But for now, there was nothing to be done. Begging the heavens or pleading with the earth was useless; he could only rely on his meager strength to drag the coffin over.

He looked at the coffin, then gazed at it for several seconds, as if cultivating some kind of relationship with it. He could almost hear himself speaking to it. "Brother Coffin," he murmured, "later on, your older brother is going to need your help to escape, so you need to cooperate when I hold you. Once I'm out, I promise to buy you a very fine coffin—no, scratch that, I'll buy you a very fine female coffin so you two can sleep together, how about that?"

Seeing that the coffin remained silent, he took its quietude as agreement. His confidence surged. He stood up, flexing his fists, and walked up to the coffin. He gave it one last scrutinizing look, then picked up the steel bar he'd dropped earlier and wedged it into the gap between the coffin and the ground. Then, summoning the strength of a nursing mother, he shoved the coffin forward.

The coffin had already split in two, so it wasn't as heavy now, and Lu Zong moved it with surprising ease. He wiped the sweat from his brow, feeling immensely grateful for his earlier negotiation with the coffin.

He redoubled his efforts, putting his back into it. Step by step, the coffin moved toward the entrance of the cave, until finally, the coffin and Lu Zong stood together below the opening.

Lu Zong let out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto the coffin to rest. He was panting heavily, drenched in sweat. The empty tomb chamber was filled only with the sound of his ragged gasps, making the place feel strangely unsettling. However, Lu Zong registered none of it; he was simply too exhausted.

Before he knew it, a strange dizziness washed over him. He tried to fight it, but his mind felt chaotic, as if something was swirling inside, making him lightheaded and desperate to sleep. He intended to resist, but the force was simply beyond his capacity to withstand. That intense physiological reaction had already hypnotized his nervous system. He gave up on staying awake, soothing himself: "Perhaps it's just because I'm too tired. Never mind, I'll just sleep for a bit!"

But as soon as he tried to sleep, he discovered he couldn't. That peculiar sound still echoed in his mind, like something spinning inside. He tried to focus on it, to see clearly, but every time he focused, the object would vanish. The moment he looked away, the sensation would rush back, filling him with terror and dread.

Unsure what to do, he simply stared blankly at the thing in his mind. Staring, in this case, meant channeling all his focus, all his imagination, onto picturing the shape of that entity.

Indeed, he realized the object was becoming clearer, piece by piece. He dared not look directly, only glancing at it peripherally, afraid that if he concentrated fully, the thing would disappear. He sensed it slowly extending five appendages. He pictured them and realized with astonishment that they were the four limbs and the head of a person. Only then did he understand it was taking a human form—perhaps akin to a newborn infant.

Suddenly, he saw the nascent figure begin to dissolve. Vanishing, the lower half started turning into something like fine dust, scattering in the air as its body swayed in an unseen breeze. Lu Zong desperately wanted to get a clear look at the person’s face, but the figure remained perpetually turned away from him; he couldn't see it at all. He could only wait quietly for an opportunity.

Finally, he saw the dust from the vanished parts slowly coalescing on the opposite side, gathering, as if shaping a mold, forming something new. Lu Zong could clearly sense the powder arranging itself according to a pattern. When the topmost part took shape, Lu Zong was struck dumb with terror.

He saw, suspended in the air across from him, his own skull. Below the head, more dust continued to gather, slowly forming his neck, chest, arms, and legs.

He suddenly noticed that the original figure was long gone, having transformed entirely into that dust.

He was too astonished to speak, unable to comprehend what any of it meant. He looked at the figure opposite him—motionless, expressionless, eyes tightly shut, resembling nothing so much as a newly born babe.

Lu Zong squeezed his eyes shut as if a realization had struck him painfully. When he opened them again, he scanned his surroundings and tears of sorrow streamed down his face.

He saw only pitch blackness in every direction, nothing visible even through his night-vision goggles. He held a finger before his eyes but could only perceive a vague outline.

The possibility that he had gone blind was essentially ruled out; now he had to consider whether something was obscuring his vision.

He reached out his hands to feel around and immediately encountered something soft and yielding. It felt quite slick and dense, and an overwhelming stench assaulted his senses. The first thought that flashed through his mind was: "Did I crawl inside that wet corpse?"

The thought brought on a wave of nausea, but he managed to suppress it. After all, ejaculating inside someone’s body was quite rude behavior.

His brain was reeling. How had he ended up inside someone else’s belly? But this was no time for panic; the most pressing task was figuring out how to get out of this stomach.

He paused to think, ultimately deciding to employ Gan Da’s tactic: shout for help. Whether the person who arrived was one of his own or not, having someone else there would at least alleviate some of the fear.

