Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Phoenix’s Blood [7]

Translator: Xah

“Fellow Li Shu, you see –” Jin LaoDa obviously wanted to let Li Shu take the lead.

At the side, Lao Fei impatiently said, “dawdling is not a becoming of a man. Let me go first.” When he said ‘not a man’, he also looked at Li Shu.

Suddenly Zhang Qiu’s petty temper came up, but he was suppressed by Li Shu, who had a smile in his eyes, but when he looked at Lao Fei, it was a look with a cold to the marrow.

Lao Fei took the black-claded men down first, in between was Jin LaoDa and his men, then Zhang YuShui and Zhang Qiu, and finally Li Shu. This time, Zhang Qiu probably had some experience creeping the robber’s hole before. He didn’t open his mind for the first time and frightened himself. He didn’t feel frightened now, especially behind him was Li Shu, he crept quickly with his butt stuck up.

The first few people held flashlights, because of the long and narrow robber’s hole, the light at the back was very dim, the last of the line Li Shu did not have a flashlight. A pair of faint red mist, closely stared at the front, which was Zhang Qiu’s butt, twisting and twisting. Li Shu’s eyes turned more dark.

Zhang Qiu always felt the chill behind his butt. Not feeling at ease, he whispered, “Li Shu?”

“Hmm?”

With just such a hum sound, which was low and pleasant, it was a foul for Zhang Qiu to hear it; his arms almost fell on the ground! In the darkness, Zhang Qiu’s ears were red and he felt like a mosquito-repellent incense. Fortunately, the road was dark and Li Shu couldn’t see him, otherwise he would have exploded.

“No– nothing.” Zhang Qiu stammered, internally wishing that there was no one in the robber’s hole.

This time the robber’s hole journey went smoothly and did not go wrong as it did last time. Especially the location of the hole was excellent. The first of the line Lao Fei came straight into the lane and laughed when he saw Li Shu behind him. He joked as if to tell Jin LaoDa, “You’re too careful, isn’t there nothing? Don’t be suspicious, I asked what talented people call people to cheat?”

Lao Fei meant something, and everybody could hear it. Jin LaoDa laughed a couple of times and diverged the topic, “Come on!”

Zhang Qiu grunted with discontent in his eyes, mainly for Li Shu. He had seen Li Shu’s skills, if not for Li Shu, he could not have come out of the tomb alive.

The tomb had only one corridor, and there was no fork road. They walked along the corridor. About a quarter of an hour later, there was a black pillar in the middle of the corridor, which was carved on top of it. Zhang Qiu saw and made a surprised sound. This was like the pillars around the stone coffin bed in the main tomb chamber of Gu Mu Country.

Zhang YuShui went up and looked at the circle with a flashlight, but the pattern was simple and did not have a regular pattern that could be detected, he couldn’t tell, “It could be a talisman.”

Lao Fei and three people obviously did not have any interest in it, and urged them to hurry up.

These people were in a hurry, as if they were rushing to the main tomb chamber. Zhang Qiu pouted his lips and kept up. Then, almost a quarter of an hour later, there was another black pillar in the middle of the corridor. It was not until the fifth that he saw the main corridor leading to the tomb. It was narrow, about a meter wide and four or five meters long, with black paint on all sides and black on the top floor and walls.

Lao Fei flashed his flashlight across the way. Several people in the back were shocked and stepped back. “What the fuck is that?”

A pair of fierce eyes stared at them at the door of the opposite chamber, as if they would torn them apart at once before daring to step forward. Daoba’s face looked frightened, and immediately pulled out a few shots, only to hear the muffled bang. The huge fierce eyes still staring at their uninvited visitors.

“It’s a stone statue.” Zhang YuShui spoke.

“How is that possible? It’s clearly alive –” said Jin LaoDa, whose forehead was cold sweating. Before he could finish, he looked at it carefully with his flashlight and breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s true, his grandmother almost scared me to death. This is something so evil.”

A huge stone statue was squatting in the middle of a stone door. The human-face tiger had a long mouth, and its tail was very long. It was directly built in the middle of the stone door gap and reached to the top of the corridor. The statue was lifelike, suddenly it looked like an illusion.

“Taowu[1]” Li Shu’s voice was always cold, ” Something was painted on the eyes.”

Zhang Qiu suddenly thought of the clay figurines in Pixian Hui Wang’s tomb, which could really make people hallucinate, but because the stone statue was a little farther away, only the eyes were painted. It did not greatly affect their thinking.

“Damn, what’s wrong? LaoZi doesn’t believe this. Go!” Lao Fei pointed to Daoba next to him. But instead of listening to him, Daoba looked at Li Shu. Lao Fei got angry and his eyes were red, “Useless thing, I’m on it myself.”

Zhang Qiu had a hunch that Lao Fei would kill himself, but he didn’t stop him. Lao Fei had just stepped down on a black floor and the board turned over, then the whole man fell weightlessly down. The half-chewed cheek was at the side, he stepped forward and pulled him up. All the sharp stone blades were penetrating through the crack. If he fell off, he would be killed on the spot.

“Go.” Ignoring the struggles of Lao Fei and the chewed face, Li Shu very naturally took Zhang Qiu’s hand. He took the lead in stepping on one board and said to Zhang Qiu, “Follow me.”

