【What in the world is going on?】
【My brain’s completely fried, and I still don’t get it.】
【Wasn’t he a tomb raider? How is he alive again?】
【I don’t know either, but I do know one thing for sure: Mộ Dung Nguyệt is a fraud!】
The next second, someone snatched my phone. I looked up and saw Kiều Mặc Vũ, who was standing beside me with both hands raised.
A group of people surrounded us, guns in hand, their dark muzzles aimed straight at us.
The phone was tossed aside and smashed. The middle-aged man at the head of the group wore a face mask and smiled at Kiều Mặc Vũ.
“Master Kiều, you really do live up to your reputation as the head of Phong Môn. You said you’d find a Yuan-dynasty tomb, and you found one. That’s incredible!”
Kiều Mặc Vũ suddenly understood.
“Was this all your scheme? Just to make me find this tomb?”
The middle-aged man burst out laughing and gave Kiều Mặc Vũ a thumbs-up.
“This lowly one is Lão Kim. It’s always a pleasure talking to a smart person. Now, tell me—do you think it’s a good time for us to go down there?”
18.
Lão Kim was a notorious smuggler.
Two months earlier, he’d bought half a copy of 《Dịch Nguyên Áo Nghĩa》 on the black market. The young man selling the book said his grandfather had stolen it from a tomb.
“You’ve heard of Yuan blue-and-white porcelain, right? There are several hundred pieces in the tomb. Dig up just one, and it’d be worth at least two hundred million.”
“Too bad the tomb is full of traps, and there’s also a man-eating beast. Not long after the team entered, four of the five were dead.”
“The one who escaped went insane, too. Every now and then, when he was lucid, he’d mutter a few words, but he’d never tell anyone where the tomb was, no matter what.”
Several hundred pieces of blue-and-white porcelain—wouldn’t that be worth tens of billions?
Lão Kim was overcome with greed. After asking around, he learned that the only geomancer capable of finding the tomb was Kiều Mặc Vũ.
At first, he’d planned to kidnap Kiều Mặc Vũ outright and force her to find the tomb. But she was a powerful geomancer, and he was afraid she’d lead him into some random tomb and kill him. So he thought it over very carefully and finally came up with this plan.
First, he had Chu Kỳ kidnapped and taken to the grasslands. Then they deliberately let her escape, knocked her unconscious while she was running away, and dumped her in a pit they’d already dug.
That made Chu Kỳ think she’d fallen into a tomb-raider’s tunnel and need to call for help.
The tomb-guarding beast’s roar was something he’d specially created, too. He tried it hundreds of times before he thought it sounded convincing.
The tomb-guarding beast pounding on the wall was really just the young man in the neighboring stone chamber.
Once Kiều Mặc Vũ and I set out to find the tomb, he had someone leak information to draw the police’s attention.
Chu Kỳ would soon be rescued by the police, while Kiều Mặc Vũ and I would be branded as frauds. Everyone would think we’d run away after being exposed as liars. No one would care whether we lived or died.
When he finished explaining, the three of us fell silent.
Kiều Mặc Vũ sighed.
“With an IQ like yours, why didn’t you go to college instead of becoming a smuggler?”
Lão Kim burst out laughing.
“I have plenty of graduate students and PhDs from prestigious schools working for me, forging and processing antique records.”
“Master Kiều, don’t worry. I don’t want you dead. Lead us into the tomb and bring us back out safely, and I’ll let you go right away.”
19.
Kiều Mặc Vũ had found the exact spot. While we were talking, Lão Kim’s men had already located the tomb-raider’s tunnel.
“Master Kiều, would you go first?”
Kiều Mặc Vũ grabbed the rope and climbed down into the tomb, her expression cold. I followed right after her.
Kiều Mặc Vũ cursed.
“I’ve lived this long and never been taken for such a ride! I didn’t even get to eat that braised lamb, and now I have to work for someone else for free!”
