King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 63

A stiff and oppressive atmosphere filled every corner of the tent. Suren silently took out the four large-caliber pistols he was carrying, then pulled out a snow-white handkerchief and slowly wiped the guns.

Since the invention of the first handgun, the smoothness of its firing has been a lifelong drawback of this powerful killing weapon. With an average lifespan of 15,000 shots, no one knows whether the bullet will jam in the chamber the next time they pull the trigger, giving their opponent the advantage.

In any gunfight, life and death are separated by only a tenth of a second. Therefore, the more skilled a gun player is, the more carefully they will treat their guns, cherishing them as if they were their own siblings or lovers.

“I will be careful—Suren. If nothing unexpected happens, I will listen to you and will never blindly confront the military.”

I know Suren is worried about me. The Desert Legion's weapons are all from the US military's current firearms, and the soldiers' formation attack capabilities are among the best in the entire African continent. After all, they are the country in Africa closest to Europe, and they can access the latest tactical guidance of European powers at any time.

There is no way that this small group of people in the camp can withstand the legion's attack.

Suren didn't answer, but instead buried his head in cleaning his gun and removed the magazine, carefully examining each of the bright yellow bullets.

I awkwardly walked to Gu Ye's bedside, looking at his dark, lifeless face, fantasizing that he would suddenly sit up, take my hand, and say "thank you" at the next moment.

"He's really dead! He said he could come back to life? He really said that?" Suren's words were equally perplexing. With her extensive knowledge and experience as a student of Master Guan Nan Wulang, she probably had never even seen a "superman" who was immortal and could come back to life.

“He said it, he really said it, and he made me swear to protect his body 24 hours a day…”

In fact, the dragon said almost the same thing, telling Yelan to protect his body and then come back to life with the help of the "Resurrection Sand".

"Is that possible?" Suren laughed for no reason, and put the gun, which she had carefully inspected, back in its place.

As I recounted the dramatic changes that occurred beneath the pyramids, I would add, almost every few sentences, a disclaimer like, "In this world, anything is possible, only unimaginable." From the alteration of the tomb's structure to the appearance of the "Eye of the Moon," from the intense penetrating power of the gemstones to the surging serpent array, from the falling boulders from the tomb's ceiling to the emergence of an unidentified monster from the sea of snakes…

Before the outer walls of the pyramids were breached, no one could have imagined these things, but they are already happening in our world.

Suren walked over and carefully examined Gu Ye's face, still utterly perplexed: "Brother Feng, I can't see any signs of his resurrection."

I can't tell either, but we're only halfway through the agreed-upon 24-hour period, so of course I have to keep watching. Anyway, my nerves have been numbed by the increasing number of bizarre events, so one more "resurrection" wouldn't matter.

As dusk fell, James, who hadn't shown himself for a long time, suddenly and mysteriously slipped into the tent, a fake smile plastered on his face: "Mr. Feng, if you have time now, I'd like to have a serious talk with you—I have several strange and mysterious topics, all about the pyramids, and I know you're trying to figure out the meaning of the 'Great Seven' in the prophecies of the Centuries..."

While waiting for Tano to wake up, having James tell stories is a good way to pass the time.

James paid no attention to Tanino and Fujika lying on either side of him. As soon as he sat down, he took off his glasses, wiped them, and began to narrate with a smile.

"As you already know, I serve the US and India, so I spend half the year living in India. The first strange thing I want to tell you happened in the high-altitude mountains of northern India, on an extremely steep cliff on the southern slope of Mount Everest. It happened in late 1995 during an expedition by a joint Indian, Nepalese, and American mountaineering team. I was honored to serve as the team's interpreter—"

The beginning was a bit dull and lengthy, so I was getting slightly impatient, but the next two sentences immediately jolted my weary nerves awake—

"On our fourth day in the snow-capped mountain region, we discovered a black stone wall inscribed with scriptures on the shady side of a cliff. You might not believe it, but the strange writing on the wall, when translated, consists of the following sentences—"

July 1999

To resurrect King Angorumoa

The King of Terror will fall from the sky

At that time, Mars will rule the world.

It is said to be for people to achieve a happy life

When the Great Seven Cycle ends

Mutual killing occurred

It occurred shortly after the beginning of this millennium.

At that time, the dead underground will break out of their tombs…

These verses were very familiar to me, so before he could even finish reciting them, I jumped up and exclaimed, "What? What you're saying... is impossible!"

Suddenly, I realized that I had been saying "impossible" far too often lately, and as it turns out, these "impossibilities" in human imagination are real and could happen at any time.

