Chapter 213: Is This Really Okay?

Chapter 213: Chapter 213: Is This Really Okay?

Zhang Yun had originally come to rescue them, and of course he would do just that. However, not everyone had been found yet. At the very least, Zhang Long and Jin Lu were still missing. If he woke these two up now, their panic and fear would only drag him down. After a moment’s consideration, Zhang Yun hoisted the two of them up and headed back without waking them.

Returning to where he had found Zhang Long’s phone, he examined the nearby footprints once more. He set the two men down on the ground and began searching in the direction they had likely run from. He crested a small slope ahead and swept his flashlight around. The night air seemed tinged with mist, making the surroundings look unfamiliar. He had never been here before.

Zhang Yun searched for traces on the ground as he pressed forward. A few minutes later, he spotted a large mound of dirt at the foot of the hill. This had to be the ownerless Ancient Tomb Zhang Long and the others had mentioned!

There were no blue or red bricks, just a massive pile of earth. Perhaps it had originally been reinforced with stones, which had scattered after being washed away by rain over the long years. Overgrown with weeds and flattened by time, one wouldn’t even realize it was a grave without a close look. He wondered how Jin Lu had found this place.

Approaching with doubts, Zhang Yun illuminated the area with his flashlight and took a closer look. He found discarded pickaxes and shovels. A hole had already been dug out near the tombstone in the center. The tombstone had been tossed to the side. Zhang Yun crouched down to examine it, but the characters engraved on it were completely blurred. He couldn’t make out the surname or which village it belonged to.

"Jin Lu? It’s me, Zhang Yun," he called out softly toward the hole.

He had found Zhang Long’s phone, as well as Guang and Bao Sheng. If there was anyone else still here, it could only be Jin Lu. Robbing a tomb in the middle of the night and suddenly hearing one’s name called could scare a person to death. Zhang Yun didn’t dare shout, immediately announcing his own identity to be safe. After a moment, there was no sound, and his flashlight couldn’t clearly illuminate the situation inside.

The hole they had dug was large enough for a person to fit through. If anyone had actually gone in, it was probably the bravest of them all—Jin Lu. Zhang Yun deduced what might have happened: Jin Lu had gone inside, encountered a giant snake, and immediately screamed in terror. The three outside had approached, seen the snake, and fled in panic. Zhang Long had called him for help while running.

Running wildly in the pitch-black darkness, he dropped his phone but didn’t dare stop to pick it up. The three of them had scattered, and Guang and Bao Sheng had knocked themselves out by running into tree branches in the dense forest. This was likely what had transpired half an hour ago. Jin Lu had either run off in another direction, or he had passed out inside!

Zhang Yun didn’t want to enter the grave. It always felt like bad luck, even when he had entered that fake ancestral tomb last time. But he was already here. If things had played out as he deduced and Jin Lu had been bitten by a snake, he might be poisoned inside! Even if he wasn’t poisoned, Zhang Yun still had to get him out. He couldn’t stay in there for too long.

The longer an Ancient Tomb remained sealed, the more toxic the air inside became. It needed to be ventilated for a while, but since the opening was so small, the fresh air could only dilute the toxins, not fully ventilate the space. The traditional practice of lighting a candle during tomb raiding wasn’t to ward off ghosts. It was to check for oxygen—if the candle went out, it meant there was a lack of oxygen, and they had to evacuate immediately to avoid suffocation.

It had already been half an hour... Without time to overthink it, Zhang Yun took a deep breath and quickly crawled inside.

"Holy shit!"

He had barely crawled in a body’s length when he felt empty space ahead. He was about to tumble down! An ordinary person would have fallen right in, but Zhang Yun’s reflexes were incredibly sharp now. He immediately spread his legs, pressing against the dirt walls on either side to brace himself.

There was no light source inside the grave, leaving him entirely reliant on his flashlight. Zhang Yun discovered a cavity up ahead; no wonder he could only see dirt when shining the light from the outside. Given that Jin Lu and his group weren’t even at an amateur level, they had at best dug open the entrance by the tombstone. It was highly unlikely they had dug this crawlspace, let alone created the sunken cavity.

