novelBurial Grounds (XIII)
| ← Ch.066 | Ch.068 → |
Editor: Kitty
While Luo Jian was struggling internally over the issue, the current situation changed completely.
Luo Jian heard a very loud sound. It was the sound of the mechanism starting up. The sound was so loud that the ground seemed to shake. When Luo Jian was in doubt, he heard what the three people in the enemy's team had said. The woman mentioned, "The door of the main tomb vault is going to open. Someone is going to come in."
After that, the vampire team captain said, "Cover the coffin, extinguish the lights, and let us hide."
The three people carried out the commands rapidly. Luo Jian immediately sensed the light source in front of him disappear. He heard the sound of the sarcophagus being covered again, accompanied by the slight vibration of the sarcophagus, but Luo Jian still lay still. When he could not hear the footsteps of the three people, Luo Jian finally dared to open his eyes again.
What he could see was still pitch-darkness, and there were no forms of light sources in the sarcophagus. He was obviously enclosed in this sealed and narrow environment, but Luo Jian sighed in relief unconsciously. The act of feigning death had really placed him under a mountain-like pressure. After he recovered from his nervousness, Luo Jian found that his cold sweat had wet his back, and his thick ancient garbs made him a little uncomfortable and hot.
Now, what should he do now? As he laid in the sarcophagus, Luo Jian began to think. Moments ago, after listening to the discussion of the three enemies, it seemed that someone opened the door of the main tomb vault again. Luo Jian could not help but think about the huge stone gate and the tiger and dragon statues beside it.
Who would open the door this time? Luo Jian thought that there were only a few possibilities. The first was that the three enemies' remaining team members had been found just now. The second was that Luo Jian's team members had found this place. The third was that the stalkers had found this place.
Luo Jian was afraid that he would meet more than one stalker in this team battle.
As Luo Jian thought of this, he felt extremely troubled. If Feng YuLan and Duan Li found the main tomb vault, it would be the best scenario in Luo Jian's opinion. But the possibility was very low because when Luo Jian had separated from Feng YuLan and Duan Li, he remembered that Feng YuLan and Duan Li had gone into another passageway.
Even if Feng YuLan and Duan Li knew that they needed to go to the main tomb vault, he was not assured that they would be as lucky as Luo Jian. He chanced upon the water route accidentally and was directly washed up in front of the gate of the main tomb vault by the current! Along the way, he transcended all possible mechanisms and traps as if the horse he was riding on was merely following the lights.
The chances of meeting a teammate were very low. Luo Jian knew that. Therefore, he could not remain here without doing anything. He unconsciously started to touch everywhere around him. The stalker had helped him change into a set of ancient garbs and put on a big hat on Luo Jian. However, the hat should not really be called a hat. In ancient times, this headwear was known as Futou. It was a soft woven hat made of black yarn that was worn wrapped around the back of one's head. The headwear was slightly sticking up and tilted forward a little; two ribbons were tied at the front and two hung at the back of the neck. The ribbons could be either long or short. There were three or five styles. At the beginning, there would be a small amount of cropped hair revealed outside the hat. Gradually, the amount of cropped hair it showed increased. Futou originated from the Northern Qi Dynasty, and the headwear had gradually become fixed and unchanged in the early Sui and Tang Dynasties.
This kind of Futou was originally used by ancient men to tie their hair up, but Luo Jian didn't have long hair, so when the stalker had placed him into the costume, it seemed that he stuffed some cloth into it specifically to prop up the hat. However, this made Luo Jian's head feel particularly uncomfortable. Thus, he pulled the tightly wrapped soft hat off.
After that, something seemed to fall out of the hat. Something fell on the soft couch in the sarcophagus with a gu lu gu lu sound. After searching for it for a long time, Luo Jian found a small cylindrical object. He pressed the object here and there. Suddenly, a beam of light shone around the sarcophagus. Luo Jian lowered his head down and saw that the object in his hand was a small, palm-sized flashlight.
"This flashlight&#k2026;&#k2026; it's mine." Luo Jian studied the small flashlight. It was the same model as the one he had put in his combat suit to use, but now it was tucked into his hat. Therefore, it was obviously left behind by the stalker for him to use. The stalker seemed to have taken away every piece of Luo Jian's clothes, including the water, food, flashlights, and the small mirror that was his carry-on secret chamber.
