A hole as tall as half a man’s height was dug out of the wall and the light from the fire shone out from the inside.
Right in front, two surprised women were looking at them with their guards up.
“Who is Qiu Yu?” Xiao Bei asked.
“I am.” A tall and slim lady that was wearing a sports attire and a baseball cap took a step forward while calmly shielding a petite lady behind her back.
Xiao Bei measured her up once. Her long hair was bundled and was carrying a blue rucksack. She looked to be around 23 to 24 of age. Due to them being trapped in this ancient tomb for quite a long while, they looked somewhat tired. Right beside them was a thin and weak boy that was wearing a spectacle. His whole face was grayish in color.
“Ah, sister Qiu Yu, how did he know you?” That petite lady puzzledly asked.
Xiao Bei turned his attention and noticed that the other lady’s arm was bandaged. She must be injured.
“Hello, I’m a friend of Yang Chen. Presumably, he had already told you all, I’m the newcomer. Uh, because of some reasons, I also fell in and was trapped in this place.” Xiao Bei introduced himself as he came out of the hole. When he spoke to a point, he felt a bit embarrassed but his feeling quickly returned to normal. He moved to a side to let Xing Man Tian and fatty through. “This is Xing Man Tian and fatty. I was lucky to meet them and they had saved my life, or I’m afraid you would have never been able to see me, this newcomer.”
Fatty continued with the demeanor of wanting to kill at any time and Xing Man Tian slightly nodded his head as his gesture of greetings.
“So you are the newcomer, that Mo Xiao Bei, ah!” The petite lady was surprised. “You can call me Xiao Min. Over there, the one wearing a spectacle is Lu Yun.”
“Now isn’t the time for an introduction. Talk, what happened just now? It seemed that someone triggered a mechanism and caused the whole tomb to shake. That was very dangerous.” Xing Man Tian’s ice-cold voice suddenly sounded out, interrupting Xiao Bei and others’ conversation.
Fatty quietly made his way around Qiu Yu and Xiao Min to look around the place. This scared the spectacle boy, Lu Yun, to move back for fear of being hurt by new arriving terrible people.
Xiao Bei’s eyes followed fatty and looked in fatty’s direction. This place seemed to be a naturally formed cave. On all four walls, there were no man-made traces. In the middle, there was a huge sacrificial platform and closely circled around it was a water ditch which had now dried up. Who knew what was used as the sacrificial offering.
Xiao Bei walked to fatty’s side and asked, “Can you determine what was the original use of this place? It looks like it was used for offering sacrifices but it had been abandoned for a long time. I don’t understand what these are and also do not know of their purpose but I feel that those two statues are strange.”
As Xiao Bei was saying, he pointed at the four naturally formed pillars that were supporting the whole cave. A dark black color pillar that looked squarish was very naturally standing in the middle of the altar. However, on both sides of the altar, two standing upright lion statues seem particularly out of place and it made people felt displeased with them in their eyes.
Xiao Bei walked to one of the statues and just when he was about to reach out his hand to touch it, his hand was stopped by fatty’s shout.
“Don’t touch! Do you want to die!?” Fatty went forward to pull Xiao Bei back. “It’s best not to touch anything in here. I don’t want to accompany all of you to your deaths! That statue is a mechanism!”
“Ah!” Lu Yun who originally shrank to the back suddenly exclaimed. He stammered, “I…Before, I touched that lion for a moment…this…this place suddenly started to shake…I do not know the reason…but when I removed my hand, it stopped….”
Xiao Bei’s heart became even more fearful and he looked at fatty, hoping to seek for an explanation. However, fatty’s face showed no expression as he stared ahead while pondering deeply.
Xing Man Tian had already walked over to the dried up ditch and used the engineer shovel to dig up the surface. He brought the soil near his nose and sniffed it.
This type of method Xiao Bei had seen it on the internet. People that undertake the job as grave robber have a sensitive nose. A sniff and they would be able to deduce the soil’s properties. This is the grave robber’s one of the four ‘Look, listen, question and touch’ method and it is a brilliant method to determine the soil’s properties.
“Blood.” Xing Man Tian threw the soil back and kept the engineer shovel.
“So in the past, what were used as sacrifices? If it was some unknown Tu Si’s tomb, then it would be worshiping either the God or the owner of this tomb.” Fatty walked around the two statues. As he was carefully walking half a circle, he noticed on the body of the lion, there were plenty of simple and unadorned decorative design.
“Look at the lion’s eyes!” Xiao Bei suddenly spoke.
One of the lion’s eyes were slightly subsided. It is a flexible mechanism and if they were not attentive enough, it would be simply impossible to tell that tiny trace.
Presumably, Lu Yun really had press that area and caused the whole tomb to shake.
Xing Man Tian jumped onto the altar while fatty went to observe the lion’s eyes. It was found that of the two stone lions, only the left eye of the lion at the left could move and vice versa. Other than that, there were nothing special about the stone lion.
Xiao Bei pulled Qiu Yu’s group to aside and whispered to them to act carefully. Now the only way out depended on fatty and Xing Man Tian, and it would be best to find something to use as self-defense.
Those numerous mutated creatures that were behind the sealed stone wall caused Xiao Bei’s scalp to tingle whenever he thought about it.
Afterward, Xiao Bei also followed and jumped onto the altar.
The altar was probably as big as a basketball court. Fortunately, the space in the cave was wide or else constructing a sacrificial platform would already occupy most of the spaces in a small burial chamber.
But to build such huge sacrificial platform in the depth of the tomb, what had it been used for? Worship? For what? Xiao Bei felt that this wasn’t so simple. Comparing between the ancient civilization and today’s modern civilization, everything was thoroughly filled with strangeness and mystery.
Fatty studied the stone statue for quite a long while before lifting his head and shouted to Xiao Bei, “Tell them to rub down these decorative design. This is a scripture and is most likely related to this tomb. We need to bring back to decipher them.”
It looked like Qiu Yu’s group was more professional than him by more than a grade and their equipment was more complete. In their bags, they also brought along paper and pencil. Previously, these things in Xiao Bei’s eyes would just increase his burden, but unexpectedly, now they came in handy and was put to great use.
Qiu Yu said before that they often ventured to the deserted region and there may been some things they required the local’s knowledge of. Bringing a pencil and paper could help aid in the recording. This caused Xiao Bei to feel embarrassed for a while.
Though it may be troublesome to use pencil for stone rubbing, in any case, it still did the job.
Xiao Bei also helped to rub down the scripture. He noticed that these decorative designs were almost identical and even those on the sacrificial platform were also these type of decorative designs.
Xing Man Tian was squatting below the sacrificial platform and was feeling about. Just when Xiao Bei lifted head to looked at him, he immediately stopped. His expression was serious and his eyes contained his shock.
“Fatty, come and look.” As he was saying and before fatty came, he exerted strength to shove the engineer shovel in.
Is he crazy? Xiao Bei puzzledly thought. However, Xiao Bei knew that whatever Xing Man Tian did, he had his reasons. When Fatty jumped onto the platform, all the questions would be answered.
Fatty squatted and stretched out his hand to feel around. Very quickly, he also stopped and the dagger that flashed with a chill once again appeared in this hand. He slowly pierced it into the sacrificial platform.
Xiao Bei and the rest were standing below the platform. They looked particularly anxious and could only watch from below as they dared not rashly approach.
