Chapter 21 A Dead End

The young rats were dumbfounded, seeing that Lao Wei actually dared to fire his gun. They had originally been fleeing with Yellow-hair Xiaoming, but now their legs had gone weak with fright, and they knelt on the ground with a series of "plops."

Lao Wei shouted sternly, "Put your hands on your heads! Anyone who dares to move, don't blame me for being impolite!"

The three rats hurriedly cried out, "Spare us! Please don't shoot!"

As they shouted, they obediently raised their hands and put them on their heads.

Lao Wei led the Xiaoling Guards as they swarmed forward and pinned the four men to the ground.

Lao Wei was the first to straddle Yellow-hair Xiaoming, grabbing his yellow hair and slapping him twice across the face.

*Pa! Pa!*

The sound was crisp and loud, echoing in the tomb passage. I felt incredibly satisfied and quickly went forward with Xiao Liang to watch the show.

Xiao Liang followed me, jogging all the way. We saw Lao Wei still grabbing Yellow-hair Xiaoming's hair, glaring at him and cursing, "Run? You still dare to run? I think you just need a beating!"

Yellow-hair Xiaoming's mouth was bleeding from the beating, and he had also been shot in the leg. The pain made him grimace hideously. But he wasn't a pushover; he dared to glare back at Lao Wei and shout, "You're a government official, you dare to use torture on me? Don't think I don't know the law. What you're doing is illegal!"

"I'll 'illegal' your grandpa!" Lao Wei roared and slapped Yellow-hair Xiaoming across the face twice more.

*Pa! Pa!*

"Based on what you just did, I could shoot you and not even get a demerit, understand?" Lao Wei said sternly, yanking his yellow hair.

Yellow-hair Xiaoming was probably subdued by the beating. He didn't dare to challenge Lao Wei anymore and began to play the victim, crying "Aiyo, aiyo" incessantly. After a while, he shouted, "I'm feeling cold all over. I'm dizzy. My vision is blurry. Am I going to die from blood loss? Officer, I can't die. If I die, you'll be guilty of manslaughter!"

Lao Wei snorted coldly and said disdainfully, "If you die, I won't be guilty of manslaughter. I'll be getting rid of a pest for the people! You little bastard, don't try to play tricks on me. I won't fall for your tricks again. Forget about it!"

Then he looked at the other three rats and realized that Yang Guo, the zhi guo ren (mastermind), wasn't among them.

I also noticed that Yang Guo and an older tomb robber who was with him were not on the scene. They must have split up.

Lao Wei quickly asked Xiaoming, "Where's Yang Guo? Where are Yang Guo and the other tomb robber? Where are they?"

Xiaoming still didn't tell the truth. He shook his head and said, "I really don't know. The zhi guo ren got separated from us in the tomb chamber."

Lao Wei probably couldn't stand him, so he slapped him twice more.

*Pa! Pa!*

"Still not being honest! Tell me, where are Yang Guo and the others?!"

Yellow-hair Xiaoming's face was swollen from the beating. With a crying voice, he said, "I really don't know. Why would I lie to you? I'm already like this, how would I dare to lie to you…"

Seeing that he was stubborn, Lao Wei turned to the other three, waved the handgun in his hand, and asked them, "Which of you knows where Yang Guo went? If you take the initiative to confess, you can be treated leniently when it comes to sentencing. If you don't cooperate properly, I still have bullets left in this baby."

Sure enough, one of the other three men cooperated. A rat with thick eyebrows and big eyes, who looked quite reliable, took the initiative to say, "Our zhi guo ren took Meng Ge down another path. The zhi guo ren said that we can't put all our eggs in one basket, so it's safer to split up. So we separated at the last fork in the road."

When Lao Wei heard this, he narrowed his eyes and said, "The last fork in the road, isn't that the intersection we just passed? Did Yang Guo and the others turn left?"

Xiao Liang immediately said, "But turning left is the way back to the main tomb chamber of the ancient Shu tomb. Is there another fork in the road on this path?"

Lao Wei immediately asked them, "How many tomb passages lead to the outside in this ancient tomb? Huh?"

The rat with thick eyebrows and big eyes said, "We only know of two. One is the tomb passage from the Ming tomb above, and the other is up ahead. We don't know who dug it, but our zhi guo ren discovered it by chance."

In this way, we were confused by Yang Guo.

What exactly was this old fox up to, wandering around in the ancient tomb? And where exactly was he now?

Time was of the essence, and we couldn't afford to think about it too much.

Lao Wei glanced down and saw that Yellow-hair Xiaoming and the others had only stolen a portion of the cultural relics. The rest were with Yang Guo.

Moreover, Yang Guo was the core figure of the entire tomb-robbing gang and had to be brought to justice.

Lao Wei made a decisive decision, arranging for three Xiaoling Guards to stay behind to control the four tomb robbers, while he led the rest back to continue chasing Yang Guo.

Xiao Liang and I also followed Lao Wei back the way we came, to catch the man on the other fork in the road.

On the way back, Xiao Liang said, "Everyone, don't panic. Officer Jiang and us split up, he is just responsible for the other half of the ancient tomb, if Yang Guo turns back, he will definitely run into them, then Yang Guo will not be able to escape."

Lao Wei still frowned and said, "Even so, I'm afraid that the internal structure of this ancient tomb is more complicated than we thought. We encountered two secret passages coming down from the Ming tomb. What if there are other hidden passages in the ancient Shu tomb?"

I agreed with Lao Wei. This vast ancient tomb clearly had more than two forks in the road. Yang Guo had been stationed near this ancient tomb for more than two months, so he must know more about this place than we did.

Soon, we returned to the original fork in the road. We had chosen to go right just now, but this time we chose to go left.

According to Xiao Liang's deduction, going left should lead back to the main tomb chamber of the ancient Shu tomb. We continued along this path, and I could feel that the road was indeed winding back.

But before we got back to the main tomb chamber, the road came to an abrupt end.

Because the road was cut off by an underground river.

According to the original design, this road must have led to the main tomb chamber, but because the underground river had constantly changed its course over the past few thousand years, the most recent change had unfortunately broken through the main tomb chamber and cut off this tomb passage.

"It's a dead end!" Lao Wei said in frustration, seeing this. "Damn it, was that thick-browed tomb robber lying? Have we been tricked by these rats again?"

"I don't think so," I said, shaking my head. "They've already fallen into our hands. How would they dare to lie? Wouldn't that be asking for trouble?"

At this moment, Xiao Liang suddenly pointed to the edge of the underground river and said, "Look, what's that?"

We followed Xiao Liang's direction and saw a scattered box on the ground. Inside, golden ingots were glittering, dazzlingly bright!

"It's the third box of gold ingots! Yang Guo has indeed been here!" Lao Wei shouted excitedly.

But I was completely confused after hearing that.

This was clearly a dead end. Yang Guo and the others had carried the gold ingots here, so why did they suddenly abandon them and disappear into thin air?

Surely they couldn't have plunged into the underground river?