Chapter 30
Chapter 30: Past Live [8]
Translator: Xah
Zhang Qiu was laden
with anxiety for worrying about Li Shu’s face and also despised himself as a
hopeless face-con[1]. Now, life was the
most important thing.
He was worried for a
long time. He dared not move his feet. As soon as Li Shu and Pixian Hui Wang
looked particularly calm, he asked, “What’s the plan?”
“No idea.”
Zhang Qiu:…
I don’t know what to
say, as long as you guys are happy. He looked all around; the walls were
polished very smoothly. If one wanted to climb the wall and hang on to the top
of the tunnel, it would be impossible. The tunnel ahead was a hundred meters
long. He didn’t know how much water there was behind it; if it was less, than
running with speed would be alright but if it was a lot, then it would be
impossible.
Looking back and forth,
it seemed that neither way was feasible.
“I’ve raked my mind and
can’t come up with a viable escape plan.” Zhang Qiu admitted that his brain was
not working well.
Li Shu pointed to the
top and Zhang Qiu said quickly, “It’s too slippery to go without exerting
oneself.”
“Then hold onto me
tightly.”
As soon as the voice
fell, the sound of “thud, thud, thud–” came from one end of the pitch-black
tomb passage, like the collision of rocks hitting the ground. The sound was
getting closer and closer. Zhang Qiu could even hear someone calling for help.
“It’s Red–” stupefied,
he swallowed back ‘sister’ from the tip of his tongue. Zhang Qiu’s scalp was
numbed with Li Shu’s scorching gaze. His heart was flowing with tears, but on
his face he said carelessly, “That woman is crying for help.”
Li Shu asked coolly,
“What, you want to be the hero to save the beauty?”
Zhang Qiu was going to
cry and singing conquest[2] to Li Shu. He didn’t know how to
answer that.
Li Shu saw Zhang Qiu’s
pitiful appearance, hooked his lips and laughed. Li Shu was an annoying goblin
as exactly as Zhang Qiu suspected. Being dazzled to blind, he was even willing
to be killed by Li Shu!
Sure enough, he was a
face-con. He was hopelessly planted on Li Shu.
The sound of ‘thud thud
thud—’ was getting closer and closer. The cries for help and the sounds of
footsteps were disordered and complicated. There were gunshots among them.
Pixian Hui Wang lowered his ear, looked at Li Shu and said, “A large number of
people coming this way.”
Zhang Qiu hadn’t responded
yet, Li Shu held him around his waist and ran forward quickly. But in a moment,
he heard the sound of brick and water overlapping behind him. “Crash–”
“Water-water are coming!” By listening to the sound, the water volume should
not be small. His words had not finished and his whole body was in the air,
wrapped in Li Shu’s arms, his back stuck to Li Shu’s chest.
He didn’t know how Li
Shu did it; his hands and feet were firmly attached to the top of the wall and
plus, there was another man in his arms. Although Zhang Qiu was not heavy, he
was also a man, without a grip, Li Shu still had to support his whole weight.
Zhang Qiu was too frightened to move and his whole body was closely attached to
the stone wall.
“The stone wall is
cold. Don’t stick too close.”
They were so close that
Li Shu’s voice was sticking to his ear. He even kissed the tip of his ear.
Zhang Qiu was irritated and whispered, “Don’t mess around, I’m weak all over
and you’re carrying more weight.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
But he did not harassed
Zhang Qiu anymore.
Zhang Qiu was relieved.
He had no room to look down, so he just listened to the sound of the water
rushing. Shortly after they ran away, the wall behind them burst. That’s to say
that they’re in a position where the water current hit the highest. He wondered
if it would hurt Li Shu. Zhang Qiu put his whole body up and wished he could be
a piece of paper. “Li Shu, get closer to me.”
“Song Bao is so
enthusiastic!”
“…” Sooner or later, he
would have a chance to top Li Shu!!
–
“Ah! My leg, my leg.”
“Don’t go over. Come
back. There’s something wrong with the water.”
“Help me, help me!”
