King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 35

I was standing in front of the monitor when, with a slight tremor in the image, a golden hue suddenly appeared in my field of vision. My first thought was, "Gold? There's gold at the bottom of the well?"

Once the image stabilized, I realized the golden color came from a gold knee pad, about fifty centimeters long and with a curved surface about twenty centimeters wide. Such an item evokes the attire of a warrior on an ancient battlefield. Could there be ancient Egyptian armor discarded at the bottom of the well?

Based on the gold masks previously unearthed from the pyramids, it's easy to infer that the ancient Egyptians, like modern people, enjoyed wearing gold on their bodies, resulting in gold masks, gold bracers, gold boots, and so on. If a gold knee pad is found at the bottom of the well, I'm really looking forward to finding a complete set of armor; then our archaeological excavation can temporarily come to a perfect close.

Tina was greatly encouraged. She put one hand on my shoulder excitedly, like a little girl who had won a favorite toy, and stomped her feet on the ground while shouting, "Change sides! Change sides! Let's see what's down there!"

Under Yelan's direction, the workers moved the crane frame one by one, placing the iron box near each of the four sides of the square well. The final conclusion they reached was astonishing—

The three of us—Yelan, Tina, and I—remained silent for at least two minutes, as if the known conclusion needed careful consideration before drawing a conclusion. However, the images we saw from the four monitors, viewed by the three of us and our three pairs of eyes, were all too clear to be drawn.

At the bottom of the well lay a transparent jade coffin, inside which was a person—a young girl. She wore golden knee pads, and we could see she was fully armored, including a golden helmet and golden boots. It was impossible to determine whether she was alive or dead, as the camera angle couldn't be adjusted precisely to focus on her face.

The first to speak was Tina: "The person down in the well... who... is it?"

Her teeth were chattering, and her right hand gripped my arm like a steel hook, her nails digging into my muscle. Although she had never met Fujika, she had seen Fujika's photo in Tanino's files. This question was completely unnecessary, because the person in the coffin was—the mysteriously disappeared Miss Fujika.

I exchanged a complicated look with Yelan, and at the same time, we both confirmed this.

This is a result that's both laughable and heartbreaking: "A mysteriously missing Japanese girl was last seen inside a pyramid, in an ancient well 180 meters below the surface, lying in a jade coffin, clad in golden armor." Good heavens, this conclusion could drive anyone with a weaker constitution to the brink of madness and suicide.

The exploration of the ancient well came to an abrupt halt, as no one could explain such a conclusion.

Tina began ordering people to move the gold bricks out of the tomb, Yelan dejectedly retrieved the iron box, while I approached Dr. Tom to tell him about my idea of chiseling open the north wall of the pyramid.

The three of us instinctively wanted to put aside the strange occurrences at the bottom of the well and wait until we calmed down before discussing the issue again.

Dr. Tang, his long beard twitching, held his head high as he pretended to be studying a mural.

The drilling rig that once proved its worth is right beside him. It's believed that in the near future, this rig will be acquired at a high price and placed in a private museum in the United States, becoming a groundbreaking and authoritative tool for tomb raiding.

After I explained my thoughts to him, he sneered and said, "Feng, are you out of your mind? You Chinese people love to fantasize and hope for free lunches. Think about it, use your little Eastern brain, what's outside the pyramids? Just endless, inexhaustible sand, what else could there be?"

Dr. Tang's arrogance is internationally renowned. I restrained my anger and calmly said, "Dr. Tang, you are an absolute authority in cutting-edge chemistry and high-tech weapons; but in tomb raiding and archaeology, your knowledge is no different from that of a primary school student who has just started learning."

He snorted, put his hands behind his back, and looked on dismissively.

I continued, "Mr. Scalpel has entrusted me with all matters related to the excavation of the earth fissure. Regardless of any gentleman's agreement you had with him beforehand, I will be responsible for reviewing and reporting on all your performance during your time at the camp. Therefore, to protect your personal rights, it would be best if we all cooperated."

He chuckled twice, extremely arrogant, and completely ignored my statement.

He owns this super drilling rig; no one has the right to use it unless he gives the order.

After being rejected, I began to feel depressed and had no choice but to wander into the tomb where Bawan was located.

The tomb was once again filled with the sounds of soldiers' footsteps, shouts, and the astonishing scraping of gold bricks as they moved them—a scene of bustling activity. However, all of this seemed irrelevant to me; my mind was completely occupied with the jade coffin at the bottom of the well: "There's at least a 50% chance Teng Jia is still alive. What should I do? Hire someone at a high price to go down and smash the jade coffin to save her..."

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. Who on earth snatched her in, put her in the deep well, and then covered her with gold ingots?

