The Lost Tomb : Ten Years Later

Chapter 15: Aiya

My own personal Mystic Nine rule is: when you encounter difficulties, you should first ask your friends for help. Seeking help is actually the number one skill in the world, and those with such skills can accomplish almost anything. The last skill to activate this skill is called shamelessness. After yelling, I heard a series of tapping sounds, which was Xiao Hua's signal.

It appeared he was more cautious than me. The signal was coming from the channel on the left, so I picked Wang Meng up with one hand and started running.

There was the sound of claws scratching the brickface all around us. After the taser part of the flashlight had been used, the light was now dim, and I didn't dare look at the surrounding shaft walls for fear that the light would attract all the monkeys.

Everyone knew what Xiao Hua's signal meant. The tapping sounds were getting louder and louder, and when we ran to an intersection, Kan Jian also rushed out. His face was covered in blood from numerous scratches, and when he saw Wang Meng beside me, he pushed him away. "Die!"

Wang Meng staggered, and also wanted to rush up to fight, but I jumped up and smacked him on the back of the head. Our legs got tangled and all three of us fell. When I got up, I heard the tapping sound coming from behind me. It was clearly behind the wall, but I couldn't see anything when I turned around.

In the darkness, the sound of countless monkeys scratching the walls was getting closer and closer. We dared not make any noise as we slowly crawled over to the darkness where the tapping was coming from.

I heard the sound of breathing, and turned on the flashlight for a moment. I saw Xiao Hua and Wang Meng's men huddled in a corner behind a barrier of wine jars and broken bricks. The barrier blocked the whole passage, just like a wall. There were many gaps in the wall like the kind of shooting holes army bunkers had. Wang Meng's men were all armed with local guns and ready for battle.

When we approached, a jar was moved away to reveal a dog-sized hole in the corner where we could enter. The three of us carefully climbed into the hole and entered the "bunker", only to find that it was actually a wellhead. Someone was taking down the wine jars one by one and piling them in the direction that the monkeys were coming in. This would completely block the passage so that we could set up a defense and make an exit at the same time.

"There are birds out there." I mouthed. It just meant that going out would lead to a faster death. Xiao Hua mouthed back: "Huarong Road [1]."

I understood that we weren't going out, but going into the vertical shaft and blocking the bottom of the wellhead. It would take time for the monkeys to dig up these wine jars and climb up, but even if they made it through, it wouldn't be the same as how it was in the channel. When all the monkeys swarmed up, we could divide and conquer them.

And it wasn't like the human-faced birds could climb down, since they couldn't spread their wings in the wellhead. These things only moved in the dark, so we would be safe if we made it until dawn. As soon as I thought that, one of Wang Meng's men fired. The resounding gun blast was deafening, and everyone hunkered down. I looked out through the bunker's shooting hole and saw countless green lights flash in the firelight. They were all monkey eyes. I figured one of Wang Meng's men had gotten scared and fired accidentally.

"How many bullets do you have?" I asked urgently.

"Seven rounds!"

"Ten rounds!"

"Four rounds!"

"Nine rounds!"

I looked at Wang Meng. "Since you have a gun, can't you prepare more bullets?"

"I originally brought a lot, but then I was shooting at wild boars in the woods and found that they were all fake and couldn't do anything at all. The first bag we tried was real." Wang Meng said, very aggrieved. "We just divided the bag."

"Great." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as I looked at Kan Jian. He nodded, turned around, and flipped his waistcoat inside out. The inside was specially designed to hold all kinds of projectiles. "More than two thousand is enough, but even if it's not, I can make it work with the broken pieces of porcelain." As he spoke, he lifted up his slingshot, which was reinforced with stainless steel, and then pulled out a red rubber band from his belt. He untied the yellow rubber band that he had been using before, and wound the red rubber band around it.

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Note:

[1] Traditional puzzle involving sliding wooden blocks, loosely based on an episode in Three Kingdoms.