Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I put on a hard hat fitted with a searchlight, stuck a few evil-banishing talismans to myself, then bent down and crawled into the wooden opening.

This Yellow Heart Timber Collection was built from cypress logs, each around five feet long. Because the entrance was so narrow, I couldn’t bend my body at all. I had to lie flat, lift my head slightly, and use my elbows to drag myself forward with difficulty.

Logically speaking, with a distance of around five feet, once I pulled my legs in, I should have been through.

But I couldn’t get through, because someone was lying at the entrance, blocking me.

The one blocking me was Little Li, Tomb Raider No. 2, who had gone in earlier. His chin was propped on the edge of the opening, his eyes wide as he stared at me. The corners of his mouth were stretched into an enormous, eerie smile.

Even though I’d braced myself, his bizarre appearance still gave me a jolt.

“Get lost!”

I formed a Thunder Ancestor Hand Seal with my left hand, and a flash of lightning struck Little Li’s face. Yet he remained completely motionless. Even the curve of his smile didn’t change.

My heart sank. Trembling, I reached out and pushed.

Sure enough, Little Li’s head went rolling down from the opening with a hollow clatter.

Whatever was inside had killed him, then placed his head in this wooden passage. From my side, it had looked as if Little Li were resting his chin on the entrance.

My heartbeat suddenly sped up. Every muscle in my body went taut, adrenaline flooding my veins.

With my body wedged inside this wooden tunnel, if something on the other side suddenly attacked, I wouldn’t have anywhere to dodge.

At that thought, I threw a talisman outside first. Then I reached both hands out of the opening, gripped the timber on either side, and, with a burst of strength, pulled myself out.

I rolled on the spot, one hand clutching the Thunderstruck Wood Talisman and the other holding a stack of talismans, my eyes sweeping the surroundings warily.

The interior of the Yellow Heart Timber Collection was shaped like an upside-down “gate” character. First came a narrow corridor. On either side were two side chambers, and farther ahead, in an open space, stood a coffin.

I was standing in that corridor. The doors to the chambers on both sides were open.

Little Li’s body was seated in the doorway of one of them, legs spread apart, both hands outstretched and gripping the doorframe. His head was gone. The posture was grotesque.

I walked over to examine the severed stump of his neck.

From the time Little Li had been dragged into the Yellow Heart Timber Collection until I entered, no more than ten minutes had passed. But his wound had already stopped bleeding.

The flesh around his neck was ragged and uneven. His cervical vertebrae were shattered, and his pale windpipe was exposed. From the look of it, his neck had been violently twisted off by sheer force.

I was studying it closely when, without warning, a thin blood vessel shot out from inside the corpse like a rope and whipped toward my neck.

I reacted instantly, throwing myself backward. Little Li’s neck sprayed a fountain of green slime, and within that spray, more of those blood vessels came coiling toward me.

I bent my legs, dropped to my knees, then twisted hard at the waist and sprang to the right. A Li Fire Talisman was pinched in my palm, and I slammed it viciously against the corpse’s neck.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle-

The flesh was scorched, releasing the smell of cooked meat, and all the blood vessels shrank back inside.

Bracing myself with one hand, I got to my feet and retreated several steps, staring warily at Little Li’s corpse.

This didn’t look like corpse reanimation. Since when did reanimated corpses attack people with blood vessels? What the hell was this thing?

After watching for a while and seeing no further movement from the body, I kicked the corpse aside and walked into the left chamber.

The room wasn’t big, only about thirty or forty square feet, and it was packed with burial goods: jade pieces, bronze vessels, ceramic vases, and the like. The entire chamber was crammed full, leaving almost nowhere to step.

I backed into the corridor, and Murong Yue’s voice came in through the opening.

“Qiao Moyu, how is it?”

“Nothing serious. Xiaoyue, where’s that mechanism you mentioned?”

“It’s usually near the Soul Vase. Look around.”