TLDP: C23. Poisoned
Chen Haotian carried Miss Jiang and followed close behind me, a bodyguard who carried Shasha was also following closely. As for the rest of the bodyguards, they were strafed with submachine guns behind us with their free hand they smacked away the bats. Nonetheless, there were also many bats in the tunnel as I wield my dagger and slashed at the bats repeatedly, Zhou Huiqing naively asked me unexpectedly: “Chaoran?”
I just coldly replied: “He already ran!”
When we had entered the chamber, the bodyguards quickly closed the stone door and realized that five bodyguards had died. It seemed that they didn’t run and sacrificed themselves. Everyone was sitting down on the ground, exhausted, panting, as we all breathed heavily.
Xia Chaoran hurriedly came over to Zhou Huiqing as his poker face anxiously explained: “I thought you had ran in front of me since I didn’t see you back there a short while ago, I was really worried that you were going to die! Fortunately, you’re here and all right!”
I almost couldn’t hold the urge to not ruthlessly stab him with my dagger! Son of a b.i.t.c.h! What a hypocrite, deceiving Xiaohui with honeyed words! And the most hateful thing was that Zhou Huiqing unexpectedly comforted him: “It’s alright, Chaoran, you don’t need to blame yourself, I’m really all right!”
I just quickly closed my eyes, ignored it and secretly pondered. The team originally had 30 people, and 5 bodyguards had just died, which meant that there were only 15 bodyguards left as well as the 9 of us. There was a trace of explosions on the stone door that led to the woman ghost chamber, however, the stone door had not blasted out, and it seemed that… we were trapped…
While I was deep in thought, Zhang Zixuan called out in another chamber: “Big brother Chen, Xiaolong, Miss Jiang, Xia Chaoran, several of you come here, let’s discuss our next step!”
We went to the woman ghost’s chamber and walked directly to the corner as Zhang Zixuan then started the conversation in a low voice: “Everybody, I have bad news for you, besides the three bodyguards that were left behind to blast the stone door, we have all been bitten by the bats. I don’t know about this bat’s species since I haven’t seen it before. However, from my first a.n.a.lysis, the wound is poisonous and is perhaps like rabies! Because I didn’t bring my equipment I can’t figure out whether the wound will have bubonic plague bacilli or not, but according to my inference, there is a 10% chance that it was infected with the bubonic plague bacilli.”
Miss Jiang anxiously replied: “Have we been infected with rabies? If we don’t have a vaccine then we will be dead!”
“Relax, just in case of an emergency, I also brought our ancient detoxification pill from my family ancestor, and it particularly will remove various toxins from the body in case of an emergency like this. Rabi virus is also one of them. However I only brought 10 pills, moreover we must spare some. I and Chen Er Shao had discussed about this and the Detoxification Pill will be given to seven people excluding Shasha and Zhou Huiqing. It is useless to give the pill to them since it would be wasteful. Xia Chaoran, do you have any opinion?”
“No, I will listen to the arrangements from both young masters!” Xia Chaoran was really an obedient dog as he nodded and bent at his waist.
I just silently accepted the brown Detoxification Pill and pretended to throw it into my mouth as I then quietly stood and returned to the tomb chamber’s stele and secretly spat out the pill into my palm. I squatted toward Xiaohui’s side and whispered: “Don’t ask, eat quickly!”
For a short time Xiaohui was just absent-minded as she was stupefied to see me. My eyebrows twitched as I quickly urged her: “Quickly!”
Xiaohui took the pill in my hand and directly ate it.
However my action was spotted clearly by Miss Jiang who unexpectedly was standing at the entrance, she was very surprised as she came over me. I hurriedly gave her the ‘don’t speak’ hand signal when she was about to talk and led her to the other corner of chamber. She whispered and asked: “Why did you do that?”
“I think it’s worth it, and that’s enough.” I briefly replied and smiled: “I hope you could help me keep it a secret.”
She continued whispered: “Are you not afraid of dying?”
“Afraid… I’m very afraid, but I will not die easily.”
“Alas, I really don’t understand you. Regarding your own life as a trifling matter. I advise you to ask Zhang Zixuan for another Detoxification Pill, once that rabies virus manifests, it will be difficult to solve it. You could lose your sanity and would be like those zombies in the movies, biting people and infecting them in the end.” Miss Jiang continued whispering at my ear as she was afraid to be heard by the bodyguards on every side.
“Relax, I’m really sure that I will not die.” Since we were now trapped, Chen Haozhe’s mood must be very bad, if he knew that I gave the Detoxification Pill to Zhou Huiqing, there might be consequences so this matter must be kept a secret to everybody.
