King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 50

A feeling of disgust and weariness welled up inside me, and I took a step to the side, moving further away from Tina, and also shielding Suren from the shadows even more completely.

"How about...we cooperate? There's an old Chinese saying, 'A wise man is one who knows how to be pragmatic,' and 'A good bird chooses a good tree, a good minister chooses a good lord.' Mr. Feng, our Egyptian government is about to offer you the most generous treatment for foreign talent. This olive branch has already been extended; it's just a matter of whether you reach out and grab it." Tina's chin was almost raised to the sky, as if offering such conditions was the most valuable gesture of respect for me.

As a Chinese person, when foreigners quote our country's ancient sayings out of context, all I can do is laugh at Tina's shamelessness and give a silent, bitter smile.

"If we don't cooperate, will we die immediately?" I asked sarcastically.

Tina shook her head, and before she could speak, I immediately laughed out loud: "Ha, alright, if one day we die from not cooperating, then I'll consider cooperating with the government. As for now—I'm tired, I just want to get a good night's sleep!"

Even if we were to seek refuge with foreign powers, we would choose elite countries like the US, Germany, the UK, and France to sell ourselves to. How dare a small country like Egypt point fingers at me?

The camp still hasn't had its power restored, but I can use the flashlight to look through Long's notebook first.

"Mr. Feng, please wait—" Tina rushed into the tent. Just then, the mysterious vibration struck again, followed by twenty or thirty rumbling noises, each one more terrifying and bizarre than the last, as if the demons underground could no longer contain their violent energy and were about to engulf the camp tonight.

Tina slipped and fell forward with a sharp cry of surprise.

I instinctively opened my arms, letting her fall firmly into my embrace. It's a natural reaction for anyone in this situation; I couldn't very well jump away and let her fall to the ground, could I?

The subtle fragrance emanating from Tina's hair quickly filled my nostrils. Her hands naturally hooked around my neck, and she suddenly changed to a coquettish tone, whispering breathlessly in my ear: "Mr. Feng, I'm sorry..." But she didn't seem to intend to break free from my embrace.

Suren was right next to the tent, so this scene naturally didn't escape her notice.

I forcefully pushed Tina away. The tent was dimly lit, and her body went limp again. She actually threw herself into my arms a second time in a "swallow-to-the-forest" style.

"Mr. Wind, hug me—I'm so cold..." Tina gasped again. Her slip was a deliberate ploy, but to think she could make me submit with such a "honey trap" was to underestimate me.

I let her hug me without flinching, but what I was thinking was, "What on earth happened? Could it be that the great god in the tomb is starting to unleash his power?"

Part 5: The Cave of Ten Thousand Snakes

— Chapter 2 — The Tomb's Mechanisms Shift and Change —

"Even for my sake, you won't join the ranks of those serving the president?" Tina's soft, boneless body clung to me like a snake, her hands tightening around my neck as if trying to merge with me.

"Is this an order or a threat?" I smiled coldly, looking into her eyes that gleamed eerily in the darkness.

"It's... I'm begging, no, I'm pleading... to accept me, I will be the most extraordinary girl in your life..." Her tone gradually became more passionate, and her emotions would naturally become excited whenever the topic of the future and dreams was mentioned.

I gently pushed her away, softening my tone: "Alright, but first you have to tell me, how much do you know about the strange golden equipment on Tengjia's body?"

According to Su Lun's description, it seems that Gu Ye and his team weren't particularly surprised to see so many strange "clothes" on Teng Jia. I've always suspected that during the excavation of the Tu Liehan Pyramid, Gu Ye and his team foresaw every step of the change, meaning they possessed a lot of unpublished information and had provided rough descriptions of the strange occurrences such as the tunnel monsters, the gold nuggets in the tombs, and the jade coffin at the bottom of the well.

I have reason to believe that Tina is probably also aware of the impending changes.

"You want to know?" Tina raised her face, revealing her white teeth.

