Chapter 80

Feng Yuan was even more confused. That which Zhou Feng had spoken of, Feng Yuan hadn’t even noticed. Feng Yuan hesitated then said, “Are you sure? What reason does Qi Zhao have to hide something from us? Everyone came to rob the tomb. Do you think he’s trying to keep us from knowing that he’s looking for something?”

“No!” Zhou Feng flatly rejected Feng Yuan’s guess. There was an odd look on his face. “I think that, rather than Qi Zhao keeping that he’s looking for something from us, I’m more included to believe that Qi Zhao wants all humans to die here.”

“What?” Feng Yuan cried out in fear.

“Keep your voice down! I’m only guessing, that’s all. Keep quiet!” Zhou Feng said. “You’re right, we should keep close to Qi Zhao. He wouldn’t throw away his life here!”

Feng Yuan responded skeptically. The two men picked up some dry branches and returned to camp.

&

Mo Laoda listened to the two Lan snakes’ report on the battle, learned of vipers’ losses and grew angry. He hadn’t expected humans to be this ruthless and to shamelessly rely on objects in order to withstand the vipers’ assault and, even worse, inflict heavy casualties on the vipers.

Beside him, Yin Xiaoxiao thought for a bit and then said, “Presumably, the humans’ supply of those things is finite. One day, they will run out. Perhaps we can think of a way to make the humans use them up faster.” Yin Xiaoxiao knew “those things” were called flares, but he couldn’t say to Mo Laoda, “Hey! Those are flares!” and was forced to call them “those things” instead.

“How?”

Yin Xiaoxiao thought hard and hesitantly said, “Maybe, we can use disruption tactics?”

“What are those?”

“Humans always sleep at night. If we wait until the humans go to sleep and then have many vipers make sounds slithering around the sleeping humans, the louder the better, the humans will be sure to wake up. Humans can’t see things at night in the dark, and they need light to see their surroundings. Like this, we might be able to force those humans to use that thing for illumination. As the humans take out that thing, the vipers can withdraw, wait until the light has gone out and then return to disrupt the humans, starting the cycle again. Inevitably, one day those things will be gone.”

Mo Laoda conscientiously thought about this for a while, then shook his head. “Won’t work. The humans can make a fire and use the fire for light!”

“Fire isn’t as bright and its illumination range is smaller. It’s also not portable. While I know that humans can make torches, if the humans do this then their mobility will be restricted, and ambushes will go well,” Yin Xiaoxiao said.

Actually, Yin Xiaoxiao had also wanted to talk about flashlights and the other items that humans had that could illuminate objects and create light. But if they were brought up, Yin Xiaoxiao would be unable to explain who he knew about them. Actually, on second thought, flashlights and the like, although they allowed humans to see clearly in the dark, relatively speaking,their range of illumination also wasn’t very large, so it didn’t matter if he didn’t mention them.

Yin Xiaoxiao then added, “If the vipers take care, there surely won’t be a problem.”

Mo Laoda thought it over, didn’t see any very large flaws, and nodded in acquiescence. He ordered some Lan snakes and Hong snakes to leave and then let out a long, piercing cry at the heavens. Yin Xiaoxiao looked enviously at Mo Laoda. “That’s really very convenient!”

“But the Clan Head can only send orders to snakes unilaterally. Snakes don’t have the ability to send information to the Clan Head, which is a real downside,” Mo Laoda said, not without regret.

Yin Xiaoxiao slanted a glance at Mo Laoda. “You should be content! This ability is already very powerful, okay! Didn’t you say that you learned this ability after you became Clan Head?”

Mo Laoda grunted a “Yes” and explained, “This ability of Clan Head is locked away in the inherited memories of every Mo snake. It is only after becoming Clan Head that the ability to learn this method will appear in the Clan Head’s inherited memories. Conversely, this ability in the former Clan Head is locked away in their inherited memories, and the ability once more can not be used.”

“So mystical!” There was admiration on Yin Xiaoxiao’s face. He couldn’t help but admire the person who made this boundary. Even though he’d cost the vipers their freedom, he’d given the vipers a very long lifespan, extremely strong abilities, the ability to speak and, even more importantly, gave the vipers the ability to love. And it was because of these feelings that he and Mo Laoda had come together. ‘He loves me and I love him.’

&

The vipers, having received Mo Laoda’s orders, exercised even more caution when searching for traces of the humans. As a result, their speed had slowed a lot as their caution increased.

Now, out of Wang Yanzhen’s party of fifteen, four were left. The two men were all that remained of the middle-aged woman’s team. Zhou Feng’s team still hadn’t encountered vipers. In total, five teams were left. Their objective wasn’t small, so the vipers’ speed once more slowed but, slowly, they found traces of two teams and the vipers succeeded in annihilating these two teams of humans. No one survived.

The humans were constantly attacked but, unfortunately, the teams distrusted each other and hadn’t left any way to contact one another. Add in that they’d also moved in different directions, and ultimately it led to this situation, where no one knew that the vipers’ attacks were coordinated and focused instead of accidental encounters.

No, perhaps within these remaining teams there were some who knew. But who could say for sure?

However this situation was also quickly broken. People, who had managed to flee and not run into any more vipers, succeeded in finding other teams and informing them of the circumstances.

