Ancient tomb excavation traces

"Young Master Feng?" The Miao shaman saw my injury and quickly helped me up. I smiled at her and said with difficulty, "Next time, women shouldn't get involved in these kinds of shield-shielding situations!"

Hearing my words, the Miao shaman paused, looking at me blankly. This ancient girl wasn't very emotionally intelligent, and she acted very directly, not understanding the meaning behind my words. Looking at her bewildered expression, I smiled bitterly to myself. In fact, I was very grateful for what she had done, but no matter the circumstances, I didn't want a woman to suffer for me.

An arrow pierced my shoulder, causing excruciating pain. I gritted my teeth and thought to myself: Coming to ancient times has been a real ordeal, and the current situation is extremely unfavorable for us. Judging from the strange man on the suspension bridge's abilities, it would be no difficult for him to kill me with an arrow. Perhaps things are as Bao Cai previously predicted; he doesn't want us to die a peaceful death.

Thinking this, I reached out and pulled out the crossbow bolt. Blood gushed out immediately. Seeing this, the witch quickly cut strips of cloth with her dagger to stop the bleeding. I carefully looked at the strange men standing on both sides, putting us in a pincer movement. It wouldn't be easy for us to jump into the Netherworld Dead Water. If we showed any sign of escape, the strange men with crossbow bolts behind us would probably start shooting at us.

Just as we were facing off, Bao Cai, his finger trembling, pointed to the cave behind the Gu Insect King and exclaimed in panic, "There...there's something crawling out of there!"

Following the direction Bao Cai pointed, I saw a cave above the opening we had run out of. It was dark inside, and I could vaguely see a shadowy figure moving out. My heart skipped a beat. If another strange person appeared now, it would be very disadvantageous for us. Bao Cai trembled and put his hands together, praying to the Bodhisattva and all the gods for protection. I swallowed hard, waiting for the creature's true form to surface.

Just as the shadowy figure's scalp began to peek through the air, the King of Gu Insects at the cave entrance rose from the ground, a cunning smile creeping onto his lips. I thought to myself: This guy's still alive despite being poisoned by the cold; he's really tough. Seeing him staring at us with a sinister glint in his eyes, a chilling malice instantly ran through me, and an ominous premonition crept over me.

The person who appeared at the cave entrance had his face covered by disheveled hair, with dried bloodstains stuck to his hair. My heart pounded wildly. The way the person crawled was strange, like the scene where Sadako appeared on TV.

As he reached the cave entrance, he slowly bent down into a squatting position. In the instant he looked up, I finally saw his face clearly.

"Liang Jiu!" I exclaimed in surprise. At this moment, Bao Cai had the same reaction as me.

In an instant, countless emotions surged in my heart: excitement, joy, but even more so, a sense of dread... I looked at Liang Jiu. He and Chu Ba were both straightforward buddies. In the time we spent together, they spoke boldly and treated people with great courtesy. But now that they saw us, they didn't react at all. Moreover, we weren't far apart. From his position, I could smell a strange scent.

However, at a time like this, one wouldn't think too much. Seeing familiar faces was naturally a joy. Bao Cai calmed his uneasy emotions, forced a smile, and exclaimed, "Ninth Master, we've been waiting for you!" As he spoke, he looked into the other caves, and seeing that he didn't see the Ancestor and the others, he forced a smile again and asked Liang Jiu, "Ninth Master, where are the Chief and Eighth Master?"

What Bao Cai asked was exactly what I was eager to know, but what was very strange was that Liang Jiu stared at us blankly and still didn't react at all.

Sensing something was amiss, I tentatively called out to him, "Ninth Master?"

For a moment, in response to my calls, I saw a slight reaction in Liang Jiu's dull eyes, but the reaction was fleeting. I really didn't understand why Liang Jiu didn't respond to me and Bao Cai's calls at this moment. You know, in the Tomb Raiders, he and Chu Ba are both ruthless characters, but right now, where is his spirit and imposing appearance?

Bao Cai seemed to sense something was wrong as well. He stepped back to my side and whispered, "Young Master, I feel like Ninth Master is acting strangely. Do you think he's been possessed by some kind of evil spirit?"

Looking at Liang Jiu, who was covered in blood, I said to Bao Cai, "It's possible. Ninth Master used to be quite strong, but look at his muscles now, they've atrophied a bit. And, most strangely, his eyes have lost that sharp edge."

"Yes, that's right, the power is gone." Just as Bao Cai was speaking, Liang Jiu suddenly jumped down from the cave. The cave was as high as a door. When the King of Gu worms sneaked down, there was no sound at all. But Liang Jiu was different. According to his usual skills, there would never be such a loud landing sound.

As I watched him stagger towards us, I unconsciously took a step back. Bao Cai shrank back in fright. At that moment, the Miao witch was staring at the strange man on the suspension bridge, fearing he might launch another sneak attack. I told her that something was wrong, that we shouldn't stay here any longer, and that we should be prepared to go into the water at any time. She nodded.

Just as I was thinking about how to get away quickly, my eyes fell on those stone caves. Those stone caves looked like a giant worm, with holes bitten out by small insects. But the existence of these holes did not seem to be accidental. Soon, a possibility popped into my mind, and in an instant, I seemed to understand something.

