Chapter 53: Washing Machine
Wu Xie was the consultant specifically named and invited by A Ning, and also the person Wu Sansheng named before his disappearance to take over the project in his place. His words naturally carried considerable reference value. Thus, A Ning and Fatty and the others focused their attention on the area around the stone slab, as well as the nearby stone carvings.
But even after every inch around had been tapped, the mechanism still wasn’t triggered. Wu Xie couldn’t help but turn his gaze to the stone slab itself. Could the mechanism really be on the stone slab? But earlier they had tapped and knocked on the stone slab, and the mechanism hadn’t been triggered either? But if not,
he took a dagger and inserted it into the seam between the stone slab and the tomb wall, prying it. Sure enough, it was useless.
The group was completely numb. They were clearly almost at the place, so why couldn’t they find the entrance? Since there was such a large tomb-robbing hole outside, the previous people should have entered from here, right?
At this moment, Fatty discovered that there seemed to be something under the stone slab, a bit like seaweed or something, dark and drifting with the water ripples. He reached out, and that thing seemed to sense it, shrinking back into the stone slab.
Fatty’s eyes lit up, signaling the others to look at him. He carefully shone the searchlight along the spot where the seaweed emerged. That thing seemed particularly afraid of light, rapidly contracting where it was illuminated, leaving a large empty space, as if something had been spat out from the middle.
The gap below was narrow, so they could only see a part of it, but this… how was it so similar to their wetsuits?
That thing finally drifted down and sank in front of the stone slab. With their eyesight, they could clearly see what it was.
It was a corpse wearing the same outfit as them. The stone slab gap was right in front of them—a cloudy, wide-eyed dead stare.
For some reason, Lin Yan, who hadn’t come forward from behind, had an ominous premonition. It wasn’t that he was overly suspicious; it was that mechanisms Fatty touched rarely ended without incident. So he quietly stepped forward and, while everyone was still immersed in the sorrowful atmosphere, quietly pulled Wu Xie down.
Wu Xie retreated to the back and glanced around, noticing that only the two of them were the farthest from the main group. He hurriedly signaled with his eyes: What’s wrong?
Lin Yan was still pulling him back, almost to the first corner: I just feel something’s off. What did you see up front?
Wu Xie shook his head: No mechanism found. Behind the stone slab, we don’t know if it’s seaweed or something, with strong photophobia. There’s also the corpse of the previous group that entered.
Lin Yan nodded thoughtfully: Then, if I’m not mistaken, this stone slab is about to open.
Open? Then why retreat so far? Wu Xie was puzzled for a moment, a black line forming as he watched Lin Yan pull him to the corner, peeking out at the group of people gathered around the lower part of the stone slab ahead. Remembering Lin Yan’s previous prophecy that it might destroy this tomb, he thought uncertainly: This place won’t explode, will it?
Facts proved Lin Yan’s worry was correct. Not long after, the people ahead didn’t know what they saw and suddenly panicked into chaos. Everyone was running backward; those who couldn’t swim fast simply clung to the nearby relief sculptures to move forward. Don’t mention it—the speed immediately picked up. The most eye-catching was Fatty, because he was the one clinging to the relief sculpture… one kick caved in the adjacent tomb passage by a section.
A Ning, who swam the fastest, exchanged a glance with the two hiding at the corner. Both sides felt a trace of awkwardness.
A Ning’s eyes were full of doubt: Why are you hiding here? Wu Xie, seeing this, ducked behind Lin Yan.
Lin Yan: .
He chose to turn his head away and not look—as long as he didn’t look at her, the questioning wouldn’t catch up to him. Right, just like that.
At this point, with no one blocking, they finally saw what happened at the stone slab. The stone slab had already risen halfway upward, and below it, densely packed black things were surging out. Fatty saw this and wanted to go further back, but was grabbed by Zhang Hao.
For some reason, despite Fatty’s greater bulk, he surprisingly couldn’t shake off the merely slightly chubby Zhang Hao. Zhang Hao gestured to them, signaling them to look at the wall that Fatty had kicked in.
