The man in front, a slab of surly muscle, bellowed, "You dare rob a tomb in our village?! Tired of living, are you?!"
"Don't waste breath on him—beat him to death!"
"Fuck, beat him to death!"
The crowd was whipping itself into a rage.
More and more of them kept eyeing the tomb behind Chen Qing, their gazes burning.
Right now Chen Qing was just an ordinary person; against brutes like these, he probably couldn't take even one of them.
His mind raced. Openly, generously, he stepped aside—baring the mouth of the tunnel.
A wash of cold ghost-qi spread out, and even at high noon the gooseflesh rose.
"I'm with the city's Ghost-Control Army."
"We've found a lot of Malevolent Ghosts down here. If you want to live, leave now!"
"Ha!"
Fear flickered across a few faces.
Ghosts?
In the old days, that was a tale to scare children with. But now the things were real!
"Trying to spook people in broad daylight! Ghost-Control Army, my ass!"
One of them sneered. "I was out here beyond the city when the Ghost Tide started. Lived a few decades, seen my share of ghosts—and not one of them ever touched a hair on my head!"
"Right, right—not even grown his hair out yet, and here he is playing Ghost-Control Army."
"Broad daylight—even if there were ghosts, what waves could they make?"
"You're just a tomb robber! Move aside, now!"
"What's inside belongs to our village!"
Chen Qing's brow knit tight:
"It's already been cleaned out in there! And going in—people will die!"
"Give it a rest!" A girl who looked like a middle-schooler had been filming Chen Qing this whole time on her phone, and now she sneered. "A second ago you were playing Ghost-Control Army; now you're playing good Samaritan?"
"What a joke. What are you guarding this spot for—keeping watch for the ghosts?!"
The auntie who'd been gathering wild greens snapped, "Young man, we haven't laid a hand on you—that's us doing you a courtesy. Move it! We'll pretend this whole tomb-robbing business never happened. Keep blocking the way, and see if we don't tie you up and haul you to the police station!"
Kind words can't save the damned.
Chen Qing shook his head.
Without a sound he gathered up the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, entrenching shovel, biscuits, mineral water, and the rest, and stepped off to one side.
The pagoda shouldn't have awakened yet—he couldn't leave.
"What are you still standing here for?! What, you've got your eye on the stuff inside too?"
"I dug all morning. I'm tired. I'll rest a bit and then go."
"Brother Niu, I don't trust this kid—he might be looking to swipe something. Keep an eye on him!"
"Relax. If he can make off with a single thing today, I'll take his surname!"
The dark, hulking man walked right up beside Chen Qing, deliberately jostling him a couple of times, and sneered:
"Funny, isn't it—if not for you, we'd never have known there was treasure right under our feet."
Another chimed in, "Dug for us this long—shouldn't we toss you a few tens of yuan for the trouble?"
By now one of the bolder ones had switched on his phone light and was the first to squeeze inside.
Chen Qing's heart clenched—these idiots were going to wake the thing inside ahead of time!
The girl filming swung her camera onto him:
"What are you up to? Behave yourself! Article 328, Paragraph 1—the crime of excavating a site of ancient culture or an ancient tomb refers to the excavation of sites and tombs of historical, artistic, or scientific value; depending on severity, from under three years to over ten, up to life!"
"I'm going to be a lawyer, I'll have you know!"
Chen Qing wanted to say, aren't you the ones defining the crime you're committing right now?
But he only stayed silent.
Quietly, he prayed for the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda to awaken faster.
"Holy shit! So much stuff!"
The one who'd gone in first suddenly cheered!
His voice echoed and boomed between the tomb chamber and the tunnel, eerie and hollow.
The villagers were instantly overjoyed.
They cheered as one.
Several jostled to cram themselves into the narrow tunnel.
"We're rich! Damn, now I've actually got a shot at moving into the city!"
Soon the second one in was crying out in excitement too.
"Gold! Jade! Jade! Wah!! So much gold! We're rich! We're rich!"
"Quick, get the sacks! We're rich! We're rich!!"
The filming girl sneered. "Weren't you just saying it'd all been cleaned out? What now?!"
