This pit was much deeper than either of them had imagined. After a dizzying tumble, the two finally hit the ground. Before Gu Ting could even catch her breath, Yan Xiu’s tall frame fell down like a wall, colliding squarely and flawlessly right into her embrace. A sharp pain shot through her chest, making her grimace and bare her teeth.
“Are you born in the year of the pig?” Gu Ting couldn’t resist cursing.
Yan Xiu quickly shifted off her body, his voice drifting through the darkness, “I’m sorry. Are you alright?”
Gu Ting didn’t stay idle. Once she recovered, she began groping around her surroundings while replying to him in a weak voice, “Rest assured, I’m definitely doing better than you.”
Who would have thought that Yan Xiu had the exact same reaction, silently reaching out to search the surroundings as well. In the pitch-black pit, their hands unexpectedly brushed against each other. Yan Xiu instinctively wanted to pull his hand back, but he didn’t expect Gu Ting to directly grab it and place it over her shoulder.
“Since your shoulder is injured like this, you can lean on me for a bit.” Saying this, she slowly straightened her back to test the space. This dark pit was actually quite high, barely accommodating Yan Xiu and her to walk upright.
Yan Xiu didn’t try to be brave. He pulled out Ding Chong’s phone to use as a flashlight and began walking inward.
The two kidnappers holding flashlights arrogantly climbed down into the pit entrance. Wherever the light shone, everything was exposed with nowhere to hide. Thus, within just a few minutes, they discovered Yan Xiu and Gu Ting. The two of them were hiding in a corner with no way forward and pursuers behind them. Under the flashlight beams, their faces took on a strangely dismal paleness.
Seeing this situation, the two kidnappers relaxed their guard and walked over with wicked grins.
“Running? Why aren’t you running anymore?”
The other kidnapper kept his eyes glued solely on Gu Ting from beginning to end, unable to conceal his excitement. “Hehehe, this time, even if you scream your throat raw, no one is coming to save you!”
Gu Ting: “…”
Not only did Gu Ting remain silent, but her eyes filled with tears. Her appearance of being on the verge of crying was deeply pitiable. In the eyes of the kidnappers, this meant Gu Ting had finally recognized the reality that she couldn’t escape, and was thus crying out of despair. After all, ever since they kidnapped Gu Ting, she had seemed to them like a delicate, fragile beauty who couldn’t withstand any hardships.
However, Yan Xiu’s expression beside her was extremely difficult to describe.
The kidnapper walked up to her with an arrogant stride. Seeing her head lowered and her shoulders trembling as her body shrank into a ball, he laughed loudly and grabbed the back of her neck. His mouth quickly lunged forward, but before his lips could even touch her skin, an object stabbed straight into his stomach. He lowered his head in disbelief, only to see Gu Ting holding a dagger thrust deep into his belly. She even maliciously and slowly twisted it around.
Kidnapper: “…” Damn it, someone tell him why a dagger mysteriously appeared in her hand out of nowhere? She clearly didn’t have any weapons before falling in here. What the hell!
Meeting his incredulous gaze, Gu Ting no longer possessed a single shred of her previous fragility. Her smile was wicked. “Laugh? Why aren’t you laughing anymore? Are you just naturally someone who hates laughing?”
The act of speaking did not delay her execution of a “lineage-terminating” move at all. She raised her knee and rammed it upward, then lifted her foot to kick him flat onto the ground.
With Gu Ting resolving one on her end, Yan Xiu no longer had any worries behind him. He turned around and stepped forward to fight it out with the remaining kidnapper. However, when he drew a pristine, ancient longsword that gleamed like frost and held it across his front, the kidnapper’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and a loud curse slipped out.
Is this a fantasy drama being filmed here?
Yan Xiu was a man of few words and ruthless actions; holding the longsword, he charged forward. He could handle fighting two against one, let alone a one-on-one. Nevertheless, his left shoulder was injured, which compromised his strength, causing him to exchange blows back and forth with the kidnapper for a short time.
While the two were locked in a fierce, inseparable struggle, a heavy object suddenly smashed into the back of the kidnapper’s head. Following that, like scattered flower petals, objects rained down upon his eyes, his forehead… wherever was fragile, it got smashed. But most maliciously, someone was specifically targeting his lower anatomy, repeatedly landing cheap shots. It pained him half to death and terrified him so much that he hurriedly retreated to protect his lower body.
