The Tale of the Ghost Eyes Chapter 51 The New Discovery

It was a frantic laughter that gave me the creeps. "Stop it!" I said, forgetting my place, "Why are you laughing?"

He stifled his laughter with an old hand and only shook his head. His eyes were squeezed shut and I could see tears of mirth curling out of them.

The corridor resembled the first one we took. Both were lined with green slab stones that reflected our flashlights with a sickly moss color. I peered down into the darkness with the idea that we would only find another alchemy room at the end. I turned my light to the intricate beast-shaped candlesticks, counting the animals I recognized and naming them in my mind.

Zhou Tong noticed what I was doing and moved to walk beside me. He leaned forward and said, "You know, this channel and the other were probably composed symmetrically. In northern China, gardens and tombs are all designed that way. Are the candlesticks here the same as the other channel?"

I nodded to him. "As far as I can tell." An idea surfaced, "If they're the same, is there an alchemy room at the end of this corridor too?"

His eyes moved to the darkness ahead of us. "Perhaps." He said.

As I'd expected, there were two bronze doors at the end of the hall. There weren't any sign of the footprints we'd seen earlier, but the doors shone scuff marks where they'd opened and closed recently. A film of dust covered the entire door except for a gleaming lion-faced knob.

Zhou Tong hissed a whisper as we approached, "That thing might be inside!"

Master Liu only nodded and then put a hand on my shoulder, "Xiao Yong, stay back." He looked at Zhou Tong, "Open it. I don't see any hidden switches like before."

Zhou Tong dug his dagger out of the pocket on his leg and placed his hand on the doorknob. He bunched his shoulders and turned the knob, throwing his arm into it at the same time. Zhou Tong hit the door with all of his force and was as surprised as all of us when he simply bounced off it and fell to the floor. His eyes were huge as he lay there stunned, then all at once he was laughing. "It's locked." He managed, his face turning beet red. Zhou Tong collected himself and dusted off his shirt. He again brandished the knife, but this time prodded it through the crack below the knob. I heard the ticking and knocking of metal on metal and marveled at this absurd ability.

"Are you a thief?" I whispered, not really meaning to.

Master Liu gave my head a sharp knock with his knuckle and a look that said, "Quiet."

With a final successful click, Zhou Tong stood up and readied himself. Master Liu and Master Ge took out their weapons and set into a single file strike force. Master Liu held his peach wood sword loosely in his left hand, but Master Ge's weapon was much more complicated. Held tightly in Master Ge's hands was a gleaming copper sword with a broad curved blade. The thick blade tapered into a hilt that appeared the color of blood. I squinted my eyes and recognized a deep red ribbon.

I shook the ribbon from my mind and held my little compass and the copper, Tong Mei tightly.

"Ready?" Zhou Tong whispered back to us.

Master Liu and Master Ge reached out in unison and planted yellow paper amulets on either side of the door. "Open." They told him.

I couldn't suppress a grin of awe. Unconsciously, I stepped forward after them and knocked on the bronze door with Tong Mei.

Zhao Tong pushed me back as if I'd catch fire. He heaved and pushed the door with all his strength. It swung open with a crunch.

"Ohhhh!" Zhou Tong cried in dismay, a sound that quickly became a retching cough. He stepped back like he'd been punched.

"What's wrong?" I meant to ask, but only a series of jerking coughs came from my throat. Master Liu and Master Ge covered their mouths and noses, stepping back. Zhou Tong turned, his eyes watering and hand over his face. He grabbed me and pushed us all away from the door.

The smell wafting from the room would have appeared green in a cartoon of that moment. We moved away from its reach, but it followed insistently.

Master Liu was the first to brave it. He uncovered his face and took a deep breath through his nose. His expression was unreadable. After a moment he said, "It's bad yes, but not poisonous."

One by one we uncovered our noses and tried to adapt. Less than ten minutes later, with looks of deep disgust plastered on our faces, the smell was more or less gone.

Zhou Tong wafted his hands around, saying, "It's almost dispersed."

Master Ge said, "That is the smell of a corpse that has been here for a long time. Our Yang air will help it dissipate. If we hadn't come along it might've smelled that way for another thousand years."

I turned to Master Liu, "Will it hurt us?"

Master Ge answered, "We'll be okay, it was only a little. A heavy cloud though, that could riddle you with disease."

Panic shot through my head as I thought about how much I'd breathed in. The master in front of me only smiled.

After a few more minutes the smell was almost completed gone. "All right, that's enough. Open it." Master Liu told Zhou Tong. "Provided the smell, I think it's safe to assume this isn't another alchemy chamber."

Zhou Tong nodded and pushed the door ajar. I aimed my headlamp towards the crack between the bronze doors. My eyes fixed on the widening black gap between them. I couldn't see anything, even as the door swung open. The darkness absorbed my light and obscured my vision.

Master Liu walked past me, followed by Master Ge. With one step, they disappeared into the thick darkness inside the door. Zhou Tong and I stood in the hallway, listening for anything at all. The silence that pounded from the room was broken only by their footsteps that sounded miles away.

