Liu Dashao secretly cursed, “Damn, this bag is really tough! Not even a dagger can pierce it. Looks like these grave robbers aren’t ordinary after all!”
After struggling for quite some time without success, Liu Dashao simply drew his Taoist Master Sword and lightly sliced across the bag. With a loud “swoosh,” a long tear opened up.
Liu Dashao used his hands to widen the tear as much as possible and discovered that inside was another bag—just an ordinary pouch. This somewhat lowered his estimation of them. After searching for a while, he found the zipper and easily opened it with one pull.
Liu Dashao carefully opened the bag, fearing there might be something terrifying inside. After inspecting it closely and confirming there was no danger, he finally gathered his courage and began rummaging through its contents.
He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t looked—what he found startled him: explosives, and two handheld flamethrowers. Liu Dashao thought to himself, “Putting these two together? One little mistake and we’d be sitting at the same mahjong table as the Supreme Elder Lord.”
Big Cricket asked, “Brother, what strange things did you find in the bag?”
Liu Dashao replied helplessly, “Nothing good—just some explosives and two handheld flamethrowers. It seems like the commonly used tools are all on them.”
Upon hearing Liu Dashao’s words, Big Cricket immediately jumped onto the boat, grabbed the bag with one hand, and frantically rummaged through it with the other. After a while, he stopped and said, “These grave robbers sure are sharp—they carry all the essentials with them.”
Liu Dashao picked up a spade lying next to the bag, examined it, and said, “Looks like this is the only thing here that might still be useful. At least it can be used as a paddle.” With that, he gave the water a couple of strokes with the spade and found it quite handy.
Hearing Liu Dashao and Big Cricket’s conversation, Fan Debiao tightly bandaged Green Worm’s wound with some gauze. Green Worm gritted his teeth, his face twisted in pain. Fan Debiao looked at Green Worm, apologized, then turned to the group and said, “Now we’ve really got a problem. We don’t even know who they are. If they have rifles, submachine guns, or even heavy machine guns, our old pistols won’t stand a chance. We might not even see what they look like before we’re riddled with bullets.”
After saying this, Fan Debiao hurriedly grabbed Green Worm’s Thompson submachine gun and hugged it tightly, saying that since Green Worm was seriously injured, he would take responsibility for protecting both him and the gun.
Liu Dashao said to Fan Debiao, “You actually thought they might have rifles and submachine guns? Why don’t you just say they have rocket launchers too?”
Fan Debiao ignored Liu Dashao and focused on examining the gun. After pulling the trigger a couple of times, he cursed, “Damn, no bullets.”
Big Cricket said, “Alright, alright. You two, get on the boat. Who cares what big guns they have? If we delay any longer, we’ll miss our chance entirely.”
After saying this, Big Cricket jumped onto the boat and stood beside Liu Dashao. Fan Debiao helped Green Worm up and pushed him onto the boat, saying, “Kid, you’re really strong. If you ever got into a brawl, you could definitely take on five guys at once.”
After getting Green Worm onto the boat, Fan Debiao himself leaped aboard. With his heavy weight, the boat shook violently the moment he landed. If not for Big Cricket and Green Worm’s quick reflexes, the boat would have capsized.
Liu Dashao angrily said, “Fan Debiao, be careful with Liu Dashao’s boat! If it capsizes, you’ll regret it.”
Fan Debiao helplessly waved his hand and smiled, “Sorry, it was an accident—purely an accident.” As he spoke, the boat shook again.
Liu Dashao grabbed Fan Debiao’s hand and said, “Alright, alright… Big guy, can you move to the middle of the boat?”
After Liu Dashao spoke, Fan Debiao carefully and slowly moved toward the center of the boat, exerting great effort to get there.
Once Big Cricket saw the boat stabilize, he said, “Alright, everyone, let’s get going.”
Big Cricket then took out several steel tubes from his backpack, connected them, and used them to steer the boat around. These tubes were originally meant for use with a Luoyang spade, but now they proved quite useful for steering the boat.
