Book 3: Chapter 48: Living Dancers


    Before I got too absorbed in this bad feeling, Fatty asked me where we should go next. The pitifulness of human beings would strongly manifest at a certain moment. In a small enclosed tomb, almost everyone had a clear mind. Even those who were extremely unwise could tell you what to do first and what to do afterwards. This was because there was a narrow wall around you forcibly regting your range of sight. The smaller your choices, the more stable you were.


    But in a huge open areathat is, when things became macroscopicyour eyes wouldnt have anywhere to settle on and your mind would be confused. Many people would get lost in the vast space, lose their sense of security, and keep trying to return to the trapped environment. That was why some prisoners who had been in prison for a long time would try to return after they were released.


    At this point, I had to admire Poker-Face. There was no ce in the world where he couldnt go, and there was no moment in time when he couldnt leave. He lived in a world of extreme macro freedom.


    If I were him, Id be absolutely terrified.


    If you wanted to feel confident and at ease while not feeling lost, you needed to have a firm heart, be satisfied with what you had, and never ask for anything more. Or you simply needed to have the attitude of not caring about anything, going with the flow, and leaving it all to fate.


    And now I was encountering this problem. This ce was too big. Fatty probably wanted to go up and check out the coffin first. Since Shen Qianjue didn''t open it at that time, God had given him an opportunity which he couldnt ignore.


    I, on the other hand, wanted to check all of the surrounding areas first, explore all the murals, and find the area where Old Bing and his team had sat around Shigongs mole. After studying it carefully, <em>then</em> I would go and see where the coffin was.


    It essentially boiled down to whether you liked eating delicious food before the bad food, or whether you liked to save the delicious food forst.


    But in the end, the final decision was to follow Poker-Face. Wherever he went, we would definitely follow. Fatty and I made a face at each other and then moved to follow him.


    When we saw Poker-Face walking towards the coffin, Fatty had a smug expression on his face and gestured as if to say, Little Brother hasn''t opened a coffin for a long time. Were clearly thinking the same thing.


    I noticed that Poker-Face had been paying attention to the footprints, so I knew that he was definitely thinking of something else.


    Soon, Poker-Face had reached the halfway point up the stairs and stopped. He directed our attention to the ground, where we saw a third set of flower-like footprints. But these looked very specialpared to the others because they had a wider range and looked very atmospheric. Fatty took a moment to imitate the dance steps and found that the direction of these footprints was very unusual. "Is it an ethnic dance?" He asked,pletely baffled.


    I shook my head and nced at Poker-Face before saying, "These are steps from a y."


    "What y?"


    "Whats it matter?"


    I hadnt smoked for a long time now, but I subconsciously touched my pocket as my whole body broke out in a cold sweat. This was a conditioned reflex when I became extremely anxious.


    These were Xiao Hua''s footprints. The steps he had taken here were those used in a y, which was essentially the same as dancing.


    All three of us remained silent. Fatty looked at the numerous figurines around us, but they were all hidden in the darkness. If you danced in this underground pce, then youd bepletely integrated into this banquet. It was a really ghostly feeling, but it also had a special sense of beauty to it as well.


    "So they all danced here, Fatty said. Do you think it was impromptu?"


    Fatty saw that I was still touching my pocket and grabbed my hand.


    I took a deep breath and said, "Do you suddenly have the urge to dance?"


    Fatty shook his head. "I dont. Do you?"


    "No." As I said this, Fatty looked at Poker-Face, who was already shining his shlight in another direction.


    "Little Brother probably doesn''t have the urge either," Fatty said. "But this dancing thing must definitely be a key. If they werent suddenly affected by the atmosphere of the banquet here, then dancing must have a practical use."


    I thought about the mural and asked myself, <em>were they forced to dance? Can Xiao Hua see what I see?</em>


    I noticed that Fatty was still looking at me, so I asked him what he was doing.


    "I suddenly have the urge to watch you dance," he said.


    This was one of the reasons for my difort. Although some of those dancing girl figurines I had seen were actually male, I already had a feeling that I might have to danceter.


    I used to dance when I was a child, and when I was in kindergarten, I put sequins on my body and acted as one of the girls'' backup dancers. I was probably one of the seven Cbash Brothers.⁽¹⁾ I still got goosebumps whenever I saw the photos.


    If Fatty wanted me to dance, then I could only perform the kindergarten dance, which seemed to be called Radish Pulling. But was it even possible to perform "Radish Pulling" in the worlds second most valuable tomb? All of the demons and ghosts would cringe so hard that they''d shake their coffin lids.


    Poker-Face tapped his shlight with his finger, signaling for us to concentrate. He was going to the mural on the left, which meant that he had to pass by a lot of banquet tables. After he finished tapping, I saw him walk over there and untie an ancient sword from a military officer figurines waist. The ancient swords sheath had disintegrated, revealing the de inside. It was a Mongolian sword called a tuushin ild.⁽²⁾


    The de had arge area of rust on it but the middle section still looked fine, so he broke off the end of the sword and turned it into a short knife. He then flipped the knife over and found a grindstone on the handle. He took it off and started sharpening the de as he walked.


    <em>This must be serious</em>, I said to myself as I gripped my own small Kukri in hand.


    He was very strong and fast, so sparks were flying everywhere. After he roughly sharpened the de, he hooked it to his belt on his lower back. All of his belts had buckles in that spot so he could ce a knife there horizontally.


    As we walked, Fatty and I started to smell a strange fragrance. I felt puzzled because the smell wasnting from the environment but from my own bag.


    When I opened it, I saw that Shigongs mole that I had put there days ago. I took it out and found that this originally odorless mole was now exuding a strange fragrance, which was making my mouth water.


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Cartoon characters from the Chinese animation TV series, Cbash Brothers. There are seven of them in the animation, and they were born from cbashes (aka bottle gourds).


    (2) Trantes as straight de. Looks like this: