Chapter 91: Causes and Consequences (3)

Two days later, Guo Er and the others finally made their move. They were not technically skilled professionals. As for tomb raiding, only Guo Er had a rough understanding of it. Their method was extremely crude. They roughly marked a location, dug a hole, and then used explosives.

From a professional standpoint, this approach was extremely dangerous, but how could people like Guo Er understand that?

That day, perhaps Guo Er was lucky, or perhaps there were other reasons. In any case, they really did manage to blast open a hole in the ancient tomb, and they successfully got inside.

But the moment they entered, they were completely stunned, because what appeared before them was a long corridor.

Guo Er held up his flashlight, somewhat dazed, and muttered, “What is this? Isn’t a tomb supposed to have two side chambers and a main chamber? How did it turn into a corridor?”

This was exactly why they were frightened.

They had never seen a large tomb before. Even when Guo Er had followed others twice in the past, what he saw were only slightly more room like structures. Who would expect to step out and immediately find themselves in a long corridor?

“Second Brother, this tomb looks unusual. Should we leave?” The last one to come down, Jiang Yaomaoer, was already frightened the moment he entered. He was more careful than the others. With the flashlight sweeping across the corridor, he immediately sensed something deeply wrong about it, mainly because the carvings were extremely unsettling.

They were all short figures with green faces and fangs. That alone was not the worst part. Interspersed among them were faces carved with faint smiles that looked neither fully happy nor fully sad. Just looking at them made one’s scalp crawl.

Truth be told, they were not afraid of corpses. After all, in their line of work, they had already seen a few skeletons. That was nothing. But this corridor alone was enough to make their hearts uneasy.

Faced with Jiang Yaomaoer’s suggestion, Han Niu said nothing. In the team, he was the type who simply followed orders without speaking. Guo Er spat on the ground, trying to say something to steady their nerves, but in the end, he could not bring himself to speak. He understood better than anyone that they were just amateurs from the countryside, not real professionals.

Only Old Du spoke. He lit a cigarette and said, “What are a few living men afraid of when it comes to motionless dead people? The only thing to worry about in a tomb is toxic gas and traps. We let the air out before coming down. Look, even the cigarette can be lit, which means there is no problem. As for traps, after so many years, what use would they still be? Nothing to fear.”

Guo Er glanced at Old Du and thought to himself that he had clearly been the one to teach him all this, yet now he was using it to lecture him instead.

Even so, Guo Er did not argue. He knew Old Du had a son who was not mentally sound, and everything he did was for that son, trying to earn more money for him.

As for himself, he could not let go of the dream of getting rich overnight.

“Old Du is right. Since we are already here, there is no reason to back out. As for these ghost drawings on the walls, we will ignore them and move on,” Guo Er said. After shaking off his brief fear, he made the decision.

He was the leader of the small team. Once he had decided, the others had nothing to say. Just as they were packing up and preparing to move on, Jiang Yaomaoer suddenly shouted, “Wait, I think it is better if we each carry some of this.”

What he distributed to the others was dog blood, which he believed was the best thing for warding off evil.

Guo Er did not object. Each of them took a small packet of black dog blood, and then they continued forward with flashlights in hand along the long corridor.

The tomb passage was silent. None of them felt like talking. Only their footsteps echoed through the corridor, creating a heavy oppressive atmosphere. They all tried their best not to look at the relief carvings on the walls, but occasionally their peripheral vision would still catch them, causing a subtle unease in their hearts.

After about six or seven minutes of walking, Jiang Yaomaoer suddenly stopped. He refused to go any further and said, “Er Wa, it is not that I am overthinking things, but this corridor is really strange. Walking here feels like countless eyes are staring at you. You know I work with yin and yang, I am very sensitive to this feeling. I will not go on. I do not want to lose my life for this little bit of money.”

In truth, Guo Er felt the same way, but as the leader he forced himself to suppress it. He tried to ignore the feeling, but Jiang Yaomaoer’s words made him hesitate.

He looked at Han Niu, who simply said, “I feel like someone is watching us too.”

“Old Du, what about you?” Guo Er asked.

Old Du did not speak. He gritted his teeth, then suddenly rushed at Jiang Yaomaoer and started punching him wildly.

“Are you a troublemaker or something? I worked my ass off for a whole year and barely made any money. Finally we find a fat target and you just keep yapping. Are you trying to mess with me on purpose? Do you look down on me just because I have a son who is not right in the head?”

Jiang Yaomaoer was naturally a weak tempered person. Faced with such sudden violence, he did not dare fight back and could only curl up while crying out in pain.

Guo Er felt a wave of irritation for no clear reason. Ever since entering this corridor, a strange negative emotion had been weighing on him. He shouted, “Han Niu, pull Old Du off him. Jiang Yaomaoer, stop screaming. Do you think that is not scary enough already?”

Han Niu always listened to Guo Er. He immediately went to pull Old Du away. Old Du, for reasons unknown, was unusually violent that night and refused to be restrained. In the struggle, pressed against the wall, they accidentally discovered that one section of the wall moved.

Guo Er’s flashlight beam happened to land there, and he immediately saw it. He shouted, “Stop fighting, there is something here, there is something here!”

Whenever Guo Er said there was something, it usually meant he had found valuables. Hearing him shout this at such a moment, everyone froze and stared at him.

Guo Er did not explain. He pushed past them and felt the wall. It sank inward by about five centimeters. It was a stone door.

“Help me!” he shouted.

The others immediately stopped fighting and rushed over. Guo Er was not a professional tomb raider, just a complete amateur in the field. In truth, he had no idea that real treasures would never appear behind a hidden corridor door like this. If it was not a trap, then it was at best a burial side chamber or a passage branch, nothing more.

The stone door was heavy, but because it was not very large, the rural men, who were stronger than city dwellers, managed to push it open.

The hidden door was only about half a person tall. Following tradition, Guo Er went in first. The moment he entered, he sucked in a cold breath and shouted, “Come in quickly, we are going to get rich!”

Hearing this, the others became excited and quickly crawled inside. But once they saw the room, they all froze.

It was a small room, about ten square meters. Along the wall was a row of small jars. The flashlight revealed the entire space clearly.

The room itself was not strange, and jars were not strange either. So why did Guo Er say they were about to get rich?

The reason was the jars on the floor.

They had an unusual shape, somewhat egg like. The bottom was bowl shaped, with a lid on top. The lid was densely covered with small holes, like an incense burner.

Under the flashlight beam, the jars reflected a mesmerizing metallic sheen. Looking closely, strange characters were engraved on them. The original markings were red, but had faded with time.

Guo Er did not understand history at all. He had no idea that nothing like these metal vessels had ever appeared in historical records. Those experienced in tomb raiding would know that when something is abnormal, it is often dangerous, and they would never touch such strange objects.

But Guo Er did not understand history, yet he recognized gold. From the alluring reflection, he believed the entire room was filled with gold jars.

Gold jars, even if they were not antiques, would still make them rich.

The room was silent, filled only with the sound of swallowing. None of them noticed the eerie carvings in the small chamber, nor did they notice that above them, there was something even stranger. The jars also had large raised openings, and those openings were connected to pipes in the walls.