Chapter 21: The Deadly Vine

  Cheng Shu and Jiang Liu were talking, not paying attention to what Ma Si Zhe and I were saying. Looking at Huo Ying again, he also had an expression of being indifferent to our conversation. I never knew why Ma Si Zhe's uncle wanted to call Huo Ying over. Cheng Shu was experienced and capable, no matter what his intentions were, but he could help us a lot. Jiang Liu may not have been very smart, but fortunately, he was full of energy.

  But from the moment she came down until now, I haven't seen her say a few words. A complete decoration. But what happened later made me dare not underestimate Huo Ying again.

  It feels great to have something in your stomach, and now is a good time to lie down and take a nap. But I might not be able to sleep either.

  "What do you think is inside that boulder?" I still have a lingering fear of that thing, who knows when it will crawl out again and pin me down.

  Cheng Shu took a look at the lotus platform and said, "I have seen this situation before, but it was more than 30 years ago." As he spoke, he fell into reminiscence.

  Cheng Shu was only twenty years old at the time, and he followed a man named Si Maozi to cheat and deceive people everywhere. Unexpectedly, one day when they were stealing in a house, Si Maozi was caught and taken away, but Cheng Shu was clever and escaped.

  In prison, Si Ma Zi met a man who was half crazy and half foolish. Whenever he got sick, he would say that there was an ancient tomb under his house. The people in the prison were used to it, but this matter caught Si Ma Zi's attention.

  Si Maozi asked about the address of that household, and after being released from prison, he began to ask around about Cheng Shu's whereabouts. Cheng Shu had thought that Si Maozi would come looking for him to settle accounts after his release, so he had been hiding and didn't dare to see him.

  One day, Si Maozi brought two bottles of Erguotou to Cheng Shu's home. After drinking two cups of wine, both of them were slightly drunk. Si Maozi stated his intention.

  Cheng Shu usually did some sneaky things, but grave robbery was no small matter, and if caught, he could be shot, so he shook his head in refusal.

  The four-haired child slammed the wine glass and said, "You turtle grandson, the money is in front of you and you don't take it. You deserve to be like this for the rest of your life. Do you know that if we succeed with this vote, we won't have to do anything else for the second half of our lives."

  Cheng Shu listened and took a swig of wine. The pungent flavor poured down his throat, straight up to his nose.

  "How about it, will you do it?"

  Cheng Shu thought for a moment and said "Alright!"

  As soon as he spoke, he regretted it the next day. Looking at the people in front of him with big and small bags, Cheng Shu was a bit confused 'what are these people doing'

  "Adventurers are just a bunch of idle people with nothing better to do. Once they go down, we can ignore them."

  Cheng Shu was a curious kid, and he was very interested in everything in the tomb. He looked around, but accidentally triggered a mechanism in the tomb. In an instant, hidden arrows shot towards them from all directions. More than ten people fell to the ground. Cheng Shu was stunned, and Si Ma pushed him, hinting that he should take advantage of the chaos to escape quickly.

  The two of them turned their backs on the crowd and walked down another road.

  As they walked, their path was blocked by a huge boulder. The surface of the stone looked like a meteorite, with many small pits densely packed together. Two people were intently staring at the stone. Suddenly, something started to drill out from inside the stone, like an extremely thick vine. The two people turned around and ran, but still got entangled.

  Two people struggled to break free but couldn't. Just now, Cheng Shu was shot by a hidden arrow in the arm. At this time, fresh blood was constantly flowing out. And those vines seemed to be very sensitive to blood, slowly gathering towards Cheng Shu's wound.

  This discovery made Cheng Shu very surprised, as if he had seen a way out.

  Cheng Shu struggled to pull out the dagger he was carrying, looking at Si Maozi. "Fourth brother, I'm sorry," Cheng Shu said as he drew a long line on Si Maozi's face with his hand. Fresh blood gushed out, and those vines were immediately attracted over. As the blood flowed more and more, the vines were all drawn over.

  Cheng Shu fell down from above. Si Maozi was entwined by the vines, slowly wrapping into a cocoon, bound to the giant stone. Cheng Shu heard Si Maozi's cries for help but ignored him and fled in panic.

  This was the first time that Cheng Shu began his life of speculation. As Si Ma said, speculation can indeed make a person rich overnight, but such temptation also makes people greedy beyond measure.

