The Chronicles of the Tomb Robbers归档 - 第10页共91页

4 3 月 2025

1855 Chapter 17 – Searching for the Box of Human Heads in the Box

The cardboard boxes containing the coffins were opened one by one, a process that was very inefficient, yet they insisted on doing it this way. They first removed the outer cardboard boxes without taking apart the foam padding inside. After removing the outer boxes, they lined up the coffins wrapped in foam padding neatly in the warehouse, one after another.

Because the coffins were extremely heavy and the outer corrugated boxes were very sturdy, by the time they reached the twentieth box, everyone was exhausted. After taking a short break, Li Cu made eye contact with Su Wan, signaling that it was time to remove the foam and open the coffins to see what was inside.

Ideally, they should have opened one outer package to check one coffin at a time, but everyone chose to follow this inefficient method. They all knew it was a form of avoidance and accepted it, but unfortunately, avoidance always leads to a moment of confrontation.

After making eye contact, everyone remained still. Su Wan even turned his head toward the door, and Li Cu knew, from a psychological perspective, that he must have wanted to flee in that direction.

Li Cu said irritably, “Can you not be so cowardly? This day was bound to come. We’ve already seen a severed hand; are you still afraid of seeing other things?”

Su Wan smiled wryly and said, “Boss, can you tell me which box contains the head? You take care of the one with the head, and we’ll handle the rest.”

Li Cu felt a shiver run down his spine; he hadn’t expected this, and goosebumps formed on his skin. He thought, “I didn’t realize Su Wan would come up with such a sensible idea at this moment.”

Poor Su Wan and Yang Hao had no idea they were being dragged into this. Li Cu felt he should bear more responsibility, but aren’t we buddies? Shouldn’t a buddy sacrifice for the other during such times? This is why buddy loyalty is unreliable; when it comes down to it, one must rely on oneself.

Li Cu’s mind was in a jumble, but he also knew this had nothing to do with brotherly loyalty. If the roles were reversed, he would probably be even sneakier than Su Wan.

The lights in the warehouse were very bright, which made Li Cu feel a bit more comfortable. He turned to look at the warehouse door, walked over, and locked it. He said to them, “Let’s not be wishy-washy. I’ll open it, and you all just stand by and watch. But stay close; don’t leave me to face this alone.”

Su Wan and Yang Hao nodded but didn’t move any closer. Yang Hao lit a cigarette, pretending to be calm, clearly not wanting to show his fear in front of the others. However, his awkward leg position betrayed everything.

Having returned from the desert, Li Cu had strengthened his nerves significantly. He took deep breaths to mentally prepare himself, and his desire to solve the mystery gradually overpowered his fear.

He walked over to the plastic coffins, slowly feeling around until he found the latch to open one. He pulled it, and the coffin lid flipped open automatically. He took a glance inside; it was a box containing a torso. He couldn’t tell which part it was, but the flesh around the wound was exposed and white.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, Li Cu held his breath to avoid the strange, fatty smell emanating from the box and moved on to the next one, opening it, and then the next.

More than twenty coffins were all opened by him, and the ice inside had mostly melted, emitting wisps of white vapor. Because Li Zu’s speed was too fast, Su Wan didn’t have time to look and didn’t know what was inside; all he could see was a white mass. It was definitely human limbs.

Regardless, such a scene was still too stimulating for them. The faces of Su Wan and Yang Hao turned incredibly pale, almost as pale as the flesh inside.

It wasn’t until the third coffin that Li Zu slowed down a bit, for when that coffin was opened, a mass of black could be seen inside. Li Zu crouched down for a moment, stepped back, and stared blankly at the thing inside the coffin: it was a cluster of more than a dozen human heads.

“Su Wan, your dish has arrived,” Li Zu said.

No one responded to him. Li Zu turned around and found that Su Wan and Yang Hao had moved several steps further away from him.

Li Zu sighed. He felt that he wasn’t very scared anymore; perhaps it was because he had been so terrified earlier that his body had gone numb.

He said to the people behind him, “I need to get these heads out first. The ice is melting, and the skin will rot; we won’t be able to identify them. If you’re not going to help, at least help me get a platform out.”

There was no response. Li Zu called again, and only then did Su Wan shout from a distance, “No way!”

Li Zu didn’t turn around but knew he was almost at the door. He cursed inwardly. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, clenched his fists, stepped forward, crouched down, and reached into the icy water to pull up a human head.

The icy water was bone-chillingly cold, but he felt nothing. His hands were trembling as he lifted the head, turned around, and felt the hair sticking to his hand, dripping water continuously.

Li Zu opened his eyes and saw a pair of murky eyes and a face that was peeling, like a soaked napkin.

Then he felt the world spin around him and rushed to the side, squatting down to start vomiting.

After he vomited until his vision went black, he finally recovered. Raising his eyes, he saw that Su Wan and Yang Hao had already run out of the warehouse and were vomiting outside.

“Dammit,” Li Zu thought, “they’re really unreliable.”

After he finished throwing up, Li Zu felt a bit better. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to crawl back, trying to breathe deeply, wanting to bring out the heads one by one. Suddenly, he saw ripples suddenly appearing in the icy water of the coffins.

The ripples were very strong, shaking the entire coffin as if something alive was beneath the icy water.

Li Zu shivered. At first, he thought his foot had bumped into the coffin, but then the whole coffin shook. Ice water splashed out.

“Damn it,” he thought. “Could it be that what they sent over wasn’t corpses at all, but something else? Are these bodies just here for it to eat?”

He stood up and slowly approached the coffin. The heads and hair made it hard to see the movement under the water, but he clearly saw the heads floating in the icy water, proving that there was definitely something inside.

“Come help!” Li Zu shouted, “There’s a live one here!!”

Before his words fell, with a splash, something as thick as an arm suddenly burst out from the tangled hair, slamming onto his face.

Li Cu reacted quickly, rolling to the side just in time as the object crashed into a pile of cardboard behind him. He immediately backed away from the cardboard boxes and bumped into the coffin behind him, tumbling inside.

4 3 月 2025

1854 Chapter 16 – Dismemberment

They found a warehouse in the western suburbs of Daxing and drove the car inside. With a clatter, they unloaded everything.

Su Wan, after all, was a rich second-generation who was lazy and spoiled; he was already exhausted after moving only half of the stuff. However, seeing the courier’s impatient gaze, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and curse under his breath while moving everything out. After paying, the courier patted his butt and left, running away faster than a rabbit.

The two of them stood in front of the huge warehouse, which was about ten thousand square meters, and the two or three dozen boxes piled in the center. Finally, they hugged each other and burst into tears. No one knew what this crying represented—was it joy, excitement, or tragedy?

Li Cu and the others themselves didn’t know; they were too young to fully grasp the true emotional release of the world. They only felt that encountering such a situation left them at a loss for a better way to express their inner feelings, so they could only cry. After they finished crying, Su Wan asked him, “Big brother, what should we do now?”

Before he finished speaking, Li Cu said, “Let’s open it up and see what’s inside. We need to piece together a general idea of the situation before we can decide what to do next.”

The two of them approached the largest box and looked at the damaged opening from which liquid was seeping out, clearly indicating that ice was continuously melting.

Su Wan asked, “Do we need to buy gloves or something?”

Li Cu replied, “Don’t be so particular; I touched it earlier and it was fine. Let’s hurry up and see what’s inside.”

With that, Li Cu took out his keys and used them as a knife, continuously cutting at the box. After slicing it open, they discovered a huge transparent plastic coffin inside, but it was already damaged, and a hand was protruding from the broken part.

Su Wan took a deep breath and wanted to open the coffin lid, but Li Cu immediately grabbed him, saying, “Wait a minute, we need to prepare ourselves mentally first.”

Su Wan asked, “Why?”

Li Cu explained, “Look at the way the hand is sticking out and where it’s coming from; the body inside must not be intact, otherwise the hand couldn’t have come out from that spot.”

Su Wan frowned and looked at Li Cu, then let out a few cries of despair before squatting down and starting to cry again.

Li Cu didn’t cry; he thought to himself: It’s okay, this is my fate. Since it’s fate, I must face it. Come on, let’s confront it.

Just as Li Cu was about to open the coffin, the sound of a car engine suddenly echoed at the door, and then two delivery trucks drove in. Yang Hao, who had helped them with the dry corpses earlier, was sitting in the passenger seat and shouted at him, “Hey, buddy, you hit the jackpot today, here come two more trucks!”

They wouldn’t need to move these two trucks themselves. After paying again, they watched as the piles of boxes were unloaded, and Li Cu and Su Wan could no longer cry; they started laughing in various strange ways.

Yang Hao lit a cigarette and asked, “What’s going on with you guys? Are you starting a business or what? Let me get in on it too. What kind of goods are these? Let me take a look.”

Li Cu smiled and said, “Don’t look, just take everything away; it’s all yours.”

Yang Hao replied, “Don’t joke around, or I’ll hit you.”

Li Zu said, “I’m not joking at all. Here’s the deal: if you want them, you can take them all away, and for each one you move, I’ll give you thirty bucks. If you move them all, I’ll give you a thousand.”

The guy looked at Li Zu, then at Su Wan, and spat, “You two are crazy. What kind of game are you playing?”

Looking at the pile of boxes on the ground, Yang Hao squatted down, stubbed out his cigarette, and kicked one of the boxes. With a clang, the lid was forced open a crack.

