Chapter Ten: The Sudden Appearance of Man-Eating Ants

  Bang, bang, several gunshots rang out, and the black shadow was shot flying back, falling to the ground and never getting up again. It turned out to be a black cat. The black cat itself represents inauspiciousness, and appearing in the gloomy ancient tomb is even more terrifying. The atmosphere suddenly became depressing, and no one spoke for a long time. Perhaps the black cat and Liu Ran's body were brought in by the same person or thing.

  At this moment, the rustling sound suddenly came over, and the atmosphere became tense again. Everyone's heartstrings were tight, I felt a layer of fine sweat on my palms, my heart skipped a beat, and what was even more frightening was that the rustling sound grew louder and louder, coming from all four directions at the same time.

  "What's the noise?" Matsuda asked with a furrowed brow.

  "I don't know." Liu Wei narrowed his eyes and stared at the ground.

  This makes me think of the small snakes I met in the woods, and if I meet them again, I don't know if there will be a flamethrower.

  "Anthropod," the stone suddenly spoke, sounding very flustered. Just as I was about to ask what an anthropod was, the stone suddenly lifted me up and said "Quickly stand on the copper candelabra." I hastily stood steady, and with a slight bow, the stone jumped up with a thud. The copper candelabra was a cylindrical object, its surface area approximately thirty centimeters in diameter, just enough space for one foot to stand on, but not enough for two feet. Liu Wei and Zhu Baozi also followed the stone's lead and jumped onto the candelabra, except for one person who used too much force and fell to the ground with the candelabra. At that moment, I finally understood what an anthropod was. Before he had even fully fallen to the ground, small, finger-sized anthropods swarmed up, and by the time he lay flat on the ground, all that remained was a pile of white bones, not a single shred of flesh left behind. The corpses of Liu Ran and Black Cat had long since disappeared.

  "The fragrance of the candle can attract ants." Liu Wei suddenly shouted.

  "What's the use of saying that now? Even if you blow out the candle, the ants won't go away." Zhu Baozi added.

  "You idiot, if you hadn't lit the candle..."

  "Who the hell are you calling a waste?" Zhu Baozi didn't wait for Liu Wei to finish cursing, suddenly raised his gun and aimed it at Liu Wei.

  "Stop arguing, follow me and rush out." Matsuda suddenly spoke up, Liu Wei and the others didn't hurry to speak, Matsuda jumped from one candelabra to another, running towards the exit.

  I also learned from his appearance, fortunately the candle holder was stable enough and not too far away. Although my legs were weak, I could still jump over to it. The number of driver ants was increasing, slowly appearing on the walls and roof, which made me even more anxious. Moreover, I was running at the back of the group, if the driver ants attacked, I would probably be their best target.

  With a loud noise, the entire stone room shook slightly. I raised my head and saw Matsuda take out a second hand grenade.

  "You little Japanese, aren't you afraid of the ancient tomb collapsing?!" I couldn't help but curse. But he had already thrown his second grenade, and with another loud explosion, this one not particularly powerful, perhaps not enough to kill a person, but enough to blast away ants, instantly clearing out a large area. Liu Wei and the others followed him as he jumped over, my heart racing anxiously, but I couldn't do anything, could only jump over one by one. Just as I was about to step on the last candelabra, my face suddenly turned green. The candelabra below had been gnawed away by the ants, although it was still standing, it definitely couldn't withstand my weight. As soon as my foot landed on the candelabra, it toppled over, and I lost my balance, falling down. I could already see the swarm of ants rushing towards me, and it seemed like I also saw myself becoming a skeleton in the end. But at this moment, it wasn't as terrifying or frightening as I had imagined, instead, I felt somewhat calm.

  I, who had given up and was waiting for death with my eyes closed, suddenly felt a wave of heat rush past my ears, the smell of burnt hair quickly followed, I fell to the ground, still able to feel the pain, opened my eyes to see Shi Tou holding a lighter in his left hand, igniting it and spraying flames outward, while holding a bottle of white liquor in his right hand. My heart leapt with joy, I scrambled to get behind Shi Tou's back, who didn't have time to speak, took another swig of liquor and continued to spray fire, blocking the approaching ants. Suddenly Liu Wei's voice came through "Quickly, quickly, there's a hidden cave, everyone come in."

  I and Shi threw the wine bottle to the ground, ignited it immediately turned around and ran away. Fortunately, this time we didn't buy cheap wine, otherwise the alcohol concentration wouldn't have been enough to burn at all!

  As we ran over, only Liu Wei was waiting for us at the entrance of the cave. Seeing us rushing over, he stretched out his hand and pulled me in. After Shi Tou came in, we quickly used the stones beside to block the entrance of the cave to prevent the ants from attacking.

  "Hurry up and run, we have a fragrance on our bodies that will attract the ants." Liu Wei said while crouching down and running.

  "Spray some perfume! Won't it be tasteless otherwise?" I said suddenly.

  Liu Wei stopped in his tracks and turned around, saying "What? You have perfume?"

  I shook my head "No, will insecticide work?"

  Liu Wei stretched out his hand and said "take it". I opened the bag behind Shi Tou, took out the insecticide and handed it to Liu Wei. Liu Wei sprayed a burst at me and Shi Tou, then sprayed some on himself before chasing after Zhu Bao Zai and the others.

  I ran too fast and fell, when I got up, I accidentally touched a cool square object with a pattern on it. When I shone my flashlight on it, it was a square jade pendant. I quickly picked it up and put it in my pocket, thinking to myself: "Looks like an antique! I'm rich!" The greedy thought made me continue searching the ground, hoping to find something else. At this point, I had already forgotten about the rules of grave robbing.

  Huh? What's this? Suddenly I found another black shadow on the ground, and it seems to be quite a big thing! My heart was secretly delighted, one step, two steps closer, it's hair, the shadow of hair, long hair!

  "Ah!" I cried out and jumped up, the cave was originally not high, I bumped my head on it, it hurt so much that tears came out.

  "What's wrong?" The stone behind me asked, supporting me.

  "Ghosts, there really are ghosts!" Shi Tou said with a frown, shining his flashlight around but seeing nothing. "You must have seen it wrong!"

  "No," I shook my head and said "it must be right, it's just like what we saw in the channel!"

  "Whether there's a ghost or not, we still have to make it out of here."

  When I heard Shi Tou's words, I could only pluck up the courage to continue moving forward. What mood was there to look for treasures on the ground? My soul was almost gone. The only thought in my mind was to quickly leave this damned ancient tomb.