Chapter Sixteen: Zhang Yaxi

"Didn't you see it just now? There were three people sitting on the stone bed over there." I stared at Yang Lang in terror.

"Huh? People..." Yang Lang looked at me in confusion. After thinking it over, he reached out and helped me up from the floor.

Seeing the look on his face, I felt strange. "You really didn't see anything?"

"Mr. Yuan, could you have been mistaken?"

Mistaken? How could that be? I had stared at those three people for nearly a minute just now. I... wait, could it be...

All at once, I remembered what my father had told me. In the Yuan family, those who carried the clan's bloodline could, in certain special places, see things that other people could not. Could what I had just seen have been one of those things?

"Those were ghosts." My father's words began to echo in my mind. With one hand still braced on Yang Lang, I slowly moved back over there. But when I looked again at the stone couch, I found that there was nothing on it at all.

"This..." I was suddenly at a loss.

I remembered that the shadows I had seen in the tomb of the King of Yelang had remained there all along. Why had these things vanished all of a sudden? Could it be that it had nothing to do with the clan bloodline?

Yang Lang studied my face and tried to comfort me. "Well, tombs are like this. The air in here isn't good, and when people get nervous inside, they can easily start seeing things."

I gave no answer. Then something else occurred to me. "Hey, Yang Lang, do you think the extra person you saw earlier might be hiding around here somewhere?"

As soon as he heard that, Yang Lang's expression changed at once. "I... I don't know either, but we'd better not think about that for now. By the way, how are Mr. Cao and Chen Zixiang doing over there?"

It was clear Yang Lang did not want to bring this up anymore, so I told him that Fatty and the others had not found anything for the time being, and then I asked about his side.

Yang Lang shook his head. "There wasn't much in that brick chamber either. I was planning to come over and search carefully." As he spoke, his nose suddenly twitched. "Huh? What's that strange smell?"

It hit me at once that Yang Lang might have caught the stench of the corpse or the lama oil over there. Yet strangely enough, after I came this far, I had not noticed any trace of the smell drifting over. That was odd, perhaps because the air did not circulate well in here.

"The smell? No," I said with feigned composure.

"Oh." Yang Lang smiled. "There are quite a lot of strange odors in a tomb like this. I may just be too tense. Mr. Yuan, your face doesn't look too good. Why don't you sit down and rest while I look around here by myself?"

After vomiting like that just now, I really had not recovered yet. I was about to nod when I suddenly remembered what I had thrown up into that incense burner. Damn it, if Yang Lang saw it, I would not even know how to make up a lie to cover for myself.

"No, no, I'm fine. I'll help look too." With that, I grinned and walked over to the incense burner. "I'll search this side. You go check the stone couch."

Yang Lang gave me a strange look, but said nothing. He simply walked over to the stone couch. Watching him crouch there and inspect it carefully with his flashlight, I rubbed my hands together, lifted the lid of the incense burner, and pretended to peer inside with great care.

The vomit in the burner stung my nose, but since it had been my own doing, I could still bear it. Lifting my head, I put the lid back on, clapped my hands, and deliberately raised my voice. "There isn't even a bit of ash in this incense burner. Would you believe that?"

Yang Lang was searching carefully over there and did not look at me. He only said that most of the burial goods were brand new, so it was normal for there to be nothing inside.

I did not listen. I could only hope Fatty and the others would move faster, otherwise it would be bad if Yang Lang went farther in.

Just as I was thinking that, I suddenly saw a shadow in the fourth brick chamber next door moving toward us. I turned toward the side door, only to find that figure stop by the doorway of the fourth chamber. From the way it looked, the person seemed to be pressed against one side of the stone door, deliberately hiding behind it.

At once I thought of that sly little girl. Damn it, it had to be her. She was probably trying to jump out and scare us.

So I kept staring at the doorway, waiting to see what Zhuge Xuan was up to.

After a moment, the person's head slowly poked out toward us. I was just about to go over and give her a rap on the head when I suddenly realized the face peeking out from the side door was Zhang Yaxi.

He looked very odd, grinning foolishly. The shadow at the doorway fell across his face, and it gave me a faint, icy feeling.

