Bronze artifacts that have never been submerged in water, when circulated in the human world to this day, are characteristically purple with cinnabar spots on the bottom, and these spots may even be raised, like top-grade cinnabar. If these are boiled in a large pot with boiling water, the longer they cook, the more pronounced the markings become. If they are fakes, this test will cause the spots to boil away, making them very easy to distinguish.

I saw that this bronze chest was translucent to the bone. When I shone my military flashlight on it, the faint light flowing across it made it seem almost transparent. I guessed it was likely an ancient object buried underground or salvaged from water. Could this be the bronze chest beneath the Huang Daxian Temple? Just from what I’d heard, there were many legends about this object, but seemingly none that explained it clearly.

My thoughts drifted for a moment. Fatty grew curious and raised his hand to lift the lid and look inside. I actually wanted to see what was going on too, but I knew this was no trivial matter; heaven knows what disaster might be hidden within. So, I quickly pressed down on the bronze, saying, "Finding medicine is the priority. What's so interesting about these broken-down relics of the 'Four Olds'? Don't forget how many people in this research institute died mysterious deaths. It’s better not to touch this thing." However, my hand subconsciously pressed down on the bronze chest and I felt it was extremely light. With just a little push, it wobbled, indicating it was empty. Whatever was taken out of it might still be left in this building.

I pushed the bronze chest, its green patina ingrained to the bone, causing it to sway. The bronze itself had long been scoured away by water and soil, leaving only a fraction of its former substance in the metal framework, hence its lightness. It felt hollow, containing nothing at all, which wasn't unexpected. If the Japanese found the ancient artifacts by hiring local bandits, they certainly wouldn't have stored them sealed; they must have opened it as soon as they got their hands on it.

There were many people who died violently in the research institute. Judging from the Russians' final letters, a major incident occurred shortly after the Ni'er Society transported the bronze chest from the mountains. Although we couldn't confirm that the cause of death for these people was related, it was highly likely connected. Even though everything in this building was silent now, and the Yellow Weasels that meant us harm had already been dealt with, we still had to stay here for some time. We absolutely could not afford to be careless. Perhaps something that could serve as a clue remained in this empty chest. Understanding it might better prepare us psychologically for whatever we might encounter next.

With that thought, I no longer stopped Fatty. I let him lift the lid and shone the military flashlight inside. It was indeed empty. Only some black sawdust remained at the bottom of the chest. We exchanged glances, silent, unable to guess what this object signified. Fatty casually kicked the bronze chest aside. We intended to continue searching this storeroom for medicine. So, we told Ding Sitian to sit on a wooden crate by the door to rest for a while, and Old Sheepskin stayed there to watch her.

Old Sheepskin was truly diligent. I had just asked him to sing to keep Ding Sitian’s spirits up, and he was still humming and singing non-stop. Amidst his hoarse rendition of the "White Horse Tune"— "Riding a white horse, running on the beach, I have no wife, and you have no man, let’s bind ourselves together like a string of garlic. Hū’er hei you, born of the earth and rotting in the earth..."—Fatty and I searched with our lights, breaking open one wooden crate after another, only to be shocked by what we found inside every one.

The strangest thing was a black wooden box I found in one of the crates. Inside the box was a glass bottle, its body lustrous and new, yet clearly an antique. Stored inside the bottle was a large, cyan-colored skull. The mouth of the bottle was only seven or eight centimeters wide, but the skull’s diameter was nearly thirty centimeters. I couldn't figure out how it got in, nor what purpose the bottle served.

There was also a black ancient ceramic jar, its surface covered in all sorts of archaic Chinese talismans. It looked unremarkable, yet it was preserved and sealed with extreme care and rigor, suggesting it was highly valuable. This jar reminded me of a story I once heard: before the Liberation, an antique dealer in Beijing was acquiring old items in the countryside. He unintentionally bought a black jar from a farmer, inscribed with many ancient seal scripts that looked like magical incantations. He didn't pay much for it, acquiring it incidentally while buying other antiques. But the jar had an unpretentious shape and a deep black color. Although its age and origin were unclear, the dealer treasured it and didn't sell it; instead, he kept it at home to hold water for his flowers.