“Hey, it’s still giving off cold air. It’s not a living thing, is it? Is it seafood? Come on, I love eating the Eastern starry flounder. Bring me one,” he said, lifting the lid.

In that moment, Li Zu felt a bit of schadenfreude, but then he heard the guy let out a blood-curdling scream. He flipped over and rolled back six or seven meters, stumbling to his feet and exclaiming, “What the hell is this?”

Li Zu replied, “I told you, we’re not in the seafood business. Do you believe me now?”

The guy looked at Li Zu and said, “What the hell, you two aren’t serial killers, are you?”

Li Zu shook his head, took a deep breath, and dared to turn back to look at the coffin that the guy had kicked over. At first glance, his legs felt a bit weak. He had imagined various scenarios, but now seeing it, he realized that all his imagined scenes were merely a reflection of his limited imagination. The sight before him was beyond description.

Yes, these were fragments of bodies, but what kind of body fragments were they?

Let’s imagine for a moment: when you face a box, knowing full well that it contains many body fragments, when you open it and indeed find body fragments, what could possibly surprise you more in that situation?

When Li Zu looked into the box, he had envisioned countless terrifying images, but none could escape the realm of broken bodies. Yet, when he truly saw the situation inside, he gasped and nearly fell to the ground.

He saw a severed hand, and beneath that hand were other limbs wrapped in ice. All those limbs were also severed hands, meaning he was looking at a box full of hands.

Li Zu sat on the ground in a daze for four or five minutes, his mind blank.

Su Wan helped him up. The group returned to the box and crouched down to inspect it again. The situation inside was confirmed once more. Indeed, everything wrapped in the crushed ice were hands—some long, some short, some thick, some thin, some belonging to men and some to women. But one thing was certain: all these arms were right hands.

They looked at each other, and Li Zu said, “So, does this mean these people were involved in organ trafficking?”

Su Wan replied, “But these hands are already close to rotting. In this case, these things might not even be usable for soup, let alone for transplantation. Moreover, I’ve never heard of hand transplants.”

Li Zu said, “If all these are right hands, then where are the other parts of the bodies?”

Su Wan glanced at the boxes behind him and said, “This is a bit twisted. If many people have been cut into pieces, then if they wanted to mix the parts, they certainly wouldn’t be able to pack them so neatly, right? It’s all right hands with right hands, left hands with left hands. Does the person who dismembers and packages these bodies have obsessive-compulsive disorder? Otherwise, there must be some significance to what they’re doing.”

Li Cu was feeling a splitting headache, and his throat had a particularly strange sensation. He had never understood what this feeling meant, and when he stood up and took a few steps back, he began to vomit.

Su Wan hurried over to support him, but almost at the same time, he also started to vomit. After a few heaves, Su Wan said to Li Cu, “Shouldn’t we be terrified right now? Why are we still so calmly vomiting?”

“I don’t know,” Li Cu could only respond with a cold smile. He said to Su Wan, “Maybe we’ve watched too many American dramas or cartoons; this kind of stuff is deadly.”

Su Wan said, “Li Cu, this isn’t a solution. I don’t know if you’ve seen a movie, but it seems like we’re being played with. If we keep letting this happen, who knows what they’ll send us next? First it was dry, now it’s wet. Will they send rotting things over later?”

Li Cu exhaled, spitting out the disgusting contents from his mouth, and said, “I once heard someone tell me that there must be a reason for these things being sent over; they have their limitations too. We need to find out that reason.”

He looked at the cardboard boxes in front of him and said to Su Wan, “Tear them all open. We need to know exactly what’s inside. Even if it’s all heads, all feet, or all butts, you have to piece them all together.”

4 3 月 2025

1853 Chapter 15 – Destiny

Li Cu put Liang Wan’s number on the blacklist and decided not to answer her calls anymore. He glanced at the 100,000 yuan in the black plastic bag, tightened the bag’s opening, placed it in his backpack, and headed to the town. He took a taxi to Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport overnight. He needed to go back and take a look; if he needed to find an ally, he knew he could only turn to Su Wan and his group because he was aware that they were completely innocent, just like him.

Moreover, Su Wan could think about problems in the same way he did. With 100,000 yuan, he believed Su Wan could also come up with that amount. However, this was truly his own 100,000 yuan. Along with the previous amount, he now had 320,000 yuan, which was a considerable sum, more than enough for fleeing or any other activities. He was not entirely destitute.

He had never seen so much cash in his life. When he boarded the plane with that money, he suddenly felt a sense of groundedness. It turned out that having a sense of security was not that difficult, especially for someone like him.

With his more than 300,000 yuan, when Li Cu landed again, his entire aura had completely changed. He reflected on everything during the flight—fear, worry, unrealistic thoughts—and after the dream-like feeling passed, what surged in his heart was an intense thrill.

“Yes, I am no longer an ordinary high school student. I have become a chosen one, burdened with a strange fate like those in novels and movies, with an initial capital of 320,000.”

Being someone chosen by fate felt incredibly wonderful to Li Cu, who had no idea of his own worth. He felt as if he was walking with the wind.

Yes! When he walked back into the school and saw his classmates approaching, he felt that his figure was immensely tall. “You who still live in the cradle of your parents and don’t understand the hardships of society, how could you possibly comprehend my suffering?” Li Cu thought to himself.

Li Cu ran to the school and calmly asked the teacher for leave. In the past, he would have been very nervous and anxious in such situations. This time, he stood before the beautiful homeroom teacher with remarkable calmness and told her plainly that he needed to take leave to complete something very important, and he would not be able to attend classes for a long time.

The teacher wanted to call his father to verify. Li Cu simply nodded silently: “Ah, even if you are the homeroom teacher, in the face of my strong aspirations, you are just an ordinary person.”

He slung his backpack over his shoulder, leaving behind what he considered a tragic silhouette, and left the school, heading straight to Su Wan’s house.

He had actually looked for Su Wan in class, but he hadn’t come. He knew in his heart that under these circumstances, Su Wan definitely could not come to school alone. He felt a bit guilty when it came to this friend.

“I’m sorry, Su Wan, this is my fate, and it has caused you suffering.”

When Li Cu arrived at Su Wan’s house, he saw a truck parked at the entrance, unloading goods, and an ominous premonition surged in his heart. He peeked inside and saw Su Wan sitting in his flower bed, holding his head. The yard was already piled high with large cardboard boxes that had been sent earlier. At first glance, there were at least thirty of them.

Li Cu sighed, walked in, and called out. Su Wan looked up and immediately knelt down in front of Li Cu, saying, “Brother, you have to think of a way! I can’t hold on much longer.”

Li Cu asked, “How many have come in total?”

Su Wan replied, “Let me tell you, I’ve asked someone to check all the delivery tracking numbers sent to my house, and with this truck, there are still four more vehicles. If you don’t find a solution soon, my dad won’t even be able to get in the door when he comes home.”

Li Cu thought for a moment and said to the people unloading, “You guys stop moving for now.”

The delivery person asked, “What do you mean?”

Li Cu said, “How about this, I’ll give you some money, and we go find a warehouse in the suburbs. We’ll move the stuff to the warehouse first. Given the current situation, it’s impossible to stack everything here.”

The delivery person replied, “We have other deliveries to make. Your stuff is affecting our work.”

Li Cu responded, “Let’s negotiate the price. You can leave the goods here; we really have no other choice. It’s only natural.”

As he spoke, he patted the delivery person on the shoulder and slipped a roll of cash into his hand. After doing so, the delivery person looked at him and nodded, “Then you guys better hurry and find a warehouse.”

Li Cu made an “OK” gesture and exchanged a glance with Su Wan, saying, “Here’s the plan: we’ll split up. You stay here and keep watch, and I’ll follow this truck to find a warehouse in the suburbs. Once I find one, I’ll send you the address. How does that sound?”

Su Wan looked at Li Cu and said, “You’re not planning to just run off, are you?”

Li Cu replied, “Am I that ungrateful?”

Before he could finish speaking, the delivery person shouted and jumped down from the truck. They turned around to see that after the boxes in the truck were moved, there was an exceptionally large cardboard box inside that had been crushed during transport. A pale human hand was sticking out from that box.

Li Cu and Su Wan exchanged a glance, and the delivery person yelled, “What the hell are you transporting?”

Li Cu and Su Wan forced a bitter smile and waved their hands to calm the delivery person down. They slowly leaned in to take a look and discovered that the hand sticking out wasn’t that of a dried corpse, but a fresh one.

Li Cu took a deep breath and thought, “Wow, the dried ones are all sent off, and now they’re sending the fresh ones. Truly, there’s a variety of everything.” He patted the 100,000 yuan in his pocket and thought, “Damn it, just when I got this money, it’s about to be thrown away to seal this up.” So he pulled out a stack from that 100,000 yuan and handed it to Su Wan, telling him to take care of the people, while he cautiously approached and squatted down.

This was a hand that already showed signs of livor mortis; the body was completely stiff but not yet decomposed. Compared to the grotesqueness of a dried corpse, Li Cu was not very familiar with fresh corpses, and a wave of fear suddenly rose in his heart.

He carefully touched the hand and found it to be icy cold. He pushed aside the gap in the plastic board and peered inside, seeing that it was filled with ice blocks.

He glanced back and saw Su Wan negotiating with the courier, trying to settle things with money. Taking advantage of their distraction, Li Zu used a piece of broken cardboard nearby to shove the outstretched hand back inside, then stood up and walked over to retrieve the cardboard box that the courier was about to take away, bracing it firmly against the broken box.

