What I said made Ma Zhenhong and his group pause for a moment.

The monkey looked at me with surprise: "Young Master Duan, since you knew the tomb robber's tunnel was inside the stone coffin, why didn't you just leave?"

"I only noticed the clues when I was taking off Gong Ming's clothes. There were ligature marks under his armpits, but no bruises, which means that he was dragged with a rope after he died. Also, there was abrasion on the skin on his back, indicating that he was dragged horizontally."

I paused for a moment: "The corpse in that coffin has long since turned to ash, all piled up on one side, which means the coffin has been opened! Since there's no hole outside, it must be hidden under the coffin! There was too much smoke inside the stone sarcophagus just now; if we rashly go in, we probably won't last long."

The one-eyed old man looked at me approvingly: "Smart, I like you more and more!"

I ignored him and looked at Ma Zhenhong instead: "So all along, you've been the one causing trouble, haven't you?"

"I guess so. The reason I'm cooperating with you is that I want to use the Changwei Group to find this tomb."

Ma Zhenhong, having been exposed by me, stopped pretending: "But not everything was my doing. For example, I was unaware of the blood-written words on the walls of the tomb passage and the human bones under the Duan Gate! I was panicked when I encountered these things, but I've been digging for ancient artifacts for so many years, I'm used to all kinds of strange things!"

The one-eyed old man answered my question: "The blood-written words on the wall are not hard to explain. In ancient times, there was a way to make things mysterious. A porcelain bottle was placed behind the tomb wall and sealed with special wax. Once the air circulates, the humidity and temperature change, and the sealing wax melts. The liquid inside will seep out and soak through the specially fired tomb bricks."

I continued to ask Ma Zhenhong, "So, the person who pushed me in the tomb passage was also you?"

"I'm a tomb raider, and the art of bone shrinking is the most basic skill I have. The blood-mixed water flowing out of the tomb passage was something I secretly hid inside while digging the passage. It was attached to a rope with a barb at the end. When moving it, a gentle tug would puncture the blood-filled water bag."

Ma Zhenhong squinted: "We didn't originally intend to make things this big. I used to only rob Ming and Qing dynasty tombs because the gold, silver, porcelain, and calligraphy and paintings found inside were easy to sell! Antiques from before the Ming dynasty are easy to attract attention if you sell them rashly! If my master hadn't been planning a big heist abroad, I wouldn't have gone with you to rob this Tang dynasty tomb! I originally thought I would play tricks on you to scare you into backing down, so we could take the stuff and we could keep to ourselves. But I didn't expect you to be so stubborn and insist on coming here to die!"

I frowned: "There's something else I don't understand. Since you've already dug a tunnel, why don't you just take the stuff away instead of leading us deeper into the tunnel?"

"Because we came in around the same time as you. The terrain of this tomb is too complicated. If the tunnel is not dug properly, it will collapse! I thought about it for a long time before deciding to dig a tunnel up from underground. I didn't expect that the Gong family father and son were also experts. They had already found out the location of this tomb and were secretly digging a tunnel. When the two sides encountered each other while digging, I killed them. Since it was inconvenient to dispose of the bodies outside, I could only bring them in."

The one-eyed old man replied, "After we entered the tomb passage, we left a mark for Ma Zhenhong outside to let him know that we hadn't left yet. He was shouting outside, which was also to let us know! We originally planned to drug you and leave you in the stone coffin to be buried with us, but we didn't expect you to be so lucky."

"You've been outside? That's impossible!"

The monkey was the first to notice something was wrong: "We've been walking along this path, and there's loose dust everywhere! If someone had been there, there would have been footprints!"

"Hehe, you guys are still too green. How can we in this line of work not have some tricks up our sleeves? Leaving footprints is just asking to be identified after something happens, isn't it?"

As the one-eyed old man spoke, he took a few steps on the ground.

I looked down his feet and saw no footprints at all. Upon closer inspection, I found a few marks thinner than my little finger.

