The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 158: Wu Xie's Preparation

Suddenly, he heard some movement coming from under the ground.

There was a slight tremor, and then he saw something breaking through the ground about six or seven meters from the grave robbers' tunnel he had just blocked.

It was a shovel.

Then he saw Laborer wave the shovel a few times, part the firm soil around the place where he had come up from, and then climb out.

They had found that the entrance of the grave robbers' tunnel was blocked, and dug another way out.

After Laborer climbed up, the first thing he saw was Li Cu, and he froze on the spot.

Li Cu's crawling posture, the lack of trousers, and the stench made the whole scene strangely fascinating.

Then Leader climbed out, followed by Merchant, and they all froze.

Both sides looked at each other for a long moment, and Li Cu finally turned his face away when he saw the girl climb up. Even if she needed help after coming up, she was also stupefied by the scene.

The girl was really beautiful. How could there be such a beautiful girl in the world? He should just die right now!

Li Cu buried his head in the grass, and sent an apology to Boss Wu. I don't think I have the courage to live anymore. I've failed you.

He heard the sound of them moving about, and then someone slipped some paper into his hand.

Li Cu took the piece of paper, and saw that it was Leader. The blow was too great. He didn't know what expression to make, and blankly stared back as Leader said, "I won't help you. Handle it yourself."

Seeing them all go behind the vehicle, Li Cu quickly finished his business, pulled up his pants, and then Laborer came over and carried him back to the van.

The girl didn't look back at him, and all the others felt that this kind of thing couldn't be joked about. No one spoke, which made Li Cu feel even more uncomfortable.

"For the time being, let's say you accidentally blocked the hole after driving here. If you did it intentionally, you'd better not let me know." Leader said to him.

Li Cu nodded, and saw that nobody got back in the van, as if things hadn't been completed yet. Leader waved to Laborer, who used both hands to raise the front of the van, lift it out of the grave robbers' tunnel, and set it aside.

At the moment of release, Li Cu felt like something was wrong. The whole vehicle suddenly sank, and the front tilted downward at a very incredible angle. Then it sank again, and everything became dark all around him.

The car was in a free fall for less than a second before it crashed heavily into the mud. It was dark all around as the car flipped over, and Li Cu's wheelchair hit him hard on the head. With his head on the roof of the vehicle, his whole body was bent like a shrimp.

After making sure that the hole in his head hadn't smashed into something, Li Cu struggled to get up.

He couldn't see anything, and when he felt around, it was all mud.

It appeared the ground had collapsed, and he was buried alive.

"Help!" Li Cu shouted several times, but his voice couldn't reach outside the vehicle.

This is karma for messing around, Li Cu said to himself.

**

Let's flash back to a mountain depression in Changsha.

Wu Xie was sitting alone beside the concrete road with a heavy bag next to him, his car parked not far away. In order to make room for others on the road, he had pulled off to the side and parked half on the pavement and half on the grass. The vehicle was tilted because of it, but no one had passed since he had arrived here.

He was smoking, the slight disdain for this next job making him want to procrastinate a little. But he soon finished his cigarette, and couldn't delay anymore.

He walked to the mountain depression, came to a spot, pulled out a folding shovel from his backpack, drank a mouthful of mineral water, poured the rest of it on the ground so the hard, dry soil would be wet, and waited for a moment before he dug it up.

He soon found what he was looking for. This was a tomb that Uncle Three had entered before, and the previous grave robbers' tunnel was still there. Not only was Uncle Three's tunnel there, but there were more than sixty such tunnels dug by previous generations throughout the ages.

This was one of the fragments left to him by Uncle Three. There were three identical fragments— or raw materials— and each was relatively critical and couldn't be wasted.

Wu Xie walked around and around these tunnels before choosing several points. He then went in and began digging through the channels between them.

The whole project lasted for four hours, during which time he dug the underground area here into a complex channel system, much like an ant's nest.

After that, he began to backfill and seal all the grave robbers' tunnels, except for the one Uncle Three had dug.

That one was the cleanest and strongest.

He entered the interior of the tunnel system and began burying small detonators at several points of his choice. These small detonators were originally used as fuses for larger explosions.

Wu Xie connected them to a small pedometer, which would activate the countdown device after it continuously sensed two hundred vibrations. These detonators were buried very deep, so it was only when a shovel hit the ground that the pedometer would jump.

About three hours after the countdown started, the detonators would go off. The sound would be very quiet, but the detonation would be very powerful. He had gone back over the application of structural mechanics which he had learned when he took architecture back in college. He knew that once the detonators exploded, the entire layer of soil would collapse.

He climbed up, carefully camouflaged all the areas that had been backfilled, and then left, mentally marking off one item from his to-do list.