An eternity later, Master Ge appeared in the murky darkness. "What's in there?" Zhou Tong asked, "Did you find the zombie?"

"No," the master told us, "But there are many corpses. Come on." He disappeared into the darkness again.

Zhou Tong and I stepped through the bronze doors.

The thick darkness lifted as if a curtain were drawn back. My eyes adjusted to the soft light of Master Ge's headlamp and I let out a shocked scream. My head reeling, I reached for the closest live person and hid behind Master Liu's leg.

Zhou Tong, beside me let out a low, "Oh my god…"

Before us, illuminated now by four headlamps were dozens of skeletons and even more corpses in varying states of decay. Rows of them were hanging from the ceiling, the withered ropes tangling around rotten necks. I recognized Taoist symbols on the ragged clothing and looked at Master Liu. He was staring unmoving at the thick wooden beam that supported the rows of corpses. At the top of each rope where they looped around the beam was pasted a yellow paper amulet, one for each body.

Below that monstrosity were piled even more bodies. They wore the same Taoist frocks, but had faired much worse in terms of decay. The skeletons were piled around a stove, similar to the one in the alchemy room. This stove stood about three times my height, and was significantly larger than the first.

Similar to the first room there were bronze lamps organized in a semicircle. The lamps stood in awkward angles around the bodies. On the balcony opposite the door, a skeleton was sitting on the stone chair. A frock that was once prestigious and brightly colored hung off the fleshless shoulders. Although it was old, I could tell that he ranked higher than the other Taoists.

The decaying frock was interrupted in the middle of the chest where a large hole gaped.

"Well, we know what killed him." Zhou Tong said, marveling at the throne's inhabitant. He pointed past the chair. "The trigrams behind him are broken..."

"What happened here?" He asked the masters, his voice tinged with shock. "Why there are so many dead Taoists?"

Master Liu and Master Ge shook their heads at the same time. Clearly asking themselves the same questions.

The sheer number of bodies danced around my brain and I felt like I might be sick. I clung to Master Liu and pulled in jagged breaths that didn't want to satisfy my lungs. My chest felt tight and a different darkness tinged the edges of my vision.

"It's the same layout." Zhou Tong said. I forced myself to think about that. "A concrete thought, and idea that made sense, that's all I need." I thought. Squeezing my eyes closed I imagined the alchemy room and steadied my breath. "Stove's bigger." I said, my eyes still closed. "And the bodies."

I raised my head and opened my eyes. They unconsciously landed on the dethroned Taoist and his tattered frock. The pale yellow material had partially shifted so that the material covered the hole, which had once housed the man's heart. Looking at the dead figure, I watched the decaying material bulge outwards.

Sucking in a breath and feeling my chest tighten all over again I pointed. "Godfather, it moved!"

Three headlamps pivoted around the room and settled on the throne where I was pointing. Under the light, something inside the dead man's chest began to wriggle.

A pale white head slithered from under the faded yellow cloth.

I gasped and took a step back, puzzled by the relieved sighs coming from the men around me.

Master Liu turned to me and smiled. "Had us goin' there, didn't it? It's only a snake, my boy. It made a nest in the bones."

Zhou Tong gave out a nervous chuckle and said, "Masters, the zombie disappeared from this room. I don't see a trace of him! What happened?"

I stared at the bodies. "It tricked us…"

Master Ge turned to Master Liu. "Ask him." He said, "I'm not experienced with zombies. I've never even seen one!"

Master Liu looked around. "There must be a clue somewhere around here. Look carefully. We have to find it." Zhou Tong approached the pile of bodies, and Master Liu added forcefully, "But be careful! Don't touch the bones. I fear there's something off about them."

Three heads nodded at him and we began to search the coffin chamber. Zhou Tong stayed close to Master Ge. Master Liu stayed with me.

Master Liu and I combed the left side of the chamber. I watched my footing carefully, trying to stay far away from anything that looked dead. I glanced at the throne every now and then, watching the snake slither around it's disgusting home. Its long white body maneuvering around the bones was horrible.

"Is the snake something…dark?" I asked Master Liu.

"No," he said, "It's an ordinary snake. Although, if that snake managed to get down here, that means there's another way in."

Master Liu moved deftly around the fallen Taoists. I watched his feet, waiting for a hand to close around his ankle.

The fear boiled inside my chest and I saw it. I actually saw a skeletal hand twitch next to him. My whole body tightened in terror.

Master Liu stopped walking and looked at me. "Xiao Yong, don't be scared. You'll have to visit more dangerous places than this if you want a cure for those eyes."

I gaped at him, now not just terrified, but also baffled. "Is that supposed to comfort me?" I asked.

He didn't answer, only walked between a pair of outstretched skeletons. Master Liu bent down to examine the two and shook his head. "There aren't any footprints." He said.

Reaching the far wall, Master Liu scanned the stone surface and gave a light scream.

"What? What is it?" I asked, feeling the terror shimmy up my spine again.

Master Liu looking shaken himself, said, "There's blood on the wall."

Chapter end