The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 36: Blessed to Be Alive

The thing suspended in mid-air flickered on and off like a faulty light bulb, about the size of a washbasin.

At first, I thought it was something like a Luminous Pearl and wanted to climb up to take it; if I managed to bring this out, I could lie around eating and drinking for a hundred years without any problem.

But it was right above the lake, with nowhere to place my feet and no trees or rocks around, so it was completely out of reach.

My concept of ’death’ is relatively weak; though I’ve seen many dead people, I have no deeper understanding of it.

Wandering by the lake for a while, I still couldn’t figure out where the ’death’ in the Gate of Death manifested.

Does entering mean dying? But I’m still in a half-alive state.

If coming in would indeed meet with inescapable danger, the black tree shouldn’t have thrown me out, but instead, strangled me with its branches.

I began looking for ways of death within the Gate of Death; suicide definitely doesn’t count unless there are creatures here capable of bewildering the mind and inducing suicide.

For thousands of years, I’ve pondered a lot, like where the boundary between life and death lies.

From life to death is easy, from death back to life is difficult. Why did I die, yet still live? What is the definition of being alive anyway? Am I a living dead or a dead living?

Entering the Gate of Death sprouted a thought in me, could I truly die?

In the past, inside tombs, I’ve blocked blades with my neck, bullets littered my body, and I had swallowed several packets of poison. Tomb Robbers really had no move against me.

At one point, I was also very confused about where my limits were and by what means I could truly call it quits.

Of course, being ’alive’ is a blessing; I don’t want to die just after gaining freedom. It’s just curiosity, and if I could find my weak spot, I could guard against it in the future.

I heard a tomb robbers say, all things in the world have their nemesis, there’s always something that overthrows another.

What restrains an elephant might just be a little ant.

I skirted around the lake, heading into the darkness. Humans are active everywhere on the surface but have little exploration of the Underworld, thus my knowledge in this area is limited too.

After half an hour of walking, I started feeling bored. The scenery along the way was monotonous, nothing but stones, and I hadn’t encountered a single living thing.

Even if a legendary Naihe Bridge appeared, that would do...

As soon as this thought emerged, a bridge vaguely appeared in front, and calls from ’kin’ followed behind.

For a moment I got dazed, really thinking I’d become a wandering soul Leaving Yang and Walking Yin.

"Little Fu!"

"Senior~~~"

The calls of ’kin’ became clearer, and upon careful listening, weren’t they the voices of Wen Jing and Shunfeng?!

"I’m here!" I turned around and shouted in the direction the voice came from.

"She’s over there—"

"I see her, I see her~"

Shunfeng brandished a lighter, hurriedly heading towards me in the dim flame.

Wen Jing was originally behind him; perhaps spotting my location, he overtook Shunfeng, running towards me.

"Finally found you, Little Fu, are you hurt?" Wen Jing approached, scanning me up and down.

"No, Boss Lu opened that door, so I came in to hide."

"Good thing you’re fine, Professor Chen was injured and unconscious; we took him out then rushed back to find you." Shunfeng extinguished the lighter, clearly having come down in haste, without any gear.

"Yeah, Boss Lu’s people cleared a path out, but lost contact with her and sent someone down to find her. We came down with her subordinates, saw that the door was open, guessed that the two of you might have entered, and it turned out you really were here." Wen Jing drew a glow stick from his sleeve and snapped it bright.

"Hey? Where’d you get that?" Shunfeng was instantly attracted to the glow stick.

"Stole it from Boss Lu’s people; these guys just hope we come down to find their person, won’t give any gear, so I had to help myself."

"Did you agree to come down and find their person for them to take in Professor Chen?" I asked.

"A bunch of cowards wanting to find their master but too afraid to come in. Anyway, we were here to find you; as long as we find you, it’s fine. If something happens to Lu, her subordinates are just a mess with no one to trouble us." Wen Jing, nearly buried alive by Boss Lu, obviously didn’t care for her life or death.

"Let’s go back; the Yin energy here is too heavy. Staying too long isn’t good for our health." Shunfeng pretentiously looked around, shaking his head.

"Tsk, you’re just cold, not heavy with Yin energy. Catch a cold, and it’s detrimental to health too. Stop pretending to be mystical." Wen Jing, likely in a relaxed mood, started teasing Shunfeng again as usual.

"Hey, wait." I was engrossed in talking with them and forgot about the bridge I just saw. If it weren’t for Shunfeng mentioning Yin energy, I wouldn’t have remembered.

Turning back to look in that direction, I found there was no bridge after all. Could it have been an illusion?

"What are you looking at?" Shunfeng curiously peered with me.

"Do you see a bridge over there?" I asked, still not giving up.

"Bridge? No way." Wen Jing, who was tall, tiptoed to look in that direction.

"Then maybe I was mistaken." I retracted my gaze, "Are you sure you didn’t see the Eyes of Golden Flame?"

"Definitely not, we didn’t see a trace of it on the way. Maybe it’s lost in here, let’s take this chance to run." Shunfeng suggested. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

If that thing could be trapped in here, even for a day, it’d be ideal. By then, we’d have left the snowy mountain, reached a modern city teeming with people. Where would it find me?

On the way back, I was quietly amazed because the path Wen Jing and Shunfeng led me on had no lake, no forest, just a broad road leading directly to the Gate of Death.

For them, after entering the gate, they merely walked straight to encounter me.

But in my memory, there was no such wide road after entering.

"Do Boss Lu’s people know who built this gate?" At the gate’s entrance, I couldn’t help but take one last glance at the door that was closed again.

The two holes made by the Eyes of Golden Flame on the door served perfectly as handles; Wen Jing and Shunfeng each grabbed one and closed the door again.

"Even if they knew, they wouldn’t tell the truth," Wen Jing murmured.

As soon as he finished, voices could be heard coming from above. I looked up and found that the sound came from within that hole.

Someone was asking if we found Boss Lu, and from my past experiences, if we said we hadn’t, they’d most likely seal the hole and leave us trapped here.

So I thought for a moment and said, "I found some of her belongings, they seem important, pull us up first."

Leaving a suspenseful note, allowing the other side to pull us up first, then once Chen Qinghan wakes up, throwing us down again would be difficult for them.