As I read this, I felt sick-how could anyone be so vicious and merciless?

Fats asked, "How could one man kill so many people? He must have used what was in the box to be able to accomplish that sort of feat. s.h.i.t, I'm going to die if you don't read faster and find out what the two treasures were."

"What the h.e.l.l are you chattering about like an old woman?" I yelled at him. "Just go play with your burial armor and stop bothering me."

He grinned. "Calm down, it's okay, I have to interrupt. I'm so keyed up, my guts are itching-read faster, d.a.m.n your eyes!"

I ignored him and continued.

Because of his two treasures, the Ruler of Dead Soldiers was invincible for the next few decades in both war and affairs of the state, and his reputation soared. But in his later years, due to frequent contact with dead bodies, he fell ill and his own body grew weak. In the end, the emperor stripped him of his military power when he became old and feeble. He was only responsible for robbing graves and was no longer used in battle, which of course meant that he had been demoted.

As his health declined more and more each day, he began to feel afraid of death. One day, he dreamed of the serpent he had killed several decades before, who now told him that it was his turn to die and that everyone was waiting for him in the world of the dead. When the Ruler looked around, he was horrified to see that waiting for him were all the people he had viciously and mercilessly killed during his lifetime.

When he awoke and recalled the details of the dream, he was terror-stricken and went to ask for advice from his military counselor.

This was a man named Mr. Iron-face, a master of numerology and Feng Shui. He gave the issue some thought, and said that there was a suit of jade armor that when put on, rejuvenated its wearer to be as he was when still a youth and made him immortal as well. However, it had vanished long ago, and to find it one would have to go into the ancient tombs.

These words gave the Ruler a glimmer of hope in the midst of his fear and despair-after all, grave robbing was his specialty and he did this better than anyone else alive. All that night he read every ancient book that he could find, which in that period contained knowledge that is now lost to us. Finally, in one of the books he learned that the jade armor was to be found in a large tomb.

Mobilizing three thousand men, he spent more than half a year excavating a cave in a mountain, where he discovered an immense imperial tomb of the Western Zhou dynasty.

It had been built by burrowing into a mountain and then using the natural caves found inside. The interior tunnels were constructed by the principle of the Eight Diagrams and were extremely complex. The strangest thing inside the cave where the main tomb was located was a gigantic tree, which the Ruler named hydra-cypress. A young male corpse sat under it in a meditative position, wearing a suit of black jade burial armor.

Mr. Iron-face had a look and decided that this was indeed the jade armor they had been looking for. The young male corpse who wore it looked half-alive and half-dead. Every so often, the dead skin on his body peeled away and beneath it was a new layer of skin. Mr. Iron-face believed when this young man died, he was doubtless a withered old man.

Mr. Iron-face was a competent, intelligent man who knew how to prevent blood zombies from becoming powerful, and he used a special method to remove the male corpse from the armor. Then he sealed the corpse inside a stone coffin and placed it in a nearby tomb of secondary importance.

Following the plan constructed for him by Mr. Iron-face, the Ruler of Dead Soldiers swallowed a harmless pill that he told everyone was deadly poison and pretended to die before the eyes of the emperor. Believing the Ruler could really come and go freely between the human world and the world of the dead and fearing his power, the emperor gave him a funeral much grander than those of any of the other n.o.blemen in the State of Lu.

The Ruler of Dead Soldiers, while excavating the cave, had built a fanlike tomb on top of the Western Zhou imperial tomb. Because he was an expert grave robber, he set many cunning traps to mislead anyone who might come to the cave, including the trap of the Seven Deceptive Coffins, then hid himself in the tomb of the Western Zhou dynasty which he placed inside the thousand-year-old hydra-cypress.

Before he entered his own coffin, he killed every worker who was involved in this project by drowning them in the river. Then he poisoned the rest of his entourage, leaving only a man and a woman who were his two most loyal subordinates to place him inside the coffin. After these two people had completed their tasks, they committed suicide by taking poison.

By the time I finished reading I was convinced that most of the ancient corpses in the carca.s.s cave we had found at the beginning of our journey had probably been killed by the Ruler.

