Chapter Fourteen: Hair-Raising

  The mountain road is difficult to walk, and the dark night makes it even more painful to drill into the forest. Fortunately, Jun's watch has a compass, which almost got us lost several times. We were both beaten up with bruises all over our bodies. Originally, the journey of two or three hours, we actually walked for half the night, and when we estimated that we had arrived, we looked at the watch and it was already past 11 o'clock.

  In the depths of darkness, an unknown animal made a strange cry, which really tightened our nerves to the extreme. An owl followed us and cried out, and even after throwing several stones, it still didn't scare it away, following us instead, making the atmosphere more eerie than a horror movie scene.

  All the way, I only felt my scalp numb and my back cool. To overcome the fear brought by tension, I occasionally twisted my thighs to make myself angry with pain, using anger to overcome fear.

  And the qigong I'm practicing is still at a primary level, so I can't even see a chicken feather at night, it's completely useless.

  We stopped for a short while in a place with fewer trees, smoked a cigarette and wiped the sweat. Jin Gang handed me the bottle of wine, I waved my hand to decline, he took it himself and gulped down half the bottle.

  After we finished smoking, Jīn Gāng Pào started to take out the thing he brought from his bag, and I took over the flashlight in Jīn Gāng Pào's hand and adjusted the light to its strongest. Along the way, because of worrying about being discovered and also for saving electricity, I had adjusted the brightness of the flashlight to be very low.

  I turned around to hand the flashlight that adjusted the light to Jin Gang Cannon, and this turn around scared me out of my wits. A faceless thing held a machete in its left hand and a bayonet in its right hand, and spoke to me: "Old Yu, which one do you want?"

  "Damn it, you scared me to death! Take off that stocking!" I cursed, grabbing his right hand with the bayonet. This guy had quietly put the woman's stocking on his head, and when I took a close look, I almost fainted in shock.

  "Let's go, one knife to the neck, shrinking the neck is also a knife, sooner or later we have to go, let's harden our scalp and go." I inserted the bayonet into my back waist, took the flashlight and entered the cave.

  With the white light of two imported military flashlights, the cave was instantly bright as day. I raised my head and shone upwards, that dark entrance was still there, but it looked especially gloomy and terrifying at night, the hairs all over my body stood up involuntarily!

  "Grass, the more I fear, come, human ladder!" I shouted at the golden cannon.

  "Lao Yu, you support me this time, I'll go first." Jin Gang Pao had a generous and just expression.

  "That's all I need to hear from you, I'll come. If anything happens, I can run fast." I waved my hand and pointed at my feet.

  The coffin lid came over and pressed down on me, slowly pushing me upwards. When my head entered the tomb chamber, I didn't immediately turn over, but instead inserted the flashlight and shone it around in a circle. When the light shone into the northeast corner of the tomb chamber, I saw what I least wanted to see: a white-striped green giant snake coiled there motionless, its scales reflecting the light from my flashlight, making it very dazzling; the huge triangular snake head was as big as a washbasin, with a pair of eyes like white jade staring round and unblinking, on top of the snake's head was a cluster of bright red snake crown.

  Luckily I had mentally prepared myself, otherwise I would have been directly stunned by it. Even so, my two legs were still uncontrollably trembling. Jin Gang Cannon felt that something was wrong and slowly put me down, pulling me to run out of the cave like a fire burning on my butt.

  "Old Yu?" Jin Gang Pao anxiously shouted at me

  "I shivered and pulled out a cigarette from the pack inside, Jin Gang Pao helped me light it."

  "What to do? Let's go back, Old Yu, you can help me up to this step, brother I'll thank you for the rest of my life. Let's go back and think of another way, don't risk your life here." Jin Gang Pao heard my description of that giant snake and broke out in cold sweat! (Before we figure out this guy's true identity, let's call it Snake for now.)

  "Don't rush, I suspect it's hibernating. Otherwise, when I took a picture of it just now, it shouldn't have had no reaction at all." I analyzed calmly after stabilizing my tense emotions.

  "Hibernation? You must be kidding me, it's already June and it's still hibernating?" Jin Gang Cannon tilted his head to look at me.

  I turned around and found a few rocks the size of eggs nearby, and shouted at the cannon: "I told you, but you don't understand, send me up again."

  This time, I plucked up the courage to throw a stone in my hand towards the direction of the coiled giant snake. The stone fell into the empty tomb and made a clear "ding" sound. I hastily stretched out my sweaty right hand behind me and tightly grasped the 56 military dagger.

  No reaction! It didn't move!

  I took a deep breath, and then threw another big stone, this time I aimed before throwing it. The stone drew an arc in the strong light of the military flashlight and hit the huge body of the giant snake directly, making a weak and dull sound.

  It hasn't moved, it still hasn't moved. I took advantage of the situation and threw all the remaining small stones in my hand over there in one go. With a loud crash, that giant snake seemed to be sleeping, still not moving at all. I couldn't help but feel a wave of wild joy, and I bowed my head to say to Jin Gang Cannon, who was looking up at me: "It's hibernating!"

  "Lao Yu, it's almost summer now, how can it still be hibernating? Is it pretending to be motionless on purpose, waiting for us to get close and then attack?" Jin Gang Pao was very suspicious.

