Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
“Lin Xue… is this the mysterious old man you were talking about?”
“Since when did I say that he was a mysterious old man?” Lin Xue rolled her eyes. “I only said that he has something extraordinary.”
“Even if it’s an NPC1 who safekeeps this mysterious object, there must be something special about him… this appearance…”
In front of us stood an old man with dark skin and dressed in a dirty shirt and gray pants. His pants were rolled up to his knees, and he was holding onto a huge sea bowl. He looked like he had never had a proper meal in his life. He slurped the noodles from his bowl as if his life depended on it. From time to time, he even reached out and scratched his lower leg. From his appearance, it looked like he was completely immersed in his own noodle-world. He had not even seemed to notice us.
“Don’t belittle this old man,” Lin Xue said in hushed tones, “Gu Zhengfeng was once China’s best tomb raider. He raided more tombs than you have visited cities. What’s more, he seldom returned empty-handed. It’s a pity that the last time he raided a tomb, he touched something he should not have. That caused people he could not afford to offend to come hunting him down. At last, he had no choice but to hide here.”
“Is that so…?” Once again, I scanned the sloppy old man in front of me, who was still fighting his way through his bowl of noodles. Why couldn’t I believe that he was so awesome?
Lin Feng joined in quite mysteriously, saying, “Not only that, but it’s said that the day after he entered this penal colony, the enemies hunting him down were all choked to death by Sixi Balls [1. This is a famous dish in China made out of meatballs, eggs, and spring onions.].”
“Little brat, you are here on purpose to bring me unhappiness, aren’t you?!” The sloppy old man had already finished that last bit of noodles he had in his bowl and was now glaring at Lin Feng and shouting. It seemed like he had already been listening to our conversation from the beginning; he had just been too lazy to respond.
“I wouldn’t dare, I wouldn’t dare!” Lin Feng responded, cupping his hands and grinning. “Today, we came to look for you because we have a favor to ask. Can we talk more in your house?”
“Cut to the chase,” the old man said as he lifted his sea bowl. With a loud slurp, he swallowed the soup in the bowl and then wiped his mouth. “In any case, you will not let me leave. Am I allowed to object under your rule?”
We followed behind the elderly man into what looked like an ordinary mud house from the outside.
What we saw inside completely surprised us.
The average-sized room was filled with old bottles and jars and tools that we could not identify. What surprised us even more was that there was no room at all for us to walk around. Even the walls were filled with dirty, imitation paintings and other things. The already-dim room looked even darker thanks to the relics of history—blackened by the passing of time—which blocked light from coming in. The moment we entered the room, we felt like we were in a tomb that had just been dug.
“These things caused me to become the way I am,” the old tomb raider said, easily navigating his way through the old mess. “Still, I can’t bear to throw it all away.”
“I think anything that I get a hold of in here could be sold for a very, very high price,” Qianqian said as she slowly stepped over an old ceramic jar, which looked like it would be reduced to pieces if it fell over.
“Don’t think about taking anything in here,” Lin Xue said in a low voice, “Otherwise, Old Gu will definitely fight it out with you. Back then, when he first entered this city, he donated a total of two hundred and twenty-seven cultural relics and all of his family’s assets. He made just one request: to forbid anyone from touching everything he had left until he died.”
The old tomb raider’s ears worked very well. Even though Lin Xue was speaking very softly, he could hear everything. He grinned and said, “Once I die, you will have freedom in dealing with all of these things. However, until I do, I hope to lie in the midst of all my treasures. Old Gu has raided countless tombs belonging to so many royalties. Before I die, I want to be like them and lie in the midst of all these treasures!”
Hearing these words from the old man made everyone roll their eyes in frustration immediately.
“Alright, sit down.” After such an arduous journey into the house, we finally arrived at the only empty space in the entire house. The old man easily whipped out several chairs—which looked like they could fall apart at any moment—and gestured for us to sit down.
