Chapter 8

Chapter 8

We hadn’t run far when voices rang out ahead of us.

“You fat bastard, I told you not to shoot!”

“What happened?”

The furious voice carried far through the deep, dark passage. Jiang Haoyan and I both froze, and behind us came the angry roar of the fat Black man, along with the rapid thud of footsteps.

“Those two Asians got in! Take them out!”

The corridor leading into the pyramid was long, narrow, and perfectly straight, with no side passages at all. We were trapped between enemies in front and behind, and they had guns. There was no way we could outrun them.

I glanced around and, after confirming there was no other way out, immediately spread my arms and braced them against the walls. Then I jumped up, spreading my legs as well and planting my feet against either side.

“Hide up near the ceiling. Hopefully they won’t notice us.”

Jiang Haoyan copied me. The two of us clung to the walls like a pair of frogs, holding our breath as we slowly climbed upward. To keep the men in black from spotting us, I tried my best to climb higher.

But after climbing for a while, I started to feel that something was wrong.

I’d already been climbing for nearly five or six minutes. Sure, we were moving slowly, but there was no way this passage should be that tall. The voices of the men in black below were getting farther and farther away too.

“Strange. Where’d they go? Ricky, did anyone run past you?”

“No. We’ve been guarding this spot and didn’t see anyone else come in. They must still be inside. Search carefully.”

“If they barge in and disturb the boss while he’s working, we’re dead!”

Several powerful flashlight beams swept back and forth below us. One of them occasionally flicked upward, and by that light, I also raised my head and glanced above.

That one glance made me suck in a sharp breath. My heart nearly stopped.

I saw an enormous tail hanging from the wall directly opposite me, swaying leisurely from left to right, then from right to left.

If not for that flashlight beam, I would have climbed a few more steps and slammed right into it.

I froze where I was, not daring to move. The space above was almost at its end as well. This narrow passage opened into another level at the top, and now some unknown animal was coiled beside the corridor, playing with its tail.

It looked like a giant python, but the tip of its tail had a ring of fleshy spikes growing from it. When it swayed, it made a sound like flowing water. I had no idea what it was.

I was hesitating over whether I should slide back down a little when, just then, several more beams of light suddenly lit up below. They swung around aimlessly a few times before locking onto Jiang Haoyan and me.

“I found them! They’re up there!”

One of the men in black raised his gun, but another hurriedly stopped him.

“Don’t shoot! The boss is about to begin. You want to die?”

In the light, I saw the snake tail across from me stop moving.

With a sharp whoosh, the tail rapidly withdrew. A bad feeling shot through me, and I shouted, “Slide down!”

I quickly let go with my hands and switched to using the tips of my feet against the walls to reduce the friction. My body plunged downward, almost falling outright.

When I was nearly at the ground, I finally slammed my hands against the walls with all my strength. My palms scraped all the way down the stone, sending a burst of agony through them, but I barely managed to stop my fall.

The men in black were already lunging toward me.

Panic surged through me.

“Run run run!”

Several of them burst out laughing.

“Still trying to run?”

One of them reached for me. His hand was only halfway out when a massive black shadow dropped from above and clamped down hard on it.

This time, I saw it clearly. It was an enormous rattlesnake, its body yellow-green, with black diamond-shaped markings along its back.

The man opposite me let out a scream. The other men in black immediately reached for their guns.

At this point, they couldn’t care less about their boss’s orders. A burst of gunfire erupted. The rattlesnake lashed its tail and sent another man in black flying, throwing the whole scene into chaos.

Jiang Haoyan and I seized the chance, crouched low, and crawled out along the ground.