"I want to know." I can no longer let others use me as a tool.

"OK? Kiss me first, then I can tell you..." Tina smiled slyly, tilting her head back and laughing mysteriously.

As I hesitated, considering how to respond, something even more incredible happened at the camp—

"Boom—Pfft..." Like a heavy bomb exploding on the ground, a huge sound came from the wellhead. At the same time, I felt a violent tremor under my feet, as if the sky was falling and the earth was splitting. My body was suddenly thrown up, and my head hit the top of the tent. I felt dizzy and then fainted.

This kind of feeling can only be caused by an earthquake, and a strong earthquake of magnitude 8 or above on the Richter scale.

The campsite was very quiet. My eardrums were throbbing, and my head was spinning, feeling as heavy as if I had just recovered from a serious illness. It was very difficult to even lift myself up or move around.

I was lying on the ground, and a step away was Tina lying on her back, her arms and legs outstretched, only her chest rising and falling weakly.

At the tent entrance, two soldiers, each clutching a submachine gun, lay sprawled, one huddled in a ball, the other sprawled awkwardly headfirst on the collapsed tent. Only the powerful flashlights on the submachine guns, one pointing east and the other skyward, emitted a faint glow. These flashlights had remarkably long batteries; their dim light suggested they had been burning for at least an hour.

The generator hadn't restarted yet, and outside the tent, apart from the bright moonlight, there was no other light or sound.

"What happened? A desert earthquake? Or is the god in a rage, determined to wipe out everyone in the camp?"

I struggled to my feet and found the flashlight under the overturned table. Without even checking on Tina's condition, I staggered out of the tent, calling out, "Sulen, Sulen, Sulen..." I have to admit, Sulen was the girl I cared about most.

There was no reply, only the pale moon hanging in the sky shining sadly.

As my dizziness gradually subsided, I suddenly realized that the tremors had caused devastating damage to the camp—

All the tents had collapsed, and at least half of the military vehicles surrounding the tents were tilted to the side. Some were even more ridiculous, overturned, with their wheels in the air, like poorly made tin boxes.

The watchtower in the center of the camp is tilted at more than thirty degrees, pointing obliquely north in a strange posture.

The derrick was gone, but after turning my gaze ninety degrees, I found that the makeshift elevator for going down the well, made of welded steel plates and angle iron, was lying on top of a military vehicle, entangled with an anti-aircraft machine gun. The gunner operating the machine had been hit in the waist by the elevator and was definitely not going to survive.

"This is...this is terrifying..." I muttered to myself, took a few steps westward, and continued shouting, "Suren, Suren—where are you? Where are you..."

A worn-out van lay overturned on top of a tent, with half a body dressed in worker's clothes visible through the window. This was the same van that had been parked to the north; the body was likely that of the worker who had just been shot by a sniper.

I kicked the hood of the car with a wry smile, cursed under my breath, walked around the car, and headed towards where Suren had been hiding.

At that moment, I was the only one in the camp who was still conscious and alive. I saw that the four or five Rainbow Warriors closest to me were lying sprawled out, motionless, their fate unknown.

There was still no reply from Suren, and my anxiety grew more and more intense.

During the time I've been in contact with Su Lun, whether I admit it or not, our relationship has gradually evolved from the brother-sister relationship when she started calling me "Brother Feng" to a friendship and comradeship where we can share weal and woe, and now to the hazy feelings we have for each other. My heart is already filled with her image, but I haven't had a chance to express it yet.

"Suren—" I screamed to the sky again, a heart-wrenching pain slowly taking control of my thoughts.

Suddenly, I felt a chill run down my back. In a panic, I used my left foot as a pivot and spun around like a windmill.

Fifteen paces away, two people stood silently upright, their eyes fixed on me.

"It's you...you two?" I saw Youlian's long-lost, wide gray robes, still dragging cumbersomely on the ground like a defeated bat. The other, of course, was Elder Sahan, with a stern and cold expression. The two of them had originally been imprisoned by Natura, but now that the soldiers guarding them were probably dead, they had regained their freedom.