One severe winter, when the cold was so intense that water turned to ice, the antique dealer was busy with business that day and forgot to empty the water from the jar. Later, when he remembered, he assumed the black jar would have cracked from the freezing. To his surprise, when he checked the next day, everywhere water had been in the courtyard was frozen solid—except for the pitch-black jar. The dealer found this very strange, so he refilled it with water and tested it again. It still didn't freeze even a bit all day. Even sticking his finger into the jar on a snowy day, he could feel the water inside wasn't even cold.

If hot soup or tea was poured into this ancient jar, it remained as if it had just been taken off the stove within the span of a day. From then on, the merchant knew this was a treasure and valued it immensely. Later, while drunk one time, he accidentally knocked the jar off the table onto the ground, shattering it into several pieces. He discovered the shards were no different from ordinary pottery, but there was a cavity—a double wall—between the two layers. Engraved in this space was the "Ghostly Craftsman Kindling Fire Diagram." The craftsman had a blue face and bared fangs, holding a fan to guide the fire, carved with extreme beauty and detail. The craftsmanship seemed beyond human skill; it could only be described as miraculous. However, no one at the time could say for certain what era this ancient jar belonged to.

I heard later that there was a theory suggesting that objects externally carved with spells and internally engraved with underworld spirits were exclusively made in secret by Chenzhou in Western Hunan, and the craft had long since been lost. What could be seen now was almost never complete; any fragments discovered were almost always excavated from ancient tombs. At the time, I dismissed the story entirely, thinking it was much like the tale of the magic gourd. But seeing this jar here, it was remarkably similar to the folk legend I had heard. Examining the past against the present, every detail matched. It seemed many of the crafts and wisdom of the ancients had indeed been lost, leaving modern people only with admiration.

But at that time, though I found the items novel, I didn't believe they had any value. They all fell under the category of the "Four Olds," so I glanced at them casually and put them back where I found them. By then, Fatty had also looked through quite a few things and shook his head at me, signaling he had found nothing useful.

Fatty scratched his head in confusion and said to me, "What kind of bizarre things are stored in this place? Nothing can be eaten or drunk; not a single thing is useful." I replied, "It looks like these items were all dug up by tomb robbers, most likely the good deeds of the Ni'er Society, or maybe some were confiscated from common folk. They are antiques regardless, and I noticed that these broken, old objects share a common characteristic: they must have been searching desperately, as if scraping the earth, for one important item—very likely the Soul-Summoning Bronze Chest from the murals in the Hundred-Eyed Cave. Look, most of these artifacts were stored inside bronze chests or wooden boxes, and there were even a few bronze coffins, probably also dug up by mistake because they resembled the bronze chest related to this place. The things we need won't be in here."

Seeing that the storeroom yielded nothing, we had no choice but to search elsewhere for medicine. All four of us were injured and utterly exhausted, so we couldn't move quickly. Although we were burning with anxiety, we could only shuffle forward slowly along the corridor, step by agonizing step. Power cables ran throughout this building, but the electricity was out. We didn't know what powered the movement and generation within these structures. Finding antidotes and first aid was more crucial, leaving no time to look for power equipment. Fortunately, we had two flashlights that worked intermittently, so we weren't completely in the dark.

Ding Sitian, slumped on Fatty’s back, drowsily asked me if there were ghosts in this building. I advised her not to let her imagination run wild, suggesting that the previous hauntings might have all been the work of those two old Yellow Weasels. But in my heart, I too was pondering: this structure was built directly beneath a mountain cavern. Looking from the outside, one could see several giant stone beasts buried in the cross-section of the hillside soil—exactly like the legends of the Ghost Yamen described it; they said that spot was the entrance to the Gate of Hell. Thinking of that black ancient ceramic jar, I felt that some legends weren't entirely groundless. A name given must have a reason. Since it was called the Ghost Yamen, could there really be ghosts inside that mountain cave?

I secretly told myself to stop bringing up these matters. Talking about whether there were ghosts too often would conjure them up even if they weren't there. Although the corridor was dark, I figured it must be early morning now, and ghosts certainly wouldn't appear in daylight. While finding reasons to keep my own composure, I checked and rummaged through the rooms one by one.

