Just then, Sa Dipeng suddenly woke up and said one sentence, pointing at the coffin, saying she was still alive. Could the "she" in this coffin refer to the Queen of Jingjue? Had the demon queen resurrected?

I couldn't help but look up. The lid of the coffin made from the Kunlun Divine Wood had cracked open by a slit at some unknown time. My heart leaped into my throat. Fatty and Shirley Yang were equally bewildered, all three of us clutching cold sweat in our palms.

If disaster was coming, it couldn't be avoided. Since the Queen of Jingjue’s coffin had opened, it was clearly aimed at us. Fatty raised his rifle, taking aim at the coffin, while I gripped my entrenching tool and black donkey hooves tightly, waiting to see what would emerge.

In that instant, my mind raced through seven or eight possibilities. Was the Queen a ghost or a zongzi? If a ghost, how to deal with it? If a zongzi, how to counter it? The stone beam was too narrow for maneuvering; how to retreat? I considered every scenario.

But apart from the lid shifting by a narrow gap, the coffin remained utterly still. Lingering like this was no solution. We had two choices now: either ignore any movement from the Queen’s coffin and retreat back across the stone beam to reconsider,

Or, take the offensive as a form of retreat: go forward directly and force the lid open, using the entrenching tool, black donkey hooves, and assault rifle to deal with whatever monster was inside.

My mind instantly made the judgment: the first path, while seeming safer, was unfeasible. Some sort of malevolent force was definitely lurking on that stone beam; the bizarre deaths of Sa Dipeng and Chu Jian were the best proof.

This devilish, mysterious power was poised, waiting for the right moment to eliminate us, the trespassers disturbing the Queen’s rest.

If we immediately tried to retreat, being ambushed on that narrow stone beam would leave us with absolutely nowhere to escape. At this point, we had no choice but to brace ourselves and go forward, hoping this beam over the bottomless pit wouldn't become our final resting place.

I glanced at Fatty and Shirley Yang. We shared the same resolve, nodding to each other, fully understanding our predicament. Even though nothing had happened yet, a situation of fighting with our backs against the wall had formed. Only by opening the coffin and identifying the enemy could we figure out how to react.

Fatty handed his assault rifle to Shirley Yang, telling her to be ready to fire at any moment. Then, he spat twice into his palms, signaling for me to join him in pushing the lid open.

Since several iron chains as thick as a man's arm bound the coffin, we couldn't slide the lid sideways; we had to push it forward, the gap the coffin itself had revealed also being at the front end.

Suppressing the unease in my heart, Fatty and I counted to three and shoved the coffin slab with all our might. This coffin, carved from the trunk of the Kunlun Divine Tree, retained much of its original form, with very few signs of artificial shaping; the bark looked almost new. If it hadn't shifted to create that small crack, it would have been difficult to tell where the lid began.

The lid wasn't overly heavy. With about seventy percent of our effort, the two of us managed to push it wide open. We were both wearing gas masks, so we couldn't smell anything inside. We saw a female corpse clad in a jade suit lying flat in the coffin. Other than that, the coffin was empty—no burial goods whatsoever.

This must be the Queen of Jingjue. She wore a black mask over her face, obscuring her features, and her body was entirely covered, so we couldn't tell the state of her skeletal remains.

This was the infamous Queen of Jingjue, rumored to be a ferocious demon? I cursed inwardly, "Damn it, even dead, she still has to play games and cover her face."

Fatty asked me, "Lao Hu, do you think Chu Jian and the others died because this Queen was causing trouble inside the coffin? Damn it, let’s rip off her mask and see if she’s the First Beauty of the Western Regions or a monster."

I said, "Fine, I want to see too. You pull off her mask, and I’ll prepare to jam a black donkey hoof into her mouth. If she really is a demon, she’ll get a dose of our evil-warding, demon-repelling black donkey hoof first." With that, I gripped a black donkey hoof in my hand, ready to thrust it toward the corpse's mouth.

Fatty rolled up his sleeves and reached out one hand, ripping off the Queen of Jingjue’s mask with a swish.

The Queen of Jingjue’s face was revealed: hair black as clouds, eyebrows drawn exquisitely, features delicate, eyes tightly closed, her complexion terrifyingly pale. Aside from that, she looked almost exactly like a living person.