Money is indeed valuable, but his manhood could not be sacrificed!
Yan Xiu seized the opportunity while the kidnapper was repeatedly retreating and suddenly burst with power. Making a unified push forward, he finally charged up forcefully just as the kidnapper’s eye was struck, kicking him down to the ground. He stepped on the kidnapper’s back to pin his hands down.
Face-down on the ground, the kidnapper froze when he saw the sight illuminated by the flashlight. What had just pelted his entire body wasn’t stones at all, but a floor covered in gold cakes and gold ingots… To ask a serious question, was this even scientific?
Gu Ting was quick-witted and had long noticed that the kidnappers carried ropes. Making full use of the materials, she bound the two kidnappers swiftly.
While being tied up, the two kidnappers even forgot their pain, staring blankly at the countless gold cakes and gold ingots on the ground with expressions of complete worldview collapse.
Gu Ting patted one of their faces and smiled, “Is the gold beautiful? Then take a few more looks, because this will be the last beautiful scenery you see before you rot in prison!”
Unable to hold on any longer, Yan Xiu plopped down unceremoniously to sit against the ground. Hearing this, he half-opened his eyes and panted with a laugh, “Why do you sound exactly like a villain when you speak?”
Confirming the ropes were securely tied, Gu Ting sat down right next to Yan Xiu and asked, “Do you know what a villain would say upon seeing someone who looks like you?”
Yan Xiu turned his face slightly to look at her.
“They would say: Die! I don’t allow anyone to be more beautiful than me!”
Yan Xiu’s chest vibrated as he laughed for a long time, unable to stop.
The development of tonight’s situation was not only unexpected for the kidnappers, but even Gu Ting herself could not have predicted it. Originally, she thought falling into the pit meant reaching a dead end, where they could only surrender and wait to be captured by the kidnappers. Who could have known this was merely the beginning of the bizarre. After walking a short distance, they had discovered a one-meter-wide opening. When they crawled inside to look, it turned out to be a burial chamber.
Indeed, a burial chamber that tomb raiders would risk their lives yet fail to break into—she and Yan Xiu had tumbled all the way to the tomb owner’s front door. How could anyone say this wasn’t a disguised invitation from the tomb owner?
The inside of the burial chamber was pitch black. She and Yan Xiu couldn’t see its full layout and only knew it was quite large. So, they had merely groped around nearby to find a few usable items: a dagger, a longsword, and several chests filled with gold, silver, and jewels.
Time was short, so Gu Ting and Yan Xiu simply found a random funerary vessel, picked out some heavy and highly damaging gold cakes and gold ingots from the funerary chests, packed them inside, and used them as throwing weapons.
This was the source of the weapons and throwing projectiles used by Gu Ting and Yan Xiu.
Then, the two of them moved a large tripod to the opening of the burial chamber, standing right before the entrance waiting for the kidnappers to deliver themselves.
To be kidnapped yet leave the leader of the kidnappers half-dead; to be on the run yet accidentally fall into an ancient tomb; to make full use of the funerary items to practically play two kidnappers to death… even movies couldn’t script a plot this fantastical.
Gu Ting became even more certain and felt more confident in her heart. She truly was the chosen one, the lucky darling favored by financial luck!
This confidence injected Gu Ting with adrenaline, instantly restoring her to full vitality. With so much wealth, glamour, and luxurious, extravagant happiness waiting for her in the future, no matter what predicament she found herself in, she must live on as resiliently as possible!
Relying on this belief, Gu Ting managed to crawl out of the tomb shaft using her bare hands. She walked alone under the pitch-black night sky until her phone finally regained its signal, and she hurriedly dialed 110.
Gu Ting didn’t give the operator a chance to interrupt, rattling off a frantic stream of information. Finally, she didn’t forget to remind them, “…If the police agree, please call the cultural relic protection department while you’re at it. On our escape route, the pit we accidentally fell into is a massive ancient tomb, and there are quite a lot of funerary objects inside.”
“Comrade Gu Ting, may I ask if your head has suffered any injury or heavy impact, or if you are experiencing symptoms of dizziness?”
Gu Ting found it baffling. “No, right now, apart from being very cold, everything else is normal.”
The other party fell silent for a moment before saying with some difficulty, “…Alright, it will take some time for us to pinpoint your location. Please remain on the line for now.”
