After hearing my words, the monkey was the first to understand my intention: "Young Master Duan, do you mean to continue along the tomb passage and dig a vertical shaft down?"

"Yes! But since the Vajra Wall was used here, the tomb passage must have also used the plum blossom bricklaying method, where blue bricks are laid alternately horizontally and vertically to increase the thickness, and the outside of the wall is also reinforced with mortar."

I turned my gaze to the Wei family bodyguards: "Hurry up our people and have them get here as quickly as possible. This tomb passage is absolutely impossible to open without explosives."

The Wei family member took out a satellite phone: "Okay, I'll urge them again."

While he was on the phone, I stood at the entrance of the tomb passage, estimated the location of the Vajra Wall, and then made a mark on the ground to set up the explosive points.

After making a phone call, Wei's bodyguard said to me, "Mr. Duan, our people are too far away from here, and there's no time to deliver the explosives. So the head office contacted a construction company that's building a highway here and needs to dig tunnels. They sent a batch of mining explosives, and the people are already on their way."

Xu Le asked first, "How long will it take for the person delivering the explosives to arrive?"

The bodyguard replied, "I've already sent them our coordinates. They're coming on mountain bikes; it'll take them about forty minutes at full speed."

I glanced at my watch: "It's 11:15 now, which means that if they can deliver the explosives on time, we have an hour left."

Xu Le corrected, "We also need to leave twenty minutes to return and to wake up the zombies, so we only have forty minutes."

I sat down on a rock nearby and lit a cigarette: "Everyone, take a break for a while. We'll be busy later."

Time passed by, second by second.

At the thirty-five-minute mark, the roar of motorcycles echoed through the woods, and then three mountain bikes sped out of the woods at great speed.

The Wei family bodyguards activated their flashlights, luring the enemy to their location.

A man wearing a helmet got out of the car and said to me, "Mr. Duan, as you instructed, we have brought a batch of engineering explosives and a demolition engineer."

"You Wei family members are always so meticulous in your work."

I heard that the other side had even brought an engineer. Without wasting any time, they walked to the spot I had marked, pointed to the ground, and said to the engineer, "I need to blast a tunnel here. You have to blast a passage for me."

The engineer scratched his head: "This is flat ground, how could we possibly blast a tunnel out?"

I explained, “There’s an empty space below. There’s a passage that’s one and a half meters wide and two and a half meters high. I need you to help us clear a path to this passage, but you can’t blow it up.”

As a professional, the engineer understood what I meant without me having to explain further: "How far is that passage from the ground? What material is it made of?"

I squatted down and drew a simple floor plan for the engineer: "It's a brick and stone structure with the gaps filled very tightly, so it should be hard to collapse. However, the soil above this passage has also been reinforced and is different from ordinary soil. The passage is about four meters above the ground."

The engineer nodded, picked up a twig, drew a few arcs and triangles on my drawings, and looked up to ask, "There are no requirements for the dimensions of the passageway, right?"

I shook my head: "No, as long as the passage can be opened, that's fine."

“That makes things easier. Although you said you wanted to build a tunnel, it can’t be done in one go, and you’ll have to help with the cleanup.”

After speaking, the engineer returned to his motorcycle, took an electric pick from it, connected it to the battery, and began his work.

"Da da da da!"

As the impact drill started, fragments of stone slabs flew everywhere.

The hole that used to take us a lot of effort to dig was completed in less than thirty seconds.

The engineer dug the blasting hole, stuffed the explosives he had brought in, and connected the electric starter wire: "It's ready, everyone evacuate, I'm going to detonate."

"etc."

I heard the engineer's shout, went over to the old man and asked for four incense sticks. I then made a small mound of earth at the entrance to the tomb passage, placed the incense sticks on it, and bowed to the tomb passage: "Life and death are a cycle, yin and yang are separated! Your descendants are disrespectful, trespassing into the tomb! I am not here today to seek wealth, but to borrow your body to save a life! I hope you will open the door of convenience and accumulate good karma. If you blame me, please forgive me!"

After I finished speaking, I saw the four incense sticks burning evenly and said to the engineer, "Let's wait a few more minutes until the incense here has completely burned out before we carry out the explosion."

The Wei family members were all there to cooperate with my plan, so naturally they didn't say anything.

Xu Le and his group were also people of the martial arts world, and they knew that there were certain rules that had to be followed. Although they were anxious, they did not urge them.

As the evening breeze blew, the four incense sticks quickly burned out. I saw the ash being blown away by the wind and waved to the engineer: "We can proceed with the blasting now."

"boom!"

A muffled thud echoed through the valley, the sound reverberating for a long time and startling countless birds into flight.

Hearing the loud noise, I secretly rejoiced that this mountain area was a semi-uninhabited area; otherwise, such a sound could be clearly heard from several kilometers away.

The engineer's first blast created a crater about two square meters in diameter on the ground.

Once the smoke cleared, we all went up to help, moving away the shattered stone slabs and the upturned sand.

The engineer blasted a crater and then used an electric pickaxe to dig another blasting hole, but not at the bottom of the first crater. Instead, he continued to expand its area to prevent a collapse during the next blast.

The engineer the Wei family hired was extremely professional; he calculated exactly where to blast the explosives and how much explosive to use.

After three explosions, the crater was more than three meters deep, and the soil that was blown up contained a large amount of white slag.

This means we have reached the three-component soil. Once we get through this last layer of soil, we can blast open the top of the tomb passage and enter the tomb.

"boom!"

The fourth explosion came quickly. I hid in the distance, watching the black smoke rise into the sky and the white dust fall in abundance. I ran over quickly and asked, "How is it? Did you break through?"

"This soil is more solid than I imagined."

The engineer shook his head: "It's just cracked, not fully opened yet. The soil is mixed with dry grass and steel bars, which increases its toughness and connectivity. The steel bars inside are well preserved. If I want to continue digging down, I have to use the explosion to deform or break off these steel bars."