She truly was an extraordinarily clever woman, jumping straight to having me make demands.
Turning coercion into a transaction.
And diffusing the tension.
"Fine, let my brother go. This has nothing to do with him!" I said to Caishen.
"Even if I let him go, he wouldn't be able to make it out on his own anyway. Let him tag along with us, I won't give him a hard time!
Now, state your other conditions." Caishen waved a hand at her subordinates, signaling them to untie Anzi, and then turned back to ask me.
This woman was shrewd beyond belief.
Claiming that Anzi couldn't get out on his own was just a pretext to keep him here as a hostage to control me.
I saw right through it, but I couldn't call her out.
After all, we were the ones at a disadvantage now.
Her telling me to name my conditions was really just a way to ease the tense, confrontational atmosphere.
Even if I did name my conditions, we were currently inside an Ancient Tomb, where nothing could be honored.
As for honoring them outside—don't even dream about it.
Would a woman who had murdered her own six full brothers actually fulfill a promise to me?
I suspected that the moment I helped her open the coffin, she would have her men kill me.
Though I understood everything clearly, being in a position of absolute weakness left me with no choice.
I even had to play along and humor her just to take the edge off the confrontation.
"One million, I want cash!" I stated my condition.
"Deal! The moment the coffin is opened and we get out, I'll fulfill it immediately and have the money sent straight to your coffin shop!" Caishen agreed without the slightest hesitation, though she heavily emphasized the words "coffin shop."
Her meaning was crystal clear: a warning not to try any tricks, because while I could run away, my business couldn't.
Dealing with this woman was utterly exhausting.
There was no gaining any upper hand whatsoever.
The passivity of it was maddening.
Yet there was no helping it, not when both Anzi and I had fallen into their grasp.
Of course, while going through the motions on the surface, I was still racking my brain for a chance to probe whether they were the murderers of Old Bachelor Grandpa.
"The Main Tomb Chamber has been found, and the coffin-opener is in place. We can move out!" Huo Yinyang said to Caishen from the side.
"Move out!" Caishen ordered.
With that, our party left the tomb chamber and continued walking north along the burial passage.
I glanced toward the spot where I had hidden the wax-sealed human head, but made no move.
The moment we stepped out of the chamber, Caishen's men had surrounded Anzi and me in the middle.
Though we weren't tied up, any covert action was entirely out of the question.
After walking for about ten minutes, we arrived at an exceptionally spacious tomb chamber.
There were four doors set into the surrounding walls of the chamber, and we had entered through one of them.
It seemed Old Pizi's analysis had been correct.
Just as he claimed, this Ancient Tomb featured four burial passages.
And while this cavernous chamber wasn't the Main Tomb Chamber, I was certain the mechanism leading into it was right here.
Perhaps because the chamber was so vast and the floating dust so thick, the flashlight beams cut through a hazy mist, severely limiting visibility.
We could only dimly make out a dark, statue-like object right in the center of the chamber.
"Caishen, the layout of this Ancient Tomb is terribly wicked. The door to the Main Tomb Chamber isn't on the sides—it's right on the floor! The Main Tomb Chamber must be directly beneath us!" Huo Yinyang told Caishen.
"Find the mechanism to open the tomb door immediately! We must enter the Main Tomb Chamber without a moment's delay, and open the coffin before Morgan's lot gets here!" Caishen's face was grave as she hurried Huo Yinyang and the others along.
Meanwhile, I was drawing closer to that dark, statue-like figure.
When I reached it, I finally saw it clearly.
It turned out to be a colossal bat statue, standing over two meters tall with a width of around three meters. Both its color and overall shape were identical to the giant bat we had seen in the murals.
Only this one was three-dimensional and far more lifelike.
Especially those blood-red leathery wings and those razor-sharp fangs—everything about it looked real.
It even felt as though its eyes were fixed directly on me.
I had a haunting suspicion that this statue might come alive and devour people.
Subconsciously, I took a few steps back.
"That's a Tomb-Guarding Beast. Every Ancient Tomb has one. It's just that this particular one has an unusual form, nothing to be afraid of!" Caishen appeared behind me at some point and said.
I turned around and nodded at her.
Yet deep down, I still felt this Tomb-Guarding Beast was sinister and far from as simple as she made it sound.
"Well, I certainly didn't expect Miss Qin to beat us here!" a heavily accented voice rang out.
We turned our heads to see Morgan the Foreigner walking toward us, accompanied by Mecheng and over twenty others.
I frowned. I hadn't expected Morgan and his crew to show up as well—they were like ghosts that refused to shake off!
That the upper level of the Ancient Tomb had collapsed and Huo Yinyang and the others had survived didn't surprise me.
Old Pizi had mentioned that Caishen had vast connections, knew plenty of tomb raiders, and might even possess some tomb-raiding knowledge herself.
Morgan the Foreigner, however, couldn't possibly know that much about Chinese ancient tombs.
Aside from Huo Yinyang, the mechanism expert, he undoubtedly had a grave robber in his ranks intimately familiar with ancient tomb structures.
Soon enough, my gaze landed on Zhao Fada.
When I looked at him, he even gave me a cheerful wave and a grinning greeting.
The fellow claimed to be an antique shop vendor, but he had undoubtedly dabbled extensively in tomb raiding.
As I was pondering this, I noticed Mecheng intently studying the Tomb-Guarding Beast, a flash of slight astonishment and fanaticism in his eyes.
Yet, sensing that I was watching him, he quickly averted his gaze, straightened his face, and feigned nonchalance.
He had definitely spotted something!
This Tomb-Guarding Beast really did have a problem.
"Miss Qin, the tomb door is right beneath our feet. Have you managed to find a way to open it?" Morgan the Foreigner asked Caishen with a forced, skin-deep smile.
"Since Mr. Morgan knows where the tomb door is, I presume you must have already found a way to open it!" Caishen replied with a smile of her own.
The two of them appeared calm and collected, exchanging pleasantries with easy cordiality.
Yet both were old foxes through and through.
I had no doubt that given the chance, each would gladly dispatch the other.
It was simply that the Main Tomb Chamber hadn't been opened yet, and the coffin remained unseen.
Ceding them no further mind, I turned my attention back to the Tomb-Guarding Beast and began observing it closely.
Sure enough, once the fear subsided and I looked closer, I actually spotted a few clues.
Those blood-red leathery wings of the Tomb-Guarding Beast bore fine, subtle wood grain patterns.
This Tomb-Guarding Beast had been carved out of wood.
Three words suddenly flashed through my mind.
Mechanism Beast.
According to legend, as early as the Spring and Autumn period, people were already using ingenious mechanisms to craft Mechanism Beasts.
The most famous examples were Lu Ban's flying bird and the wooden magpies or kites crafted by Mozi.
If they could build flying birds and sparrows, why not a Mechanism Beast that walked on the ground?
No wonder Mecheng had been staring at the Tomb-Guarding Beast just moments ago.
He must have recognized long ago that it was a Mechanism Beast.