Lin Yan fell silent. He knew Fatty clashed with mechanisms—as long as he entered a tomb, eight or nine out of ten mechanisms in the tomb were triggered by Fatty! But he didn’t expect even the door to be kicked open by Fatty! This was just too ridiculous!
So, as long as they pushed that wall inward, they could probably get in?
In the end, A Ning made the call. Everyone carefully hugged the wall to pass by, trying to lighten their movements to not disturb that mass of black things. Only up close did they see that the black things were actually hair! What thing would have such long hair, still in the tomb? Lin Yan had always thought that after so much, he wouldn’t be scared anymore, but seeing this scene still made his scalp tingle a bit.
Especially since the corpse that was spat out was still drifting near the stone slab.
Everyone arrived in front of that recessed tomb wall, but no one dared to press it. In the end, Fatty caught A Ning’s look and, for the sake of the money, reluctantly came to the front.
Before pressing, he suddenly looked back sharply. Sure enough, everyone had retreated at least two steps.
Fatty: .？？？？？
Everyone exchanged awkward glances. But going forward was impossible; only following behind Fatty could save one’s life.
Fatty rolled his eyes at them through his diving mask, then turned back to prepare to press, since A Ning had indeed given quite a lot.
The instant Fatty pressed it, a large amount of bubbles suddenly appeared around them. Everyone felt the pressure ahead lessen, and their bodies were involuntarily sucked in, starting to spin nonstop. In just a few turns, they were dizzy and seeing stars. Lin Yan couldn’t help but think of Hogwarts’ Apparition… that feeling of being stuffed into a tube and spinning nonstop was exactly the same.
When Wu Xie woke up, he found himself being dragged along, his whole body aching terribly, without strength even to move. He used all his strength to look up. Oh, it was Lin Yan.
After Lin Yan dragged him to the side and set him down, he laboriously turned his head to look but didn’t see the others. This should be inside the tomb chamber, with air as Third Uncle had predicted. It was still pitch black around, probably Lin Yan’s searchlight illuminating part of it from nearby.
It looked like a rectangular tomb chamber. The tomb chamber walls should originally have had murals, but after who knows how many years, moisture had made the murals mottled and unrecognizable.
Over there, Lin Yan had jumped down somewhere and pulled another person up. Wu Xie finally recovered some strength and removed the breathing valve from his mouth—the oxygen in the oxygen tank was almost depleted—greedily breathing the fresh air. He propped himself up to half-sit and saw the slightly chubby figure pulled up was Zhang Hao.
Lin Yan violently threw the person to the ground; he could even hear the crisp sound of Zhang Hao’s back of head hitting the ground, and couldn’t help shrinking his head, glad that Lin Yan had been relatively gentle when setting him down, or he might really have a concussion now.
Now he saw clearly: the place Lin Yan had gone down was a round space like a well mouth, with part of the light shining on the well wall. If he wasn’t mistaken, the white marble well wall was indeed lavish.
He panted a couple breaths and wobbled to the well edge, catching the person in Lin Yan’s hands after Lin Yan’s head emerged.
Lin Yan was somewhat surprised: “You’re awake? When did you wake up?”
Wu Xie grabbed Fatty’s shoulder and couldn’t help wanting to laugh at his appearance rolling his eyes behind his glasses: “Not long ago. I woke up and saw you jump down.”
After they teamed up to toss Fatty up, Lin Yan went back to rescue A Ning and Wu Yong. Fortunately, everyone was fine. Wu Xie was still weak and stayed above, turning off their oxygen tanks one by one and removing the breathing valves to avoid suffocation after the oxygen ran out. Dying here after not dying to mechanisms would be quite the joke.
By the time Wu Xie finished sorting the equipment and looked around with the searchlight, Fatty, who had woken up latest, finally opened his eyes.
His first words were a classic curse: “Fuck, did Fatty Ye just go through a washing machine spin cycle?!”
Everyone burst out laughing.
(This… still went a bit overboard.)