At the end of the tomb
passage, came the cry of several people tearing their hearts and lungs, crying
of pain. That group of people came running over and might have been stained
with the water. Indeed, there was something wrong with the water.
As the water slowed
down, Zhang Qiu twisted his neck to see the water level and his lips felt cold.
Li Shu’s lips came over his and they exchanged kisses.
Lips separated, Zhang
Qiu gave Li Shu a talking-to while gasping for breath, “Without considering the
place and time, why do you always like to be—be—” be in heat!
“Obviously you were
enjoying it just now, even embracing my neck and kissing me in a trance.”
Unexpectedly, he was
taken aback again. Zhang Qiu was angry but had nothing to say. At the side, a
black shadow climbed over the top of the stone wall, like a gecko –it was
Pixian Hui Wang, whose long nails glistened sharply when his hands exchanged in
the darkness.
At this moment Zhang
Qiu really realized that Pixian Hui Wang was a big zongzi aged more than 3,000
years.
“Song Bao, now turn
over and hold my back with your legs around my waist.”
He was now facing the
stone wall and holding Li Shu in this posture was really shameful, but Zhang
Qiu did not hesitate for a second. The more he tangled, the harder Li Shu
worked. So very cautiously he turned around in his narrow embrace and held Li
Shu’s back tightly with both hands. Their breaths mingled together. Zhang Qiu’s
ears were red, his head was on Li Shu’s chest and his legs were around Li Shu’s
waist.
The water in the tomb
passage was shallower as the time passed, but the water was too much and extended
for a long time before reaching to footfall level. The climbing path was too
long. Every time Li Shu changed hands, Zhang Qiu fell down a little. Zhang Qiu
held him tighter in fear. In the darkness, where Zhang Qiu could not see, Li
Shu’s lips bend down and intentionally pushed upward when he changed his legs
to climb forward.
Step by step, Zhang Qiu
felt that the time was long, his root ears went red.
There was a hard thing
between the legs. Every time the legs alternated, the one poking at him rose a
little bit by bit. Zhang Qiu was embarrassed, but he could not change his
position.
“Have we arrived yet?”
He’s about to choke on it when it’s worn down!
“There are still a few
steps to go.”
Li Shu’s voice sounded
decent, if you ignore the thing that was as hard as brick.
“… Don’t blame me for
making a move, I’ll be rude.” It’s the voice of Pixian Hui Wang.
–
Finally arrived, Zhang
Qiu breathed a sigh of relief, Li Shu accelerated a few steps, lightly landed
while holding him. The position was right at the intersection. They landed and
at the same time several flashlights suddenly hit them from the opposite. Zhang
Qiu opened his eyes, only heard a familiar voice.
“Little junior
brother!”
“Senior brother?”
Li Shu was going to
step forward to attack but paused. He took Zhang Qiu in his arms to prevent the
other people from doing something.
“It’s my people. Put
down the gun first. Lu Feng, don’t you mind?”
Lu Feng? Wasn’t this
the local tyrant who asked Pixian Hui Wang to sell the bead in the hotel? He
was refused and went straight away, but who would expect him to catch up here.
The flashlights and the
guns were withdrawn together. Zhang Qiu saw it was really Senior Hua Ting, he
did not know how to open his mouth for a moment. He was not familiar with Hua
Ting, but after more than a month together, he could see how enthusiastic the
other person was. However, because of these, he was afraid to talk with each
other in the tomb. There were many guns on the other party. In case Li Shu and
Pixian Hui Wang got involved, it would be bad.
The other party had
more than a dozen people, all looked like bodyguards. Two of them were standing
in the middle looked flustered, their foreheads were glistening with sweat.
They made painful moans. Their feet and legs were wrapped. The bandages had
been dyed red. At a glance, it was known that they had run into the water, and
Red Sister stood shivering in the middle of the bodyguards.
Taking the lead was Lu
Feng. Pixian Hui Wang looked at him coldly. If it weren’t for Li Shu, they
would have started fighting.
“Jin LaoDa is not
here.”