Struggling, he yelled out, "Gan Da! Ma Xiong! Where are you? Come save me!" But inwardly, he chuckled: yelling like that, anyone overhearing might think the child born to a corpse could already speak—a true prodigy.

Suddenly, he felt something hard press against his wrist. It caused sharp pain, and the sensation immediately cleared his senses. Waking up, he felt immense joy, constantly reminding himself: "Thank goodness that was just a dream."

He looked around, trying to get a clear picture of his situation, only to discover that his predicament was identical to what he’d seen in the dream. Disappointment washed over him. God always seemed to be playing jokes on him. If fate was determined to make him miserable, why offer a glimmer of hope? The crash from that high was the least of it; worse, it could shatter the resolve of others.

But how had he entered this belly? He remembered the dream.

Could what he dreamed have been real? At this moment, it felt less like a dream and more like an observation, because he hadn't truly been asleep. His nerves had merely blurred for a moment, akin to a mild anesthetic state where one can still vaguely perceive things. He was certain what he saw wasn't mere hallucination, or he wouldn't have ended up inside someone else's stomach. Could everything he witnessed actually have been true? He couldn't accept the logic of it. How could a person disintegrate into powder and then reassemble?

He dimly felt that the incident was strangely familiar, something he might have heard before. He cast his memory back and recalled a paper published recently in Time magazine by a renowned professor from a major American research institute. The paper discussed a technology the US was developing through some scientific means—a method mirroring the transfer technique seen in the science fiction film Star Wars, capable of relocating a person by altering their composition. To put it plainly, it involved using certain radioactive or chemical agents to scramble the elements of the human body, absorb them into a special medium, and then utilize cutting-edge condensation technology to reassemble those elements, thereby realizing the sci-fi fantasy of instantaneous transfer via a UFO.

Although this technology demanded extremely high scientific acumen and seemed highly improbable, nothing was absolute. Perhaps there existed a means to overcome the myriad difficulties, making the process of scrambling and reassembling a person no great feat.

"But how is this possible? How could the science in ancient times, so backward, possibly achieve a level unattainable even by contemporary technology?"

The more he thought, the less sense it made. He decided to stop, lest he blow his brains out before even getting out.

Getting out, however, was far from simple. He felt that the membrane, despite millennia of decay and rot, was still firmly connected, possessing remarkable flexibility. He could even feel the skin tremble beneath his touch.

Incredulously, he ran his hands over the surface. It was smooth and fluid, not nearly as repulsive as he had imagined. After struggling to tear it for a while, he realized pulling the skin apart was impossible. He resorted to shouting: "Ma Xiong! Gan Da! Help! For God's sake, help me!"

But after shouting for a long time, there was no reply. His throat was nearly raw, yet if he stopped shouting now, he would be stuck inside this corpse forever. If a corpse also required ten months of gestation, he would have starved to death long ago. Resignedly, he yelled again.

"Gan Da! Ma Xiong! Hurry up and save me!"

This time, there was a response. He heard footsteps from outside, the distinctive clicking of high-heeled leather shoes. Hearing that sound gave him a strong sense of security, as it was Ma Xiong’s signature stride.

He strained his throat and shouted: "Ma Xiong! Come save me quickly! It's Lu Zong!"

From outside, Ma Xiong roared back, "Lu Zong, where the hell are you? Stop playing games with me; this is serious!"

Lu Zong could only manage a wry smile. Who was joking? Damn it, God was playing games with him; he had no time for jokes.

He shouted again: "Ma Xiong, I'm inside the coffin! Hurry and save me!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt the coffin shudder, as if Ma Xiong were forcing it open. He sighed internally. There sure were a lot of coffins around here.

"That doesn't make sense either. It's very likely that I was sealed inside when I was leaning on the coffin to sleep," he mused to himself, settling on that as the explanation. This coffin must be the same one that trapped Gan Da, or there was no explaining this situation. But then, where did this female corpse he was inhabiting come from?

Before he could dwell on it, Ma Xiong's curses erupted from outside: "You idiot, you must be bored out of your mind, why the hell did you crawl inside a coffin? Ah... wait a minute, Lu Zong, what happened to you? You look like that?"

He looked up but saw only darkness. He realized Ma Xiong must have mistaken the female corpse enveloping him for himself. He quickly clarified: "Ma Xiong, I'm inside this corpse! Hurry and cut the female corpse open; I'm suffocating!"

There was a moment of silence from outside, followed by Ma Xiong's booming laughter: "Hahahaha, Lu Zong! A distinguished professor crawling inside someone else's belly—that's utterly shameful!"

Lu Zong had no energy for joking. He simply urged him again and again.