The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 119: Li Cu's Confusion

"Let's call him Wu Xie. Let's take a homonym and hope he's innocent and clean." Old Dog Wu looked at his infant grandson with tears streaming down his face and cloudy eyes, as if he had seen the child's future fate. Wu Xie had always believed that the "innocence" here was a kind of expectation that his grandpa wanted him to leave his fate behind. When he really understood the meaning of "innocence", the chill in his heart cut right to the bone, and he cried in despair before his grandpa's tombstone. He had never felt so helpless and desolate in his life.

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Quiet, endless quiet. So quiet that any sounds should have been incomparably clear.

Don't these people talk? Li Cu closed his eyes and silently looked inward. After briefly communicating with him, these people turned off their lights and fell silent around him in the ensuing darkness. He couldn't hear any sounds of them breathing, their heartbeats, or even the slightest hint of restlessness.

These people were as controlled as machines, and if it weren't for the fact that he knew they clearly wouldn't leave him here, Li Cu wouldn't have known if they were even still around.

All the wounds on his body had been treated, the corroded skin was disinfected and bandaged, and his injured leg was cut several times until it bled so as to reduce the swelling and fix the joint. The medicine they put on it seemed to have some kind of special effect, because the pain wasn't as obvious, and there was a hint of numbing warmth on all of his wounds.

When everything was at its worst, things would start to get better. Any sign of recovery was extreme bliss.

He began to set a rule for himself that if he didn't know what the consequences of an act would be, then he would never implement it.

One of the characteristics of being young and frivolous was that you felt as if you could bear all the consequences, but in reality you soon found yourself unable to bear anything.

He gave up his inner turmoil and told himself to be like these people and calm down. Being alone was one of his few specialties, and he soon became even more calm in the dim light. When it came to being in a daze, he wouldn't lose to anyone except Wang Meng.

When the light came on again, Li Cu was pulled back from his dazed state so suddenly that he felt like he had whiplash. A light slowly emerged in every corner where all of those people were hidden. Their slender shadows and the intertwined vines around them created a strange combination under the phosphorescent lighting. It made everything seem dreamy, as if these people were elves suddenly appearing in the forests of northern Europe.

Someone apparently returned with news, because they started talking in low voices in a language Li Cu didn't understand.

After their conversation, the leader went up to Li Cu and said, "Do you know what Wu Xie really wants to do? Did he disclose any information?"

When Li Cu shook his head, the man showed a puzzled expression. He thought it over for a moment, and then ordered everyone in that language to divide into three groups and split up. Li Cu was picked up, put on someone's back, and then they started to move fast along the vines.

The black-clad men said nothing the entire time as they moved very quickly through the complex's various tunnels.

The person who carried him was very strong, and his speed was unaffected by Li Cu's weight. Li Cu didn't know how long they had been going, but the surrounding cement walls had changed and turned into rock.

The cave was square, and had obviously been carved out by humans. As they traveled through it, Li Cu found that it was actually an excavated mine, and he began to see various kinds of supports, scaffolds, and rail cars, all of which held cut stones.

As they moved on, the stones became disordered and chaotic, and the shapes of the ones already excavated became very irregular.

Obviously, this group of people didn't know anything about the area, and frequently ended up reaching dead ends. But they never hesitated. Upon seeing that the path had come to an end, they immediately made a mark and left.

After walking for a long time, however, a cave suddenly appeared. It had also been excavated, but the direction led downward. The cave floor had been dug more than ten meters lower than that of the tunnel, and looked like a crater.

There were steel scaffolds extending all the way across the cave, along with many baskets hanging from steel locks.

The bottom of the cave was dug and pitted with countless densely packed holes only big enough to accommodate one person, and numerous ropes were hanging down in them.

It wasn't until they went down to the bottom of the cave, and stood at the periphery of the small openings that Li Cu realized that they were small vertical mine shafts.

One of the black-clad men said, "If this is a mine, this must be the vein they found, and they concentrated on mining here."

Two of them pulled one of the ropes to see if it could hold their weight. When they found that it couldn't, they put their feet on both sides of the hole and slid down.

Some of the others began reinforcing parts of the scaffolding and checking its strength, some searched for the best vantage point to set up a sentry post, and others rested.

Li Cu didn't know what they were trying to do as he watched it all numbly, but he realized that he was safe for the time being. These people seemed to want to go somewhere, but didn't know the way, and for the next six hours, he watched them explore all the mines below at an extremely fast speed.

Wu Xie had given him a piece of advice while he was sleeping: in unknown circumstances, ask as few questions as possible. Don't communicate with the other side. In any information exchange, analyze the questions asked of you. You need to first understand what the other party knows–and what they think you know–and then answer carefully.

But when Li Cu saw how much time had passed, and how they kept jumping up and down in those mines, he couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"

The black-clad person who appeared to be the leader had been resting, but upon hearing this question, he opened his eyes and suddenly looked at Li Cu somewhat doubtfully.

"You don't know what we're doing?" The man sat up at once.

Li Cu paused for a moment, and suddenly felt like something was wrong. But just as he was about to change his tune, that person came up to him: "Why don't you know what we're doing?"

Li Cu choked and immediately started losing control of his facial expression. The other party looked at Li Cu's frightened expression and became even more confused. Li Cu stammered, "I mean, you're too inefficient. What the hell are you doing? Even fools would have had this taken care of already."

The other side looked at Li Cu with a disgusted expression: "Then tell me, what are we doing? Prove that you know what we're doing." Li Cu said to himself: fuck me and my stupid mouth. Something went wrong so soon. The other party called several people over, and they all gathered around and talked incessantly in that incomprehensible language. Then, the leader pulled out a knife from behind his back.

He looked at Li Cu coldly: "You have a problem, kid. Although I don't know what the problem is exactly, did you lie to us?"