King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 23

“Then things are simple. If we enter the tunnel now, we should be able to see them—” Suren said with a bitter smile. We both fell silent, a chill running through us. Because “seeing”—it sounds simple, but in reality, like Miss Tengjia’s disappearance—if we were lucky, we might find some of Bancha’s personal belongings left behind at the end of the tunnel. If we were unlucky, we would simply watch as two living people vanished into thin air.

After a five-minute silence, the loudspeaker blared again, its voice feigning calm: "Mr. Feng, Ms. Suren, please come to the derrick. I have something extremely important to discuss..."

He sounded like a defeated rooster, his voice dejected and dejected.

Suren let out a long sigh: "Brother Feng, it seems that Gu Ye has no choice but to entrust the camp to you. Perhaps we can take this opportunity to make things even worse for him..."

Suren was just joking, of course; the priority was to excavate the Tulihan.

When I saw Gu Ye again, I found him to be in a very disheveled state. The collar of his radiation protection work clothes, which he had been wearing tightly, was now open, and he was clutching his silver safety helmet in his hand. His eyes were wide open like a pair of copper bells, and his chest was heaving as if he were about to explode at any moment.

His current situation is no better than when he went to the villa for help.

“Feng, things have changed a bit. I need your help with the camp. I hope you can urge them to remain highly vigilant to prevent other forces from taking advantage of the situation.” He pointed helplessly to the heavily armed special forces soldiers.

His concern likely stemmed from the threat posed by the Desert Legion, and he kept glancing at Lu Jiacan, who was mingling in the crowd, out of the corner of his eye.

In this vast desert with its unpredictable climate and circumstances, anything can happen. The more expressionless Lu Jiacan was, the more uncertain people felt about him.

As the sun began to set, Tanino gave the order, and all forty of the latest Honda gasoline generator sets in the camp were started up.

"From now until the excavation is completed, all generators must run 24 hours a day!" This was Gu Ye's death order, showing that he was determined to see things through to the end. The blood of a stubborn and fanatical tomb raider flowed in his veins, and with the treasure vault right in front of him, every cell in his body was probably boiling with excitement.

According to Suren's information, at least thirty of those generator sets had been idle since they arrived at the camp and had never been used.

On the north side of the derrick, temporary tents have been erected, and twenty monitors with automatic recording functions have been set up. Everything underground will be fed back to the monitors in detail through wireless cameras.

As the ground commander, I took the megaphone from Tanino. A cunning man like him would never entrust camp affairs to me unless absolutely necessary.

The personnel entering the shaft included ten staff members brought by the experts, Tang, Berrenlang, Cheney, James, and Gu Ye. Everyone wore high-strength protective suits that were fireproof, waterproof, radiation-proof, and puncture-proof. Each person's safety helmet was equipped with a high-resolution miner's lamp-style camera, which could capture the actual situation within their field of vision with crystal clarity.

The measures to "create a vacuum environment" that Berenlang had mentioned were completed—after all personnel entered the shaft, Yellan directed the workers to lower a huge, wine bottle-cork-shaped airbag into the shaft. At a depth of twenty meters from the shaft exit, the airbag automatically opened, filling all the gaps in the shaft. This device truly separated the two worlds completely; the people in the shaft could be seen moving freely on the monitors, showing no signs of suffering from oxygen deprivation.

I couldn't help but secretly admire Berrenlange's invention: "In the hundreds of years of pyramid excavation history, he should be considered the first person in archaeological history to be able to take into full account the maintenance of the atmospheric environment and the ecological environment."

Upon reaching the tunnel entrance, ten workers stood on the drilling rig and slowly moved forward. It turned out the drilling rig had its own power-driven walking system—a truly thoughtful design.

Considering the bigger picture, I really didn't want any more unexpected situations to arise in the tunnel. I just wanted to successfully open the passage to the Turkham Pyramid and bring this multinational joint operation to a perfect conclusion. At this moment, I felt I should call Scalpel; he was in his villa overseeing things, perhaps more worried about the situation down underground.

Just as I took out my phone, Suren called out to me from outside the tent with a smile: "Brother Feng, there's no need to make a call, I've already reported it."

