The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 89: She Got Away

Being crushed to death might be better than being eaten alive by the caterpillars. The caterpillars didn’t chase us into that tunnel. They are very aware of their own territory, knowing where they can go and where they cannot.

Chen Qinghan was initially just observing, but suddenly noticed something, stepped forward abruptly, and kicked away two caterpillars crawling on Pete’s body.

"Quick—" Chen Qinghan saw Pete’s condition clearly, immediately turned around and said a word to me.

But before he finished speaking, we heard a scream behind us. It was the voice of the old man from Pete’s team.

The old man had been avoiding the caterpillars. He was the furthest away from the dangerous area, so much so that I almost forgot about him.

When I turned around and looked, I saw him standing rigidly in place, eyes wide open; no caterpillars were attacking him.

Chen Qinghan pulled out a dagger and threw it at the old man, hitting him in the neck, but not a single drop of blood came out.

The old man’s face was ashen, lips white as paper, as if his blood had been drained in an instant.

He fell forward, and behind him was a large hole. The chicken manure that was scattered on the ground somehow had formed a vine-like wall, pierced into the old man’s back, draining his blood from within.

Seeing this, Chen Qinghan immediately ran toward the passage where the foreign woman had been crushed. The mechanism of the passage reset, and there was a flattened corpse on the ground, but not a trace of blood around it.

I finally realized what Chen Qinghan had discovered earlier. He noticed that just before Pete was eaten by the caterpillars, he suddenly fell silent.

Logically, being eaten by caterpillars should have been a gruesome and bloody process, but when the caterpillars crawled onto him, he didn’t scream, which struck Chen Qinghan as odd.

Upon checking, Pete was indeed already dead, and there were no traces of blood where his hand was severed. His blood had been quickly drained, and in this plaza, only the chicken manure could achieve such a feat.

It seems the chicken manure was merely playing dead, lying low and striking back when the time was right, ultimately consuming the prey.

So her next targets would be Chen Qinghan and Jerry!

"He is already dead, let’s get out of here." Chen Qinghan advised Jerry, who was still battling with caterpillars.

Pete and the old man were already dead, with caterpillars gnawing at their corpses. Pete faced my direction, mechanically waving the treasure sword in his hand.

His expression was off, as though trapped in inescapable terror.

Chen Qinghan came forward and slapped him twice to snap him back to reality.

"Don’t mind them, just go." Although Chen Qinghan’s voice wasn’t loud, it sounded cold and severe.

Jerry’s facial muscles twitched a few times, seeming as if he wanted to cry, but Chen Qinghan didn’t give him a chance. He grabbed him and attempted to push him back into the tunnel.

My primary focus was on the chicken manure, which swiftly seeped into the floor, disappearing from the plaza.

"No, no, pull him back up!" I shouted to Chen Qinghan. Hearing my reminder, he promptly pulled Jerry up.

Then followed an unsettling silence. The chicken manure vanished below, and there was no movement. The caterpillars quickly devoured the food, then regrouped and returned to the tunnel.

The surroundings were deathly silent. Jerry held back his tears, making me wonder if this was his first time joining Pete’s crew on an expedition.

With his mental state, how could he survive an hour in the Heavenly Maiden Tomb?

"What exactly is that thing?" Jerry asked, his voice trembling with tears.

"Who knows." I shrugged.

Calling it a person feels off. Even like me, being half-alive or half-dead, at least when introducing myself, I can still use the word ’person’. Living people, dead people, they’re all people.

But as she is now, resembling chicken manure, I have no desire to tell Jerry she’s my kin.

Or perhaps this is not her true form, just something her consciousness can control.

"What is it doing down there?" Jerry asked nervously, staring at the floor.

"We should look for an exit above first." Chen Qinghan said, raising his head to look above us.

The large light bulb was shattered, the plaza illuminated only by the flashlights and miner lamps Pete’s group had dropped.

Chen Qinghan picked up one of the miner lamps and lifted it, illuminating the space above us.

The top of the plaza was at least twenty meters high from the ground. Without special tools, we couldn’t climb up.

The tomb was underground, so above it must be closer to the surface. If there’s some place above that we can use for leverage, we could dig a hole to get out.

The walls above the passageway doors on the perimeter of the plaza were uneven; we could climb up using climbing tools.

"What are those?" Following the light upwards, Jerry saw something and pointed to the suspended objects above, asking. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Hanging from the ceiling of the plaza were many rag-like objects, resembling tattered kites stuck on branches.

"They’re people." Chen Qinghan turned his gaze back sooner than Jerry. "Mummified corpses."

"Why are they up there?" Jerry spun around in place, hoping to get a clearer look.

"They probably also aimed to find an exit above and were caught by something up there."

"So we need to find another way, right?"

"So many people have failed, whatever is up there must not be easy to handle."

I didn’t join their conversation, instead moving to the tunnel entrance and dropping a flashlight down. The flashlight beam illuminated a fan-shaped area on the ground.

"Come and see, the crystal vein is gone." I called out after taking a clear look below, motioning for Chen Qinghan and Jerry to come over and check it out.

Below the floor was once entirely covered by dark green crystals, but now only ordinary soil and common stones remained.

Not a single piece of the dark green crystals remained, and the chicken manure vanished along with them.

"Wait here." I jumped into the tunnel to take a closer look.

Once below, I carefully examined all the corners, but couldn’t find a trace of the chicken manure.

However, there were several entrances, likely the trap passages Chen Qinghan and Pete had traversed.

The chicken manure must have escaped through these tunnels.

Why did it escape?

Was it really sparing Chen Qinghan and Jerry out of consideration for me?

I furrowed my brows, sensing that the situation was more complicated than it seemed.

Could it be deceiving me? Perhaps it didn’t need Chen Qinghan and Jerry to die, that it had already gathered the number of people it wanted?

What happens when the number is sufficient, I do not know. Shui Wu, Chicken Manure, they’re all gathering the necessary number of people, as Chen Qinghan also mentioned in my tomb.

But I have never eaten a person, never drank a drop of blood, biting is merely an instinct, without any desire to consume.

Why does Chicken Manure need to consume people to collect them?

Too many questions swirled in my mind, but none pointed to where the chicken manure had gone.

I returned to the upper plaza and shook my head at Chen Qinghan and Jerry: "It’s gone."

Jerry suggested, "Then let’s take the passage below to exit. As long as we have the right direction, we’ll return to where we came from."

"The chi... that thing can pass through the traps, but you can’t. You and it are different in form, attempting to mimic it could be fatal." I remarked, irritated.