If such writing were found on Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, who would have left it? Perhaps it was a prank by some bored mountaineers, deliberately created to fool the world? This possibility is not unfounded. Similar examples have occurred near the origin of the "mysterious crop circles," where many extremely bored individuals deliberately created what appeared to be the crushing marks of a spaceship landing in large wheat fields to attract attention.

James, a master storyteller, stopped his narration and stared with interest at my agitated expression: "I've told this story five times before, and you're the calmest one yet, not even lunging at me to grab my neck and yell. You should know that not many people are qualified to listen to my stories."

"That's... a prank, right?" I was skeptical, because for nearly fifty years, human exploration of the highest peak on Earth has never stopped. If there were such sensational handwriting, it would have been discovered and reported long ago.

"Yes, the previous five people all asked the same question as you."

I started to get irritated because I didn't have time to play riddles with people, especially these mysterious ones: "So, Mr. James, what about you? When you saw this handwriting, didn't you think it was just some idle game played by some busybody?"

James smiled slightly, took out an electronic notebook, and lightly touched the screen: "Look at this word. With your archaeological experience, you should be able to easily recognize it, right?"

Part Six: The Divine Appearance Revealed

— Chapter 3 - Mysterious Resurrection —

That is an ancient Chinese character. Tracing its history, this style of writing should have appeared before the Yin-Shang culture. It was discovered on a large bell in a temple used for sacrifices. Therefore, in the history of Chinese writing, they have always been called "bell and tripod script".

The screen displayed the word "big". Although my major courses were not the best among my classmates, I had always spent my spare time studying some obscure aspects of ancient culture. Not to mention bronze inscriptions, even more advanced tadpole script, tortoise shell script, and iron-pen seal script with flying dragons and crouching phoenixes were no problem for me.

Upon seeing the character, it suddenly dawned on me: "Could it be... that the characters carved on the mountainside are actually... bronze inscriptions..."

As James's smile faded and he nodded seriously, my heart leaped into my throat. The identification and writing of inscriptions on bronze vessels are not things that a novice scholar could accomplish overnight. If the person who wrote them already had a rich understanding of ancient Chinese culture, they would certainly not be so shallow as to go to the trouble of writing on a mountain wall to mislead future generations. Therefore, the authenticity and seriousness of these inscriptions should be guaranteed.

“Mr. Feng, there’s one more thing. When we first saw these characters, no one recognized a single one of them. Some even suspected they were ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. We could only try our best to trace them down. After the mountain climb, we showed them to professors in the Chinese department of an Indian university to decipher them, and that’s how we got this perfectly fluent text. So, I’ve never questioned its origin—it’s a warning from heaven, and it certainly wasn’t left by earthlings.”

There are many mysterious legends surrounding the text in *The Centuries*, the general idea being that the author, guided by divine intervention, created the incredibly efficacious words and verses out of thin air. Since it was divine guidance, it couldn't possibly exist only in one time and place. For six years, James had been searching for people to explore and study these words, but without any progress.

"I made a detailed record of these texts with a small camera at the time. If Mr. Feng is interested, I will send them to you by express delivery after I return to India..."

When you offer a gift, you must have something in mind.

I could tell James wasn't the kind of person who liked to give things away for free: "Doctor, what do you need me to do? You know, the 'Eye of Luna' has already appeared. If you're capable, you can go into the tomb and retrieve it yourself at any time. Besides that, I don't see how I can help you in exchange for those documents."

James's words were too mysterious, because such mysterious anecdotes always spread very quickly and are often probed and published by tabloid reporters immediately. Why was it kept under wraps until now?

James sensed my skepticism and calmly explained, "That time, the joint expedition didn't reach the summit. Due to a weather forecast error, a blizzard struck the night the team camped at 6,500 meters, followed by four small avalanches. So, we had to retreat. Even more unexpectedly, they were all buried forever in the subsequent massive avalanche, while I escaped alone, led by four sled dogs. However—"

He raised his right hand, which had only four fingers; the little finger had been cut off at the base.

"My little finger was sliced off by sharp shards of rock caught in the avalanche. If I hadn't been quick enough to dodge, my head would have been the one to be sliced off."

After roughly calculating the time, I realized that more than a dozen major Chinese newspapers had also published news of the avalanche. Furthermore, an amateur mountaineering team from Tsinghua University had lost three outstanding members in the avalanche, causing a nationwide uproar and shock.

"After the avalanche, are those rock walls still there?" I was intrigued. If they were still there, I would immediately contact my classmate in India, book a flight, and go there to explore them thoroughly.