Therefore, Luo Jian was currently impoverished. Except for the weapon he could summon, it seemed that even his underwear had been snatched away from him. Regarding this situation, Luo Jian felt extremely helpless. He really did not understand what Xing Yan was thinking. He just had to insist on changing his clothes and stuffing him into this narrow coffin.
"Wait, in the coffin?" Luo Jian took the small flashlight and shone through the sarcophagus. The inner space was really large. Luo Jian could even roll around in the sarcophagus. Soft cushions were placed in it for the dead to lie on. It seemed that some personal relics of the dead were also placed in the coffin.
Luo Jian found a jade pendant under a soft pillow. It was the kind of jade pendant that one would carry around everywhere. But it seemed that this jade pendant had broken, and only half of it was threaded on a thin string. Luo Jian wore the jade pendant around his neck and stuffed it under his clothes.
Shortly after, Luo Jian continued to search for relics in the sarcophagus. This time, he felt a sword under the cushion. A black sword. The hilt and scabbard were pure black, and the sword had no decorative pattern. Luo Jian tried hard to unsheathe the sword, but it was as if he had met with a resistance. The sword stayed tightly in the scabbard and refused to show its blade.
Luo Jian could not pull out the sword and did not bother with it. He placed the sword aside. After that, he rolled up the entire soft cushion in the sarcophagus. Following that, Luo Jian discovered a major secret. He found that there was a door under the soft mat in the sarcophagus!
Yes, there was a door in the sarcophagus, similar to the kind of hidden door that Luo Jian previously saw in the tomb vaults. On the small door of the sarcophagus, there was also an array formation mechanism. Luo Jian was familiar with the array formation, so he started to turn it. If he could not turn it to the left, he would turn it to the right. After turning the array formation, the hidden door vibrated slightly and opened.
The hidden door revealed a stairway that only one person could pass through at a time.
Luo Jian tugged at his clothes, which were inconvenient when he had to get things done, and shone the small flashlight lower. The stairway beneath the hidden door was very narrow and dark. Just by looking at it, Luo Jian felt it was like a stairway to hell. It really gave him the creeps.
But after deliberating, Luo Jian made his decision. If he remained in the sarcophagus, sooner or later, someone would realize something was not right. But if he went down there, he may find another way out. Since Luo Jian was not willing to wait for death, he naturally started to act. He took with him all the valuable things found in the sarcophagus—the jade pendant, sword, and scroll. Luo Jian had just opened the scroll to take a look at it. He confirmed that it was a scroll painting, and it was a portrait of a man. But Luo Jian had no time to study the scroll. Naturally, he brought everything he could.
Luo Jian entered the stairway through the hidden door, but he was worried. Before going down the stairs, he pulled at the soft cushions in the sarcophagus and smoothed it out so that the hidden door would be covered. Shortly after Luo Jian went down the stairs, the hidden door closed automatically.
However, before the hidden door closed, Luo Jian heard some noise from outside of the sarcophagus, seemingly from somewhere far. Someone was talking, and there was the sound of hurried footsteps. The sound was too vague. Luo Jian only hesitated for a moment before he continued walking down.
The stairway under the hidden door was very narrow and dark, and he had no idea where it would lead. It was very inconvenient for Luo Jian to continue walking down because the hem of the ancient dress on his body was very long, and it was the kind of clothes that dragged on the ground. Luo Jian kept stepping on his clothes when walking. He had to lift up his garb to continue ahead, similar as to how one would lift a skirt.
"Darn, why the hell did he dress me up into such meddlesome clothing?" As he went down the stairs, Luo Jian murmured discontentedly, but he didn't dare to relax his vigilance. The stairs were so long that he did not reach the bottom for a very long time. However, Luo Jian could not stand the troublesome ancient clothes. Therefore, he took out his knife, tugged his clothes, and swung his knife down to cut off several sections of cloth. Following that, the hem of Luo Jian's clothes became ragged, revealing Luo Jian's legs, which wore black boots.
