China. After lunch was over, Jackie showed Arata around the apartment and cleared out a room for him to stay in tonight.
In the afternoon, the group headed to the scene of the incident. During the car ride, Jackie briefed Arata on the details of the previous cases.
When they arrived at their destination, faint hoofprints were still visible on the street. The three of them got out of the car to inspect the scene.
"If nothing unexpected happens, the Terracotta Army will show up again tomorrow." Standing on the street with his hand resting on a streetlight, Jackie wore a serious expression.
His presence immediately drew the attention of quite a few pedestrians, who all pulled out their phones to take pictures.
Off to the side, Arata crouched on the ground, symbolically inspecting the hoofprints. He couldn't actually glean any clues from them whatsoever. He was just putting on an act to show off some professionalism.
"There are usually signs before anything major happens. So Jackie, did anything else happen right before the Terracotta Army incident?"
"Yes. When the Terracotta incident broke out, we kept looking for connected clues. After investigating, we found out a tomb-raiding incident happened just two days prior."
"A tomb-raiding incident?" Arata's interest was instantly piqued. He felt like this was very likely their breakthrough.
"The police were actually tipped off by one of the tomb raiders himself. According to him, everyone else who went down into the tomb with him died."
"Where did this happen?"
"Mount P. We compared the soil left behind by the hoofprints, and the composition is basically a perfect match with the dirt from Mount P. We can confidently conclude that the tomb on Mount P and the Terracotta Army are definitely connected."
"Jackie, do you know exactly where this tomb is?"
"Of course. We already had our people lock down the area yesterday. We haven't sent anyone down there yet," Hak Foo answered.
"If we want to find any clues now, we'll have to go down into the tomb," Arata said, and Jackie nodded in agreement.
Right then, two pedestrians slowly approached them holding paper and pens, hoping for an autograph. But after receiving a single deadly glare from Hak Foo, they wisely turned around and scurried away.
Having confirmed their next destination, the three got back in the car and headed toward Mount P. Since the mountain wasn't very high in elevation, they were able to drive all the way up the dirt road to the peak.
After driving for a while, Arata could see police tape cordoning off an area in the distance. Five young men in Public Safety uniforms were standing guard around the perimeter.
There was also a man squatting on the ground nearby. Seeing Jackie's Jeep approach, one of the officers quickly moved the barricade out of the way.
"Captain Jackie, Hak Foo!" he shouted to the two men in the car.
"Arata, let's get out. The tomb entrance is right up ahead." The three of them stepped out of the car and walked toward the excavated hole.
The location of the tomb entrance wasn't exactly well hidden. For professional tomb raiders, a spot like this was incredibly easy to expose.
"Did you bring the guy?" Jackie asked.
"He's right there." The officer leading the way pointed to the man squatting on the ground.
"Captain Jackie!!" the other four officers shouted in unison.
"This is our external consultant, Arata. He's also my brother," Jackie introduced, slinging an arm over Arata's shoulder.
"Brother Arata," the four officers nodded and greeted him immediately.
Arata didn't say anything, his eyes locked onto the entrance of the tomb.
"Arata, that guy over there is the tomb raider who reported the incident. If you have any questions, feel free to ask him."
"Alright." Arata walked over to the tomb raider. Seeing the man looking panicked, constantly biting his fingernails as if terrified of something, Arata asked, "How many people went down in total?"
The man slowly raised his head, glanced at Arata, and held up four trembling fingers. "F-Four."
"What are you so afraid of?"
"I... I don't want to be here. Can you just let me leave?"
"As long as you answer my questions, you'll be able to leave that much faster."
"Ask whatever you want, hurry. I'll tell you everything I know." Hearing that he could leave, the tomb raider seemed to grasp onto a lifeline.
"Tell me what happened. And why did you guys come here to raid a tomb in the first place?"
"The five of us are originally from City Q. We dug up a treasure chest at the antique market, and when we opened it, we found a map to a tomb inside. We didn't know if it was real or fake, but since we didn't have jobs and our pockets were completely empty, we decided to come here and check it out."
"Since the location of the tomb wasn't very well hidden, we only did the digging late at night. One person kept watch while the other four worked. But this time, the digging went surprisingly fast. We broke through at 1 AM the other night. After that, the four of them went down while I stayed up top to guard the entrance."
"But over two hours later, I suddenly heard horrifying screams echoing from inside. I shined my flashlight down the tunnel and saw one of my partners sprinting back toward the surface. He looked like he had just seen a ghost. I tried to reach out and pull him up, but suddenly, a spear pierced clean through his body. The spearhead shot right out of his mouth."
"I... I was terrified. Then I watched as my partner's corpse was dragged back down into the dark. I knew something was horribly wrong, so I immediately turned and ran for my life."
"What made you decide to call the police after all that time?"
"Because tomb raiding carries a heavy prison sentence, and four people had just died. I didn't dare tell anyone. That scene was just too terrifying, so much so that I never wanted to come back here again. But then I suddenly got a call from my partner's wife. Combine that with the fact that I haven't been able to sleep at night... my guilty conscience eventually pushed me to call the cops."
"So based on what you're saying, you never actually went down. All your partners died down there."
"Yes... can I go now?!" The man asked, his eyes filled with sheer panic, looking as if he expected something to crawl out of the tomb at any second.
"No rush. Go ahead and get some sleep first." Arata patted the man on the shoulder, and his eyelids instantly grew heavy as he passed out on the spot.
"Arata, do you have a plan?"
"All the answers are down in that tomb."
"I'll go down with you," Jackie said.
"No need. I have Mickey and Jerry. Let them go down and take a look first."
After saying that, Arata pulled two large, pre-prepared rats out of his pocket. Each rat had a small flashlight and several glow sticks strapped to its back.
Since Arata had the ability to command rats, he could not only control them but also share their vision. Whatever the rats saw down in the tomb, Arata would see as well.
"Arata, you can control rats too?" Hak Foo asked in surprise. He thought he already had a solid grasp on Arata's abilities, but it turned out he had only scratched the surface.
"This is also part of the Corpse-Lover Devil's power."
"The Corpse-Lover Devil is that strong? Now I really want to make a contract with one."
"It's not that easy to contract with. But keep this a secret. As of right now, you two are the only ones who know I'm contracted with the Corpse-Lover Devil."
"Um... I know now too," another Public Safety officer chimed in.
"Piss off to the side!" Hak Foo roared, sending the other four officers immediately scattering away.
Arata placed Mickey and Jerry at the entrance of the tomb and switched on the small flashlights strapped to their backs.
"Go."
On his command, Mickey and Jerry scurried into the dark tunnel simultaneously. They ran down the sloping dirt path for about ten meters before suddenly dropping straight down into the main tomb chamber.
As the rats ventured deeper, Arata began to see corpses dressed in modern clothing scattered across the tunnel floor. These were undoubtedly the remains of the tomb raiders.
As they continued forward, the bodies of the other raiders appeared one after another.
After covering less than twenty meters, the two rats were blocked by a massive stone door.
He thought their scouting run would end here.
But right then, the stone door slowly opened completely on its own.
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