Ma Pingchuan glanced at the guard and then at the child, who looked back at him with a faint, almost provocative expression that made him feel uncomfortable. This was not an equal exchange; Ma Pingchuan felt that the child clearly believed he was not someone to be feared, which was why he looked at him that way. Considering the guard beside him, he thought that in this area, he would be the first to know if anything unusual happened. What was there to be afraid of? Did he think someone would plot against him in a graveyard?
He had seen all kinds of storms and waves; if someone wanted to scheme against him, that would be just fine—it would give his men a chance to practice. If he showed fear here, under the watchful eye of the guard, it would be somewhat embarrassing.
Ma Pingchuan then said to the child, “Alright, let’s settle this. Can you ride a horse?”
The child said nothing and simply flipped down from the eaves with the grace of a raccoon, nodding in response.
Ma Pingchuan gathered a group of guards, mounted up, and rode with the child, galloping all the way to the vicinity of the grave hill. Once they reached the grave hill, the child pointed to the surrounding area, which was a desolate expanse, and said, “Look, this field is all dead.”
“Even a blind person can see that,” Ma Pingchuan replied. “Kid, you’d better not be playing tricks on me, or I’ll have you shot on the spot. Now tell me, where did the coffin go?”
“Look at this withered area; what does it resemble?” the child asked.
Ma Pingchuan observed the barren fields around him and realized he hadn’t thought about the shape of this phenomenon. The hill wasn’t high enough to see clearly, so he signaled to a guard. The guard climbed up a nearby large tree and quickly reached the top, looking around and shouting down, “Boss, it looks like a scorpion!”
Ma Pingchuan frowned, thinking there might be some truth to it. Without caring about his image, he rushed to the base of the tree and gritted his teeth to climb up as well. Upon reaching the treetop and looking down, he felt a jolt in his heart; indeed, the entire shape of the withered fields resembled a giant scorpion with its claws outstretched.
He shouted down at the child, “What’s going on here?”
This large area, with such a precise shape, could not have formed naturally. But to create such a thing overnight that caused the crops to wither like this—how could that be possible?
“There’s a huge thing buried underground in this area,” the child explained. “What you see is its ‘shadow’ on the surface.”
Ma Pingchuan climbed down from the tree and remounted his horse, his expression darkening. First, he regretted not noticing the mystery of this shape earlier; second, he was still skeptical about the child’s claim.
What did it mean? Something huge was buried underground, and its shadow resembled a scorpion. How could a ‘shadow’ cause the crops in the field to wither? What was this enormous thing underground? Could it really be a giant scorpion monster?
How could that even be possible? With such a massive scorpion buried underground, there was nothing he could do except run away.
When asked again by the child, the child rode forward, continuing down the mountain, and said to him, “This graveyard you see is built above an ancient Han Dynasty tomb. The area you see that is dead and withered is the extent of the tomb’s underground palace. The ancient tomb is located about forty meters deep, and the underground palace is constructed in a very strange scorpion shape, the purpose of which is unknown.”
After a pause, the child continued calmly, “The reason the crops here have withered is that during the construction of the tomb, a mechanism was installed inside, releasing a large amount of toxic gas that evaporated and poisoned all the crops on the surface overnight.”
“How do you know all this, little ghost?” Ma Pingchuan asked. “Do you have x-ray vision or something?”
The child glanced at him and replied淡淡地, “Because I am the tomb raider.”
Ma Pingchuan frowned and halted his horse, and his subordinates also stopped their horses. The horse under the child paused when it saw the others had stopped. The child turned to look at Ma Pingchuan, who then asked, “What did you say, little ghost? Do you know the consequences of speaking recklessly? This is our family’s ancestral grave. Are you telling me you dug up my family’s ancestral tomb and triggered a mechanism, alarming my ancestors and poisoning all my crops?”
“I don’t speak recklessly,” the child said. “Besides, I haven’t finished my words. Next, I will tell you where your ancestral coffins have gone.”
Ma Pingchuan nodded, his hand already resting on his pistol at his waist: “Alright, then tell me, where did they go? Is it related to this scorpion?”
“They were eaten,” the child replied. “The ancient tomb below has ‘eaten’ all the coffins from your ancestral grave.”
“Eaten?” Ma Pingchuan found the situation very strange; he was having such a serious conversation with a child of about ten years old, and he felt completely dominated by the child’s presence. The most bizarre thing was that he found himself believing some of the child’s words. He tightened his grip on the gun, trying to regain the initiative. “What do you mean by ‘eaten’? Is this ancient tomb alive?”
The child shook his head: “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know where you can find those coffins, but I don’t know why the coffins were ‘eaten’ by the largest tomb underground.”
The child said, “If you were to dig here now, you would find that all the coffins are pressed against the outer walls of this scorpion-shaped ancient tomb, as if they were drawn there by something.”
The child remained very calm, a calmness that transcended the ordinary, which made Ma Pingchuan increasingly uncomfortable.
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