Her laughter returned to its clear, cheerful tone, likely from the patient guidance she received over the phone, finally releasing all her psychological pressure. Looking back, it was Bancha who was missing, not any of us. Whether she lived or died, went to hell or heaven, what did it matter to us?

Therefore, as long as we live well, we should laugh heartily instead of remaining silent and gloomy.

I stepped out of the tent and handed over the task of monitoring the surveillance cameras to Yelan. His practical experience in tomb raiding, exploration, and surveillance far surpassed mine. He also assigned six young and capable technicians to sit in front of the monitors, their eyes crisscrossing as they watched the entire screen.

Having experienced the previous strange events, Yelan had become extremely paranoid, standing with his hands behind his back in front of the monitor, his mind highly focused.

"Brother Feng, do you think they might find Bancha's belongings or other relics at the end of the tunnel..."

She almost blurted out the word "corpse," but stopped herself abruptly, sticking out her tongue playfully. No matter how capable and intelligent she was, she was still a girl not yet twenty, and sometimes she unconsciously showed a little bit of girlish naivety and playfulness, which made me smile teasingly.

"Who cares! Bancha doesn't have a great reputation in the international archaeological community, and this time he inexplicably went ahead of schedule to act alone. Even if something serious happens, he can only blame his bad luck—sigh, be careful, keep an eye on Elder Sahan's side..."

I gestured for Suren to secretly look toward Elder Sahan's tent. Before we knew it, he had spread out a colorful embroidered rug at the tent entrance and was sitting cross-legged on it, facing west, leaving us with only his back to us.

The giant bat-like Youlian stood blankly on the sandy ground beside the carpet, head bowed, like a strange, lifeless wooden figure.

At this moment, we were about forty paces apart. Suren immediately took out her binoculars, glanced at them, and handed them to me: "Brother Feng, look at her hand, look at Youlian's hand!"

Through the telescope, it was clear that Youlian was holding a black ceramic bowl in her hands, filled to the brim with towering yellow sand.

“That must be some kind of religious ceremony, Suren. I always feel that Elder Sahan has a lot to say but hasn’t said it yet—” A strong sense of worry and anxiety rose up.

Before arriving at the camp, Elder Sahan had removed the blanket covered in blood-red runes, and now he wore only the gray robe most common among desert travelers, with a simple gray cap on his head. His clothing was unremarkable, but the black pottery bowl in Youlian's hand instilled in me a strange fear.

Black is often associated with religious curses and punishments. For example, in the Chinese-speaking world, any cult organization will use the blood of black dogs and cats for rituals and prayers during large gatherings. Leaving aside superstition, according to biological anatomy, black-clad animals absorb more solar energy from birth than their counterparts—humans know very little about the sun's energy, currently only using it for heating and generating electricity.

Therefore, biologists boldly made a sensational prediction: "All things grow by the sun. Plants can only carry out photosynthesis and grow smoothly after receiving sunlight; what about animals? Will animals that absorb solar energy also possess this kind of unusual 'photosynthesis'? After absorbing enough solar energy, can the pituitary gland of animals undergo a leap from quantitative to qualitative change? Thus, do they possess some kind of 'psychic or divine' ability?"

This claim was so outrageous that it was condemned as "heretical" by most research institutions in the world. It only made a brief appearance in a few obscure scientific journals before being stifled by a joint effort of authoritative international biological organizations.

The Second Underground Horror

— Chapter 20 — Obstacles Once Again —

"Brother Feng, Brother Feng..." Su Lun nudged me. A gust of cold wind blew, and I woke up from my reverie. I was still overwhelmed by the shock I felt when I saw that black bowl.

The setting sun was already pressing down on the top of the Turkhan pyramid. I smiled, letting the muscles on my face relax a little. I was hesitating whether to go and see Elder Sahan when Yelan called from inside the tent, "Mr. Feng, please come and see, the drilling is about to begin!"

I composed myself, took Suren's hand, and rushed back to the tent.

The final excavation work was classified as a medium secret within the camp, so Tang Xin and the other two were not among those invited to visit. As for Lu Jiacan and Elder Sahan, they did not request to come and observe on-site, so only we and Yelan and other staff members were in the tent.

