“Grave Robbers’ Chronicles”

Chapter 7: The Great Evils

The more Sun Laoer talked, the angrier he became. The veins on his forehead bulged, and it seemed that he was on the verge of hitting someone at any moment.

Sun Laosan also shook his head and sighed. Then he pressed the walkie-talkie and said, "Boss, there's a new situation down here. This tomb has already been robbed."

There was a minute of silence on the walkie-talkie. Then Boss Wang said in a cold voice, "When was it robbed? Have you entered the main tomb chamber yet?"

"No, we're still in the tomb passage. Just now, a towel was washed over by the stagnant water. There's no need to think about it. It must have been stolen not long ago. Boss, you know how those people from the south operate. There are rarely any valuable things left in the tombs they've robbed."

Boss Wang thought for a moment and said, "Laoer, in that case, go into the main tomb chamber and have a look. If there's nothing in the main tomb chamber, you don't need to go to the side chambers either. Just pack up your tools and come up."

"Okay, boss," Sun Laoer put down the walkie-talkie.

I don't smoke, and my nose is quite sensitive. At that moment, I suddenly smelled a fragrance, a faint fragrance.

"Second brother... Why is there a burning fragrance?" I asked in confusion.

Upon hearing what I said, Sun Laoer exaggeratedly sniffed hard in the direction ahead.

Then he turned his head to look at Sun Laosan, and a trace of surprise flashed in his eyes.

"That's right. We didn't notice it just now. It's nanmu fragrance." His face suddenly became a bit solemn.

"Second brother, third brother, what's wrong? What's wrong with this nanmu fragrance?" Seeing their solemn expressions, I was a bit puzzled.

I thought to myself that in the past, wealthy people were buried in golden nanmu coffins after death, and it was quite normal for golden nanmu wood to have a nanmu fragrance, wasn't it?

The relaxed expressions on the faces of the Sun brothers disappeared.

"Yunfeng, give me your hand."

"Ah? What do you want my hand for?" I stretched out my hand in confusion.

"Second brother, what are you doing!" I couldn't help crying out in pain as my finger hurt.

It turned out that he had cut my finger with a sharp little dagger.

The bright red blood flowed out, and the Sun brothers, one after the other, smeared a little of my blood on their wrists.

"Second brother, third brother, why are you smearing my blood?" I complained while sucking on my injured finger.

Sun Laoer told me at that time, "Yunfeng, in our line of work as tomb raiders, we're very afraid of encountering the Four Great Evils and the Six Minor Evils."

"Guardian beasts with cross-eyes, extraordinary agarwood with a faint fragrance, black coffins with unfaded red paint, and eternal-burning oil lamps. These are called the Four Great Evils. This is the rule passed down by our ancestors. Blood can break the evil."

What he said was rather mysterious, but I didn't take it seriously. Was he trying to scare me like a child?

I said in a aggrieved whisper, "Then... then why didn't you cut your own fingers? Why did you cut mine..."

Sun Laoer stroked my head and said with a sinister smile, "Our blood won't work. We need virgin blood. Yunfeng, I'm afraid you haven't even held a girl's hand, have you?"

I was at a loss for words.

Then I deliberately changed the topic and argued, "Then what are the Six Minor Evils?"

Sun Laosan shook his head and said to me, "Yunfeng, you've just entered the business and haven't seen many things. You don't know. These are all sayings passed down by the old-timers in the trade."

"Quicksand tombs, heavenly fire pouring down from above, the tomb owner's body not decomposing, the seven orifices stuffed with beads, the outer coffin being larger than the inner coffin, and rats making nests (rats living in coffins). These are what tomb raiders in the old society called the Six Minor Evils."

"Among the three hundred and sixty trades, every trade has its own unique skills. In the old society, what we do as tomb raiders was called the Eight Side Doors. Now in the new society, we're called criminals. The Eight Main Doors are among the upper class, while the Eight Side Doors are among the lower class. Besides, there are also the Seven Yin Doors that deal with the dead."

