Chapter 18: The Eight-Treasure Rotor

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Zhang Wuxun got to his feet and told them to rest for now while he climbed up to take a look himself.

Wu Xiaoxie immediately objected. “No way. Your wound can’t handle strenuous movement. What if it splits open—”

Zhang Wuxun sighed, then undid the bandage around his shoulder with one hand and showed it to him. “Look. It’s almost healed, isn’t it? I’m only climbing a pillar. It won’t take much effort.”

Wu Xiaoxie stared at the fresh pink flesh growing over the wound and hissed in astonishment. “Holy hell, did you take hormones or something? It hasn’t even been that long, and a wound that deep has already healed this much!”

Zhang Wuxun raised his brows smugly. “Jealous? Having a special constitution has its perks.”

“You’ve wasted all my concern!”

Wu Xiaoxie snorted heavily, then turned away to study the model of the Cloud-top Heavenly Palace and the four shadow paintings on the wall.

Zhang Wuxun rolled his shoulder, returning to his original build, then wrapped his arms around the pillar and quickly scurried a good distance upward.

Fatty encouraged him, “Wooden Fish, pry out two luminous pearls for me on your way down. We’ll split them fifty-fifty.”

Wu Xiaoxie turned his head and laughed. “You and Wooden Fish really are like father and son. You’ve got exactly the same rotten habit of never leaving a place empty-handed.”

Fatty gave a lecherous chuckle and rubbed his hands together. “After all the troops we’ve lost and the misery we’ve gone through this time, we can’t end up like a dung beetle stumbling onto diarrhea and still come away empty-handed. Fatty here would cry himself to death.”

“Fine, you’re right. You win.” Wu Xiaoxie waved a hand and stopped paying him any attention.

Zhang Wuxun kicked off the pillar, shot upward, and caught hold of the cross-corridor. With a powerful pull of his arms, he flipped himself over the edge. Once he had steadied himself, he leaned over and looked down.

“You stay down there for now. I’ll scrape at it a few times and see what happens.”

He rummaged through his storage space and pulled out a military shovel. Raising it, he hacked several times at the white plaster-like clay slanting above him. After clearing a small patch, he reached out and felt it.

“Damn it. These blue bricks were poured with iron slurry. We’ll need explosives to break through.”

Wu Xiaoxie stared blankly. “Then what do we do? Don’t tell me we really can’t get out.”

Fatty asked, “Don’t you have any explosives stored in that treasure chest of yours? You stocked up on food, but not explosives?”

“I’m not some arms smuggler. Explosives aren’t something you can just produce whenever you want.”

Zhang Wuxun was annoyed as well. He knew where they could find explosives, but he had no way to explain that. It was infuriating.

Little Brother suddenly spoke. “I know where there are explosives.”

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Zhang Wuxun’s eyes lit up. Their savior had arrived.

Little Brother walked to the stone platform beneath the palace model and reached out to feel around the abdomen of the dried corpse sitting cross-legged at its center.

“It should still work.”

Fatty obviously misunderstood him. “What? It’s shriveled up like that and it can still work? Don’t tell me the old fellow cultivated the legendary Sunflower Manual. That wouldn’t make sense either—the Sunflower Manual requires you to—”

“Shut up already.” Wu Xiaoxie was speechless that Fatty could still fill his head with such nonsense at a time like this. “Little Brother means that the mechanism and explosives in the dried corpse’s abdomen should still work.”

Fatty paused, remembering that Little Brother had indeed mentioned a treasure-turning mechanism inside the corpse’s abdomen. He quickly gave an awkward laugh.

“I was just trying to lighten the mood. It’s good for the body and mind.”

Wu Xiaoxie rolled his eyes and ignored him, turning to help Little Brother lift the corpse.

Zhang Wuxun crouched above them, laughing so hard he pounded the wall. It was simply too funny.

Fatty rubbed his nose and held up his flashlight to illuminate the scene for them.

Little Brother carefully tied a rope around the corpse. He and Wu Xiaoxie lifted it together, then flung the other end of the rope upward for Zhang Wuxun to pull.