The stone wall had appeared on the monitor, and to Suren and me both disappointed and relieved, there were no traces left by Bancha at the scene. Suren and I exchanged a smile. There were two possibilities: either Bancha's disappearance completely contradicted our deductions, and he never entered the tunnel at all; or he had mysteriously entered the tunnel, just like Miss Tengjia before him.

"Feng, we're about to begin." On one of the monitors, Gu Ye gave an "OK" sign to the screen. Although he had a big smile on his face, I could tell he was forcing it and was probably extremely nervous.

The workers brought the drilling rig close to the rock face, their movements were orderly and efficient, suggesting that they had practiced these procedures hundreds of times.

Yelan shrugged dismissively; he was an expert in drilling rigs and knew these procedures all too well.

Suren leaned over, staring at the enormous blueprint on the table—a longitudinal cross-section of the hypothetical Turkham Pyramid. According to X-ray scans, the outer stone wall here was approximately four meters thick. Once past this wall, one could enter a square burial chamber, its sides roughly estimated at ten meters in length.

Yelan cleared his throat and said loudly, as if giving a speech: "Dr. Tang has the most advanced drilling equipment on Earth. Based on the working efficiency of this machine, it will take no more than fifteen minutes to drill through a four-meter-high rock wall."

It's understandable that he, as the main leader of the camp, only had the right to dig tunnels but couldn't gain the trust of the sponsors to personally break through the outer wall of the pyramid. It's understandable that he harbored some resentment.

If we conservatively estimate fifteen minutes, then at a normal pace it should take around ten minutes.

Suren suddenly gasped for breath, making a hissing sound, and the little hand I was holding began to get cold.

"What's wrong? Suren, are you feeling unwell?" Now, I have the concern of an older brother for his younger sister, but it hasn't developed into romantic attraction between a man and a woman.

She frowned, pulled her hand away, took a paper cup, and walked towards the water dispenser in the tent.

Her unusual behavior caught Yelan's attention, and he turned around and exclaimed in surprise, "Miss Suren, you look terrible. Should I get you some medicine?"

When I looked away from the monitor, the camp suddenly became very quiet. The evening desert wind howled over the tops of the tents, making them rattle incessantly. Apart from that, the workers gathered around the derrick were all silent.

The noise emitted by those Honda generator sets is so low that it can be ignored if you don't listen carefully.

"Suren, do you need my help?" I asked again. Her face turned ashen instantly, but she managed a smile and looked up. "It's alright. I just feel that this kind of excavation is a bit... a bit rash... it seems we should do more preparation before we start. What do you think, Brother Feng?"

She sat down on a nearby chair, holding the paper cup in both hands, letting the steam from the purified water hit her cheeks.

Asking this question now seems like hindsight.

I secretly asked myself, "More preparation?"

I don't see anything wrong with Dr. Tang's suggestion to start excavation work immediately.

The ancient tomb has existed for thousands of years; whether it's opened a day or a day later, or even a year earlier or later, is a trivial matter. I actually think that opening the passage sooner would be more beneficial for finding Miss Fujika. Of course, that's based on the premise that "she actually entered the ancient tomb."

After confirming that Suren was alright, I turned my attention back to the monitor.

Five minutes had passed, and the drilling rig was working silently. At the exit point at the tail of the rig, which curved towards the ground, gray powder was continuously flowing down. Even a layman like me could see that it was the rig pulverizing the excavated rock fragments into dust during its high-speed drilling and sending it out.

"What's so great about it? It's just a regular platform drilling rig!" Yelan muttered discontentedly. This kind of work was no more technically challenging than digging a transverse tunnel, and he probably felt he could handle it perfectly well.

Ten minutes later, the powder inside the tunnel had accumulated to nearly one cubic meter in volume.

Yelan quickly scribbled a few equations on a piece of paper, muttering to himself, "The thickest part of the drill bit is fifty centimeters in diameter. After digging four meters, the usable space will be about one cubic meter. If there are no unforeseen circumstances, we should be able to break through soon..."

We all unconsciously held our breath, anticipating the momentous occasion of the tunnel's completion. I believe everyone inside the tunnel felt the same way.

