The instant the candle sputtered out, a chill instinctively touched my skin, though I quickly reminded myself, "It’s just a normal physical phenomenon; the wick has burned down, nothing to fear. If it were still lit after burning down, that would be cause for alarm."

Just then, we heard a dull thud from behind us. Fatty and I immediately tensed, ready to draw our weapons and turn to see what it was, only to find Da Jinya slumped on the floor, his face utterly drained of color as he stared at the extinguished flame.

This was all Fatso's fault; whenever he boasted, he’d embellish the tales of tomb raiding until Ghost Blows Out the Light sounded like an actual nightmare. Da Jinya was nothing more than a crooked merchant on the surface, untested by real peril. Now, deep within this grim underground palace, the sudden darkness caused by the extinguished candle had utterly terrified him, leaving him trembling uncontrollably.

I tucked the trench knife I held into my belt, reached out, and pulled Da Jinya up, offering what comfort I could. "What’s wrong, Master Jin? It’s nothing. Aren't Fatty and I here? With the two of us present, not a single hair on your head will be harmed. Don't be scared."

Seeing nothing amiss beyond the candle wick having burned itself out, Da Jinya finally managed a shaky breath. "Shameful, truly shameful. I... I wasn't exactly... afraid. I just thought about... my whole family, entirely dependent on me for support, and I got a bit... overwhelmed..."

I waved a hand at him; this wasn't the time for talk. I relit another candle on the ground, and the three of us moved forward a few paces. This time, the 'figure' standing in the southeast corner had entered the beam of our Wolf Eyes flashlights.

It turned out that obscured by the candle flame, what had been standing fixedly in the southeast corner of the Underworld Hall wasn't a person at all. It was indeed a face, a human face, but unexpectedly, it was carved from stone.

The stone face was a relief sculpture on a massive stone sarcophagus. This sarcophagus was immense. I swear, when we first bored through the entrance shaft into the Underworld Hall, the space had been completely empty. There was absolutely, positively no sign of this great stone coffin. It, much like the stone wall sealing the entrance shaft, seemed to have materialized out of thin air.

Fatty, Da Jinya behind me, and I were all utterly bewildered by the sudden appearance of this gigantic stone coffin in the hall. We took a few more steps closer to examine it.

The sarcophagus was about 3.5 meters long and 1.7 meters high, constructed entirely from massive stone blocks. Save for the base, the sides and the lid were all adorned with a gigantic human face in relief. The entire structure was a uniform gray, lending it a heavy, oppressive aura.

This human face seemed to be the sarcophagus’s decoration. The features were clearly defined, ordinary in proportion, save for slightly larger ears and eyes staring straight ahead. There was no discernible expression on the face. Even though it was just a carved stone countenance, it exuded an unsettlingly cold and bizarre elegance.

Initially, when we saw the stone face from the passage leading from the main hall to the Underworld Hall, distanced by the flickering candlelight, we hadn't realized it was a carved stone countenance, nor had we noticed the presence of the massive sarcophagus lurking in the darkness.

Now that we saw it clearly, the human face on this sarcophagus felt far more frightening than any ghost or zombie we might have anticipated. We were mentally prepared for the latter, but we never, under any circumstance, expected this thing to pop up.

Fatty turned to me. "Old Hu, what the hell is this monstrosity? The craftsmanship looks ancient. Do you think it’s come to life? How else could it suddenly appear on the floor? We might have misremembered the murals, maybe, but such a huge stone object—we scrutinized this Underworld Hall when we first entered—and yet we never saw it. Isn't that seeing a real ghost?"

I told Fatty, "Don't talk nonsense. This looks like a stone outer coffin meant to hold a burial container. This ancient tomb is bizarre in every respect. I have no idea where it crawled out from." I then asked Da Jinya behind me, "Master Jin, you’re worldly and experienced. Can you make sense of this sarcophagus?"

Da Jinya, who had been hovering behind Fatty and me, replied, "Master Hu, this sarcophagus looks like it’s from the Shang or Zhou dynasties." He shone his Wolf Eyes beam onto the bottom of the sarcophagus. "Look here, it even has the Yun Lei Wen pattern typical of the Western Zhou. I’ll stake my life on it, there is nothing like this from the Tang Dynasty."

Though I’d dabbled in antiques for a while, I mostly dealt with Ming and Qing artifacts. I hadn't encountered much from before the Tang era, let alone anything from the Shang or Western Zhou.

Hearing Da Jinya claim the sarcophagus was Western Zhou made things even stranger. I said to him, "If I recall correctly, shouldn't we be in the Underworld Hall of a Tang Dynasty tomb right now? How can a Western Zhou stone coffin be inside a Tang tomb?"

