abcnovels
Book 1
Book 1: Chapter 221: Countdown to the Finale 3
I followed as Uncle Three followed Chen Wen-Jin's directions into the depths of the cave, where I saw the huge meteorite I had seen back then. The meteorite full of holes was embedded in the bottom of the underground cave, and the Queen of the West’s sacrificial altar was still there. I followed as they climbed into the meteorite.
The meteorite seemed to be made of bronze and extended out in all directions. When we climbed into a larger cavity, I saw a lot of gravel burial mounds covered in bronze fragments. There was a lot of equipment around, but it was so old and rotten that I couldn’t tell what it was anymore.
"In order to get out of that ancient undersea tomb back then, we all took those pills and let ourselves enter a corpse-like state. After we came out, we thought that everything was fine. It wasn’t until Huo Ling started to transform that we realized that people who ate that kind of pill had to wrap their whole body in jade armor made of this bronze meteorite. Otherwise, they would be poisoned. Even if they survived, they would gradually become monsters like sea monkeys or forbidden women," Chen Wen-Jin said to Uncle Three. "The principle of these pills is very simple. They contain dormant corpse-eater kings and are made from the powder of the bronze meteorite. After taking the pill, the meteorite powder limits the toxicity of the corpse-eater kings in the blood, so that the bugs can drill into people's brains and secrete a toxin. The corpse-eater kings are influenced by the jade armor, so if you wrap it around your body, the toxin secretion slows. This way, the toxins slowly change the human body. According to the legends, after the corpse-eater king dies in two thousand years, you can leave the jade armor. The toxins that are left in the blood can repel insects and enable people to live a long time.”
If the person was dragged out of the jade armor before the two thousand years were up and the corpse-eater king wasn’t dead, then the bug would wake up and all the toxins would be released at once. The person’s skin would instantly be covered in blisters and they would become a blood zombie.josei
Chen Wen-Jin and the others conducted research in Golmud, trying to find a way to relieve the toxins. They eventually decided to go to Tamu-Tuo to look for the bronze meteorite and make jade armor to keep themselves alive.
After untold hardships, they found the meteorite and entered it. They went into a dormant state one by one, but she suddenly woke up decades later. She didn't turn into a blood zombie, but she didn't dare open the others’ burial mounds either. In the end, she lived alone in the snake marsh.
Sadly, she couldn’t leave the area. The farther away from this meteorite she got, the more her body resembled a blood zombie. So, she could only live in this swamp. At that time, she firmly believed that Uncle Three would appear one day and take her out of this place.
But when Uncle Three finally appeared, Chen Wen-Jin had given up hope. She had become one with the swamp.
Under the gravel burial mounds, the others from the Xisha Archaeological Team might not wake up until two thousand years had passed.
Uncle Three squatted on the edge of these gravel mounds, remaining silent for a long time. I didn’t know what he was thinking. There was a moment where I saw that he wanted to hold Chen Wen-Jin's hand, but he just clenched his hand into a fist instead. Chen Wen-Jin's fingernails were as long as a zombie’s, so her hands no longer looked like those of a girl. When Uncle Three leaned forward, I seemed to see that young man who used to reach out naturally to hold his beloved girl's hand. The conditioned reflex was still there even after decades had passed, but it was abruptly stopped. I didn’t know if it was because of the terrible appearance of her hands, or if his heart had already cooled down despite being so persistent all those years.
If it were me, I would hold it anyway. This was what I initially thought, but later, I wasn’t so sure.
My description is quick and simple, because I don’t want to describe things that are irrelevant to the information here. But for Uncle Three, his goodbye to Chen Wen-Jin was longer and more obscure than that promise I made to Poker-Face so long ago. Uncle Three was more persistent than me, and Chen Wen-Jin had been waiting in the same place. Their stubbornness wasn’t like that of ordinary people, but the end result was still the same.
Uncle Three stood up and Chen Wen-Jin took him to climb into the center of the meteorite. I followed behind them. They eventually came to the center of the meteorite, which should’ve been where Zhang Qiling went back then. I saw a completely dried corpse wearing majestic clothes sitting in the center of the cave. I recognized that outfit—it was the body of the Queen of the West. Her corpse was surrounded by broken pieces of meteorite, and her lower body was adorned in something that looked like a whole piece of snakeskin. At first glance, she seemed to be half-human, half-snake.
There was a strange thing in front of the corpse that attracted Uncle Three's attention.