"It doesn't say what happened to Mr. Iron-face," I asked my uncle, "Could he have been interred with the dead?"

Uncle Three shook his head and said, "That type of person is very clever. He must have known beforehand that the Ruler would kill everyone to prevent his secrets from being divulged. He would not so blindly let himself be buried with the murdered bodies."

"Of course not," Poker-face muttered. "Because the person lying in that jade armor is not the Ruler of Dead Soldiers-it's Mr. Iron-face."

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

A LIE.

Once I heard this, a flash of light crossed through my mind as if I had come up with the solution myself. "So the two were switched at the last minute?" I asked.

Poker-face nodded. He looked at the corpse and said, "This person was incessantly scheming all along. He only wanted to use the influence of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers in order to achieve his own goal of immortality."

"How do you know all this? You seem like you've lived through it all yourself."

"Of course I didn't live through it," Poker-face shook his head. "A few years ago I went to rob a grave from the Song dynasty and found a complete silk ma.n.u.script from the Warring States Period. It was Mr. Iron-face's autobiography. After he gave the Ruler all of the details of his plan, he set his own home on fire and burned his entire family to death. He threw in the body of a beggar so people would believe he had died in the fire as well, and then disguised himself as a beggar in order to escape detection. Finally, he waited for the Ruler of Dead Soldiers to be buried, and then easily sneaked into the tomb. He dragged the frail and powerless Ruler out of the jade armor and put it on himself. With all of the trouble the Ruler of Dead Soldiers had gone through, he ended up at last as somebody else's p.a.w.n."

Shocked and bewildered, I said, "When the Ruler's corpse was dragged out of the armor, doesn't that mean that created another blood zombie? So aren't there two somewhere in this place?"

"Mr. Iron-face didn't say anything about that in his autobiography. Perhaps the time that the Ruler spent within the jade armor was too short for him to have become a blood zombie." Poker-face's eyes looked a little uneasy as he embarked upon this theory. "Mr. Iron-face probably didn't enlarge upon this in his autobiography because it was never an issue."

I glanced at Poker-face and for some reason I felt he wasn't telling us everything he knew. I looked over at Uncle Three and saw that he also looked doubtful. But after Poker-face finished speaking, he acted as if there was no more to be said. Recovering his usual emotionless countenance, he stood up and said, "It's almost daybreak. We had better be going."

"No way. We haven't found the devil's imperial seal yet!" Fats yelped. "You can see all the good stuff that's in here- wouldn't we be fools if we left without the treasures we've been seeking all along?"

Poker-face stared at him coldly and with a certain measure of hostility in his gaze. Fats shrugged and muttered, "All right, all right. But we have to get this jade armor out somehow, right? It's probably the only one of its kind on this entire planet. I'm only looking out for all of our interests here."

That seemed to make sense. Uncle Three slapped Fats on the b.u.t.t and said, "Then why are you dawdling around in slow motion? Do what you have to do and let's get out of this f.u.c.king place!"

Suddenly I lost all interest in what they were about to do, and did not want to help. I closed my eyes to take a break and felt a few drops of water fall on my face.

I thought it had begun to rain, opened my eyes to look, and there was the blood zombie's severed head, peering over the side of the jade bed. His eerie eyes were fixed upon my own eyebrows.

Leaping up in fear, I saw the head roll off the bed and fall to the ground; it looked to me as if there was something hidden inside its skull. Fats moved to look more closely but he was pulled back by Poker-face who warned, "Don't move. Let's observe this."

As Fats nodded, we all saw a tiny red corpse-eating bug chew its way through the zombie's scalp and climb out. Big Kui saw it and screamed, "s.h.i.t! How dare this tiny f.u.c.ker show his face anywhere near me?" He raised his crowbar, ready to crush the insect.

Uncle Three held him back, saying, "You brainless moron. This is the G.o.dd.a.m.n king of all corpse-eaters-if you kill it, you'll be in big trouble."

Big Kui stared at my uncle in disbelief and asked, "This tiny thing is the king of corpse-eaters? How did the big ones let that happen?"

