Tomb Raiders: She Comes from the Ancient Martial Arts World

"Was that guy in the mud because of something in the soil?" Ling Yue asked after everyone had left.

Zhang Rishan wasn't surprised that Ling Yue could find something in the soil. He grunted and looked around with his flashlight.

"Is it a hallucination?" Ling Yue found it quite amazing.

The hallucinogenic things she knew before were either poison or the scent emitted by some special plant.

Zhang Rishan turned and glanced at her: "It seems you really don't know anything about the things in the tomb."

Ling Yue was speechless: "Do you think a normal person would deliberately want to know about the things in a tomb?"

Zhang Rishan wanted to say yes, but after thinking about it carefully, it seemed that what she said made sense.

The reason he and the people he came into contact with had some knowledge about the tomb was because they had been in contact with it for a long time.

Having lived in such a circle for a long time, Zhang Rishan inevitably made habitual mistakes, assuming that many common-sense issues were very common.

No wonder Hei Xiazi and Wu Xie thought Ling Yue's background was legitimate. Judging from their words, their dislike for grave robbing made it difficult for the Wang family to cultivate him.

After all, no one in the Wang family ever avoids doing tasks in the fields.

Zhang Rishan cleared his throat, ignoring Ling Yue's words, and instead briefly explained the anti-theft mechanisms commonly used in tombs: "To prevent theft, underground palaces and mausoleums mostly use two methods: one is mechanical arrays, and the other is creatures with special attributes..."

In places like Gutongjing, aside from the traps and formations, there are special creatures such as the corpse beetle, the nine-headed cypress, the white snake, and the black-haired snake, which have symbiotic abilities.

As they walked and talked, they soon came to a stone gate, in front of which knelt several dead people.

The way he died was the same as the guy from before, his face buried in the ground, kneeling in a prostrate position.

Ling Yue shone his flashlight on the group for a while, and when the beam focused on one of their heads, something suddenly moved.

Just as she was about to step forward to take a closer look at what this anti-theft creature looked like, a series of disordered footsteps came from the passageway behind her.

Ling Yue turned around, and Zhang Rishan, who had been exploring the mechanism, also came back.

The man who emerged from the passageway with a group of men was a middle-aged man with a fierce expression.

Upon seeing the two, the newcomer's gaze swept over Ling Yue's unfamiliar face before finally settling on Zhang Rishan's face.

The other party, with a stern face, walked step by step toward Zhang Rishan.

Just when Ling Yue thought the other party was about to make a move, the man suddenly hugged Zhang Rishan.

Standing to the side, Ling Yue keenly noticed that after the man hugged Zhang Rishan, his gaze swept over Zhang Rishan's ears and neck repeatedly.

It even twitched its nose and sniffed a few times.

This is to determine whether the Zhang Rishan in front of us is a person in disguise.

It seems that the Wang family has also infiltrated the Chen family quite a bit.

"President, why didn't you let me know you were coming? If I had known you were coming, would I not have greeted you in advance? Would we still be friends?" The visitor's words were full of respect, but he kept patting Zhang Rishan's arm and shoulder with his hands, which was the usual body language of a superior.

Ling Yue then understood.

Well, another head of the Nine Gates who doesn't respect Old Master Duan.

Ling Yue glanced sideways at Zhang Rishan, who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, and turned to look at her.

Regardless of whether that glance held any hidden meaning, Ling Yue decided to interpret it as: Don't act rashly.

Okay, no problem.

Despite Chen Jinshui's veiled provocation that Zhang Rishan would die there, Old Master Duan, with his good temper, didn't hold it against him.

He even pointed out the reason why people die as soon as they step onto the stone gate: "These insects are called ground louses. Their bodies contain hallucinogenic toxins, which are released when they die."

This is the kind of insect that Ling Yue saw in the soil before.

The insects are tiny, several times smaller than sesame seeds, and their color matches the soil here. As long as they don't move, they are indeed very difficult to spot.

However, this Chen family leader and his men dug here for ten years but couldn't get into the stone gate, nor did they find these insects...

Ling Yue secretly glanced at Chen Jinshui.

Is he pretending to be weak to take advantage of others, or is he really just simple-minded and physically strong?

"President, since you're already here, why don't we go in together? You go first, and we'll protect you from behind." Chen Jinshui was really good at talking.

This is how protectors protect people: by bringing them close to their side.

While Ling Yue was inwardly complaining, Chen Jinshui changed the subject, "I heard a few days ago that a master has come to our side, seemingly from Wu Xie's side. I didn't expect that this master is actually from your side, Chairman. I wonder where you found such a master?"

Zhang Rishan ignored him, ordered Luo Que to go in with him, and then sent Kan Jian back to the New Moon Hotel to tell Boss Yi: "Tell him everything is going smoothly."

Ling Yue didn't think this was really just a saying that only reports good news and not bad.

It seems that both Chen Jinshui's arrival and the situation in the tomb are exactly as they had planned.

So what role does this Boss Chen play in Wu Xie's plan?

Perhaps Wu Xie's plan is not only aimed at the Wang family.