After doing all this, he jumped out of the car and approached the courier, saying, “Hey, buddy, this is a misunderstanding; these are our props.”

The courier looked at him with confusion, “Props? What kind of props?”

Li Zu sniffed, “You see, this is a villa, right? We’re throwing a spooky party tonight. This is my little boss, a young entrepreneur, who hired a lot of workers to have a good time, so we brought a lot of props to decorate. We didn’t mean to scare you, sorry about that.”

The courier asked skeptically, “Is this for real? These don’t look fake to me.”

Li Zu replied, “They are definitely fake. If you don’t believe me, come take a look, come on.”

Looking around, Li Zu lowered his voice and said, “Buddy, I know it’s bad luck to transport this kind of stuff in your vehicle. Look, I have no choice here, right? I’ll give you some money. You know throwing this party is a bit inappropriate, and my little boss’s dad doesn’t know about it. If he finds out, he’ll kill us. So please, make an exception. We’re not planning to keep any of this stuff at home, and you don’t need to move it. Just be a good person and let us move it to the car and take it to the warehouse. You don’t have to lift a finger; we’ll handle it. Take the money, and if you want to tell your boss, go ahead. If you want to keep it to yourself, we absolutely won’t say a word, okay? We’ll have plenty of opportunities in the future.”

The courier looked at Su Wan, who was sweating nervously, while Li Zu was doing all the talking. After thinking for a moment, the courier said, “Fine, you guys move it yourselves. I won’t touch that box; I can pretend this never happened.”

“Thank you, thank you! You see, we’re just two kids; we can’t be doing anything too extreme, right?”

In no time, Li Zu managed to smooth things over and quickly gave Su Wan a look. He couldn’t move all those boxes by himself; Su Wan had to go with him, and they needed to find more people. Su Wan had no choice but to call a few of his friends for help, explaining the situation. Then, the two of them got in the car and headed straight for the suburbs.

On the way, Li Zu was sweating profusely. If the body was fresh, the situation would be entirely different. Once the ice melted, wouldn’t the body start to smell?

Others’ destinies were filled with all sorts of magical artifacts, swords, and elixirs that could boost one’s power for twenty years, or even beautiful women throwing themselves at them. Yet, since he got involved, it had been either strange broken weapons or bizarre encounters with dead bodies. What kind of fate was this, anyway?

4 3 月 2025

1852 Chapter 14 – The Game of Jie Yuchen

Li Zhu couldn’t believe his ears and was even more confused about the situation before him. Unlike Wu Xie, who could always quickly accept whatever was happening and find a way to resolve it, Li Zhu was much more stubborn-minded. He simply couldn’t figure out what was going on.

In Wu Xie’s eyes, the only reasonable explanation for the current situation was that Liang Wan was a speedster, switching between two time and space dimensions at an unimaginable speed, and had even changed her gender in the process. But for Li Zhu, not understanding meant not understanding; nevertheless, he obediently hung up the phone.

“You arrived too late,” Liang Wan said, walking up to him and taking the phone from his hand. “Just find a place to sit. If you think it’s too dirty, you can stand. Anyway, I won’t be able to talk for long.”

“Are you Liang Wan’s brother or her transgender sister?” Li Zhu asked.

“I’m using this face just to make it easier to escape. You should remember me; you got here because of the business card I gave you,” the person said. “I’m wearing a mask.”

Li Zhu frowned. “Really? A mask? Does that even exist?”

“They’re sold everywhere now; it’s not that rare. But this outfit is hard to come by. If you look closely, you’ll notice it’s actually different,” the person continued. “I secretly took a photo with my phone and had someone rush to make this outfit in the afternoon. The face is rough; I just modified a basic mask a little and did some makeup. It can’t fool you in sunlight, but it’s enough in this lighting.”

“What do you want?” Li Zhu was at a loss for words. Was he cursed this year? Why did he keep encountering weirdos?

“I don’t have much time, so let me briefly explain the problem you’re facing,” the person said. “Your girlfriend is in another house that is structurally identical to this one. I have two houses here, and the structures of the two alleys are exactly the same; the interiors are identical as well. Originally, it was to evade enemies, but it has since been abandoned. I had someone lure your girlfriend into the other house so I could meet with you alone.”

“Well, you didn’t need to dress like this and stand in the corner acting mysterious,” Li Zhu replied.

“I have my reasons for dressing like this and standing in the corner. In this house, only this corner is not visible from any window; no one can see me talking to you from outside. Even if someone knows I’m in the house, they can’t see my lips move, so they can’t know what I’m saying. Right now, my subordinates think your girlfriend is me and that I’m executing some plan, which allows me to escape. I need to switch back with her quickly, or it will be easy to expose myself.”

“Oh…” Li Zhu nodded, though he hadn’t really understood anything. The person continued, “The reason I’m doing this is that my family has been severely infiltrated; I no longer know whom to trust or whom to suspect. And your situation is similar to mine.”

“How so?”

“Everything you’ve received comes from a friend of mine. Over the past few years, we’ve distanced ourselves from a major event and gradually started to face our own careers. We realized that during this chaotic time, the people around us have changed. When we were dealing with that major event, we didn’t notice these subtle changes, but now we gradually realize that there are no trustworthy people left around us.”

“And then?”

“We had a proposal before; we needed a completely outsider to help us with something, as our control had become too deep. But that was just a proposal. However, based on what you’re currently experiencing, this matter is no longer just a proposal; it’s clear that he has already acted on it.”

“Why choose me?” Li Cu said. “I’m still a student. Do you really have to be so ruthless?”

“This isn’t a choice. I suspect my friend made this decision out of desperation. Perhaps he noticed some quality in you.”

Li Cu thought to himself: Who is his friend? Is it that Boss Wu or that blind man? Whichever it is, they must have misjudged; I definitely don’t have that quality. Even if I did, couldn’t I change?

“You need to understand that you wouldn’t be involved if there were any other options. To be honest, I don’t know what exactly has happened or how the internal relationships work. At that time, we only considered this proposal as a direction for thought and didn’t actually execute it. Finding such an outsider is extremely difficult; we must ensure that they are attracted to the clues we set up, rather than calling the police or ignoring it altogether. Tonight, I found that you are indeed a suitable candidate. Since this has already happened, for the sake of my friend’s safety, even if you are not suitable, I have no choice but to push this matter forward.”

Li Cu listened, nodding silently, but when he heard this, he suddenly felt something was off: “How do we push this forward?”

“Listen, from the moment you received the first package, you and the people around you have already fallen into danger. The reason you are still alive and well is that others are still unclear about what exactly is happening. This is also a remarkable point about my friend; you are just a student, and they don’t believe we would involve a student in anything, so the first ones to suffer will be the adults in your family or around you.”

Li Cu’s heart sank as he thought of his dad.

“The reason I took the risk to meet you and why I have to be so cautious is to ensure that no one knows I have met with you. You have to believe that they will take a long time to realize that the executor of this matter is a middle school student.”

“Wait, wait,” Li Cu said, sensing a hint of something. “When did I agree to this?”

“Don’t you understand? I must first apologize to you on behalf of my friend, but the matter has already occurred.” The person said, “Let me give you an example: I have already announced to the entire martial arts world that the clues to the Nine Yin Manual are with you. Do you think anyone would believe you if you said you don’t have it?”

“Then just change your mind,” Li Cu urged anxiously. After saying that, he immediately realized that changing his mind wouldn’t help, and he almost spat out a mouthful of blood, cursing, “Boss, how have I offended you? Why are you treating me like this! My God, if I had known it would come to this, I would have studied hard, avoided early romance, and played the role of a class representative to get through this miserable life.”

“I don’t have much time left. Your age is your only advantage right now. After I meet with you this time, I won’t be able to contact you again. Here is a hundred thousand in cash; I could only prepare this much in a hurry. Take it and act according to the situation. The things you need to do are definitely among the items I’m sending you. If you want to survive, you must follow the plan laid out by my friend, or no one will be able to help you.”

Another hundred thousand! What the hell are you guys up to? Why is everyone giving out a hundred thousand? Li Cu was about to go crazy, wishing he could just shove the money down the other person’s throat.

As he spoke, the man handed him a black plastic bag, heavy in his hand. He said, “The money is inside, along with a letter that contains some simple advice for you. You can take a look. Wait here until tomorrow noon. You can choose to go back to Beijing or meet that woman, but absolutely do not tell anyone that you’ve seen me.” After saying this, without waiting for Li Cu to ask anything else, he turned and left down the stairs.

Li Cu stared at the plastic bag, tilted his head in thought, and was just about to burst into tears when his phone suddenly rang again. It was a life-or-death situation. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was Su Wan, so he immediately answered. He heard Su Wan’s urgent voice on the other end, “Where are you?”

“What’s up?” Li Cu felt no need to rush. He hadn’t panicked even when he encountered such terrifying events, let alone…

“The situation you predicted has happened; two more coffins have been sent over. I’ve put them in the yard. If more arrive tomorrow, our house will really become a funeral home. Can you hurry back to help? I can’t handle this alone, I feel so unsafe!”

Li Cu sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll be back right away.”

In fact, Li Cu hesitated for a long time. He stayed in that room for another hour, huddled in the corner in the dark, carefully contemplating everything that had happened.

There was a strange inertia pushing him toward an abyss of no return, a feeling he hadn’t sensed before, but now he found this odd sensation in his own thought process.

