The Fatty, speaking as he went, pulled a brocade pouch from the embrace of the dried corpse, shaking its contents onto the ground one by one, trying to see if there was anything of value left.

Da Jinya lay on the ground, eyes wide and staring blankly, clearly overcome by fright and not yet recovered. My whole body ached and felt ready to fall apart. Although I worried about other Man-Faced Giant Spiders nearby, I couldn't leave immediately. Seeing the Fatty suddenly discover a Mojin Talisman on a nearby desiccated body, I told him to toss it over for me to examine.

The Fatty, preoccupied with rummaging through the corpse's belongings, casually tossed the "Mojin Talisman" in front of me. I picked it up and held it closely. The Mojin Talisman was dark and translucent, gleaming with a lustrous sheen under the firelight. Its tip was sharp and keen, and the conical lower section was inlaid with several coils of gold thread, fashioned into the pattern of a "Subterranean Vein." The body of the talisman was engraved with the ancient seal characters for "Mojin." Holding it, I felt a distinct coolness, a substantial texture.

This was absolutely an authentic "Mojin Talisman." It required soaking the sharpest claw of a pangolin in Xuan La for forty-nine days, then burying it a hundred meters deep in the earth beneath a Dragon Tower for eight hundred days to draw upon the spiritual energy of the earth's veins. It was the certificate of qualification for a genuine Mojin Xiaowei. I had only ever seen one true "Mojin Talisman" before, carried by Shirley Yang. Da Jinya had once given me and the Fatty two counterfeits, and compared to the real article, the fakes were instantly discernible.

This "Mojin Talisman" had been worn by that dried corpse. Could he be the predecessor who dug the tunnel from the Fish Bone Temple? He must have also been trapped in the Ghost Mound, with no way forward or back. In the end, he too must have discovered the secret of the live fowl and tried to retreat through the tunnel, only to be ambushed halfway by that "Black Chitinous Spider" just like us. But he was alone; once struck, there was no room for maneuvering. He must have met his incomprehensible and miserable end here. Thinking of this, a deep sadness welled up in my heart.

In this line of work—grave robbing and tunneling—while rapid wealth is possible, fortune and risk are inseparable. The dangers in ancient tombs are manifold. Beyond the traps and ambushes set by humans, there are unpredictable perils. Many excavated grand tombs are accompanied by the skeletal remains of tomb robbers—some the result of infighting, but many are the remains of Mojin Xiaowei who met their doom. The ways they died were exceedingly strange and uncanny. Some were crushed by falling stones from the tomb ceiling while opening a coffin; others died next to the very objects they were looting, showing no external wounds, nor signs of poisoning. What they encountered, how they died—perhaps only the deceased truly knew.

The Fatty approached me, carrying a bundle of items, and said, "Old Hu, what are you thinking about? Quickly look at what these things are; they all came off that corpse."

I took the items the Fatty handed me and examined them one by one. This cloth bag seemed like a treasure pouch, filled with odds and ends: seven or eight candles and two paper lanterns pressed together. These few candles were worth more than gold to us; right now, aside from a lighter, we had no other means of illumination. I told the Fatty to secure the candles and paper lanterns; we would rely entirely on these things when heading out of the cave later.

In the treasure pouch, there were also several sections of old German dry-cell batteries, but no flashlight, and three small, red pills. I was startled when I saw these pills. Could these be secret medicines concocted by ancient Mojin Xiaowei? Ancient tombs contain corpse poison, and past Mojin Xiaowei passed down a complete set of secret formulas for creating the "Crimson Elixir." Before entering a tomb, taking one pill was said to neutralize the corpse poison within. However, it was ineffective against stale air that hadn't circulated for a long time; it was only useful when opening a coffin or coming into close contact with a body, to prevent the poison from entering the system. Back then, unlike modern times where gas masks protect the eyes as well, ancient protective measures were primitive. No matter how tightly covered, the eyes had to be exposed. If a coffin was well-sealed, the tomb occupant might have undergone corporeal dissolution inside, allowing the corpse miasma to accumulate. This miasma attacks the five senses and seven orifices, causing immense harm.

But this only countered corpse poison; other noxious gases required different solutions, such as "opening the horn" (ventilating the tomb) or "testing the air" (sending in living creatures first).

However, the principle of this medicine was to neutralize poison with poison, so it possessed a degree of toxicity itself. Prolonged use could lead to decreased bone density. While the effect on the body wasn't overwhelming, it was certainly detrimental, and it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

These red pills were called "Crimson Elixirs," also known as "Red Casket Marvel Heart Pills." The exact ingredients used to compound them have long been lost, mainly related to the development of gas masks. Some veteran Mojin experts still habitually placed a "Red Casket Marvel Heart Pill" in their mouths before beginning to loot a coffin.