After the clothes were cut shorter, it became convenient to move. Shortly following that, Luo Jian looked at his wide sleeves and simply cut the sleeves, turning the clothes into a short-sleeved ancient garb. However, one sleeve was longer, and the other was shorter. The shortened sleeves exposed Luo Jian's arms and elbows.
However, after the sleeves were shortened, Luo Jian felt that his arms felt particularly cold. After all, the temperature of the tomb was very low. The normal temperature of the tomb was only about 10 degrees, so the tomb felt really chilly to him. Therefore, Luo Jian picked up a piece of cloth from the ground and tied it around his two arms as if he were bandaging them. This not only kept him warm but also would prevent scratches.
After cutting his clothes, Luo Jian continued to walk down the stairway. After about ten minutes, the stairway finally ended, and another stone gate appeared in front of Luo Jian. However, the stone gate was much smaller. There were no statues on either side of the stone gate to guard it. Seeing the gate, Luo Jian heaved a sigh of relief. Just as he was going to study how to open the door, Luo Jian heard voices coming from above him in the stairway.
Luo Jian instantly raised his head up to look toward the top of the stairway. It was pitch dark, but Luo Jian vaguely heard the sound of the mechanism starting mixed with the sound of someone speaking. It seemed that the hidden door in the sarcophagus had been found, and someone was coming down!
Inwardly, Luo Jian felt a chill in his heart and the imminence of a crisis. He immediately began to study how to open the door in front of him! There was another array formation mechanism on the top of the stone gate, but when Luo Jian turned it to the left, it did not respond. When he turned it to the right, it did not respond either. Luo Jian felt anxious and kicked the stone gate twice, but this action of his was useless. The stone gate was still tightly closed and remained unopened.
At this time, Luo Jian heard the footsteps coming down from the stairway. Someone had come down! And there was the sound of more than one set of footsteps, which showed that there was more than one person coming down! At once, Luo Jian became nervous, and his heart began to beat violently. A sense of dismay slowly spread inwardly. He circled around twice on the spot, and he couldn't think of any countermeasures at the moment.
Luo Jian tried to force himself to calm down. He closed his eyes and opened them after several moments. Ignoring the approaching footsteps, he began to look at the stone gate in front of him again. There was nothing notable about the stone gate apart from the array formation.
Luo Jian calmed down and looked at the array formation on the stone gate carefully. Then, he found that there was a huge defect in the array: There was a missing corner on the array formation. It felt as if it had been deliberately wrecked. This seemed to be the reason why the mechanism could not be started. After that, doubts befell Luo Jian. Since the mechanism was destroyed, the door probably could not open. If it could not open, how would Luo Jian escape?
The sound of footsteps in the stairway became clearer, occasionally accompanied by the sound of someone talking. Luo Jian knew that they might have found the cloth he had dropped when cutting his clothes. At this moment, Luo Jian's body started to emit cold sweat again, and his palms were also sweaty. He stared at the broken mechanism on the door, and for the first time, he felt there was nothing that could be done.
What to do? What should I do?
The footsteps in the stairway were getting closer and closer, and the voices of several people were heard. Luo Jian heard a very familiar female voice, the voice of the woman in the enemy team he had heard while lying in the coffin! Luo Jian immediately realized that the man who had just opened the door of the main tomb vault was one of the two remaining companions of the enemy team!
Luo Jian turned the light of his small flashlight off and backed up against the stone gate. He looked up at the dark stairway. Now, the stairway was no longer pitch black. Luo Jian could vaguely see a little light coming from the top of the stairway. The light came from a flashlight that was shining its light everywhere. At the moment, Luo Jian felt extremely desperate.
What would happen if the enemy found him?
Luo Jian smiled bitterly. Did he still need to ask? Naturally, he would be killed.
At this moment, Luo Jian realized that the secret chamber was really such a cruel place. People slaughtering one another was brought into plain sight. The chamber bloodily stripped away all pretence and placed all the ugliest and sinful personifications of mankind into their line of sight without bothering to hide or disguise them.
But it was precisely because of this that the reality would always cause people to lose all hope.
| ← Ch. 066 | Ch. 068 → |