melodious, ancient tone.

“What’s that sound?”

“Li Chengjian is striking the chime bells. We’ve been trapped in this chamber for a long time and haven’t found a door out. Everyone’s looking for a mechanism.”

Tang Yu was a bit surprised. By her calculations, Jin Ye should have arrived in the tomb before them, yet they hadn’t even left the first chamber.

“What about Chen Deming? If there’s no way out, shouldn’t Chen Deming be in your chamber too?”

Jin Ye replied, “That’s the strange part. There’s no sign of them here at all, even though the raider’s tunnel is directly above us.”

Tang Yu thought of the mechanism in the back chamber and explained it to Jin Ye. If the chamber they were in also had a duplicate like the back chamber, the door might be in the other room.

Having received the tip, Jin Ye hurried off to find a way out.

While Tang Yu was talking, Song Lengzhu remained silent, not interrupting. She knew Tang Yu’s team could communicate with each other, which meant Tang Yu wasn’t mute. Rather, the system had some setting that made their languages mutually unintelligible.

Seeing that she had rested enough, Tang Yu began a new round of pathfinding.

After another five steps, the light from the camping lantern finally illuminated the other end of the tomb passage, where another door stood. Unlike the previous stone door, this one had a colored painting instead of a stone carving. The vermilion and indigo colors were so well-preserved they looked as if they had just been painted. Who knew what kind of pigment was used, but the light made it shimmer and flow like fluorescent paint.

The painting depicted a group of nobles in magnificent robes, feasting and playing music. The fruits and fine wine were rendered with lifelike detail. Judging by the splendor of the scene, it seemed to be set in a palace. At the forefront of the image, the details of the court musicians playing their instruments were meticulously painted. But similar to the previous farming mural, these figures all had human bodies and snake heads, except for the man in splendid robes seated high on a jade palanquin in the upper right corner.

Thanks to this colored painting, Tang Yu could see clearly. The man wore a red robe and a yellow jade crown, with long, narrow facial features and a face like white jade. The snake heads on the people around him were also a dark red.

Tang Yu was shocked. The more she looked at the dark red snake heads, the more they resembled the red earthworms they had seen before.