Li Shu opened his mouth
lightly. Zhang Qiu knew in an instant that they went down to the pit to find
something. He didn’t know exactly what they were looking for, but no matter
what, they could not let Jin LaoDa beat them to it.
Pixian Hui Wang
understood, and asked the Red Sister who was surrounded by the bodyguards in a
cold voice, “What about Jin LaoDa?”
“What Jin LaoDa –” Red
Sister stop abruptly after seeing Pixian Hui Wang’s cold eyes. When she thought
about the things in the pit, she immediately understood, “You mean that the
monkey is Jin LaoDa? No wonder…”
Li Shu did not like to
listen to the woman’s realization, “Where on earth is he?”
Red Sister shrank
unconsciously and stretched her finger to a ditch opposite to the waterway.
Hua Ting added, “We
heard the woman asking for help, followed by who-knows-what monster. It was
wearing stone armor all over. Strangely, that stone armored monster came here
and went back.”
Zhang Qiu looked at Li
Shu and asked which way to go, but found Li Shu staring at Hua Ting’s face in a
daze.
He didn’t know what to
think. He coughed. Li Shu looked away and pointed ahead. “Here.”
On the left and right
was waterway that was not for walk. On the other hand, there was a stone
armored monster. There were only two directions, front and back. But strangely,
Li Shu had never chosen to go to the back of the tomb since they entered the
tomb.
“There are zongzis
inside.” Li Shu seemed to know Zhang Qiu’s thought.
But how could Li Shu
tell that there were zongzis inside from across the stone door?
Jin LaoDa disappeared
in the direction of the stone armored monster. They were now walking straight
ahead. It was reasonable that they should follow the path of the stone armored
monster to find Jin LaoDa, but Li Shu’s words were certain that it was
convincing for no reason.
Li Shu took the lead,
and Hua Ting behind him suddenly exclaimed, “Your back is injured, did you get
wet with that water?”
“What injury?” Zhang
Qiu looked back and took a breath of air. The clothes at the back of Li Shu had
been corroded. The flesh and skin were sticking to the clothes; his heart felt
painful. He dared not touch, “Why don’t you say that you were hurt?!”
“Lu Feng, wrap it up
for him.” Hua Ting said.
Zhang Qiu’s backpack
had already been thrown in the waterway. Li Shu’s was the same. Pixian Hui Wang
pulled out his medicine bag in quick action. Zhang Qiu took it and disinfected
it first. His hands were shaking. He was so angry and afraid of hurting Li Shu.
If Hua Ting hadn’t discovered it earlier, Li Shu would not have said so.
“It’s nothing.” Li Shu
took Zhang Qiu’s trembling hand and added, “I don’t feel hurt, really.”
Zhang Qiu’s eyes were
red and angry. “It’s so serious. How can it not hurt?”
“I’ll do it.” Suddenly
Lu Feng opened his mouth next to him. “Lu Feng is a doctor,” Hua Ting
explained.
Li Shu’s back looked so
serious that Zhang Qiu didn’t know how to do it. Hearing Hua Ting said so, he
handed the medicine bag to Lu Feng. Lu Feng was a professional, so he
sterilized and bandaged it in three or two times.
“Your wound looks
alright.” Lu Feng pointed to his bodyguard. “These two guys are soaked in the
water and their feet will soon be visible with white bones.”
Li Shu saw, when Lu
Feng finished saying this, Zhang Qiu’s face became more uglier, he nodded and
thanked, “Go first.” He reached for Zhang Qiu’s hand and whispered, “It hurts a
little.”
“Ah! Do you want to
rest? Stay still and walk slowly.” Zhang Qiu himself did not know what he was
talking about and had no idea what to do.
“Just blow it for me is
fine.”
Zhang Qiu was even more
angry when he heard Li Shu’s teasing tone. Even more angrier at how he could be
kidding when all the injuries were so serious. When he thought that Li Shu had
crawled through the narrow tunnel with his injuries, his heart could not bear.
He was afraid that Li Shu was really in pain. He stopped for a few seconds and
blew it very cautiously.
