Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A string of gunshots cracked behind us. Jiang Haoyan and I ducked our heads and sprinted like mad, desperately scrambling over the dune.

The sand around here wasn’t the fine, powdery kind. It was more like half-weathered stone, sand grains mixed with gravel, the surface packed hard. In short, digging a hole to hide in was out of the question.

To keep from getting shot in the back, the two of us ran in a zigzag, weaving left and right until I was so exhausted I was practically drooling.

Luckily, that enormous pyramid was right up ahead. We charged down the dune and started climbing.

The pyramid was built from massive blocks of stone, each ring stacked like gigantic steps, almost as high as my chest. We had only climbed two levels when another burst of gunfire came from behind us.

Bang, bang, bang-

But every bullet went wide, because one of the other men in black shoved the shooter hard.

“Are you insane? You can’t shoot at the pyramid!

“You four, climb up there and deal with those two. The rest of you, proceed according to the original plan.”

Four men in black put down their guns and climbed onto the pyramid after Jiang Haoyan and me. The others walked over to a small pickup truck and carried down two long canvas bags.

I stopped where I was and stared at them in shock.

Weird. They stole the mummies, but instead of taking them to a deal, they came running to the pyramid? What for?

Could this be the transaction site? But aside from their convoy, I didn’t see anyone else.

Those men carried Lu Lingzhu and Song Feifei, each grabbed a backpack from the truck, slung it over their shoulders, and then circled around to the back of the pyramid.

Curious, I wanted to follow and see what they were up to. Just then, the four men from earlier caught up.

One of them, a tall guy, cracked his knuckles with a vicious grin and came toward me.

I grinned back.

“You dumb pig. Guess why I didn’t run?”

Before he could react, I launched a kick straight into him and sent him tumbling down the pyramid.

Without guns, what the hell was I supposed to be afraid of?

After quickly taking care of all four of them, Jiang Haoyan and I circled around to the back of the pyramid. Strangely enough, that entire group had vanished.

The terrain here was wide open. Before us stretched endless dunes, with nothing around to block the view. There was no way those people could have run far in such a short time. That left only one possibility: they had gone inside the pyramid.

“There should be an entrance on this side. Jiang Haoyan, we split up and search.”

We went left and right, checking level by level for an opening. The moon was full tonight, and bright moonlight spilled over the pale sand and stone. We could see clearly even without flashlights.

When I reached the fifth level, I spotted a pitch-black opening.

Massive stones stood on both sides of it. The entrance was wedged between them, only about eighty or ninety centimeters wide, so dark inside that its depths couldn’t be seen, as if it could swallow the moonlight itself.

I took one step forward and screamed in fright.

I had bumped into someone.

He was standing at the entrance in a black robe, holding a gun. When we crashed into each other, he let out a startled cry too.

No wonder the entrance had looked so dark. There was a Black man standing there, and he was wearing a black robe.

We each jumped back a step. He raised his gun, and I felt someone ram into my back. I actually went flying straight toward the barrel.

It turned out Jiang Haoyan had been following right behind me. When I jumped back, I hit him instead and got bounced forward.

In that narrow passage, I had a gun pressed to my chest and Jiang Haoyan blocking the way behind me. If the guy in front of me pulled the trigger, not even the gods could save me.

The man in black clearly realized that too. Under the black cloth wrapped around him, his round eyes showed a trace of amusement. He gripped the gun with both hands and was about to pull the trigger.

At that critical instant, I leaned back slightly, grabbed the barrel, and shoved it upward with all my strength.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-

A burst of bullets struck the ceiling above us, the impact numbing both my hands. Countless chips of stone rained down from overhead, and dust filled the air.

The man in black instinctively raised a hand to shield his head. Taking advantage of the chance, I bent down and crawled between his legs.

If he had been even a little shorter, I never would have resorted to such a humiliating tactic.

This man in black had to be at least two meters tall. Other people were built like double-door refrigerators; this guy was built like a pair of double doors. His shoulders were ridiculously broad, and just by standing there, he blocked the entire passage airtight.

After enduring the shame of crawling through his legs, I stood up and sprinted forward. When I glanced back, Jiang Haoyan had caught up too.

He stammered, “Just now-”

“Nothing happened.”

We exchanged a perfectly tacit look, then kept sprinting deeper inside.