The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 48: Cut Back on Movies

Now even the evidence of illness is gone. Inside, I’m panicking, with a few simple childhood phrases looping in my mind: "Your ailment is in the skin... now in the bones, so I’m not asking for help!"

I want to take off all my clothes and search thoroughly; maybe that thing has slipped to my back or thigh.

Just as I was removing my jacket and about to take off my T-shirt, Chen stopped me. His eyes at this moment looked as if he was looking at a patient.

"If you’re not feeling well, we can go to the hospital."

"It’s not a matter of comfort, it’s really that kind of terrifying, dangerous virus. I’m infected, it’s the poison of that flower you mentioned!"

Hearing the word ’infected’, Chen didn’t understand at first, and when he heard about some kind of flower, he visibly froze.

I had to explain to him that the thing that mutated Boss Lu had come onto me.

But now I have no evidence, not only is there no change in my body, but that red lotus tattoo has also hidden away. I suspect it has already entered my heart’s bloodstream, and soon, it will poison my heart and rob me of my rationality.

After hearing what I said, Chen’s tense expression suddenly relaxed, and he even pulled out a reassuring smile.

"Don’t worry, I was just guessing before, now I’m sure, the Nine Nether Flower won’t harm you, it wants to protect you."

"Protect me?" Is being close not enough, does it have to drill into my flesh to protect me? I glared at Chen, who seemed to speak easily from a position of comfort, like a full belly not understanding a hungry pang.

"If you don’t believe it, then observe for a few days, you’ve seen Boss Lu’s situation."

"No abnormalities for now, but... you know, when a parasite finds a host, there’s always an incubation period!"

Chen lowered his head, pursing his lips, as if pondering some particularly serious issue.

When he looked up again, his eyes were serious, and he placed a hand heavily on my shoulder, giving it a firm pat.

"In the future... watch fewer movies."

"What should I watch if not movies?" My source of knowledge comes from the movies, TV dramas, short videos, and various novels on the Tomb Robber’s phone.

Years ago, there was a boy who took several sets of college entrance exam mock papers into the tomb, but he didn’t realize once you enter the Ancient Tomb, you bid farewell to college exams.

I was moved by his love for learning, so I burned those papers for him, whether he received them is another matter, mainly because he hadn’t finished the papers, and I feared he wouldn’t die peacefully.

"Read books; I have a few, I’ll lend them to you later."

Seeing that someone so protective of ’artifacts’ as Chen was so relaxed, I figured I might have been overly anxious, maybe the Nine Nether Flower really wasn’t harmful to me. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

I hoped I was still thick-skinned, with my organs resilient enough to withstand its destructive power.

"Actually, you really have research value."

"What do you mean? Are you planning to change sides?"

"But it’s good this way too."

Silhouettes of towering peaks surrounded us, sparkling stars overhead. Chen, as if in awe, spoke while gazing at the stars in the sky.

"If Eyes of Golden Flame were to die, I wouldn’t need to go to the safe house. Before I wander the earth, shouldn’t you tell me what you need help with?"

Even if I didn’t go to the safe house, Chen has helped me a lot—getting permits, bagging the factory, and organizing the siege against Eyes of Golden Flame—all these are debts of gratitude I need to repay.

The largest debt was him taking me out of the Ancient Tomb, ending my millennia-long ’prison’ life.

Of course, someone as shameless as me could entirely burn bridges once the river is crossed, using people and then discarding them.

But perhaps it was the wind’s raucous call tonight, and the stars like the eyes of gods staring down at me, I decided to be a decent dumpling for once.

"Ke’er must have told you, about my family’s matters."

"Huh? Ah... no, not at all."

"After my sister disappeared, I’ve been looking for her."

Chen assumed I had already heard about his family, though thinking back, he knew Ling Ke’er was loose-lipped, yet still invited her along probably to provide me with information.

Some words revolved in my throat but were swallowed back down. Chen’s sister had gone to trace a murderer, and would have returned without a word if she couldn’t find them. But if she hadn’t come back, it likely meant she did find them but was then silenced.

But Chen was just about to open up to me, I couldn’t bear to pour cold water on him now; at least I ought to hear him out.

"My parents were both engineers, before their accident, they participated in a confidential project, but for some unknown reason, they suddenly withdrew midway. Only a few days after they returned, the incident happened."

According to him, at the time no one linked the accident to the project they had participated in. He and his sister were still young, only knowing they’d never see their parents again.

Their parents often went on business trips, each time leaving them with their aunt, resulting in a very deep bond with her.

"So at the time, I also thought she was overwhelmed by grief, unable to accept our aunt’s departure, which is why she caused such a tumult."

Chen’s tone carried a clear sense of regret, as the hardest medicine to purchase is the one for regret.

If he had believed his sister back then and went with her to find the murderer, both of them being silenced might have been an agreeable outcome, no?

Wait, if he had died earlier, he wouldn’t have gone to the Snow Mountain Ancient Tomb, and without him there, perhaps I’d still be trapped.

The karmic relationships of the world are endless, and in short, his not acting rashly back then is the real boon for me.

"Have you ever considered, if the murder was true, and the killer managed to perfectly disguise it as an accident, with extremely high stamina, able to strike again over a decade later? With that level of capability, tied together you and your sister are hardly a match. Going would just help complete a penta kill for them."

"I understand, but some things, just understanding reason isn’t enough to move on from."

"Oh, I get it, feelings... humans are emotional creatures."

Chen suddenly smiled: "You still have much to learn."

I was going to ask what I needed to learn, as long as it wasn’t mathematics, physics, and chemistry, but Chen promptly changed the topic, saying he had prepared for the worst, though never giving up on finding his sister, he had been swayed internally, believing she most likely met with misfortune.

Then a turning point appeared three years ago, he received an email, the sender supposedly his sister.

To be precise, it was from his sister’s email account, his first reaction was someone had hacked her email, but once he read the email content, he became unsettled.

The email said that something was placed at the Yu Family, and the password was the Prince’s birthday.

To an uninformed individual, this sentence would be completely baffling, perhaps thinking ’Old Yu’ and ’Prince’ refer to certain individuals.

But Chen knew, Old Yu and Prince were not people, there was an old elm tree in front of their aunt’s house. As a child, they didn’t know many words, and his sister couldn’t write the complicated elm character, so she wrote elm as Yu.

They liked burying ’treasures’ under the old elm tree, marbles, cards, plastic bracelets—it was their sibling treasure hiding place.

And ’Prince’ was a frog they found. His sister believed in fairy tales at the time, always calling that frog ’Prince’, and even wanted to kiss it to see if it would turn into a person.

The Prince’s birthday naturally refers to the day they found the frog. Talking about his childhood moments with his sister, an unintentional warm smile appeared on Chen’s face.