Why? Logically, if an ordinary person encountered such a situation, the first reaction would be to escape from it all. No one would genuinely consider whether this was possible, nor would anyone truly think about whether it held any meaning for them. Yet, from the reactions of those around him, he felt that many things were absurd, and even events that seemed impossible were happening one after another.

It seemed that everyone around him was engaged in completely ridiculous activities; why was that?

He was just a student; it made no sense for others to treat him this way, and he wouldn’t gain anything from it. No one would expend such energy to scheme against someone who had no value to them. Wait a minute, could this be a reality show?

He recalled many plots from foreign novels, but he believed they couldn’t be true, because he had been to the desert. Everything he encountered there, such as the black glasses, the strange hands sticking out of the sand, and the team in the desert, could not have been orchestrated by a planner.

In other words, no matter how ridiculous, absurd, or unrealistic everything that happened was, it had to be real. This meant that he was indeed facing all the issues that person had mentioned to him. At this moment, his choices became extremely important. Could he escape? Perhaps he could. Li Cu touched his head and thought for a moment, but it definitely wasn’t going to be now. Why? The problem he faced was his lack of understanding of everything; he was up against an unknown enemy. He had to consider one thing: what kind of life would he lead after escaping? Could he go back to school? Could he appear in public again?

He didn’t know if he could still do those things, and he needed to understand the seriousness of what would happen after he escaped. Therefore, he had to delve deeper and think about the core of these questions.

In fact, he could very easily call the police and request protection. But he genuinely felt that no one would believe him if he spoke about these things.

With this thought, Li Cu shouldered his bag, glanced at the severed hand inside, and began to plan what he truly needed to do. He chose to ignore Liang Wan because he felt that the fewer people involved, the better. He knew that if he told Liang Wan about this, she would undoubtedly have many thoughts and ideas. However, they were not in the same interest group, and he didn’t even know what Liang Wan’s purpose for being here was. Moreover, Liang Wan was quite strong-willed and wealthier than him. If he collaborated with her, he would never be able to persuade her to do things his way.

For greater flexibility, he had to go it alone.

4 3 月 2025

1851 Chapter 13 – Two Liangwans

Li Cu took a look around with his phone and noticed that there were still no footprints leading back; Liang Wan should be right here. He listened carefully, but due to the climbing and his nervousness, he was breathing heavily and couldn’t hear much. He could only call out softly. The room was quite empty, but it wasn’t echoing yet; it should have been audible as long as there was someone present, but there was no response.

Li Cu called out a few more times and suddenly felt something strange. The footprints indicated that Liang Wan was in this room, yet there was no sense of anyone being present at all.

Following the footprints, he moved forward, wondering if there might be some hidden doors here. However, judging by the outlines illuminated by his phone’s light, there shouldn’t be any passages leading elsewhere.

He walked to the edge of the room, and the footprints continued extending into that corner. Li Cu felt puzzled; why would Liang Wan go to that corner? Moreover, the footprints were so straight, showing no hesitation, as if she had walked directly there.

After thinking for a moment, Li Cu slowed his pace and walked over slowly, keeping the lit phone aimed at the corner. After taking three more steps, the light from his phone finally illuminated the situation in the corner. He saw Liang Wan standing there, facing the corner, pressed tightly against the wall, seemingly doing something.

Li Cu took a moment to calm down; he could hardly believe his eyes or the situation he was facing. He stood silently for two or three seconds, reflecting on what had just happened.

This was a dilapidated farmer’s house in a small town in Zhejiang, which had been abandoned for a long time. At night, in this third-floor room, no light came in, and it was completely dark. He had come here to find a person standing in the corner, facing the wall.

In such a situation, anyone’s first reaction would likely be to flee, but perhaps because Li Cu was not afraid of these things to begin with, or perhaps due to his experiences in the desert that had toughened him up, he managed to suppress the urge to turn and run immediately. Instead, he kept his distance and watched the person in the corner. He was even calm enough to shine his phone’s light around to see if there were others forcing Liang Wan to do this.

Once he confirmed that there was no one else in the room, he softly asked, “What are you doing?”

Liang Wan showed no reaction, still standing there facing the wall.

Cold sweat began to seep out from Li Cu’s back, and the hair all over his body stood on end. He took a step forward, a step he had calculated precisely so that he wouldn’t feel like the person in front of him could turn around and bite him.

After taking that first step, he asked again softly, “What are you really doing?”

Liang Wan still did not respond.

Li Cu took a deep breath and, using the light from his phone, carefully observed Liang Wan’s silhouette. She stood very straight; she was a woman full of charm, always maintaining her curves while walking, but he had never seen her standing so stiffly. Moreover, if she were wearing high heels, this posture would be particularly tiring.

But Liang Wan was standing completely still, which was already very abnormal.

Li Cuoxin thought to himself: I’ve encountered enough strange things in the past month. If what’s in front of me is truly an incomprehensible situation, and if it develops in a terrifying direction as I expect, I will not let it go easily. It needs to come to an end; either you kill me, or I kill you.

Li Cuoxin took a step forward, dark thoughts swirling in his mind. Just as he was contemplating whatever might happen, his backpack suddenly vibrated. His phone, set to vibrate and tucked inside the bag, startled him nearly to death with the sudden buzzing. He quickly pulled out his phone. He originally didn’t have a phone; this one was given to him by the man in the black glasses. Upon opening it, he saw a number flashing on the screen, with the name Liang Wan above it, which he had saved earlier on the plane.

But wasn’t Liang Wan’s phone in his hand? Did he accidentally dial her? He quickly checked the phone and saw that he hadn’t made any outgoing calls. Hmm, could it be that Liang Wan has another phone using the same number? But Liang Wan was right in front of him, standing against the wall.

Could this woman be calling him in a way he couldn’t see? Both her hands were hanging down; that’s impossible!

Li Cuoxin was terrified. He glanced at the person in front of him, hesitated for a moment, and then answered the phone. He heard a hurried female voice say, “Where are you?”

Li Cuoxin replied, “I’m in that house.”

Liang Wan exclaimed, “What did you say? You’re in that house? Which house?”

Li Cuoxin said, “The address we’re supposed to go to. I came back to find you.”

Liang Wan responded, “Didn’t I tell you to meet me in the morning? I’m also in that house! Didn’t you see me?”

Li Cuoxin looked at the person in front of him, who wasn’t speaking at all. He glanced around and said into the phone, “Actually, I can see you. I’m on the third floor. Logically, I should be right behind you, but things are a bit strange.”

Liang Wan said, “What? Impossible! I’m in the alley; the police haven’t left yet. I can’t even get in!”

Li Cuoxin scratched his head and looked at Liang Wan, who was still standing against the wall. He said, “You’re not trying to scare me… No, you must be messing with me.”

Liang Wan replied, “Why would I be so bored to mess with you? It’s you who’s talking so strangely! Where exactly are you? If you don’t tell me, I’ll be angry!”

Li Cuoxin looked at his phone again and then at the person standing in front of him. Suddenly, a surge of anger filled him. He felt that Liang Wan was definitely messing with him, although he had no idea how she was doing it—was it a recording or some kind of superpower? Even if it wasn’t, he didn’t want to remain in this deadlock.

He took a deep breath, ignoring Liang Wan’s questions on the phone, and moved forward. He suddenly pressed down on the shoulder of the person in front of him and turned her around.

Li Cu believed that although Liang Wan was older than him, she was still a woman with a frail body, and with a little pull, he could definitely turn her around. However, when he exerted force, that person’s shoulder didn’t budge at all, clearly showing immense strength and rigidity. To put it bluntly, Li Cu knew what Liang Wan felt like to the touch, but despite pulling with all his might, he couldn’t manage to turn her. His confidence vanished, and he took a few steps back, beginning to feel afraid.

On the phone, Liang Wan was still speaking in a flustered manner, but Li Cu had no interest in listening anymore. He looked at the strange figure before him, slowly turning around in the darkness.

Liang Wan was not wrong; when he saw her face, even his calves began to tremble. He had harbored a glimmer of hope that he might see another person, thinking that even if they wore the same clothes, at least their faces would be different.

But what he saw was indeed Liang Wan’s face. In the corner, Liang Wan looked back at him with an eerie posture, while another Liang Wan on the phone continued to curse incessantly.

Li Cu decided to run. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but the cold, expressionless face of Liang Wan in the dark corner staring at him was anything but human.

Just as Li Cu was about to turn and leave, the Liang Wan in front of him suddenly spoke. However, he did not hear the expected voice; instead, he heard a man’s voice.

“Hang up the phone,” the Liang Wan in front of him said, her voice soft, but it was unmistakably a man’s voice.

4 3 月 2025

1850 Chapter Twelve – The Strange Farmhouse

After stepping out, Li Zu realized he couldn’t remember the route he had taken to get there. Asking for directions was pointless; no one would tell you where a tree marked by fingernails was, especially since it was already midnight. He could only try to retrace his steps slowly based on memory. Around four o’clock, Li Zu finally found that alley. He listened at the entrance; it was quiet inside, as if everything had calmed down.

Li Zu cautiously made his way in, going all the way through. The moon at four o’clock was higher than before, and the moonlight was brighter, allowing him to see that everything inside had not changed. The door of the neighbor he had disturbed was tightly closed, showing no signs of the earlier commotion. He reached the iron gate at the end of the alley and immediately noticed that the door was unlocked.

