The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 1: Blood Corpse

50 years ago, Changsha Dart Summit.

Four grave robbers were squatting on a mound, all of them silent as they stared at the Luoyang shovel(1) on the ground.

The shovel head was holding the old soil that had just been brought out of the ground. Strangely enough, this soil was constantly seeping a bright red liquid, as if it had just been dipped in blood.

"This is a big problem," Lao Yantou said as he knocked his tobacco out onto the ground. "There's a blood corpse down below. We're all going to die down there if we aren't careful."

"Are we going down or not? Just give us a one-word answer—yes or no. There's no need to be so longwinded!" A young man with only one eye said. "If your old legs make it too inconvenient for you, just don't go down. My brother and I will go instead. Whatever it is, we'll just shoot it."

Instead of getting angry, Lao Yantou just laughed and said to the bearded man next to him, "Your son is quite impulsive and arrogant. You have to educate him more. Otherwise, something might happen. In this business, just having a box-gun doesn't mean you're set."

The bearded man glared at the young man, "You son of a bitch, why are you talking to the old man like that? You were still fucking eating shit in your mother's belly when the old man was robbing graves."

"Why am I...wrong? Didn't senior grave robbers use to say that blood corpses are a good thing? There must be a lot of treasure below. If we don't go down, we'll definitely regret it."

"You dare talk back to me?!" The bearded man raised his hand to hit him, but Lao Yantou blocked it with his pipe.

"Don't beat him. He's not so different from how you were when you were younger. This is what we call 'the lower beam will be crooked if the upper beam isn't straight'!"

When the one-eyed boy saw that his father was being scolded, he lowered his head and started to snicker. Lao Yantou coughed and then hit the one-eyed boy upside the head with a stick, "What are you laughing at? When it comes to blood corpses, anything can happen. Last time, your uncle dug up this kind of thing in Luoyang and has been crazy ever since. Nobody knows what happened to him. Later, I'll go down first and then you follow behind me. Er Yazi(2), you grab the tuhaozi(3) and bring up the rear. San Yazi you'll stay here. If all four of us go down at once and something happens, we won't be able to escape quickly. You'll hold onto one end of the tuhaozi's rope and pull things out as soon as we give a shout."

The youngest boy was unconvinced, "I don't want to! You're playing favorites! I'll tell mom about this!"

Lao Yantou laughed, "Look, look. San Yazi is still such a brat. Stop making trouble and wait here. I'll find you a golden knife later."

"I don't want you to find it. I want to find it myself."

The one-eyed youth immediately became angry and grabbed his brother's ears, "You bastard, are you looking for trouble? Are you trying to make me mad on purpose?!"

The youngest boy seemed to have been beaten a lot and often. When he saw that his big brother was really angry, he became too scared to say anything. He looked straight at his father for help, but his father unexpectedly went to put their equipment in order. His brother seemed pleased with this and added, "Why are you such a disappointment? The old man won't help you this time. If you try and raise a fuss again, I'll fuck you up!"

Lao Yantou smacked him on the shoulder and shouted, "Boys, let's get our equipment!" With that said, he started shoveling dirt like a whirlwind.

Half an hour later, a grave robbers' tunnel with no end in sight had been dug. Except for his brother who came up from time to time for air, the youngest boy couldn't even hear any sounds coming from the hole. He became impatient and shouted into the hole, "Grandpa, did you dig through?"