“Pa ta!”

“Pa ta!”

Just as Hongjie and I were talking, I clearly heard two footsteps coming from behind. It was obvious that someone was stepping onto the wet ground to get ashore!

I quickly pricked up my ears and listened again, but the footsteps suddenly disappeared, as if nothing had happened at all.

I asked Hongjie and the others, "Did you hear any footsteps?"

Hongjie and Uncle Mei's expressions immediately changed.

Uncle Mei said nervously, "No, what's wrong, Rongsheng? Did you hear footsteps?"

Hongjie quickly said, "Rongsheng, don't scare me. Where are the footsteps? Behind us?"

Lao Wu glared at me skeptically and scolded, "Kid, don't you dare play tricks! It's already scary enough down here in the dark. If you try to be mysterious, you'll scare people to death!"

It seemed that none of them had heard anything.

I was the only one who heard the footsteps.

This made me wonder if I was hallucinating. When I was in the Tuo River Ancient Shu Tomb before, I often heard things that others couldn't hear. At that time, I even suspected that I was hallucinating.

Just to be sure, I turned around and looked back at the grave robbers' tunnel, but the range of the headlamp was limited, and it could only illuminate about seven or eight meters in front of me.

In the darkness, I could vaguely see Xiao Shuai's corpse still nailed to the wall, the light on his head flickering in the distance. Apart from that, there were no other unusual traces in the dark tunnel.

I shook my head and said to everyone, "Don't be nervous. Maybe I was just hallucinating."

Hearing what I said, Uncle Mei and Hongjie breathed a sigh of relief. Lao Wu pointed anxiously at the opening on the tomb wall and said, gnashing his teeth, "Forget it, since there's no way back, let's just go for it! Enough nonsense, let's go down!"

Hongjie also agreed, "Let's go down. Hopefully, we can meet up with Shopkeeper Wang and the others soon. There are many of them, and finding them will give us a better chance of survival!"

I stood at the front, and naturally, I was the first to crawl into the hole.

Before setting off, I specifically reminded them, "Pay attention to the liquid on the wall cracks. This stuff is a bit dangerous, so don't get it on your body."

Lao Wu and Hongjie responded.

But Uncle Mei suddenly grabbed me and said, "Rongsheng, wait a minute. It's pitch black inside, and we don't know what kind of ghosts are in there. Let me go first!"

I quickly shook my head and said, "Uncle, I'll go in first, and you follow behind me."

But Uncle Mei held me tightly, his rough hands like iron clamps.

He stepped in front of me and said to me in a serious tone, "I'm old and not afraid of anything happening! You're different, you're still young. I'll go first, and you follow me! If anything happens to me… you go find An'an for me!"

After saying this, Uncle Mei plunged into the opening and rushed into the tomb.

Seeing his determined back, I felt a warmth in my chest.

My father passed away when I was very young, so I didn't know what it was like to have a father. Now, looking at Uncle Mei's back, I suddenly understood what fatherly love was like.

Soon, a "plop" sound came from the other side of the opening. I quickly asked, "Uncle, how's the situation?"

Uncle Mei's loud voice came immediately, "There's no danger, just jump in!"

I responded, and then stepped in and jumped down. The other side of the opening seemed to be a spacious tomb chamber. There were indeed no traps, and it was very safe.

After I landed, Hongjie also climbed over.

She lost her balance when she landed and fell into my arms.

I held her plump body and steadied her, and then helped Lao Wu, who had a lame leg, climb over the wall.

After all four of us had entered the tomb, I used the light from my headlamp to look around.

In front of us was a tomb chamber similar in scale to the Tuo River Ancient Shu Tomb. The entire space was spacious, but there was no stone coffin for the remains in the center of the tomb chamber. Instead, there were various bronze artifacts.

This seemed to be an exhibition hall dedicated to displaying bronze artifacts.

I stepped towards the tallest bronze artifact in the center, and saw that it was a lifelike bronze statue.

The figure's shape was very similar to the bronze statues seen in the Tuo River Ancient Shu Tomb, with protruding eyes, a square face, and prominent ears.

But slightly different from the bronze statue in the Tuo River Ancient Shu Tomb, the figure in this bronze statue was not sitting on a pedestal, nor was it standing on its feet. Its body from the waist down became a thick and upright tree trunk, and countless dense branches grew out of it.

The upper half of this bronze statue was human, and the lower half was a tree, forming a strange combination of half-human and half-tree, inexplicably giving people a creepy feeling.

Just as I was squinting and examining the strange bronze statue in front of me, Lao Wu's excited voice suddenly came from my ear:

"Look at these bronzes! How much are they worth? I'm not bragging, but if I just take out a complete set of bronzes, it would be enough for me to live a luxurious life for the rest of my life!"

As he spoke, Lao Wu reached out to touch a delicately shaped bronze lampstand. Seeing him so rash, I quickly shouted, "Stop!"

Unfortunately, it was too late. Lao Wu's dirty paw had already touched the bronze artifact, and at the moment of contact, the originally beautiful bronze lampstand disintegrated in an instant. With a heartbreaking cracking sound, it shattered into pieces and fell to the ground.

Lao Wu was dumbfounded, staring blankly at the treasure in front of him.

Hongjie also regretted it very much, stamping her feet and saying, "Lao Wu, look what you've done!"

Lao Wu said annoyedly, holding his head, "Why is this bronze so fragile? It broke when I touched it?"

I quickly explained, "This ancient tomb was originally a water cave. The bronzes inside were sealed in a water environment for more than 4,000 years. Now that the water in the ancient tomb has been suddenly drained, the bronzes have lost the support of buoyancy and are exposed to the air to be oxidized. Naturally, they will become very fragile and will break if you touch them slightly."

Lao Wu suddenly understood and patted his forehead, "That's why Shopkeeper Wang and the others came down in advance, but didn't touch the bronzes in this tomb chamber."

Hongjie looked at me admiringly and said, "Rongsheng, I didn't expect you to know so much. You even know this."

I thought to myself that this knowledge was actually told to me by Jiang Yongguang of the Xiaoling Guard in the previous ancient tomb.

Of course, I couldn't tell Hongjie about this.

At this time, Lao Wu looked greedily at the other complete and exquisite bronzes in the tomb chamber, frowned and said, "Then can we only look at these treasures and not take them? If it really doesn't work, break them and take them out. We can still sell them for some money, right?"

Hearing these words, I felt a burst of disgust.

No wonder Jiang Yongguang and the others hated grave robbers so much. These greedy guys only had money in their eyes. In order to make money, they would not hesitate to destroy national treasures.

Seeing that he was about to walk towards another bronze artifact, I quickly stopped him and said, "Lao Wu, haven't you thought about why Shopkeeper Wang and the others passed by this tomb chamber, but didn't take anything?"

Hearing this, Lao Wu stopped and turned to ask me, "Why?"