  According to Ma Si Zhe, Cheng Shu had a fortune of tens of thousands ten years ago, but in recent years he became addicted to gambling and lost everything. He has now resumed his old profession and is working as a laborer.

  "You mean this one in front of us is possibly the same thing as what you saw back then?" I asked.

  "When you were entangled by that thing just now, I felt a bit like it. Later on, thinking about it, wasn't your shoulder bitten by that bat before? It's possible that the blood smell attracted it. If that's really the case, then from both appearance and behavior, these two should be the same kind of thing."

  However, according to Cheng Shu's description, the ones he saw before were much more simple than this one. Or should I say that those were wild and this is domesticated? What kind of bad taste does the owner of this tomb have, raising so many strange things?

  Thinking back now is really frightening, if I had bled a bit more just now, I might have been stuck to it.

  "But what really annoyed me was that when you all just passed by, why did it let go?"

  "Maybe it's because you look easy to bully." Ma Si Zhe, whatever pot is mentioned, that pot will be opened.

  "I don't know, is it because of some scruples?"

  "Perhaps it was intimidated by my divine majesty," Ma Si said with a smirk as he brushed aside his hair.

  Huo Ying looked up at the top and said slowly, "It's also possible that it foresaw something more dangerous than itself." Huo Ying's words made us stunned, before we could react. Huo Ying threw away what was in her hand and took out a rope from her bag, which was the mountaineering rope that Uncle Cheng had asked me to prepare earlier, but with hooks tied to both ends of the rope.

  Huo Ying swung the rope upwards, and two hooks were firmly nailed to the wall. Huo Ying lightly jumped onto the rope. The whole action was smooth and swift, so fast that I was left staring in amazement.

  "I'm going, ancient tomb beauty ah, this is completely the standard of an action movie" I was still immersed in the shock that Huo Ying gave me, and turned back to poke Ma Si Zhe, Ma Si Zhe's eyebrows were tightly locked, staring at the top.

  I also looked up, and what I saw was even more shocking than the impact that Huo Ying gave me. The black blooded poisonous monkeys we had seen before were now hanging in groups above us, staring straight at us, and we hadn't even noticed them before.

  One was enough for me before, but now looking at this situation, there must be dozens. This is an army, a poisonous monkey army.

  I quickly called out to Huo Ying to come down, I shouted several times, but Huo Ying still didn't respond. Is this woman stupid or something? Cheng Shu said that the monkey is highly toxic, if she gets caught by it, she's probably done for.

  "Never mind her, she has a sense of propriety." I thought so too. Among these people, the one who's most finished is me. I'd better take care of myself.

  As soon as Huo Ying jumped up, a monkey approached him. Huo Ying swung his knife and slashed it at the monkey's neck. Black blood spurted out of the monkey's neck, and Huo Ying dodged the poisonous blood with great agility.

  Ma Si Zhe told us to hide in a safe place, and he went out to help Huo Ying. Maybe other monkeys saw how fierce Huo Ying was, so they all hid aside, not daring to get close for a long time.

  Huò Yīng took advantage of the gap and walked to the middle along the rope. Huò Yīng's footsteps were steady, as if she was walking on flat ground. I suspect that she has been living on ropes since childhood. This woman went all the way without making a sound, unexpectedly hiding her true abilities.

  I sneered, thinking of what Uncle Cheng said earlier that they were stuck in the mud and couldn't get out. Now looking at He Ying's skills, not to mention mud, even cement can't hold her back. These two people are really treating Ma Si Zhe and me like fools.

  Huo Ying reached up and took down something from above, weighing it in her hand. Before the monkeys gathered around, she jumped down lightly with a single leap.

  Those monkeys watched as Huo Ying jumped down, using their tails to hook onto the hooks above and slid down. Like well-trained paratroopers. Huo Ying reeled in the rope, turned around and said to us 'Let's go'

  I hastily picked up the things on the ground and ran towards the tomb passage. But our speed was clearly not as fast as that monkey's. In an instant, it had surrounded us from all sides, encircling us tightly.

  "Pull your sleeves down, don't let them touch your skin," Ma Si Zhe told us. I quickly pulled my sleeves down and barely covered my hands, but what about my face? All I could do was try to hide it as much as possible.