I was pretty upset, too, but if kidnappers could pull off a stunt like this, it was no wonder we’d become their victims.
The rope dangled about four meters before it ended. I looked down and saw we’d reached the tomb below. It had a domed ceiling, and murals covered all four walls.
I jumped to the ground and swept my flashlight around. Only then did I notice several skeletons on the floor. They wore old-fashioned civilian clothes, like the tomb raiders Lão Kim had mentioned.
But the limbs of all four skeletons had been destroyed; they were missing hands or feet. I had no idea what kind of animal had attacked them.
Lão Kim climbed down after us. Seeing the bodies strewn across the ground, he cautiously edged closer.
“Master Kiều, is this what the tomb-guarding beast you mentioned did?”
“I looked it up. Aren’t tomb-guarding beasts supposed to be a good thing? They ward off evil, so why would one eat people?”
Kiều Mặc Vũ glared at him.
“Tomb-guarding beasts subdue demons and spirits and protect the souls of the dead from disturbance, so of course they’re good for the dead. You tomb raiders come down here and disturb their peace. If the beast doesn’t eat you, who should it eat? It’ll even eat your tongues so you can’t disturb the spirits.”
Lão Kim laughed heartily.
“Master Kiều, you sure know a lot. When that tomb-guarding beast shows up, I’ll leave it to you to deal with.”
This tomb was built differently from others. It was circular, with eight directions, and a passage from each one led to a different tomb.
“Bảo Bát was very fond of the I Ching, and this tomb was built according to an Eight Trigrams formation.”
Kiều Mặc Vũ looked up and glanced around, then suddenly burst out laughing.
“How convenient—we have exactly eight people, so each of us can choose a direction.”
20.
Lão Kim clearly didn’t agree.
“Master Kiều, don’t joke around. Just pick a passage, and we’ll all go together.”
Kiều Mặc Vũ shook her head.
“Even if we go together, we’ll end up separated. Each of the eight people has a different fate. In the end, only one person will make it out of here alive.”
Lão Kim stubbornly insisted that they stay together, and Kiều Mặc Vũ had no choice but to agree.
After counting on her fingers, she chose a passage.
“This is the Life Gate. We’ll go this way.”
Kiều Mặc Vũ told me to go first. I’d only taken a few steps when the ground suddenly gave way beneath me. The stone floor had somehow turned into a pitch-black pit.
I screamed as I fell into the pit, but I could still hear Kiều Mặc Vũ talking to Lão Kim nearby.
“See? I told you we were bound to get separated.”
I felt like I was rolling down a slope. The fall left me dizzy. After a great deal of effort, I finally came to a stop and clambered up to pick up the flashlight beside me. I tried to stand, but couldn’t. That was when I realized the stone chamber was only about three feet high.
I immediately felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I wasn’t exactly a coward, but being cooped up in such a cramped, enclosed space was still suffocating. I’d rather run somewhere open and fight the tomb-guarding beast than stay here.
I tied the flashlight to my forehead and crawled along the ground.
After crawling for a while, I got a rough look at the tomb chamber. There were several earthenware jars in one corner, but nothing else.
Kiều Mặc Vũ had said this was the Life Gate. Had she deliberately let me fall in here to keep me safe?
I felt a lot more at ease, so I simply crouched beside the corner and looked at the jars.
The moment I touched one, I realized something was wrong. The earthenware jar was stuck fast to the ground and wouldn’t budge.
As soon as the jar shifted, I heard a rumbling overhead.
I glanced up and was so terrified I nearly died on the spot.
The stone ceiling above me was slowly coming down, and it wasn’t moving slowly, either. Before long, I couldn’t crouch anymore and had to hunch over on the ground.
I’d imagined hundreds of thousands of ways I might die, but never this: being crushed into a human sandwich by a stone wall in an ancient tomb.
My heart was pounding as if it might leap out of my chest, and my vision blurred. I desperately tried to move the jars, but no matter how hard I pushed, it was useless.
