Chapter 113: The Tomb Raider Who Went to His Death

Chen Canghai knelt beside me to rest. Seeing me look at him, he made a few hand gestures. After seeing them so often, I could guess most of what he meant. He Yu hadn’t seen them much, so he didn’t understand and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Wh-what was that? What does that mean again?”

I explained, “He might have had systematic training in something like Sanda before.”

Chen Canghai nodded after hearing my explanation. I had guessed correctly, and for a moment, my ego was about to hit the ceiling. However, He Yu immediately pulled me back to reality. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Back to the point, where exactly have you brought us?”

“According to the map Qiao Sangui had me memorize, this is a separate stone room,” I said, pushing myself up from the ground and picking up my flashlight.

“This is already considered the core area of the mountain. My guess is that when the ancient miners were digging the shafts, the tunnels became too long for them to travel back and forth frequently. They would build a relatively sturdy and durable storage room. These stone rooms usually have good sealing and use more materials, so those Red Fire Ants can’t get inside. This is the best sanctuary we have.”

After hearing me out, He Yu scratched his head. “But have you thought about this? We’re inside, and the Red Fire Ants can’t follow us, but they’re all blocked up outside. How are we going to get out?”

His words were like a wake-up call, leaving me stunned.

That was right. How were we supposed to leave? The situation had been so urgent just now that I hadn’t even considered that part.

I was almost ready to cry at my own stupidity.

At that moment, I reached out to my side and suddenly felt a jolt, jumping up from the ground. Chen Canghai, who had been crouching next to me, was gone. The space beside me was empty.

“Where’s Chen Canghai?” The theory about hallucinations from earlier immediately flashed through my mind, making my heart race.

He Yu sat on the ground without any sign of panic. He simply turned and swept his flashlight toward a spot not far behind us. In the distance, I saw Chen Canghai standing alone in a small corner of the stone room. He was looking down, shining his light on something, but his body was blocking my view.

“What are you panicking for? Isn’t he right there?” He Yu mocked me again, saying my nerves were always too tight no matter where we went.

For some reason, just looking at his back, I felt like Chen Canghai’s state was a bit off. I brushed the dust off my clothes and walked toward him, turning up my flashlight slightly. Looking closely, I saw a corpse huddled in the corner.

I only saw one leg of the corpse before my footsteps faltered. I stopped two or three paces away from Chen Canghai. The first person who came to mind was Lu A’yao. Perhaps the impression he had left on me in the past was too deep, to the point where I couldn’t imagine what he would look like truly dead. Previously, I had only seen the bodies of strangers. I didn’t know if I could handle seeing the corpse of someone I knew.

So I stopped.

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and focused my gaze. The person was wearing sneakers with soles that were now rotted through. The blue pants were very thin, and a military canvas bag lay nearby, faded from being washed countless times. I also saw a wound piercing through the corpse’s calf, with a patch of dried blood beneath it and maggots squirming inside the wound.

This body had been here for several months. Judging by the extent of the bloodstains, he likely bled to death in the end.

Seeing this, I was basically certain it wasn’t Lu A’yao. That man always wore either all black or all white wherever he went. He never wore colored clothes, at least none that I had ever seen.

I walked forward to look at Chen Canghai. He didn’t show much emotional fluctuation, but I could sense an aura of sadness. He knew this corpse.

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

Hearing my question, He Yu also scrambled up from the ground. His trinkets clinked and clattered as he ran over to my side. I reached out to stop him, only letting him stand beside me to take a look. If the person on the ground really was the one Chen Canghai had come all this way to find, then I didn’t think we should be casually disturbing the remains.

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

The phone only had one bar of battery left. I quickly read through the sentences he had written, finally understanding exactly why he had come here. Lu A’yao had told me about his situation before, so Lu A’yao must have known. 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 Raider who had previously sold the Rubbing Manuscript to Han Jian. The ancestors of the Chen family were experts in the Tomb-Raiding Faction, but over the years, because their hands weren’t clean, some went to prison and others ended up in front of a firing squad. Almost all of them were gone. Chen Jianguo was Chen Canghai’s only living relative.

I glanced at Chen Canghai. He knelt on the ground and pulled out a fountain pen, pinning it to Chen Jianguo’s breast pocket. It looked like the pen had been used for many years.

Looking back at the content on the phone, I learned that after Han Jian realized something was wrong with the Rubbing Manuscript, he had gone looking for Chen Canghai. At the time, Chen Canghai had been in an extremely serious car accident and was still in the recovery phase. However, he only knew that the Rubbing Manuscript was a family heirloom; he didn’t know the deeper meaning behind it.

He Yu pulled me aside slightly and whispered in my ear, “It seems this kid really is just here to find his uncle. Old Lu letting him join us was a confirmation that he wouldn’t get in our way.”

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

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

“He definitely wasn’t seeking wealth.” It was an extremely unfamiliar and cold voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chen Canghai, who was kneeling and looking at the corpse, silently take a hearing aid from his pocket and put it on. The voice had come from him.

He Yu was startled. “Holy crap! You brat, so you actually can speak!”

I watched as Chen Canghai slowly stood up from the ground. He pulled back his coat, drew the knife from his belt, and walked to the side of the corpse. Calmly and resolutely, he began to cut off his uncle Chen Jianguo’s head, bit by bit.

Watching this process from the side was harrowing. Even He Yu, who had seen so much life and death, turned his head toward me several times. Chen Canghai came from a now-destitute Tomb-Raiding Faction. The dirty skills of that trade were basically useless in his hands now. It was already a stroke of luck that he could find Chen Jianguo’s body at all.

I watched as he finished cutting off his uncle’s head, placed it into a black plastic bag, and tied it tight. Then he emptied everything out of his backpack, put the plastic bag inside, and zipped it up.

“He even knew to take his uncle’s head back. He’s quite loyal and righteous.” He Yu smiled, a rare instance of him praising someone.

Chen Canghai set the backpack aside and walked up to us. He said, “I’ve lost more than half of my hearing. The doctor said that if I don’t continue treatment, I will lose my hearing completely in the near future. So, I am trying my best to adapt. It wasn’t my intention to deceive you.”

“You’re so young, you can’t just give up on treatment, right? You seem like a loyal guy. You’re short on cash, aren’t you? How much do you need for the follow-up treatment? I’ve got plenty of ways to get things done. Just name a price.” He Yu twirled the small knife in his hand.

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

I asked him, “Are you trying to investigate the true cause of your uncle’s death?”

Chen Canghai nodded at me.

He Yu was puzzled. “Wait, I don’t mean to be blunt, so please forgive me if I’m being offensive, but don’t you think your uncle just got injured and died after being trapped here?”

Chen Canghai raised his hand, holding the military canvas bag from before. He opened it, and bottles of mineral water, compressed biscuits, medical gauze, and alcohol spilled out 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 small one. Uncle Chen wasn’t like an ordinary petty grave robber. He was an experienced, seasoned Tomb Raider. Furthermore, I can guarantee that he hadn’t worked in this trade for decades. Therefore, I believe he must have sensed something in advance.”

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

As long as they had tools in hand, if there was no path, they could simply dig a fresh Tomb Robber’s Tunnel. For a common reanimated corpse, an aged Black Donkey Hoof was enough. With the right skills, nothing was impossible.

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 search Chen Jianguo’s belongings 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 discovered something suspicious and quickly called out 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 looking at the marks, He Yu looked around 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 scavenged the place.”

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, leaving us with nothing. Do you think it was that guy Han Jian?”

“He couldn’t even understand a lousy Rubbing Manuscript 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 a low sound of surprise, 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.”