No trace of large lifting machinery was found in the central chamber or any of the other chambers, making the mysterious forces within the pyramids even more incomprehensible. Who on earth could so easily move gold ingots and then disappear without a trace?

"Could it be the work of the illusion demon?" Thinking of Elder Sahan's countless solemn pronouncements about the "illusion demon," a self-deprecating wry smile involuntarily appeared on my face. If Elder Sahan were here, he would surely be proclaiming his theory that "illusion demons are everywhere."

His words made a lot of sense: "Since the Illusion Demon can create tornadoes, eddies, towering waves, and super-strong magnetic fields like the Bermuda Triangle on the ocean, dealing with this gold ingot is just a piece of cake, right?" But the premise is, were those mysterious events, tropical cyclones, and super tornadoes really caused by the Illusion Demon?

The global meteorological expert team numbers over 20,000. Shouldn't they all sit down and listen to Elder Sahan's "illusionary demon theory"? Especially the theory that "illusionary demons move to create wind." Experts would only have two reactions after hearing it: either bursting into laughter or denouncing it as insane heresy.

The smell of burning gradually intensified, and I angrily shouted, "Bawan, what are you doing?"

He doesn't smoke, so why was he playing with fire? Because when we got to the top of the tomb chamber, the smell of burning filled the air, so he must have done something.

Bawan stood there blankly, facing the pyramid's stone wall, about five steps away, ignoring my shouts.

I didn't hear any whimpering from Oulu. Was he asleep? I took a big step forward, abandoning the urge to pat his shoulder, because I sensed an eerie atmosphere in the air.

I saw Bawan's face; it was ashen, flat, and lifeless. His eyebrows were sparse, his eyes small, his nose slightly sunken, and his mouth half-open, revealing yellowish teeth. His features were indeed unattractive, detracting from the overall image of the Rainbow Warriors; perhaps that was why he was assigned to work with military dogs.

“Bawan—” I called again, and saw his eyes staring straight ahead without blinking, emitting a dull, lifeless light.

Oro's appearance was somewhat terrifying, its mouth agape to its limit, revealing two rows of not-so-sharp teeth, as if it were about to unleash its full power in battle. Its temperament was unusually docile; it had never been born for combat, so it rarely displayed such a ferocious side. Maintaining such a wide-open mouth would be extremely tiring, but it seemed its mouth had been open for a very long time, frozen in place like a sculpture.

I didn't call out a third time, but instead reached out and touched Oulu's long ears.

The moment my fingertip touched the hair on its ear, with a soft rustling sound, its entire right ear fell off, crashing to the ground and disintegrating into dust midway down its path.

Before I could fully recover from the shock of the jade coffin at the bottom of the well, Ou Lu's sudden fright sent me flying backward. My back slammed against the hard stone wall with a thud, and my shoulder blade almost shattered instantly, the pain excruciating.

"Oru is dead! He's crumbled! How could this have happened in just half an hour? What... what is going on..."

It wasn't just Oru who died; judging from Bawan's appearance, he had become like a weathered zombie that had been dead for a long time.

"What kind of force could produce such a result..." Thinking of how they were constantly facing this stone wall, I pushed off with my back, fearing that some kind of strange substance would spray out from the wall and weather me away. Fortunately, the stone wall remained silent and showed no unusual changes.

It can now be almost certainly concluded that this is a terrifying stone wall, and we urgently need to drill through it to find out what's inside.

I carefully avoided Bawan's corpse, lest the wind from my clothes knock him over. Without even calling out to Suren, I hurried through the many tomb chambers and returned to Dr. Tang's side.

Of course I knew how absurd my description was, so much so that Dr. Tang stared at me dumbfounded for half a minute before suddenly throwing his head back and letting out a long, maniacal laugh, accompanied by incoherent curses: "Chinese people... are really useless..."

He laughed so hard he bent over, wiping away tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes with both hands.

“Dr. Tang, don’t rush to laugh. That strange thing happened in the tomb chamber at the end of the axis. Let’s go take a look right away!” I noticed Tina’s strange gaze, which kept scanning me. She had good patience and composure, and she gritted her teeth and persevered without showing the slightest fear.

She was the spiritual leader of these soldiers. Hundreds of meters underground, the soldiers were on high alert, and any disturbance could trigger a riot with unpredictable consequences.

The third part: The Bizarre Purgatory

— Chapter 19 — The Storm Is Brewing —

Dr. Tang shook his head repeatedly, not believing a single word I said.

I suddenly reached out, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him away. It seemed like a casual grab, but I had actually seized his right arm's pulse point, numbing half of his body. He could only obediently follow me, and even though he was extremely angry, he was powerless to do anything about it.

