The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 144: Mimicking the Outside, Lacking the Soul
We two rolled into a tangle, and finally, I won with strength and tied him up tightly.
With my foot on his back to prevent him from rolling away, I asked harshly, "Tell me, what are you?"
This thing looked exactly like Lu Xiaodao, but I’ve known Lu Xiaodao for some time now. From initially thinking he’s a man of few words to realizing he just doesn’t bother with long sentences, I’ve come to understand him somewhat.
Lu Xiaodao would never use two words if one word could suffice.
And this person in front of me not only talks a lot but also goes on and on in a single sentence.
"Let me go, let me go!" Lu Xiaodao’s voice gradually became sharper, eventually turning into a female voice.
Luckily, I tied it tight, even if her body returned to a slender form, she couldn’t break free of the vines.
"Why are you wearing his clothes, where are they?" I didn’t care if she was human or a monster, I only cared about Chen Qinghan’s whereabouts.
"Let me go, and I’ll take you." The woman in Lu Xiaodao’s clothes slowly changed, as if shedding a layer of protective color, reverting to a gorgeous female appearance.
"Lead the way, or I’ll break your legs." I grabbed the knot on her back and lifted her, carrying her like a bucket.
The woman paused, suddenly stopped struggling, and cooperatively led the way for me.
Her easy submission surely meant she had some trick up her sleeve. I didn’t reveal my suspicions and followed her suggested route. Anyway, if any danger appeared, I would just toss her as a shield.
The streets in the city were crisscrossed, orderly, flat, and spacious.
The woman led me twisting and turning, arriving in front of a three-story building, saying it was the entrance to the Royal Treasure Vault.
If I guessed correctly, the tallest ’building’ in the city center should be the palace, but this small building was some distance away from the palace, not within the palace grounds at all.
"Is it here?" I asked, pretending to be doubtful.
"Yes, the royals deliberately constructed the treasure vault door within the Goddess Temple to protect their treasures." The woman spoke fluent Han, also having the appearance of a Han person.
"Oh~" I said as I carried her up the steps in front of the small building. To be honest, this small building was quite ordinary, saying it’s a Goddess Temple seemed a bit shabby.
But since I wasn’t a resident of White Jade City, not understanding their beliefs and customs, perhaps they were all responding to calls to simplify and keep things basic.
The door of the small building was also made of polished stone slabs but opening it felt light and easy, without any strange sound from the hinges, actually not making any sound at all.
Inside the hall, rows of stone chairs were placed; it felt a bit like a school auditorium or a screening room in a government unit.
In the front stood a stone statue; upon mentioning a goddess, people usually have the misconception of imagining them as graceful and exceptionally beautiful young women.
But the statue in this Goddess Temple was a three-hundred-pound woman. Due to the detailed and vivid carving, the goddess’ brow lines, eyebrows, dead-fish eyes, nasolabial folds, and buck teeth were clearly discernible.
The goddess held a ’pork knuckle’ in one hand and a ’drink’ in the other. I suddenly understood, this might be the land of happy chubby creatures!
I was admiring the goddess statue when the woman I tied suddenly lit something up, seemingly a tiny flashlight, which fell to the ground right in front of my feet.
The beam of light shot forward; suddenly, something moved in the ceiling of the small building when the light illuminated it.
The three-story building wasn’t very high, so I could see what was above if I looked up.
The woman I was carrying suddenly burst into laughter, a laugh full of madness and triumph.
Simultaneously, the bats hanging from the ceiling, stimulated by the beam of light, all swooped down.
They weren’t blind, could sense the light, but obviously hated it.
No fewer than a thousand bats were resting in the hall, tightly packed together like commuters during rush hour on a subway, now all swooping downwards, diving towards me.
The bat swarm, dense like a black cloud pressing down, split into two paths and fled out the door in front of me.
In less than a minute, they disappeared without a trace, and the woman I was carrying, like a chicken being choked, suddenly stopped laughing.
"Even though those bats look a bit ugly, you shouldn’t mock them. See, you laughed them away, that’s bullying, you know?" I placed the woman on the ground in front of the goddess statue.
The ground was covered in bat droppings. I knew there were bats here right when I opened the door.
But I hadn’t expected her to use bats to attack me; this plan was downright silly. They never attacked me, whether blind ones or not.
The woman lay on the bat droppings, glaring at me resentfully, her eyes filled with anger and confusion.
"Come on, if you don’t open a door leading to the Royal Treasure Vault for me here today, we’ll discuss how a blind and crippled person survives on a perilous island." I pulled out the dagger hidden in my sleeve, smiling as I looked at the woman.
Transformation isn’t remarkable; even chameleons can do it. If you could regrow your limbs, now that would be something novel. I might have found a kindred spirit.
"Aren’t you concerned about the lives of those three people?" The woman wasn’t frightened by me, still trying to take the upper hand.
"Since you came for fortune, if they die, it’s because of their bad fate, not anyone else’s fault." I sneered, twirling the dagger in my hand.
This dagger was borrowed from Lu Xiaodao, as I lost mine when jumping into the sea.
This dagger looks small but is extraordinarily sharp, capable of piercing a hole through a stone.
"Hmph, another bunch of fools dreaming of getting rich. To be honest, there isn’t even any treasure here; it’s just a trap." The woman spoke in a tone tinged with defeat at the end.
"No treasure? Then what about the key?" I asked casually.
"Key?" The woman tilted her neck to avoid her face touching the bat droppings, upon hearing the word ’key’, she suddenly turned to look at me.
"Alright then, Beauty Snake, tell me, did you find the key?"
Even if the island has natives, the chance of them speaking Han is minimal. This woman was clearly not an island native, either a member of a previous expedition or a regular person who ended up here by chance.
Her ability to change appearance clearly indicated she wasn’t an ordinary person. So, I thought of the female team member Professor Liu mentioned, nicknamed Beauty Snake.
When I first heard the nickname, I thought it was used for a beautiful but malicious woman.
But I suddenly remembered that the legend of the Beauty Snake is actually about a snake demon that can transform into a beauty, charming people, and tricking them into letting her eat their meat.
The woman was stunned upon hearing the title ’Beauty Snake,’ widened her eyes, and asked, "Who are you?"