The eldest brother, Yang Tian, solemnly recorded those two paragraphs in his notebook; it wasn't just a whim or a pedantic exercise in wordplay. If the prophecies of "The King of Terror in 1999" and "The Big Seven" were indeed true, then there would certainly be some warning signs before a horrific event leading to the extinction of the Earth.

Mount Everest is the highest point on Earth, holding supreme leadership significance in human society. Therefore, it would be perfectly logical for anything mysterious to happen there. In the era when China used bronze inscriptions, who would go through the arduous journey of climbing to such a high place to carve these inexplicable characters on the rock face?

James shook his head sadly: "It's long gone. The following spring, I organized an expedition team on my own to go up the mountain, hoping to see the stone wall again. After reaching the top, not to mention the writing, we couldn't even find the entire stone wall, which covered an area of nearly 100 square meters. It's a really strange thing. If it weren't for the videotape as evidence, I'm afraid no one would have heard me to the end."

Mysterious events are so bizarre because of their randomness; they appear sometimes and sometimes, making them impossible to figure out or study.

"Why do you need to tell me? I'm just a nobody who just graduated from school. Isn't it giving me too much credit, Doctor?"

There's no such thing as a free lunch, so I'm not grateful for James's favor.

“Feng, you underestimate me—just like the Chinese saying, ‘judging others by one’s own standards.’ I just want to unravel the mystery of this stone wall, otherwise, just thinking about it makes me feel uneasy…” James kept avoiding my gaze, hiding his true intentions, making it impossible for me to see through him.

"Here you go, this notebook contains a lot of information and pictures about the rock face of Mount Everest. You can take your time to study it."

He acted very generously, but after I took the electronic notebook, I ran my thumb near the bulging battery compartment at the bottom and noticed something amiss. That place was, without a doubt, concealing some kind of eavesdropping device, and a state-of-the-art, ultra-long-range transmission system at that.

"Doctor, thank you for your kindness, but perhaps we should skip the advanced listening device? I don't want anyone to know the contents of my private conversations..."

James chuckled without batting an eye and slapped his forehead: "Huh? I forgot! Just take that off and throw it away. It was used for listening in the lab before..."

Americans are generally perceived as generous, easygoing, and unkempt, so he easily deflected my questions with his carelessness.

Sure enough, the notebook contained no fewer than fifty pictures of the strange stone wall, along with a fifteen-minute video recording. The stone wall was a bizarre dark blue-green, over twenty meters wide and about sixty meters high, soaring into the clouds, shaped like an upright palm. The strangely shaped inscriptions, each three meters square, were written in the "palm." Every winding stroke was deeply embedded in the stone wall, its color a reddish-brown, like dried blood.

Against the backdrop of blue sky, white clouds, and snow-capped mountains, this stone wall stands alone, and upon closer inspection, it does indeed resemble a pair of clasped hands.

The video footage focused primarily on the ancient inscriptions, paying little attention to the surrounding environment of the rock face. What I really want to know is, under what circumstances did the mountaineering team discover this rock face? Why hadn't mountaineers from so many countries seen it before?

A review of history reveals that during the Yin and Shang dynasties, all Chinese people sought survival by residing in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Even if someone foresaw the future extinction events on Earth, it's impossible for them to trek across mountains and rivers to carve inscriptions on the snow-capped Mount Everest as a warning to future generations.

Without proper transportation, mountaineering equipment, and cold-weather gear, it's truly unimaginable that someone living in a slave society in China could successfully reach Mount Everest. Furthermore, the bottom of these inscriptions is over ten meters above the ground; how could such simple tools of that era have allowed for such smooth and effortless engraving?

James approached Tanino's bedside, gazed at his dark face, and suddenly smiled thoughtfully, asking, "Did he really say he could come back to life?"

I was taken aback. I had only relayed Tano's strange words to Tina and Suren. How did James know them?

James bent down and grasped Gu Ye's right wrist, closing his eyes to take his pulse. After more than two minutes, he sighed in disappointment and muttered, "There's not even a trace of a pulse. How could he possibly be alive? This is utter heresy...sigh..."

"Doctor, where did you hear that rumor about 'coming back from the dead'?" I felt a sense of crisis and overlooked one fact: Tani's statement about "protecting him for 24 hours" should have included "not letting anyone touch my body." James was the only person besides me who had touched Tani's body, and the shocking outcome that followed made me sincerely regret it.

"There are no secrets that stay hidden forever. As long as you have money, the soldiers can sell you any information they want!" He pointed behind the tent, implying that someone had overheard his conversation and then resold it to him at a high price.

That reason isn't enough. If James is interested in what I'm saying, then he definitely wants to get something from this tent.

