Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jiang Haoyan and I were tied up like sacrificial lambs and tossed next to a tent.

Tong Wei called Tong Fusheng, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Teacher, guess who I ran into?”

“Take her with us to find it? Right, right, that’s what I was thinking too. Hahaha! We’ll trick her first, tell her we’ll let her go once it’s done. Then, after she helps us find the place, we’ll just take her out. This woman is way too much trouble.”

Me: …

“Hey, big guy, is it possible that I can hear you?”

Tong Wei glared at me, made a shushing gesture, and raised his voice.

“What was that? The Qingnang Classic? Oh, okay, I got it. Understood.”

After hanging up, Tong Wei gave a cold sneer.

“Qiao Moyu, consider yourself lucky. You finish this job for us, and I’ll let you go back.”

It turned out that Tong Wei and his crew were here looking for treasure again.

Tong Fusheng was a man who understood feng shui and the I Ching, and he also ran an antiquities and jewelry business. He kept a group of people under him specifically to handle grave robbing and smuggling. He would search ancient texts for records of treasures and tombs, then send people out to find them.

Finding just one was enough to make a fortune.

I asked skeptically, “In this godforsaken place? There are ancient tombs here?”

There certainly are ancient tombs in the desert, but I had never heard of any near Urho. This area was famous for dinosaur fossils. Did Tong Fusheng even sell those?

Tong Wei lit a cigarette, a spark of red dancing at his fingertips.

He flicked the ash, squinted his eyes with affected gravity, and blew a smoke ring upward. Just then, a gust of wind swirled past, filling his mouth with sand.

“Cough, cough, cough! Ptooie!”

Tong Wei spat in disgust.

“Qiao Moyu, a Man-eating Snake has already shown up. You think there are no ancient tombs here? Don’t tell me you don’t know what that thing is?”

I gave him a startled look, then pursed my lips and remained silent. I hadn’t expected Tong Fusheng to know about that as well.

*Ring, ring! Ring, ring!*

The satellite phone in my bag started ringing.

Tong Wei gave me a threatening glare, then took the phone out of the bag and handed it to me. I understood his meaning; he didn’t want trouble. If the Program Team went missing here, it would inevitably alert the local police immediately.

I didn’t want to drag the Program Team into this either. These people were ruthless and armed with guns; it was better not to pit the crew against them.

I answered the phone and told Zhu Tanjian that Jiang Haoyan and I had run into some friends and would be spending the night at their camp.

Xiaoya and the others happened to be nearby, drinking and chatting. Their laughter and shouting carried quite far, and Zhu Tanjian, suppressing his anger, agreed.

“Qiao Moyu, Dazi and the others are already back. We are a team. I don’t want to see this kind of thing happen again.”

After I hung up, Tong Wei took my bag and went over to the campfire to drink with his arm around Xiaoya.

The bonfire blazed, and they kept the noise up until very late.

I leaned against Jiang Haoyan, my eyelids feeling heavy as waves of drowsiness washed over me.

“Alright, leave two people on night watch. Everyone else go to sleep. We have work to do tomorrow.”

“Yellow Hair, get over here-how the hell can you take so long just to take a piss?”

Tong Wei waved toward the distance. Following his gaze, I saw the young man with yellow hair walking sluggishly toward us.

For some reason, his movements were exceptionally stiff. He was walking with his arms and legs in sync, looking incredibly bizarre.

Tong Wei clearly sensed something was wrong too. He reached into his jacket pocket and gripped the gun inside.

“Yellow Hair, get over here!”

Yellow Hair stumbled a few steps toward us before finally losing his strength. He collapsed, reaching a hand out toward me.

Under the orange glow of the fire, his face was horribly distorted. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth was agape, making a rasping “he-he” sound.

“Save… snake…”

Taking one more step, Yellow Hair fell to the ground, his limbs twitching violently.

He was wearing a windbreaker and athletic pants. At that moment, his clothes and pants were bulging irregularly in various places. A moment later, a strange snake the thickness of a wrist slithered out from the collar of his jacket.

The snake was entirely brown with a red line down its back. On its triangular head sat a strangely shaped fleshy growth that stood upright like a rooster’s comb.

“Holy shit!”

Tong Wei jumped back and immediately fired several shots at the strange snake.

The sound of gunfire startled the Man-eating Snakes. More of them began slithering out from Yellow Hair’s pant legs and sleeves.

One of the snakes flicked its tongue, its body undulating as it rushed rapidly toward Jiang Haoyan and me.