The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 44: Flower, Yet Not a Flower

In the morning, when Qinghan and the others returned, I pointed out the blood spots to them. Wen Jing said it might be an injured thief who escaped to outside my window, trying to get inside to hide for a while.

Shunfeng suggested it might have been an injured animal resting on the windowsill, accidentally making noise by bumping into the window.

Only Qinghan collected the dried blood spots in a clean plastic bag, saying he wanted to take them back for testing.

He was more inclined to believe that last night’s visitors were Eyes of Golden Flame and Boss Lu.

I could understand Eyes of Golden Flame knocking on the door, but why would Boss Lu come along?

I asked Qinghan, and he only said it was his speculation, without solid evidence, and the truth is yet to be verified. He promised to let me know what was going on when he had more certainty.

I have witnessed the destructive power of Boss Lu and Eyes of Golden Flame firsthand. If it were them visiting last night, how could the windows and doors remain intact?

So I am half skeptical of Qinghan’s speculation; the other half believes in his capable mind that might connect things I hadn’t thought of.

Putting Boss Lu’s matter aside, I asked him about Chairman Cheng’s current stance.

Qinghan is now my major support; I rely on him for a place to lay low and for selling the antiques I’ve brought out. If something happens to him, I would be in great trouble.

"He will continue to fund us to find Boss Lu." Qinghan sent Wen Jing and Shunfeng back to their rooms to rest, leaving just the two of us in the living room.

"Find Boss Lu? Not looking for Miss Scream and Miss Cheng?"

"He has assigned another team to look for Miss Cheng. Our job is to find Boss Lu. If the people who came to see you at night really were them, preparations need to start now."

"Prepare for what?"

"To capture Boss Lu. It’s inconvenient to act in the city, so we’ll move to another place."

I looked at Qinghan. He’s not particularly sturdy; several of Boss Lu’s subordinates are more robust and can dispatch him in an instant. Capturing the mutated Boss Lu seems next to impossible.

However, Qinghan is a reliable person, and he might have other methods to catch Boss Lu.

In the morning, Qinghan saw off Ling Ke’er. It was natural that Ling Ke’er wouldn’t be involved in such dangerous matters like capturing Boss Lu.

He received a call at noon, then drove me to leave Sa City for a county town in the west.

He said there was a factory there made available for us, with no villages around. If we end up clashing with Boss Lu, ordinary citizens won’t be affected.

From swiftly arranging for permits to securing a factory, it seems everything Qinghan needs to do can go through without a hitch, which reminds me of the ’official’ network Boss Lu mentioned.

Qinghan is a teacher; no matter how extensive his connections, he can’t achieve such omnipotent feats. The ’great tree’ behind him must be substantial enough to overshadow everything.

"I’ve informed Chairman Cheng. The people he arranged will come over too, so you don’t have to worry about safety issues."

"Do you think... I mean, will the two of them appear together? They were clearly at odds before, so how did they suddenly reach a truce?"

In the Gate of Death, their hostile behavior seemed instinctive, which was evidently not just a personal feud between Boss Lu and Miss Scream.

"Better to be prepared. There’s a basement in the factory. You should hide in there, no matter what happens outside, don’t come out."

"Alright." Luckily, I’ve stored enough TV series on my phone and brought several power banks.

For this operation, Qinghan didn’t bring Wen Jing and Shunfeng. They had been out long enough, especially Shunfeng, whose family called numerous times, urging him to return home quickly.

We bid farewell at the hotel entrance. Shunfeng created a WeChat group with the four of us in it. He hoped we could go on another adventure together in the future.

Anyone who wants to go on an adventure with him likely has a death wish. My carefree days have just begun; I’d only agree to another outing with him if my brains were completely dried up.

But I certainly couldn’t say that to his face, instead putting on a fake smile as we ’reluctantly said goodbye.’

"There’s something, not sure if you still remember it." Qinghan’s voice brought me back to reality.

"What is it?"

"When you were at the place where Boss Lu killed her subordinate, did you see anything?"

"Oh, there were net-like grooves on the ground, but I only took a quick glance, didn’t look closely."

"Nothing else?"

"If you’re referring to something particularly noticeable, then no."

Qinghan suddenly fell silent, which piqued my curiosity even more, and I pressed on, "Was there supposed to be something?"

Qinghan parked the car by the roadside, seemingly to discuss something important.

"I told you before, I entered the Heavenly Maiden Tomb to find the Nine Nether Flower."

"But later you stopped looking."

"That’s because I misjudged the nature of the Nine Nether Flower."

"Misjudged?"

"Actually, no one can say for sure what it really is. It’s called a flower simply because it resembles one."

Qinghan said that the Nine Nether Flower first appeared in the first Heavenly Maiden Tomb ever excavated.

Of course, it was just a pattern painted on the wall of the tomb, not the actual object.

During those chaotic times, the government couldn’t bother dealing with tomb robberies, and numerous ancient tombs in the western desert were plundered.

Both domestic and international, official and unofficial excavation activities were rampant.

A European treasure-hunting team opened an ancient tomb that’s over a thousand years old. Inside, they found no gold or silver but rather strange and peculiar murals.

The most bizarre thing was, inside the stone coffin, there were no remains of the tomb owner; instead, there was an enormous egg taller than a person.

The foreigners thought it was a dinosaur egg the ancients had found, treated it as a treasure to make an ’inner coffin,’ but the body was actually inside the egg, just that the sealing technique was so good, the seams weren’t obvious.

Upon hearing this, I had to admire the foreigners’ imagination. Using an eggshell for a coffin, did the tomb owner hope to be a ’birdman’ in their next life?

"They carried the giant egg out of the tomb, but as soon as it reached the surface, it disintegrated and disappeared."

"And what about the murals?"

"They feared the murals would also vanish and attempted to make rubbings of them, but it was too late. Perhaps because they brought in so many people and lighting tools, the temperature in the tomb changed, and the murals quickly faded and disappeared."

"Aren’t ancient murals said to last a long time, like those in Dunhuang?"

"It depends on the circumstances. However, there was someone in the group with an extraordinary memory who memorized the entire content of the murals."

I felt the content of the murals would be crucial. Sure enough, Qinghan continued, saying the murals generated enormous interest among the group.

In the murals, the flower-like object seemed to possess powers beyond their comprehension and symbolized a power source within this Heavenly Maiden Tomb.

Thus, upon seeing the Power Source in my tomb, Qinghan thought it was the Nine Nether Flower.

"But later, I suspected you might be the Nine Nether Flower." Qinghan said something startling.

"What? Me?"

"Yes, in a Heavenly Maiden Tomb within the Yue Kingdom, the Nine Nether Flower also once appeared in a human form, so..."