Sitting in the middle of all these ancient treasures, I suddenly felt like I was having a meeting in a tomb.
“Speak: are you here today for that thing?” The old man seemed to already know what we were here for.
“That’s right,” Lin Xue answered straightforwardly.
“It’s not impossible for me to give that thing to you,” the old man said, his eyes glinting. His sloppiness immediately disappeared without a trace. For a moment, he looked like the same bright tomb raider of years ago. “Back then, if not for my greed in bringing that item back, I would not have ended up in this land in the first place. To me, that thing was a baneful star. However, I would not hand it over so easily as well. You know my rules.”
Immediately, I finally realized that what Lin Xue wanted from this old tomb raider was the same thing that brought him calamity in the first place. At that moment, I became intensely curious as to what exactly that item was.
Lin Xue did not seem very bothered by the rules that the old man was talking about. She pushed Qianqian, who had been curiously observing the antiques around her, forward and said, “This is Xu Feng’s daughter, Xu Qianqian. If you are right, then this girl has the right to activate that thing. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to take that out and give it a try?”
“Hey…” I thought Lin Xue was going to make Qianqian do something dangerous so I immediately stopped her.
“Don’t worry, I will not hurt your beloved. I just need her to cooperate and do some tests.”
The old tomb raider scanned Qianqian from head to toe and then grinned. “Hey, that missing man’s daughter? Her father is a dedicated materialist. He would not believe in your special abilities, and he even scolded me upside down. What, is his daughter willing to believe in this nonsense? Just wait, I’ll get that for you…”
When the old man went to the back to look for that mysterious thing, Qianqian and I asked, “Uncle Xu (Dad) has been here, too?”
“That’s right.” This time, it was Zheng Yiming who answered us. “They were going to explore some very special remains. That was why we arranged for a few of the most important people in the expedition team to come here. We hoped that they would be able to get that important item from Gu Zhengfeng.
“The good thing was that Mr. Xu successfully resonated with that item. However, what we did not expect was that he would not believe us and take our advice as pseudoscience. He even gave Old Gu a dressing down…”
Qianqian glanced at us, embarrassed. It was almost as if she had already expected her father to be this stubborn.
Hearing Zheng Yiming’s description, I became even more curious about this mysterious item. “Did you say that Uncle Xu resonated with the thing? What’s more, as Uncle Xu’s daughter, Qianqian would also be able to resonate with it? What exactly is that?”
“You will understand once you see it for yourself. One thing is for sure: it is a mysterious object that is even harder to explain than our own special abilities.”
Right at that moment, I heard a sound coming from behind me. The old tomb raider was already carrying that thing over.
“This is it?” I looked at the unremarkable thing that the old tomb raider was holding. It was a hexagonal metal plate, which was about the size of my palm. I had no idea what it was made of, but the outermost layer looked like black-red rust. Faintly, I could see incomplete patterns on the surface of the metal plate. Apart from that, this thing looked nothing more than trash.
Was this rotten metal plate the ‘mysterious treasure’ that they were all fawning over?
Just when I thought I was being played by this strange old man, Pandora’s voice sounded in my head: “This is an Ethereal Beacon!”
“What?!” I was incredibly shocked. “Pandora, you recognize this thing?”
“An Ethereal Beacon. The Empire’s Army soldiers would use these things to teleport out of any emergency they found themselves in. At the same time, it could be used as a mini navigator for a spatial transition. I have something like that as well. To a Xyrin Warrior, an Ethereal Beacon is the most important thing. What is it doing on this planet…?”
At that moment, something that happened in front of us interrupted the conversation between me and Pandora.
According to Gu Zhengfeng’s instructions, Qianqian placed her left hand on the black metallic plate which Pandora called the ‘Ethereal Beacon’. Immediately, the metallic plate began buzzing softly.
“How can that be?!” Pandora’s shocked voice sounded in my mind once again. I had never heard her voice with such intense emotion. “How can something from the Xyrin Empire resonate with a carbon-based being?!”