Sahan strode forward, his feet and wrists rattling loudly, as he was wearing heavy handcuffs and shackles.

His eyes gleamed with an eerie light. When he was five steps away from me, he asked in a puzzled tone, "Who are you? Who are you? Are you also a messenger of the gods?" He stretched out his hands and pointed at me, revealing a pair of extra-large steel handcuffs.

I am not a messenger of the gods, but I possess sufficiently exquisite skills in picking handcuffs with my bare hands. Using only a thin wire, I removed Sahan's handcuffs and shackles in thirty seconds.

Youlian stared blankly at my skillful unlocking of the handcuffs, without uttering a sound.

Sahan still stared at me with that eerie look, and asked again, "Tell me, did the gods send you to replace me? What did he say? What did he say?" Then, he spread his arms wide, turned halfway around, and pointed at the corpses of the Rainbow Warriors scattered throughout the camp: "These people, do they no longer need to undergo the selection of the 'God of Punishment'? Did the gods use a more direct way to kill them?"

Listening to his nonsensical ramblings, all I felt was a chilling dread.

Suddenly, Youlian spread her arms and rose more than two meters off the ground, gliding towards the well opening.

This skill, which resembles "lightness skill" but is definitely not "lightness skill," is indeed strange. I can't think of any animal other than birds that can fly so easily and freely. When she glides, her arms are simply spread out smoothly, without any flapping motion like wings, and she has already completed the action of "flying."

I couldn't help but sigh softly, "We know so little about what's happening on Earth."

Within three seconds, Youlian had reached the airspace above the wellhead. It was impossible to see how she controlled her body; she gracefully hovered in the air like a flying dragon.

Sahan walked straight ahead, abandoning his idea of asking me any more questions.

If I'm not mistaken, the "god" he was referring to was the great god Tu Liehan, but he treated me as the god's messenger. How could that be? We had dealt with each other several times before, and he clearly knew who I was.

“Brother Feng, I’m… here…” Suren struggled to crawl out from under an overturned military vehicle, but instead of getting up, he lay on the ground and waved to me.

I strode over to her, grasped her wrist, and asked with a mixture of surprise and delight, "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

Suren shook her head, her face beaming with undisguised joy: "Brother Feng, I heard you call my name loudly... I'm alright... You're so concerned about me, I'm so... so happy..."

I helped her up with all my might and brushed the dirt off her. Having survived such a close call, as long as we were both safe, nothing else mattered.

“Brother Feng, just before the earthquake, I observed a huge mushroom cloud rising from the pyramids… We need to be careful. Could something have happened in the tomb that caused that ‘super weapon’ to attack?” Suren’s face was covered in streaks of sand and dirt, making him look very disheveled.

"Mushroom cloud?" I was startled again. This term is often associated with "nuclear weapons, nuclear tests, and nuclear explosions," and the violent tremors just now could be attributed to the shockwave from a massive underground explosion.

Groans of pain and pain echoed from all sides. The soldiers had suffered heavy casualties, with more than half of them dead or wounded. The survivors kept crawling out from under the military vehicles and around the tents. Unable to find their superiors, they scrambled around in a chaotic mess.

Sahan had already reached the well, pointed upwards, and Youlian obediently folded her arms and slowly landed.

Suren jumped up, shook his head vigorously to quickly clear his mind, and then ran towards the well.

I shouted at her, "Don't go! Don't go, it's too dangerous!" It's common knowledge that the high-energy radiation after a nuclear explosion is a silent and invisible killing sword, but Suren didn't even turn her head and just kept rushing forward, so I had no choice but to follow behind.

The wellhead was empty, and the steel cables and electrical cables connecting it to the makeshift elevator had been haphazardly torn off, resembling a gaping mouth pointing skyward.

