Chapter Seven: The Cipher of the Dead

Yin Wanshan hurriedly got out of the jeep with the first research team, his face changing dramatically at the sight of the vast number of desiccated corpses. From a distance, he waved at Elder Ge and his group. “Hey! Comrades, wait a minute, wait for us.”

The others frowned, and Long Shaoxian muttered, “Why are they here?”

Elder Ge said nothing. His gaze fell on the figure behind Yin Wanshan’s group—it was none other than Luo Longyu. Seeing Luo Longyu following the others, a faint, gratified smile appeared on Elder Ge’s lips.

Long Shaoxian and the others also noticed Luo Longyu and felt a sense of relief. After all, having Luo Longyu, the son of Xuanyuan Qianqian, with them eased their hearts in a way they couldn’t explain.

“Hello, comrade. I’m Yin Wanshan, leader of the first research team sent by the Central Committee. You’re from the second team, right?” Yin Wanshan adjusted his glasses and stepped forward to shake Elder Ge’s hand.

Elder Ge glanced at Luo Longyu, then at Yin Wanshan, and finally at the bulging backpacks carried by the members of the first research team. After a moment of silence, he said, “Professor Yin, your team should just focus on collecting data. As for entering the Tomb of Ten Thousand Corpses, you’d best stay out—it’s too dangerous.”

Yin Wanshan was immediately displeased. “Hey, that’s not right. We’re the first team and arrived here before you. We actually know more about the Tomb of Ten Thousand Corpses than you do. Besides, the two research teams should help each other. This is a major enigma—the Central Committee takes it very seriously.”

“You cannot enter,” Elder Ge said, shaking his head, unmoved by Yin Wanshan’s argument.

Yin Wanshan’s eyes widened, his tone sharp. “This is absurd. You’re the second team, supposed to assist us. Now you’re keeping us out? You have no authority to limit our research. Xiao Zhao, let’s go.” With that, Yin Wanshan brushed past Elder Ge and strode toward the Tomb of Ten Thousand Corpses.

Elder Ge watched as the first team stopped less than fifty meters away, taking out various instruments to sample the surrounding alien corpses. He shook his head and muttered, “Something’s not right. What is the Central Committee thinking?”

“Elder Ge, are we really going to let them go in as well?” Long Shaoxian asked, uneasy.

Elder Ge sighed. “What choice do we have? They have directives from the Central Committee—there’s no stopping them. Forget it, just focus on protecting everyone.”

He turned to Luo Longyu and smiled. “Good. You’ve taken the first step.”

Luo Longyu nodded. After a pause, he said, “I don’t have your kind of devotion to the country. I just… want to learn more about my mother.” He stared ahead at the red cliffs, wanting to know how deeply he was entwined with these strange events, and what kind of path his mother—whom he had never met—might have left for him.

Elder Ge nodded, his expression returning to its usual sternness. “Baixing, you stay here and protect the first team. The rest, come with me into the Tomb of Ten Thousand Corpses. Shaoxian, your job is to protect Luo Longyu.”

Long Shaoxian nodded. Zuo Baixing, however, grumbled, “Why do I have to protect them? It’s just a bunch of corpses. What could they do?”

“Follow orders,” Elder Ge snapped.

Unhappy but resigned, Zuo Baixing muttered, “Understood…”

Elder Ge looked at Luo Longyu. “Are you ready to face reality? Let me remind you: if you truly want to know about your mother, what you’re about to see and face are things that exist only in legend—things strange and unimaginable.”

Luo Longyu nodded. “I’m ready. After what happened yesterday and meeting you all, I don’t have the energy to be surprised anymore.”

Without further words, Elder Ge and his party headed toward the red cliffs. Yin Wanshan was busy extracting samples from the corpses. Amid this endless sea of death, the members of the first research team were shivering from a cold unlike any they had ever known—a chill that made their hair stand on end, spurring them to work faster.

“Hurry up, collect everything quickly. This place is bizarre. Once we’re done, we’ll head into the tomb. We can’t let the second team beat us to it,” Yin Wanshan urged, watching Elder Ge’s group approach the red cliffs.

Nearby, Zuo Baixing glanced at Yin Wanshan with disdain. “Give it a rest. You all may have fancy degrees, but not everything can be solved with knowledge. You’d be better off staying away from the red cliffs.”

Elder Ge and the others passed through the field of corpses to the base of the red cliffs. As they faced the cliffs, Luo Longyu felt a heavy oppression, as if something powerful was watching him, making him involuntarily tense.

Elder Ge and the others were sweating, especially Long Shaoxian, whose labored breathing was audible—the pressure seemed particularly hard on her.

“Shaoxian, maybe you should stand guard outside,” Elder Ge suggested.

Long Shaoxian shook her head. “No need, I can handle it. Baixing is enough outside. People from my clan have also disappeared inside this tomb—I want to understand why.”

“You have no parents either?” Luo Longyu blurted out.

Elder Ge, Baili Zhuīhún, and Tong Wushao all shot Luo Longyu a look that seemed to question whether he truly appreciated being alive.

“Shut up…” Long Shaoxian’s voice turned cold, a single word squeezed from her lips.

The ground beneath the red cliffs had collapsed, revealing a small opening from which a chill seeped, freezing the very air. The night was silent across the vast desert; in the distance, lights glimmered amid the corpses where Yin Wanshan’s team worked. Lifeless, sinister, and bone-chilling—this was Luo Longyu’s impression of the place.

