Enduring the dizziness and disorientation, Yue Zheng crawled over to Xu Song’s side and checked his breathing. He was still alive. Yue Zheng patted his face… no response. It seemed that he wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.
Looking down at the bottomless pit, Yue Zheng furrowed his brow and pondered. When the explosion occurred, the two corpses and Liuzi should have been on the top layer. The rest of the people should be on the third layer or even deeper.
Judging from the reactions of those three bodies, if their bodies were too severely damaged, they would lose their mobility. As a result, even if the group of people closest to the center of the explosion could turn into monsters, their mobility would be greatly reduced.
Yue Zheng felt a sense of heaviness in his heart. He took out some water from his backpack and took a sip, slowly restoring his energy. This incident was truly bizarre. Not only could tomb raiders dig such a huge pit, but dead people could also turn into zombies…
No, these things were different from the zombies in movies and games. Aside from their skin color, which couldn’t be seen clearly due to the darkness, their movements were completely incomparable to those slow, rigid, and sluggish creatures. Not to mention that they could even attack in ways that defied the natural rules of the human body.
If there was something wrong with this tomb from the beginning, then the two corpses encountered by the tomb raiders when they first opened the tomb should have attacked them.
However, this ‘pretending to be dead’ phenomenon only occurred after the big explosion. This meant that there must be some connection between this incident, the explosion, and the third-level cave!
If this situation only affected the bodies of these three people, it would be manageable. But what if something leaked out and affected the surrounding area?!
Yue Zheng hesitated and agonized. If he went down, what if something could affect the human body? Then he… But the explosion created such a huge pit. If there were toxins or side effects, the two of them, who were so close to the pit, might already be in trouble!
Suddenly, he remembered the inexplicable wound that appeared on the back of the ancient corpse after he swung his hand and the body that suddenly caught fire.
His gaze involuntarily turned to Xu Song, who was still unconscious. That fire was stronger than what a flamethrower would produce. Was it spontaneous combustion of the body? Or… did Xu Song cause it?
Rationally, Yue Zheng leaned more towards the idea of the body spontaneously combusting, a conjecture that could barely align with natural science. However, subconsciously, he had a lingering suspicion that the fire was probably caused by Xu Song.
How could an ordinary person suddenly spew out fire, with no weapons other than a dagger? If Xu Song truly possessed such superpowers, he would have used them to escape when the tomb raiders captured him earlier.
But were there not enough abnormal occurrences today after the explosion? Corpses transforming, himself being able to generate “sword qi.” Therefore, Xu Song suddenly spewing fire didn’t seem entirely unacceptable.
Sighing, Yue Zheng rubbed his temples to alienate his headache. It would be better to wait until daylight to discuss this further. After all, Xu Song was still unconscious, and since Yue Zheng had saved his life, he didn’t want him to be killed by something immediately.
Moreover, when it became daylight, they might be able to see the situation at the bottom of the pit directly. With such a massive explosion, it was possible that people from nearby would come to investigate. By daytime, his colleagues should also be able to climb the mountain…
He fell into a deep sleep.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Footsteps approached from beside him, and Xu Song slowly turned his head. The man seemed somewhat familiar… Ah, right, he was Yue Zheng.
“Awake?” Yue Zheng had also fallen asleep in the latter half of the night, waking up just over an hour before Xu Song. He had slept deeply, his whole body aching and his head was throbbing. Fortunately, there was a comforting warmth flowing into his chest, allowing him to fall asleep without waking up countless times throughout the night.
“Brother Yue…” Xu Song was startled by his own hoarse voice as soon as he spoke.
“Here.” Yue Zheng woke up around the same time as Xu Song, his throat dry as if it were emitting smoke as if he had a severe cold.
Supporting himself on the ground, Xu Song sat up and saw several severely damaged bodies lying not far away. His expression couldn’t help but change, quickly turning his head in the other direction.
“This… is that big pit?!” Holding the water in his hand, which he hadn’t even had a chance to drink, Xu Song pointed to the nearby hole in astonishment.
“Yes.” Yue Zheng nodded silently, waiting for Xu Song to drink some water before continuing, “I woke up earlier than you and went down there.”
“Are… are those things still down there?” Xu Song glanced fearfully at the bodies nearby. He remembered that during Yue Zheng’s fight with those monsters last night, their bodies and limbs were scattered everywhere. But now, they had all been moved to the corner, indicating that Yue Zheng had already tidied up.
“No, I didn’t see a single person.”
There were only deformed limbs and broken bodies. After a brief silence, Yue Zheng added, “But I found this.”
He took out a black stone slab from his backpack.
“Where did you find this thing?” Xu Song curiously took it. The stone slab wasn’t large, about the size of a book page, but it was densely engraved with strange ancient characters, covering the entire surface.
On the front side are inscriptions, while the back side is engraved with some patterns, resembling a circular object with a pedestal below. A group of people is seen raising their hands in celebration around it.
“It’s right in front of that thing.”
Following in the direction Yue Zheng pointed at, Xu Song looked down again. About twenty to thirty meters below, there was a massive artificially excavated space, which must be the place the tomb raiders had discovered earlier.
In the center of the pit, there was a stone platform. There should have been something placed on the platform, but now, only scattered, shiny fragments could be seen, tiny and dazzling, reflecting the sunlight and emitting a brilliant glow.
