The pain in my arm came on suddenly, like a red-hot iron being branded onto my skin, and then it started to spread throughout my body.

Within a second or two, I broke out in a cold sweat, and my entire arm went numb.

The monkey grabbed my arm and said, "Young Master Duan, you look terrible. Are you alright?"

Fortunately, my pain didn't last long. It was just a brief spasm, and by the time he got closer, the pain had subsided considerably: "I'm fine, I just suddenly got a stitch."

"The tunnel has just been opened, so we need to let the foul air out first. Let's rest... Oh, and here's yours!"

As the monkey spoke, it hung a fragment of the dragon-patterned jade pendant around my neck: "This is your family heirloom. I can't afford to replace it if you lose it."

Strangely enough, the moment the monkey put the jade pendant on my arm, the pain suddenly stopped.

Looking at the tomb raider's hole ahead, my feelings became increasingly complicated.

Last night, Monkey clearly came to this valley with me, but I was the only one who encountered the ghost temple and strange things, while he didn't experience anything and successfully reunited with Wei Shengnan and the others.

As soon as he returned the jade pendant to me, the pain in my arm disappeared.

Is this just a coincidence, or does this Dragon-patterned Jade of the God of Slaughter truly have the effect of warding off evil spirits?

I have no idea.

...

According to the procedure of tomb raiding, after we dig the hole, we have to let it air out for a period of time to allow the tomb to be ventilated and release the foul gases such as methane and hydrogen sulfide formed by the decomposition of the corpse before we can go down.

Wei Shengnan was an impatient person. After waiting for about half an hour, she couldn't sit still any longer. She came over to me and said, "According to Qu Ruilin's assessment of the terrain, the bottom is just an earthen chamber of less than ten square meters. There shouldn't be too many traps. My idea is that we put on gas masks and portable oxygen tanks and go down directly to check. What do you think?"

"Can!"

The reason I set up the evil-suppressing altar was to find out what exactly was going on at the ghost temple. After agreeing to Wei Shengnan's request, I whispered to the monkey, "I'll go down into the tomb myself later. You stay up here."

"Young Master Duan, let me go with you!" Monkey looked at me worriedly: "Have you forgotten about Li Fan's tomb? What if you encounter danger down there?"

"You shouldn't have the heart to harm others, but you can't be without the heart to guard against them! It's precisely because I remember this matter that I'm keeping you here!"

I cautiously replied, "The Li Fan tomb incident was caused by human error due to self-interest, and all these people today were hired by the Wei family. They all share the same goal, and even if they have ulterior motives, they won't kill each other before they see the treasure! But Qu Ruilin has a personal grudge against me. If we both go down there and that bastard fills in the hole, we'll be completely finished!"

Hearing what I said, the monkey glanced at Qu Ruilin and said, "Fine, then I'll stay! If this pretty boy dares to cause trouble, I'll trade my life for his and guard the tunnel for you!"

I thought that facing such an earthen tomb, Wei Shengnan would only send one of her people down with me, but I didn't expect that she, Xu Hu, and two other members of the Wei family were all wearing gas masks.

Only at this moment did I understand why Song Laosan hoped that the four families could be reunited.

When I was at Li Fan's tomb, my teammate Ma Zhenhong almost killed us because he had second thoughts.

The four families have worked together for dozens of generations, each with their own role. If it weren't for the incident my father caused, they would be a team that no tomb raiding gang could match.

That's what you call professionalism!

I was the last one in the northwest corner of the cave. I shone my flashlight in front of me and saw that we were in an ordinary earthen cave, without any coffins or burial objects inside.

Judging from the walls, it was indeed artificially reinforced, but there were no murals or stone doors, so it didn't look like a tomb at all.

After countless years, the artificially reinforced walls have shown signs of collapse, with a lot of soil piled up at the corners.

Xu Hu shone his flashlight around the room: "What's going on? Could it be that other colleagues came over for a meal and even packed up the plates?"

"Even if someone wanted to steal the coffin, they would have to make a hole. There are no traces of chiseling in this wall."

Wei Shengnan looked at me suspiciously: "Duan Shenxing, do you think this is a tomb?"

“This place is a bit strange. If it were a tomb, there would definitely be a passageway for transporting the coffin in, otherwise how would people get out! But in this space, the ceiling and the walls on all sides have been reinforced. How did the people who reinforced it leave?”

I shone my flashlight on the walls on all four sides and above me, but I was still completely baffled: "Everyone, clear the loose dirt from the corners and check if there's anything underneath. Be careful and move gently!"

Soon, Wei Shengnan made a discovery on the west side: "I found a mud brick here, but I don't know what it was used for."

I went over and took a look. The place that Wei Shengnan had cleared was a square earthen platform, like a mat, which had obviously been reinforced. There were traces on it that looked like water stains that had dried. "The traces on it are cadaverine left after the corpse decomposed. This stuff is a general term for polyamine compounds. Don't touch it with your hands, it's poisonous!"

Xu Hu speculated, "Someone died on a brick like that. Could it be that someone really came in and sealed off the tomb?"

"I found something here too!"

At that moment, another young man waved his flashlight at us and said, "I've dug up a stone tablet."

The stone tablet the young man was referring to was actually a stone with words carved on it, containing many characters.

I couldn't recognize half of the characters, which were just scribbles, but the other half was clearly in traditional regular script.

"...The monks of the country of Ta...the world...remain here in peace, without using any utensils or vessels...using their own bodies...to remove karmic obstacles...to universally save all people."

Wei Shengnan roughly deciphered the remaining characters on it, her voice slightly tense: "It seems that the contents of this are related to the demonic monk we are looking for!"

"This tombstone can be interpreted as an epitaph or a notice. Based on the context, it should mean that Naropa passed away here without any burial goods. The reason for burying him here is to use his Dharma body to suppress this inauspicious place and save all people."

I pointed to the "stone bricks" that Wei Shengnan had discovered and said, "Judging from the epitaph, those should not be stone bricks, but rather the place where he passed away."

"So, all that effort we put in just to find an empty tomb with nothing inside?"

Wei Shengnan turned to look at the earthen platform, her gaze turning somewhat desperate: "In the end, is it all just for nothing?"

I stared at the stone with the inscription and said, word by word, "It is true that the contents of this inscription were left by that evil monk, but I don't believe it."