This path seemed to stretch on without an end.
Niannian had no idea how long she had been walking. In this dark space, it was impossible to calculate the time or the number of steps she had taken.
She wasn't even sure if she was walking in the right direction.
Drip, drip.
Suddenly, a clear sound of dripping water came from beside her, followed by a buzzing sound.
Crack.
She didn't know what she had stepped on under her feet. It sounded like the breaking of bones.
Immediately after, little green lights suddenly lit up all around.
It was like fireflies clinging to the rock walls.
Something was off.
These weren't fireflies!
Niannian took a step back and shone her flashlight at the places emitting the green light.
She saw one after another creature that looked like a ladybug but was four or five times bigger, clinging tightly to the rock walls.
The green light was emitted from their eyes.
What were these things?!
Xiaotuanzi, who had never been in a tomb before, couldn't help but feel a tingle on her scalp when she saw such strange creatures.
If Xiaotuanzi were a bit older, she would surely know that this symptom was called trypophobia.
"Don't touch them!"
Just as Niannian was about to take out a talisman to crush these insects, a girl's voice came from behind her.
She turned around and saw Weihe running towards her in a hurry.
"You know what these things are? Where are we?"
Niannian thought that as the daughter of that uncle, Weihe should at least have a general idea of where this place was, even if she didn't know everything.
But she was disappointed in the end.
Weihe shook her head. "I don't know either. I always thought he was guarding that coffin of the Lion Hand, but now it seems that he was actually guarding this tomb.
When I first came down, there were a lot of coffins around. Inside the coffins were boys and girls hugging each other!
I don't know how long those corpses had been there, but there were no signs of decay at all. Their faces even still showed the fear of seeing some terrifying creature. There was only one exit in that place. I just walked and walked until I got here."
"Why don't you let me touch them? Are these insects special?"
Niannian stared at her with innocent big eyes and wasn't interested in Weihe's experience.
She already knew that this was a tomb.
A tomb this big usually had burial objects, and in some dynasties, people were even buried alive.
Although she wasn't sure if the skeletons she had seen before were the bodies of those buried alive, she thought they probably didn't die here voluntarily.
"Those are resentful insects. They survive by sucking in yin energy and resentment. If they sense a threat, they will emit a kind of gas. This gas has a hallucinogenic effect. If you kill them, a kind of powder will explode from their bodies. This powder is highly corrosive. As long as it touches a little bit of skin, the skin will start to rot. The burning sensation and the itching pain like being gnawed by thousands of ants will make life worse than death."
Weihe described these insects extremely terrifyingly. After hearing how powerful these insects were, Niannian took a few more steps back.
She had never seen these things before and had no confidence in being able to neutralize the poison on them.
"But there's only one path here. If we don't get around them, how can we get through?"
Xiaotuanzi looked back and forth. There was no other way out in this long corridor, and there were no forks. Even if there were, they must have missed them.
It was already unknown if they could find another way out if they went back now.
However, judging from Weihe's experience, even if they took another fork, they would probably only end up in other tombs.
It seemed that all these tombs were connected only by this one corridor.
"It's okay. As long as we don't startle them, they won't attack people actively. These things are very sensitive to sound. As long as we pass by quietly, it will be fine."
"Why do you know so much? Didn't you say you didn't know there was a tomb here?"
Xiaotuanzi wasn't a thoughtless person. She couldn't trust Weihe completely, and she thought Weihe was very strange now.
After several encounters, Niannian could roughly tell that Weihe wasn't the kind of person who liked to help others, nor was she a talkative person.
All she cared about was her sister and killing her father.
From the moment they met until now, they had already talked a lot, but Weihe hadn't mentioned any ideas about solving the problem at all.
It was really strange.
"I saw some magazines about various tombs on my father before. He always liked to study these strange things. You should know that in the Xuanmen, if you want to study something, you need a lot of money. Although I don't know what my dad was researching, he was actually very short of money before he joined the Holy Church. At that time, he even wanted to rob tombs to get money to support his research."
Weihe's explanation seemed reasonable, but Xiaotuanzi still couldn't let go of the doubts in her heart, or rather, her intuition.
The Mingxin Mirror didn't react, which was enough to prove that Weihe wasn't lying.
But Xiaotuanzi still felt that there was something wrong with this person in front of her.
"Don't hesitate. Let's go quickly. These insects have opened their eyes, which means they're already awake. If we don't go quickly, they might be awakened by our voices. Then it will be another trouble."
With that said, Weihe took a step forward.
She seemed to be trying to dispel Xiaotuanzi's doubts by taking the lead.
Niannian didn't stop her and just followed the girl step by step.
When passing by those insects, Xiaotuanzi felt goosebumps all over her body.
She tried hard to ignore the strange feeling in her heart. Finally, the number of those green eyes in front was getting fewer and fewer. It seemed that they were about to get away from these insects that made one's scalp tingle.
Just then, a loud clanging sound came from under Weihe's feet.
She looked back at Niannian, and a smile appeared on her pale face. "Sorry, I seem to have stepped on something."
"Run!"
Niannian didn't have time to think about whether Weihe did it on purpose or what she had stepped on.
She just turned around and ran forward as fast as she could.
Sure enough, just as Weihe had said, when the second sound came, the insects became extremely agitated. The buzzing sound filled the entire corridor. That was the sound of them flapping their wings.
She didn't dare to look back. After running forward crazily for a certain distance, Niannian took out a fire talisman and threw it behind her.
She tried to use the fire to stop the insects from advancing.
But there were too many insects. Even though some of them were burned to death when passing through the fire, there were still more behind to fill in. They could only flee in a sorry state.