C82 (1/2)

I was so scared that my heart almost stopped. I frantically tried to shake it off, but the hand was so strong that it gripped me like a pair of pincers. I felt a sharp pain and my wrist bones were about to shatter.

Then I heard a stuttering woman's voice, and my heart skipped a beat and I stopped struggling. I followed the line of my hand and stood on tiptoe, and sure enough, MaggieQ was lying on her side, face down in the crevice between the coffins.

I quickly pulled her up with San Mao. MaggieQ had obviously been stuck inside the coffin for a long time, pale and weak, but at the moment we didn't have time to ask her why she was in such a sorry state. MaggieQ had also just sat up when she called for us to continue opening the inner coffin we were wearing.

We will continue to open the lid of the third layer, but there won't be a fourth layer inside. According to the funeral and interment ceremony back then, the Son of Heaven's Coffin was placed in the fourth layer and the Dukes' King was in the third layer. It seems that King Xu Yan still doesn't see himself as the Emperor's Son.

I thought that the coffin would eventually contain at least one skeleton, as well as all kinds of clothes that had rotted into mud, but the moment it opened, I could no longer sense the stench I had imagined. I scanned the coffin with my light and only saw something that looked like a box in the middle, while the rest were empty.

”Hurry up and enter!” MaggieQ shouted at us.

I turned and saw that the living dead were already on their way up the steps, the nearest just a few feet away. I grabbed the top edge of the coffin with both hands and climbed up.

”Catch!” San Mao carried Mao Tou and raised him high above my head. I took him in my hands and threw him into the coffin in the center. Then she grabbed the Taoist's hand and pulled him up, just as San Mao climbed up by himself, we all entered the coffin in the center. Then we grabbed the outermost lid and struggled to close it again.

Then I heard a crackling sound outside, and even though we were in the innermost layer, I felt a vibration in the coffin's walls, and I knew that the living dead had run into it.

We curled up inside the coffin, not daring to breathe. Luckily, this coffin was heavy enough, even though it was very noisy, it didn't shake at all. I exhaled and relaxed.

The coffin was very spacious. MaggieQ and I sat on one side while San Mao and the Daoist sat opposite of us, facing each other but not even touching their knees. As Mao Tou sat at one end, it was as if we were all eating at a Western style table.

”Will we suffocate to death?” Mao Tou suddenly said.

I turned to look at MaggieQ, who was next to me. She was only shaking her head slowly, and I felt it carefully, and it seemed to me that it was sealed, but not very stuffy. I reached out and probed around, and found that in the corner of the coffin, a cool breeze was blowing in, and when I shone my flashlight on it, I saw that there were several tiny vents that led directly to the outside. It occurred to me that the blowout lamps must have been caused by these vents. The difference in air pressure between the inside and the outside caused the air to flow and extinguish the candles.

I asked MaggieQ why she was stuck here alone. She was silent for a while before she gave a brief answer.