These holes are big enough to hold people! The strange man crawling out of them means that all the caves here, big and small, are likely connected. It might be connected to the underground antechamber we were in earlier—the Bronze West Chamber… So, the panting sounds that the little Taoist priest and I heard might have come from these eerie strange men.

This thought sent a chill down my spine. I suddenly remembered the blood in the Bronze Chamber. I looked at Liang Jiu. If I wasn't mistaken, that blood must have been from one of our own. And my ancestor, Chu Ba... might have already met with some misfortune.

In an instant, my mind went blank. I stared blankly at the strange man in front of me. Everything—the mystery of Wang Yu and the others' corpses, the opening of the west chamber door—was all the work of these people. They had led us into the abyss of death. And just now, I had watched Chen Yi disappear right before my eyes.

"Hula Ba Zi!" All my anger froze at that moment. After figuring things out, a surge of resentful heat welled up in my body. I quickly pulled the Mongolian knife from Bao Cai's body and swung it at the head of the Gu worm king. Bao Cai was startled and frantically called my name from behind. Just then, the intimidating Liang Jiu suddenly appeared in front of me, shoving me aside. A gust of wind grazed past my ear, and I fell to the ground. When I looked up, I saw an arrow in Liang Jiu's chest. I stared silently at him, still standing tall and imposing, completely bewildered.

"Ninth Master!" Realizing what was happening, I cried out and hurriedly got up from the ground. Liang Jiu looked at me, smiled faintly, and squeezed out a sound from his throat, saying, "Little rascal... don't touch me..."

In this situation, how could I listen to him? Just as I was about to step forward, he reached out to stop me, shook his head bitterly, and said, "I can't go on... Tell the boss for me... that I... have to go first..." As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around, and his gaze suddenly sharpened. In that fleeting moment, I saw his back, where something had ripped open and left a bloody mess.

In that instant, my scalp tingled, and the Miao witch and Bao Cai also exclaimed in surprise. And among them, there were faint red insect eggs.

I murmured incredulously, knowing that human internal organs are extremely sensitive, and even the slightest movement can cause excruciating pain, let alone with so many worms churning inside.

Looking at Liang Jiu's appearance, I suddenly remembered a story my grandfather told me when I was a child about something that happened to my great-grandfather.

The story goes that a long time ago, my great-grandfather went to Yunnan to do business. He was accompanied by a tea merchant who had studied abroad in his early years and had a modern mindset; in other words, he was a materialist.

Grandpa said that this man was as stubborn as a furnace and had a proud and aloof personality. During his time doing business, he offended an old shaman in the area. That old shaman made a living by making Gu poison and Gu magic, and was considered a black shaman in the area, extremely sinister.

My great-grandfather was a man who had seen all sorts of strange and unusual things, so when he saw this wicked old shaman, he kept his distance and advised the tea merchant not to offend the local deity when he was traveling, or he wouldn't even know how he died. But the merchant ignored the advice and insisted on ruining the shaman's work and undermining his reputation. In the end, the old shaman cast a curse on him, and the merchant suffered the consequences.

According to my grandfather's account, when my great-grandfather saw the merchant die, his body turned into a dried corpse like tree bark, he intended to cremate him and take his ashes back to Hangzhou. However, just as they were about to cremate him, my great-grandfather noticed that the merchant's stomach was bulging. He realized there was something fishy going on, so he asked a local coroner to perform an autopsy. What he saw disgusted my great-grandfather for a long time. He said that there were many insect eggs inside the merchant's stomach, and that they had drained the merchant's life essence.

At the time, my great-grandfather was glad that he hadn't burned the merchant to ashes and brought them back to Hangzhou, because according to the locals, this kind of magic was extremely cruel. If you were to be merciful and cremate or bury him, you would still be under this curse, and it might even bring unrest to your descendants.

Witnessing this firsthand was incredibly shocking, making me gag uncontrollably. Looking at Liang Jiu's suffering, I felt both admiration and heartache. To preserve one's will under such circumstances, to avoid being destroyed, required an extraordinary level of mental fortitude. Only now did I understand why the Tomb Raiders' Sect was a legend in the tomb-raiding world; it turned out that their ancestors had such extraordinary individuals. However, seeing such a powerful figure reduced to this state filled me with immense grief and disbelief. The thought of a monster capturing us and injecting us with this kind of poison made me want to die rather than suffer this torment. Liang Jiu, with his last remaining uncorrupted spiritual energy, used his crippled body to imprison the so-called King of Gu Insects. The King of Gu Insects was originally difficult to deal with, but he probably hadn't expected his technique to fail, hence his utter shock.

"Little rascal, let's go..." Liang Jiu urged us, then suddenly plunged his blood-red finger into the eyes of the King of Gu Insects. In an instant, the strange man opened his dark, eerie mouth, struggling and writhing. Just then, a purplish-black centipede climbed up Liang Jiu's arm and neck—the damned Qilin Gu! Knowing his life was nearing its end, Liang Jiu looked at me, smiled slightly, and said sadly, "Jiu will go first..."

"No!" I cried out in despair, for the purplish-black centipede had seized the opportunity to crawl into his mouth as he opened it to speak. I couldn't bear to look at this cruel scene, but hearing Liang Jiu's faint cries behind me, I knew he was free.

I wiped away my tears, and not wanting to let him down, I quickly grabbed the hands of the witch and Bao Cai and rushed towards the stagnant waters beneath the rocks.