Chapter Ninety-Four: The Bitter Child Ghost

His tongue flicked out. He could taste the bite of hard liquor in his mouth, and his blood seemed to be on fire. A man, after all, has only two gloriously heroic ways to die.

Either at another man’s hands.

Or beneath a woman.

There were no women here, so he could only choose to die in battle.

“Ghostly thing... come on, come on, Brother Ma is waiting for you... hurry and come into Brother Ma’s arms~~~”

The way he spoke made him sound like a hostess in a nightclub.

The men behind him could not help rolling their eyes. Brother, have you been so excited that your blood rushed to your head?

And with that eerie cry...

A black shadow suddenly dropped from above.

Its momentum was fiercer than a tiger’s.

A sudden, sharp shout burst from Ma’s throat. His body was knocked back more than a meter, even slamming the men behind him against the wall.

The blade in Ma’s hand blocked in front of him, and at that instant a harsh grinding sound rang out.

“It’s here!”

“What?”

“Where is it?!”

Hai instinctively raised his knife...

Yet at that moment the atmosphere turned infinitely strange again.

There were four grown men in all, and now they were quieter and more obedient than a little bride.

Ma drew in a deep breath. His fingers tightened slightly on the hilt. Slowly he said, “Brother’s blade feels heavier than before.”

“What?” Hearing this, Hai took a step forward, spun around to face Ma’s opposite side, and slashed down with his knife.

Hai, why are you attacking Ma?!

As the two blades clashed—

Clang!

At the point of contact, a black shadow let out a piercing shriek, and a spray of eerie black blood splattered out.

“Back off!”

Hai and Ma both retreated, then sprang forward again together, hacking at the spot where the shadow had darted away.

Clang, clang!

The blade struck the stone wall, leaving cuts behind. The shadow crawled ahead over the uneven stone like a snake, then swooped down again like a bat.

“Run!”

The four of them quickly split up and raced toward a side passage.

Behind them, that black form dragged its shadow along like a ribbon.

A baby’s crying...

A bitter ghost child. This was the bitter ghost child.

A ruthless bitter ghost child.

One of the deadliest terrors feared by tomb raiders.

“Ahhh!”

Ma turned back and saw Hai letting out a scream.

“Hai!”

“It wasn’t me! It was Ah Fei!”

Behind Hai were Ah Fei and the dog.

And as Ma turned his head, Hai saw two black shadows rushing out from the fork ahead of Ma.

Again!

Was this the end of the world?

Clashes of steel, light and shadow in a flash...

Above them, the shadow that had been the size of a head suddenly stretched into a dark silhouette as large as a three-year-old child, leaping through the air from behind Ah Fei and the others.

There were still two more black shadows behind Ma.

The fork was sealed.

A killing trap.

Ma raised his blade and, almost on instinct, slashed at the shadow blocking his path.

This one seemed larger than the others?

“Damn it, the bitter ghost child’s mother has come out! I’ll cut you down!”

But the blade was blocked, sparks bursting forth in a blaze of brilliance that briefly lit the darkness. Ma caught a fleeting glimpse of a lovely face. Before he could gather his wits, another shadow slipped out from the side behind that person, like a specter. With a twist of the waist, it moved behind him.

Turning his wrist, he hurled the dagger in his hand upward with fierce force. It sliced through the air like a flash of cold light, spinning into a radiant crescent of frost.

Splat!

The black shape in midair was cut cleanly in two. Dark blood burst open in the air, and the dagger spun more than three meters away before abruptly reversing direction.

Whoosh.

With a reach of her hand, she caught the hilt.

Ma’s heart pounded like a drum. After a long moment, he finally came to himself and saw that it was his boss, Miss Nine, rolling her eyes.

“Brother Ma, were you scared out of your wits? You even made me take action...”

Bah!

Ma spat out a curse and cried out happily, “Miss, it’s you! I really didn’t know just now, but Miss Su, that move you just used...”

Like Hai, he gave her a thumbs-up.

“Beautiful!”

“Too beautiful!”

Miss Nine also put away her curved blade and lifted her brows, glancing at the dagger in Su Yi’s hand.

“Returning blade technique? You can actually use that sort of thing? Is the original manual still around?”

Her eyes were bright. Clearly she was greatly interested in Su Yi’s move as well.

Su Yi had no original manual at all. She had simply relied on the combat technique she had learned from the dagger itself, then refined it through later study.

But of course she could not tell these people the truth.

“If you want to learn it, I can teach you in the future,” Su Yi said, grasping the hilt and casually wiping the blade across Ma’s sleeve.

At that, Miss Nine’s eyes shone even brighter.

Ma’s face darkened.

Still, being able to meet Miss Nine again made Ma very happy. Hai also let out a breath. Unlike Ma, who had come here purely for tomb raiding and was one of the capable men Miss Nine had recruited, Hai had been here from the very beginning solely to protect her.

