Tomb raiding: Trying to become a little painter

"Don't move, I'm coming to check on you!"

Upon hearing someone call his name, Wu Sanxing quickly turned to look at the person and spoke to them after recognizing them.

It was Tuoba's shout that drew everyone's attention to his situation. Everyone looked at Tuoba, except for Qin Henian and Hei Xiazi, who slightly turned their heads to glance at the extra people on Wu Xie's side.

Little Qilin...

Qin Henian watched as Zhang Qilin suddenly appeared and entered the tomb chamber, then suddenly approached Wu Xie and said something, leading him out of the tomb chamber.

Snapped!

A large hand gently landed on Qin Henian's shoulder, and he turned his head to meet the gaze of someone wearing sunglasses.

"what happened?"

Qin Henian was puzzled.

"Never mind the mute, he's busy. Let's go see what kind of trouble that guy called Mop has seen..."

"Row"

They hit it off immediately and headed towards the corner where Mop and the others were. Qin Henian immediately spotted the familiar big mud cocoon, but this big mud cocoon was different from the one he had seen in the cave before.

The upper half of the large mud cocoon on the ground had shattered, revealing a bluish-black corpse. Inside the cocoon was a swollen head; the exposed skin of its upper body was dark purple, its head was bluish-black, and its bulging eyeballs were frighteningly white...

"It's been thousands of years! I even asked Little Innocent about this before, and he said these mud cocoons are the remains of the craftsmen who built the tomb a thousand years ago. By now, they should be bones. How can this body be so well preserved? Could it be... that this thing is going to rise from the dead?!"

Fatty Wang was good at livening up the atmosphere. As he spoke, he looked at his hand and touched his backpack, preparing to take out his Luoyang shovel and give the guy in front of him a good whack.

"will not!"

Qin Henian almost chuckled at Wang Pangzi's reaction, but the other man's quick reflexes meant he wasn't likely to suffer losses in the tomb. Was this just the subconscious reaction of underground workers like them...?

"He Nian, are you sure? The more I look at this guy, the dizzier I get!"

Just then, Fatty Wang felt his head buzzing for some reason, his thoughts were a bit chaotic, and his vision blurred.

"That's because the skin layer outside the corpse released poisonous gas!"

"Quickly put on your gas masks! If I'm not mistaken, this corpse is full of poison. Don't touch it or poke its skin, it'll leak air!"

Qin Henian didn't answer Hei Xiazi but added a sentence, and took out a gas mask from his backpack and put it on.

Upon hearing this, everyone nearby put on gas masks. After a while, they felt much better and kept their distance from the mud-covered corpse.

Logically speaking, Qin Henian and Hei Xiazi are no longer human, so this kind of poison has no effect on them because divine beasts have a protective aura around them. However, seeing everyone's reaction, Qin Henian also followed Hei Xiazi's example and put on a gas mask.

After donning gas masks, everyone evacuated the site. After cleaning the tomb chamber, they all left. Qin Henian took some photos of the murals, intending to use them as inspiration for his paintings later.

After returning to the tomb passage, we walked forward in rows again. This time, we didn't go far before we reached the end. At the end of the wall, there was only a large snake statue and nothing else.

"Damn! There's nothing here at all, except for this snake sculpture. Could there be some kind of trap?"

Pan Zi was the first to speak up. Because of his height, walking in such a narrow passage was already uncomfortable, and now that he had reached the end and hadn't seen any treasures, he was really frustrated.

"What are you yelling about! You've been around me for so long, why don't you have a brain?! Find the mechanism!"

"Wu Xie, come and see what's so special about this snake carving!"

Wu Sanxing scolded Pan Zi, then glanced at the more than two-meter-tall serpentine stone sculpture. The sculpture's base had many crooked scratches. He was about to bring his nephew over to broaden his horizons when he turned around and saw that his nephew was nowhere to be found in the crowd!

"Wu Xie! Wu Xie!"

"I told this brat not to come, but he insisted. Now that he's here, he's running around causing trouble for everyone."

Wu Sanxing was furious, his face turning red. He thought that if his second brother found out that he had thrown Wu Xie into the tomb, he would definitely get a beating!

"Everyone, come here! Search everywhere for Wu Xie. Once we find him, we'll set off again!"

Hearing Wu Sanxing's words, the mop brothers looked at each other in bewilderment. They had come to find treasure, and now that they had finally entered the tomb, they were going to cause more trouble. Wouldn't that be ridiculous?

But he also had to listen to the employer, at least to put on a show. Thinking about it, Mop instructed a few of his men to look around along the road...

While they were searching for Wu Xie, Wu Xie was already standing in the middle of a passage. This passage was much larger than the narrow path Wu Xie had taken before, but Wu Xie had no time to care about the size of the passage. Instead, he stared intently at the extra woman in front of him with red eyes.

"Aunt Wenjin, what did you just say?"

Wu Xie's dog-like eyes were brimming with tears, and his whole body was trembling.

"Xiao Xie, that's the truth. There's always been a dark hand manipulating things behind the Nine Gates. Our ancestors, the generations before us, and even the generations before that, were just like us now. We've always wanted to find a breakthrough in this matter, but unfortunately, our generation has failed."

“Your third uncle, along with the nine members of the Xisha archaeological team and myself, are all searching for the answer. There are people in your third uncle's team who I didn't dare to show up before, but now it's different. I've already entered the Xi Wangmu Palace.”

At this moment, the woman opposite Wu Xie spoke with a kind expression about what she knew. Wen Jin looked at Wu Xie with a serious expression.

"It? The one you wrote about in your notebook? Who exactly is it? And what's the deal with my third uncle and Jie Lianhuan? What are you all afraid of? Aunt Wenjin, can you please explain everything to me clearly!"

When Wu Xie first saw Chen Wenjin, he was somewhat hesitant to recognize her. But facing someone who looked exactly like the person in the Xisha photo, it would be a lie to say he wasn't excited. However, as his thoughts settled, he noticed the difference. The person opposite him looked exactly the same as decades ago, without a single change, while his third uncle now had a face full of wrinkles and a lot of gray hair. How could the person opposite him not have changed at all...?

“Xiao Xie, I’m telling you this not so you can keep investigating. As for it? I don’t know what it is either. It could be a spirit, or a person, or an organization, or all of the above. I don’t know what it is right now, but the only thing I’m sure of is that it’s always been behind each and every one of us in the Nine Gates.”

Chen Wenjin didn't want to say much about it to Wu Xie, so he could only vaguely say what he needed to say.

"Xiao Xie, how is your third uncle?"