Chapter 21 Third Person in the Dark

Although Uncle Three couldn’t believe it, when the idea popped into his head, he immediately broke out in a cold sweat. He put Xie Lianhuan down and quickly looked around.

He still didn’t see anything after scanning the tomb chamber—it was completely quiet. But as the dim light of his flashlight swept across the walls, an inexplicable chill seemed to invade his organs.

Uncle Three was different from normal people. As someone who had played underground ever since he was a child, he didn’t find the dead scary at all. To him, they were just objects. Although sometimes dangerous, it wasn’t like they were actively plotting against you. The living, however, were much different. As soon as Uncle Three realized that there might be a third person in the tomb chamber, he immediately became scared.

The blow to the back of Xie Lianhuan’s head could be serious or just a minor injury. Now, in TV shows and movies, they always show that if you want to knock a person out, all you have to do is hit them on the back of the head with something. But people like Uncle Three knew that in reality, the strength used to knock someone out was the same as the strength used to kill someone. Whether the person you knocked out lived or died all depended entirely on luck. Moreover, if you didn’t put enough force behind the hit, the person would only be dazed for a few seconds instead of passing out. The real way to knock someone unconscious without killing them was to hit them on the back of the neck. People who knew kung fu didn’t even have to hit them; all they had to do was use their hands to pinch the right spot on the back of the person’s neck to cause them to faint.

It was this last thought that had Uncle Three wondering why Xie Lianhuan had suffered so much. He knew that Xie Lianhuan had been hit by someone, and this person was obviously skilled. A mere trip-and-fall wouldn’t have been enough to knock Xie Lianhuan out, but there was too much blood to think that someone had killed him with a blow to the head. After all, a fatal blow would have caused internal bleeding rather than a cut to the scalp like this.

But how could someone else be down here?

If this was an ancient tomb on land, it was possible to run into another grave robber, although it wasn’t that common. But this was the bottom of the sea. Could someone else have learned about this place and snuck in?

Impossible. The probability of such a thing happening was too low. Thoughts started racing through Uncle Three’s mind, but it didn’t take him long to settle on one possibility.

Shit, did the people on the boat see him and Xie Lianhuan take off in their kayak? Did someone follow them down?

Now that the thought was in his head, he knew that it was absolutely possible. There likely weren’t any other ships nearby, and when he caught Xie Lianhuan trying to leave, he made a huge fuss. Did someone wake up from all the noise, but instead of yelling at them, they chose to follow them instead?

It had been pitch-black as they made their way to the reef, the water an endless sea of darkness reminiscent of Primal Chaos.⁽¹⁾ It was the type of darkness where nothing could be seen clearly, which meant that if someone had indeed followed them, they definitely wouldn’t have been seen by either Uncle Three or Xie Lianhuan. Besides, the two men were so focused on getting to the reef quickly that they didn’t think about such a possibility.

To be honest, Uncle Three didn’t think much of the members of the archaeological team at that time. He simply figured that if they were discovered, Chen Wen-Jin could help cover for him. After all, even if the other members became suspicious, there wasn’t anything they could do. That was why, when he and Xie Lianhuan set off for the reef, he wasn’t too worried about whether anyone would notice or not. But he never expected someone to secretly follow them.

Who could it be? He knew most of the members of the archaeological team, and although there were a few unfamiliar faces, he was usually pretty good at judging people. The only suspicious one was Xie Lianhuan. But then again, maybe it was one of the boatmen? There was a chance they saw him and Xie Lianhuan sneaking away and decided to follow out of curiosity.

But to get here, you had to have diving equipment. Those boatmen might have been good at swimming, but knowing how to operate diving equipment was a whole other matter.

In that case, this mystery person must be one of the archaeological team members. But who was it?

Uncle Three still couldn’t figure it out, but he knew that if this person had followed them by chance, they should have been willing to call out to him and Xie Lianhuan to talk. But instead, they chose to remain quiet and even used a lot of force to knock Xie Lianhuan out. He didn’t hear any shouting just now, which meant that this person must have launched a sneak attack. Knowing that the situation wasn’t good, Uncle Three decided to catch the person first and see what kind of character they were.

These thoughts flashed through Uncle Three’s mind as fast as lightning, and he quickly turned off his flashlight. As his surroundings plunged into darkness once more, Xie Lianhuan’s flickering flashlight was the only source of light left in the chamber. Uncle Three then squatted down, dropped to the floor, and rolled to the side.

This kind of maneuver was used to prevent the other party from knowing your location. Having the enemy stand in the light while you hid in the dark was the best position to be in, but Uncle Three took it a step further by dropping to the ground. This was because he was afraid that the other party would hear him moving around and throw something at the source of the sound. Chen Pi Ah Si, for example, could hit you just by listening to the sound of your heartbeat, even if you were standing absolutely still.

Uncle Three rolled more than a dozen steps until he felt that he was far enough away from the iron coffin. Then he stopped and listened for any sounds around him.

The tomb chamber was originally so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop, but it seemed to become even quieter as Uncle Three lay there motionless.

His heartbeat sounded like thunder in his ears, but he could still make out some strange sounds in the tomb chamber. They were so quiet that he couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from, but they were definitely close. There was a quiet rustling sound, accompanied by the sound of someone breathing, which had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

Sure enough, someone else was here.