"Mr. Feng, you should know that in ancient Indian yoga, there are several techniques that can cause a person to stop breathing for up to ten days and nights. Masters who practice this skill appear outwardly identical to the dead, but in reality, beneath their still bodies, all bodily functions—heartbeat, respiration, blood circulation, and metabolism—continue in a way imperceptible to the naked eye. Now, I have reason to suspect that Gu Ye is deliberately mystifying things, using advanced yoga techniques to confuse and mislead, to achieve some other purpose—what's your opinion?"

James crossed his arms, his brows furrowed, his gaze fixed intently on Gu Ye's face.

The highest level of yoga is to induce a state of "apparent death" to achieve a state of "clean sleep." The fundamental benefit of doing so is that it organically slows down the aging process of human cells, effectively stimulates the remaining value of human cells, and ultimately achieves a state of "becoming younger and younger."

If we were to explain it using obscure scientific terms, it would be very difficult to understand. I can try to give an example: a female singer who has been a mainstay in Hong Kong and Taiwan for twenty years and is revered by her fans as an "evergreen tree" once took a short hiatus ten years ago and retreated to the beautiful scenery of the lakes and mountains at the southernmost tip of India, where she spent nearly a thousand days and nights practicing advanced yoga "dormancy".

When she made her proud comeback, her voice, figure, and appearance were at least ten years younger, and she set a record for performing sixteen solo concerts in one month in mainland China.

I am a loyal fan of hers. If you calculate her age carefully, she is well past the age of forty, but on the surface she looks only thirty years old. Her charming and alluring charm is even greater than when she was popular in Taiwan.

"Mr. Feng, what are you thinking about?" James looked at me with a smile, unaware that my thoughts had already drifted far away.

"If Gu Ye is using his superior yoga skills to deceive the world and steal fame, then what is his purpose? Surely he wouldn't willingly spend twenty-four hours in a daze in the face of the 'Eye of the Moon' gem? Isn't he afraid that things might go wrong and the gem might fall into someone else's hands within this day and night?"

I pointed to Gu Ye's right arm, which was exposed outside the blanket, and emphasized, "Doctor, look at his injuries. He's so deeply poisoned. Even with the best medical equipment and the most urgent treatment, he'll likely suffer a severe blow. What's more, apart from the non-targeted antidote serum I injected him with, he hasn't taken any other medication—even a yoga master, if the toxins in his body can't be eliminated, they'll still flow into his heart through the bloodstream and he'll inevitably die."

"Hmph, there's an easy way: just open his chest and see if his heart is still beating..."

James ripped the blanket off Gu Ye. Rationally, I knew I should stop him, but my body didn't move.

Gu Ye's body lay stiffly on the cot, his palms, wrists, neck, face, ankles... all exposed parts were shiny black and visibly swollen.

Without hesitation, James unbuttoned all of Tanino's shirt, revealing his dark chest, and then placed both his palms over Tanino's chest. I involuntarily took two steps forward, staring intently at Tanino's chest. Outwardly, there was no sign of a heartbeat; if a stethoscope were available, it would surely confirm whether James was right or wrong.

During the course of this incident, I didn't even have a chance to ask James the question: "What does Tanino's life or death have to do with you?"

Indeed, as the expert invited by Scalpel to excavate the pyramids, James would never have been genuinely concerned about the life or death of the Japanese man, Tanino. Americans wouldn't be foolish enough to go to such lengths for something that wasn't profitable!

Five minutes later, James reluctantly let go: "It's just... a case of needless worry. I really don't see any hope of him reviving naturally! Shit Japanese, all they know is to spout nonsense and deceive people, they have no real skills whatsoever..."

Lying there with his chest exposed, Tano remained motionless, and naturally couldn't offer any objection to James's curses.

I handed the notebook back to James, and asked with a cold smile, "Doctor, what do you want from this?"

James's face was grim, and he gave a fake smile: "Mr. Feng, you've really misunderstood. The Chinese are the most hardworking, kind, intelligent, and simple-minded people on earth. I was just afraid you'd been deceived by the Japanese without even realizing it. I've always stood on the side of the Chinese people, especially after reading a lot of books on World War II history..."

I was unmoved by his emotional speech, and slowly covered Gu Ye with the blanket, ignoring James completely.

"Mr. Feng, actually, regarding the prophecies in 'The Centuries' and the terrifying spell of the 'Great Seven,' I've already formed a dedicated global collaborative studio, gathering paranormal experts, Tibetan Buddhist monks, and shamanic masters from all over the world... I hope you'll have the opportunity to join us..."