Chapter 10: Curse

24TH DEC 2021~ VERALUCTL

Shen Jiancheng glared at An Jie, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, but with the gun pressed against his neck, he could only force out an ugly smile. “Mr An, what are you saying?”

“What? Did I say something wrong?” An Jie nudged his gun further up Shen Jiancheng’s neck, something suspicious about his smile. “Mr Shen, why don’t you tell me then, how did you murder San-er, that fool?”

Mo Yannan took a step back, staring at Shen Jiancheng with disbelief.

Shen Jiancheng’s adam’s apple bobbed. He looked back at Mo Yannan with difficulty. “Professor Mo… Help- help get me out of here, Mr An was probably possessed by those brain eating monsters. He’s now… urk…” His remaining words were forced shut. 

An Jie laughed humorlessly. “Don’t be this way, Mr Shen really is a good person, otherwise the crime wouldn’t have been so obvious. San-er’s cause of death may have looked like it was because his arteries were sliced open by the debris, but…” He stared down Shen Jiancheng, and as expected, saw a flash of distress in his eyes. “By accident, I saw a rock covered in his blood, and judging from its position and size… I thought that the chance the rock fell down and killed him seemed to be almost zero. It looked more like someone took it in their hands and cut open Li San’er’s neck.”

He raised his brows, his smile hidden as he said quietly, “Mr Shen, stop pretending. I know that you understand what those cursed words mean.”

“You…”

“My expertise may be in foreign languages but that doesn’t mean I can’t read Chinese.” An Jie lowered his lashes and continued in a whisper, his voice almost gentle, “How do you plan to get rid of us? Man-faced monsters… Mr Shen, from the height of the tunnel we were just in, we wouldn’t be as lucky as to just meet those, right?”

“‘But for you to come with many, and leave alone’,” Mo Yannan suddenly said. “Lao Shen, it was for this that you killed Li San’er, and for this that you’re trying to kill us now as well? You, have you been tempted by the devil!?”

…And he had thought that the old bookworm hadn’t noticed. An Jie gave a thoughtful glance back at Mo Yannan. The old professor’s expression was wrought with pain.

“You’re the one who’s gone astray!” With strength that seemed to have come from nowhere, Shen Jiancheng suddenly shouted at Mo Yannan, “What do you mean ‘cursed words’? Lao Mo- Lao Mao, your mind has been muddled your entire life, are you going to continue even now? Are you going to trust some stranger over me? I killed Li San’er? I killed Li San’er?”

Mo Yannan was stunned. He frowned at An Jie who still had that same half-smile on his face. Ever since they had met up again with Shen Jiancheng, he remembered An Jie had been wearing that same expression as he stood quietly at the side.

“What are you doing just standing there?! Don’t you have a gun?” Seeing his confused expression, Shen Jiancheng seemed to have recovered his vigor.

“I…” Mo Yannan took a step back, then another. At that moment, the ground suddenly started a second round of violent shaking; Mo Yannan lost his footing and stumbled to the ground, the narrow tunnel behind him quickly collapsing, blocking the way back. In the chaos, he heard the sound of a gun firing, followed by a muffled grunt from An Jie. Mo Yannan clawed at the dirt in front of him, his glasses buried somewhere beneath, and looked over with what vision he had left-

An Jie had lost his grip on his gun, a rock landing onto his hand and another onto the wound on his shoulder. Shen Jiancheng had immediately taken out a 46’1 from somewhere and with a nimble move, fired it out in An Jie’s direction.

Even though An Jie had sensed his movement and had made to evade, the lack of space led to the bullet still penetrating his elbow. The cavern in front of the three had collapsed and slivers of light entered into the tunnels- it turned out that it was already day aboveground. Shen Jiancheng took his chance and pushed An Jie away, crawling away with difficulty as another pile of dirt and stone fell down, separating them completely.

The crazed old archaeologist laughed shrilly. “Even the heavens are helping me! Haha, Lao Mo, you were trying to help An Jie? Then you might as well suffocate to death with him! I won’t waste my bullets, I’ll let you two talk to each other to drive away the boredom before you die… No need to thank me, An Jie said it- I’m a good person, I’m a good person… Hahahaha!”

An Jie was silent. The violent shaking slowly died down. Blood dyed his entire sleeve red and through a small crevice, he stared expressionlessly at the traitor’s twisted face.

Mo Yannan felt an intense ball of emotion lodged in his chest, screaming to be spat out. For the first time, the old professor who had been genteel his entire life felt an urge to shout and swear, but the only words that came out of his mouth were, “Lao Shen, you, you… How can you be so despicable?!”

Above them, Shen Jiancheng suddenly stopped laughing. His voice frosted over, he said, “‘To come with many and leave alone’. Lao Mo, don’t you understand? This place has to be buried. No-one should know its truth. The gift and curse of this Lu Zhu City, none of you can understand it.”

“The curse of Lu Zhu City?” An Jie automatically ignored the supposed gift. Truth be told, he had always felt a faint sense of resistance against this eerie city.

Shen Jiancheng laughed lightly. “Mr An’s curiosity is still so strong even in times like these. I’ll tell you then- the curse of this city, the punishment to outsiders who venture inside, is to kill each other so only one can leave alive. The curse was already written on the wall, but none of you understood the truth.”

An Jie snickered. “And you understand?”

Shen Jiancheng smiled faintly. “Of course, that person told me.”