I had already thought poorly of those two brothers. Damn it, now one of them was suddenly spying on us with that sly, ratlike look. He clearly meant no good.

When Zhang Yaxi saw me, he gave a peculiar smile. That grin made my whole body go cold. I was about to speak when he abruptly pulled his head back. Then I saw his shadow flicker, and the man vanished before my eyes.

"What are you doing?" I felt that this brat was playing me for a fool, and a rush of anger made me bolt toward him.

"Hey, Mr. Yuan, what are you doing?" Yang Lang shouted from behind me.

I did not turn back. As I ran, I shouted, "I'll be right back."

Soon I had rushed into the sixth brick chamber.

Professor Chen and Zhuge Xuan were standing by the stone couch, discussing something. I sprang out from the side door and startled them both.

"Mr. Yuan, why are you in such a hurry? Did you find something over there?" Professor Chen asked me.

Panting, I did not answer him. Instead, I fixed my eyes on Zhang Yaxi standing behind him.

"Dammit, what were you just doing?" I shouted at Zhang Yaxi at once.

The four people across from me all wore expressions of surprise. It took several seconds before Zhang Yaxi seemed to realize that my anger was directed at him.

"Me? What did I do? We're the ones who don't understand what you mean." Zhang Yaxi pointed at himself, then glared back at me.

My temper flared even hotter, but I still asked, "Just now, you were crouching at the doorway spying on me and Yang Lang. What were you trying to do?"

At that, Zhang Yadong, Professor Chen, and Zhuge Xuan all turned to look at him.

Zhang Yaxi wore a blank expression. "When did I spy on you? I only just came over here with Professor Chen and the others."

"Yes, Zhang Yaxi has been with us all along."

As soon as Professor Chen finished speaking, I felt a sudden buzzing in my head. "No, that's impossible. I clearly saw you in the third brick chamber just now."

My head was instantly spinning, and I could not help but stagger back two steps.

At that moment, Zhang Yaxi's confidence rose. "What nonsense are you spouting? We have discipline. We're not like you, running out in a panic and scaring people. Don't try to drive a wedge between our team."

"Hey, Yaxi, watch your mouth," Professor Chen immediately cut him off.

Zhuge Xuan, meanwhile, looked at me thoughtfully. "Are you sure it was Zhang Yaxi you saw? Did Yang Lang see him too?"

At this point, I really could not be sure of anything anymore. Yet I had seen it clearly just now. Zhang Yaxi's face had that unmistakable, scholarly, delicate look. It was so distinctive that I could not have mistaken him. But judging from Professor Chen and the others' expressions, they did not seem to be lying either.

And Zhuge Xuan's second question put me at a serious disadvantage. Yang Lang had been focused entirely on searching for mechanisms and had not seen what was behind him at all. If the few of us confronted each other face-to-face, the conclusion would come quickly: either I had mistaken someone else for Zhang Yaxi, or I had been stirring up trouble and sowing discord among them.

I sighed. "Fine. Just take it as me being an idiot." With that, I gritted my teeth and turned to leave. Professor Chen was still calling after me, and the two brothers were muttering to each other without end.

I ignored them all. In my heart, I thought it would almost be better to go watch Fatty search the body parts. But that knot in my chest would not loosen. Halfway back, I still could not resist looking over my shoulder. Zhuge Xuan was watching me, as if she wanted to say something.

In the end, I turned my head away and kept walking forward.

When I passed those two or three brick chambers, the darkness at the entrance beyond them seemed to sink even deeper, chilling me to the core. Beneath the harsh glare of the fluorescent light, I turned my flashlight beam up even brighter and quickened my pace, wanting to get back to Fatty and Peanut as soon as possible.

By the time I returned to the third brick chamber, my heart suddenly hammered twice. At first I did not react, but when I stepped across to the other side and saw the empty second chamber, I finally realized that Yang Lang was no longer here.

"Bad," I cursed under my breath, thinking Yang Lang must have run over to Fatty and the others.

I hurried back to that chamber. There, I saw Peanut and Fatty sitting opposite each other, smoking. The stone couch had been put back exactly as it was before, and there was no sign of a third person in the room.