Zhang Yun shone his light around but didn’t see anyone. He crawled in and dropped down into the sunken cavity. It was about the height of a person and dug quite evenly, with stone slabs protruding from above to prevent it from collapsing. Looking down closely, he spotted another entrance below. He directed the beam at it, but since neither his line of sight nor the light could bend around corners, he couldn’t see what lay beneath.

Zhang Yun took another deep breath at the opening before carefully sliding down. Unexpectedly, it was just like riding a slide—he slid down a good twenty to thirty feet before coming to a stop. This was where the coffin was actually located!

Its layout was similar to the ancestral tomb at Old Tomb Ridge: the coffin rested in the center, surrounded by empty space. That ancestral tomb had been built using modern brick and cement, situated above ground and covered with piled earth. The scale of this construction was much grander—it had been built by digging twenty to thirty feet underground!

Built like this, let alone the current state of soil erosion and flattening, even if the entire burial mound collapsed, it would still keep this place safely buried. It was a good thing Zhang Long, Jin Lu, and the others were so amateurish that the structural support remained intact. If they had used explosives or something similar, the dirt would have immediately cascaded down and blocked this entrance.

Zhang Yun swept his flashlight around. Aside from the highly conspicuous coffin, Jin Lu was lying right beside it. His earlier deduction needed some revision: when Jin Lu crawled in, he had tumbled straight down, then slid through the lower entrance to arrive here, knocking himself out from the fall.

Even Zhang Yun had been startled just now, let alone Jin Lu. He must have screamed at the top of his lungs during those few seconds of falling, thinking a ghost had snatched him inside. Unaware of the truth, the people outside heard no response when they called out to him again, prompting them to bolt.

"Pardon the intrusion," he thought. Zhang Yun held his breath and silently bowed toward the coffin. He had never intended to rob the tomb; he just planned to grab Jin Lu and climb back up.

While pondering how to haul a person up with him, a sudden thought struck him. If this was a centuries-old Ancient Tomb, then the coffin was also an Ancient Artifact. Could it also contain Spiritual Energy? Zhang Yun didn’t want to open the coffin to rummage for burial goods, but simply touching it to absorb a little Energy didn’t violate his principles. It was just that... was it really okay to freeload off a coffin?

While his mind was still hesitating, his hand had already reached out and touched it! The moment he made contact, Energy surged toward him like a torrential waterfall!

Good heavens! Ever since he began interacting with Ancient Artifacts, this coffin was the largest one in volume—and it didn’t disappoint, possessing a boundless surge of Energy. After absorbing for a while, seeing that the flow showed no signs of stopping, Zhang Yun could no longer hold his breath. Ignoring the air quality down here, he began to breathe.

A few minutes later, the Energy transmission from the coffin finally ceased. Zhang Yun focused on the Mysterious Iron Ring, which faintly flashed a 10%. It had been at 1% before, reaching 4% after absorbing from the Bronze Venerable. To think this coffin was more than twice as effective as the Bronze Venerable! This was truly a pleasant surprise!

"I mean no offense. Thank you, Senior. I will repair the outside and do my best to prevent others from disturbing you!"

Zhang Yun was already very satisfied and had no desire to open the coffin to see what was inside. It wasn’t that he was afraid of a White Bone Zombie; he just felt it was disrespectful. There was no need to disturb someone’s eternal rest. After thanking the coffin, Zhang Yun grabbed Jin Lu’s arm and scrambled upwards using both his hands and feet. An ordinary person would find it incredibly difficult to scale several dozen feet up this slippery chute, but Zhang Yun could firmly brace his feet against both sides and step up one by one. Hauling a person along was no big deal.

After hauling Jin Lu out, Zhang Yun checked on him. It seemed he had only been knocked out from the fall, with no signs of poisoning. Zhang Yun didn’t give any thought to whether he might return in the future to open the coffin. He simply kept his promise, blocking up the hole and replanting the tombstone in its original spot.

Once he finished, Zhang Yun prepared to wake Jin Lu, then go find Zhang Long. Afterward, he would wake the other two and head back together. But to his shock, he found that Jin Lu was gone!

He broke out in a slight cold sweat. Where had he gone? There hadn’t been a single sound. What in the world had taken Jin Lu away?