Poker-face looked shaken; he tapped my shoulder and said, "Let's get out of here now-if the king of the corpse-eating bugs is here, I won't be able to control any of those little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. They're extremely powerful when their leader is at hand."

The little red corpse-eater began to make its creaking sound, flapped its wings, looked in our direction, and came flying straight towards us. Poker-face screamed, "It's poisonous! You'll die if it touches you. Get out!"

Uncle Three came rapidly to our side but slow-witted Big Kui reached out and instinctively grabbed the bug with his right hand. He stood as still as a wooden statue for a second and then let out a hair-raising shriek. The flesh on his hand instantly turned bloodred and the color quickly spread up his arm to his shoulder.

"He's poisoned," Fats shouted. "Hurry up-cut off his arm!" He grabbed at Poker-face's sword, and taken by surprise, Poker-face let it fall. Catching it in midair, Fats sank to his knees, cursing, "Holy s.h.i.t! How come this is so heavy?" He tried several times to pick up the sword but couldn't manage it.

It was too late. Big Kui was in such agony that his limbs began to twist convulsively. In only a few seconds, his entire body turned scarlet as if all of his skin was suddenly melting into lava.

He looked at his hand, opened his mouth to scream, and was unable to utter a noise. Poker-face saw that I wanted to go over and help, and pulled me back, saying sternly, "You can't touch him. Once you touch him, you'll die!"

Big Kui saw us backing away as if we were looking at a monster and became even more petrified. He rushed over to me with his mouth wide open as if shouting, "Help me!" I was too scared to move so Uncle Three dashed over and pulled me aside. Big Kui then jumped at the air like a madman and leaped towards Panzi. Panzi was in such bad shape that he couldn't react fast enough to save himself so Fats cried out and grabbed my gun. Knowing he was going to open fire, I began to fight with him to get it back and in the struggle, the gun went off.

We all heard the gunshot that struck Big Kui in the head. His body shook and he dropped to the ground.

A buzzing sounded in my head, and I fell to my knees. Everything was happening too fast. A minute ago I had been perfectly okay and now I was another person. My mind went blank and I had no idea of what to do.

The red corpse-eater made another creaking noise and, flapping its wings, crawled out of the palm of Big Kui's hand. Fats muttered to himself as Poker-face shouted, "Don't!" But it was too late. Fats had already run over, picked up the serpentine box and smashed the bug flat.

For a time not a sound could be heard in the cave. Then Poker-face abruptly picked up some stone dust from the ground and scattered it all over his body. He yelled, "Come on quick or it'll be too late!"

Fats looked around-nothing had happened. Surprised, he asked, "Why are we in such a rush?"

His voice had hardly faded when the dead silence in the cave was quickly filled with noise. Countless creaking sounds came from all directions. Then we saw from the openings on the cliffs, both large and small, one, two, three, ten, a hundred...an uncountable number of green corpse-eaters poured out. The scale of their empire could not be described by any words in any human language. They gushed out in wave after wave, ones in the rear crawling on top of the ones that led the way. They came in swarms, blotting out the sky and covering the earth.

I was stunned at the sight of them but Uncle Three smacked me on the head and shouted, "Run!"

He picked up Panzi and carried him on his back. Fats was still obsessed with the serpentine box and turned back to rescue it. Uncle Three yelled, "Aren't you worried about your G.o.dd.a.m.n life?" Seeing it was impossible to reach the box, Fats grabbed the gold-trimmed silk scroll instead and stuffed it in his pocket.

We all scrambled up the tree, grateful for the many concave and convex spots on the leafy branches, making it an easy climb. At the same time, all the corpse-eaters had surged toward the bottom of the tree-I looked down and saw the entire base of the hydra-cypress was covered with a green swarm. If anyone of us fell, not even a splinter of his bones would be left.

The corpse-eaters gathered together, and suddenly began to leap upward. They were much faster at climbing trees than we were and they were soon at our ankles.

