?

  Above our heads was a flat stone slab, don't know how thick it was, not tightly covered, with a gap of about one finger wide, seemingly pried open by Xiaohua and the others.

  I hastily motioned to Fatty not to speak, and then stretched out my hand to push the stone slab. Due to the narrowness of the cave and its upward incline, it was very strenuous to push, so I finally asked Fatty to hold steady, and with both feet on his shoulders and both hands pushing against the stone slab.

  The cave suddenly echoed with a shrill creaking sound, and at the same time, the stone slab revealed an opening just large enough for one person to enter or exit. I immediately bit onto my flashlight and led the way out, and as soon as I emerged, I didn't even bother to take in my surroundings before turning around to pull out Fatso.

  Fatso handed over the equipment bag, but he himself got stuck. He cursed: "You're so naive, you don't even know to make the hole bigger, are you intentionally trying to humiliate me?" I was too lazy to bother with him, and squatted down again to push out another stone slab, only then did Fatso come out.

  We were already in a high-altitude area of the Kunlun Mountains, where the air was thin. After this intense exercise, both I and Fatso were panting heavily.

  Suddenly, I felt something was off.

  Because the flashlight in my mouth is a civilian small flashlight, with limited light, but what I see in front of me, with a broad field of vision, cannot be illuminated by the flashlight, so where does the light come from?

  I couldn't help but carefully examine the surroundings, and at this moment, I discovered that we were in a space roughly the same size as the main hall. However, there was no sign of artificial carving on all sides, and everything around us was shrouded in a layer of white misty light, somewhat like the hazy moonlight on a dark night, not strong but enough to let people see vaguely.

  The mountain wall here seems to be naturally formed, with uneven concave and convex surfaces. The overall shape of the cave is an irregular long elliptical shape. Due to the dim light, it's hard to see what's inside clearly.

  At this time, the fat man suddenly exclaimed and looked up at the top. I followed his gaze and narrowed my eyes, finally knowing where the light came from.

  The top of the cave was not rocky, but a thick layer of solid ice, forming a transparent texture. The ice had been polished to reveal countless facets, like cut diamonds, and inside the ice were embedded seven glittering objects.

  I was startled and suddenly flashed a word: Night Light.

  Yèguāng, also known as Yèmíngzhū, is the finest among pearls. In the ancient textbook "Qianziwen", there is a sentence that says: Jiàn hào Jùquē, zhū chēng Yèguāng. Meaning, the most precious sword is called Jùquē, and the most valuable pearl is called Yèguāng.

  Ordinary people like to call night pearls "night bright pearls", and there are also names such as Sui pearls. Since ancient times, they have occupied a unique position in Chinese culture, symbolizing identity and wealth. It is said that as early as the Yellow Emperor period, they were recognized by humans.

  Modern scientists have analyzed that the principle of night pearls' luminescence comes from the minerals and rare earth elements they contain, which can be divided into two types. The first type is self-luminescent, with the most precious being those that shine like moonlight. The second type of night pearl requires external light sources to stimulate it to emit light, and its colors are diverse. Even the second type of night pearl on the market now costs a fortune.

  And on the ceiling above us, seven night-lights, each as big as an egg, round and smooth, emitting a soft, hazy glow like moonlight. These rays were originally extremely weak, but they were embedded in the ice layer, which had been specially polished with rhombic angles to form a peculiar optical reflection, so that the entire huge tomb chamber was shrouded in this hazy mist.

  I heard a sound of swallowing saliva by my ear, and then the fatty said: "See, see, I told you, this is a divine fight. The master's family doesn't look down on vulgar burial objects. Ah, the lighting is so luxurious." I saw that the fatty was already excited to the point of being incoherent, and to be honest, my own heart was racing too. This thing, what the books said was one thing, but when you actually see it, who can resist its charm? Even I was about to be shocked by its magnificence.

  I calmed my nerves and hastily reminded Fatty, saying: "At the critical moment, you mustn't drop the chain again and forget our purpose. Those few pearls are worth more than your eyes; they're the blood and sweat of ancient laborers, typical exploitative surplus products. Where's your awareness?"

  Fatso quickly retracted his claws and pointed at the sky, swearing to me: "You're also too distrustful of me? Fat grandpa has seen everything, what's a few night pearls? Can't dazzle my eyes, but such top-notch stuff is sold for over 30 million on the black market. You can get rich with just one."

  I was so angry that I almost choked, he made a promise to me earlier, but later on, he lured me into stealing the Ming vase. To prevent him from coming up with other tricks, I quickly changed the subject and said: "You're also interested in other people's light bulbs? Since it's a divine fight, good things are all worn on the body."

  Fatso was afraid of being deceived, saying: "Ah, almost fell for it. As a cultured person, I think things through carefully. That's right, we need to pick the real treasure." After finishing speaking, Fatso immediately put on his equipment backpack and started searching around.

  The tomb is empty, with no burial objects, not even a single zongzi, and there are no signs of Xiaohua or others. Since they followed us through the same tunnel, they must have arrived here, so where are they now?

