Eighteen-character tomb

  Eighteen-character tomb

  I almost wanted to scream, but Lin Ruoshui's hand directly covered my mouth, and the sound could only vibrate from my throat. At the same time, I saw an arm being cut off by Wu Liuqi's ancient sword and fell to the ground, still twitching. Looking back at my hand, it seemed to be still intact on my arm, without any loss.

  "This is the sword used to slay demons, named Pei Xie. It was discovered by me and Wu Liu Qi in an unnamed ancient tomb. The tomb was very clean, with no strange occurrences. Only after we saw this sword did we understand that these demons were afraid of its power, so they didn't dare approach. That's why the unnamed ancient tomb was preserved well. If I hadn't accidentally found it, I wouldn't have been able to find such a good thing." Lin Ruo Shui said to me with a relaxed expression.

  I don't care if it's a good sword or not, as long as my hand is fine. Grandpa always talked about grave robbing, but why didn't he ever mention something like this would happen? What tomb corpse, what corpse disease, are we in Resident Evil or Zombie Dao?

  "Alright, we don't have much time left. The tomb has been found and we need to dig it out quickly. You come help too." Lin Ruoshui seemed not to comfort my weak heart at all, but instead ordered me to work like a stranger.

  Four people started digging around the place where the black air had just emerged. Fortunately, there were only fields within a few miles and no one lived nearby, otherwise our figures would have been discovered by someone. I saw that Lin Ruoshui's trowel seemed to be more useful than ours, she gently pushed it, without using much force, and the soil underground loosened, then we three people dug it out with big and small shovels.

  It's been almost half an hour, my hands have already blistered, and Mo has long been sitting on the side resting. Finally, we've dug out something from this Xinghou site's 'Jia' character pit.

  I don't know how, but the more we dug down, the darker the soil became. People who didn't know any better would have thought we had hit coal. Just as I was using my last bit of strength to shovel it down and decided that this would be the last shovelful before taking a rest, the dirt on the shovel suddenly collapsed completely, revealing a deep pit in front of us.

  "This is a 'hui' character-shaped tomb, the kind that goes straight up and down. Each level down is a path to another tomb, just like several 'hui' characters nested together. It seems that the rumors about this tomb within a tomb are true, and that thing must be inside here." Lin Ruoshui's face revealed an expression of joy.

  Wu Liu Qi took out a lighter from his pocket, lit it and threw it in. As I watched the lighter fall to the ground, my flashlight also shone down below.

  "Why use such an old thing when you have a flashlight?" I asked in surprise.

  "This lighter is mainly to see if there's enough oxygen underground, and whether there's toxic gas. If there's toxic gas, the flame will turn green, and if there's no oxygen, it'll automatically go out. I'm really starting to doubt those stories your grandfather told you. Are you guys really a family of tomb raiders?" Lin Ruoshui asked me again.

  Actually, at noon when I had lunch with my grandfather, he was so excited that he told the story of his tomb raiding again. However, he didn't mention the reason why he forbade me from tomb raiding because of what happened to my parents. Now in Lin Ruoshui's impression, these simplest principles are something I should understand, but I seemed to be completely clueless and asked about it.

  "It's almost over three meters deep, and there are some broken arch stones here, it seems that someone has been here before. Wu Liuqi saw that under the soil layer, there were still some arched bricks, and the edges of each brick seemed to have been crushed."

  "It's almost done, if I said this tomb has been well preserved for nearly a thousand years, I wouldn't believe it myself. Just hope that thing wasn't taken by someone." Lin Ruoshui said while untying a rope from his waist.

  This rope is very strange, with a five-claw hook tied to both ends. The hook body is extremely thin, as if it can be broken by hand. At the same time, Lin Ruoshui put this more than one-meter-long rope in his hand from time to time and rubbed it, and that rope actually became harder and harder under such friction, turning from a rope into a long and thin stick.

  "What is this thing? It's so amazing!" I couldn't help but be surprised at these strange things on Lin Ruoshui's body.

  "This is called the Claw Rope, it belongs to the most mysterious school in the tomb raiding world, this school is called the Dragon Seeking School, and it's also my own school." Lin Ruoshui said quietly to me.

  "What's this Dragon Sect? I've never heard of it before! Isn't there only four sects in the tomb raiding world? When did another one called Dragon Sect pop up?" I was perplexed.

  "If I knew everything, how would I survive?" Lin Ruoshui didn't answer my question directly, and this Dragon Seeking Sect also gave me a bit of mystery, as if the Lin Ruoshui in front of me was even more puzzling.

  She didn't use any tricks, and yet she managed to twist the entire length of rope into a three-meter-long club. Wu Liuqi bent down and lowered it, hooking one of the claws onto the protruding brick. She gave everyone a thumbs up, and then I saw her slide down headfirst, her hands and feet clinging to the rope as she landed smoothly at the bottom. The entire movement was done with such neatness and swiftness that it seemed like something out of a special forces team.

  "It's all my fault." Lin Ruoshui said to me.

  "What? Me?" I said in some alarm.

  "What? Afraid?" Lin Ruoshui laughed and said.

  "No, how can I be afraid? Watch me." I forced myself to put on a brave face, but I didn't have Wu Liuqi's agility and couldn't slide down headfirst. I had to start by stretching out my feet first, and only after stepping on the arched stone bricks did I slowly lower my body down. My nose caught a whiff of the smell of mud, and my feet tightly gripped the rope, afraid that it would break under my weight.

  But I didn't expect such a thin rope to have such strong friction, it's as if I'm not holding onto a single rope but a whole bunch of ropes.

  "Don't be afraid." Lin Ruoshui said to me in the cave.

  "I'm not afraid, I just want to try if this knot is solid or not." I continued to struggle, and at the same time, I slid down towards the bottom of the cave like Wu Liuqi.