Tomb raiding: Trying to become a little painter

As the yellowish-green liquid poured down from the black hole in the stone wall touched his skin, a sizzling sound accompanied the burning sensation, seeping into his flesh and bone. A thick plume of pungent white smoke rose up, and Qiu Dekao screamed repeatedly, trying to get up. But old age and the widespread corrosive effect of the liquid meant that within minutes he was reduced to a skeleton...

"Boss!"

Qiu Dekao's sudden chill caused the remaining four or five shop assistants who had followed him into Zhang Family Ancient Building, along with A Ning, to turn pale.

The employer is dead, and they won't get their money. Plus, this place is so dangerous. For a moment, everyone in Qiu Dekao's remaining team, except for A Ning, had a sense of panic in their eyes or hearts. There was a sense of unease among them.

"This is retribution!"

"If you do bad things when you're young, you'll die such a miserable death when you're old!"

Huo Xiangu watched the events unfold with cold indifference, her heart unmoved, yet her words were sharp and unforgiving.

Qin Henian, who was standing next to Huo Xiangu, suddenly popped up again. He turned his head to the side, rolled his eyes, and mocked Huo Xiangu's "white hair".

She makes being courting death sound so elegant and refined, but isn't she herself... It's like the older brother talking about the younger brother, they're both equally bad!

Click!

Another sound of a mechanism being activated echoed in the tomb. Everyone watched as the groove at the location of Qiu Dekao's remains closed, turning into a wall once more. At the same time, another groove with the same shape appeared on another wall in the tomb.

Looking at the newly appeared groove, and having learned from Qiu Dekao's previous example, no one dared to try it again. But if they didn't try, they wouldn't be able to find the mechanism to get out of this tomb chamber. The door where they had just entered had already been quietly closed. If they opened the mechanism again, they were afraid that the previous mummies would rush into this tomb chamber and wipe them all out.

"Who's going to this agency this time? It's not going to be the same sulfuric acid as before, is it?"

"If it's all sulfuric acid, we can't even test it!"

Old Bai had initially thought that even though the tomb he was descending with the Huo family was more difficult, he wouldn't die here. But now, looking at his injuries, his heart was pounding, and he was panicking. He no longer cared about finding any treasures; all he wanted now was to find a way out and say goodbye to this tomb!

Upon hearing that someone else had to try it, the old man immediately objected and quickly pointed out the sulfuric acid smell he had just detected.

"But the brothers have already explored all the mechanisms in this tomb, and they haven't found any other entrances!"

Hearing what the old man said, A Ning frowned. Now there were only four people left in their team: a tall, blood-stained foreign soldier with distinctive features; a woman who had previously clashed with her and was badly injured; and a foreign soldier who was just as skilled as her and not badly injured. Now that her team was down to such a small number, she didn't want to take any risks unless she was the only one left in the team. That way, she could stay close to Qin Henian and escape. As it was, she could only observe secretly, and following silently would only lead to trouble.

"Little girl, why are you in such a hurry? You have to eat one bite at a time! There must be some mechanisms in this tomb that we haven't found yet. I don't believe there aren't other passages here!"

"As the saying goes, there's always a way out; there must be some mechanism we haven't found yet..."

After Qiu Dekao's death, Huo Xiangu is now the most senior person here. Even if she has her own ulterior motives, she can only try to stabilize the morale of the team first.

Her mind raced, and her eyes darted around involuntarily. The Huo family, including herself, only had seven members now, plus the Wu family who had come along… Right… Didn’t Bei Ya bring someone in? There were quite a few rumors about Bei Ya in the underworld… As she thought, Huo Xiangu’s gaze swept around until it landed on the person she was thinking of.

The moment he sensed a gaze, Zhang Qilin's eyes lit up. He tilted his head to investigate who was looking at him. After meeting a pair of aged eyes, Zhang Qilin subtly looked away, as if the eye contact had been nothing more than an illusion.

"Mr. Zhang, do you have a way to break this deadlock?"

Huo Xiangu asked directly, as the current situation left her no room for pretense and she could only get straight to the point.

"organ!"

Zhang Qilin stared intently at the ground, ignoring Huo Xiangu's gaze, and simply uttered two words.

"organ?"

"There are definitely traps in the tomb! But the walls of this tomb seem to be full of traps, but we don't know which ones are the real ones!"

We can't try them one by one.

Huo Xiangu narrowed her eyes and suddenly swept her gaze across the group of people. Now, she and her group had seven people left, A Ning's group had four people left, and Bei Ya's group had two people left. In total, there were only thirteen people left. If there were more than thirteen traps, they would really have no way out.

"So now we're looking for the mechanisms in this tomb chamber together, right? You'll be able to solve the mechanisms you find yourselves, right?"

Qin Henian looked through the stone layers at the rotating mechanisms; even if all of their men were to go in, they wouldn't be enough to keep up with these mechanisms.

The others' expressions darkened upon hearing Qin Henian's words. After all, risking their lives for a sliver of hope—who would be willing to do that?!

The tomb chamber remained quiet for a long time, so long that Qin Henian thought no one would risk their lives to survive... But after a dozen minutes, after much anxiety and calculation in their hearts, someone stepped forward and began to feel around on the wall, trying to activate a new set of stone trough mechanisms.

............................................................

Outside, the tomb, which had been guarded for several hours, was quiet and still, without a single living creature or sound. The people waiting outside were starting to get restless.

"Xiaohua, Brother Xiao and Henian have been inside for so long, why don't we go in and check on them? Otherwise, I'll still be worried!"

Wu Xie waited for several hours but saw no reaction from the ground, and his face showed some anxiety.

Although Xie Yuchen appeared calm and trusted Zhang Qilin and Qin Henian implicitly, he was still somewhat agitated. After all, according to their prior agreement, the two inside had cameras and would take pictures of anything Zhang Qilin deemed important. Anything they couldn't photograph could be remembered and discussed later. Since someone among them needed to know that they had been lured here to let Wu Xie and the others know something.

"Alright, Wu Xie! Don't be so anxious. Rumor has it that the Northern Mute is much more powerful than the Southern Blind. Look at that blind man over there, he's not even worried, so why are you so anxious!"

Xie Yuchen knew Wu Xie's personality to some extent, and raised an eyebrow, directing a glance towards Hei Xiazi and Wang Pangzi. The two were chatting happily, rambling on about this and that, and had even swindled a small amount of money left behind by the other two groups, seemingly without any concern whatsoever.