The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 43: Express Delivery Items

Su Wan's father got rich early, so he bought a house at that time. Su Wan's family lived in a very large, old villa and the whole house covered an area as large as four of Li Cu's houses. Most of the rooms were empty and hadn't even been decorated, and the yard was very well trimmed. His father liked gardening so the yard was full of all kinds of green plants.

Su Wan's mother was a housewife who played mahjong all day long. As soon as they entered the yard, they could hear the sound of mahjong tiles coming from the back room. Su Wan and Li Cu couldn't go in through the main entrance since they had cut class, so they stole into the house from the side entrance. His room was on the second floor, and was bigger than Li Cu's whole house. After entering, Su Wan closed the door. The room was dark and the curtains hadn't yet been drawn.

When Li Cu saw that Su Wan's bed was a mess, it became obvious that his mother hadn't tidied up his room, which wasn't surprising.

The other places were too dark to see clearly as Su Wan went over and pulled the curtains open, letting the sun in. It was after two in the afternoon when the sun was at its highest, so the whole room was lit up.

Li Cu was shocked at the sight. Su Wan's remark that "my room is full" wasn't an exaggeration at all.... the room was really full. Li Cu's eyes were full of countless express packages of varying sizes, and he could see that some had already been opened, but many others hadn't.

Su Wan had his own mini fridge in his room, and it was almost buried under the express packages. He moved some of them aside, took two cans of coke out of the fridge, handed them to Li Cu, and then explained, "There's too many of them. I didn't have time to unpack them, but I later discovered a trick. I know what's in any package without opening it."

"All those things are different?"

"Right, but they're all still awesome. I'll show you what I found in one." As Su Wan crawled under his bed and poked through several boxes, Li Cu found that several of them were full of risqué manga like "My H Life with the Female Demon". Sure enough, these rich kids were really corrupt at heart, but the most hateful thing was that he didn't share these evil things with his best friend.

Huh? He suddenly thought, did Su Wan receive adult videos? Is that why he looks so excited and hid them under the bed?

When the box containing the manga was pushed out of the way, Su Wan pulled up a board from under his bed, and grabbed something that was covered in newspapers. Li Cu knew at a glance that it definitely wasn't what he was expecting, and he waited as Su Wan opened the newspaper wrapping.

Li Cu tried to guess what was in it. Although there wasn't much time, he still had to be fully prepared and didn't want to be frightened by whatever was revealed. But as soon as the newspaper was opened, he was still blindsided.

He saw a row of brand-new looking rectangular iron boxes, like an enlarged version of the Moonlight Treasure Box [1].

"What is this?" Li Cu asked.

Su Wan picked it up, pulled on it, and then fiddled with it for a bit until a click sounded and the iron box was instantly transformed into a submachine gun. "Folding submachine guns." Su Wan said as he took out a long magazine from the side, inserted it, and loaded it. "Each one is equipped with more than 200 rounds."

"Is it fake?" Li Cu took it and found that the gun was so heavy that he couldn't hold it unless he used some strength.

"I tried to shoot some cans in the suburbs." Su Wan showed an intoxicated expression. "It's so awesome! That recoil... I never thought I'd have the chance to play with real guns in China."

"Why are they sending you guns? What do they want you to do?"

"They're not for me, these guns are for you." Su Wan said. "I should be the one asking. What do they want you to do?"

Li Cu counted and found that there were five folding submachine guns among the disassembled parts, with a total of more than a thousand bullets. There were also other things there that weren't weapons, many of which he could hardly identify. There were many old bottles, for example, that looked like antiques at first glance, but they could also be realistic fakes. There was also a large quantity of miscellaneous items all sealed in plastic foam. Even if you didn't remove the foam, you could still see that the various objects included bronze bottles, fragments, and many kinds of jewelry, such as gold hairpins and jade rings.

The rest was all field equipment: ropes, lights, buckles, GPS, hardtack, etc.

What finally made them panic was that after they had unpacked all the boxes, they found that two of the particularly heavy ones were filled with a white and yellow soap-like substance, and the powder left a residue when they touched it.

"Shit, this isn't heroin, is it? We're not going to be accomplices to a drug trafficking ring, are we?" Li Cu asked.

"Not us, you!" Su Wan immediately said. "It's over. You're dragging me into trouble. Do you think we'll be shot after we're caught?"

Li Cu picked up the soap-like substance and looked carefully at the corners. He found a nail-sized steel seal on the corner of each piece of "soap" that read: C4.

"This... this is something more dangerous than heroin." Li Cu stammered, "This is... this is C4 explosive."

"Explosives? Are they powerful?"

"Well, when I was playing Metal Gear, I learned that this stuff...in these quantities... when it explodes, all the glass within three hundred meters will break, and not even the building will be left standing."

The C4 box was piled up at the head of Su Wan's bed, and he immediately took a deep breath and pushed them away. "What do they really want? Are we going to war?"

"Have you noticed anything wrong?" Li Cu asked. "When I opened the packages just now, I found that there was something wrong with them. I think I know what they want to do."

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Note:

[1] Probably it's just some magical item used to travel through time and space. The characters (月光宝盒), from the movie "A Chinese Odyssey". The references refer to it as an item in a Chinese PC game. It also seemed to be likened to Pandora's Box if that helps.