Daomu Biji: A Thousand Faces

Soon, Ah Tou reached an intersection. She flicked the lighter on and was surprised to find that there was more than one route to choose from. The tunnels below this village seemed like a groundhog's underground network since they extended out in all directions.

But she wasn’t afraid of getting lost at all. Not only did each tunnel look very different to her, but she also had a photographic memory. The only problem was, she didn’t know which one Liang Yanyan had been dragged into.

Ah Tou flicked her lighter on again and leaned against the tunnel wall. She was completely covered in damp mud by now. She lit a cigarette and used Liang Yanyan’s method to test the air flow. If it was Liang Yanyan, which way would she go?

It was a simple strategy, but she soon realized that it was wrong.

This method could only determine where Liang Yanyan wanted to go, not where the monster had dragged her to.

Ah Tou began to examine the tunnel walls, thinking that there should be some fresh scratches on the walls if something had been dragged here. As expected, she found some new traces in one of the tunnels. She headed that way and continued moving forward, but the path soon began to descend and eventually became a vertical well.

If she were a professional gangster, she would’ve immediately known after seeing this well that she had to give up because she wouldn't be able to quickly climb up if she encountered any danger at the bottom. And even if she found Liang Yanyan, she had to ensure that the two of them could climb out of the well without something pursuing them while also staying conscious and not disturbing any other monsters. 

Under the present situation, it was difficult to achieve. If she rushed down and happened to startle a monster, she would have nowhere to escape to.

But Ah Tou didn’t have any experience with this kind of thing, so she carefully and unhesitatingly attempted to make her way down little by little, pressing her feet up against the well walls. After about ten minutes, she finally reached the bottom. 

There was a narrow room at the bottom of the well, but Ah Tou didn’t immediately jump down into it. Although her feet were trembling on the well walls, she made herself listen for a while. She didn’t hear any breathing sounds below, so she flicked her lighter on and inspected the room. 

She immediately recognized that it was a tomb. It was a very small tomb chamber that appeared to be a modern grave. It was the kind that was used in the 1980s and made of cement.

Ah Tou actually wasn’t knowledgeable enough to know that this was a tomb right off the bat, but she realized what it was because there was a coffin inside. After she jumped down, Ah Tou found that this tomb was different from other tombs because it was very long and had a long, decayed coffin inside of it.

The tomb was only half a man’s height and nobody else appeared to be around. The coffin was about six meters long and rotten to such an extent that it looked like a hollowed-out tree trunk. The inside was empty and not a single bone could be seen. The cement walls around the tomb had already been destroyed and there were big holes everywhere that continued leading downward. 

Since the room was surrounded by cement, the air was relatively dry. Ah Tou stopped to rest and have a smoke. As she squatted down and looked at the tomb’s ceiling, she saw many auspicious phrases had been made using moulds. Some said things like “May God Bless You” and “Western Immortal Island”. Indeed, this was a modern tomb of no more than twenty years.

This should be Long Immortal’s grave, Ah Tou thought to herself. Didn’t they say he died in the end? I found his grave here, but the coffin is empty. There are also a bunch of holes here, but I don’t know where they lead to. Could it be that after he died, his corpse revived and crawled out of the coffin, digging this underground network of tunnels?

Ah Tou explored the tomb a little more but didn’t find anything except for some traces of something being dragged down into one of the holes. She had a bad premonition. It took such a long time to get here. Can a person even be dragged through tunnels for so long? Won’t they break their neck?

But if it’s Liang Yanyan, she should be able to survive this, Ah Tou thought to herself. She flicked her lighter off and continued crawling into the darkness. The tunnel was still heading downward, and after climbing down a few steps, Ah Tou suddenly changed from a lunatic to a normal person. It was as if she were suddenly coming to her senses after driving in a daze for a very long time. She was stunned and thought to herself, what am I doing?!

Why am I in this hole and all covered in mud? How deep underground am I? Won’t this place collapse? My fingernails are all cracked!

Oh.

She finally remembered that she was on her way to save someone.

Am I even capable of saving someone?

Liang Yanyan was someone who could jump from the first floor to the second floor, but she was also defenseless when she was dragged away and disappeared in less than a second. 

Wait, but I had nothing to do with this from the very beginning. I was just there to draw a sketch.

Am I even obligated to save my bodyguard?

After thinking about it, Ah Tou’s desire to turn back and leave rose up. But after taking a few deep breaths, her mind went blank again and she began crawling forward.

I'm really crazy. There seemed to be a rational voice within her telling her that she was crazy, but this voice was somehow drowned out by something else.

At this time, she realized that the path in front of her was blocked. She flicked her lighter on and saw that there was a dead end in front of her.

When she took a second look, however, her hair suddenly stood on end and she immediately drew back a few steps. She found that it wasn’t actually a muddy wall in front of her, but someone’s mud-covered back. 

She immediately extinguished the lighter, leaned against the tunnel wall, and covered her mouth. After leaning there for a while—probably about a dozen seconds—she suddenly realized that what she was leaning against was warm. She felt behind her with her hand and was surprised to find that the cave wall she was leaning against had the texture of human skin. 

She touched it again and felt that the skin moved, almost as if there was a sudden muscle contraction. Ah Tou immediately flicked the lighter on, turned around, and saw that the wall she had been leaning against was moving like a snake. At this time, a hand reached down from a tunnel above her, pinched out the flame, and pulled her up to a platform. 

She could feel great strength from that hand and knew right away that it was a man’s hand. Ah Tou recalled what she had seen in that tenth of a second before the flame was extinguished and recognized the scar on the man's hand. 

It was Black Glasses’ hand. 

Black Glasses' feet were straddling the two sides of the fork in the tunnel above her, which was actually a well-shaped passage. As Ah Tou was pulled up and put directly on his back, she stayed silent. She was surprisingly calm given the situation, or maybe dull was a better word for it. She found that she was very dull because she couldn’t even feel what she was feeling at the moment.

There was a sudden “click” in the silent tunnel. She thought of all the various things that could happen in the darkness—something touching her from below or Black Glasses taking her out of here—but she didn't expect to see a light appear below her.

She looked down and saw that there was a hand with very long fingers and huge joints holding onto Liang Yanyan’s flashlight.