At this time, several bodyguards found a hole several steps away from the ‘ALL TRESSPa.s.sERS DIE’stele. The hole’s stone lid was also built from the same quartzite stone, as it seemed to connect this chamber to another cave. This discovery was hurriedly reported to Chen Haozhe as he called the rest of us together. Chen Haozhe was suddenly enlightened as he excitedly spoke: “I knew it! This stele was just a camouflage for any trespa.s.sers that broke through the several previous chambers and since the trespa.s.sers who can arrive at this stele chamber must have real abilities, this stele’s warning will deceive the trespa.s.sers and direct them to open the next stone door that directly leads to the bat’s cave! We had been deceived by this stele while the genuine tomb should be right under this hole!”
Chen Haozhe’s a.n.a.lysis really did make sense.
Chen Haozhe quickly sent an order to one of the bodyguards who had been bitten by the bats: “You, get down and check the tomb below.”
This bodyguard took a flashlight and jumped agilely into the hole, and after observing for a while, he quickly reported: “Second young master, there are many funeral objects and ancient Chinese porcelains. They are all in good condition. There are no traps here.”
Everyone who entered immediately immersed in appreciating all the items there.
This chamber was the same as the chambers above and it seemed that the size was also the same. However a big question popped up in my head. This huge underground construction, how many years did it take to finish this construction? Moreover, not only were chambers built with many traps mechanisms, they also had a ghost to stand guard! Who was this Long Chen? Was he really a simple trivial unknown general?
Chen Haozhe pointed at the five bitten bodyguards: “The five of you, take all the remaining anti-tank grenades, and continue to blast open the stone door, I arranged this simple job for you all since you are now badly injured and made good merits a while ago,”
After those bodyguards climbed up, Chen Haozhe gave another order to the other three bitten bodyguards to open the stone door and to then explore and scoute ahead.
There were no flying arrows when the stone door opened.
The light casted by the flashlight quickly illuminated the newly opened chamber, as we discovered that there was a coffin in the middle! A strong and dense cloudy gas burst out and pa.s.sed over everyone’s faces! It made me violently shiver. If the cloudy gas in the woman’s ghost chamber was rated as level 1, the cloudy gas in this chamber was at least at level 30! Xia Chaoran’s complexion instantly turned into a shocked expression as I quickly asked: “What do you see?”
“Cloudy gas, a dense cloudy gas!” Xia Chaoran hurriedly replied as he quickly retreated.
“What do you see besides this cloudy gas? Evil spirits?” I continued asking.
“I only see this cloudy gas.”
Chen Haozhe was clearly displeased with Xia Chaoran’s words: “Coward waste!” as he turned and asked me: “Long Daoist priest, I also felt a chilly wind a moment ago, what is this cloudy gas? And also, why is Xia Chaoran terrified to such an extent?”
I took the remaining tiny amount of cattle tears as I replied: “I don’t know what thing he is seeing yet, I’ll just take a look at it myself.” I wiped the cattle tears on my eyes and looked at the coffin chamber again as it really made me stupefied! I had never seen such a dense cloudy gas like this before! And that coffin seemed to have some living organism inside as the cloudy gas was moving and retracting in and out, as if the thing inside was breathing, it was truly strange!
Moreover the cloudy gas seemed to have condensed as it suddenly gushed out and rushed toward the chamber everyone was in! If that cloudy gas happened to invade here, everyone’s Yang fire will be extinguished immediately! I quickly shouted: “It’s bad!” I then hurriedly ran to the golden wheel disk as I turned the mechanism and close the stone door!
Chen Haozhe quickly asked: “What happened?”
My voice turned heavy as I solemnly replied: “There is evil spirit inside the coffin, and it seems that it’s alive like human is breathing and moving the cloudy gas. Moreover the cloudy gas in that coffin’s chamber was too dense, it could make everyone’s Yang fire here go out in an instant. When the three Yang fires within the body are extinguished, then we will enter the Netherworld together!”
“Is it that serious?” Chen Haozhe brows twitched as he frowned and spoke: “You try to think of solution, we must go inside!”
This… really gave me troubles. Since the cloudy gas inside was very heavy, my best bet was to unblock this cloudy gas and disperse it. However, we were being stranded in the coffin’s chamber and there was no pa.s.sage connecting to the outside so this method was not viable. If I recklessly rushed forward, the risk would be great as the heavy cloudy gas would extinguish all my Yang fire.
And to my demise, my body seemed to be invaded by that chilly sensation at this time. It seemed that the bat’s virus was manifesting.
I gave my Detoxification Pill to Xiaohui, I didn’t regret that as I really didn’t want to see Xiaohui die a tragic death before me… I never wanted to see that. Moreover, if what Miss Daiyu said was true, I was inborn with the Red Arrow mark, even if I wanted to die, I would not die that easily. But this virus’s outburst really made me uncomfortable as when I touched my forehead, it was very hot as if I had a fever.
~~~~~~~~~~end of ch.23~~~~~~~~~~