With the headlamps, flashlights were no longer needed. Liu Dashao casually tossed his aside and opened his backpack to check if there was any food left.
But the moment he opened it, he was speechless—the compressed biscuits inside had been soaked into mush. Liu Dashao sighed, put the backpack aside, and silently endured his hunger.
After the boat sailed for a while, the winding river gradually became straighter, and its width narrowed to about two meters. The surrounding stone walls appeared man-made, with some carvings on them. However, due to long-term exposure to water, the walls were covered in moss, making it impossible to discern the exact details of the carvings.
After sailing through the narrow river channel for a while and passing through a cave, the river widened again ahead. The stone walls here seemed naturally formed.
Suddenly, Fan Debiao pointed ahead and shouted, “Look! There’s something up there!”
Upon hearing Fan Debiao’s words, Liu Dashao immediately looked in the direction he pointed. Due to the limited range of the headlamps, he could only see a dark shadow in the distance. As the boat slowly approached, the shadow became clearer—it was a bronze statue.
The bronze statue was over a meter tall, standing in a niche on the stone wall approximately two meters high and half a meter wide. Its eyes were tightly shut, its right hand held a sword, and its left hand pointed forward with a martial arts gesture. Despite being by the water for over two thousand years, the bronze statue was still largely intact.
Fan Debiao said, “Why is there such a creepy thing standing here? It looks pretty scary!”
Liu Dashao also felt puzzled. He turned on his flashlight and scanned the surroundings for anything else. That’s when he noticed a narrow branch of the river next to them, only about a meter wide. On both sides of its stone walls were many bronze statues. These statues were in different poses, but they shared one common feature—all of them had their eyes closed.
Seeing this, Liu Dashao quickly called Big Cricket over to examine them. Big Cricket looked inside and frowned, unable to immediately explain their meaning, but he recognized the materials and craftsmanship used in making the statues.
As Big Cricket was explaining the history of bronze to Liu Dashao, Fan Debiao exclaimed in surprise, “There are two dead bodies here!”
Upon hearing Fan Debiao’s words, Liu Dashao and Big Cricket immediately looked in his direction. Under the flashlight’s beam, they saw two bloodied skeletons lying beside the boat. It appeared that their flesh had been devoured by something. These two must have been grave robbers who entered here—no one expected them to die here so tragically.
Fan Debiao happily said, “Hehe, this is good news. Now that these two are dead, we won’t have to deal with them anymore.”
“Not two,” Big Cricket said as he retrieved three backpacks from beside the corpses. “There should have been three. Two are dead, and the third must still be alive. But how did these two die like this?”
Fan Debiao said, “Forget that for now. Let’s check what good stuff is in the bags.”
He rummaged through one bag, but after a while, his face fell. “These grave robbers are even worse than us. Their gear is worse than ours—just some biscuit packs and a few coils of rope.”
Fan Debiao threw the bag aside and grabbed another one, but after rummaging through it, he looked disappointed again.
Liu Dashao took the bag from Fan Debiao, carefully examined it, and found only a few packs of compressed biscuits soaked into mush. He checked the inner pockets and discovered a photograph—a group photo of three foreigners by the riverside. These must have been the people who came in the boat.
Liu Dashao was puzzled again: “How did these foreigners end up grave robbing in China? If the government finds out, they’ll be arrested and shot immediately.”
Liu Dashao handed the photo to Big Cricket and asked, “Big Cricket, how come these foreigners ended up grave robbing in our China?”
Big Cricket took the photo, examined it carefully, and said, “They’re not here to grave rob. They’re archaeologists from the French TOUR expedition team.”
Liu Dashao asked in confusion, “What do you mean?”
Big Cricket shined the flashlight on the photo and said, “Look at their uniforms.”
Liu Dashao looked closely and noticed the three English letters “TOUR” embroidered on the left chest of their uniforms.
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