The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 156: Woman

Su Wan didn't give him an answer, but he silently remembered the address. He didn't know whether he would go or not, but he understood what Black Glasses meant. He was originally a total outsider— still was— but all he saw right now was his fate returning back to square one. He hadn't seen anyone else, and didn't know if their stories would coincide with his own. If they did, it wouldn't be wrong to prepare early, whether it was to protect himself or others.

There's no younger generation. You're the only ones.

Black Glasses once said this unintentionally.

He actually knew the answer in his heart, and would eventually choose what direction to go in. Wasn't he just a pitiful creature hoping to save for a rainy day, after all?

Young Su Wan left the sand sea, and soon returned to his own life. It wasn't until a year later that he met Li Cu and Yang Hao again. At that time, everyone's fate had undergone dramatic changes that none of them had expected.

There was only one person left under the sand sea, and Wu Xie's plan was continuing to advance slowly with a strong thrust.

*

Li Cu was still in his wheelchair when he came face-to-face with the woman. He couldn't believe that the grave robber they had been waiting on for several days was such a person. It wasn't that he discriminated against women— he never discriminated against things he didn't understand—he just thought there should be more talents if it was such an important plan. It felt a bit weak if only one woman appeared.

Moreover, did this group of big men want to watch the woman do some rough work alone while they roasted crabs by themselves? This wasn't in line with his aesthetics at all.

The reason he said this was because he had noticed that the black urn coffin had been carried to the vehicle. It seemed that they were ready to carry it to the scene to eat. Those copper coins were also placed in the car, and the fact that the merchant wouldn't tell him why always made Li Cu feel so uncomfortable. He would probably stay in the vehicle during the whole process. Why was he stuck with this thing again?

When they reached the woman, Li Cu felt that she looked familiar, and carefully tried to recall it. He suddenly remembered that he had seen her on the boat after he had been thrown into the river.

When he got a closer look at her, he found that she was very small and thin, and looked like those fragile little college bunny girls.

Her face was quite beautiful, and he figured she was a little older than him, but not as mature as Liang Wan. When he looked carefully, he felt that the girl's loveliness and beauty weren't of the same grade as the girls he had seen before.

The girl was very pale, and that, coupled with her delicate facial features, gave her a charm that was different from the norm.

When the two sides met, they simply shook hands and started packing their luggage into the vehicle without saying anything. Li Cu thought the two sides would introduce themselves, but the woman was unexpectedly placed in the front seat of the vehicle and separated from Li Cu by a row. The leader said to Li Cu, "Don't say a word to this woman. I don't want to see you communicating with her, or I'll punish you."

"Is that your girlfriend?" Li Cu asked, but he thought that couldn't be right. If she was on that boat, then she should be one of Master Hua's people or something. How did she end up working with these people?

The leader ignored him, so Li Cu asked, "What if she wants to talk to me?"

"She won't talk to you. If she has any form of communication with you, her companions will encounter some bad luck." The leader answered him. "She'll do her task, and that'll be it."

Li Cu gave an "oh", his heart suddenly realizing that she was here under coercion. He didn't feel any surprise, nor did he think of his own situation.

He wasn't entirely sure how his situation should be classified, but he was like a patient with a terminal case of Stockholm Syndrome.

The girl didn't look back, but sat silently in the vehicle as they started driving around everywhere in the mountains. When they reached a place where no one was around, they got out of the vehicle and began inserting the Luoyang shovel into the soil. They compared the smell of the soil they picked up with that of the soil they took from the incense burners.

Li Cu didn't have the basic knowledge, but he had seen many special interest stories on the internet in recent years, and still had some knowledge of Luoyang shovels.

At first, he thought these people were doing a blanket search, but later, he found that they were often backtracking. They could obviously distinguish the subtle difference in smell of the soil, and adjust the direction of their search.

The scope of their search consisted of them randomly driving more than a dozen kilometers, but by sunset, they had narrowed it down to a mountain depression. The vehicle couldn't go any further, so a group of three men consisting of the young man, the merchant, and another black-clad person climbed up and down the mountain depression with Luoyang shovels.

There was no farmland here, which made Li Cu think that it was probably due to problems with the soil quality. It would be difficult to plant anything in this field, which was why it was abandoned.

This also indicated that the tomb was in this area.

The leader had been reading all kinds of documents with a worried frown, as if they were bills. He didn't know why, but judging from the man's expression when he swiped the card in the morning, Li Cu kept feeling like the man regretted the price of the hotel they had slept in last night. Or maybe there was something hidden in those bills that he didn't know about.

The girl was resting in the front seat with her eyes closed, and really hadn't said a word.

Li Cu was bored out of his mind, and decided to give these people nicknames. The leader would be called Leader, and the merchant would be called Merchant. The young man... he figured giving him the nickname of Young Man was too ordinary, so based on his characteristics, he should be called Farmer. After that were the two black-clad men. They had no special features, and only worked when Farmer and Merchant were trying to do something but were short on manpower.

One of them seemed to have a lot of strength, though. He did a lot of lifting work, and carried Li Cu around the most, so Li Cu decided to call him Laborer [1]. Laborer was busy over there digging up dirt with Farmer and Merchant.

There was still one black-clad person left, who was the most beautiful one among them. There was a very delicate beauty between his brows, but it wasn't a kind of fierce beauty. It was a softer and gentler appearance, and Li Cu hated such handsome men the most. He decided to call this guy "Gigolo" [2].

Gigolo had never done anything in front of Li Cu, and seldom spoke, but it seemed that he had to wash everyone's clothes. Li Cu originally wanted to call him Babysitter, but he was still very disgusted after looking at his appearance, so he decided to call him Gigolo.

When the moon rose above the wilderness, there was a whistle from among the weeds. It was from Merchant. The girl opened her eyes and, accompanied by Leader, went to the place where the whistle had come from. This time, Li Cu heard Gigolo speak a complete sentence for the first time.

"Came here for nothing."

"What do you mean?" Li Cu asked.

Gigolo glanced out of the corner of his eye, directing Li Cu's gaze to the girl's hand before he looked at his own: "The skin on her hands is in good condition. She doesn't understand anything. She's going down there to die." [3]

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Notes:

[1] Pinyin is "kuli" which can mean: bitter work / hard toil / (loanword) coolie, unskilled Chinese laborer in colonial times.

[2] Pinyin is "white face", but that could also means "gigolo" and we all know that's way more hilarious.

[3] Basically saying her hands aren't rough so she hasn't done any hard labor/lacks experience.