The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 165: The Well

Bi Shi usually loves to undermine me, but she trusts my special abilities somewhat. Hearing me mention snoring, she quickly pulls her gaze away and walks to my side.

Our primary mission here is to find water, so there’s no need to create extra trouble. I intentionally avoided the source of the sound.

The city is devoid of living people now; that snoring thing is clearly not human. I gestured to Bi Shi, indicating that we should split up.

There’s a ’big guy’ sleeping here, and since there are no other living beings in the city, we’ll save time by searching for water separately.

The houses in this city are different from those in the outside world, as they are carved directly into the rock.

They resemble the ancient caves carved by practitioners on cliffs, except these houses have doors and windows, making them a combination of caves and cave dwellings.

In the center of the city, there’s a cluster of tall towers of varying heights, naturally formed stone mountains, shaped like the Sea King’s trident.

All the buildings are inlaid with glowing stones, especially the tower cluster, which is as bright as searchlights. Because of this, from a distance, I can’t see the rest of the city, but I can see these towers.

I covered the water bottle hanging from my body to prevent it from making noise. Earlier, while on the road, perhaps the distance was far enough that the noise it made did not wake the sleeping creature.

Now that we’re so close, if there’s any jingle-jangle, it might wake that thing.

Considering the rock-hewn houses, I figured it would be tough to install plumbing, although it can’t be ruled out that the Undersea People had very advanced rock-drilling technology.

To verify this, I randomly entered a house by the street; the furniture and arrangement were similar to White Jade City.

I found a small compartment resembling a bathroom, and while it had a sewer, there was no water supply pipe.

This is much like White Jade City—if its residents followed lifestyles of old, the Undersea City might also use wells for water supply instead of tap water.

Considering the size of the city, the number of Undersea People wouldn’t exceed that of a modern small county town, but Professor Liu mentioned that White Jade City was built roughly five thousand years ago. The Undersea City would be even older; having so many people in that era who could drive ’cars’ suggests they were far advanced compared to their contemporaries.

Professor Liu’s friend wrote in a journal that he wished to find out where White Jade City’s residents came from, but the person had already escaped the Sea of Sunken Ships and never had the chance to see for himself.

I found a well behind a rocky building. The rocks in the city are of varying heights, seemingly sculpted by nature itself. Although I found the well, the city is very clean, and the rope from back then has rotted away.

I used a vine rope that Chen Qinghan had cut, tying it to a large seashell at the well’s edge. This seashell was as big as a bucket, with holes carved by hand.

The inside of the well was pitch black; I couldn’t see if there was water, so I decided to haul up a bucket to check.

The seashell bucket slowly descended, and when it reached about ten meters deep, it seemed to have hit water.

The fact that it could sink indicated there was water. I held back my excitement, slowly pulling it up, being careful not to make any noise.

Just then, Bi Shi came over. Seeing I had already found a well, she spread her hands at me, indicating she hadn’t found one.

I mouthed the word ’useless’ at her and motioned for her to come over.

The water in the seashell bucket was so clear, it seemed suspiciously clean. I pointed to the bucket: "Take a sip!"

Bi Shi read my lips and responded: "Are you sure?"

I also thought about it—that which can’t poison her might poison Chen Qinghan and the others, so having her test it was useless.

But I had to find out if the well was clean first. "Go down!"

When one plan failed, I had another. I untied the rope from the seashell bucket and handed it to Bi Shi.

The well mouth was big enough for a person to fit inside; having watched plenty of horror movies, I couldn’t help but have grim thoughts—there were many plots of bodies thrown down wells.

Bi Shi rolled her eyes, mockingly pointed at me twice, and reluctantly tied the rope into a slip knot around her armpits.

I lowered her into the well; she remained submerged for a full minute before tugging the rope, signaling for me to pull her up.

When Bi Shi climbed out of the well, she gave me another eye roll and whispered, "Nothing there, very clean, a cold deep pool."

She indeed carried a chill from the well; the water we’d just drawn was also icy cold. If an average person had plunged in and stayed for a minute, they’d surely be stammering upon getting out.

It seemed the bodies of the Undersea City residents weren’t hidden in the well...

I took the water bottles off my back, filled each one with water, and then strapped them back on.

Bi Shi patted my shoulder, a gleam of mischief in her eyes, obviously plotting something.

"Come on, let’s check out that music box?" she whispered.

"When the mummy battery runs out, whose heart should we dig out? Yours?" I said, glaring as I secured my water bottles.

"Stop with the secrets; you can fool them, but can you fool your fellow townsman?"

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Tch, still pretending? Continuing this act?"

"I lost my memory."

"Oh, drop it, did you eat that energy ball with recovery ability?!"

"Why would I eat it for no reason? I didn’t eat it!"

"Really?"

"No, I have my own recovery ability. Why would I eat it?"

"Then that’s odd. Where did it go?"

"Got burnt to air by the Karmic Fire."

"Heh... alright, let’s see how this goes."

After our murmurs, Bi Shi turned and ran off in the direction she came from.

I didn’t dare run; the water bottles would make noise if I did, so I could only fast-walk to follow her, sensing she was up to no good and needing to stop her quickly.

The music box is made with perpetual motion technology and never-wearing materials, a real treasure if taken out, but ever since I heard that deep, thick snoring, I suspected the music box’s existence might be to lull it to sleep.

So even though it’s valuable, we mustn’t touch it carelessly. If it stops, the sleeping colossal beast awakens—just the two of us can’t handle that.

Clearly, Bi Shi didn’t think like I did—she wanted to mess with the music box. That dauntless woman thought I would chase her?

Pfft!

I’m carrying water for several people; people are waiting on the ship. If I’m trapped here and Chen Qinghan and the others come looking for me out of concern and encounter a waking ’beast,’ we’d all be stuck here.

I originally thought whoever meddled would stay behind, but running full-speed from the city to the dock takes over an hour. Before I could run out, Bi Shi woke the giant beast.

I had no choice but to chase her, following her to the central tower area, which had clearly experienced a fierce battle, with damaged and collapsed buildings.

Some walls had dents similar to those made by Bi Shi’s ’water gun.’

So the damage to the buildings should have been caused by the Undersea People themselves, but they must have been attacking something.