The stone ceiling kept sinking lower. I could barely breathe, and my ears were ringing.
Just as I was losing hope, the rock wall ahead suddenly split apart, revealing a narrow opening just wide enough for one person to crawl through.
The stone ceiling was now only about sixteen inches above the ground. I could only lie flat and struggle forward on my elbows.
Whatever was behind that opening, it had to be better than staying here and getting crushed into a human sandwich.
21.
The stone ceiling was still slowly sinking. I even felt it brush my hair. I summoned every last bit of strength I had and ignored the pain of my scraped elbows.
My grandfather always said I was out of shape, but if I were doing military training and had to crawl under barbed wire right now, I’d come in first place.
My powerful survival instinct drove me forward. Just as I squeezed into the narrow opening, the stone wall behind me hit the ground with a thud.
I sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath. Sweat dripped from my forehead down my face.
As I caught my breath, something started to feel wrong. The ground beneath me wasn’t as hard as I’d expected.
I reached down and felt around. The fabric of the clothes was rough, and the string of jade beads at the neck was smooth and cool. Moving my hand a little higher, I felt an ear.
“Gulp—”
I swallowed, braced myself on my arms, and lifted my head a little. Then, gathering my courage, I looked down.
The moment I saw it, my heart nearly stopped.
A male corpse lay beneath me, its eyes shut. Its flesh had rotted away until white bones showed through, and the bones even glowed a faint blue. Hundreds of years had passed, yet it hadn’t turned to dry bones. I was face-to-face with it, pressed right up against the corpse.
Terrified, I tried to scramble up, but when I stretched out my arms, I realized there were stone walls all around me.
That was when it dawned on me: I was trapped inside a stone coffin.
I was scared half to death. In this situation, I’d rather have been flattened by that stone wall!
I was so frightened I burst into tears, and the involuntary tears just kept falling.
“Waaah—”
At the same time, I heard a noisy conversation outside.
“Did you hear that? It sounds like someone’s crying!”
“Damn it, is that a female mummy? What do we do, boss?”
Lão Kim’s panicked voice rang out.
“Damn it, Kiều Mặc Vũ said this stone chamber was pretty safe. I knew she was trying to get me killed!”
“You go on ahead. I’m going back to find Kiều Mặc Vũ!”
“Boss, how can I lead the way? I can’t do it! Boss, don’t run off!”
I immediately panicked. If they all left, who would get me out?
“Waaah— Lão Kim! Get me out of here! Lão Kim! Waaah—”
“Boss, that female ghost knows your name! Boss, wait for me!”
The people outside were so terrified they nearly lost their souls and bolted.
22.
It went quiet outside again. After a while, footsteps sounded.
“Damn, I’m exhausted. I finally shook them off. Once we find Mộ Dung Nguyệt, we can get out.”
“Kiều Mặc Vũ—”
Giang Hạo Ngôn panted with his mouth wide open, leaning against the stone coffin.
“That tomb-guarding beast was hard to deal with, too. How was that mutant thing even made?”
“They poured the blood, flesh, and bones of eighteen kinds of fierce beasts into a stone mold, then used sorcery to refine it. It’s like a tomb spirit—it can’t be killed. We had to use Lão Kim and his men to draw its attention, then make a run for it.”
“I have one more question.”
Giang Hạo Ngôn’s voice came through, full of grievance.
“Is the Life Gate supposed to be the safest? Why did you send Mộ Dung Nguyệt through it first? Aren’t you worried about me?”
“The Life Gate means there’s still a chance of survival; it doesn’t mean it’s safe. Mộ Dung Nguyệt happened to be right beside me, so I just sent her through.”
“Come to think of it, I sent you through the Rest Gate just now. That was much safer.”
What? Does a single guy’s life not count as a life?!
I angrily pounded on the stone coffin.
“Kiều Mặc Vũ, get me out of here!”
“Hm? What was that?”