If anything happened to her, what did all the treasures in this tomb matter?

Only then did Ma and Hai hear Ah Fei’s groans from behind.

Ah Fei was lying on the ground, clutching his hand. Blood streamed everywhere. Su Yi and Miss Nine exchanged a glance. Had he been bitten by a bitter ghost child?

Miss Nine walked over and bent down to look. Hai and Ma went over too. As Su Yi held the dagger and was about to inspect the body split in two on the ground, her gaze suddenly froze.

She glanced toward the dog.

The dog smiled at her.

The smile was somewhat stiff.

It would have been better not to smile at all.

Su Yi looked away and lowered her head to inspect the corpse of the bitter ghost child. The thing looked somewhat like an axolotl, only even more distorted. It had twelve tentacle-like claws, a large head, and a fishlike tail, with scales covering its body...

An ugly creature, yet deeply strange.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a bitter ghost child that looks like this,” Ma said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

He exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“You’ve all been into the water too, haven’t you? Your cigarette...” Su Yi glanced at the cigarette between his fingers.

Hearing that, Ma smiled with some pride. “Every time I enter a tomb, I wrap my cigarettes and lighter in a bag. No matter whether they go into water or anywhere else, I can fish them out and still use them...”

“Yes, I remember you once dug them back out of a latrine pit,” Miss Nine said coolly. She clapped her hands and stood up. “Though I don’t remember you protecting your pistol the same way?”

Er... Ma was embarrassed.

Su Yi did not know whether to praise him or not.

About that latrine pit incident, was it really true?

Unconsciously, Su Yi kept a little farther from Ma.

“Ah Fei’s hand is fine. He was only bitten a little. Hai, there’s anti-inflammatory medicine in your pack. Give him some.”

Miss Nine ordered Hai to handle it, while she talked with Ma and Su Yi about what had happened earlier. Her speech was quick, and all three of them were keeping watch on their surroundings.

Yet no matter how fast they spoke, the eeriness only grew.

“Who was just speaking?” Miss Nine suddenly asked.

Su Yi and the others fell silent at once.

And yet the voices continued, faint and murmuring—some belonging to Su Yi and Miss Nine, some to Ma and the others.

And some not belonging to them at all.

Hai and Ah Fei both went pale with fear.

Miss Nine gritted her teeth. “Damn it, the bitter ghost children have caught up!”

But there was no time to hide!

They were here!

Flash, flash, flash.

Ten? Twenty?

Countless black shadows flickered in and out as the three of them swept the tunnel with their searchlights, and in the blink of an eye they were almost upon them.

All six could feel death creeping closer.

Just as those dense shadows were only three or four meters away...

Something, no one knew what, was hurled through the air from above their heads.

“Miss, duck!”

Boom!

The tunnel exploded apart.

Su Yi and the others were already racing toward the place from which the grenade had been thrown.

With a roar, the entire tunnel collapsed. Su Yi and the five others rushed out through the opening and saw Feng Sha and the others outside.

At last it was Su Yi and Miss Nine who could breathe easier.

Ma’s good habits were devoted only to cigarettes and lighters, while Feng Sha and the others had supplied guns and ammunition.

On this point, Miss Nine was delighted to receive the firearms that had never been soaked in water, and she happily promised a generous reward for the men when they returned.

Once the group had gathered, they numbered ten in all, though there was only one doctor left: Lin Feng.

He had not graduated many years ago, yet his professional skill was not lacking in the slightest, and he was especially adept with strange and bizarre things. This unlucky young man had quite a life force. It was said that after being swept away with the mud and sand, he had been alone, groping around for an hour, and had then been found by Feng Sha just as he was about to be killed by a bitter ghost child.

At first the group did not spend long catching up. Soon they left this dangerous place.

After comparing their routes, Ma drew a simple map.

“It can be seen that this place is like a huge network of veins. It may look tangled and knotted, but it isn’t chaotic. For example, the passage we’re in now is the main artery... All the underground chambers and tunnels—if we find the main artery, we can find the key treasure site. It’s just like playing a game!”

Ma’s words made Feng Sha raise an eyebrow. “Why do you say this is the main artery?”

Because the road is wider?

Feng Sha did not find that amusing.

Ma scratched his head. How was he supposed to explain it? He had inferred it from the directions of the various side passages; it was experience, and not something he could explain clearly in a moment.

“Because of the magnetic field,” Su Yi said lightly.

The magnetic field? Everyone was startled.

“The main artery has the strongest magnetic field, and all the plants are growing along this direction...” Su Yi pointed to the moss on the wall and the grasses and ferns in the corners.

“Also, from the very beginning, whether it was that strange and vicious creature or the bitter ghost child now, they have all followed this main route distinctly. We never encountered them on the other smaller paths...”

Before, they had not noticed. Now that Su Yi had pointed it out, the others all nodded, though none of them could have imagined that her main basis was actually the differences in the geomagnetic readings she had sensed here.