Chapter 64 - Burial Grounds (X)
Editor: Kitty
Luo Jian failed to resurface.
He felt that the water in the pool was extremely heavy as it soaked his clothes, and his body seemed to be made of lead. No matter how hard Luo Jian moved his limbs, the surface of the pond above his head got further and further away from him.
If this goes on, I will drown.
There was only this thought in Luo Jian’s mind. He did not know how deep the pool was or whether there was a channel under the pool diverting water somewhere else. Even if there was, the risk of swimming through the diversion channel was too great. Luo Jian did not have the courage to gamble with his life. But at this point, even if he did not want to, he could only take the risk.
The water was so heavy that Luo Jian could not float up at all but just sank down. There was a strange smell in the water. Luo Jian was afraid; the water wouldn’t be poisonous, right?
When Luo Jian was struggling in the water, the phosphorite he kept on his body dropped out. In the water, the light of the stone became more exuberant. Its light shone around him, giving a dark-blue hue to his surroundings. Luo Jian, who was suffocating, reached his hands out to grab the stone, but the stone floated further and further away, perhaps due to the water flow speed.
For some reason, Luo Jian felt an impulse emerge. Risking his life, he swam in the direction of the stone. In a trance, Luo Jian felt as if he had swum into a water-filled tunnel, which was the very narrow water diversion channel. Luo Jian used the wall as a guide in the water-filled tunnel to swim forward. The phosphorite also swayed along with the waterflow. Luo Jian tried to catch that stone, but no matter how hard he tried, he was not able to grab it.
Luo Jian also did not understand why he was so persistent in trying to catch the stone, but he felt uncomfortable if he did not catch it, so he swam and swam through the water-filled tunnel with all his might. Following the stone, he swam forward all the way. The water began to flow more rapidly for some reason. The moment Luo Jian got careless, he was pushed by the waterflow to move forward quickly. In his confusion, he seemed to feel that he finally caught that darned phosphorite that was floating around. His consciousness faded due to asphyxiation and other reasons.
When Luo Jian woke up, he seemed to have washed ash.o.r.e, his whole body ** lying on the edge of another pool, still holding the phosphorite tightly. Luo Jian lay on the ground for a long time with half of his body still immersed in the water. After a long time, he slowly got up and climbed out of the pool.
The clothes and everything on his body were soaked, and he felt extremely heavy. He coughed twice to force some water out from his lungs, spit out a few mouthfuls of saliva, and ran his fingers through his hair that had plastered to his forehead. After all that was done, he was finally in the mood to observe the surrounding environment.
Luo Jian found that he was no longer at the pool he had formerly been at. He was afraid that he had been led by the water current along the water diversion channel in the pool to another place. This one had another pool, but there were no five big pots in his vicinity. A huge stone gate faced Luo Jian instead.
There were two statues of a dragon and a tiger on the left and right sides of the stone gate. The mouth of the dragon statue held a luminous pearl. The body of the dragon was coiled into a circular shape, and its eyes were closed in rest. The mouth of the tiger statue also contained a luminous pearl. It was crawling on the ground and had a languid look. In this way, the statues made up a scene of a crouching tiger, hidden dragon.
In the middle of the two statues, the huge stone gate was as high as three meters. The gate was carved with extremely complex patterns, and it seemed that the gate was also inlaid with the same stone as the phosphorite in Luo Jian’s hand. They all emitted a faint blue light, illuminating the whole stone gate.
Luo Jian exhaled a long breath and approached the stone gate. He did not know what kind of place this was, but the gate appeared majestic. Could it be the main tomb vault of the tomb? As he thought of this, Luo Jian went to the stone gate and carefully observed the patterns carved on it.
The patterns on the stone gate appeared almost the same as the pattern of the array formation Luo Jian had seen before in the six tomb vaults. The only difference was that the small holes in the gaps of the array formation were inlaid with luminous phosphorite. No, one of the holes was empty. There was no phosphorite in it.
After seeing the empty hole, Luo Jian subconsciously took a look at the stone in his hand and murmured, “Is this a coincidence?”
But whether it was a coincidence or not, Luo Jian thought it was worth a try, so he clenched the phosphorite in his hand and planned to simply place the stone into the empty hole. But soon, Luo Jian found that the array formation on the stone gate was too big. The empty hole was located at a height higher than the top of Luo Jian’s head. Luo Jian could not reach it even if he straightened both his body and arms, so he looked left and right to search for a stone that could elevate him.
However, when he was looking for a stone to stand on, he unintentionally took a glance at the dragon and tiger statues to both sides of him. That made Luo Jian suddenly jump up in shock because he found that the two statues had moved!!
The dragon statue no longer had the appearance of closing its eyes. Its mouth still held the luminous pearl, but now it had raised its head. It opened its eyes wide to gaze at where Luo Jian stood! As for the tiger statue, it similarly moved. It was no longer languidly crawling on the ground but had twisted its head to stare at Luo Jian. Both statues on his left and right were staring at Luo Jian in this way.
Luo Jian was really scared at this time. After taking a glimpse at the dragon statue on the left and the tiger statue on the right, he remembered that the two statues had not looked this way earlier! Were his eyes playing tricks on him? What happened? Could the statues move?!
All at once, Luo Jian felt an ominous premonition in his heart. Now, he could not afford to look around for any stones that he could use to elevate him. He jumped and forced the phosphorite into the array formation on the stone gate. Just as the stone was inserted, Luo Jian heard the vibration sound of a mechanism starting underneath the ground again. As the stone gate moved, dust scattered all over, and the gate in front of Luo Jian opened with a rumble!
