Chapter 9 - Demonic Pagoda Of Nine Layers (1/2)

Chapter 9 Teaser

The mountain crevice that we fell into was narrow and deep. Beyond the range of our flashlight waspitch-black. Visibility was limited, and there was no way of knowing what the terrain beyond looked like.

Giant reached out and placed his finger under Liu Gong’s nose, and with a trembling hand he said, “Oh sh*t oh sh*t we’re screwed, he ain’t breathing.”

I crawled over and checked Liu Gong’s carotid pulse; He really was dead. the heartbeat was gone. With a heavy sigh I said to Giant, “Let’s bury Liu Gong then.”

I took the military shovel intending to dig a hole, but Ga Wa who was beside me, blocked my path and pointed to the ground: “Bug, fire.”

With Ga Wa’s warning, I instantly recalled the fact that we had accidentally dug up the devil-like ladybugs because we had intended to bury the engineer who had fallen to his death. Our small squad had fourteen people, and in a few terrifying minutes, ten people had died. It appeared that the land couldn’t be dug as one pleased. Only Heaven knows what crazy thing might lie beneath the soil.

I had a feeling that those weird bugs were not something that could be explained as easily as undiscovered creatures. After burning two people alive, there was one that divided itself into three; was this only a coincidence? There was no possible explanation no matter how you thought about it.

Despite everything, we couldn’t just leave a comrade’s body outside. We figured that we could only use this method. I used the flashlight to light up the area while Ga Wa and Giant each went nearby to pick up broken pieces rock to cover up Liu Gong’s body to create a simple rock tomb.

Throughout this process, Luo Ning sat on the ground motionless from beginning to end, quietly observing Liu Gong’s stone tomb. Finally unable to endure it anymore, with a “Wa!” she started crying. She couldn’t repress the feelings in her heart any longer, she poured out in tears, like a broken dam.

I wanted to console her, but I honestly did not know what to say. Touched by the sound of weeping, a lump formed in my throat. I felt as though my heart had been sliced through with a blade. I recalled our carefree att.i.tude yesterday night: the small squad circled around a campfire singing military songs aloud. Those clear voices were still echoing in my head, and yet today, a majority of them forever laid in eternal rest beneath the big glacier of Kunlun Mountain.

I supported Luo Ning to her feet as we all gave Liu Gong and the other comrades a moment of silence. At that time, regardless of the situation, the selected works of Mao Zedong were to be quoted. I recited while taking the lead: “The sky is filled with white, the soldiers eagerly pressing forward through the snow.”

The remaining three people responded in turn: “The mountains loom above us, the wind unfurls our red flags as we cross the great pa.s.s. Only through sacrifice can we achieve lofty goals, to dare order the sun and moon to s.h.i.+ne in new skies.”

Soon after, everyone raised their right fist and vowed: ”Long live the great leader Chairman Mao and may Chairman Mao’s close comrade Lin Biao be healthy. My fellow comrades, friends, please be at ease leaving, some people’s death is a trifling matter, some people’s death is as important as Mount Tai, for the people’s benefit with death will be more important than Mount Tai; your deaths are sacrifices for the benefit of the people. We must carry on the mission left behind by the martyrs of revolution and follow the footsteps that you forged with sweat and blood. We will carry the Cultural Revolution till the very end, the last victory will always belong to us the workers, peasants and soldiers.”

At the time, I was still a greenhorn army recruit and had never partic.i.p.ated in a comrade’s funeral service. I had no idea what should be said and only remembered what others had said before me. In these circ.u.mstances, there was no difference between what was suitable or not.

After a long period of time, people started calming down from their grievances and treated the wounds on their bodies. Thankfully they were all minor injuries and did not hinder mobility.

Ga Wa patted his empty bullet pouch, indicating the limited amount of ammo. Since we needed to carry a lot of equipment when we entered the mountains, the allocation of ammo was the least prioritized. Each person only had three rifle magazines; after all, this wasn’t a combat mission. This region didn’t have many bandits either, and as a result the early planning was a bit careless. During the avalanche we had also thrown away a portion of our ammunition, so now each person only had about twenty rounds of bullets and a total of two grenades. Since there shouldn’t be many beasts living underground, having an excess of bullets would be pointless. However, this amount was plenty for self-protection.

Dry rations were completely out, as we had just finished the last portion. We had to think of a way to find an exit within the next two days, otherwise we would starve to death underground. Despite everything, there was still a compa.s.s on Luo Ning.