“These vipers can speak! They’re spirits! Don’t fight them! We have to get out of this snake tomb! Don’t look for the old tomb!” These were the words spoken by the fleeing two men from the middle-aged woman’s team after they’d run into another group of tomb robbers.

The jialama of this team was from Xinxing’s ¹ Xu family, and he wasn’t young. He had an obvious reason for coming to the snake tomb. All together, this team had seventeen people. Compared to Wang Yanzhen’s and Zhou Feng’s teams, the people in this team were far older. Every one of them was an older person who had made a name for themselves in tomb robbing circles. The few remaining young people were of the younger generation of the Xu family and were apprentices of the older family members.

There were those among these people who believed the two men, but they weren’t cowards. For years on end they’d walked underground and, as a result, had developed an accurate intuition. Upon entering the snake tomb, these men had had a sense of foreboding. The longer they stayed in the snake tomb, the stronger these forebodings grew. Perhaps they already wanted to leave here but, without a reason, they were unable to persuade everyone here. The arrival of these two men made them increasingly convinced of the accuracy of their premonitions which made them even more impatient to leave.

There were those who were convinced and, naturally, there were those who were unconvinced and wanted to continue onwards. There had been no viper attack during the long walk in the snake tomb, giving these people hope that they really would actually see the old tomb – located in the base of the tallest mountain, just on the edge of their field of vision. But it seemed as though within the blink of an eye was the ecstasy of finding countless treasures and the secret recipe for immortality, and they lost their judgment – this was immortality! Truly not growing old and not dying, who wouldn’t want to obtain that?

“I think we should leave the snake tomb immediately.”

“No, we should continue on. See that tall mountain? The old tomb is right there, waiting for us!”

“That’s right. Soon we’ll succeed. I won’t give up!”

“Don’t be stupid! The vipers will not let us find the old tomb! It would be better to leave now while we still can!”

“I staunchly refuse!”

Because of the uninterrupted quarrel, the seventeen people were divided into two groups. Of those, eleven insisted on continuing on. Eight, that is six and the two men, chose to leave the snake tomb.

“We are going to go to the old tomb. There will be many dangers ahead, so guns and ammunition can’t be provided for you ² . We can only give you some rations.” Xu Lao gestured for someone to give two or three backpacks to those choosing to leave the snake tomb. “Although now in the snake tomb we are choosing different paths, we shall still be friends after leaving the old tomb.”

“We don’t need much, only a few flares, hand grenades and explosives! Do you think you could give us some?” One of the two men urgently asked.

Xu Lao hesitated a little. It wasn’t that he was afraid of these two men, but those six other people who were leaving were very large names in the tomb robbing community and the Xu family couldn’t offend them. He had no choice but to say, “Okay, but we didn’t bring many grenades so we can only give you two, and we only brought enough explosives to blow the old tomb open so we can’t give those to you either. As for flares, we actually brought more of those, so we can give you five or six. Oh, that’s right. We have some tear bombs. We can give you a few.”

Hearing that they would only get two hand grenades and no explosives, the men were somewhat disappointed. As for the tear bombs, at that time they’d used some, but –

“Tear bombs aren’t necessary. Snakes don’t have tear ducts.”

The crowd: “….”

Seemingly, no one had noticed this before!

After distributing the items and taking advantage of the early morning light, the two groups parted ways, each in different directions, each headed towards their respective goals.

At the time of departure, the two men turned around and looked at the team of eleven heading towards the old tomb, pity in their eyes. Then they turned back around, their eyes full of determination: they were going to leave this snake tomb alive!

That team of eleven were sure to die, but this team of eight who wanted to leave the snake tomb, would they really be able to smoothly leave the old tomb?

&

Although Feng Yuan usually looked cheerful and careless, he was actually a very thoughtful ³ ) and intelligent person.

After that conversation with Zhou Feng in the woods, Feng Yuan, without conscious awareness, began to observe Qi Zhao. His observations indeed made Feng Yuan aware that there was something off about Qi Zhao. For instance, when someone mentioned “tomb robbing”, “old tomb”, “treasure”,  “immortality” and etc, Qi Zhao always sneered at these words, and his expression would go ice-cold. Looking at him then was like looking at a corpse. For instance, when the team was resting, Qi Zhao was always gazing at that tall mountain in the distance. And for instance, sometimes, when Feng Yuan stood near Qi Zhao, he could faintly overhear Qi Zhao muttering something. All of this made Feng Yuan tremble in fear. Unconsciously, in his heart, he came to accept what Zhou Feng had said as the truth. There really was something strange about Qi Zhao!

The Feng family was also an influential family. Feng Yuan had known Qi Zhao before they had entered the snake tomb. Feng Yuan slowly remembered the Qi Zhao he’d known before. The original Qi Zhao wasn’t so coldly gloomy and uncommunicative. He didn’t have the ice-cold gaze he had now. When exactly had Qi Zhao changed….

Suddenly, Feng Yuan seemed to realize something and walked hurriedly towards Zhou Feng. Anxiously, he quietly asked, “Zhou Feng, what was the name of the declining family who first spread the news about the large Zhou Dynasty tomb in Northwest China?”

T/N:

Footnotes

<ol>新兴: also called Sunhing; a county to the west of Guangdong province plural 心思: thoughtful, perceptive and with good intrapersonal intelligence</ol>