The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 31: Legend of the Death Mine

I’ve had enough of staying in that tomb, I even dream of it being struck by lightning and me turning into a butterfly and flying out.

The arrival of Chen Qinghan and the others broke the stalemate of a thousand years. I’m not even done thanking them, how could I be angry?

"You... well, don’t be too sad. Maybe some creatures are destined not to see the light. Coming out might mean facing various dangers, so eternal rest here might not be a bad thing." I have no experience in comforting people, these dry words are already my limit.

Upon hearing this, Chen Qinghan looked at me with a complex expression. I blinked, felt something flash through my mind, thinking that I seemed to have caught information from his gaze, but unfortunately, I couldn’t grasp it.

"Is that so, shouldn’t have brought it out..." he mumbled as if conflicted about something.

"Then I’ll use some tools to pry it up, take a look, maybe there’s something alive inside." I didn’t intend to disturb Chen Qinghan’s thoughts and returned to the collapse site with a crowbar.

Boss Lu knew about this place but didn’t treat it as the best shelter from the wind, likely because she knew it had experienced a collapse.

An abandoned mine that’s had a collapse could collapse again at any moment, so hiding here is equally dangerous.

I dug cautiously, struggling for a long time to make a small hole. Because the soil and stones were frozen together, a hole this size wouldn’t compromise the load-bearing structure. I tucked the crowbar behind my waist and crouched through the hole.

As soon as I stuck my head out, I was face to face with a shriveled face. The dried corpse looked grim, but it hadn’t been crushed to death by the collapse.

I looked at the corpse like one would look at a doll. They were just human-shaped dead objects, nothing to be afraid of.

I pushed away the ’blocking’ corpse, crawled through the entrance, and saw there were more corpses along the mine shaft.

The corpses lay scattered around the collapsed sandpile. They seemed to want to get out, but suddenly died as they approached the collapse.

If they had still been alive at the time, there would be digging marks on the pile. Since they wanted to get out, they would definitely have dug through the soil.

But they hadn’t dug any soil; there was no dirt under their fingernails. They seemed to have collapsed en masse as soon as they got here and died on the spot.

I’ve heard that when mining, it’s easy to release toxic gases from underground. This mine is quite old; perhaps there wasn’t a good response at the time, which is why the miners all perished.

The mine has been abandoned for so many years, the toxic gases should have mostly dissipated by now. I stepped over the corpses and continued deeper inside.

There were no wounds or bite marks on the corpses, probably because the toxic bodies deterred even the rats from eating them.

Continuing forward, I found that the entire mine passage had only one collapse point; the rest was intact.

The mine sloped downward, twisting and turning. I saw more dried corpses, all facing toward the exit.

The evacuation time seems to have been brief; the miners below had no time to escape.

The corpses here, without exception, were all dried, like zombie meat left in the fridge for decades.

The downward-extending mine passage is probably several thousand meters deep. I felt I should turn back after covering a third of it, but it felt like I couldn’t rest until I saw what was at the bottom, like a level in a game.

On the way, I caught a few fat rats, killed them, tied them together, and hung them on my waist to clean back at camp.

The bottom of the mine had a door, and behind it was another mine shaft, straight but with no end in sight, leading to somewhere unknown.

If I don’t return soon, Chen Qinghan might get worried. I took a look at the deep mine shaft and hurried back.

Back at the entrance to the mine, I cleaned the rats using a knife and the snow at the entrance, while Chen Qinghan roasted them over the fire.

After dealing with the rats, I grabbed a handful of soil to wipe the blood off my hands. Wen Jing woke up, devoured the roasted meat handed over by Chen Qinghan.

The remaining three were weaker, taking a while longer to wake, and once awake, they too ate the roasted rat meat.

I was worried that Miss Scream might be disgusted by the rats and cause a fuss, but it turns out I overthought it. She assumed we could catch ’normal’ animals, ate contentedly, and didn’t even ask what kind of meat it was.

After eating, Boss Lu gained strength and stared into the depths of the mine, asking, "Do you know why I opted to go back to the ancient tomb instead of seeking shelter here from the snow?"

"Because this place experienced a collapse, and you’re afraid of another one," I replied.

"Collapse?" Boss Lu scoffed, "It was blasted down with dynamite. Do you know why the mine owner blasted it?"

"A toxic gas leak?" I ventured my previous guess.

"No, it was because they found something extraordinary. The mine owner was scared, so he blew up the mine, silencing all the miners inside."

"What could have frightened the mine owner to such an extent?" I curiously asked.

"No one knows. That mine owner descended the mountain alone and afterwards remained silent about this mine, no matter who asked."

"Then how do you know?" I asked.

"I visited his great-grandson. The family descendants were obsessed with this mine. After the mine owner’s death, his son, daughter, grandson, and granddaughter all came here one after another."

"What did they find?"

"I don’t know. They disappeared and never returned. Since then, the family completely abandoned it, considering it a land of death." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"Oh? But I just went in and checked; no one has cleared the collapse site, it still looks like the day of the explosion."

"Maybe there’s more than one entrance, or those unlucky fellows encountered a storm on the mountain."

"Are you afraid there’s something terrible inside?"

"Yes, and your other reason too, this place has been around for so long, who knows when it might completely collapse. I don’t want to die here."

"The mine passage descends downwards, it should lead to the foot of the mountain. Who knows how long the blizzard will last? We don’t have water or food; taking the mine passage might be a shortcut," I calculated the straight distance of the mine passage; reaching the bottom should be about ten meters below the surface.

If we could descend, digging ten meters upwards from below would be much better than walking through wind and snow for a day.

Wen Jing and the others no longer have the stamina to complete the regular route.

Only Chen Qinghan and I are not yet weakened. We could take turns digging, it wouldn’t take long.

"Is the structure of the mine passage still stable inside?" Chen Qinghan asked.

"Stable, we just need to walk lightly; there should be no problem."

"Then let’s rest for a while before setting out."

No one objected this time. They slowly recovered from their frostbitten state, listless and tired.

I brought out a steel helmet from wartime, made some snow tea for them. They needed food, water, warm air. The living are so fragile; any carelessness could lead to death or illness.

"Whoa, did you pick that up in the pit?" Boss Lu raised an eyebrow, seeing me use the helmet to boil snow.

"Hmm." I’ve met tomb robbers from more than one country, each with different equipment. During wartime, a European-style armed tomb robbery group entered my tomb, leaving behind several steel helmets. I found them amusing and kept one as a souvenir.