Kiều Mặc Vũ cocked her ear and listened for a moment, then went over and pushed open the stone coffin lid. As soon as it opened, I sat bolt upright and gulped in air.
I gasped for breath and cried.
“I heard everything. Why did you send me through the Life Gate?”
Kiều Mặc Vũ reached out to pull me up, looking perfectly reasonable.
“With a brain like yours, and even a Peking University education, if you ran into Giang Hạo Ngôn, you’d probably lose that last glimmer of hope for survival.”
Giang Hạo Ngôn: “??”
Well, that made more sense. I felt a lot better now.
I grabbed Kiều Mặc Vũ’s arm, trying to climb out of the stone coffin, but my left leg seemed to be stuck and wouldn’t move.
I looked down and realized that the old man’s corpse had opened its eyes at some point and was gripping my leg tightly.
“Kiều Mặc Vũ, the corpse is moving!”
23.
Quick as a flash, Kiều Mặc Vũ pulled a coin from her pocket and shoved it into the jiangshi’s mouth.
Then, with a powerful swing of her arm, she hurled the jiangshi out of the coffin.
The moment the jiangshi left the coffin, “Rumble, rumble—” the cave entrance from before appeared again.
“Mộ Dung Nguyệt, crawl through, quick!”
“What? I just came out of there. That place—”
“It’s the only way out of this tomb chamber. Get in, quick! Giang Hạo Ngôn will be right behind us!”
I couldn’t beat the jiangshi either, so I had no choice but to do as Kiều Mặc Vũ said and crawl through the cave entrance I’d just squeezed out of. Once inside, I discovered that the stone wall in the chamber had risen back to its previous half-height.
After fighting the jiangshi for a while, Kiều Mặc Vũ leaped into the coffin after me and shut the lid.
But as soon as she crawled out of the cave, a “Rumble, rumble, rumble” sounded overhead, and the stone ceiling began to descend again.
But unlike before, the sloping spot I’d rolled down was still there; it hadn’t disappeared.
We ran for our lives, scrambling and crawling down the slope and out, then headed back into the domed tomb chamber.
Before going down, Lão Kim had left two of his men up there. Kiều Mặc Vũ climbed up the rope first, tied them both up, and then came to get us at the cave entrance.
“All right, climb up!”
“Bảo Bát was really devious. On the surface, he left people a way out, but in reality, it was a death trap. Take that one and only Life Gate, for example. If Mộ Dung Nguyệt hadn’t come out of there, who would’ve guessed the cave entrance was inside the coffin?”
“Normally, a tomb with a tomb-guarding beast shouldn’t have corpses rising, but he set up a corpse-nurturing formation in that tomb chamber and kept the beast out. To escape, we first had to defeat that six-hundred-year-old jiangshi. Jeez—”
The three of us lay in the grass, marveling at our ordeal as we gazed up at the stars.
Kiều Mặc Vũ let out a long breath of relief.
“How does that saying go? Render unto God what is God’s, and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The dead should keep what belongs to the dead. How could the living take it away?”
After saying that, she turned to look at the two remaining tomb robbers.
“Do you hear me?”
We left the grasslands and took the two tomb robbers to the police station.
This time, we’d gone to all that trouble to do a good deed, only to get called frauds by the netizens instead of receiving any credit.
Kiều Mặc Vũ tried to console herself.
“We do what we do not for fame, but for karma.”
“Even so, I’m still really upset. Mộ Dung Nguyệt, I want to come to your place for braised lamb ribs. That’s the only thing that’ll soothe my wounded soul.”
Before leaving the grasslands, Kiều Mặc Vũ worried someone might fall in, so she made a point of finding a large rock to seal the cave entrance.
There was dirt on the rock, so before long, weeds had grown all over it, making it look exactly like the surrounding landscape.
The wind stirred the grass. The grasslands were peaceful and silent.
One month later.
“Crack!”
The boulder shattered, and a deathly pale hand reached up from beneath the earth,
THE END.