Sun Laosan continued, "Yunfeng, now that you're in this line of work, you have to understand these things in the future. Otherwise, if others ask you and you don't know, you'll lose face for our Northern School. The so-called Seven Yin Doors refer to the corpse stitcher, the executioner, the corpse driver, the tomb blower (someone who uses wind to explore tombs), the paper figurine maker, the bone picker, and the small coffin maker (who specializes in making coffins for dead children). These are the Seven Yin Doors. Yunfeng, you have to remember them when you wander in the Jianghu in the future."

I really couldn't remember all these messy things at that time. I just felt that what he said was very complicated. I didn't know what he was talking about with all these seven doors and eight doors.

"All right, Laosan. He's still young. It's useless for you to say so much. Let's go and have a look at the main tomb chamber ahead," Sun Laoer shook his wrist and said, "We've got Yunfeng's virgin blood on us. It can break the evil!"

After wading through the water along the tomb passage for two or three minutes, the main tomb chamber still hadn't appeared. When we got closer and looked with our headlamps, there was a stone wall in front of us. It wasn't the main tomb chamber.

At this time, a gust of wind blew in from somewhere. My feet were soaked in the muddy stagnant water, and it felt chilly.

Walking under the stone wall, Sun Laoer looked up.

We could clearly see a big black hole in the ceiling of the tomb passage above us. The cool wind was blowing in from that black hole.

The shape of the hole was irregular. Sun Laosan frowned as he looked at the hole and said, "This was done by that group of people before. The ceiling we passed by just now wasn't blasted open. It seems that they changed the spot and blasted down from here. Judging from the shape of the hole, they should have used detonators."

Sun Laosan pressed the walkie-talkie and said, "Boss, if we go straight ahead, there's a stone wall. It's different from what we thought. It's not the main tomb chamber, and we haven't seen any funerary objects yet."

The red light on the walkie-talkie lit up, and Boss Wang gave instructions remotely, "A tomb with blue clay must have a main tomb chamber. Look around some more. Go to the west side chamber on the left and check the situation."

"Received, boss. How much time do we have left?"

"There are still two hours and forty-five minutes until the safe time at dawn. Try to speed up."

"Okay," Sun Laoer released the walkie-talkie and directly led me and Sun Laosan to bypass the stone wall and head towards the west side chamber.

It was my first time to see the side chamber of a tomb. In fact, it was just a hollowed-out small room. Looking at the water line marks on the wall, this place must have been completely submerged underwater before.

What did I see at that time?

At the first glance, I saw piles of bronze ware, a large number of bronze ware, randomly piled on the ground of the west side chamber. These bronze ware were either broken or intact, including small round tripods, square tripods, bronze he vessels, bronze dou vessels, and bronze jue vessels. At a rough glance, there were dozens of them!

"We're rich! We're rich!"

Sun Laoer's eyes turned red. He stammered into the walkie-talkie, "B... Boss! We're rich! There are dozens of pieces of bronze ware in the west side chamber! They have the black lacquer ancient mercury rust! They're genuine Western Zhou waterlogged goods!"

Boss Wang had seen big storms before. He said calmly through the walkie-talkie, "Transport them in batches and take them all out."

"Sure thing," Sun Laoer took out the snake skin bag he carried with him and casually complained, "Have those rats from the south turned vegetarian? They actually left us so many good things. I really want to thank their ancestors for eight generations on behalf of my mother!"

Sun Laosan was calm by nature. He frowned and said in a deep voice, "Second brother, I always feel that something's wrong. The noses of those rats from the south are no worse than ours. They couldn't have failed to smell so many good things. It doesn't make sense..."

Sun Laoer didn't even care that the mercury rust was poisonous. He picked up a small bronze square tripod and kissed it, "Haha, baby, come home with me!"

He also didn't forget to say.

"Laosan, I find that you're getting more and more timid. Why are you thinking so much? Laosan, let me ask you, if there were a bunch of female college students lying naked on the ground, what would you do?"

"Definitely deal with it later."