Chapter 10: The Sea-Stabilizing Stone Monkey

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Zhang Wuxun’s body reacted instinctively, preparing to strike back, but he stopped himself at the very instant his hand moved and took the kick without resistance.

Fortunately, Little Innocent had held back. It did not hurt.

“Fuck your granddaddy, you damn wooden fish! Where the hell did you disappear to? You actually left me alone in that burial chamber! I ran into a sea monkey and nearly got myself killed, you know that? Weren’t we supposed to face hardship together as brothers? It’s a good thing I’m clever, otherwise—”

Little Puppy was clearly furious this time. He ranted and cursed without pause for several minutes. When Fatty came up and saw the situation, he immediately retreated as far away as possible, terrified that the artillery fire might hit him too.

Zhang Wuxun drooped miserably, burying his head in his knees. He let himself be scolded and blamed without daring to utter a word.

But when he heard Little Innocent say that he was unharmed and had even driven the sea monkey away, Zhang Wuxun felt a tremendous weight lift from his heart.

Watching the story unfold in advance and actually taking part in it were two entirely different experiences. He could not guarantee that the addition of a little butterfly like himself would not cause some irreversible, disastrous change in the plot.

The System had said before that, apart from certain extremely crucial plot points, all other events would develop smoothly according to the circumstances at hand. This was already a complete world with its own rules and laws.

More precisely, any one of the Iron Triangle could be considered a sovereign of this world.

After cursing for several minutes, Wu Xie’s anger had already dissipated, and his throat had gone dry. Zhang Wuxun hurriedly took a bottle of water from his backpack and handed it to him.

He secretly rejoiced. Sure enough, Little Puppy’s fur was as smooth as ever.

Wu Xie took a sip of water and recovered his breath. “All right, tell me what happened. How did you come crawling out of the water?”

Zhang Wuxun recounted everything that had happened in the burial chamber.

When he mentioned the white-haired rice dumpling, Wu Xie hastily seized him and examined him from head to toe. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

Warmth spread through Zhang Wuxun’s heart. He waved his hand. “No. I was far away, and the moment I realized something was wrong, I ran.”

As he spoke, he shot a smug glance at Little Brother, who was sitting quietly nearby.

Little Brother remained expressionless.

How boring. Zhang Wuxun curled his lip, then took a box of blood-stasis medicine and some alcohol swabs from his backpack. He walked over and crouched in front of him.

“Give me your hand.”

Little Brother stared at Zhang Wuxun for two seconds, a trace of confusion in his eyes. He clearly did not understand.

Zhang Wuxun clicked his tongue softly, grabbed his left hand, and turned it over twice. Finding no broken skin, he disinfected it with an alcohol swab, peeled away the backing from the medicinal patch, and wrapped it around the conspicuously bruised mark on Little Brother’s wrist.

When the white-haired rice dumpling had seized Little Brother’s wrist earlier, it had used tremendous force. Combined with the time spent submerged in water, his left wrist had remained darkly bruised for quite a while.

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Little Brother was not the sort of person who would ever take the initiative to complain about pain. Whatever injury or discomfort he suffered, he simply endured it in silence, relying on his formidable physical constitution to withstand everything.

Zhang Wuxun genuinely admired that about him.

After applying the patch, Zhang Wuxun handed the rest to Little Brother. “It helps disperse bruising, reduce swelling, and relieve pain. It works very well.”

With the System sponsoring it, the results were naturally excellent.

Little Brother pressed his lips together, nodded, and murmured an almost inaudible, “Thank you.”

Zhang Wuxun gave an affected snort. “No need to thank me.”

The main reason was that he responded to gentleness rather than force. Whenever he saw Little Brother’s beautiful yet tragic appearance, his heart softened despite himself.

While silently condemning his own weakness, Zhang Wuxun nevertheless dug a hooded jacket out of his backpack and tossed it to Little Brother.

“Put this on.”

Fatty let out an anguished cry. “Wooden Fish, you’re playing favorites! Fat Lord is bare-chested too!”