Fifteen minutes later, Yelan's face had turned extremely pale. His eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets. He would lean over to look at the blueprints, then press his eyes against the monitor screen, staring at the clearly visible dark stone wall. He kept muttering to himself, sometimes praying with his head tilted back, sometimes cursing fiercely through gritted teeth.

Next, time became incredibly difficult to pass, each second feeling infinitely long, until the clock finally struck the twentieth minute.

Suren's face was deathly pale. She moved closer to me and whispered, "Brother Feng, I'm going out for a bit to check on Elder Sahan's situation."

I was at a loss for words. I squeezed her cold hand and said, "Be careful, keep in touch." I didn't want her to disappear mysteriously like Tengjia or Bancha.

In the twenty-fifth minute, Yelan finally couldn't hold back any longer. He threw the pencil in his hand at the screen and cursed loudly in Egyptian. Then, a continuous stream of vicious curses poured out from the jumbled Egyptian.

The drilling rig is still working, and the powder it produces has accumulated to more than two cubic meters, far exceeding the amount of slag that a four-meter-thick rock wall can produce.

Actually, there's an even stranger phenomenon here. If calculated based on the drill bit's diameter, after producing two cubic meters of slag, the drill bit should have penetrated at least eight to ten meters into the rock wall. Now, the drilling rig hasn't moved at all; the maximum length the drill bit can advance should definitely not exceed five meters.

I was sweating profusely in my tent in broad daylight, so you can only imagine the strangeness and horror that the dozen or so people in the well must have felt.

I'm so glad I wasn't among the first to enter the tunnel—

The drilling rig stopped, and all the movements on the monitor froze, making one wonder if the image had suddenly frozen.

Finally, Tanino's voice rang out: "Wind, Wind... Are you there? This situation... this situation..."

The sound of teeth chattering came clearly from the loudspeaker hanging on the wall. Of course I was there, and I saw the entire tunneling process without missing a single detail.

I leaned closer to the microphone, calmed myself down, and then spoke: "Mr. Tanino, I think the results of the X-ray detection of the stone wall thickness are questionable. What do you think?"

Before I could finish speaking, Dr. Tang shouted, "Fuck!"

You

Wind! What do you know? What detection stuff? My drilling rig is the best detector! This dust is the best proof, you Chinese..."

I hate anything that involves insulting Chinese people, and before he could even launch into his long tirade of complaints, I suddenly yelled: "Soup, Fuck!"

You

"And your crappy machine..."

Suddenly, I covered my mouth tightly, realizing my emotions were rapidly spiraling out of control. Now was definitely not the time to get angry or argue. For the sake of the bigger picture, I had to fully understand the chaotic feelings they were experiencing deep inside the tunnel.

“Sorry, Dr. Tang, please check your drilling rig.” I lowered my voice.

The technicians quickly retreated the drilling rig, and I saw a black hole, fifty centimeters in diameter, now in the dark, flat stone wall. I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine, because the hole was right in the center of the stone wall, like an evil eye that had appeared out of nowhere, or rather, a large hole cruelly carved into a living object.

The technicians in charge of observation stood up simultaneously, pushed back their chairs, and retreated, while whispering fearfully in Egyptian: "Eyes! Eyes..."

Only Yelan stood stiffly, leaning on the table like a drunkard.

No words can adequately describe how I felt when I saw that black hole; I only had a strong sense of foreboding.

Cheney crouched down, grabbed a handful of dark gray powder, smelled it under his nose, then licked it with his tongue, and nodded blankly: "The composition of the rock is 80 percent similar to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza."

Tang had already taken a powerful flashlight, pressed himself against the dark hole, and was prying at the entrance as if he wanted to crawl inside. At that moment, the feeling of the hole being a "big mouth" became even stronger, and Tang's actions made it seem as if he was trying to force himself into the monster's "mouth."

The Second Underground Horror

— Chapter 21 - A Crazy Idea —

I instinctively cried out, "No, Dr. Tang, don't do anything rash—"

In my haste, I slammed my hand on the table, knocking the microphone to the ground, and various notebooks and pencils scattered all over the floor.