The stone gate had merely lifted a little, leaving a gap that was neither too big nor small, but just large enough for a person to enter. Inside, it was pitch-black, and nothing could be clearly seen. Luo Jian took out the flashlight from his pocket. It was thanks to the high level of technology that the flashlight he carried into the secret chamber was waterproof.
Luo Jian first shone his flashlight through the gap of the stone gate, but it was really too dark inside. He had a feeling that the light illuminated by the flashlight could not permeate the darkness. The unknown area beyond the stone gate made Luo Jian’s heart surge with apprehension. For a while, Luo Jian hesitated, standing in place, and refused to move.
But when Luo Jian looked at the statues on the left and right sides of him again, he was surprised to find that the statues had moved again while he was not paying attention. The tiger statue had stood up completely. It not only stared at Luo Jian but also bared its teeth while raising one claw to make a kind of swiping movement towards him.
He turned around to take a look at the dragon statue on his left. Its body was no longer curled up. The upper part of the dragon’s body was actually suspended. It was almost as if it was about to lunge towards Luo Jian at any time.
Luo Jian was given a bad fright by the two statues. At the moment, he did not hesitate any longer. He immediately entered the stone gate with his flashlight. The mechanism of the stone gate was unknown, but after he entered, the door automatically closed. When he entered, the two statues returned to their original states where he could not see.
After entering the stone gate, Luo Jian, with the aid from the light of his flashlight, found himself in a very wide s.p.a.ce. He was in a huge square tomb vault with a width of more than 10 meters. There was a relatively high platform in the middle of the tomb. It seemed that there was a coffin on the platform. There were stairs around the platform that could be used to climb up. Around the stairs, there was a circular, embellished lampstand. On it, only a single altar lamp was lit, but the rest of the altar lamps were all extinguished.
Luo Jian was located beneath the platform, and other than this relatively high platform, Luo Jian saw many objects similar to terracotta warriors, that is, ancient tomb statues, which were made by firing ceramics. But it was not appropriate to say that these were terracotta warriors and horses because these statues were not carved into soldiers and carriages, but into bizarre forms like monsters.
There were big and small evil spirits, demons, and monsters of various colors. Some appeared to be like small children, and their four limbs looked like a children’s. They had very sharp faces, and each had only one eye. They carried lanterns in their hands. Some of them were very large, monster-like creatures. For example, there was a statue with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a horse. On the horse’s back, there were eagle wings, but its tail was shaped like a snake’s. Luo Jian also saw other creatures in animal forms. Another had a human body and the head of a cow or a horse, and in its hands, it brandished a long spear and a big knife.
These monsters looked very ferocious with weapons in their hands. It appeared as if they were ready to attack at any given time.
Luo Jian had not gone to see the terracotta warriors or anything like them. He had only used the computer to see the images of the terracotta warriors. However, with the mere sight of this astounded him. The huge terracotta warriors in the tomb were very orderly placed, and each of them looked different and life-like. Therefore, Luo Jian had the thought that if he had time, he would go to the mausoleum of the Qin dynasty’s first emperorto see the terracotta warriors.
But just now, Luo Jian, who was in an unknown tomb, saw something more shocking.
There were not a lot of tomb statues of these monsters. After a detailed counting, there were more than 50 such statues here. But some statues were huge and occupied a large area. All these statues focused their gazes in the same direction, which was at the platform located in the center of this huge tomb.
“No doubt, this is probably the main tomb vault.” Luo Jian scurried through these statues of different sizes with a flashlight and slowly walked towards the platform in the center of the tomb. The platform was very high, and Luo Jian could not see the coffin that was placed above, even with his head raised.
But Luo Jian intended to seek the truth, so he walked up the stairs of the platform carefully and approached the coffin that was located at the highest point of this room step by step. Luo Jian was afraid that what was in the coffin may be what the slip of paper had mentioned…… the G.o.d that the clansmen believed in.
But Luo Jian still had some doubts. Could he have reached the main tomb vault so easily? Although he and Feng YuLan had been trapped together due to various mechanisms for a long time and almost died of poisoning, Luo Jian originally thought that he would have to go through many more obstacles to reach the main tomb vault. Or perhaps…… this may not be the main tomb vault?
While taking some time to thoroughly ponder this, Luo Jian had already stepped onto the high platform and come in front of the coffin.
Luo Jian found that the coffin was not made of ordinary wood. It was a sarcophagus with decorative patterns carved on it. To his surprise, it seemed that someone had opened the sarcophagus because the lid of the coffin had been moved, and a slight gap was shown. It could vaguely be seen that the inside was pitch-black.
“Could it be that someone arrived here first?” Luo Jian placed his hand on the coffin. It was normal that he thought this way. In this huge tomb, there was not only Luo Jian and company but also the people from the enemy team. Luo Jian clearly knew that the enemy team was probably different from his team in the sense that they were probably not a temporary team. Instead, they were a team with tacit cooperation. Their mobility levels and critical judgment would be far above Luo Jian’s team.
But Luo Jian still had the mentality that he was lucky. He pushed the lid of the sarcophagus hard. The lid of the sarcophagus was very heavy; it was about several hundred jin. Luo Jian pushed hard at the lid of the sarcophagus for a long time and was finally able to push the lid of the sarcophagus mostly open. Then, he used a flashlight to shine light into the sarcophagus. After illuminating it, Luo Jian’s face suddenly blackened.
Xing Yan gazed at him with a pair of red rabbit eyes.
“Why the h.e.l.l are you in the coffin?!”