  "No, it shouldn't be that intelligent, no matter how cunning it is, it's still an animal, not a human. Maybe I used the word hibernation incorrectly, and dormancy would be more suitable. Do you want me to explain the difference between the two using the examples from the past three days? I was a bit angry when I analyzed it for him. Of course, I didn't have time to tell him about Lao Hu's and Hu Sanwang's experiences. Besides, even if I told him, with his arithmetic skills of not knowing one plus one equals ten, he probably wouldn't understand the rules behind it."

  I stamped my foot and he put me down, I took out the military canteen and gulped several mouthfuls of clear water. People always feel dry in tense situations. Jin Gang Pao brought out that bottle of Huangjiu again and took a few sips. After drinking the water, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.

  "Charge!" I shouted as I spurred my horse forward towards the Gatling gun.

  "Go die then." The Golden Cannon lifted his foot and stepped forward. I held my breath and sent him on his way.

  "Oh my god, it's so huge!" Despite having heard my description, the sudden terrifying scene still made Jin Gang shout out loud.

  "Pull me up" I sprinted and jumped, Jin Gang Pao quickly pulled me up.

  The two of us stood stupidly in a corner of the tomb, staring at the giant snake coiled in the northeast corner, and for a moment neither of us dared to make a sound.

  Nor did he know how long it took, but Jin Gang Cannon suddenly roared: "M, I'm here, what do you want to do?" He finally got angry, and anger can overcome fear, which is absolutely reasonable!

  "Hey!" I also shouted angrily.

  "Hah!" Following our cheering habit during training, Jin Gang Pa followed with a habitual phrase.

  For a moment, the two of us were bursting with energy. If someone who didn't know what was going on saw us looking so righteous and majestic, they would never think we were grave robbers - that attitude had a hint of "removing one's hat in anger and drawing one's sword to question heaven" heroic spirit!

  For our loud and soft calls, the giant snake still didn't react at all, as if it were asleep.

  "Kaigan" Jin Gang cannon this time like a different person, took out the wine bottle and drank a big mouthful, holding the wine bottle and rushing to the middle of the tomb chamber. I followed closely behind, pretending that the dangerous giant object on the side did not exist.

  The coffin was a stone sarcophagus, which appeared dark blue under the bright white light of the flashlight. I measured it with my footsteps, and it was about five steps long and two steps wide. Due to rigorous training, my stride had been maintained at approximately 75 centimeters per step, meaning that the coffin was roughly four meters long and less than two meters wide.

  I poked the stone coffin with my finger, and it felt icy to the touch. I withdrew my finger and looked at it, but there wasn't even a speck of dust on it. I bent down and circled around the coffin, but didn't find anything unusual - just an ordinary stone coffin with no carvings or patterns. It was a dark blue color all over. I felt around with my fingers to find the seam where the lid met the body of the coffin, and after a while, I finally found a faint joint on the upper half of the coffin.

  "Old Cow, I've found a coffin lid, hand me the crowbar!" I shouted to Golden Gun who was still pouring wine.

  Jin Gang Pao handed me the crowbar. I took it and started prying while giving Jin Gang Pao a preventive injection. "Old cow, after we open it up, who knows how ugly the corpse inside will be? Let's both mentally prepare ourselves."

  "Haha, Old Yu, you forgot that during the dissection class, nobody dared to make a move, it was me who made the first cut?" In order for us to understand the accurate location of human organs such as the heart, trachea, and pain nerves, so as to provide accurate and vivid data for our future combat skills, we took three anatomy classes. During the first class, nobody dared to make a move, it was Jin Gang Pao who went up and made the first cut.

  I tried prying it open a few times, but no luck, it was too tightly sealed.

  "I shouted towards the cannon: 'The ramrod can't be inserted, what to do?'"

  "Grass, what's going on? I'll take care of it!" This guy is drunk, his tongue is even stiff.

  He threw the wine bottle, walked three steps to the north side of the stone coffin, stepped down from his horse, and stretched out his arm to work up his energy. This guy was quite favored by his bald-headed captain in the engineering battalion, who had been secretly teaching him for a long time, and as a result, his hard qigong practice had achieved some remarkable results.

  He stretched out his legs and swung his arms, using all his strength. His two small arms and palms were stretched out to the left and right, clamping the stone coffin's sides, and with a sudden burst of force, he let out a loud roar: "Rise!" The heavy stone coffin lid was actually lifted up by him.

  "Damn it" he cursed again, and the coffin lid was thrown off its position.

  Immediately followed by another kick "roll". The coffin lid rolled under the stone platform, with a loud noise, stirring up a piece of dust.

  At the first moment, I shone my flashlight on the stone coffin. In a flash, I felt dizzy and my soul left my body. I was stunned! Only one thought remained in my mind: How could this be?

  Jin Gang Cannon triumphantly patted his hand, took out the flashlight and walked over to shine it into the stone coffin. "Wow" he exclaimed, his triumphant expression suddenly turning into terror. His hands shaking, he directed the strong light of the flashlight at me, who was staring blankly. "You... you..." I thought to myself, heaven! The person lying in the stone coffin was actually "me"!