"A little?" Hao Wenming rolled his eyes at Huang Ran and said, "Aren't you downplaying it a bit? That 'little' trick of yours managed to trap Gao Liang and the others? If what they entered wasn't the real Tomb of a Transcendent Beast, then where is the real one?"
Huang Ran chuckled, clearly not treating Hao Wenming as any kind of threat. He glanced at his watch, then looked back up at Hao Wenming and said, "It's about time. No need for me to say anything more—see for yourself."
Just as Huang Ran finished speaking, the ground beneath us suddenly trembled violently, as if the epicenter were right at our feet. Huang Ran and his two companions instinctively took several steps back. Seeing things take a turn, we did the same—backing away until we ended up beside the three of them, which oddly felt a bit safer.
Then came a thunderous crash—the floor where we had just been standing abruptly sank over a meter down.
"Take a good look. This is the real Tomb of a Transcendent Beast," Huang Ran said as the caved-in section began to tremble even more violently. A few minutes later, another deep rumble echoed out as a plume of violet Aura of the Arcanobeast burst upward from the sunken ground. Before I could make out anything clearly, the aura dissipated into the air.
As the aura vanished, another thunderous boom came from the pit. A deep hole over two meters in diameter had opened up, bottomless and pitch-black.
I forced myself to step closer and peered into the abyss. All I could see was utter darkness. Even with my Celestial Eye, nothing registered beyond the void below—just an overwhelming blackness.
After seeing the pit, a strange look of excitement crept over Huang Ran's face. He stepped up to the edge, looked down, then turned and said to us from the Bureau, "Come on over and have a look—this is the real gateway into the tomb."
I was standing closest to him. I turned to him and asked, "If this is the tomb, then what was that place our boss Gao just entered?"
Huang Ran gave me a sly smile. "They're both parts of the tomb." Seeing my confusion, he clarified, "There are two entrances—one overt, one covert. The one they went into was the decoy. The real entrance is the one right beneath our feet."
Everyone except Sun Fatty, who stood further away holding the cat, gathered around the edge. Just as I happened to glance at Huang Ran, I caught him signaling to Zhang Zhiyan with a look. Zhang nodded silently, picked up the crowbar Qiu Bulao had left behind, and began walking along the wall to the far end of the room.
Zhang Zhiyan knelt down and wedged the crowbar into the gap between the floor tiles. One by one, he pried up more than ten tiles. After brushing away the dust beneath them, we could finally see what was hidden: an oversized sealed storage container buried under the floor.
He opened the container's lid and took out three identical backpacks. Carrying them back, he handed one each to Huang Ran and Meng Qiqi.
Hao Wenming scoffed coldly from the side. "So it really wasn't your first time down here. No wonder the three of you came in so lightly packed—you buried your gear here ahead of time. That means Ruan Liulang's records must be in that backpack of yours, too. No wonder you weren't afraid even when you were stripped to your underwear."
Huang Ran chuckled and said, "Director Hao, it's only been a few years, and now you're sounding even more like Director Gao than he does."
As he spoke, he pulled out a small notebook from the backpack and flipped through it gingerly. It was meticulously preserved—each page laminated in a protective sleeve. Even so, Huang Ran handled it with extreme care.
He held the notebook up for Hao Wenming to see but made no move to actually hand it over. "Ruan Liulang left six journals in Liu Chuxuan's tomb. This one is entirely about the Tomb of a Transcendent Beast. As for the others—if you ever happen to take a trip to Taiwan, I'll gladly invite you to help interpret them."
"Forget those." Before Hao Wenming could reply, Sun Fatty cut in. "Not that I'm saying anything, but if you've got a heart, you could at least let our Director Hao take a look at this one. We're not asking for it—just let him read it for ten, maybe twenty minutes. How about it? Gonna show your old boss that much respect?"
He said it with an air of indifference, casually stroking the black cat's fur. But I could clearly see that his hand wasn't just petting—it was gripping the scruff of the cat's neck, poised to throw it at the slightest provocation.