Da Jinya responded, "Well... don't look at me. I'm starting to get confused too. We’ve explored this tomb extensively. Looking at the layout of the chambers and those murals of the plump palace maids, it screams of a grand Tang burial. The craftsmanship confirms it. However... I must admit, this sarcophagus is definitely not Tang Dynasty work."

Fatty interjected, "Enough arguing. We couldn't possibly be mistaken; all three of us remembering it wrong is impossible. I don't think this stone... whatever-coffin is worth anything valuable. I feel completely uneasy in this hall. Let's quickly figure out a way out. Whatever dynasty it belongs to, it has nothing to do with us."

I countered, "No, look at the stone material of this sarcophagus; it’s strikingly similar to the large stone slab that sealed the entrance shaft. And both appeared out of nowhere, stealthily. If we want to find a way out, we must figure out what's going on."

Da Jinya pleaded, "Master Hu, I agree it’s better not to look too closely. We can't go back through the entrance shaft, but we can still take the middle cavern route, right? I suspect the Mojin Xiaowei who came in before us left through that labyrinth of caves. Even though legend says it’s a massive maze, we have a compass, so getting lost shouldn't be too big of a worry."

I nodded. "I know. Besides the compass, we have glutinous rice and long ropes we can use as markers. But that cavern network is of unknown depth; getting out might not be easy either. What worries me most is that this path might also suddenly sprout strange things like these stone walls and sarcophagi. Damn it, where are these Western Zhou objects coming from?"

As I spoke, a memory suddenly surfaced. In the small village near Pan She Po, the old couple who hosted us mentioned that there was no Tang Mausoleum in these mountains, but rather a legendary Western Zhou tomb. And this human-faced stone coffin was indeed a relic from the Western Zhou period. Could it be that we weren't in a Tang Mausoleum after all, but a Western Zhou tomb? If so, how could the Tang Dynasty murals and the layout of a Tang tomb be explained?

My head ached trying to puzzle it out. No amount of grave-robbing experience could account for this. What we faced was a completely incomprehensible phenomenon: how could a Western Zhou human-faced sarcophagus suddenly appear in the middle of an abandoned Tang mausoleum?

Da Jinya remained deeply uneasy. He was usually fearless, driven entirely by money—a thorough materialist. He wasn't overly superstitious and rarely believed in ghosts or deities. If forced to choose between wealth and the divine, he would choose money a hundred times over. After all, dealing in antiques, especially funerary objects, required a degree of secular pragmatism. The golden Buddhas and jade Guanyins he wore were merely for psychological comfort.

Yet now, facing these inexplicable events, even Da Jinya was faltering. He couldn't help but ask me, "That stone wall that suddenly appeared in the entrance shaft—could that be... a 'Ghost Wall'?"

I was just beginning to form a line of thought, not yet clear, when Da Jinya interrupted me. I told him, "A Ghost Wall? We’ve never encountered one, but I hear it's like a localized delirium where you walk in circles. Even though a stone wall materialized out of nowhere in the shaft, that should be a different phenomenon than a Ghost Wall."

Fatty urged from the side, "Old Hu, hurry up! If you say we're retreating now, let’s not stand here. If you think we absolutely have to find out what this human-faced box is, Fatty and I will figure out how to pry it open."

I didn't answer Fatty immediately. I cautiously reached out and pushed the human-faced sarcophagus. It was sealed tight with stone tenons, requiring great force even with an iron bar. Moreover, if there happened to be a Zongzi inside, releasing it wouldn't be easy to handle. I glanced again at the strange human face carved on the lid and decided it was best left alone.

We had originally only come in hoping to grab a small score. If we didn't find anything valuable, so be it; the main goal was to avoid unnecessary trouble and just find a way out. Weighing the pros and cons, I decided it was better to ignore this bizarre human-faced sarcophagus.

Having made up my mind, I told Fatty and Da Jinya to forget the coffin and return the way we came. If necessary, we’d backtrack through the Longling Cave labyrinth. If we stayed any longer, who knew what else might manifest here.

Da Jinya was eager for this plan and couldn't wait to get far away from the sarcophagus. The three of us turned to leave. Da Jinya, leading two large geese on tethers, jumped first into the entrance shaft in the center of the Underworld Hall. Fatty followed right after. I cast one last look at the candle still burning in the southeast corner, braced my hands on either side of the shaft opening, and jumped down.

We had thoroughly scouted this section of the shaft on our way in: it was a sloping passage at a forty-five-degree angle leading straight down to the center of the Underworld Hall. As we crawled downward along the slope, each of us felt something was wrong. How had the inclined shaft turned into level ground? We swept our flashlights around and were struck dumb: we were crawling across the floor of a different tomb chamber. Strange, bizarre rock paintings of human faces surrounded us; this was definitely not the original entrance shaft.

The three of us exchanged looks, unable to stop the silent question forming in our minds: "What in the hellish underworld is this place?"