The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 73: A Killer Without Malice

I saw the man in the black windbreaker with my own eyes, and I definitely don’t think he’s a ghost; he’s clearly a living person.

But as it stands, he might not be an ordinary living person. I didn’t dampen Xiong Da and Xiong Er’s enthusiasm. At their age, youthful recklessness should have worn off, and if they’re willing to take risks for these bizarre matters, it could only be for two reasons: survival or excessive wealth.

Either way, it’s hard to persuade someone. I asked what their plan was. Since they were here to investigate supernatural events, they must have a plan, right?

They had already done quite a bit of investigation, and Xiong Da mentioned that they had been here once seven years ago.

Back then, the innkeeper was a man, and they failed to catch the ’extraordinary’ criminal.

"Last time we didn’t leave the inn, but this time..." Xiong Er seemed quite regretful about the previous failure.

I thought they should be happy for surviving, but unfortunately, everyone’s pursuit is different; they seek a deeper contact with supernatural events.

"Do you two want to go out?"

"We suspect the heavy fog and rain outside are the culprits behind a series of murders," Xiong Da said.

The murders only occurred during heavy rain and fog, which was indeed suspicious. But stepping into the mist also meant stepping into the unknown. If they got lost inside, they might end up like others who disappeared, with their bodies never found.

"You decide for yourselves." They knew more about the events from seven years ago than I did, so I just wanted to see what kind of existence the killer was.

Suddenly, sounds of a fight came from the second floor. I thought something was wrong. There were only two people upstairs, Qinghan and a woman. They wouldn’t be fighting, and even if they were, with Qinghan’s skills, a knife hand would have settled it, making such an intense fight impossible.

Unless... someone else came onto the second floor!

I grabbed a plastic bag and started running upstairs. After a day’s rest, my limbs had mostly recovered. I dashed up the stairs, and when I got to the second-floor corridor, I saw Qinghan fighting with a man in a black windbreaker.

The corridor space was too narrow for the treasure sword to be of use, so Qinghan relied on Kung Fu, while the opponent held a sharp dagger in his hand.

To be able to fight Qinghan for a while indicated that this person also had Kung Fu skills, but compared to Qinghan, he was still a bit inferior. After a few rounds, Qinghan managed to pull off the mask on his face.

The face revealed was very young, just over twenty, making it impossible for him to be the killer from 35 years ago.

As the fight continued, the man’s windbreaker hood was flipped back, and I noticed his eyes looked strange—not fierce, sinister, or angry. They were empty, as if he didn’t know what he was doing at all.

Xiong Da and Xiong Er followed me to the second floor, and when they saw the man in the windbreaker, they visibly paused.

"It’s him!" Xiong Er said excitedly.

"He’s still so young." Xiong Da looked shocked.

From their reactions, it seemed they hadn’t told me everything.

Qinghan kicked the back of the man’s knee, taking advantage of the moment when he lost his balance. Qinghan grabbed his arm, slammed him against the wall, and quickly twisted the man’s wrist to snatch the dagger from him.

"Help me out!" Qinghan shouted to me.

I lunged forward, tightly hugging the man in black to prevent his escape. His struggles and kicks were futile against me.

Qinghan found a rope and tied the man in the windbreaker into a cocoon. As we finished this task, a woman’s cries for help suddenly echoed from downstairs.

The sound wasn’t coming from the first-floor lobby; it was coming from the fog outside the yard.

"Help—help—" The sound was so shrill and piercing that it was almost distorted.

"She’s here, the one who cries for help!" Xiong Er was excited again and turned to run downstairs.

Xiong Da glanced at the man in the windbreaker, then at Qinghan, and finally at me, saying, "Let’s save the person first."

The ’person’ he referred to should be the woman outside the yard. I looked at Qinghan, who, after finishing, leaned against the corridor wall, holding his forehead.

He looked a bit pale, probably still affected by the drugs. Even while subdued, he could sense danger and awaken his body to fight back—certainly someone who had undergone special training.

"I’ll go downstairs to take a look." I implied he should stay upstairs and rest while keeping an eye on the man in the windbreaker.

Qinghan nodded silently, seemingly not in the mood to talk, and I returned to the first-floor lobby with Xiong Da.

Everyone else was still in the lobby, not a single person missing, so the woman calling for help outside might be one of the two missing women from before.

Xiong Er had already gone outside into the yard. The gate, left open by the rescue team, was open, but the woman calling for help stood outside, unwilling to come in.

Worried about his brother, Xiong Da walked faster than me, jogging across the lobby.

"Ah—who are you? Let go!" Xiong Er’s voice suddenly rose; from his position, he was at the gate.

"Xiangbo!" Xiong Da took big steps, only a few paces away. He sprinted to the gate and grabbed Xiong Er.

Xiong Er seemed to be held by someone, his body resisting an outside force. He faced the yard, his clothes at the back appearing to be grabbed and pulled back.

When I got to the yard, I saw a pale hand strangling Xiong Er’s neck. With his neck being choked, he no longer dared to counter, and Xiong Da reached out to pry the hand off Xiong Er’s neck, only to have his throat clutched by another pale hand.

The brothers’ skills were too far off from Qinghan’s. The fact they dared to engage in such dangerous investigations showed they were extraordinary.

I rushed to help, stepping one foot into the fog outside, and pulled out the dagger from my back to slash at the arm choking Xiong Er.

The arm was bloodless, with clear veins visible beneath the skin. As the dagger cut deep enough to expose bone, not a drop of blood flowed.

I paused for a moment, then began trying to forcibly break it. As soon as I grabbed it, dizziness hit me hard.

"You’ve arrived." A normal female voice spoke with an unusually gloomy tone.

All around was thick fog, and behind me, the inn was hidden within, with no light visible at all.

"Have you really forgotten your old friend now that you’re out?" The female voice drew closer, and the fog around coalesced, forming a human-shaped mist silhouette.

So abstract and impressionistic, who could remember such a face?

I complained inwardly, but she called herself my ’old friend.’ No matter how she transformed, I should remember her voice.

"Just one more, just one more..." The humanoid mist drifted toward me.