Chapter 113: The Tomb Raider Who Went to His Death

Chen Canghai was kneeling beside me to rest. Hearing what I said, he made a few hand gestures to me. If you saw these gestures often enough, you could guess their general meaning. He Yu hadn’t seen them much, so he didn’t understand and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Wh-what is that? Wh-what does that mean again?”

I explained, “He might have gone through some systematic training in Sanda^[1] or something before.”

Chen Canghai nodded after hearing my explanation. I really had guessed right. Instantly, my ego began to swell, my tail practically sticking up into the sky, until He Yu yanked me right back down. “Don’t get cocky. Getting back to business, where on earth did you bring us?”

“On the map Qiao Sangui had me memorize, this is an isolated stone chamber,” I said, scrambling up from the ground and grabbing my flashlight.

“This is already the core area of the entire mountain. My guess is that back in ancient times, after the craftsmen digging the mines and shafts reached a certain point, the tunnels became too long for them to travel back and forth often. So they would build a relatively sturdy and durable storage room. That’s why stone chambers like this usually have good sealing and heavy construction—those red fire ants can’t squeeze inside. This is the best sanctuary for us.”

After hearing me out, He Yu scratched his head. “Have you thought about this, though? We made it inside, and sure, the red fire ants can’t follow us in, but they’re all packed outside. How are we getting out?”

His words woke me right up out of my reverie, leaving me stunned.

Right, how were we supposed to get out?! The situation had been so urgent just now that I hadn’t even thought of that!

I could practically cry at my own stupidity.

Just then, I reached out to my side and felt nothing. A sudden shiver ran through me, and I scrambled up from the ground. Chen Canghai, who had been crouching beside me just moments ago, was gone. The spot next to me was empty.

“Where’s Chen Canghai?” The next instant, the hallucination theory from earlier flashed through my mind, scaring me so much my heart rate instantly spiked.

He Yu sat on the ground without the slightest panic. He just turned around and swept his flashlight toward a spot a short distance behind us. Looking over, I saw Chen Canghai standing alone in a corner of the stone chamber. With his head lowered, he was shining his flashlight on something, but his body blocked my view.

“What the hell are you panicking for? Isn’t he right there?” He Yu gave me grief again, complaining that my nerves were strung up way too tight no matter where we went.

For some reason, just judging by his back, I felt like something was off with Chen Canghai. I dusted off my clothes and walked over to him, brightening my flashlight slightly. Looking closely, I saw a corpse curled up in the corner.

I only caught sight of one of the corpse’s legs before my feet froze. I stopped two or three paces away from Chen Canghai. The first person who came to mind was Lu Ayao. Perhaps the impression he had left on me was too deep, to the point where I couldn’t imagine what he would look like truly dead. Up until now, I had only seen corpses of strangers. I didn’t know if I could handle seeing the body of someone I knew.

So I stopped.

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and looked closely. The person was wearing sneakers with soles that had rotted through. His blue pants were thin, and a military canvas bag lay nearby, faded from countless washings. I also noticed a wound piercing through the corpse’s calf, with a pool of dried blood beneath it and maggots writhing inside the wound.

The body had been here for months. Judging by the spread of the bloodstains, he had likely bled to death.

Seeing this, I was fairly certain it wasn’t Lu Ayao. Lu always wore either solid black or solid white wherever he went; he never wore colored clothes, at least none I had ever seen.

I stepped forward to look at Chen Canghai. He didn’t show any major burst of emotion, but I could sense an air of sadness around him. He knew this corpse.

I tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Is this the person you were looking for?”

Hearing my question, He Yu pushed himself up off the ground and hurried over, the trinkets on his clothes clanking and clattering. I caught him and held him back, only letting him stand beside me to get a look. If the person on the ground was truly the one Chen Canghai had come all this way to find, then I didn’t think we had any right to go casually disturbing the remains.

Chen Canghai pulled his dust-covered flip phone from his jacket pocket, wiped it clean with his hand, turned it on, and typed a few lines into a new draft. He then shoved the phone into my hands and knelt down to examine the corpse lying half-upright on the ground.

The phone had only one bar of battery left. I quickly read through what he’d typed, finally understanding why he had come here. Lu Ayao had told me about Chen Canghai’s situation before, so he must have known all along. That was why he hadn’t stopped Chen Canghai from joining us.

The man lying on the ground was Chen Canghai’s uncle, Chen Jianguo. Chen Jianguo was the old tomb robber who had sold the rubbing manuscript to Han Jian. The Chen family ancestors were skilled masters of the Thieves’ Sect, but over the years, because of their sticky fingers, some were jailed and others faced firing squads until almost none were left. Chen Jianguo was Chen Canghai’s only surviving relative.

I glanced over at Chen Canghai. He was kneeling on the ground, producing a fountain pen that he clipped into Chen Jianguo’s shirt pocket. The pen looked like it had been used for many years.

Reading further on the phone, I learned that when Han Jian realized something was wrong with the rubbing manuscript, he had gone to Chen Canghai. At the time, Chen Canghai had been in a severe car accident and was still recovering. He only knew the manuscript was a family heirloom, completely unaware of its true secrets.

He Yu pulled me aside slightly and whispered in my ear, “Looks like this kid really did just come to find his uncle. Old Lu let him join us because he knew he wouldn’t get in our way.”

Chen Canghai knelt before the body and kowtowed three times to Chen Jianguo’s corpse.

