Daomu Biji Volume 8 Chapter 43

This was actually a very simple trick, and originated from Persian magic. In fact, it used a gem from the Western Regions. Mirrors made of this gem were dim in sunlight, but especially bright in moonlight. Hence, this gem was called moonstone.

The reason for this phenomenon was that this gem could only reflect dim cyan light and if the light was too strong, it would be the same as stone. In other words, the stronger the light, the lower the reflectivity.

The mirror in the water was a light concentrator. When our flashlights s.h.i.+ned on the mirror surface, the light was vertically reflected to the top of the cave, and then reflected by the small lenses around the model of the ancient building to countless moonstone lenses on the wall.

The reflected light of a single lens was extremely weak and almost imperceptible. However, the acc.u.mulation of countless light rays could make the ancient mirror in the water reflect the appearance of the ancient building above. Because it was the superposition of numerous weak reflection points at 360 degrees, no matter where we were, we wouldn't form a shadow on the mirror.

And because moonstone could only reflect cyan light, no matter what color light we used, the image in the ancient mirror would be cyan.

“The principle of a shadow-less lamp.” Fatty said, “I've seen the Science Discovery Channel. Then why did I see everyone in the mirror?”

“There must be something strange with this model.” I said, “As expected, Yangs.h.i.+ Lei is impressive. This is western technology, and with the development of science and technology in the Qing Dynasty, it's surprising that mechanisms could have been brought to this point.”

“What is it for? You're driving me crazy, do you just want to scare people?”

“Now I can only use these aspects to guess what the purpose of this mirror here is. First of all, this is probably Zhang Jialou's lighting device." I said, “It's a lighting system. Just think, Zhang Jialou is deep in the mountains and the site must need a lot of lighting if such a huge project is carried out. The lighting couldn't be torches, because in such a remote area, it would take too much manpower to bring grease in, let alone continue construction. These people planned to plant trees nearby, knowing the wood would be needed for the project after nearly a thousand years, so they couldn't have failed to consider the lighting problem.”

I calculated that it would take two to three years to complete the construction of this place if they used 200 people and the lighting during that time wouldn't have depended entirely on grease.

I looked up at the top: “At first, the sun would definitely s.h.i.+ne down from the top, and it's likely that the lighting mirror set on the top of the mountain was damaged or hidden by them.”

When Fatty asked me why, I went to the edge of the cave and said, “It's often rainy here. Suns.h.i.+ne is the most common, lasting, and unreliable light source so they must've had an emergency light source. These fire channels should be the emergency light sources. When they need illumination, they'll ignite the channels here so there must be a pa.s.sage nearby that sends the firelight into the cave where Zhang Jialou is.”

When I finished, I waited for Fatty to praise me, telling me I was good and that my conjecture was impeccable. But Fatty didn't respond, and instead looked around at the fire dragon on the wall.

When I saw his expression change, I noticed the flames on the fire dragon dim at the same time.

“Has the oil burned out?”

“No, it's the oxygen that's suddenly being consumed in large quant.i.ties.” Fatty stretched out his hand to feel the air flowing around him. “d.a.m.n it, what kind of lighting? This is definitely not for lighting.”

I held out my hand like him and felt a current of air surging.

“The oxygen here was consumed, so now the oxygen in the cave outside is being pumped in and will form a big pressure difference, like cupping. All the holes here that are connected with the outside world will draw in air.”

“But what for?” I asked.

Fatty said, “I don't know, but I have a bad feeling.”

As soon as he finished speaking, I heard a series of chain-pulling sounds from the surrounding walls, as if some mechanism had been activated.

“It's over.” Fatty said, “Run!”

“What's the matter?” I shouted. He grabbed me and ran to the exit, shouting, “The air pressure has activated the trap! The mechanism here is all stone. It's so heavy that it has to be driven by air pressure! This place is an air pump. “

I immediately understood, but at this moment, the pool under my feet was suddenly moving. I hadn't run a few steps before I realized that I couldn't stand at all. A slope appeared below me and at the same time, all the water began to swirl. At the last moment, I had a sudden burst of strength and threw myself at the stone beam. As a result, I severely sc.r.a.ped my fingernails and my whole body was thrown into the water. In an instant I was caught in the current.

I was awed: d.a.m.n it, there's such a trap under this pool? As soon as I worried about how high the drop was and what was underneath, I fell to the ground and the flashlight fell not far from me. Then the water came rus.h.i.+ng down from above, pus.h.i.+ng my whole body further onto the ground.

I was overwhelmed. Although the pool above wasn't deep, there was at least a few tons of water, and I kept rolling around, barely able to find a s.p.a.ce to breathe in the current.

This state of semi-asphyxiation wasn't relieved until all the water had run out. I was exhausted, vomiting and coughing incessantly, and all the water in my windpipe was sprayed out, which felt like a relief.

Where the h.e.l.l was I? The flashlight had been washed far away, so all I could do was wipe my face and look around, seeing only darkness. I touched the ground and found that it was not stone but sand. It had been washed out of a big pit, and I was in the middle of it.

It seemed to be a sandpit.