Li Shu knew shyness was
very important to Zhang Qiu, but he didn’t expect that because his words which
could be heard as a joke, Zhang Qiu unexpectedly really helped him blow it in
front of so many people. His heart felt touched, he took Zhang Qiu’s hand. “It
sure didn’t hurt.”
“You damn liar!” Zhang
Qiu said that, but he was relieved.
Having delayed some
time, they continued moving ahead. In the middle of journey, Zhang Qiu heard
Hua Ting talked about the origin of the pit, “… My body has a strange disease;
that kind of fatal disease. He wants to find it for me when he heard that the
Phoenix Bead can cure all kinds of diseases.”
“Senior brother, to
tell you the truth, if ordinary people use the Phoenix Bead, they die faster.
I’m not deceiving you.” Zhang Qiu kindly advised.
Lu Feng next to him
heard it, and his face sank because Zhang Qiu did not speak like he’s lying. Hua
Ting saw and quietly reached his hand over to Lu Feng and held it tightly. They
looked at each other. Hua Ting whispered, “We don’t need the bead anymore.”
Lu Feng said nothing.
At the front, Pixian
Hui Wang gripped the bead and sneered; dared to get it, regardless of whom, he
would kill the other party.
This path was safe and
sound. It went straight to the main tomb. The stone door of the main tomb was
opened as if someone had been in it. Zhang Qiu looked at Li Shu, “Jin LaoDa?”
“It’s the smell of Jin LaoDa.”
The atmosphere suddenly
became tense. Zhang Qiu held the dagger in his hand, and the bodyguards brought
by Lu Feng in the back also got energetic. It was strange in the tomb.
Everything was took in
at a glance with several flashlights illuminated the stone door. Hua Ting saw
the inscription next to the stone door and looked at it. He exclaimed, “Junior
brother, it’s the words for Gu Mu Country.”
Gu Mu Country!
Zhang Qiu’s heart
stopped. He remembered the Gu Mu Country tomb in Mount Qinling. His face turned
white. This was a shadow to his life.
Because both of them
had done some research, especially Hua Ting, a proud student brought by the
professor and the elders of his family also had history professors; he knew Gu
Mu Country in more detail than Zhang Qiu. Even these days, he had studied Gu
Mu’s written style with some of its logic. Now when he saw the inscriptions, he
could translate them.
“The owner of this tomb
should be a general. Look at the same year as the one in Mount Qinling.”
After Hua Ting
finished, Li Shu looked back at Hua Ting with deep meaning in his eyes.
Pixian Hui Wang had
pushed open the stone door. Li Shu took back his line of sight, pulled Zhang
Qiu’s hand behind him. The lights from flashlights were shining around. They
only saw a black lacquer figure on the coffin in the middle. From the look of
its clothes from back view, astonishingly it was Jin LaoDa.
“It’s Jin LaoDa!”
Zhang Qiu’s words had
just fallen, almost in a split second there were several gunshots, bloody
smells and shouts behind him. The flashlights that people at the back held
rolled down to the ground, the lights swayed about, and only a thin shadow
leaped up.
The shadow’s speed was
very fast. When Zhang Qiu still hadn’t reacted, his neck was grabbed by cold,
stiff-dry claws. It was actually the Red Sister who was surrounded by the
bodyguards in the middle. It was the two bodyguards with the injured legs who
fired the gun. In contrast to the dying look of pain just now, they were very
energetic, attacking the nearby people all over like crazy. Hua Ting fell to
the ground, his chest was bloody, and his clothes were dyed with blood. Lu Feng
was giving first aid because of the strong bloody smell.
Li Shu stood beside
him, cut his palm and dropped his blood on Hua Ting’s injured chest.
“Fellow Li Shu, we meet
again.”
Jin LaoDa’s voice
unexpectedly sounded in his ear.
Footnotes:
[1] face complex;
obsess with beautiful face
[2] from online gaming
“somebody kneeling down and singing conquest”, which means that ‘I am strong,
the boss’. It should means that ZQ surrendered to LS.
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