I closed my phone and asked, “So how did Chen Jianguo die here? Since he already sold the manuscript, why did he come to this place? He clearly knew about the hint regarding the pagoda on it long ago. I suspect…”

“He definitely wasn’t after money.” It was an unfamiliar, cold voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chen Canghai take a hearing aid from his pocket and put it in as he knelt looking at the corpse. The voice had come from him.

He Yu was startled. “Holy crap! You brat, you actually talk!”

I watched Chen Canghai slowly stand up. He pulled back his coat, drew a knife from his belt, and walked over to the corpse. Calmly and resolutely, he began cutting off his uncle Chen Jianguo’s head, bit by bit.

Watching it made my heart wrench. Even He Yu, who had seen so much life and death, turned his head away several times. Chen Canghai came from the now-destitute Thieves’ Sect. The dirty trade passed down to him was practically useless now, so it was already a stroke of luck that he had managed to find Chen Jianguo’s body alive.

I watched him sever his uncle’s head completely, seal it inside a black plastic bag, and tie it tight. Then he emptied out his backpack, put the plastic bag inside, and zipped it closed.

“He actually took his uncle’s head back. Quite a loyal guy.” He Yu smiled faintly, a rare word of praise from him.

Chen Canghai set his backpack down, walked up to us, and said, “I’ve lost over half my hearing. The doctor said that without ongoing treatment, I’ll lose it completely before long. I’m just trying to adapt. I didn’t mean to deceive you.”

“You’re so young, you can’t just give up on treatment, can you? You seem like a decent kid. Short on cash? How much do you need for the follow-up treatment? Money and connections are the least of my problems. Name your price.” He Yu twirled the small knife in his hand.

“No,” Chen Canghai refused, looking at me. “Compared to fixing my hearing, I have more important things to do.”

I asked him, “You want to investigate the real cause of your uncle’s death?”

Chen Canghai nodded at me.

He Yu was puzzled. “Wait, pardon my bluntness, no offense intended, but don’t you think your uncle just got injured and trapped here until he died?”

Chen Canghai raised his hand, holding the military canvas bag from earlier. He opened it wide, and unopened bottles of mineral water, compressed biscuits, medical gauze, rubbing alcohol, and other supplies tumbled onto the ground. One look at them and I understood.

The supplies were all there, yet the man had died in the corner from excessive blood loss. This meant that Chen Jianguo clearly had the means to bandage himself and stop the bleeding while he was alive, but he hadn’t done so. He had simply sat there waiting for death. Why?

“Do you have a theory?” I asked.

Chen Canghai shook his head. “Just a hunch. Uncle Chen wasn’t like ordinary petty grave robbers. He was an experienced, seasoned tomb raider, and I can guarantee he hadn’t worked in this trade for decades. So I believe he must have sensed something beforehand.”

My thoughts aligned with Chen Canghai’s. My grandfather once said that for old-school tomb raiders, the ordinary Art of Mechanisms, Ghost Walls, or even reanimated Zongzi couldn’t stop them.

As long as they had tools in hand, if there was no path forward, they could simply dig a fresh tomb robber’s tunnel. For an ordinary reanimated corpse, an aged black donkey hoof was enough. As long as they had the skills, nothing could stop them.

The basic requirement for entering a dangerous tomb was a team of three or four people, yet we had only found Chen Jianguo’s body. This was enough to confirm that Chen Jianguo hadn’t left himself an escape route when he came here. He likely knew his end was coming and had come here to die.

Thinking of this, I told Chen Canghai to check Chen Jianguo’s belongings again, more carefully. If he really had come here to die, it made no sense for him not to leave even a single word for his only nephew.

However, Chen Canghai crouched there searching for a long time without finding anything else. A small notebook lay on the ground a short distance away from Chen Jianguo. It was the kind of notepad with only a few scattered pages left. I felt its thickness and sensed something was wrong, so I took the notebook and examined it closely with my flashlight.

I soon spotted something suspicious and quickly called over to He Yu, “Quick, quick! Come look at this! Someone wrote in this notebook before.”

The three of us huddled together, spreading the notebook flat on the ground. Its original thickness should have been about two hundred pages, but the one in my hand had less than a hundred left. The pages at the front that had contained writing had all been torn out.

After examining the marks, He Yu looked up, scanned the pitch-black stone chamber, and said grimly:

“Someone entered this stone chamber before we arrived. That’s why we can’t find anything. Someone has already cleaned the place out.”

His words gave me goosebumps. The three of us scrambled up from the ground and began searching every corner of the stone chamber. However, the area was quite small, and there were no beams on the ceiling where someone could hide. We checked five times until we were certain that, aside from the three of us, there were only rats and air. Only then did we breathe a slight sigh of relief.

“It seems the person who tore out the notes is already gone.” I sat cross-legged on the ground and flipped through the empty notebook.

He Yu sighed. “Someone beat us to it again. All that work for nothing! Do you think it was that guy Han Jian?”

“He couldn’t even understand a lousy rubbing without someone explaining it to him. I don’t think he’s smart enough to tear out notes,” I said as I flipped toward the back of the notebook, hoping to find some information that had been missed.

When I reached a certain page, my hand suddenly stopped. I let out an “hmm,” drawing Chen Canghai and He Yu over to look.

“What is it? What happened?” He Yu asked.

I said, “Only half of this page was torn away.”