“Impressive,” he thought to himself. “This girl really has her tricks.” But then he realized that if someone was inside, it could be very dangerous, no matter how clever she was.

Li Zu pressed his ear against the door, listening intently. He crouched down, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of what was happening inside through the gap between the door and the ground, even just a bit of light would do.

There was not a glimmer of light.

He stood up and thought for a moment, then steeled himself and pushed open the iron door, crawling into the yard.

It was a yard so clean it was almost incomprehensible, devoid of anything. If it were an abandoned place, there would at least be some debris, but there was none—so clean it was frightening.

This meant that Li Zu had no cover; once he crawled into the yard, if there was someone inside, he would be a complete fool. He felt that in such an empty yard, there was no need to crawl anymore, so he stood up. At that moment, he noticed that the yard was not entirely empty; there were many boards leaning against the walls. The boards resembled the walls, and in the darkness, he mistook them for unfinished walls.

Li Zu leaned against one of the boards and touched it, only to discover that they were not boards but the backs of mirrors. The walls were lined with large mirrors. Looking up, he saw that the tops of these mirrors rose above the walls, and suddenly he was startled, thinking: Could the ghostly face I saw earlier have been my own?

Damn it. Are all the walls covered in mirrors?

He tried to flip one of the mirrors to take a look, but it was too heavy to move. He glanced at the place he might have crawled earlier and cursed inwardly again; it seemed he was not mistaken—what he saw earlier was indeed his own face.

Damn it, when did I become so ugly?

Putting that aside, he turned to look further inside. The main door of the room was also open, and it was pitch black inside. “No,” he cursed under his breath again. Mirrors, an open door—this was a very, very bad omen in a horror movie.

He stealthily moved to the side of the door and listened carefully; there was no sound at all—not a single sound. It couldn’t be this quiet unless there was truly no one there. He took a deep breath, thinking that if someone were inside, in such a silent environment, he would be able to hear their heartbeat.

Hallelujah. There must be no one.

He slipped into the room, which was indeed completely dark. He couldn’t see anything; the moonlight from outside only illuminated part of the doorway, while the rest seemed completely blocked and sealed off, with not a hint of light seeping through.

Li Cu scanned the surroundings and noticed a strange white light flickering in the corner. He moved closer to the wall towards the light and discovered it was a phone, seemingly belonging to Liang Wan. He picked it up and turned it on; the screen was cracked but still lit.

As he flipped the phone around to illuminate the room, he was startled to see that there was actually a person crouching next to him, also looking at him by the light of the phone.

Li Cu’s first reaction was to throw a punch, aiming directly at the face of the figure beside him. He thought that regardless of whether the person was human or ghostly, this punch would at least make them flinch. However, he didn’t expect that as he swung his fist, a loud bang resonated, and the entire space in front of him began to shake, accompanied by a sharp pain in his fist.

Instinctively, Li Cu retracted his hand and took a closer look, only to realize that he had struck a mirror. In the reflection, he saw himself holding the phone, and as the mirror vibrated, his face twisted grotesquely.

The mirror was propped against the wall, very close to him. He exhaled sharply and thought, “What the hell, who put a mirror in a place like this? Is this a mirror warehouse?”

Li Cu rubbed his aching knuckles and shone the phone around, soon realizing something was off: the room was filled with such mirrors. He moved along the wall, shining the phone on each mirror, discovering that they varied in size, with some covered in white cloth and others thickly coated in dust. That’s why he hadn’t noticed the illuminated phone screen reflecting countless points when he first entered. The mirror he had punched, however, had its dust wiped away.

Given the position where the phone fell and the distance to the mirror, it was clear that Liang Wan had wiped the dust off. Li Cu took a deep breath, piecing together the situation—Liang Wan might have brushed the dust away, caught a glimpse of her own face, and was so startled that she instinctively smashed the phone and ran away.

But where did she go?

After circling the room, Li Cu found a staircase leading to the second floor. However, the stairs were piled high with clutter, leaving only a narrow path for him to squeeze through. He shone his phone on the dust on the stairs and noticed there were traces of someone having walked up.

Li Cu thought to himself: This woman actually has quite a lot of courage. Besides her footprints, there were no signs of anyone else’s presence; her high-heeled shoe prints were quite distinctive, but there were only footprints going up, none coming down. Was she still upstairs? Why didn’t she pick up her phone after dropping it?

Li Cu glanced at the phone and then at the room filled with mirrors. There was only one spot that stood out from the rest: beside a pillar, there was a small table that appeared to be covered with various items under a cloth.

He walked over and examined the dust on the cloth. There were many footprints around the table, indicating that Liang Wan had also come to check it out, but she hadn’t lifted the cloth, which was still covered in a thick layer of dust. Clearly, Liang Wan had not lingered in this room for long.

Li Cu began to feel an internal struggle. Liang Wan was likely upstairs, perhaps too frightened to hear anything at all. Maybe this building was very tall; if she was on the third floor, even if she wasn’t scared, she wouldn’t notice the changes below. If she had run upstairs out of fear after being startled by the mirror, she probably would have wet her pants by now.

Li Cu thought carefully and compared various scenarios, ultimately deciding that it was best to find Liang Wan first. It wouldn’t be good to explain if something happened to her.

So he quietly walked upstairs. The second floor had three rooms, but all the doors were locked tightly, with heavy iron locks covered in cobwebs. It seemed that Liang Wan hadn’t touched any of these things, as the dirt on them was undisturbed. He continued up to the third floor. There was only one room on the third floor, and the door was open. As he climbed the stairs, he saw Liang Wan’s footprints leading into a corner of the room.

4 3 月 2025

1849 Chapter 11 – The Face on the Wall.

The walls repaired by these people are extremely eerie, with sharp edges at the top that resemble a knife’s blade, forming a contracted arc. After Li Cu climbed up, he took a deep breath. Not having a flashlight was a big problem, but fortunately, the moonlight was bright enough. Additionally, it was a good thing that there were no shards of glass embedded above. He lay on the wall’s edge and looked inside. The courtyard was filled with various vegetables and green plants, and there was even a three-tiered shelf to hold the flower pots, clearly indicating that the homeowner was a gardening enthusiast.

Li Cu felt a surge of joy in his heart. He pushed off with his toes, exerted force with his waist, and with a swift motion, flipped himself over from one side of the wall to the other. Then he relaxed his hands and slid down smoothly. Due to the slight friction between his body and the wall, his descent was slow, allowing him to land almost silently.

In that moment, Li Cu felt like an assassin from a storytelling performance, hanging upside down from a roller door, landing without a sound. It was truly fortunate that there were no dogs in this courtyard. He sighed and noticed that all the lights inside the house were off, so he stealthily made his way to the other side where the flowers were placed, moving each pot one by one to the wall adjacent to the neighbor’s property, slowly stacking them into a pyramid.

Next, Li Cu used the pyramid to climb up to the topmost platform. With a strong push from his feet, he sprang up, aiming to grab the edge of the wall leading to the neighbor’s house. However, the sight he suddenly encountered made him immediately retract his strength and pull his hands back.

If anyone had seen this move, they would have thought he looked foolish, as his feet hadn’t even left the flower pot before he pulled back, resembling a stretching exercise. This was because he saw that the top of the dividing wall was covered in iron nails. Damn, Li Cu thought it was increasingly strange; why did these people reinforce the wall against their neighbors so tightly while leaving the street-facing wall unprotected?

Li Cu couldn’t see clearly, but if they were iron nails, it was actually a good thing for him, as he had a unique skill to deal with such things, and these nails would greatly facilitate his climbing.

Placing steel nails at the top of a wall is a common method, but these nails generally don’t penetrate deep into the wall; many are simply inserted into the cement while pouring the top of the wall. These nails are not very secure, and a heavy blow can easily dislodge them from the cement. However, at this late hour, Li Cu clearly couldn’t use that method. If he didn’t knock the nails out, even if they weren’t secure, they could still pose a significant psychological threat and cause injury if he made contact with them.

Li Cu was not afraid, though, because he knew that when nails are too densely packed, they are nearly as good as not being there at all. This is a physical law: the more support points there are, the larger the area of force, and the lower the pressure. If the nails on a board reach a certain density, Li Cu would even dare to walk directly on them.

But even so, there must be something to act as a buffer between these steel nails. Li Zuodong fiddled around, looking this way and that, and finally found a basin turned upside down on the eaves of the wall in the courtyard. He pressed down hard on it. The steel nails struggled and immediately broke through the basin, but they didn’t penetrate too deeply. While lying there, Li Zu slowly moved his body to the edge of the wall. He knew that as long as he moved slowly enough, the pain from the nails would be nothing at all. Moreover, since the nails were easy to grab onto, they became an ideal climbing tool for him.

Halfway up, Li Zu was already panting heavily; after all, it wasn’t like before when he could just push off with his feet and flip over easily. He gripped tightly, allowing his arms to gradually adapt to the pain caused by the nails, and then slowly exerted force to push his lower body against the top of the wall. At that moment, just as Li Zu was about to look into the courtyard on the opposite side, he suddenly discovered a strange face peeking over the wall, facing him directly.

The face was incredibly pale, with a pair of enormous eyes coldly staring at him. Li Zu was stunned for two or three seconds, then suddenly gasped three times and fell backward. This kind of fear is really hard to understand unless experienced firsthand. After climbing to the top of the wall, suddenly something appeared on the opposite side, face to face with him, almost about to touch. For someone with a weak heart, they might just die of fright on the spot.