The one-eyed old man didn't keep them in suspense and showed them the soles of his shoes.

His shoes have iron soles with a three-centimeter-high steel bar in the very center, similar to the principle of stilts.

Now that things have come to light, the truth is out.

There were no ghosts in the tomb when we were walking through it. Ma Zhenhong's shouting and the human face I saw were all just people making a fuss.

He was pretending to be a ghost to buy time for his accomplices inside.

As it turned out, both sides dug their tunnels at the same time, and they bumped into each other.

Looking back now, he had pretended to be crazy and ran behind the stone coffin just to cover for the one-eyed old man and his men, because their people were hiding there.

Seeing my silence, the one-eyed old man spoke again: "Boy, I overheard your conversation while hiding behind the stone coffin. I know you're not here for the treasure. Since we're keeping to ourselves, there's no need to fight to the death. Give me your knife, and you can choose to join the He family! Even if you don't join, I'll let you choose what's here first, how about it?"

"I can give you this knife! We don't want anything from this tomb!"

I looked at the gun in the old man's hand and took a deep breath: "This is a quicksand tomb! Once the gun goes off, everyone will be in danger! Let us retreat into the stone coffin first, then I'll throw you the knife and let us go first, okay?"

Ma Zhenhong retorted, his neck stiff with anger, "You're talking nonsense! What if you get out first and block up the tunnel?!"

"Shut up!" the one-eyed old man snapped, then nodded after a moment's thought: "Fine, I agree to your conditions!"

"Monkey, Shark Bro! Get into the stone sarcophagus!"

Seeing how readily the old man agreed, I knew there must still be people guarding outside the tunnel, but I had no other choice but to leave.

If we continue to argue with them, this old man will definitely leave us in the tomb to be buried with him.

The shark and the monkey knew we couldn't defeat these people, so after listening to me, they entered the stone coffin together and used all their strength to push it open.

Sure enough, there was a vertical hole below.

The old man waited until I retreated into the stone coffin, then raised an eyebrow and said, "Boy, I've already let you go in first, so can you give me the knife now?"

I knew these people wouldn't give up until I handed over the knife, so I had no choice but to throw it far away.

"Thump!"

Just then, we suddenly heard a muffled thud, and the ground beneath our feet shook.

I heard a noise and stared wide-eyed at the one-eyed old man: "Are you crazy? You've planted explosives here?"

"We didn't do it!" The one-eyed old man was also startled and shouted, "Everyone, get into the stone coffin! Kill them!"

"Thump!"

At that moment, another muffled thud was heard, and sand began to fall from the dome of the tomb.

Hearing the noise, the shark rushed forward and slammed one of the stone doors shut: "Close the other door too!"

"Damn it! You cheated!"

Upon seeing this, the one-eyed old man suddenly raised his gun.

Thump!

Gunshots rang out, and gunpowder flew in through the crack in the door, sending sparks flying against the wall.

Upon seeing the other party fire a shot, the monkey reacted quickly and closed the other door.

Shark, seemingly drawing on some unknown strength, pushed the coffin lid to block the outer coffin door, panting as he said, "It must have been my men who, seeing we hadn't returned for so long, came in to check and found the tomb passage blocked, so they used explosives!"

At this moment, Ma Zhenhong and others outside also began to frantically pound on the door, accompanied by the sounds of collapse and stones falling to the ground, along with their shouts.

I heard the sound of falling rocks hitting the top of the stone coffin, and knew that the tomb was about to collapse. Without thinking, I jumped into the tomb raider's hole: "Come in, everyone! Hurry up!"

The monkey was still a little confused: "What about the people outside?"

Without a word, the shark shoved the monkey in: "These people are all vicious fugitives! If they live, we die!"

"boom!"

As soon as the three of us crawled into the horizontal space at the bottom of the tomb, the collapsing rubble instantly sealed off the vertical tomb passage behind us.