Ling Yue pondered the nine families she had come into contact with so far: Huo, Li, Chen, and supposedly the Qi family, which was almost always on the same page as the Li family.

Of the remaining five families, Zhang Rishan temporarily represents the Zhang family of the Buddha, while the Hong family has no descendants and its remaining power has been taken over by the Xie family.

Hei Bei was the leader of the Nine Gates during the time, but after Dao Ke's death, the sect was effectively extinct.

I've heard that Master Jie and Wu Xie have a very close relationship, and Master Jie is still taking on Wu Xie's debts of several hundred million.

Zhang, Wu, Jie...

Is it an internal conflict or a power struggle within the Nine Gates?

Based on what Ling Yue has seen and felt so far, neither Old Master Duan nor Wu Xie seem like ambitious people.

Could it be that the Xie family, which has yet to emerge, wants to swallow up the other families and become the leader in this field?

Ling Yue habitually speculated that it was all about conspiracy and intrigue.

Based on her current impression of tomb raiders, she could never have imagined that the Xie family, since the time of the Nine Gates, had a fine tradition of one family making money while several others spent it.

Nowadays, Xie Yuchen is the exclusive God of Wealth for the Wuxie team.

While they were thinking, Zhang Rishan and Chen Jinshui reached an agreement. They each brought their own men, and Zhang Rishan opened the stone gate mechanism.

After entering the tomb and passing through a hole, a huge space appeared before us.

This space appears untouched, a vast, naturally formed cave.

At the very front was a winding passageway enclosed by barbed wire.

As you pass through the wire mesh passageway, you can see a simple yet imposing stone statue in the distance.

Upon seeing the stone statue, Chen Jinshui's eyes lit up, and he became more eager in his actions. Ignoring Zhang Rishan's solemn expression, he waved his hand and immediately led his men into the iron mesh passageway.

They were afraid that Zhang Rishan would beat them to it.

Zhang Rishan glanced back at Ling Yue, pleased with her composure and caution: "These iron nets are definitely not simple. Follow me and don't wander off."

Ling Yue didn't understand what she had done that made him repeatedly tell her not to wander off after he came down.

She naturally didn't know that when Wu Xie sent someone to deliver a message, he repeatedly emphasized that she didn't understand the things underground and asked him to take extra care of her.

If we had to trace the reason, it would probably be her repeated disappearances from the underground palace.

An accident occurred shortly after entering the wire mesh passageway.

Whether it was Zhang Rishan or Ling Yue, they were clearly trying their best to walk in the middle and avoid the barbed wire on the sides, but they were still inexplicably cut on their sleeves and scratched with wounds.

Even more bizarrely, the blood flowing from the wound seemed to be absorbed by something and disappeared into the wire mesh in an instant.

Ling Yue frowned, looked down at the bloodstains on his arm and pondered for a moment. Then he slowed down, took out the ink bamboo, and slid it forward along the barbed wire.

really!

Even though the iron spikes were clearly at least twenty centimeters away from the bamboo, the bamboo had already crashed into the iron spike net.

Ling Yue applied a little force, and the collision between the bamboo and the barbed wire produced a soft metallic clanging sound.

Zhang Rishan, who was walking in front, stopped and looked back when she made that move.

Seeing this, he immediately understood and turned his gaze to the candlelight that had automatically lit up over the stone statue: "Seeing is not necessarily believing. It seems that the light and shadow illusion caused by the candlelight over there makes what we see and what we touch not exactly the same."

In terms of the mechanisms of the mausoleum, the Zhang family truly lives up to its reputation as a family with a thousand-year-old heritage.

After figuring out the principle, Zhang Rishan quickly found a mechanism and led Ling Yue and Luo Que out of the barbed wire passage.

In contrast, Chen Jinshui, who had taken the lead, was trapped inside even though he had his men protecting him and tried to cut through the barbed wire with his knife.

Seeing that Ling Yue and the other two had already walked out through the barbed wire fence, Chen Jinshui's eyes lit up, and he grabbed one of his men and pushed him onto the barbed wire fence.

The man was pushed onto the barbed wire fence, where he was instantly stabbed by the extremely sharp iron spikes and screamed in agony.

Chen Jinshui didn't care. He chose another barbed wire fence and sent another worker to test the route.

After several attempts, Chen Jinshui finally found a wire mesh that he could pass through and successfully escaped the trap.

With the stone statue right in front of him, Chen Jinshui exclaimed excitedly, "This must be the chieftain statue that Buddha had made before he entered Gutongjing! It's come to me so easily, who would have thought it would have been right under my feet all along!"

Is this related to Buddha and the ancient city of Tongjing again?!

Ling Yue's brows furrowed, and he looked at the stone statue with a newfound seriousness.

Perhaps there are clues here that are related to the ancient city of Tongjing.

Why would that Buddha statue from thousands of miles away have been commissioned to be made?

The Chen family has guarded this place for ten years. For the first sixty-odd years after Chen Jinshui became the head of the family, why did this isolated tomb, located within the Chen family's sphere of influence, remain intact?

Back then, the head of the Chen family, Chen Pi, was a ruthless character who had come all the way from the Old Nine Gates.