A minute later, Gu Ting hung up the phone and returned to the tomb shaft once more. After all, leaving Yan Xiu, an injured patient, together with two kidnappers still left her somewhat uneasy.
Gu Ting returned to the tomb shaft. At this moment, she was the most energetic person in the entire place, whether among the living or the dead. Holding the kidnapper’s blade, she observed Yan Xiu’s condition while keeping an eye on the kidnappers. Fortunately, without waiting too long, the police finally used the blood-stained clothes Gu Ting had left outside to successfully enter the tomb shaft and find them.
Where did the blood-stained clothes come from? Naturally, it was the blood shed by the kidnapper she had stabbed clean through.
She wasn’t worried that the kidnapper would die either. Her rich experiences across various lifetimes even included a day as an assassin; she knew how to stab someone into a bloody mess without killing them. It was a pity her assassin life lasted only a day, so she hadn’t managed to learn any useful lethal moves from them, otherwise she wouldn’t have been so disheveled last night.
With the assistance of the police, the injured Yan Xiu and the kidnappers were pulled up first. Gu Ting, however, delayed her steps because people from the cultural relic protection department had arrived. As professional floodlights turned on, the ancient tomb became as bright as day, revealing everything at a glance. The scene before her was even more luxurious and magnificent than she had imagined—vast and ancient, it resembled a miniature underground palace.
The chamber was filled with magnificent murals, gold and silver treasures piled like mountains, and countless funerary relics… judging by the scale of the ancient tomb, this was absolutely a rare and perfectly preserved burial chamber with extremely high research value. The people from the cultural relic protection department were in for a treat!
Coincidentally, the people from the cultural relic protection department thought so too. As the scroll of the ancient tomb unfolded before everyone, several younger staff members shouted and leaped with excitement, and even a few older ones grew intensely thrilled, murmuring, “A Tang Dynasty tomb preserved this perfectly! I can die with my eyes closed now!”
“To discover this great tomb in my lifetime makes this life worthwhile!”
Suddenly, someone gasped, “This gemstone dagger is preserved so well, possessing extremely high archaeological and aesthetic value. Why was it thrown on the ground, and there’s blood on it?”
“Why are so many gold cakes and gold bricks thrown all over the floor, some even broken? Every single item here is worth a fortune!” An elderly man in his sixties spoke with a trembling voice.
“Ah, why does this tripod have a fresh nick in it?” another person said with deep anguish.
Gu Ting didn’t dare stay a moment longer. She swung her legs and climbed up rapidly, reaching the surface in the blink of an eye. Yet before departing, she couldn’t resist casting one last glance back at the ancient tomb. System, oh system, if this is also your handiwork, then this handiwork is simply too grand. No matter how valuable this stuff is, it isn’t something she can personally possess; she can only look on with envy. However, I’ll thank you on behalf of Huaxia.
After coming up, Gu Ting didn’t need to worry about other matters. She only needed to follow the police’s arrangements. Apart from staying up all night, stabbing a kidnapper, and feeling deeply despondent over the fortune she missed out on, everything else was perfectly fine. Yan Xiu, on the other hand, had suffered a knife wound to his left shoulder blade along with other minor injuries, and was loaded onto an ambulance as soon as he was rescued.
The two spent a brief moment together before parting. At this time, Yan Xiu lay on the stretcher bed, his face pale but unable to hide his exceptional features. Gu Ting leaned lazily against the ambulance, carelessly fixing her messy hair, as the two met eyes for the first time in the bright, warm sunlight.
The morning breeze gently caressed Yan Xiu’s hair, and the golden morning light fell into his eyes, making him look very gentle and serene.
“You don’t need to worry about the aftermath. I will have my family lawyer step in. If there are any issues, you can look for him.”
Gu Ting finally managed to smooth her hair. She covered her mouth to let out a yawn, and when finished, replied to him, “Why the hell should I worry? I’m the most innocent person in this entire affair! You’d better worry more about yourself instead! I’m off…”
Facing the brand-new morning sun, Gu Ting walked neither fast nor slow. After taking two steps, she suddenly turned her head.
“Ah, I forgot to say thank you. Thank you, Yan Xiu, you great benefactor.” Although it was an expression of gratitude, it was spoken in a teasing tone.
Yan Xiu’s eyes reflected her departing silhouette, and his smile did not fade for a long time.