We reached the tomb chamber at the end of the axis, where he finally had a chance to break free from me, roaring angrily, "What are you doing? This is kidnapping! Shameless kidnapping! I will file a complaint with Mr. Scalpel..."

I silently pointed to Bawan, and Dr. Tang strode forward without a care. His body stirred up a gust of wind, and after the wind passed, the camouflage shirt Bawan was wearing fell to the ground.

"Huh? What's going on?" Dr. Tang was startled and stepped in front of Bawan. He was a head taller than Bawan, able to look directly down at the top of Bawan's head. He slowly brought his face close to Bawan's military cap and blew a breath. The turn of events was completely unexpected, because we were now facing the weathered remains of a man and a dog; any slight movement would utterly destroy them.

"Wind, what's going on?" Dr. Tang suppressed his arrogance, but even though he lowered his voice several times, the air he exhaled still swept away one of Oru's front paws.

"Doctor, I think the problem lies in this stone wall in front of us. When I left the tomb, they were all alive, both people and dogs. In less than half an hour, they all weathered away, like charred pieces of paper. So, it's really necessary for us to drill through this stone wall and take a look. What do you think?"

The burnt smell I just smelled must have been produced when Bawan and Oulu were "weathered" by some mysterious force.

On the surface, the stone wall appeared perfectly normal, but I knew that of the dozens of types of radiation known to humankind, at least ten could kill a person without them even realizing it. Under the influence of certain types of radiation, it would be easy for strange physical changes like Bawan to occur.

"Could it be rays? Extremely strong radiation..." Dr. Tang stared at the stone wall for a while, then shook his head, dismissing the idea. He was an expert in chemistry, extremely familiar with rays and radiation, and would never be wrong.

“Feng, there is no trace of radiation here. If there were, even if it were only one-tenth of the safe level, I would be able to detect it very sensitively.”

He approached the stone wall, took out a magnifying glass, and examined the characters and pictures carved on the wall one by one, his brows furrowed, and he remained silent.

I didn't want to waste any more time, so I made a direct request: "Doctor, I would like to have the drilling rig brought over and start drilling right now, is that alright?" The main reason was that there was a young girl named Fujika waiting to be rescued in that well, and we couldn't afford to delay any longer.

Analyzing Fujika's identity leads to the conclusion: "If she truly is a princess of the Imperial Family, Tanino would definitely risk his life to save her." The question is—"Is she a princess? Is the Tanino before us truly the renowned Japanese tomb raider, Tanino?"

Dr. Tang didn't even turn his head, but simply extended his left hand and made an "OK" gesture.

I turned and headed towards the central burial chamber, where I made another fatal mistake. The stone walls were strange; I shouldn't have left Dr. Tang alone there. No matter how intelligent a person is, they can't possess the precognitive ability of "clairvoyance." I am just a mortal, and I've never considered myself a supremely intelligent expert.

The last thing I saw of Dr. Tang before I left was him holding a magnifying glass, pressed against the stone wall, moving his gaze inch by inch.

Those gold bricks were so heavy that it took eight soldiers to lift one with great effort. At that rate of transport, it would take at least an entire night to move them all out of the tomb.

Tina avoided my gaze because, for humanitarian reasons, once Tengjia was found, rescue measures had to be taken. We couldn't be sure she was still alive; the scene was already chaotic enough, and our emotions were already turbulent and confused enough. We might need to calm down before conducting a second search to draw conclusions.

Reporting to the scalpel and Natura in the camp is just a matter of a single sentence, but the charge of "falsely reporting military intelligence and causing a riot" could affect our reputation for life.

When the iron box reached the bottom of the well, the three of us deliberately blocked the monitor's view with our bodies in an attempt to avoid being seen or heard by the soldiers.

Yelan moved closer to me and asked in a low voice, "Mr. Feng, when can we report to the camp?"

The wrinkles on his forehead deepened, his expression was strained, and two rows of blisters the size of peanuts had formed at the corners of his mouth. I guessed that this excavation of the Pyramid of Turksham was probably the most laborious and strenuous project he had ever undertaken.

"Hey, Yelan, don't panic. In half an hour, we'll change the camera's position and do another scan," I reassured him, trying to smile.

He thought for a moment, then nodded vigorously: "Move all four cameras to the bottom of the metal box, and I'll have two more powerful searchlights installed—"

Working with a professional like Yelan is such a relief. I patted him on the shoulder, feigning confidence: "Don't worry, everything will come to light. And I guarantee you'll receive a hefty bonus from Mr. Scalpel! A huge one!"