Before this moment, I had imagined countless times what this Queen might look like—fat or thin? Blonde or blue-eyed? High-nosed or deep-eyed? But even if I imagined a million times, I never would have guessed that the Queen looked exactly like Shirley Yang... precisely as if carved from the same mold.

Fatty and I both gasped, "Ah." Neither of us had expected that the Queen would look precisely like Shirley Yang.

I didn't know what to do; my head was a chaotic mess. I turned to see Shirley Yang’s reaction, who was standing behind us providing cover. But when I turned, the Shirley Yang who had been standing there holding the gun was gone without a trace.

Could the body in the coffin not be the Queen, but Shirley Yang herself? Goosebumps rose all over my body. Waves of despair stimulated my cerebral cortex—sadness, fear, tension, helplessness, confusion—a multitude of complex emotions flooded my brain simultaneously. For a moment, my mind went utterly blank. Our opponent was too inscrutable; we were like meat on a cutting board, whether boiled, stewed, stir-fried, or deep-fried was entirely out of our hands; we were completely manipulated, and we didn't even know who our opponent was.

Just as I stood there helplessly, I suddenly felt a cold gust of wind brush past me, as if a chilling, spectral object was rapidly approaching. I thought, Here comes trouble, and swung my entrenching tool hard in a backhand chop. I felt the blade connect with a person. Focusing my eyes, I saw that half of Fatty’s head had been cleaved off by my swing. Blood sprayed out, and he collapsed with a thud, clearly dead.

I froze on the spot. What had I done? How could I have been so reckless? Had I truly been terrified out of my wits by that demon Queen? To think I had just killed my best brother! In that moment, my heart turned to ashes. This was it: out of the nine members of the archaeology team, five had died consecutively in less than a day. Even Fatty, with whom I had shared life and death, with whom I had a decades-long friendship, was gone, his head severed by my shovel.

Only I remained. What was the point of living? Perhaps my life should have ended back at Kunlun Mountain or on the Yunnan front line, saving me from mistakenly killing my most important companion. Even if I died, how could I face Fatty in the netherworld?

All hope drained away. My head felt like it was splitting open; I felt a chilling cold from head to toe. The only way out was death. I pulled my dagger from my waist, aimed it at my own heart, gritted my teeth, and thrust.

The instant the blade touched my skin, two gunshots rang out in my ears. A rifle bullet struck the edge of the dagger, knocking it from my hand onto the ground.

The surroundings suddenly grew misty, and I couldn't see anything clearly. Who fired? My mind was reeling; the more I thought, the less sense it made—all logic was inverted. Vaguely, I heard someone calling my name: "Lao Hu, hurry back! Run back!"

This voice was like a lightning strike in the dark. Although I still didn't understand what was happening, I instinctively felt that I had fallen into a trap. Damn it, had I been ensnared by sorcery?

Thinking this, I bit down hard, breaking my own tongue. My whole body shuddered, and I realized I was standing in the middle of the stone beam, not in front of the Queen’s coffin. The coffin at the end of the beam was perfectly intact. The Corpse Scented Arum on the coffin was in full bloom, its previously curled petals fully open, revealing the stamen in the center, pointed toward me like a radar dish.

And at the other end of the stone beam stood two figures: Fatty and Shirley Yang. They were jumping high in desperation, screaming for me to come back. Were they not dead?

Fatty yelled, brandishing his gun, "Lao Hu, what the hell is wrong with you? Hurry back!"

I had no time to think. I spun around and sprinted back, ripping off the gas mask from my head and spitting out the blood in my mouth. Only then did my mind return to normal.

I asked Fatty and Shirley Yang what had just happened to me. Fatty said, "**, you nearly scared me to death! Didn't you want to rush over and save Sa Dipeng? You had just reached the middle of the stone beam when you suddenly turned around. I don't know what happened to you, but you started wildly swinging your entrenching tool like you were sleepwalking, then you flailed your arms around for a long time. We couldn't get your attention no matter how loud we yelled. Then you took out a dagger trying to kill yourself. I tried to stop you, but I was too slow, so I had to fire two shots to knock the dagger from your hand. What is wrong with you, kid? Are you possessed by a ghost?"

I looked back at that narrow, long stone beam. Considering the sequence of events, I finally understood. Everything I had just experienced was an illusion manufactured by that demonic flower, the Corpse Scented Arum. Damn it, it was trying to trick me into suicide.