The mountain crevice’s depth was beyond expectation. After walking southward for a while we reached the end, but then the crack took a 180 degree turn to the north. Based on instinct it felt like we had walked to the bottom of the glacier.

We walked forward in the darkness for more than ten hours. The more we walked the farther we went down, where it became more and more open. Luo Ning used the barometer to test the atmospheric pressure and converted its findings to show our alt.i.tude. Surprisingly, it only gave four hundred meters, which was comparable with that of the Szechuan province, but much lower than the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau’s average alt.i.tude of four thousand meters.If we kept going at this rate, I fear we would walk to the Earth’s core.

Finally the terrain started leveling off and the sound of a rapid stream of water could be heard, almost as if there was a big underground river in the distance. I saw that there wasn’t any more of a slope, so I used the flashlight to scout about in all directions. I wanted to see if there were any paths leading upward, suddenly in the direction the flashlight was s.h.i.+ning at, many faint reflections of light appeared on the cliff wall. It was as if hundreds of broken mirror pieces were shone on.

Luo Ning called in surprise: ”That’s mica!”

The other three people who heard her wondered what mica was, but her tone made it sound like she was very frightened, and they thought it was an emergency. They quickly protected Luo Ning by placing her behind them; hastily, they removed their type 56 automatic rifles off their backs, pulling open the gun bolt, preparing to fire.

Confused, Luo Ning asked, ”What are you guys doing?”

While arming myself with the gun I asked Luo Ning: What are you talking about? Where is it?”

Luo Ning replied, ”It’s not an animal, I’m saying that the surrounding area is full of crystal bodies. Mica and crystals commonly form within the same stratum. Ah, sure enough, there’s also a crystal here.”

Although Luo Ning was mainly in charge of mapping the area, shefrequently worked together with the geology surveyor team thus gained a lot of knowledge in regards to ore formation.We were surrounded by a seemingly thin layer of gla.s.s crystal-like body.The mica’s monoclinic crystal structure could only be formed in the Pacific Paleolithic layer. The underground reserve of HeBei province was huge, making it difficult to pinpoint our location. The mica’s colour here was much darker than usual, and appeared as a large hexagonal shape. The quality far surpa.s.sed the ones created in the inner HeBei province’s Lingshou county, judging by the depth of the mica’s colour. Our current position was so deep it was hard to imagine, otherwise.

Luo Ning was attracted to the rarely seen surrounding mica, examining this and that. I randomly picked up a small piece to take a look, but I couldn’t find anything that deemed it out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, Giant shouted at Ga Wa: ”What are you doing La Mu Cuo? Get up quickly!”

I s.h.i.+ned my flashlight and saw Ga Wa on the ground kowtowing in the Tibetan way, with his entire bodyprostrating on the ground. What was this kid doing? Who was he kowtowing to? I illuminated the area ahead of him and couldn’t help but suck in some cold air.

Underground, there unexpectedly stood a paG.o.da made of thousands ofwooden beams resembling the “gold” character1. Its body was twinkling from hundreds of starlike red flashes. The flas.h.i.+ng lights helped us see that the base of the paG.o.da was close to two hundred meters wide and was built with mud and rocks. The paG.o.da had nine floors, all of which were made of thousand year old cedar. Each layer was piled with dried up skeletons donning peculiar ancient costumes. Men, women, young and old were all present. Each beam of wood was carved full of archaic Tibetan characters. Was this a tomb? On a scale so immense, who built this underground?

I went over and pulled Ga Wa up to his feet. He was kowtowing on the ground: ”Even though our party and our military respects ethnic policies and you little rascal are Tibetan, when you don your military clothing, you are a member of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Since you are a communist you shouldn’t play around with the charms of idealism. You’re not permitted to engage in religious superst.i.tions.”

Giant was at the side grinning: ”Not bad Old Hu, based on this little speech of yours, you have real potential to become an instructor.”

Luo Ning, who was continuously looking at the mica stones, heard the three of us bickering and came over to spectate.

I wagged my finger at Giant to tell him not to interrupt, and continued to ask Ga Wa: ”What is this tower? Can you read the words on it?”

Ga Wa profusely shook his head.

I said: ”This kiddo... if you don’t know then why are you kowtowing? Has seeing all those skeletons scared you silly?”

Ga Wa’s facial expression was full of panic. Using broken bits of Chinese, he said ”Hu ga, oh let you oh explain, must oh pull, pull you pull this, nine layers&h.e.l.lip;Demonic PaG.o.da of Nine Layers.”