The research institute’s underground facilities were divided into two levels; the bottom floor was far larger than the first. The corridors were marked with red painted numbers. This area was probably a secure facility. Without these numbers, it would be very easy to get lost inside. However, since we had reached the core area of the institute, saving Ding Sitian’s life rested entirely on this endeavor, so we had to conduct a thorough, sweeping search.

I also had a nagging doubt: the Japanese military wouldn't have constructed such a massive secret research facility just for developing poison gas and bacteria. There were likely more astonishing secrets and research projects hidden here. But these matters were too complex, and what we had seen and heard was merely the tip of the iceberg; we had no leads whatsoever. The more I thought about it, the more my head ached, as if countless small insects were crawling and biting inside my skull. Lost in these thoughts, I unknowingly followed the other three to the end of a wide passage where there was a large, perfectly circular iron door, marked conspicuously with a red symbol: "0."

The iron door was half-open, neither fully closed nor locked. This door was completely different from the portals we had seen nearby. These underground rooms varied in size and purpose, and looking along the way, there seemed to be no discernible pattern. I swept the flashlight beam into the opening; it was pitch black and seemed very deep. The space was much larger than I had imagined, so I decided to venture in to look for poison. But the specific conditions inside were unknown, and I didn't know if there were dangers, so I asked Fatty to wait by the entrance for support while I went in alone to scout the path.

Fatty’s wound started hurting again. He clutched his neck and said to me, "You only have one good arm left, and you still want to play the hero? You should understand that the strength of the collective is invincible. Just let me go in with you. Let the poor and lower-middle peasants stay behind to look after Sitian; what else could we worry about?"

We had entered from outside, and although there were many corpses in this building, we hadn't encountered any immediate danger. If something were inside Door "0," I, in my current condition, really couldn't handle it. If I let Fatty go in alone, his recklessness would make it even more dangerous. It would only be safer if he and I partnered up, covering each other. After considering this, I agreed.

We left the Kangxi Precious Blade with Old Sheepskin, telling him to look after Ding Sitian and not to enter no matter what happened inside. We wouldn't go too far; we would return immediately after assessing the situation. Then, I took the scabbard, and Fatty took the Weasel Pistol with its remaining two bullets. The two of us pulled open the iron door and walked in, one after the other.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, I felt my legs go weak. I shone the military flashlight down and saw that the ground was indeed not cement but covered entirely in red soil. I poked the soil a few times with the scabbard; the layer was so thick I couldn't reach the bottom. The ground was uneven with ridges and dips, actually resembling a vegetable garden.

The air inside was damp and cold, and it seemed saturated with impurities. Although breathing didn't feel abnormal, it interfered significantly with the range of the military flashlight—the illumination distance was nearly halved. The light was almost swallowed by the darkness. We dared not venture deeper carelessly. We felt our way along the iron door marked with the "0" symbol to the wall. Surprisingly, the walls here were made of adobe bricks, curving to meet the ceiling, making the spacious underground chamber high in the center and sloping down at the sides. The adobe bricks drew inward layer by layer, overlapping and stacking, resembling a kiln or a cellar more closely in shape.

Fatty and I assumed this was a Japanese vegetable cellar, but something felt wrong. There were many lumpy protrusions on the adobe bricks, connecting into patches, as if something had been plastered onto the wall with mud. Upon seeing this, I estimated we wouldn't find any medicine here either. This didn't feel like a place of storage; who knew what bizarre business it was used for? It was better to retreat and try to find another place.

Just as we were about to exit, we suddenly heard a sound from overhead. A gust of cold wind struck us, and we quickly ducked down. In the short beam of the flashlight, we saw a pale, white figure hanging upside down from the ceiling. We couldn't see where the person's feet were attached; only two hands and a head dangled upside down before us, swaying slightly as if reaching out to grab someone.

Fatty and I simultaneously gripped the scabbard and thrust it against the figure's head, pinning it to the wall. The military flashlight on my chest illuminated the person's face perfectly. It was not the face of a living person at all—it was shockingly white and so desiccated it was beginning to cave in. The fingernails on both hands had grown so long they were curled, twitching faintly.

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