Huang Ran glanced at the black cat in Sun Fatty's arms and chuckled. "Whether he reads it or not doesn't really matter. We're about to head down into the tomb for a field study anyway. No matter how detailed a journal is, it's still just words on a page—nothing beats seeing it for yourself."
He clapped his hands and said, "Enough talk. Get ready—we're heading down."
Sun Fatty glanced warily at the pitch-black pit, then looked up at Huang Ran. "We're... all going down?"
Huang Ran kept smiling, though his expression now carried a colder edge. "You think I'd be at ease leaving any of you up here alive? And stop messing with that Nyeh—you're about to pull all its fur out."
As he spoke, Huang Ran casually stepped closer to Sun Fatty. Zhang Zhiyan and Meng Qiqi mirrored him from different angles, moving in unison toward the same point.
But just as they stepped forward, the three of them suddenly froze with confusion. They realized—too late—that Sun Fatty's shadow had inexplicably vanished.
At some point, Sun Fatty had moved directly beneath the chandelier. The light overhead cast straight down at a ninety-degree angle, leaving only a sliver of shadow—hidden perfectly in the blind spot of Huang Ran and the others.
Meanwhile, Sun Fatty's hands weren't idle. He was yanking out the cat's whiskers—one by one.
Nyeh squirmed and thrashed, trying to break free, but Sun Fatty held it tightly. The whiskers hadn't come off yet, but it was clear Nyeh's rage was rising fast. Its fur was bristling in patches, and its beady black eyes glared furiously at Sun Fatty.
That piercing, soul-rending shriek it let out before—"Nyehhh…"—might not be far off now.
Po Jun and I had already covered our ears, ready to bolt for the stairwell. But the warehouse was far too open. If that shriek came again—echoing through the vast chamber—I didn't even want to imagine the consequences.
Just when the situation seemed to be slipping out of control, Hao Wenming stepped forward and said, "We're going down — all of us." After saying this, Director Hao turned to Sun Fatty and said, "Great Sage, enough with bothering this cat." Then his gaze shifted to Huang Ran: "Tell us straight, what exactly is in the Tomb of the Arcanobeast that's worth you risking so much, dragging the entire Bureau of Paranormal Investigation into this?"
Huang Ran didn't want to hear Nyeh's miserable cry again. He paused for a moment, then looked at Sun Fatty and said, "The Heavenly Principle Diagram. Ruan Liulang's records state that the Diagram is inside this Tomb of the Arcanobeast. He saw it with his own eyes." The moment those words left his mouth, both Hao Wenming and I felt a chill run through us. Standing behind Huang Ran and the others, I was unnoticed, but the shock on Hao Wenming's face was unmistakable. The Bureau had long sealed off the 1975 incident, and besides Huang Ran's group, only Director Hao and I knew the story between Xiao Sanda and the Heavenly Principle Diagram back then. Deep down, I had firmly believed the Diagram was in Xiao Sanda's possession — how could it be here, in this Tomb? If Huang Ran wasn't lying, then how many Heavenly Principle Diagrams were there?
Sun Fatty finally let go of Nyeh's whiskers. Although he didn't know what the Heavenly Principle Diagram was, he understood when to quit while ahead. Looking at Director Hao, Sun Fatty said, "Director Hao, this time I'm giving you face. Next time something like this happens, I'll go down with them." As he spoke, his hands kept massaging the base of the black cat's whiskers. Luckily, the cat seemed to have forgotten the earlier ordeal and let out a soft "Nyeh..." looking up at him.
After Sun Fatty's repeated requests, the three of them tore off the talisman strips from their shoe soles. It was clear they had even more powerful gear in their backpacks. Aside from some caution around Hao Wenming, they didn't worry that the rest of us — unarmed — could revolt. Hearing about the Heavenly Principle Diagram, Hao Wenming became anxious. He watched Zhang Zhiyan finish securing three climbing hooks at the entrance of the Tomb and tie three climbing ropes to them. After twisting the ropes into a single strong cable, it was sturdy enough to safely lower even Sun Fatty, who weighed 260 pounds.
