The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 167: Poisoned

I turned back and looked down, Bi Shi silently expressing with a facial expression that seemed to say, ’You see, I told you so, but you didn’t believe me.’

I paused, trying to sense if there was any ’mental activity’ nearby, but the leader heard our footsteps and shouted loudly, "Is that Miss Leng? Professor Chen is in trouble!"

His tone sounded very anxious, and I couldn’t care about anything else, so I rushed up the stairs, two steps at a time.

As soon as the leader saw me come up, he said, "After you left, Beauty Snake said she needed to relieve herself. When she returned, she used the Illusion Technique to trick Cong Zhibo, calling him off the ship, and then she went back saying Cong Zhibo also went out for a breath of fresh air."

"After a long time, Cong Zhibo still hadn’t returned. Guan Hai was worried something might have happened to him, so he went out to look for him but couldn’t find him."

"Professor Chen then tied up Beauty Snake and went out with Guan Hai to search."

The leader paused as he spoke, "Beauty Snake distracted them, dug out the dry corpse’s heart, and stomped it to mush. She herself... committed suicide in the water."

Beauty Snake didn’t want to live anymore, pulling us to the grave with her!

A stopped heart couldn’t be used as a battery; she committed suicide in the water, and with her body soaking in the cold sea, by the time Qinghan and the others returned, she was long dead.

This woman only wanted to escape the Sea of Sunken Ships; hearing we were going back, she probably couldn’t process it. But I had said there were other ways to leave there; did she give up too early?

"What happened to Professor Chen?" I pressed.

"When he found Cong Zhibo, he was scratched by him. It appears Cong Zhibo has been infected by some kind of virus; he was comatose at first, but suddenly went crazy, desperately attacking those around him."

"Poison from Beauty Snake?"

"It should be."

Using the weakest to attack the strongest, Beauty Snake, true to her name, is as venomous as a femme fatale.

The leader, fearing we might need him at any moment, never left the staircase. Guan Hai came up to find us and told him about Beauty Snake.

The leader didn’t let Guan Hai go down; our numbers were dwindling, and the injured needed care, losses we couldn’t afford.

We returned to the Shell Ship, Cong Zhibo’s eyes rolled back, his mouth gagged, limbs bound, locked in a small room outside the control room.

Beast-like moans escaped from his throat continuously, his veins bulged on his skin, and there were black spots all over.

Qinghan was also in the room outside the control room, but opposite to Cong Zhibo. Guan Hai said he requested to be tied up, fearing he’d attack others like Cong Zhibo if he had an outbreak.

In fact, his current condition was already dire; when he saw me at the door, his eyes were void, as if he didn’t recognize me.

His hand was wrapped with a strip of cloth torn from Guan Hai’s clothes, but at the edge of the fabric, black spots were visible, similar to those on Cong Zhibo.

Our understanding of Beauty Snake was truly lacking. She not only could use the Illusion Technique but also poison, and we still didn’t know what tool she used to cut out the heart.

Our team doctor, Zhou, was left on the small island; we were about to return, but we had no battery.

The leader took a deep breath, which I halted with a raised hand, "Shut up!"

His look of resolve and determined eyes meant he was planning to sacrifice himself.

But if Guan Hai and Cong Zhibo found out we removed the leader’s heart to return and save ourselves, they’d probably mentally collapse.

They had already lost Professor Liu; losing the leader, too, would likely reduce their mental resilience to that of fools.

Although compared to death, becoming foolish seemed not so bad, we weren’t at a dead-end yet.

"Hey, you’re not seriously considering using mine, are you?" Bi Shi asked teasingly as she saw me refusing the leader’s heart.

"No, using shit probably won’t work."

"Damn! You—"

"We’ll use the corpse’s." I quickly interrupted her, asking Guan Hai to lead me to the body.

Guan Hai exited the cabin, head down like a wooden man, dazedly walking ahead until he reached the edge of a channel at the stern, stopping beside a corpse.

The corpse lay beside the channel, a large cut on the left side of the neck, made by something sharp, though likely not a knife.

"Wow, even the bone is exposed; she was really hard on herself." Bi Shi commented next to me.

I’ve seen many tomb robbers commit suicide—hanging, shooting themselves, poisoning... but I’ve never seen someone slit their own throat, not that this method doesn’t exist, but it usually requires even greater courage to execute.

From the shape and direction of the cut, it was indeed self-inflicted, but she cut deeply, making me feel something was off.

Self-harm isn’t unheard of, but it usually occurs during extreme mental states.

Could Beauty Snake have gone mad?

As I thought about it, I drew out a dagger, controlled my strength, and slashed open the corpse’s chest.

I didn’t need forensic tools; breaking open the chest with my hands would suffice. But as soon as I cut open her chest, a thing sprang out.

Then a second, a third...

I quickly withdrew my hand as thin snake-like things emerged from Beauty Snake’s chest.

Pale white little snakes, each with a pair of red eyes, like two tiny red dots.

Guan Hai couldn’t hold it anymore, finally turning aside to vomit.

The small snakes seemed weak, moved slowly, and died shortly after crawling out of Beauty Snake’s body.

Why were there snakes inside Beauty Snake? Aren’t snakes born from eggs? Could she have been raising a pregnant snake inside her?

Or perhaps these snake-like creatures weren’t really snakes?

"Did she... did she kill herself because of this?" the leader said uncertainly as he looked at the small snakes crawling out.

I waited for the small snakes to emerge before proceeding to dig out Beauty Snake’s heart, possibly due to being soaked in cold seawater, those small snakes were lifeless and sluggish, causing no damage to the heart.

Watching me dig the heart out of the ’snake nest,’ the leader’s expression could no longer maintain composure, furrowing his brow, lips tight, not as extreme as Guan Hai’s reaction though.

"I’m sorry, I... I should have watched over her," Guan Hai mumbled, squatting nearby, face buried between his knees.

"Had you sent someone to follow her, it would have been easier for her to make a move. She saw no one was watching her and then tricked Cong Zhibo into going out." A determined person ready to die has no reservations, especially someone as capable as Beauty Snake; she intended to drag others down, and even if not everyone fell for it, she could drag a few.

I suspect Qinghan didn’t assign anyone to follow her for two reasons: he thought being off the ship posed no threat as long as she didn’t sabotage the dried corpses and the ship; she was free to go wherever.

Secondly, neither Guan Hai nor Cong Zhibo were her match, and following her out could end with them being subdued instead.

If I were Qinghan, I wouldn’t have sent anyone with her either, but unfortunately, Cong Zhibo ended up smoking by the ship’s door, alone and isolated.

"I shouldn’t have given him cigarettes," the leader also confessed with guilt.