Chapter 153: Descending into the Tomb

A few days ago, Shen Ke and Lin Jian had been testing the waters of their relationship. Just as they were about to cross the threshold, the bureau had called, ordering her to Anxi Lantian to catch Old Cat.

As a result, though they had started the dance, they never got to finish it. Still, with this newfound intimacy between them, her trust in Lin Jian had skyrocketed to a thousand percent. She would follow his lead without question. That was simply the nature of a young woman in love—once the spark ignited, no force could extinguish it.

After telling her to wait quietly, Lin Jian melted into the darkness like a shadow. The night was pitch-black, leaving Shen Ke completely blind the moment he walked away. Naturally, Lin Jian didn’t head straight for the grave to catch that Tuberculosis Ghost. Instead, he circled the burial mound.

However, within a ninety-meter radius, he found no suspicious signs. He couldn’t even detect a breathing soul up to ninety meters underground. His Thought could scan exactly ninety meters in every direction—up, down, left, and right. With him at the center, nothing within that sphere could escape his notice. Thus, he could clearly ’see’ ninety meters into the earth.

He even spotted a massive ancient tomb buried beneath the soil. It was entirely concealed by earth, and its scale extended far beyond ninety meters. It was a sprawling, interconnected tomb complex. Furthermore, the grave mound on the surface didn’t seem to sit directly above the main chamber; it was merely a subsidiary tomb.

Lin Jian continued to project his Thought as he expanded his search perimeter. Before he had even walked fifty meters, his eyes suddenly lit up.

He found it!

In the direction of the village, there was actually a robber’s tunnel. It was exceptionally narrow, but he could see people crawling inside it. Surprisingly, Old Cat was among them.

Lin Jian took a deep breath. There were three people in total: two men and one woman. Old Cat brought up the rear, the woman was in the middle, and a scrawny man led the way. They weren’t crawling toward the grave mound, but rather heading slightly southeast.

Tracking the tunnel from the surface, Lin Jian swiftly followed their path. He soon located the entrance inside a house on the eastern edge of the village. The robbers had dug the tunnel straight out of the villager’s cellar.

"Found it," Lin Jian muttered, breathing a sigh of relief. He immediately hurried back to Shen Ke.

"Shen Ke, I found it!" he said as he ran up to her.

"You did? Where?" she asked excitedly.

"The cellar of the first house on the east side of the village is the entrance. There are two guards there, and Old Cat has already taken his people down into the tomb!"

"They went down?" Shen Ke gasped in surprise. "I’ll call for backup right now. Let’s go secure that house!"

She radioed for support as she led Lin Jian sprinting toward the east end of the village. Moments later, gun in hand, she took cover behind the front gate while Lin Jian vaulted over the wall. Within seconds, shouts and the sounds of a scuffle erupted from inside the house. The commotion lasted for only a cry or two before dead silence returned.

Ten seconds later, Lin Jian opened the gate from the inside. Shen Ke rushed in, weapon raised. Inside, the two men who had been drinking were already laid out on the floor. Lin Jian had even dislocated their jaws.

Shen Ke pulled out her handcuffs and secured the two men together before letting out a sigh of relief. She gave him an odd look. "Your joint-dislocating skills are pretty impressive. Teach me when you have time!"

Lin Jian chuckled wickedly. "I’ll teach you as soon as we get back." He even winked at her.

In truth, this joint-dislocating technique was extremely difficult to master. One had to be intimately familiar with the human skeletal structure, and practice required using Zhenren. Back in sports school, Coach Li Hai had tormented him relentlessly with the Bone Shattering Hand. Naturally, Lin Jian had acquired true mastery of the skill. At the time, Li Hai had only taught this bone-shattering technique to him; none of the other students received such special treatment.

Seeing Lin Jian’s wicked expression, Shen Ke immediately blushed bright red and shot him a glare. She then crouched down to inspect the cellar entrance. It was just a small hole, likely only wide enough for someone to crawl through.

"Lin Jian, do you think they might have another exit?" Shen Ke suddenly asked.

Lin Jian paused. He hadn’t considered that, but given Old Cat’s cautious nature, having a secondary escape route would be entirely expected.

Shen Ke muttered to herself, "I’ve been dealing with Old Cat for nearly three years. This guy is incredibly smart. He’d never leave himself with only one way out, so I suspect there’s another exit!"

"Wait here. I’ll go look for it," Lin Jian said, turning to leave.

"Don’t bother. If he has another exit, he wouldn’t make it easy to find," Shen Ke said, shaking her head. Taking a deep breath, she declared, "Lin Jian, I’m going down into the tomb. You stay here and wait for Wang Suo and the others!"

"Shen Ke, stop messing around, will you?" Lin Jian’s face turned pale green. He urged anxiously, "I can definitely find the exit for you. If I find it, you won’t need to go down. Let’s worry about going into the tomb only if I can’t find it, okay?"

He knew that catching Old Cat had become an obsession for her. If she didn’t catch him tonight, the girl would likely suffer a mental breakdown.

"Fine. I’ll give you twenty minutes. Wang Suo and the team should arrive by then!" Shen Ke nodded. She racked the slide of her gun and sat down on a chair to guard the cellar.

Taking a deep breath, Lin Jian refrained from telling her to be careful—he knew she was perfectly capable of handling herself. He quickly sprinted out of the house.

Following the path of the robber’s tunnel, he tracked them all the way to a tomb chamber in the southeast. Once there, Lin Jian was shocked to discover that Old Cat and his crew were continuing to descend. They were on the verge of slipping past his ninety-meter range! One of the chambers contained a hidden passage with a downward-sloping staircase, and the three tomb raiders were about to vanish from his Thought’s perception.

Lin Jian was secretly astonished. Something was wrong with this tomb. Why were there such deep downward stairs inside it?

A moment later, he realized that there were no other exits surrounding the chamber. Aside from the tunnel beneath his feet, there were no other tunnels branching off in different directions! Did that mean Old Cat and his crew could only return the way they came?

Lin Jian ruffled his hair in frustration. If there were no other exits, Shen Ke would definitely go into the tomb.

He thought, "No, that can’t be right. There has to be another exit."

He continued to circle the area, scanning ninety meters away, then two hundred meters, and eventually sweeping everything within a five-hundred-meter radius! However, he failed to find a second exit. Ten minutes later, noticing vehicles entering the village, Lin Jian had no choice but to head back the way he came.

A moment later, as he stepped into the courtyard, Wang Suo coincidentally pulled up outside the gate. Three or four plainclothes officers rushed in right behind him.

"Mr. Lin?" Wang Suo spotted Lin Jian the moment he entered.

Lin Jian immediately stopped and held out his hand. "Wang Suo, Shen Ke wants to go down into the tomb. You have to help me talk her out of it!"

"What? Go down there? Is she kidding? Does she have a death wish?" Wang Suo fumed as he marched into the house.

However, upon entering the room, both Lin Jian and Wang Suo were left dumbfounded. A note sat on the chair guarding the cellar—Shen Ke had already gone down!

"Damn it!" Lin Jian cursed. He couldn’t believe how crazy and reckless that leggy woman was.

Wang Suo’s face drained of color. "Quickly! Xiaochen, come down the tomb with me. The rest of you, secure this area."

In that moment, Wang Suo truly embodied the self-sacrificing spirit of a veteran police officer. Knowing his colleague had entered the tomb, he didn’t hesitate for a second to go in after her.

However, Lin Jian beat him to the punch, dropping into the cellar entrance first. "Wang Suo, hold on. I’ll go find Shen Ke. Just help me guard the outside."

With that, Lin Jian swiftly shimmied into the robber’s tunnel.