Chapter 268 The Corpse in the Grave

While I was talking, I kept my eyes on Gong Fugui. Gong Fugui shook his head and said, "I didn't see anything. That place is too strange. There aren't any ghosts within two or three *li*. I felt panicked just walking over there!"

"Oh! So that's how it is!" I replied casually, "When did you start following the warlord, and how many years did you work under him? And how many years were you tomb raiding before you followed the warlord?"

Gong Fugui said, "I followed my uncle to raid tombs when I was sixteen. It wasn't until I was forty that I met the warlord while doing business. He didn't execute me, but kept me in the engineering battalion. I worked with him for another five years."

"Mm!" I nodded and stood up. "Take me to see your grave."

Gong Fugui was slightly startled. "Hall Master Li, you want to see my grave?"

My eyes darkened slightly. "What? Can't I?"

"You can... you can..." Gong Fugui stood up and led us towards the burial ground.

I gave Ye Yang and the others a gesture behind my back to be careful and on guard. I said, "How many lonely ghosts are there in this burial ground?"

"Not many, only five or six hundred." Gong Fugui sighed, "Those who could reincarnate have already left. Only those of us who can't reincarnate are still wandering around here. The place where I'm buried is up ahead."

I looked in the direction Gong Fugui was pointing, and I only saw a desolate grave.

The old folks used to say: When you go to the mountains, don't just climb on top of any mound of earth, or you might end up standing on someone's head.

There's a basis for this saying: Suppose a grave is left there for years without anyone taking care of it, will it be possible to lose it?

The answer is: Yes.

Graveyards are usually at the foot of the mountains. Even if there are no landslides, the soil on the mountains will fall down due to wind and water erosion. The custom of weeding and adding soil to the graves during the Qingming Festival is to raise the graves higher.

Otherwise, if the soil from the mountain comes down and is blocked by the grass on the grave, it won't go anywhere else. After a few years, the grave will no longer be visible.

I squinted my eyes and said, "Aren't you a lonely ghost? Who filled the soil for you?"

"This... this..." Gong Fugui had only said a few words when Ye Yang's sword was pressed against his neck.

I took out an engineer shovel from my backpack and quickly dug open the grave. There was indeed a skeleton wrapped in a straw mat inside.

I tapped the bones a few times with the shovel and then looked coldly at Gong Fugui, "This isn't your corpse. Where is your grave?"

Gong Fugui said, "Hall Master Li, you're wronging me! This is my corpse!"

I used the shovel to lift up the skeleton in the grave. "Take a good look at the mouth of this skeleton. You're saying these are your bones?"

Gong Fugui said, "This is indeed my bones, Hall Master Li, what exactly do you want to do?"

Before he could finish speaking, Ye Yang pressed his sword down, and the cold blade almost cut into his shoulder.

Gong Fugui also had some backbone and immediately burst into anger. "Li Po, Ye Yang, you're going too far! I've told you what you wanted to know; I've agreed to cooperate with you. If you want to kill me, then act like a man! Don't use such trumped-up charges."

Without waiting for me to speak, Ye Yang withdrew his sword. I also shook my head slightly. "Gong Fugui, can't you really recognize your own corpse?"

The anger in Gong Fugui's eyes hadn't subsided, but his tone had softened somewhat. "My own corpse, how could I not recognize it?"

I brought the skull closer to Gong Fugui. "Take another look!"

Seeing the confused look on Gong Fugui's face, I knew that he hadn't seen anything at all, so I could only explain, "You said yourself that you started tomb raiding at the age of sixteen. During this period, how many tombs have you been in? How much stuff have you taken out? Don't you have any idea? Would your teeth be so well preserved?"

Tomb raiders want to be as discreet as possible when entering a tomb, so the tunnels can't be too big. Sometimes, if they can't get things out, they have to hold them in their mouths. They stumble all the way out while holding things in their mouths. In addition to the erosion of Yin energy, the front teeth of tomb raiders will definitely not be in good condition.

Even if tomb raiders don't use their mouths to hold things, they will hold important jade objects like "Ya Kou Yu" (mouth jade) in their mouths, or stuff them into their anus to bring them out of the tomb. One reason is to nourish the jade, allowing it to slowly come into contact with the outside air and maintain its color. The second is to hide something from their companions.

Experienced tomb raiders will usually search these two places on the people who go into the tomb to see if they have hidden anything.

Tomb raiders who have been doing it for a long time will die from diseases of the mouth and anus, and there is no cure. This is the fate of tomb raiders, or it can be said to be retribution.

The teeth of the skull I dug out of the grave were very well preserved. It hadn't even lost a single tooth.

If you said that this was the corpse of someone who had been in the tomb raiding business for more than twenty years, I wouldn't believe it.

However, Gong Fugui still refused to admit it at this point. "Hall Master Li, this is my corpse. How could I mistake my own corpse?"

I gave Feng Ruoxing a look. "Do it!"