The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 37: Weather Change

I followed her into the ship's cabin, which was filled with so many piles of things that there was hardly any room to place my feet. It seemed that they had prepared everything in a hurry since all of the equipment had been thrown by the entrance at random. I looked around as I walked, noting that it was mainly large-scale instruments, food, ropes, and diving equipment, most of which were oxygen tanks.

We passed through the pile of goods and arrived at the rear of the cabin, which was connected to the engine room. There were several pallet beds scattered here and there that were covered with blankets that had been blackened with motor oil. On one of the beds sat a shiny-faced middle-aged man who was a little fat and balding. When he saw me come in, he stood up nervously and shook hands with me while saying, "Nice to meet you, nice to meet you. My surname is Zhang."

I didn't have a good first impression of him but I still shook his hand out of courtesy. I was surprised to find that his grip was very powerful, which made me think that he had done manual labor before.

Miss Ning introduced to us, "Mr. Zhang is a consultant specially invited by our company. He's an expert who specializes in the study of underground palaces of the Ming Dynasty. This time, he's mainly responsible for analyzing this undersea tomb."

I didn't have much interest in the world of orthodox archaeology so I hadn't heard of his name, but when I saw the pleased look on his face, I had no choice but to say, "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

The bald man waved his hand exaggeratedly and said, "I don't deserve to be called an expert. I'm just doing research like everyone else. It's just that I was lucky and happened to publish several papers. They're just small achievements, nothing worth mentioning."

I had never seen anyone talk like this before and didn't know how to respond so all I said was, "You're too modest."

He readily accepted this bit of flattery and shook my hand even more vigorously while asking me, "May I ask what role Mr. Wu was invited here for? With all due respect, it seems that your subject of study is relatively obscure. Or maybe I'm just ignorant. I don't recall ever seeing Mr. Wu's name in any archaeological magazines."

I didn't know whether it was intentional or not, but these words came off sounding very condescending. I was the type of person who got irritated easily so I almost went off as soon as I heard them. But then I remembered that I had only just boarded the boat and the environment was still unfamiliar so I suppressed my anger and said curtly, "I specialize in excavating soil."

My tone was already bordering on rude but he didn't seem to notice it at all and continued talking, "Oh, are you an architect? No wonder. As it turns out, we're not in the same circle but we can still be considered half peers. You build houses for the living while I study houses for the dead. We still have something in common."

When I heard this, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. What he was saying was absolute nonsense, but he said it so seriously that I could tell he truly believed it. I quickly interrupted him, "I'm not an architect, I'm an excavator. If you want to study houses of the dead, I have to dig them up first."

I regretted saying this as soon as the words left my mouth. I still hadn't told them whether I would go down into the tomb myself or not. Plus, we didn't know what the current situation down there was like. There was no way I would come to a decision until I had actually seen what we were up against. After thinking about it, I added, "But whether we dig or not at that time will depend on the situation. If the situation doesn't allow for it, you won't be able to dig even if you want to."

He didn't seem to notice the implication of my words and just kept trying to hand me his business card while saying that the more friends you had, the more paths were open to you. He also said that if I was ever in the north in the future, I could ask him for help. We had met less than two minutes ago but he was already acting like we had been friends for more than ten years. I figured that if we continued to chat, we'd end up becoming sworn brothers so I quickly changed the subject and asked the woman about the area where the incident occurred.