The Lost Tomb : Restart (The Sound Of Providence)

Chapter 135: Motionless People

When we got back to the room, we all looked at each other. Did Xiao Hua take the day off? I wondered.

Impossible. Every day was vital right now. They were the main rescue team, so they wouldn't be acting so casual. The only possibility was that this was a smoke screen. If I hadn't seen those powerful figures on the fourth floor, I probably would've thought that the whole tulou was fake at this point.

But no matter how much I thought about it, I just couldn't figure it out.

"Speaking of which, I heard that those people on the fourth floor often go out to the surrounding woods," Xiang Dun said. "They also seem to be looking for something."

I paced around the room, thinking that it didn't make any sense. What was the difference between the fourth and fifth floors? I really wanted to send a text message to Xiao Hua and ask him what he was doing.

I didn't sleep well that night. Jia Kezi kept watch and woke us up early in the morning. I opened the window and looked outside. A group of people from the fourth floor were going out early and carrying a bunch of equipment. Fatty yawned, looked at his watch, and scolded, "Well, it's going to be a tough today. I didn't sleep much last night and now I have to follow these guys up the mountain."

Tracking during the day was much safer than at night, but the probability of being discovered was also very high. After Fatty and I had tracked and followed this group of people the whole way, I was certain that they were looking for something. I figured it was probably the calling spring, but this group was completely different from Xiao Hua's usual style. I was about half a kilometer away from them but could still hear them talking about a calling spring. They weren't vigilant at all.

The strangest thing was, we had followed them for a while, but found no signs of any sentries. These people were mindlessly searching the mountains, but their methods were professional.

The trees in Fujian forests were strange and dense, with thin trunks that were covered in moss. Many of the trees also had vines wrapped around them. A lot of areas almost had a tropical jungle kind of feel to them, but the trunks weren't as thick as those in tropical rain forests.

The humidity in the forest was very high, and there was a faint fog in the air. I had heard that there were many snakes in Fujian, especially in the protected areas. You could see those long strips in the grass at any time. The locals here respected and feared snakes, but they also ate them. Whenever they encountered a snake, they wouldn't even call it by name. I heard the local guides in the group in front of us reminding them: there are long things, there are strips, and there are long, thin things. [1]

After walking around all day, we didn't find anything and this group of people didn't notice us. Actually, there were a few times when we were so tired that we just sat on the ground. Those people walked right in front of us and completely ignored our presence.

This definitely wasn't Xiao Hua's team. Or was Xiao Hua also poor and couldn't hire a good team? Was such a team even able to save people?

A miasma of gas was filling the air, which made my breathing very uncomfortable. It felt as if I couldn't pull the oxygen from the air and I fell into a daze, watching the group of people go down into a deep valley. Fatty and I rested on a big stone in the mountainside forest as those people disappeared into the fog-covered valley below.

We were five hours away from the tulou, which meant that we were in the hinterland of the mountain forest. We were listening quietly to those people's incessant chattering coming from the fog when the sky suddenly darkened.

I looked up and saw that dark clouds were gathering and there was a brief flash of lightning. It seemed that there was going to be a thunderstorm.

Fatty put on a poncho while quietly scolding that he would go down to the bottom of the valley. He was afraid that he would be struck by lightning if he stayed on the mountainside.

It soon started raining hard, so I also put on my poncho and walked to the bottom of the valley. The sky became even darker as I quickly reached the bottom of the valley. I saw the group of people from before squatting on the ground, motionless.

I found a rock to hide behind as the first flash of lightning lit up the sky. In the dim light, I saw them all tilt their heads up, the whites of their eyes showing.

They were listening to the thunder.

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Note:

[1] If you didn't get it, the locals won't say "snake" they just describe the snakes.