  I shone my flashlight and followed Fatso, turning around here. This must be the third palace, I'm almost certain of it. If at first it was just an inference, then when I saw this piece of solid ice on top of the tomb, I could already conclude that we had reached the top of the mountain, and above us was the ice layer, outside which was the vast sky, only to know how thick this ice layer was, otherwise, if something was found later, a hole would be drilled and it would be possible to get out directly.

  Just as I was thinking about this, the flashlight suddenly shone on a section of stairs.

  Perhaps it shouldn't be called a staircase, but rather a massive stone step similar to the Mayan pyramids, with each block over one meter high, standing upright in front of the tomb chamber, as if extending from the mountain wall. It's extremely grand. Due to the color and lighting issues, we didn't notice it at first. From visual estimation, this section of stone steps has more than twenty blocks, with a dark color, stretching over fifty meters long and thirty meters high, with a platform at the top.

  Is it where the tomb owner's coffin is located?

  Looking around, apart from this altar-like thing, the entire tomb chamber was empty. If the tomb owner was here, he must be on these stone steps. I quickly called out to Pangzi to climb up, and the two of us climbed like little kids climbing a table, using our hands and feet. With each step, my heart grew more excited - we were getting closer, closer! Third Uncle wasn't dead yet, no need to go to the mourning hall!

  My injured body is now like it's been injected with chicken blood, feeling particularly energetic. I'm exhaling white mist as I puff and pant while following Fatty to climb up.

  At last, we climbed onto that platform.

  There was no coffin as I had imagined, nor any clues about the tomb owner. Before us lay a coffin-shaped underground passageway. This underground passageway was located in the center of the platform, over 40 meters long. At this moment, it could be seen that inside the coffin, there were stairs leading down on all sides, forming a funnel shape, similar to an ancient Roman arena.

  The stairs extended all the way down into darkness.

  The fat boy was sharp-eyed and said to me: "There are bullets on the ground." In fact, I also saw it, and I was thinking about what had happened here, who was fighting.

  I nodded and immediately said to Fatty: "It seems we still have to go down."

  "This mountain has been messed with enough, I reckon it's already hollowed out. If an earthquake comes, it'll be completely flattened."

  I cursed a crow's mouth and then followed Fatso, carrying flashlights, slowly descending into the coffin.

  At first, we could still make our way down with the night light, but later on, the night light couldn't penetrate through either, and we had to rely on our civilian flashlights for illumination. Due to the design of the stairs, the further down we went, the narrower it became, until finally, what was originally over 40 meters in distance was reduced to just around 20 meters or so, with everything around us pitch black. I subconsciously lifted my head to look up, and it was still dark, as if we were inside a coffin, and the lid had been closed.

  Just then, I caught a whiff of blood on the tip of my nose, the smell of human blood, all too familiar. Unconsciously, I flashed my flashlight around and finally saw a body wearing black clothes not far away on the same stone step.

  I was shocked, and immediately walked over with my flashlight. The fatty followed behind me, muttering to himself about how I was so interested in the zongzi. I didn't have the energy to argue with him, and when we got closer, I realized that there wasn't just one body, but rather a whole bunch of them scattered all over the place.

  Fatso apparently didn't expect it either, and immediately shut up. I counted the bodies with my flashlight, a total of eight. At this time, Fatso suddenly spoke up, saying: "They're Black Blindman's people." I furrowed my brow, and immediately went to flip over those corpses. Only after flipping them over did I discover that they hadn't died.

  Is it alive?

  I went to feel his pulse, it was very weak. If he slept like this for a while longer, he wouldn't be far from death. I signaled to Fatso, and Fatso tacitly pointed the gun at the man's head. Then, I started slapping his face: "Wake up." After slapping him several times, I felt something was off - why wasn't he waking up?

  Fatso clicked his tongue and said, "Tianzhen, you're too gentle with your hands, are you giving people a massage?" I felt something was off, so I slapped him hard on the ear, but he still didn't react. Next, I went to flip over the other person, and Fatso called out their names one by one. When I flipped over the last person, I was stunned - it was Hei Mangzi himself.

  Fatso didn't wait for me to make a move this time, he went up and slapped him several times. With a ferocious expression, he said: "Black Glasses, what are you pretending to be dead for? Get up, Fat Master wants to ask you questions." Black Blind's cheeks instantly became red and swollen, but his eyelids didn't even twitch once. Fatso couldn't help but feel strange, saying: "This is weird, this matter is really strange."

  I immediately got up and started searching around, according to Pangzi's words, Hei Xiangzi and his gang were almost all lying here, so where was Wen Jin? Was she also nearby?

  I searched around with a flashlight but couldn't find any trace of Wen Jin, and finally returned to the starting point.

  At this time, the fat man suddenly said: "This kid doesn't dare to show his face. Today, let's see if I can take off his sunglasses." My heart moved, and I didn't stop the fat man. To be honest, I was also very curious about Hei Yanzi's appearance. I suspected that he always wore sunglasses, as if he didn't want people to see his true face.

  If it were before, I wouldn't have done such a despicable thing, but since he didn't offend me, I won't offend him. But this time, Hei Mangzi almost killed Pangzi, and the tone of his words made me swallow my anger. I nodded in agreement, allowing Pangzi to snatch Hei Mangzi's glasses.