Fats, climbing in front of me, turned and asked, "Didn't you say that weird guy's blood was more powerful than mosquito repellent against these creatures? Why don't we spill a little of it to use now?"

My mind was still reliving the scene of Big Kui falling down dead just a moment ago. I simply didn't care about anything Fats had to say. He saw I had no intention of discussing his suggestion and muttered, "f.u.c.k your mother." Suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my leg-a corpse-eater had bitten me on my calf. I kicked it off and looked down again at what resembled a pot boiling with corpse-eaters, all scrambling their way up the tree.

Uncle Three yelled from above me, "Explosives! There's a bag of explosives on the side of the jade bed!"

I asked, "Where?"

Uncle Three cursed, "You were sitting by the G.o.dd.a.m.n edge of the bed and you don't remember seeing it-it's on the left side." I looked down and could only see an ocean of corpse-eaters. Their bodies had already buried the jade bed and the bag of explosives. Firing a few gunshots, I hit perhaps only a dozen among thousands of the bugs. Then I saw Poker-face take a bunch of matches from his pocket, light them and throw them down at the spot where we knew the bed was.

Although the corpse-eaters were no longer deterred by Poker-face's blood, they were still terrified of fire. Once the flaming matches. .h.i.t the ground, the insects quickly retreated and formed a huge open circle, leaving the backpack with its load of explosives exposed to view.

A few bugs clung to Fats's b.u.t.t and he screamed, "G.o.d d.a.m.n it! Light those firecrackers quickly. I can't hold on any longer!"

Panzi shouted from above, "s.h.i.t! No way. There's too much firepower in that bag-blow it up and we're all going to h.e.l.l!"

More and more corpse-eaters had crawled up the tree and I knew that to hesitate now meant a slow and agonizing death for all of us. I screamed, "Who cares at this point? If we die, let's die quickly!" Gritting my teeth, I fired at the bag.

The explosion went off immediately. I heard a loud crash, wobbled a bit, and felt like my chin, b.u.t.t, and thighs were all hit by a pile driver at the same time. My whole body soared from the force of the blast, then I collided heavily with G.o.d-knows-what. My head was whirling and reeling. My throat turned wet, and I spat out blood. Everything before my eyes went black, there was a faint ringing in my head, and I couldn't hear a thing.

It was a while before I could prop myself up. I looked and saw that many corpse-eaters below us had been blasted into smithereens, I looked for my companions but saw n.o.body. Hurriedly, I moved my arms and legs to continue my ascent.

Because I had coated myself with a layer of the dust from the stone platform, the devil-armed vines moved away from me in droves, but there was a new wave of sound below. I looked down to see the corpse-eaters again surging forward. They were crawling rapidly and I knew I had to keep going no matter how much pain I was in. Closing my eyes, I climbed upward like a crazed baboon.

I was almost up to the crevice in the roof of the cavern when I felt a twinge on my back. I turned my head and saw a corpse-eater had jumped upon me and was biting viciously. I shot it dead just as an even bigger one attacked my thigh. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I shot it, but by then a third and a fourth had already jumped on my body.

I was only a few feet away from the crack in the roof which gave me a new surge of energy and strength. I thought, Go ahead and bite-you only have a little more time, which is not as much as you need to kill me. You're all going to die once I get out of this h.e.l.lhole.

As I climbed, I suddenly felt another presence, looked, and saw a b.l.o.o.d.y face peering out from behind the tree trunk. His eyeb.a.l.l.s were staring straight at me, looking as if they were about to burst out of their sockets.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

FIRE.

The face was badly mutilated. I couldn't see if the skin had melted and exposed the muscles inside, or if blood was oozing from its body to cover its face. All of a sudden I realized this was someone I knew-looking carefully, I recognized Big Kui.

A bullet had trimmed away a layer of skin on the left side of his head, exposing the bones of his skull. But it had not seemed to have gone into his brain and I felt some hope that even though his wounds were serious, they didn't appear to be fatal.

"Big Kui, come with me," I called to him, "perhaps we can save you."