Fatty was somewhat worried. “According to what you said, this mechanism is several hundred years old at the very least. Can it really still be triggered?”

“We’ll treat a dead horse as though it were alive.” Zhang Wuxun settled into position, ready to help receive it. “We can’t underestimate the wisdom of the ancients. Be careful, though. Don’t set it off before we reach the right place. Otherwise, we won’t need to search for the tomb anymore—it’ll be ready-made.”

Fatty panicked when he heard that. “Quick, spit it out, spit it out! This is a critical moment. Can’t you say something auspicious for once?”

In the end, they still worried that pulling it up with a rope would be unsafe. If the weight shifted unevenly and the corpse was knocked against something, it might really explode halfway up.

So Little Brother and Fatty each took one end—one supporting the bottom, the other carrying the corpse on his back. With Zhang Wuxun’s safety rope tied around their waists, they moved upward inch by inch, supporting the corpse as they went.

Zhang Wuxun pulled on the rope and tied it firmly around the top of the pillar. Afraid the corpse might slip away, he also removed the safety rope around his own waist and secured it in place.

The three of them carefully climbed back down one after another.

Fatty bowed toward the corpse and muttered something under his breath.

Zhang Wuxun smiled and called Wu Xiaoxie over to hide behind the bronze mirror.

After finishing his muttering, Fatty crawled over as well. “Wooden Fish, be honest. Do you two really have any confidence this will work?”

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Zhang Wuxun watched Little Brother find a place to hide as well, then answered perfunctorily, “Relax. Even if we really can’t get out, you won’t starve to death in a month or two. At worst, we still have the Sea Monkey’s corpse. And if it comes down to it, we can drag the corpse granny out of the cavern, skin her, and roast her. That should fill our stomachs.”

With a silver dart pinched between his fingertips, Zhang Wuxun was just about to make his move when Wu Xiaoxie suddenly shouted, “Damn it, A Ning is still outside!”

Zhang Wuxun was a man who held grudges. Back in the passageway, A Ning had used Little Innocent as a shield, and he had always intended to even the score. That was why he had never bothered finding her a place to hide. Besides, that woman was certain to have a backup plan. She wouldn’t die so easily.

But now she was still lying on the floor, bound hand and foot…

Where the hell had she gone?

With one sweep of his eyes, Zhang Wuxun spotted a pile of ropes on the floor, all of them cut through.

Not good!

“Get down!”

Zhang Wuxun spun around, shoved Wu Xiaoxie’s head into his arms, and wrapped his other arm around Fatty as he quickly threw himself flat on the ground.

Boom!

The eight-treasure rotor mechanism had been activated. The shock wave from the explosives surged over and directly overturned the bronze mirror behind them. It slammed heavily into the person lying uppermost, while dust descended like a blanket from the heavens and buried them all.

When the aftershocks subsided, Zhang Wuxun coughed. With Little Brother’s help, he pushed off the bronze mirror pressing down on him and climbed to his feet. Rubbing his aching lower back, he cursed furiously.

“Thank God I reacted fast and flattened myself. That vicious woman won’t be satisfied until she’s killed us all.”

He looked at Wu Xiaoxie lying on the floor, eyes tightly shut and chest utterly still, and froze.

He and Fatty hurriedly dug him out and pulled him upright, patting his back to help him breathe.

“Holy hell, Little Innocent, are you all right? Don’t tell me Wooden Fish and I actually crushed you flat. Make a sound!” Fatty said, pinching the philtrum beneath Wu Xiaoxie’s nose.

“Pfft… cough, cough, cough!”

Wu Xiaoxie sucked in a huge breath, inhaled a mouthful of dust, and immediately began coughing so violently it seemed to tear his lungs apart.

“Cough… what the hell happened? Why did the mechanism activate early?” Wu Xiaoxie asked hoarsely, pounding his chest.

Fatty gave a cold laugh. “I told you that woman was pretending. Little Brother didn’t move, and Wooden Fish’s dart didn’t move either. Apart from her, who else could have plotted all this?”

The main hall shook violently.

Little Brother raised his head and glanced at the domed ceiling.

“It’s open.”

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