Zhang Wuxun snapped, “At your size, even if my clothes were two sizes bigger, you still wouldn’t fit into them.”

Fatty grumbled and whined, looking exactly like a plump wife abandoned by a faithless husband. He was being utterly theatrical.

Zhang Wuxun threw him a packet of compressed biscuits and an energy gel to shut him up, then returned to sit beside Wu Xie.

The group rested for a while, replenishing their energy.

Wu Xie guessed that they were currently in the left side hall.

Suddenly, a deep rumble echoed through the chamber, and the water in the pool began to drain rapidly.

As the water level dropped, the stone steps inside the pool were revealed. They spiraled downward along the walls, leading straight to the bottom.

While the other three were still hesitating, Fatty’s sharp eyes seemed to spot something. He had already run down the steps.

The other three hurried after him and found him stopped before a wall, studying a string of carved writing.

When Wu Xie came down, Fatty swept his flashlight over the characters and said in puzzlement, “Could this tomb have been visited by foreigners long ago? They even left a mark.”

Wu Xie did not quite believe him. “What does it say? Are you sure you’re not mistaking a pattern for writing?”

Fatty replied irritably, “Look for yourself. Fat Lord’s foreign language may be terrible, but it’s not so bad that I can’t recognize the alphabet.”

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Wu Xie leaned closer for a look and was astonished. It really was foreign writing.

Then who the hell had carved it here?

Fatty stroked the stubble on his chin and gave a short laugh. “If you ask me, maybe A-Ning’s company already explored this tomb years ago. That woman wanted to kill us and silence us to keep some secret hidden, so she tried to use that storm of arrows to wipe us out. For all we know, your Third Uncle might have—”

Wu Xie shot him a sideways glare, and Fatty sheepishly shut his mouth.

Actually, Fatty’s speculation did make sense. Most of the people in A-Ning’s company were foreigners, so leaving behind incomprehensible foreign writing was entirely plausible.

But Wu Xie firmly believed that his foxier-than-a-fox Third Uncle could not possibly have met with disaster—at least not in this underwater tomb, which had already been visited once before.

Perhaps at that very moment, Third Uncle was lounging on some picturesque island, surrounded by beautiful women, basking in the sun and sipping coconut juice while thoroughly enjoying life.

The thought made Wu Xie angry all over again.

“It could also have been left behind by your Third Uncle and the others back then,” Zhang Wuxun said. In truth, the mark had been left by Little Brother.

“S SAE GE.” After searching for a long time, many people claimed that this was German for “danger,” while others said it referred to the Black Gold Ancient Saber. No one knew for certain.

Little Brother’s fingertips brushed over the carved inscription. He said softly, “I think I’ve been here before.”

With that, he sped down the stone steps.

Zhang Wuxun and the other two hurried after him, only to find him standing before a stone stele, examining it.

Fatty muttered, “So this is the thing we saw from above,” then began circling the stele to inspect it as well.

The stele appeared to be about two meters tall. Four stone monkeys crouched atop it, each facing a different direction.

It was known as a Sea-Calming Stone Monkey, an object used to ward off evil. Such statues were generally submerged at the bottom of ponds, so its appearance here was not particularly unusual.

There were inscriptions on the foundation stone before the stele. Zhang Wuxun glanced over them. They were ancient seal-script characters, but he could understand most of them.

“To those destined for this stele, the gate to the Heavenly Palace shall appear. Enter through it, and you may reach the immortal realm.”

By then, Fatty had come around to the front as well. He noticed the inscription, scanned it, and realized he could not understand it. He waved to Wu Xie.

“Come over here, Comrade Little Innocent. Help me figure out what this says.”

Wu Xie looked at it for a few moments. “In plain language, it means that the master of the tomb built a Heavenly Palace, and the entrance leading to it is hidden inside this stele. When someone destined to find it arrives here, the gate will open automatically. Once you enter through it, you can ascend to heaven.”

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