The Lost Tomb : Restart (The Sound Of Providence)

Chapter 44: Horn Candles

After I told the two behind me what was going on, I felt as if the urge to pee became more pressing. Fatty told me to stop thinking and keep moving forward. We had no other way out. We'd die if we died.

I pressed on, suffering through the agony of holding my pee in. When I climbed to the fifth yin, my consciousness began to blur and all my attention became focused on my bladder.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I was going to collapse. It reminded me of that time I tried to hold it in after drinking beer on a long-distance bus ride. In the end, I had to be helped off the bus. It was a fate worse than death. I instinctively started analyzing the tunnel walls, hoping to find something that would help me solve my predicament without being killed. I even thought about using my towel to absorb it, but the cave walls didn't have any gaps and the towel's absorption abilities weren't that good.

If I encountered any danger while crawling forward and shot the gun, I'd definitely end up peeing. Maybe Poker-Face wouldn't be able to save me because of the sudden attack.

As I crawled more and more slowly, Fatty noticed that something was wrong and asked me what was going on. I took a deep breath and tried to distract myself.

These were the hardest fourteen hundred meters of my life. When I stopped to take a break, the time and my bladder seemed to put me in a kind of trance. I almost felt as if I had been climbing in this hole for half my life. Fatty and I bantered back and forth at first, but then we were both too tired to make a sound.

When I saw the one yin marker, I came out of my trance and touched my face. I was covered in sweat and countless places on my body had been cut by the rock walls. In addition, my full bladder now almost felt as if it were numb. For a few seconds, I thought that it wouldn't matter if I died.

"This is it!" I couldn't look back at them, so I shouted as loud as I could, "Are you both still there?"

"Yes!" Fatty shouted back weakly. "Don't go over there yet. I want to sleep first. I'm too tired."

I knew he could really fall asleep here, but I couldn't hold it any longer. I kept praying that there would be a tomb chamber or a bigger hole at the end. Otherwise, I would have to make the difficult decision to try and get Poker-Face and Fatty to do planks [1] to make way for my urine.

As I swiftly crawled through the last stretch of the tunnel, my expression became all twisted. If a ghost appeared in front of me and saw my expression, they would definitely regret not being reincarnated.

After crawling the final distance, my lighter revealed something at the end of the tunnel.

It was a bronze basin.

There was a layer of white powder in it that had hardened and cracked. This thing had obviously been here for a long time, for the rust on it had adhered to the rock.

"What is it?" Fatty asked from behind.

As I approached, I saw that there was a mass of black things in the basin. I poked them carefully with the gun barrel and found that they were all candles. Not only were these candles soft, but they were all a very strange, grayish-black color.

I took one out, carefully sniffed it, and recognized a strange yet familiar smell.

The candles had been made with rhinoceros horns, and this basin was full of them.

The "Book of Jin" [2] said the following: "Wen Jiao circled around Wuchang. At Niuzhuji, the waters were unfathomable and there were many monsters under the clouds. Wen Jiao thereupon burned a rhinoceros horn to light the way. In a flash, he saw grotesquely shaped aquatic creatures rushing at him from the water. That night, he dreamed that someone said to him, 'We are that which can and cannot be seen. Those on separate paths. It is only with this light that you can see us!'" [3]

In order meet ghosts and gods, ancient Chinese used rhinoceros horn candles, which were commonly known as rhinoceros lights.

There were so many rhinoceros horn candles right here in this hole, but for what purpose? 

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Notes:

[1] It's a core strength exercise that involves maintaining a position similar to a push-up for the maximum possible time.

[2] It's a history of the Jin Dynasty from 265 to 420. It's the 5th of the 24 dynastic histories, compiled under Fang Xuanling in 648 during the Tang Dynasty. There are 130 scrolls (or volumes). 

[3] This is from Vol 67 of the "Book of Jin".