Zhang YuShui followed closely, his eyes gloomy staring at the closed door ahead, and a voice in his heart pulled him forward.

Jin LaoDa quickly waved to his men to follow him, without a word of sympathy as he passed Lao Fei and half-chewed face, he hurriedly followed after Zhang YuShui.

Zhang Qiu was nervous, holding Li Shu’s hand tightly. He couldn’t concentrate on anything else. He was afraid that he might have stepped on the wrong foot and dragged Li Shu. He was cold sweating, his stomach was stuffy and painful, he uttered ‘uh’, and Li Shu looked back, “What’s wrong?”

“The stomach is bit stuffy and painful.” As soon as Zhang Qiu finished speaking, Li Shu put his hand on his stomach. The ice cold touched made Zhang Qiu shivered, but the stuffy pain feeling disappeared. It was amazing.

“All right?”

“I feel no pain at all when you touched it.” Zhang Qiu rubbed his stomach and watched Li Shu, who seemed to have no objection to his words. Did this mean that Li Shu was not disgusted with men?

Zhang Qiu thought of it with joy and happiness.

“How do we get in?” Zhang YuShui asked, coming up behind him, with urgency in his tone.

Li Shu looked around the lower statues, “there are mechanisms, but behind–”

“No matter what’s behind this, Fellow Li Shu, we are all bound to win. Don’t you want a box?” Jin LaoDa interrupted Li Shu.

Li Shu, who was interrupted, stared at Jin LaoDa. Zhang Qiu thought the look was strange, but it was really handsome.

Jin LaoDa, who was stared felt hairy. As he was about to say something, Li Shu stepped on the stone beast’s foot, leaped up lightly, then slapped the stone beast’s eyes, and suddenly the resting statuary beast’s tail moved. Its long tail pulled away from the tight stone door like a whip, and hit it with its head.

Li Shu held Zhang Qiu in his arms and stood in the dead corner. Zhang YuShui jumped lightly. Who knew what he did with his hands, but he clipped the top stone wall. Only Jin LaoDa and the three people could not escape the strong whip.

Ai-yah, ai-yah, crying of pain.

Zhang Qiu heard the voice and smiled unkindly. He approached Li Shu intentionally and whispered, “You did it deliberately?”

Li Shu bent the corners of his mouth. Zhang Qiu looked at that face and almost drooling. His facial control might not be saved.

The stone door slowly opened, Lao Fei and three people intruded first. Jin LaoDa, unwilling to cover his arm, followed in. Zhang Qiu was anxious, “The box!”

“They can’t bring it out.” Li Shu said confidently.

Zhang YuShui had jumped down; the three of them looked into each other eyes and entered. Zhang Qiu stepped in and was silenced by the scene inside. It was a tomb of a thousand people, with a circular curve underneath. The whole chamber was round and covered with black paint. The coffins faced the platform in the center, but the platform was cut off from the wall of the coffin by a trench. It was very deep and underneath was sharp stone blades.

Unless someone could fly, they would not be able to reach the central platform.

At the moment there was a flame-like bead on the top of the gold shelf, shining brightly, and layers of coffins were shining in the dark main tomb. The dark coffins seemed to absorb the red light, slowly penetrating in.

Zhang Qiu looked and felt his blood curling. Lao Fei and the few were not much better, but he found that Jin LaoDa’s eyes were not at all afraid, staring intensely and crazily at the red bead on the shelf.

Jin LaoDa quickly pulled the bag under his hand and dumped something out of it. Zhang Qiu saw that it was a small crossbow with a rope tied behind it. Jin LaoDa pointed the crossbow at the platform, only to hear the sound of “shu“,  then the rope was straight and tensed with the arrow at the other end was already stuck on the platform column.

Two men pulled the other end of the rope in a straight line, and Jin LaoDa put on his gloves and climbed the rope in the middle.

It was only a few minutes before Zhang Qiu stared at him and felt a sense of wonder, but it wasn’t exactly what it was.

“What should we do? Jin LaoDa wants to get something.” Zhang Qiu was anxious for Li Shu. He didn’t forget Li Shu wanted the box, but Li Shu was very calm. He didn’t know what to say at once, but his mood slowed down. He only saw that Jin LaoDa had arrived on the platform and his one hand could not wait to take the red bead.

“Swish –”

There was a gust of wind in his ear, Zhang Qiu blinked his eyes and heard the screaming of Jin LaoDa.

“Big Brother!”

“The bead! The Box! ” The voice of Jin LaoDa.

“Ah Yan!” It’s the voice of Zhang YuShui.

Zhang Qiu looked up, but in a split second, there was only one person left on the platform wearing a Chinese buttoned jacket suit, with short hair, skin white as snow, bright red lips, a port-wine mark under the eye, looking aloof and remote. Fine snow-white fingertips held the red bead, then he took the bead into his palm and looked over here.

To be exact, he looked at Zhang YuShui.

The tenderness in the eyes was unable to say, but in a split second he turned cold and vicious.

It was Pixian HuiWang, Liu Yan.[2]

---

Footnote:

[1] Taowu is one of the “four fierceness” in the legend of Chinese ancient times, the head is tiger and has long wild boar fangs.

[2] King/Marquess Hui of Pixian is his title, his name is Liu Yan.

Previous | TOC | Next