“Are those… perhaps…” Those shiny objects seemed somewhat familiar, and Xu Song hurriedly reached into his pocket.
“Yes, it’s those things.” Yue Zheng opened his palm, revealing several shiny fragments.
Xu Song picked up one, transparent like glass, but much more radiant and slightly heavier than glass. He then took out the piece he had retrieved from his pocket yesterday. Sure enough, apart from some differences in shape and size, the texture and color were identical, as if they were shards that came from the same thing.
“…Wait, could these shards have originally been part of a sphere?”
“Why?” Yue Zheng was puzzled.
“Take a look at this!” Xu Song didn’t understand why his mind felt unusually clear. He flipped over the stone slab with one hand, pointing to the illustration on it.
“Look at this, if there was a huge glass sphere on that platform below, wouldn’t it be the same as the one depicted in this drawing?” Then he suddenly asked, “How many pieces did you pick up? Show them to me.”
Although he didn’t understand, Yue Zheng still took out a few pieces from his bag.
“I only took a few samples, planning to take them back to the testing department in City Y to see what they are.”
Xu Song hurriedly took the glass shards and studied them, comparing them repeatedly.
Seeing his earnest expression, Yue Zheng felt it would be inappropriate to interrupt him and silently waited on the side.
“This sphere should be hollow and emit light… At least it has a luminous effect.”
“Huh? Emit light? Hollow?” Yue Zheng was taken aback. He felt like he couldn’t keep up with this young man’s leaps of thought. But judging by his appearance, they weren’t too far apart in age. How did he suddenly become so mature?
“Look at these pieces. All of them have two highly smooth sides with slight curves. If I’m not mistaken, the smooth sides should be the inside and outside of the sphere.”
“Looking at this drawing again, these patterns around the sphere should represent light rays. The sphere might have originally contained something transparent with a luminous effect… Unfortunately, we arrived too late. The tomb raiders from yesterday must have seen the original appearance of the object. If this sphere indeed emits light, it would look like a treasure.”
“Of course, even if it doesn’t emit light, this transparent crystal-like material looks like a gem, a diamond, or something similar. They may have wanted to smash it and take it away, but after destroying the sphere, a big explosion occurred…”
Although it sounded incredible at first, Yue Zheng felt that what Xu Song said was probably close to the truth. His previous conjecture was similar to Xu Song’s imagination, except he hadn’t noticed that the stone platform in the drawing might be the one below.
Regardless of what was on the platform, it was likely something that would tempt tomb raiders. They would want to take it but couldn’t carry it, leading to a destructive explosion that blew them away.
Xu Song’s imagination ran wild, and he entertained various possibilities. He kept flipping the stone slab in his hand, unable to find any further information in the illustration on the back. He then focused on studying the text on the front.
“These characters look more like ancient scripts, such as oracle bone script… They are significantly different from commonly seen traditional or simplified Chinese characters. Unfortunately, I haven’t learned them, so I can’t recognize them…”
“Do you remember the fire from last night?” Yue Zheng suddenly spoke momentarily surprising Xu Song.
He looked up at him with confusion, asking, “Fire?”
Seeing no signs of deception in his eyes, Yue Zheng breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that the fire wasn’t some ability Xu Songhad possessed for a long time.
Yue Zheng said, “Do you remember the last ancient corpse from last night? The one that rushed towards you? Suddenly, a burst of fire emerged and burned it.” It was completely incinerated, and the temperature of that fire must have been extremely high.
Last night’s scene left a deep impression on him. Initially, Xu Song’s subconscious mind had conveniently ignored that terrifying moment after a night of rest. But now, with Yue Zheng mentioning it, the image of that pale, grotesque, and shriveled face reappeared in Xu Song’s mind.
Swallowing hard, Xu Song closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and extended his right hand, silently looking at his palm.
Yue Zheng had a vague understanding deep down. His own situation was likely similar to Xu Song’s…
“I… I don’t know either…” Faced with the fear of yesterday’s explosion, the fear of the corpses transforming, and now the unknown fear of his changes, Xu Song hesitated to confide in Yue Zheng.
Yue Zheng had saved him several times, and they had gone through hardships together. But this matter was different from encountering corpse reanimation. Even if he spoke about corpse reanimation, whether people believed it or not would be their choice. If the relevant authorities needed him to keep it confidential, he could simply keep his mouth shut.
But that burst of fire, if it was caused by him…
In Xu Song’s mind, thoughts of “human dissection, guinea pigs, and captive experiments” emerged, painting a bleak future that sent shivers down his spine.
A hand reached out in front of Xu Song, holding a piece of broken stone.
gods i’m curious about that glass sphere and what in the world was in that explosion (zombify or powers, but like does the glass shards determine it? could they even have reached anyone else? why does Xu Song have the clear thinking while Yue Zheng doesn’t? is it cause Xu Song got fire and the sphere was a light source?) i have so many questions (for some reason my brain supplied “is this a kissing book?” Yes It Highly Likely Is ajxbsnxbs)
thanks for picking this up!!
I wanted to write something about the content of the chapter, but now I just can’t stop laughing with the ” kissing book”!!!
Somehow, I wonder if getting that stone out of them was truly the right thing to do..
Thank you for the update!
Thank you for your translation 💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