"Have you never wondered why, if there was a robber's tunnel, so much was left behind?" Chen Qing asked calmly.
The girl faltered.
That was true!
A robber's tunnel meant grave robbers had been inside.
So why would so much be left?
She couldn't work it out, but her mouth stayed hard. "None of your damn business! Just jealous you can't get any yourself!"
"Kid, rested enough yet? Get lost!" the dark hulking man said too.
The clamor inside the tunnel swelled.
"Don't shove! Don't shove! Everyone stay calm! However much there is, we split it even! Don't shove!"
"Holy shit! We're rich! This ring's got to be worth a fortune!"
"This... this bracelet—did it just... did it just fly?!"
Only a dozen or so had gone in, but the racket was worth a crowd of scores.
They were beside themselves with excitement.
"There's a coffin! Come on! Everybody give it a push!"
With that shout, a wave of ghost-qi many times thicker than before came rolling out, and everyone began to shudder.
The Demon-Suppressing Pagoda gave a faint tremor! A black haze slowly gathered around it.
"It's starting to awaken!"
Last life, the paper armor and paper blade Chen Kuan gave him had awakened, so Chen Qing knew the signs.
Just in case, he didn't touch the pagoda, but stood ready to bolt at any moment.
"Aaah!!"
A sudden scream.
"Motherfucker! Scared the hell out of me—what is it?!"
"She... she just moved, I think?"
"Moved my ass!"
"She—she really moved!"
"Holy shit!"
"Aaah!!"
"Aaah!!!"
"Ghost!!"
"A ghost!!!"
Several blood-curdling shrieks!
Every face drained of color.
The Demon-Suppressing Pagoda finally shifted.
The girl who'd been filming Chen Qing was suddenly yanked into the tunnel by something. In the last instant she caught the edge of the hole with both hands, clinging for her life, and looked at Chen Qing. "Save me!! Save me!!!"
Chen Qing smiled faintly, dropped the entrenching shovel and all the rest, and ran like a madman!
Wooooom—
The whole ground was quaking violently!
As if some enormous beast were about to burrow up out of the earth.
The tremor bounced Chen Qing a foot into the air; he nearly fell, and staggered on, running for his life.
Aaah!!
The screaming went on.
The few still outside had lost their souls with fright too, and the dark hulking man ran like a lunatic.
But the girl who'd been filming suddenly, unhurriedly, crawled back out of the robber's tunnel. Her face was wrong, both eyes bloodred, and she gave Chen Qing's fleeing back a stiff wave. "Come back, mister!"
"Come back, mister!"
A dozen voices, inside the tunnel and out, spoke as one—faintly resolving into a single woman's voice.
Chen Qing didn't dare look back, running like his life depended on it!
At a certain moment, every scream cut off at once.
The blazing sun was calm.
The earth lay windless.
Only Chen Qing was left, gulping air in huge ragged breaths, clutching the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda for dear life, running like a man gone mad.
He ran until his lungs felt torn, until his throat seemed about to smoke, and only then did Chen Qing finally slump to the ground, chest heaving.
Malevolent Ghost rank, for certain!
The people it had killed would likely turn into ghosts as well.
After a good while, Chen Qing finally caught his breath.
He'd put a solid distance behind him—nearly back to the city—before he looked at the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda.
He took out the little flashlight he'd just bought, flicked out the small blade, cut a tiny slit in his fingertip, and smeared the blood onto the pagoda.
At once a strange sensation came over him.
He hefted the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. "Shrink!"
At the word, the water-bottle-sized pagoda instantly shrank by half.
Chen Qing was overjoyed!
"Shrink!"
The pagoda dwindled to the size of a AA battery.
He looked at a large stone by the roadside, willed it with a thought—"Store!"
The big stone vanished at once, drawn into the pagoda.
Truly one of the two super-relics!
Struck by an idea, Chen Qing tossed it lightly out and willed a single thought: "Grow!"
The next moment, an iron pagoda a full man tall slammed down onto the ground.
Like a great hammer falling, sparks flew, and a spiderweb of cracks spread across the concrete.