An Jie frowned. “Who?”

Shen Jiancheng didn’t answer. He opened his arms as if welcoming a non-existent desert wind and shouted, “Vast like riding atop the winds to destinations unknown; fluttering as if leaving the earthly realm to ascend to the heavens2… Ahahaha! None of you understand, none of you foolish men will understand!”

An Jie’s expression was a little dark and he turned back to look at the dumbfounded Mo Yannan, asking with his expression, ‘why did you bring this kind of madman with you?’

Mo Yannan asked him dryly, “Lao Shen, are you mad?”

“I’m not mad.” Shen Jiancheng crouched down and stared brightly into An Jie’s eyes through the crevices in the soil. “I’ll tell you the secret of Lu Zhu City- I’ll only tell you once so listen carefully. The secret is immortality.”

His expression was one of obsession. An Jie slowly raised his slender brows, his always half-lidded eyes opening wide. After a long pause, he asked quietly, “Immortality?”

“That’s the final treasure to the city. ‘Leave no trace in time’- the person who leaves alive will receive eternal youth and eternal life. An Jie, you’ve always viewed yourself as clever, but even you wouldn’t have thought of this.”

An Jie silently shook his head. “I didn’t, no…” Before Shen Jiancheng was able to laugh in twisted delight, he continued lightly, “I didn’t think that there would be people who could believe in that kind of nonsense.”

Shen Jiancheng’s expression darkened and he stood up with a soft grunt. “Stupid. What’s the most pathetic thing about men? It’s ignorance, An Jie. Even when the truth is right in front of you, you choose to ignore it. Tsk, I’ve told you all I need to say, and what’s left… is another person’s secret to tell.” He smiled madly, like his facial muscles were cramping. “Take care on your way to hell!”

Shen Jiancheng raised his foot and stomped down, causing a handful of sandy soil to fall down, almost sending it into An Jie’s eyes. As he moved to avoid it, the light disappeared from the cave. Shen Jiancheng had blocked off the last remaining airway.

In the silence, An Jie finally realized that the wound on his elbow was still bleeding. This time, it was a truly deep wound and he gave out a low groan. The faint light of the torch came on again. The tactical torch had been with Shen Jiancheng and had been dropped sometime during the feud. Currently, the two of them only had that small torch, Mo Yannan carrying it with him. Rustles sounded in the darkness and An Jie knew it was the old professor approaching him.

“Xiao An… I’m very sorry,” he muttered hesitantly and An Jie almost laughed from anger. Was this what they meant by ‘fear not the mighty enemy but the useless ally’? What was even going on in that old fart’s brain apart from essays?

“I don’t know-”

“I doubt Shen Jiancheng has much power in a single kick. Lao Mo, go see if you can open up a hole up there; even a small slit would be fine. If you don’t…” An Jie interrupted and looked worriedly at the collapsing tunnel around them. “I’m afraid that since this is an enclosed space, the oxygen might run out.”

No matter how lost Mo Yannan was about the situation, even he understood the seriousness of those words. Following An Jie’s instructions, he knocked on a few places then rolled up his sleeves to dig through the dirt with his hands, occasionally stopping to take a break when he was digging in the wrong direction, sweating profusely the entire time. After a lot of effort, the old shut-in’s ancestors decided to take pity on him, and daylight shone through the crevice that Shen Jiancheng had blocked off.

Mo Yannan didn’t have time to catch his breath before he heard a terrible scream from far away. His back immediately straightened. “It’s Lao Shen!”

An Jie’s expression didn’t change nearly as much and he only shifted around in search of something. Hearing that, he made a noise of acceptance. “If my sense of direction is right, this place isn’t far from where we were surrounded by the man-faced monsters. There really is something wrong with Shen Jiancheng’s head… Heh, he might even be insane. With just that 46’, he was basically sending them his head on a platter.”

Mo Yannan was still trying to process the information. “He still wasn’t able to…”

“You heard him as well, didn’t you?” An Jie finally found his gun and let out a small breath. He lifted it up with his foot, finally relaxing when it was in his arms. “He’s probably dead.”

Mo Yannan sighed. “Why did he do all this… Lao Shen- Lao Shen’s gone stupid!”

An Jie snickered; the eloquent and gentle demeanor he had when they first met seemed to have disappeared entirely. The way he sneered, the way he fired his gun- it was nothing like a well-educated socialite, but rather, lonely in a way that was both mocking and despondent, like a lone wolf that was covered in wounds and yet unwilling to relent.

“Him being stupid doesn’t mean you should be as well.” The man narrowed his eyes slightly. “Lao Mo, don’t forget- those monsters that surrounded us traveled underground first.”

“What?”

An Jie smiled. “It’s not a big problem, I was just wondering how we should get out.” Right after he finished his sentence, that faint tap of fine sand against bladed legs appeared, closer and closer, more and more intense, the last thing that Mo Yannan wanted to hear.

An Jie set up his machine gun and lamented in an almost perverse manner, “Our old friend’s arrived.”

Author’s Notes: Alright, another dead.

1A gun. I’m not sure what model of gun; the Chinese refers to it only as a 46. I added a dash to make it more obvious that it wasn’t just a number.
2An excerpt from “Ode to the Red Cliff” by the Chinese polymath Su Shi of the North Song Dynasty. In context, it describes what he felt and saw when he was standing on top of a cliff.