Without the elevator, it's definitely impossible to go down the shaft.

Sahan stood on the south side of the well, his hands clasped in front of his chest, gazing devoutly at the well opening, his lips moving incessantly, presumably reciting some scripture.

Suren stopped by the well and peered down.

The wellhead was reinforced very well, so it did not suffer much damage after the violent earthquake and still maintained its complete cylindrical shape.

"Elder, what happened down in the well?" It was so dark inside the well that Suren couldn't see anything with the naked eye.

Sahan lifted his wrinkled eyelids and said in a tone of resignation, "Someone has triggered the mechanism of the Cave of Ten Thousand Serpents, and the gods are awakening from their slumber—look at what you have done! Why have you disturbed the gods who have been sleeping underground for two million years?"

His long robe fluttered wildly in the night wind, as if composing an eerie song.

Two million years is a very distant number. Unfortunately, Sahan did not intend to reveal all his secrets, but I can deduce that, according to Sahan's records, the Turkhan Pyramid has existed for two million years.

"Gods, forgive these ignorant people!" Sahan changed his prayer gesture, his left palm still held upright in front of his chest, but his right hand stretched straight forward, pointing forcefully to the north.

In that direction, the Great Pyramid of Giza stands eternally under the desolate moonlight, unchanged for thousands of years.

Sahan changed to an extremely compassionate tone: "When the gods rise again and their wrath rages, the entire Nile River will be quickly dried up, and the Egyptians and even the entire African continent will be engulfed in a raging inferno... Forgive me, forgive my mistakes. If there is any sin that must be borne by someone who sacrifices themselves, please punish me and spare those humble lives in the desert..."

Sahan's words were rambling and incoherent, but that's how it always was for someone who called himself "God's servant." I grew impatient and whispered to Suren, "I want to go down into the well and take a look—"

If my body is not even afraid of that "weathering" force, it can naturally resist all radiation forces.

Suren squeezed my fingers, took a few steps back, and then said in a low voice, "No, the situation is unclear right now. Let's wait until it's light and the power is restored before making any plans."

Even without an elevator, I could use ropes and cables to descend the well, because what I desperately wanted to know was who had triggered the mechanism—the answer lay with Cheney. He was an expert on pyramid construction and would certainly be able to find the mechanism in the tomb faster than anyone else. He traded a hundred million dollars for my golden sword, so he must know its uniqueness.

After exchanging a complicated look with Suren, I still stuck to my decision.

Suren suddenly said, "Wait for me to come back—", and then ran towards the tent where the generator was placed to the west.

Her idea was right. Since the workers led by Yelan couldn't restore the power supply in the short term, we could solve it ourselves.

I shone my flashlight down into the well a few times, but it was completely bottomless and there was no movement at all.

“Young man, aren’t you afraid of the cave of ten thousand snakes?” Sahan’s tone became increasingly sinister.

I shook my head and continued to observe, trying to find some signs of danger so that I wouldn't be caught in a chain of explosions after I went down the well, which would be suicide.

"The gods want to punish greedy people, so they deliberately buried countless treasures of gold and silver. They came for the peace, friendship, and sincerity of the earth. If you disturb them again and again, I fear that in the end, the great god will become angry and cause the Nile River to overflow, turning all of Egypt into a swamp..."

Sahan continued his rambling explanation, his right hand pointing incessantly to the distant Great Pyramid of Giza.

I shrugged, not caring about his nonsense. Whether it was a swamp or a sea of fire, it was all Sahan's wishful thinking and delusions, and it wouldn't move me.

"Listen to me, don't go down! The gates to the Cave of Ten Thousand Serpents have been opened, and no one can escape the fangs of the 'God of Punishment'..."

Youlian's left ear suddenly twitched, which made my eyes light up.

It's important to understand that deaf and mute people don't actually "twitch their ears." This action is a natural, unintentional reaction that occurs naturally as a person tries to orient themselves towards the source of a sound.