C8 Chapter 8

But Tang Yao wouldn’t let them touch a single thing. In a tomb this massive, there were usually deadly traps—and the things most likely to set them off were always the most tempting.

General Lang passed down a strict order: no one was to mess with anything inside the tomb.

Still, people will risk anything for a little treasure. A few soldiers, thinking they could get away with it, pocketed a handful of gold coins or slipped a couple of finely made artifacts into their packs. For the moment, nothing happened.

Before long, they reached the center of the burial complex: a vast hollow chamber.

From Tang Yao’s assessment, it was a natural cavern inside the mountain. The tomb’s owner had simply dressed it up and incorporated it into the design. Just how big was it? All twenty thousand soldiers could stand there and it still felt spacious. Around the chamber were dozens of openings leading off in different directions.

With no way to tell which passage was the real way out, the twenty thousand could only stop and rest.

Somewhere in the darkness came the steady drip-drip of water, but no one could see where it was coming from. The air felt strangely cold, like a draft sliding over their skin.

Tang Yao suddenly took off running toward one side...

Deputy Zhang saw it and shouted, “Don’t run!”

Tang Yao acted like she didn’t hear him. Her slender figure vanished into one of the tunnels.

General Lang stopped the deputy just as he was about to chase after her. “Everyone stays here.” He would go after Tang Yao himself and find out what was going on.

“But, General—” Deputy Zhang started to protest, but one icy look from General Lang shut him up. He didn’t dare say another word.

The tunnel was pitch-black, not a hint of light anywhere, and Tang Yao was already long gone.

General Lang pulled out a match and struck it, using the weak glow to peer deeper inside...

The truth was, Tang Yao had bolted into that passage because she’d noticed something terrifying—and, at the same time, strangely thrilling.

She had a sinking feeling this tomb was the same one from the last job she’d taken back in the twenty-first century.

Back in the twenty-first century, they’d entered from the far end of the great tomb.

She didn’t realize it until she reached this enormous hollow—maybe it didn’t matter whether it was the twenty-first century or whatever era this bleak continent belonged to now. Either way, she was still inside that tomb.

She thought about the strange magnetic field she’d sensed earlier. Based on what she’d learned back then, there was a theory about things like this.

It said that hidden throughout the world were countless other-dimensional gateways, something like black holes. When abnormal magnetic fields overlapped, they could twist space-time, scramble the flow of time, and cause things like time running backward—or slipping into another dimension.

Just like what was happening to her.

A thought hit her: if she was still inside the tomb, maybe the magnetic anomaly was what had thrown her into this body in the first place. If she could find the exact spot where it all went wrong, maybe she could go back.

The idea drove her to charge into the cave without hesitation, determined to prove it. She remembered that back then, she and her senior brother, Huangtian, had come out through this very cave and arrived at the vast hollow.

Along this passage, there was an exquisite mural. At the time, she and Huangtian had lingered in front of it for a long while.

Sure enough, when she reached the spot that felt about right, she stopped short.

Then she flicked open the lighter in her hand and looked to the wall on her left. There it was—a mural built on deep, vivid blues. The lines were fluid, the style eerie, yet it carried an indescribable richness and beauty.