As Li Zu fell backward, his clothes got caught on the iron nails, and he didn’t immediately drop down from the wall; instead, he hung there for about four or five seconds until his clothes were torn, and then he fell into the flowerbed below.

He fell hard, crashing down onto the pyramid of flower pots, which collapsed under his body, scattering everywhere in a mess.

Still shaken, Li Zu got up, gasping for breath, trying to calm down when suddenly all the lights in the house behind him turned on. Li Zu reacted quickly; seeing that something was wrong, he rushed to the door, hoping to see if he could open it from the inside. But he knew deep down that the hope was slim, as most farmers’ houses are double locked.

After a few attempts to open it and finding it impossible, he immediately dashed to the other side, randomly moved a few flower pots that hadn’t shattered yet to use as stepping stones, and climbed back up the wall to flip out.

Outside, Liang Wan was smoking, and upon hearing noises in the courtyard, she hadn’t yet reacted, clearly unaware that something had happened.

After Li Zu landed, he grabbed Liang Wan and ran. The two of them ran out of the alley, randomly picked a direction, and started sprinting until they were both out of breath, at which point Li Zu finally let go. He leaned against a tree with one hand, panting heavily, even feeling nauseous. Li Zu was in such a state, and Liang Wan was even worse. She rubbed her hand that Li Zu had pulled, nearly tilting to one side. Li Zu noticed that it seemed her high heel had come off.

Liang Wan asked him, “What on earth did you do? If it’s really too much, can you please not show off in the future?”

Li Zu replied, “You have no idea what I saw, wow, it was terrifying. There’s someone living in that house.”

Liang Wan said, “There’s someone in that house? Are you sure?”

Li Zu responded, “I’m not sure if it was a person, but there was definitely something.”

“Really?” Liang Wan confirmed again.

Li Cuoxin thought to himself, why is there so much nonsense? He nodded and said, “You’re absolutely right. You’re just too reckless.”

“Didn’t you say there was no one inside?” Liang Wan pondered for a moment and waved at Li Cuoxin. “Let’s go back.”

“Back?! If we go back, you’ll have to go to the police station to bail me out. No, the people here might not be so merciful. They might tie me to a tree and give me a beating, and maybe throw some rotten eggs at me too.”

“You have to understand people’s psychology. Who would return right after a thief has just run away?”

Li Cuoxin pointed at his torn clothes. “My clothes are still hanging on their wall. I don’t think they’ll find it strange that I came back; they’ll just think it’s great that I did.”

Liang Wan looked at his clothes and sighed. “Then you wait here. I’ll go back myself. They definitely won’t think I’m the kind of person who climbed over the wall just now.”

“You absolutely mustn’t! It’s late at night, and they’re probably furious. Be careful of what they might do to you,” Li Cuoxin quickly tried to stop her.

Liang Wan smirked, about to argue back, when suddenly a police car drove past. Both of them instinctively shrank their necks and hid behind a tree.

“They called the police,” Li Cuoxin said. “See, they must be really angry. I trampled all over those flowers, and I don’t even know what kind they were. If they were orchids, I could be shot!”

Liang Wan thought for a moment and said to him, “You wait here. I’ll go by myself. If they’ve called the police, I’ll be safer.”

“But…”

“There’s no ‘but’ about it.” Liang Wan patted him and stuffed two hundred yuan into his hand. “You quickly go change your clothes.”

“Where am I supposed to buy clothes at this hour?”

“Take care of your own business. We’ll meet under this tree early tomorrow morning.” Liang Wan scratched the tree with her nails twice, then turned and left.

Li Cuoxin sighed, watching the woman limp away in the direction they had just come from, feeling quite frustrated. He wandered around for two hours before arriving at a busier part of the small town. It was already past eleven at night, and the only shops still open on this bustling street were bathhouses and some food stalls.

He looked at the money in his hand and thought the chances of finding clothes at a food stall were slim, so he walked into a foot massage shop. Fifteen minutes later, he came out wearing a massage therapist’s uniform, with one hundred and fifty yuan left. Although he felt a bit silly, it was better than being questioned by the police in that torn outfit. He then entered a nearby internet café.

Once in a familiar place, he felt much more at ease. After sitting down, he logged into his online gaming account and played until three in the morning. Suddenly, he jolted awake: Am I being too calm? That woman told me to find her in the morning; am I really going to go look for her? First of all, why should I be so obedient? Second, can she handle it on her own? The police can’t possibly stay at the scene all night. If she has already blended in, couldn’t I blend in too?

With that thought, Li Cuoxin wrestled with himself for a moment, as it was always hard for him to leave the chair in an internet café. After some effort, he finally got up and left.

4 3 月 2025

1848 Chapter 10 – A Small Town in Southern Zhejiang

Li Cu furrowed his brows, scratched his hair, looked at Liang Wan, glanced at the business card, and suddenly realized something. He recalled everything that had just happened; although it all occurred very quickly and was almost overwhelming, he still remembered many details. As he thought about it, an idea emerged in his mind. However, this idea gave him a headache; if it was as he suspected, things would be too chaotic.

Damn, how messy must this situation be to drive someone to such a state?

“Stop crying,” Li Cu said. “Although I don’t know what kind of affair you have with him, he certainly isn’t unable to recognize you.”

“Don’t lie to me. If his performance just now was deliberate, then that would make him even more despicable than not recognizing me,” Liang Wan cried even harder.

Li Cu showed her the business card. Liang Wan took a glance and said, “Thanks, at least now I know what this bastard’s name is.”

“That’s not what I meant. Look at the line he wrote on the business card. Why would he secretly write something on it? It indicates that he doesn’t want anyone to discover this information he’s passing along.”

“So what?”

“Think about it. If he’s surrounded by his subordinates, he wouldn’t need to do this,” Li Cu said. “He only has one purpose in doing this—he doesn’t fully trust the people around him.”

“And then?”

“Then, if he doesn’t trust the people around him, maybe he sprays you with chili water or treats you badly for your own good,” Li Cu said.

Liang Wan wiped her tear-stained eyes, thought for a moment, and suddenly said, “You make a good point. So this person is also in a situation that troubles him?”

“This guy’s demeanor is already impressive. If he’s feeling troubled despite being so capable, then this must be a very distressing environment,” Li Cu replied.

“Right! You’re right.” Liang Wan looked at the address on the back of the business card. “Let’s go save him.”

Li Cu snatched the business card back and said, “Wait a minute, calm down first. Tell me what’s going on. It seems you’ve fallen for quite a few people. Personally, I think these people must be involved in some secret plan. How did you end up getting involved with so many of them?”

Liang Wan quickly grabbed the business card back and said, “Saving him is the priority. First, let’s see what this place is like and what might happen there, then I’ll decide whether to tell you.” She looked at the business card again. “This isn’t an address in Hangzhou; it should be a small town near Zhejiang. We should take a taxi now, and we can get there tonight.”

Four hours later, they had arrived in an alley of this small town. It was indeed a very small town; they had driven a long stretch of provincial road after exiting the highway. It was dark, and they couldn’t see much of the landscape, only feeling that it was all flat land; there wasn’t even a dirt mound in sight.

When they reached the town, all the lights were already out. Clearly, there wasn’t much nightlife here; it was very quiet.

“What a strange place. No one is on the streets by nine o’clock,” Liang Wan said. “I thought it was an exaggeration at first, but now it seems to be true.”

The taxi refused to enter the alley when it reached the entrance, seeing that the inside was pitch black. Liang Wan kept persuading, saying that we were just a small one and a delicate one, and there was absolutely no way he could do anything to us, so what was there to be afraid of? The taxi driver said, “Who knows if there are hundreds of big men lying in ambush inside the alley?” So they had no choice but to get out at the entrance.

The two of them stood at the alley entrance for a while. Liang Wan turned on the flashlight app on her phone, and they walked in. This was a typical southern alley, with small villa walls on both sides. At the end, there was an iron gate, behind which stood a farmer’s house. There were couplets posted by the door, the red paper had already faded, clearly indicating that the couplets were not from last year, but at least from the year before.

The iron gate was locked. Li Cu took out a business card and poked it into the keyhole, looking helplessly at Liang Wan. But Liang Wan said, “You’re the man here; shouldn’t you be the one to figure this out at a time like this?”

“This padlock is locked from the inside. Even if I climbed in, I wouldn’t be able to open the door,” Li Cu replied.

“Well, I don’t care. Are you expecting me to come up with a way to get us in?” Liang Wan put her hands on her hips and looked at Li Cu. He glanced at the iron gate, then at this woman, sighed, and knew that even if he was right, he couldn’t explain it clearly.

Climbing walls was nothing for him; he had managed to escape his father’s pursuit multiple times, relying mainly on his wall-climbing skills. How many times had Li Cu climbed walls? He couldn’t even keep track. From the beginning, when he often got stuck on the wall or tore his pants, to later when others came to ask him about the sixty-three spots to climb out of school, he was confident about all the elements involved in climbing anywhere.

Li Cu looked around the environment. This was a typical structure of southern Zhejiang farmer’s houses, with high walls and large courtyards. He could see branches of trees growing inside the walls from the top, and the absence of barking dogs indicated that neither this courtyard nor the surrounding neighbors had dogs. This made him feel a bit relieved, but for him, climbing over such a high wall would require something to give him a boost.

