abcnovels
Book 1
Book 1: Chapter 208
I was convinced by Fatty's words, so I helped him get the paraglider’s sail ready. When he took that leap of faith, I thought I would see an angel with folded wings flying to the opposite side crookedly, but what I really saw was a weight falling straight down with a flag streaming behind it.
Fatty screamed and instantly fell into darkness. I cursed in my heart, that idiot fell to his death. As the glow from his flashlight disappeared, the sail finally opened and plunged him into the darkness.
We all looked at each other.
Black Glasses shined his flashlight at the place where Fatty’s light had disappeared into the darkness. Visually, the distance was very far. We had originally thought that the place Fatty was aiming for should be the ground, but Fatty's trajectory just now was obviously headed for more empty space below.
We were silent for a while until we heard Fatty's quiet call from below, "One of my teeth got knocked out and the opposite side is full of leather figurines. I kicked one down, so does that make me a Maitreya (1)?"
We all breathed a sigh of relief and I called back to him, "Can you be more reliable? If you fall and die here, we can't collect your ashes."
Fatty’s only reply was, "Hurry up! Let's fight back here."
When we shined our flashlights down, we couldn't see Fatty at all. Poker-Face frowned and I immediately knew that it was bad. He obviously didn’t realize that this place was so deep.
I now knew whether Poker-Face had control over the surrounding situation just by looking at the slightest change in his expression. It was completely different from the past when he had to push me to run away before I even realized that I was going to die. I had been relatively calm the whole way here, thinking that he wasn’t particularly nervous about the surrounding situation. But at this time, I found that his facial expression seemed a bit off.
"What did the plaque on this floor say?" I asked, looking past Poker-Face at the abyss below.
"Tranquil Calamity (2)," Black Glasses answered.
I calculated it with my fingers and found that it was a very deep level. In fact, it was only a few levels above the smallest unit on the Buddhist measurement system, which was called Nirvana’s Tranquility. According to ancient people, Nirvana’s Tranquility was basically equal to negative infinity. In other words, the further down this level went, the closer you were to reaching eternal infinity.
I touched the back of my neck, wondering how long I had been unconscious and how long they had been running during that time. An image of them silently running with my passed-out body slung on their backs suddenly popped into my head, making me feel a little ashamed. I wondered if I had said too much.
While Black Glasses and I looked at the stone beams, I found that the measurements weren’t as accurate as a real imperial tomb. The stone beams that were inserted into the wall were both large and small. Black Glasses threw the only safety rope he had on his body around a thick stone beam in the middle of the z-shaped steps and then tied himself underneath. To make a long story short, we all decided to try it out. When we finally chose our hiding places, we turned off our flashlights.
It was pitch black all around. Of course, we couldn’t hang like this for long. There was still some time before Boss Jiao’s team showed up, so we were lying on the stone beams while we waited. When there were any signs of movement from up above, we would immediately roll under the stone beams and shrink our bodies so that we blended in.
I felt as if I was a bit like that bug that looked like a twig, which was kind of funny. When I noticed that everyone had stopped talking, I asked, "Can I say something now?"josei
"I didn't think you were that talkative before," Black Glasses whispered.
"I just want to know what's behind the bronze door. I figure if I'm going to die, you can just whisper it in my ear, right?" I said in the direction I had last seen Poker-Face.
There was no response, so I continued, "If I’m going to die, you can just say whatever. That way, I’ll at least have peace of mind when I go. Otherwise, even the three pillars of incense won’t be enough to send me away."
There was still no reply over there, which I found strange. After listening for a while, I noticed that there was no movement over there. I turned on my flashlight to take a look and found that Poker-Face wasn’t where I had last seen him.
I felt my heart jolt, where is he? Did he fall? Or maybe he ran away under the cover of darkness? At this time, I suddenly saw a spot of light falling down like a meteor.
Sure enough, it was a cold firework.
Black Glasses scolded me softly, "Turn off the flashlight!"
All I could do was turn it off immediately, while cursing in my heart. Great, just great. Where's Poker-Face?
There was a bang from above, and then a flare flew down and exploded at a point slightly above our position. Indeed, they really are well-equipped.
Under the huge bright light, I was able to get a full view of the opposite wall for the first time. I saw countless leather figurines stacked up layer by layer. Their skin was covered in sulfur husks and had blackened to such an extent that almost all of the colors had been worn away. There were also various kinds of musical instruments on these leather figurines. Even through the decay, it looked like most of the figurines were placed in one position.
This was a concert hall.
When I looked behind the leather figurines, I saw a huge mountain crevice that extended from above like a lightning strike. It was full of those bronze, scale-like reeds.
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TN Notes:
(1) Maitreya is a bodhisattva who will appear on Earth in the future, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure dharma. According to scriptures, Maitreya will be a successor to the present Buddha, Gautama Buddha (also known as Śākyamuni Buddha). More info here.
(2) Remember that god-awful chapter 191? Tranquil Calamity is 10-21. In English, it’s basically a sextillionth (aka a really freaking tiny number).
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Count yourselves lucky. I was so close to posting an unedited chapter as an April Fool's joke, but thought that would be too mean/confusing for some people lol.