He didn't move and his eyes stared at me resentfully, as if he hated us for abandoning him. He grabbed my hand and it took on the same hideous bloodred color that covered his entire body. I felt a burst of burning itchiness and I knew I was finished.

A faint voice came from Big Kui's mouth as he pulled me downward. I thought of the horror of watching his skin melting and with a burst of determination, I shook away his hand. But then he grabbed my foot as if his dying wish was for us to be together in h.e.l.l.

I screamed, "Big Kui, let me go! Life is all anyone really wants-if you want to live, then climb up with me. Who knows? We may find a cure for what is killing you now."

My words only seemed to make him even more furious and he leaped upon me, his eyes radiating beams of evil. Grabbing me by the neck, he began to strangle me.

One of us was going to die, and it wasn't going to be me. I kicked him viciously and as his grip loosened, I aimed my gun at his chest and pulled the trigger. He hurtled away from me, his blood splashing in all directions. Both of his arms outstretched, he fell straight into the ma.s.s of corpse-eaters.

My hand that he had seized was so numb that I could feel nothing and I had no idea if it was still holding onto a branch or not. As my body slipped, I tried to grab onto one of the devil-armed vines with my other hand but since I was protected by rock dust, the vine drew away from me. I cursed in the dark as my body slid down, landing on a huge tree branch.

The branch was covered with corpse-eaters and some fell off when I landed. I gripped the branch with my legs to stop myself from sliding down any farther but found that the corpse-eaters were starting to surround me again.

I could not help but smile as I faced the bitter truth of my predicament. I had so many options of death to choose from-I could fall to death, have the bugs eat me to death, or be poisoned to death. With fate generously providing this bounty of choice in my hour of need, I should feel more grat.i.tude than I was currently able to muster, I decided.

And then there was Fats, climbing up toward me, kicking a few corpse-eaters out of his way. He looked at me and yelled, "How the h.e.l.l can you just lie here staring at me? See how many holes there are on my b.u.t.t?"

When he came over to give me a hand, I shouted, "Don't touch me. I've been poisoned. Just go. You can't save me!"

Fats said nothing as he picked me up, laughing. "Find a mirror and take a good look at yourself. Your f.u.c.king complexion looks better than mine. In fact, your cheeks are as glowing and rosy as a pretty girl's. How could you be poisoned?"

Startled, I looked down and saw only a red rash on my hand that went up my arm, as if it had been bitten by thousands of mosquitoes. But it stopped at my shoulder and seemed to be slowly fading away. How could the poison have had no effect on me?

Fats hauled me on his back, gritted his teeth, and continued to climb as I served as his human shield-all the corpse-eaters now jumped on my b.u.t.t and started biting me. I yelled, "You fat f.u.c.k! I thought you wanted to help me, but you just needed a G.o.dd.a.m.n shield!"

He shouted back, "What are you complaining about? If you're not satisfied, why don't you come and carry me? Don't you see I barely have any unbitten flesh left on my b.u.t.t?"

I did not want to talk nonsense with him. There was a thick circle of corpses hanging close to the tree trunk of our hydra-cypress and occasionally Fats would b.u.mp into a pile of bones. Fortunately the corpse-eaters did the same thing, and they couldn't tell the difference between our living bodies and the corpses-many of them jumped on the corpses and started chomping away at the dead flesh that moved wildly as Fats collided with them.

Noticing this, Fats thought it worked to our advantage so he told me to push the bodies slightly and make them swing when I was able to touch them. Although it disgusted me, I did as he told me, hoping it might save our lives.

Every time I saw a corpse, I kicked it and soon the areas we went through were filled with spinning corpses. When it came to IQ levels, corpse-eaters were unfit to compete with humans. They had no idea whether it was better to chase after us or stop and feast on spinning corpses. Fats increased his speed, the distance between us and the corpse-eaters widened, and we finally felt it was safe to breathe a sigh of relief.

My arms and legs were no longer numb, and I began to think that the feeling I had when I was poisoned seemed to be the same thing my grandfather had doc.u.mented in his journal when the blood zombie raced across his back. Grandfather survived. Could it be that, as one of his bloodline, I had inherited his immunity?