  Among this group of dark-blooded poisonous monkeys, there is one that is different from the others. The difference lies in the fact that this monkey has hair on its body, but it's not growing out of the skin, it's directly growing out of the muscles. It would be better if it didn't have any at all, as it looks even more disgusting this way.

  The other monkeys all hid behind this one, waiting for it to give orders. It seemed that this was the leader among them. Ma Siqi pretended to take action and swing his fist, but the monkey did not show any fear, nor did it retreat. Instead, it moved closer and closer to us. Jiang Liu picked up the backpack in his hand and swung it forward. The monkey only temporarily retreated, and soon regrouped again.

  Jiang Liu was annoyed, spat out a mouthful of saliva and said "looking for death". After finishing speaking, he made a move towards the monkey king. I didn't see clearly what Jiang Liu used, but that one move had great power, and the monkey king was flipped over several meters away. Cheng Shu just wanted to stop him, but before Cheng Shu could speak, the monkey king had already fallen to the ground. Cheng Shu slapped Jiang Liu on the back of his head "You're not as good as being poisoned earlier, stop causing me trouble".

  "Shut up and hurry up!" As the monkey king fell, the monkeys began to riot and rushed towards us frantically. We all turned around and ran into the tomb passage. Those monkeys followed closely behind, their speed was extremely fast, using all four limbs, as if they were flying. Just when we were about to be caught up, Uncle Cheng, who was running in front of me, took something out of his bag and threw it out before I could see what it was.

  "After 'get down' was shouted by Uncle Cheng, a loud explosion occurred behind him. I felt a surge of heat on my back, which suddenly knocked me to the ground. At that moment, the sand, dust and stones in the tomb were all shaken off and fell down. The falling sand got into my mouth and eyes."

  I couldn't open my eyes for a moment, and my ears started buzzing. I didn't know if it was because my ears were no longer working properly or if the monkey's screeching had really stopped. In any case, the cave fell silent again. I lay on the ground for a while, and after my head cleared up a bit, I remembered to turn back and look for Ma Si Zhe and the others.

  The power of this thing is enormous, Ma Si Zhe was walking behind me before, but now he's been blown to the front. I struggled to get up, patted the dirt off my body, and walked over to his side. Seeing Ma Si Zhe sitting at the corner of the tomb path with a gray head and dusty face, I kicked him with my foot.

  "What's this thing, Cheng Shu? It's so powerful!" I frowned and coughed, waving my hand to fan away the floating dust.

  Ma Si Zhe was still motionless after half a day, and I impatiently squatted down to push him. "I'm asking you something!" Who knew that Ma Si Zhe slowly fell backwards along with my force. My hand hovered in mid-air, unsure of what action to take next, and it wasn't until then that I started to feel anxious.

  "Marx Zhe, Marx Zhe, can you hear me?" I patted his face, but no matter how hard I tried, Marx Zhe didn't have any reaction at all.

  My mind went blank, I was at a loss for what to do. After checking, Marx's body had no external injuries, only a scrape on his forehead. Could it be a concussion?

  If Ma Si Zhe were to become an idiot from being hit, my guilt would be even greater. His uncle's family would definitely bury me in some deserted grave, where I would spend the rest of my life with zongzi (glutinous rice dumplings).

  In desperation, I recalled the first aid skills my teacher taught me in school and roughly located the position with my hands. I pressed down hard while shouting "Max answer me, Max!"

  After pressing for about a dozen times, Ma Si Zhe slowly sat up and suddenly pushed me away. He leaned to one side and coughed violently. I looked at Ma Si Zhe with surprise and delight, crawled over, patted him on the back and said "You're okay now, didn't expect what the teacher taught would actually be useful, I saved your life!"

  "What the hell are you doing?! I was knocked unconscious, not having a heart attack. Why did you give me CPR? Luckily my ribs aren't broken, or with those few presses, you would have crushed my bones out."

  Ma Si Zhe is still talking nonsense, so it should be nothing serious. 'Mind your own business, in any case you're awake now'

  "My butt hurts," said Marx gruffly.

  I let out a sigh of relief, nothing's wrong with that, he can say whatever he wants.

  "What about them?" Ma Si Zhe asked me as he supported himself on his chest and crawled up.

  I was just paying attention to Ma Si Zhe and didn't notice where they went. Now that I take another look, the cemetery path is empty and there's no one in sight.

  Cheng Shu and Huo Ying have disappeared again, this time taking Jiang Liu with them.