Chapter 1349 — Back Into the Ancient Tomb
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
No wonder the husband-and-wife bandits went tomb robbing with so few hands, unafraid that others might turn on them and pick them clean. So they were all experts. Especially that male bandit — a thornbush no one could touch; touch him, and your own hands would come away dripping blood.
"The male bandit is indeed no simple man. Even those around him are cultivators, all at the peak of the late Yellow-rank, a single step from the Mystic-rank!" Old Yu said flatly.
"You flatter me." Wei Zhao smiled, and said no more.
Old Hei, James, and Yu Xiaoke came down one after another on the lift. This time, however, neither Old Hei nor James brought any helpers down with them, for they knew full well that in Old Yu's eyes their helpers were nothing but floating clouds; even facing Wei Zhao, those men would be like watermelons under a knife, one cut apiece.
And so Old Hei did not even send word for the helpers he had hired afterward to come — simply because, if they came, they still could not stand against Old Yu.
This time the searchlight gave no trouble. The last time, it had failed halfway along the route; now that he thought of it, that too had been Young Master Hao's handiwork — he alone could have tampered with the equipment in advance.
The group reached the mechanism before the entrance of the underground palace without mishap, and did not take again the wrong path they had taken the day before.
The entrance of the underground palace here had likewise been blasted open with explosives, plainly the work of the tomb robbers who came before. Whether that man had entered the palace was impossible to say; at least nothing showed on the surface.
"Here it is!" Seeing the blasted-open entrance of the underground palace, Old Hei could not help calling out in delight. "That way over there used to be blocked by stone. Plainly whoever blasted this robbers' hole found that path suspect and sealed it up with stone. The true robbers' hole is here!"
Following where Old Hei pointed, the group looked. On the stone door at this entrance of the underground palace was a wheel, somewhat like the combination lock on a safe, and upon the stone door there were still marks of blasting — surely the work of the earlier tomb robbers. But clearly the material of this stone door was exceptionally sturdy: ordinary explosives could never have destroyed it, yet too violent an explosive dared not be used. After all, this ancient tomb had been hollowed out within the mountain itself; too violent a blast might bring the mountain down outright. Even if the stone door were destroyed, the passage would be collapsed along with it, and everyone would be buried alive inside.
"This is the stone door. I have consulted a great deal of material and grasped a few ways of opening it, though I do not know whether they will work," Old Hei said modestly. In truth, to say so much meant he was reasonably confident; after all, this was only the first mechanism, and a fairly easy one at that.
"Then why are you not trying it yet?" Old Yu said, somewhat impatient.
Toward the male bandit he dared not shout and order about, but toward these juniors of the tomb-robbing trade, he had no scruples at all.