The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 192: Extreme Thrill

In the wake of the screeching sounds, the coal seams around the bottom began to crumble, and snakes of various sizes began bursting out of the shaft wall—the sight was as terrifying as it was creepy. It was as if they had heard the call in unison, for I immediately noticed that they were all slithering upwards. And based on their movements, they were all coming towards the source of the call.

Bao Sa showed a look of panic for the first time, but he wasn't looking at the thing on his back, or the snakes below. He was looking at Che Zhong.

Che Zhong looked at him, and said slowly, "That thing is bringing the snakes here."

"Don't do it." Bao Sa cursed, and reached behind his back to try to grab the thing holding onto him. He stretched out his hand and made a grab for it twice, but missed both times, causing the rope to shake.

"You've done this a lot, too." Che Zhong said with a sneer. Bao Sa started climbing recklessly and went to grab my belt, but when he saw Che Zhong pulling out my Kukri, he twisted the leopard tendon that was still tied to my waist. It immediately broke, and Bao Sa fell down.

His hand almost caught mine at the last moment, but it was still a few millimeters short, and he instantly fell into the fire below.

When I looked at Che Zhong in horror, he said very coldly, "I won't do that to you. I'm still waiting for you to pay me when we get back." At that moment, I saw the fox-faced thing climb along my hand to Che Zhong's back. It was cackling again, and looked very scary.

The thing moved too fast, was too flexible, and you could hardly feel its weight when it was crawling.

I thought Che Zhong would immediately panic, but he unexpectedly whistled, and a black shadow suddenly appeared from his pocket. It was a very small dog, which climbed up his back and bit the fox-faced thing that had just grabbed on.

The dog was like a monkey, and despite the chaotic situation, it was able to fight the fox-faced thing on Che Zhong's body with natural and flowing movements.

As soon as the fox-faced thing was bitten, it screamed and rolled onto my back. The dog rushed down Che Zhong's hand and right towards my face, the little paws cutting all the way through my clothes and skin. I couldn't do anything besides try not to move. Who knew what would happen if I did; I'd probably be the one to suffer in the end.

The fox-faced thing had been badly burned before, and was now defeated by the dog, so it resorted to dodging. It actually went between my legs, which made me feel worse because now my legs were hot. Sure enough, the dog also rushed in. I felt all kinds of sharp pain on my inner thighs for about five or six minutes, before the shrill screams finally stopped—I secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but still didn't dare move.

When I saw the dog drag the fox-faced thing to my stomach, I noticed that it was also hurt, although the injury wasn't very serious. It licked the wound and then hid back in Che Zhong's pocket.

Che Zhong grabbed the fox-faced thing, and I saw what looked like a little monkey. Its face looked just like a fox, and I could see some mask-like marks on it. I didn't know whether it was a scar, or whether someone had burned the mask onto its face. Its throat had been ripped out, but there wasn't much blood. I thought it might have been a zombie, but when I saw the wound, I realized that the little dog had sucked all the blood out.

As Che Zhong pulled his backpack open and threw it inside, I asked, "Who are you?"

I had seen photos of this kind of dog when I was a child. My grandfather also had a cufflink dog that he could hide in his sleeve. Legend had it that this dog could exorcise evil spirits, warm your hands in winter, and live in your sleeve. My grandfather said that this dog's real purpose was to protect him, but it later evolved into a pet dog. Although this kind of dog was very small, its bite was amazingly strong. Grandpa used to use it to open wine bottles.

But my grandfather only had one dog like this, because it wasn't a domesticated breed, and was very rare. It was a shame it hadn't been handed down.

This puppy was the exact same kind as Grandpa's. Moreover, out of all the people I knew, I believed that only Poker-face would be able to guard against its sudden attack. I figured Black Glasses and Xiao Hua might be able to save their lives, but based on mine and Fatty's skills and reactions, we'd be almost powerless to fight back. We'd maybe only see our own shadows before our throats were ripped out.

Che Zhong didn't answer, and just said, "Rules of the trade, you can't ask this question."

He half-pulled and half-urged me as we climbed our way back to the upper beam. Once there, we pulled the rope up and looked down. All the snakes were coiled up on the sides of the coal shaft wall, but without that cackling sound to guide them, they didn't seem interested in us. Instead, they just wanted to run for their lives.

The big snakes moved slowly, but the little ones moved very quickly. Longtao gave us a panicked look, and quickly threw the hook up.

Bao Sa's bag was on the steel beam, so Che Zhong went through it and handed me the wine. When I shook my head and said: "I'm not interested in dead people's things." Che Zhong said, "I want you to disinfect your crotch." I looked down, and noticed that my inner thighs were completely covered in scratches. Although they weren't deep, they still stung painfully under the chafing sweat.

I took the wine, gritted my teeth, rinsed the wounds, and then asked him, "Is your surname Zhang or Wang?"

Che Zhong looked at me, and then at Longtao: "My surname is Che."

Longtao didn't hear our conversation. After the grappling hook caught on something, he tried his best to climb up himself, but he wasn't strong enough, and climbed up very slowly. After climbing less than three meters, the grappling hook fell off, and both man and rope fell. As soon as he managed to grab the steel beam and keep from falling off, Che Zhong grabbed the rope and whistled. The little dog came out of his sleeve, grabbed the end of the grappling hook's rope, raced up the coal shaft wall to the steel beam above, hooked it firmly, and then barked twice.

Che Zhong picked me up and let me go first, and I noticed that the snakes had started to slither up the steel beam. There was no time to hesitate anymore—if I did, I had to be ready to lose my life.

As we made our way up to the tower's iron door, Che Zhong let Longtao blow up all the things that could be blown up. He returned my Kukri to me, took off his coat, and then said, "Do you want to know where the dog came from?"

When I looked at him, and didn't say anything, he continued, "My story is even more expensive, so if you want to know later, you'll have to make another quote. Now, we're going to fight a hard battle. We can't let these snakes come up." As he spoke, he took the detonator from Longtao's bag, unscrewed it, and began taking out the gunpowder that was inside.