Baili Zhuīhún and Long Shaoxian cleared away stones from the entrance, revealing a space barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through. Baili Zhuīhún took out a powerful flashlight and crawled in first, only to immediately cry out, the sound of falling stones echoing after him, startling the others.

Tong Wushao quickly crouched at the entrance, anxiously calling, “Brother Baili! Are you all right?”

“Ah… cough, I’m fine. Be careful, the rocks here are loose. I just slid down,” Baili Zhuīhún replied, coughing from the dust.

Hearing his voice, the others relaxed. Long Shaoxian followed, then Luo Longyu, with Elder Ge and Tong Wushao bringing up the rear.

The space below was cramped, lit only by their flashlights. The passage was barely half a meter wide, clearly formed by geological activity rather than part of the original tomb. The condition of the rock walls suggested the fissure had existed for some time; previous explorers must have entered the tomb through here.

Baili Zhuīhún led the way, feeling along the stone walls. The deeper they went, the greater the pressure Luo Longyu felt. A buzzing began to fill his ears, adding to his discomfort.

Strangely, the others didn’t seem to hear anything. After descending for more than a hundred meters, the crack grew so narrow they had to crawl. The buzzing in Luo Longyu’s ears became clearer, as if someone was incessantly whispering in a mysterious language he couldn’t understand—the same voice he had heard before.

“Ugh…” Crawling forward, Luo Longyu was suddenly struck by dizziness and stopped.

Elder Ge behind him patted his leg. “What’s wrong?”

Long Shaoxian, ahead, also stopped and looked back.

Holding his head, Luo Longyu waited for the dizziness to subside. When he looked up, his eyes were unfocused. For a moment, he seemed to see the sky ablaze, the earth’s myriad creatures wailing, both heaven and earth blood-red. Colossal beings fell from the sky, crashing into the land—death, blood, corpses everywhere, a scene of utter catastrophe.

“Luo Longyu? Luo Longyu!”

“Bang!”

“Ow!” In his daze, Luo Longyu suddenly felt something strike his face hard, snapping him back to reality—Long Shaoxian had kicked him after calling out several times without response.

“Why did you kick me?” Luo Longyu demanded, clutching his nose.

Long Shaoxian’s face was calm, her tone infuriatingly flat. “To snap you out of it. What are you spacing out for? I called you several times. Don’t stop, keep moving.” With that, she crawled forward.

Muttering to himself, Luo Longyu glared at her before continuing on. “I just saw something, like a dream.”

“What was it?” Elder Ge asked from behind, and though Long Shaoxian didn’t stop, she listened intently.

“I saw the sky on fire, huge things falling from above. On the ground… no, I didn’t see people, just heard endless screams, both on the ground and in the sky. It was terrifying,” Luo Longyu explained.

“And then?” Elder Ge pressed.

“That’s it. Long Shaoxian kicked me awake,” Luo Longyu replied, annoyed.

Elder Ge’s eyes grew deep and troubled, his sense of crisis heightened. He knew that Luo Longyu, as Xuanyuan’s heir and the next in the path of the Dead, could receive the tomb’s necro-speech.

All along, no one had deciphered the necro-speech; only those attuned to the path of the Dead could sense these thoughts. Humans needed special instruments to hear even vague traces. Xuanyuan Yi had once speculated that the voice was a kind of information imprinted into space itself, but so ancient that human civilization could neither receive nor decipher it. Even the path of the Dead could only glean fragments of history from it—complete understanding was beyond anyone.

“It’s so noisy…” Luo Longyu complained. “Hey, Elder Ge, what exactly am I hearing?”

Elder Ge considered for a moment. “What you’re hearing is the necro-speech I mentioned before. Your grandfather believed it was a kind of high-level code, guarding immense information—perhaps concerning the survival of civilization on Earth. Both your grandfather and your mother tried to decipher it, but failed.”

“What about the visions I saw?” Luo Longyu asked again.

“Those are believed to be fragments of past history, preserved by some ancient civilization. But no one is sure. The Tomb of Ten Thousand Corpses is so old that it defies understanding. If you want answers, you’ll have to work hard,” Elder Ge replied patiently.

Luo Longyu was silent for a moment, then asked, “Elder Ge, what civilization do you mean? Not humans? And isn’t a code supposed to be a string of characters or a fingerprint? How can it be a sound, always lingering in the air? Where do you even input such a code?”

Long Shaoxian, up ahead, was visibly exasperated by his barrage of questions, her mouth twitching.

Behind him, Elder Ge also fell silent, likely pondering how to answer. Indeed, for an eighteen-year-old, these questions were far beyond his scope. After a long pause, Elder Ge finally said, “We’ll let Shaoxian explain when there’s time.”

“Oh.” Luo Longyu nodded, then glanced back at Elder Ge, his tone uncertain. “Then… if what I saw really was history, could that kind of tragedy happen again?”

At this, both Long Shaoxian and Elder Ge fell silent, unable to give a definite answer.

“I understand…” Luo Longyu nodded and said no more, crawling on in silence.

“I can’t answer you, but what I can say is that everything we’re doing now is to prevent that kind of disaster from repeating,” Elder Ge said heavily.

Luo Longyu gave no reply.

“We’re here,” came Baili Zhuīhún’s voice from ahead. The legendary Tomb of Ten Thousand Corpses was now close at hand.