Uncle Three cursed to himself and closed his eyes, straining to hear which direction the sounds were coming from.

But before he could figure it out, the sounds disappeared, as if the person realized that they had been noticed and was holding their breath.

Uncle Three’s heartbeat quickened and he slowly got up—if that person was nearby, he would be at a disadvantage lying on the floor since they might accidentally step on him.

He only made it halfway up before he suddenly heard the cracking sound of joints moving coming from behind him—the person was very close and standing somewhere to his left. Uncle Three immediately panicked and turned around, trying to back away from the source of the sound.

But at that moment, he suddenly felt a gust of air brush past his face. Not good, he thought to himself as he realized there wasn’t enough time to duck his head—a strong gust of wind suddenly came out of the darkness, quickly followed by a person rushing right towards him. As they threw him to the ground, Uncle Three immediately felt his flashlight get pulled from his belt, and then the person loosened their grip. Uncle Three jerked in an attempt to break free, but then his jaw suddenly went numb and his mouth filled with blood—the person had hit him with the flashlight.

At that moment, a thought flashed through Uncle Three’s mind, damn it, they can see me!

This person was able to accurately attack him in the dark, and even pull his flashlight from his belt in an instant. It was blatantly obvious that they could see everything clearly.

What’s going on? Do they have cat eyes or something?⁽²⁾

Feeling nervous, he violently jerked his head to the other side, but the person accurately swung the flashlight a second time, hitting him right on the nose. The blow was so powerful that Uncle Three couldn’t lift his head up, and a coppery taste filled his mouth.

At this time, Uncle Three truly felt terrified—he had always been the leader among the children ever since he was a child, and other than his father, he couldn’t think of a single person who had beaten him like this. Then, a murderous rage suddenly filled his heart, prompting him to lift his head and swing his knife wildly at his attacker.

But the blade didn’t connect, and all he got in return was another hard blow to the chin. It was so powerful that he no longer felt the pain in his jaw. Then, he felt his attacker grab his knife hand in a tight grip.

Lying on the ground like this meant that he couldn’t use his full strength to resist, so his hand ended up pinned to the ground. Uncle Three immediately swore, are you trying to fucking rape me? With that thought stuck in his head, he promptly raised his head and spit a mouthful of blood at his attacker.

Focusing on the feeling of the body pressed against him, he knew the exact moment when the other party recoiled. Uncle Three took advantage of that split second of weakness to twist his whole body and break free. The person, not expecting Uncle Three to break free, leaned down to pin him with their knees, but that just placed them right in Uncle Three’s trap.

When ordinary people fought, and one person was pinned down by another, the pinned person’s first thought was to break free once their opponent loosened his grip. But as long as the opponent was on top of you, it was very easy for them to pin you down again. That was why Uncle Three only pretended to break free—when the person pinned him down again, Uncle Three used his other hand to grab his waterproof bag with the human skull in it and swung it towards his attacker.

He didn’t know where it hit, but he heard the other party grunt and fall away from him. Uncle Three laughed, turned onto his side, and pushed himself up before grabbing the waterproof bag and throwing it towards the spot where he could hear the other person groaning.

Unfortunately, the bones in the bag must have shattered to pieces from the first blow, so throwing the bag probably wouldn’t harm the person this time. Uncle Three stumbled over to Xie Lianhuan’s flashlight, grabbed it, and pointed it behind him.

His previous plan of hiding in the dark to confront the person was useless now that he knew that they could see him. That also meant that he must have looked fucking ridiculous when he turned off the flashlight, dropped to the ground, and rolled away from the coffin just now. It seemed like the only way to deal with this person was to force them out.

But after sweeping the flashlight around the chamber, he didn’t see anyone—his attacker had disappeared.

At that time, he was so pissed that he couldn’t calm down at all. Realizing that the person was hiding, he immediately cursed and started looking for them with his knife in hand. But just as he walked around the coffin, he suddenly heard a splash coming from the place where he and Xie Lianhuan first entered the tomb chamber.

Are they fucking running away? Uncle Three immediately turned and ran after them. When he reached the stairs, he saw that the person had already dived underwater, leaving a bunch of ripples on the water’s surface. Uncle Three was so furious that he wanted to jump in after them, but when he saw how dark the water was under the flashlight’s glow, he realized that the person might be waiting to ambush him. Knowing that there was nothing he could do, he reined himself in, but he couldn’t resist pointing at the water and cursing the person out.

Since he didn’t know who it was, he simply cursed everyone on the boat except for Chen Wen-Jin.

But as he was cursing up a storm, he suddenly felt that something was wrong—he could hear a strange hissing sound coming from close by.

Uncle Three pointed his flashlight at the place where the sound was coming from and nearly fainted from shock.

The valve on his oxygen tank had been opened, and oxygen was escaping with a steady hiss.

<Chapter 20><Table of Contents><Chapter 22>

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TN Notes:

(1) In classical myths and legends (and in this context) it’s referring to the featureless, formless primordial state of the universe before it was created, hence the capitalization.

(2) If you didn’t know, cats have much better night vision than humans, but they do need a small amount of light to see in the dark. They can’t see in absolute darkness any more than we can, but they can see very well in low light.