The fall was only two or three meters high, and I was glad I didn't fall into a fatal trap as I struggled to get up.

After two or three steps in the flashlight's direction, however, I felt something was wrong.

The moment I put my foot down, it sank into the ground. And after three steps, I was dragged further down.

When I looked down, I found that the pit was full of a sand too fine to bear people's weight and I was sinking further.

I immediately reacted—it was a quicksand trap!

The most common trap in ancient tombs was the quicksand trap. It had no elaborate design, just required you to pour a large amount of quicksand around the tomb. And because quicksand was the same as water, no matter how you dug into it, the sand would surge back. At the same time, the craftsmen of the ancient tomb would design a turnover board on the floor so as long as grave robbers fell onto it, they would immediately fall into the quicksand layer at the bottom of the tomb and soon be asphyxiated.

Ghost said the channel was very safe, so how could there be such a trap? I was wondering this while lying on the quicksand, distributing my weight so as to decrease the rate at which I sunk. I felt around on my body.

I searched for half a day, but didn't find anything useful. Instead, my eyes gradually adapted to the light here and I saw Fatty not far away. He was worse than me: inserted head first into the quicksand with only his two feet still kicking furiously, trying to get his head out. But the more he struggled, the more he sank.

In this environment, I had learned not to despair. In the past, the more dangerous the environment, the more I was able to win in the end.

However, just as I was calmly and quickly thinking about the problem, I found that this time was different from before.

This time, I had no time to think.

Almost twenty seconds later, the sand had almost reached my neck, but almost at the same time, I found that I had stepped on something.

Was it the bottom of the quicksand trap?

It was something hard that stopped me from sinking. Fatty had finally got his head out with a triumphant shout so I asked him to come over. He tried desperately to climb to me but had only made it halfway before only his head was left. He had to stop.

I gasped heavily and tried to feel what I was stepping on. I asked myself, "What's going on, were ancient people so short? The ancients didn't expect modern people to grow so tall, so they dug the trap too shallow?"

No way. Although I believed that quicksand was a trap that could kill a person so long as it was just a few centimeters above the head, to be on the safe side, such traps were usually dug very, very deep.

“Mr. Naive, are you ok?” Fatty shouted from the side and leapt towards me.

“It's nothing.” I said. I had hardly finished speaking when Fatty gave an “ouch” and stopped.

“What's the matter?”

“There's something in the sand.” Fatty said, “f.u.c.k, it's. .h.i.tting my lungs.” As he spoke, I saw the sand in front of him turn over.

“What the h.e.l.l? Is it alive?”

“No, it's hard like stone. I'll get it out." Fatty said, “d.a.m.n it, it feels a little weird.”

With that, the sand turned and a horned object emerged. Fatty gritted his teeth, apparently straining under the sand. After waiting for a while, the skull of an unknown animal finally emerged.

“It's a deer.” Fatty said, “It seems that he was also a poor devil like us.” Then he threw the skull away and moved to me.

“How could a deer come to this place? Is Santa Claus buried in this building?”

“Maybe it broke in by mistake. There are many more.” Fatty continued to flop around, and soon pulled out a bone from the sand. I didn't know what part it was from, but it was very long like a bone spur. “s.h.i.+t, there's quite a lot, makes me uncomfortable.”

I was also flopping in the sand like him. It was hard to move my hands since unlike the sand on the beach, the quicksand here was very fine, and the deeper you dug, the stronger it became. Soon I also felt something hard.

I grabbed the thing, pushed it up bit by bit, and soon a bulge in the sand swelled up in front of me. I gave it a hard push and the bone emerged out of the sand. The first thing I saw was a ma.s.s of hair.

I was stunned for a moment, and then continued to push it up to the surface until a ferocious face emerged from the sand.

It was the mummified body of a man. I saw the faded green army clothes on him and realized that this should be the victim of a grave robbery.

“h.e.l.lo, Santa Claus.” Fatty finally came to my side. “It looks like this is a ma.s.s grave. Don't look. We have to think of something; otherwise we'll become Santa Claus.”

Our method was to use the bones in this sand pit to connect the cloth strips torn off from our clothes to form a bone frame, and then cover it with anything that could be covered to make something similar to a sled.

We had to make two pieces; first climb to the top of one piece, then climb to the top of the other piece. In this way, the contact area between us and the sand would be much larger, and we could move forward instead of sinking down.

After we finished quickly, I found that this way was silly—we couldn't go straight, we had to walk sideways.

Fatty pointed to one direction and said, “Go over there first. We'll try crab-walking and see how long we can run amuck.”

“Stupid, that's not a nice thing to say.” I scolded and lay down on the “sled” with Fatty. He handed me the cha.s.sis on one side and I turned to the other side, then we both rolled over and repeated the same process.

The entire way forward, we were really rolling. Rolling and rolling until suddenly we arrived at a place where the sand sank down.

I was shocked and thought, “s.h.i.+t, can this quicksand not hold anything with such a large surface area?” But it wasn't quicksand at all, it was rogue sand. I immediately heard a series of sounds that sounded like stones rubbing and cras.h.i.+ng against each other under the sand.

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