Money no longer held any interest for him, so as he turned to leave, he gave me a bitter, profound smile.

I called to Dr. Tang's assistant to pull the drill rig towards the top chamber of the tomb. The drill rig was very powerful, but its weight was not increased too much, so with the help of the assistants, it easily crossed the crevices in the stone.

I can guarantee that the time spent from leaving Dr. Tang to returning to that tomb chamber will not exceed ten minutes.

Dr. Tang remained focused on observing, without turning his head.

The assistants were somewhat surprised to see Bawan standing motionless in front of the stone wall. However, having worked under Dr. Tang, each of them had a very proud and complex professional background and should already be considered among the elite of the industry. They were not surprised at all.

"Doctor, may we begin?" My mind had calmed down; perhaps in a few minutes, we would be able to unlock the secrets of the stone wall.

Dr. Tang still didn't turn around, but when his assistants pulled off the radiation shielding cloth from the drill bit, a small gust of wind was stirred up. The magnifying glass in Dr. Tang's hand suddenly fell, clattering to the ground. Like a slow-motion scene in a movie, the 12x magnifying glass with its brass handle slowly shattered, first into copper pieces of varying sizes, then—strangely—the copper pieces turned to copper dust…

The air was filled with the hissing sounds of the assistants rapidly inhaling; this strange phenomenon was certainly something they had never seen before.

“Aqua regia?” one of the bolder ones blurted out, but the group immediately took a dozen steps back until they left the tomb chamber. Indeed, the phenomenon was somewhat similar to the reaction of throwing metal into a pool of aqua regia. The highly corrosive aqua regia would melt a brick-sized piece of metal into powder within seconds, making it disappear without a trace, and could even turn animal bodies into smoke and ash.

Dr. Tang has been weathered away, just like Bawan.

I stood there, stunned, in the center of the tomb, wishing I could weather away too, so I wouldn't be driven mad by this bizarre phenomenon. I'd entered the tomb several times, yet my body felt perfectly fine. What was going on? Could it be that those strange "weathering" rays only harmed certain people?

I looked back at the group of assistants and strode to the drilling rig. If they dared not enter the tomb again, I would start the drilling rig and cut into the stone wall.

"Mr. Feng, starting the drilling rig requires a password," the young man who had just spoken called out.

My hand was already on a row of green buttons at the tail of the drill rig, but the LCD screen next to the buttons clearly showed that a long string of numbers was required to turn it on.

"A forty-nine-digit password, and it's a mix of English letters, Arabic numerals, and Roman numerals. Only the doctor knows the password..." The assistant said, shaking his head vigorously, his gaze constantly sweeping over Dr. Tang's back.

Dr. Tang is dead and can no longer speak such a long code. If it is indeed a 49-digit three-in-one code as the assistant said, even using the world's fastest computer cluster, "Deep Blue," to brute-force crack it would probably take an astronomical amount of time.

With a glimmer of hope, I approached the stone wall and looked at Dr. Tang's face from the side. Strangely, his face, which had turned ashen, wore a ecstatic smile. His eyebrows were raised high, his eyes were wide open, and his mouth was half-open, as if he was about to burst into laughter.

I stroked my chin, gazing thoughtfully at his face. The smile seemed somewhat comical at the moment, as it was rare to see such an exaggerated smile on the face of a dead person.

"Doctor, if you are watching from heaven, please tell me the password to start the drilling rig. I want... I want to avenge you..." Subconsciously, I had already regarded the "thing" hidden behind the stone wall as a sentient murderer.

The professor, of course, wouldn't answer me. I took out a marker and, comparing it to his body, drew a rough outline of a human figure on the stone wall. If the professor was laughing because he had made a major discovery, then the area within the rough outline should be the most valuable part of the stone wall.

After doing all this, I called out to Suren: "Suren, the exploration of the tomb has encountered a setback... an unprecedented setback..."

If all these strange changes originated from Elder Sahan and Youlian sitting atop the tower at this moment, I sincerely hope that Natura will send soldiers to search the top of the tower and capture these two oddballs. My voice was as heavy as my heart. If the death of Berenlang could be considered an accident, then the "weathering" of Dr. Tang, Bawan, and Oulu could practically be described as "the curse of the Pharaoh."

I pressed my right hand tightly against the stone wall, ignoring the horrified and strange looks from my assistants. My hand was resting on a two-wheeled carriage, in front of which were two giant dogs struggling to pull it forward.

Using dogs to pull carts is now rare worldwide, except for sled dogs in extremely cold regions. However, these dogs were pulling sleds, not horse-drawn carriages. The two giant dogs were both black, pure black, as if painted with the most concentrated ink, possessing a terrifyingly evil power.