There were several other items in the treasure pouch whose names I couldn't recall. Additionally, there was a simple compass for orientation, and a piece of saltpeter—known in Chinese medicine as "Earth Frost" or "Black Pearl of the Northern Earth"—whose nature was described as "pungent, bitter, strongly warm, and non-toxic." This was to prevent headaches and fainting caused by poor air quality in the tomb. In such a situation, inhaling a small amount of pulverized saltpeter into the nostrils could provide relief, similar in effect to Shirley Yang's alcohol-soaked fins.

When I reached the end, I found the treasure pouch also contained a length of thin steel wire, a small knife a little over three inches long, a small bottle of Yunnan Baiyao powder, a bottle of camphor, and one item most familiar to me: a dried black donkey's hoof. Finally, there was a roll of inking thread. Both the inking thread and the black donkey's hoof were used to deal with reanimated corpses.

The Fatty asked me, "How is it, Old Hu? Are any of these strange gadgets worth anything?"

I shook my head. "Nothing valuable, but a few things are quite useful. From this treasure pouch, one can envision the demeanor of a Mojin Xiaowei from that era. This must be the predecessor who dug the tunnel from the Fish Bone Temple. He followed the same path as us; he was one of our own, yet he met a tragic end here, perhaps over thirty years ago. Since we've encountered him, we shouldn't let him rot exposed any longer. Take his remains and burn them in the fire. May his spirit rest in peace and bless us with a safe departure from this place. Burn his belongings along with him."

The Fatty said, "Alright, I'll cremate him now. But we killed those Giant Man-Faced Spiders today, which counts as avenging him. So, the contents of this pouch can be considered his thanks to us. Maybe we can sell them for a good price back in Beijing's antique market."

I told the Fatty, "That's not quite right. None of this is truly valuable, especially that Mojin Talisman—it's impervious to fire and water, so it won't burn anyway. We need it, so we'll take that. The rest really isn't worth much. Those few Red Casket Marvel Heart Pills are probably expired; we have no use for them. Let this treasure pouch go with its owner."

The Fatty lost interest as soon as he heard there was nothing valuable. The dried corpse barely weighed anything. The Fatty grabbed the Mojin Xiaowei's treasure pouch, tucked the corpse under his other arm, and walked over to the burning temple site, tossing the Mojin Xiaowei's desiccated body near the edge of the flames from a distance.

I rotated my neck. The scrapes and bruises still ached, but my limbs could move freely now. I nudged Da Jinya beside me and asked how badly he was injured and if he could walk.

Da Jinya’s injuries were similar to mine, mostly abrasions, though his head had taken a solid knock. Half-conscious and dazed, he nodded, but when he tried to move his jaw, he sucked in his breath sharply from the pain.

I called the Fatty back, and the three of us discussed how to leave this cavern. We had been dragged a long way by the "Black Chitinous Spider," and by the feeling of it, it wasn't a straight path—it was winding and turning, and we had completely lost our bearings. All we knew was that we were somewhere underground beneath the Longling hills. We had no idea of our precise location. Local people said the area under Longling was full of karst caves, but as I looked around, I realized where we were was not a typical karst formation, but a hollow within a body of loess and accumulated rock—quite dry. This suggested we were in a composite geological structure with mixed features.

Folk legends were mostly hearsay. The frequent disappearances of people and livestock nearby were likely connected to the lair of a "Black Chitinous Spider," which dragged them here to eat them, rather than them dying of starvation trapped in a labyrinthine cave system.

We had no food, no proper clothing, and no equipment. Every minute we delayed increased the difficulty of getting out. In this underground temple stood a massive, human-faced bronze Ding vessel. Ding vessels were used in the Western Zhou Dynasty for ancestral sacrifice or to record major events for posterity. This suggests that this subterranean deity site had some connection to a Western Zhou tomb. Perhaps the tomb's occupant, in life, worshipped the "Black Chitinous Spider" and thus established a temple near his mausoleum to nourish a nest of Giant Man-Faced Spiders. Later, when his tomb was destroyed, no one fed the nest of "Black Chitinous Spiders" with slaves anymore, so they began hunting and breeding on their own until the present day. Who knows if there are others besides the few in the temple? If even one or two more appeared, it would be enough to seal the fate of the three of us.

By then, the fire had weakened. By the faint light, we could vaguely make out a dozen or so caves branching off above and around us. We certainly had to choose one route, but we couldn't agree on which cave led out. However, I reasoned that since the "Black Chitinous Spider" needed to venture out to hunt, there must be an exit nearby.

I asked the Fatty to light a candle, and the three of us walked to the nearest cave entrance. I placed the candle at the opening and observed the flame. It rose perfectly straight. I told the Fatty and Da Jinya, "This is a dead end; there's no airflow. Let's check the next opening..."

Saying this, Da Jinya and I turned to leave, but the Fatty remained rooted to the spot. I turned back and asked the Fatty, "Are you coming or not?"

The Fatty pointed to the cave entrance and said to us, "Old Hu, take a sniff. What's that smell in here? It's very strange."

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