The alley was unusually clean, with no piles of junk he could use for leverage. The only thing nearby was a motorcycle locked to a pillar at another household’s entrance, which he couldn’t move. The only thing he could step on was clearly Liang Wan, and she was obviously not going to be a stepping stone.

Li Cu walked around the entrance three or four times, realizing that climbing up the wall was completely impossible. Liang Wan scolded, “Are you going to climb or not? What does acting indifferent mean?”

Li Cu replied, “You need to help me find a place to climb! I’m not a gecko; I can’t just step up a wall.”

As he spoke, Li Cu noticed the iron gate in front of them, which had many gaps from welding. This seemed to be the only place he could find a foothold. However, there was still more than a meter of courtyard wall above the gate. Even if he climbed to the top of the iron gate, there was nowhere to step on above that meter. He took a few steps back, used Liang Wan’s phone to shine a light, and began to feel a bit frustrated, thinking: Is my entire life going to be ruined in this place?

Aside from climbing the wall, was there any other way? As Li Cu pondered, he also found it strange: why was the defense of such a courtyard so tight? This did not resemble the typical state of southern Zhejiang farmer’s houses.

How to do? How to do? Li Zu turned his gaze to the gap in the iron gate, wondering if his hand could fit through, as he had some knowledge about picking locks. This made him feel quite embarrassed; he suddenly realized that all his skills were related to thievery. His father never intended for him to become a thief, so why had he ended up in this situation? But there was no time to think too much now. He tried to reach his hand through the gap near the lock, only to find it was impossible. The gap was extremely narrow, and it was clear that the door was of very good quality.

Everything, although seemingly rustic and simple, had hardly any common sense mistakes.

Li Zu sighed, and Liang Wan said, “Well, it seems you and I are thinking completely differently. You’ve really disappointed me. Should we go to town to buy some things and stay the night?”

Li Zu replied, “Not necessarily; there are actually many ways. For example, we could climb from the next door. There’s a motorcycle parked in front of the neighboring shop; it’s the only thing we can use to gain some leverage in this clean alley. We should be able to climb up using it.”

Liang Wan asked, “Are you sure about that?”

Li Zu said, “I’m not sure. If I get caught, just don’t worry about me. Remember to pretend to be my sister and come to the police station to pick me up tomorrow.”

With that, Li Zu adjusted his clothes, stepped onto the motorcycle, and jumped with all his might, his feet hitting the wall a few times before he managed to climb to the top of the wall.

4 3 月 2025

1847 Chapter 9 – Jie Yuchen

He followed Liang Wan all the way to a place called Wushanju, only to find the door tightly locked. This quaint place, reminiscent of a seal shop, was closed for business. Just as he sighed and turned to leave, he saw Liang Wan knocking on the door a few times. The door was heavy, and her knocks didn’t make much noise, but Li Cu still heard a voice from inside: “Who is it?”

Then a panel of the door was opened, and a person peeked out. Li Cu was surprised to see that there were many people inside the room. “Who are you?” the person asked. Liang Wan took out the “severed hand” from Li Cu’s backpack and handed it over, saying, “For your boss, anyone in charge will do. Let him take a look at this. I’ll be drinking tea nearby, just call for me if you need me.” After saying that, she turned and left.

Li Cu, feeling confused, followed Liang Wan into a nearby teahouse. Before he could ask anything, Liang Wan turned and asked him, “Was I cool just now?”

“Cool. Absolutely cool, like a female assassin or something.” Liang Wan looked up and smiled, and Li Cu noticed that her eyes were a bit red. He didn’t dare to speak, thinking to himself: Damn it, I’m definitely not the protagonist here. With her like this, there must be a whole story behind her. How deeply did Wang Meng or Wu Xie hurt her? Or is this woman simply not ordinary?

“Stop thinking about it, it’s not what you think,” Liang Wan said. “I was reminded of someone else, and it has nothing to do with them.” She gave a bitter smile. “When I met Wang Meng before, he talked about this and that, but that wasn’t the first time I had seen them. Back when I was an intern, I took care of a patient who had bone fractures and memory loss due to unknown trauma. I had seen those people while caring for that patient.”

She sighed, “Some people, you can’t meet; meeting them once can cost you a lifetime.”

Li Cu raised an eyebrow, thinking: Is she still infatuated?

“When I was taking care of that patient, I heard things I shouldn’t have heard,” Liang Wan said, looking out at West Lake, her voice drifting. “Those people, the friends around that person, seemed very eager to get some information from him. They took care of him diligently, but they could never be as diligent as I was, because I was right there in the hospital. Every night, I would stay in that person’s ward for a long time. Sometimes he would say many meaningless words; each word alone was meaningless, but as I listened day by day, I finally picked up on some clues. I didn’t know what those clues meant; I just remembered that information. Later, when that person was discharged, I never saw him again.”

“Did you really like him?” Li Cu asked, feeling a bit sour, thinking: What a fickle woman, who do you really like?

Liang Wan glanced at him and said, “It’s not just because of that. Later, when I encountered Wang Meng and Wu Xie, I recognized them, so I started to intentionally get close to them. Actually, I wasn’t supposed to be a doctor; I transferred here myself because I wanted to find out what those people were really up to.”

“And then?” Li Cu asked.

“Then, I discovered that their world was too deep. I chatted with Wang Meng, trying to extract some information. I succeeded; the things that person said, I originally didn’t understand their meaning, but Wang Meng told me many things that suddenly made me realize the meaning of those words, and I was very scared.” Liang Wan said, suddenly looking up at the space behind Li Zu.

Li Zu immediately turned around and saw a young man walking in from the doorway, followed by several others, one of whom was the person who had answered the door at Wu Shan Ju earlier.

These people quickly noticed Li Zu and Liang Wan, and the young man at the front walked straight toward them, instructing those around him as he walked, “Clear the space, book this tea house.”

The people around him immediately dispersed and began negotiating at the surrounding tables. The young man approached them and smiled, “You two, please come with me to the private room on the second floor.”

“Boss, what you’re doing might be a bit rude to the other guests,” Liang Wan said, looking quite tough.

The young man replied, “Yes, you’re right. So please come with me to the private room on the second floor.” By this time, the people behind him had already surrounded them.

Liang Wan clearly hadn’t expected to encounter this situation; she was at a loss, and both she and Li Zu were grabbed and dragged upstairs. Li Zu cursed inwardly: Damn it, how did I end up in this situation again? Suddenly, he heard a hissing sound, followed by a cry of anguish; one of the thugs walking in front of him next to Liang Wan fell to the ground, clutching his face. Then there was another hiss, and another thug fell with a scream.

Li Zu saw Liang Wan, in her high heels, somehow pull out a can of pepper spray and spray it at the people, while shouting at Li Zu, “Run!”

The person next to Li Zu had already loosened his grip on his arm and tried to subdue Liang Wan. He immediately struggled, trying to roll away like in an action movie. But there were too many people, and he was quickly pulled back, while Liang Wan was also caught.

“Don’t hit my face!” was the last thing Liang Wan shouted, and then one of the people she sprayed managed to wrest the pepper spray from her hand and sprayed it directly in her face.

She couldn’t speak, closed her eyes tightly and screamed, stomping her feet in distress, not knowing whether to cry or wail, and then she was dragged upstairs.

The person who sprayed her was also suffering; tears streamed down his face as he glanced at Li Zu. Li Zu gasped and immediately said, “It’s not my fault!” Before he could finish his sentence, the person had taken a few steps down and sprayed Li Zu right in the face.

Having never been sprayed with pepper spray before, Li Zu was taken aback by the sensation. His eyes and nose were irritated, leaving him unable to think for a long time; all his strength went into sneezing and crying. The pain was overwhelming, and he wished someone would bring a knife to dig his face out entirely. It wasn’t until someone brought milk to wash his face that he slowly started to recover, but he was left with milk all over his head and face.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Liang Wan, her nose and eyes red, drying her hair. Her hair was relatively long, and she was continuously wiping it with a towel. Everyone was watching them, and in front of them, the young man was brewing a pot of tea while playing on his phone.

“Is there any milk left?” Li Cu asked. With a snap, the other party flipped their phone shut. “To make a long story short, who are you?”

Li Cu didn’t dare to speak carelessly and looked up at Liang Wan, who said to the young man, “I’m your mother.”

The young man picked up a spray bottle from the table and sprayed it at Liang Wan again. She screamed and jumped up from her chair. Someone nearby immediately brought milk to wash her down.

“Tell me, who are you?” the young man asked again.

Liang Wan finally started to cry and couldn’t respond, so the young man turned to Li Cu. Li Cu quickly said, “I’m a poor student. Um, please be patient and let me explain slowly; it’s a long story.”

Li Cu spent fifteen minutes explaining everything to them. For those fifteen minutes, his mind raced like lightning, fearing that even a slight stutter would provoke another spray of mist in his face.

After listening, the young man asked one question: “What about the phone?”

Li Cu pointed to his bag, and someone handed it to him. He took out the phone.

The young man opened the phone, scrolled through it, and sighed, “Why did he choose him?”

Li Cu responded with a confused “Hmm,” not understanding what it meant. His mind was blank, unsure of what to think at that moment. The young man asked him, “Have you told me everything you know?”

Li Cu nodded, and the young man handed the phone back to him. “The person on the other end might call again. If he does, call this number to notify me.” He handed over a business card.

“Oh.” Li Cu took the card, finding it strange; the underworld really wasn’t afraid of the police anymore, even giving out business cards!