After testing the rope's strength, Zhang Zhiyan nodded at Huang Ran: "Alright... ready..." Huang Ran didn't wait for him to finish and said to us, "Alright, we can go down now."
To my surprise, the first one down was Meng Qiqi. She threw a cold flare into the pit to light the way and then slid down the rope. Right after, Ruan Liang, Sun Fatty, Zhang Zhiyan, Po Jun, and Hao Wenming all followed. When it was finally my turn to go down with Huang Ran, he suddenly looked around nervously. Frowning, he paced back and forth as if something had slipped his mind.
Meng Qiqi called up several times from the bottom: "What's going on up there? Huang Ran! Are you okay? Say something so we know you're not dead!" Her voice pulled him back to reality. Huang Ran gave a self-mocking smile and shouted down, "I'm fine, coming down now."
He glanced at me and gestured for me to go first. From his expression, it seemed he had given up trying to remember what he might have forgotten. But just before descending, he cast one last wary look around, then slid down the rope.
The bottom of the pit was pitch black. But Huang Ran and the others were well-prepared; each had a xenon flashlight and had brought two more to share with Hao Wenming and Po Jun. After a while adapting to the darkness, our eyes began to adjust to the environment.
As soon as I descended, Sun Fatty sidled up to me. Being earlier down, he had already noticed something unusual. From his jacket pocket, the rat peeked out lazily, looking around but seeming uninterested — especially after seeing Sun Fatty holding the black cat, it quickly withdrew its head back into the pocket.
Sun Fatty said to me, "Lazi, look at the walls and ceiling around here — what are those things?" Po Jun shone his flashlight on the walls, revealing countless transparent and semi-transparent crystals reflecting light in every direction.
These crystals looked like raw "forever and ever" jewels not yet polished. I turned to Sun Fatty and asked, "What are these? Great Sage, don't tell me the walls are covered in diamonds."
"Diamonds? That'd be fantastic! Lazi, if this were diamond, they'd be worthless like cabbages by now," Sun Fatty said excitedly, holding the black cat in his left arm and pointing at the crystals with his right. "These are crystals — this is a crystal mine. Not as valuable as diamonds, but if we can develop this place, it'll be something special."
Hearing that, I immediately understood why the Heavenly Eye seemed blocked here. Normally, crystals enhance Heavenly Eye abilities, but there were so many crystals here that the repeated refractions completely scrambled the signal — like trying to use a phone inside a room full of mirrors. The signal just couldn't get out.
With the Heavenly Eye rendered useless, we had to rely on other means. We stood at the Tomb's entrance, which was surrounded on all four sides by openings over a person tall — like the center of a crossroads. Huang Ran pulled out Ruan Liulang's records again. Though he had memorized them long ago, for safety he double-checked the notes about entering the Tomb.
With Ruan Liulang's guidance, Huang Ran quickly found the route we needed. He pointed to one of the openings behind us and said, "Follow this path straight ahead. There should be a hot spring up front. After the hot spring, you'll see the Tomb."
"This isn't the Tomb yet?" Sun Fatty took the flashlight from Po Jun and shone it inside the opening Huang Ran indicated. "Old Huang, no offense, but you said before that the place below was the Tomb. Now you say after the hot spring is the Tomb? Can you really read Ruan Liulang's records? If not, bring them out. We have plenty of literate people here who can help so you don't take the wrong path." The black cat meowed in response: "Nyeh..."
Huang Ran smiled at the cat and walked toward the opening he had pointed out: "If there's anything I don't understand in Ruan Liulang's records, I'll ask Director Hao. As for whether the Tomb is up ahead — you'll know when we get in." He then made a beckoning gesture into the darkness.
No one from our Bureau moved. Being a scout wasn't an easy job. Finally, Meng Qiqi stepped into the opening first. Before going in, she glanced at us and snorted, "I thought you Bureau people were braver... but you're no braver than a mouse. And you still want the Heavenly Principle Diagram? Follow behind carefully, and don't scare yourselves with any noises." Zhang Zhiyan nodded in agreement: "Y-yeah..." Sun Fatty glanced at him and said, "Take it easy — don't choke on your words."