“One call, ten thousand yuan.” The young man continued, “I’ll pay in cash as soon as I see the call log.”

“Oh.” Li Cu nodded again, thinking to himself: Having money is their common trait.

The young man patted him and stood up to leave. Li Cu immediately said, “Uh, boss, what about those things? You either find someone to move them, or I’m innocent; don’t implicate me and my friends.”

The young man replied, “Since he sent you the items, he must have his reasons. You can keep them or handle them yourself.”

With that, he didn’t stop and left with his group, leaving only Li Cu and Liang Wan behind, with the “severed hand” still on the table.

Liang Wan was still crying. Li Cu looked over, still not understanding what had happened. He was a bit dazed, saw half a bottle of milk on the table, and brought it over, asking, “Do you want to wash it off again?”

Liang Wan looked up, her eyes swollen like fish bubbles, and shook her head, “Go away.”

“Sister, they’re gangsters; why do you have to act like this?” Li Cu said. “It’s safe now; let’s go to the hospital.”

“You have no idea!” Liang Wan lay down again and cried loudly, “He lied to me, saying everyone in Hangzhou was his friend and would never hurt me. Damn it, no one has ever treated me like that.”

Li Cu frowned, reflecting on her words, feeling it was all very strange. What was going on with this woman? What did she mean by lying?

He couldn’t care less about it anymore. Liang Wan was still crying, and after trying to comfort her a few times without success, he decided to let her be. He sat to the side, looking at the business card she had given him. He thought it would be a special card, but to his surprise, it was an ordinary one, with the following printed on it:

Xie Yuchen, Chairman
Beijing Ruien Yiluoqiade Auction Co., Ltd.

“What a pretentious name,” he muttered to himself, thinking that this pretty boy was actually a chairman, definitely a rich second-generation. Flipping the card over, he noticed that there was an address written on the back.

No. 19, Group 2, Area 3, Opposite Dongfang College, Chang’an Town

The address was pointed to by an arrow, and next to it was a line in English that read: “Don’t trust anyone, go here.”

4 3 月 2025

1846 Chapter 8 – Seeing Liangwan Again

That night was a relatively perfect ending. Yang Hao was particularly excited to see that batch of arms and played around with them for a long time but didn’t dare to take any. Su Wan and the others gathered the body parts and buried them according to the original plan. Su Wan even bought incense to light. Later, Su Wan treated the group to abalones at Wanlong Island, swiping his card for over ten thousand. As a result, Li Zu decided to temporarily forget about paying back the five hundred.

After parting ways with Yang Hao, Su Wan said to Li Zu, “Yang Hao has the potential to be a leader of a gang. Usually, a punk who gets his hands on a real gun would flaunt it everywhere and try to impress girls, and he’d definitely be discovered in a few days. We might end up being exposed too. Yang Hao clearly understands that this gun needs to completely belong to him, and keeping us as insurance is the safest bet.”

Li Zu didn’t really take this in. After returning, a storm of events occurred, and everything seemed illogical yet inevitably connected. He felt he was definitely caught up in some conspiracy. At this point, if he continued to be foolish, he might end up not even knowing how he died. He decided he needed to find a way to figure things out; if he couldn’t, he resolved to call the police and listen to the authorities, abandoning any thought of money.

After parting with Su Wan, he had a night full of nightmares. The next morning, he went to the hospital to find Liang Wan. This matter was largely instigated by her, and she must know something. Initially, he didn’t want to have any more contact with all of this, but now he was at a dead end and could only start from the one lead he had. However, when he arrived at the hospital and inquired, he learned that Liang Wan was on vacation.

He traced his way to Liang Wan’s home. When he knocked on her door, Liang Wan looked surprised. She was dressed in shorts, her long, fair legs exposed, and wore only a tank top—yes, just a tank top. The mature curves of her body made Li Zu pause for a moment: Damn, I can’t afford to think about this right now.

“What do you want?” Liang Wan loosened her grip on the door, letting him in. “Skipping class is not good.”

“I need to talk to you,” Li Zu replied. As he entered, he saw Liang Wan casually lie back on the sofa, making him feel unsure where to look.

“Speak, what is it? You’re not asking me for that five hundred bucks, are you?”

“No, but if you want to pay me back, that’s fine too.” Li Zu sat far away, thinking that if he called the police, his assets would only amount to that five hundred.

Liang Wan glanced at him, “Why sit so far away? Afraid I’ll eat you?”

“We’re not that familiar. I just have a few questions, and I’ll leave once I’m done,” Li Zu said.

Liang Wan sighed and picked up some nail polish to apply, “Wow, trying to chat me up. What, just because we had a meal together you think I’m your ex-girlfriend? I won’t cooperate with you if you keep that attitude.”

Li Zu knew she was relentless with her words, so there was no need to argue with her. Without saying much, he turned around and took off his shirt.

Liang Wan was startled and sat up, “What are you doing? I’ll hit you.”

Li Zu turned and took out the “seven-fingered monster” from his bag, then positioned it alongside the pattern on his back.

“With a bit of humanitarian spirit, you should cooperate with this poor person,” Li Cu said. “I’m almost being driven to death by your ex-boyfriend’s boss.”

Liang Wan frowned, looked closely at Li Cu’s back and that thing, and asked, “What do you want to know?”

Li Cu replied, “I want to know everything you know about this matter, what you and Wang Meng have talked about, what he has told you—everything.”

Liang Wan looked at Li Cu and suddenly said, “You should go to Hangzhou.”

“Hangzhou? Why?” Li Cu asked in surprise.

“I’ve been hesitating whether to go once myself. If you want to get to the bottom of this matter, Hangzhou is the key.” Liang Wan took out her phone, scrolled through it, and found a text message. “This is the address of their shop. Wang Meng told me that it’s their headquarters. I really don’t know anything else, but if you want to investigate, you definitely need to go to this place.”

After boarding the plane to Hangzhou, Li Cu felt a bit uneasy. It was a strange feeling; partly because Liang Wan had paid for his ticket, and he thought she looked really cool when she was on the phone booking it.

As a minor, there was always a sense of inferiority when watching adults do anything, and this feeling made Li Cu feel lost, especially since he really liked girls like Liang Wan. But the age gap was too big, making him increasingly hesitant to think about it.

Moreover, there was a sense of fear. He only had a few dozen yuan on him and was heading to a strange city, which was different from going to the desert. In the desert, he was worried about his life, but in Hangzhou, if Liang Wan abandoned him, would he have to beg his way back?

Although Liang Wan saw through his thoughts and said to him, “Don’t worry, sister will take care of you. Just remember to take care of me when you start making money,” he still felt uneasy. Liang Wan was too emotional; if he said the wrong thing one day, she might just slam the door and leave. At that point, the thirty-four yuan and twenty-eight cents in his pocket would be his only lifeline. Damn it, every time he found himself in this situation, he just wished he could grow up faster.

“What are you so nervous about?” Liang Wan asked, noticing his changing expression. “This can’t be your first time on a plane, right?”

“No, of course not. I fly often,” Li Cu replied, thinking about the last time he flew with Wu Xie. “I have my reasons to be nervous; you need to understand.”

“I understand, I understand.” Liang Wan glanced at his back. “But don’t overdo it; you might attract the attention of the flight attendants and get pulled off the plane.”

Li Cu exclaimed, realizing that he had been more nervous about being tricked onto the plane than he was now, and no one had warned him about that danger.

“By the way, did your suitcase go through security?” Liang Wan asked while flipping through a magazine on the plane. “If they see a hand in your suitcase, will they confiscate it?”

“How would I know?” Li Cu replied. “They wouldn’t open the suitcase, would they?”

“Nowadays, they use X-ray scans, so there’s no need to open it, you country bumpkin.”

“Ah?” Li Cu became worried at her words. If the baggage security officer found a severed hand in his luggage, that would be a serious problem. Why did she have to remind him? Wouldn’t that just make him more anxious?

But he glanced at Liang Wan and found that the page she was looking at in the magazine was a real estate advertisement? She seemed to be concentrating, but her gaze was unfocused. She was also very nervous, and Li Zu immediately realized that her rambling was because she was anxious as well.

Indeed, if one puts themselves in her shoes, even a woman as bold as Liang Wan would naturally feel scared in such a situation; ordinary people would definitely want to avoid it. Now that she was spending money to take him to find the source of this matter, Li Zu suddenly felt a sense of gratitude. Or perhaps this woman had her own unresolved issues that needed to be addressed in this matter?

The plane landed in Hangzhou around three in the afternoon. They did not check into a hotel but took a taxi directly to a place called Xiling Seal Engravers Society. Liang Wan sat in the car looking out the window, and she hadn’t said a word since they got off the plane.

Li Zu suddenly sensed something was off; he realized that he had always thought Liang Wan was accompanying him to find answers here, but now it seemed that it might be the other way around.

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1855 Chapter 17 – Searching for the Box of Human Heads in the Box

1854 Chapter 16 – Dismemberment

1853 Chapter 15 – Destiny

1852 Chapter 14 – The Game of Jie Yuchen

1851 Chapter 13 – Two Liangwans

1850 Chapter Twelve – The Strange Farmhouse

1849 Chapter 11 – The Face on the Wall.

1848 Chapter 10 – A Small Town in Southern Zhejiang

1847 Chapter 9 – Jie Yuchen

1846 Chapter 8 – Seeing Liangwan Again

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分类目录归档：The Chronicles of the Tomb Robbers