Chapter 1387 — Elder Yu Goes Blind

Yu Xiaoke gleefully stowed away the fine things Wei Zhao had given her, then followed happily at his heels out of the collection room, heading toward another one a short way ahead.

Old Hei opened the door, and Elder Yu pushed in ahead of him. This was a library: bookshelves stood on every side, crammed with volumes of every kind. Wei Zhao came in and swept a quick glance around. Besides works on medicine there were many on botany, plainly kept for the study of herbs.

Seeing that it was a library, excitement spread across Elder Yu's face. The medical practice notes he was after, he judged, must surely be here.

Old Hei had already gotten what he wanted; these collection rooms were merely a walk he was taking alongside the others. What he most wanted now was to know how they were ever to get out of this tomb. The way they had come was surely no good. To climb straight up out of that pit they had fallen through was simply not possible: the vertical distance might not be so very great, but the passage wound and doubled back on itself, and the stone walls were frighteningly smooth. Without proper tools there was no climbing out.

Their eyes could only turn now to the other exits - and how easy were other exits to find? For the moment they could pin their hopes on no one but Yu Xiaoke and Wei Zhao. Among them, those two alone were capable; add himself, who had picked up a thing or two over the years, and that was the sum of it. As for a specimen like Elder Yu - timid as a mouse and conceited to boot - he was not worth counting on at all.

The moment Elder Yu stepped inside, his eyes went racing around every shelf, but the books in the room were simply too many - startlingly many, thousands if not tens of thousands, packed densely along every shelf, until his eyes fairly swam.

Looking at volume after volume of medical writing, Elder Yu frowned. How long would it take to search through all this?

"You - come and search with me. Find it, and I'll let you copy a set!" Elder Yu thought a moment, then said to Wei Zhao. Two searching together beat one, and at a time like this he had to promise the fellow some advantage, or what incentive would he have? Only, Elder Yu could not quite work out what use Wei Zhao could possibly have for a set of medical practice notes.

He was nothing but a thief - what did he want with such a thing? There were all these medical books in the room and he wanted none of them; he had to have that one set of practice notes. Was the man not simply setting himself against him?

Wei Zhao did not hurry to search the shelves, for a thing like medical practice notes was not the same as these medical treatises. It belonged to the category of a diary: how many patients one had treated today, which patients one had treated tomorrow, and matters of that sort. It was a personal article, and had no business being kept in a library.

"It shouldn't be here. There's no need to search." Wei Zhao said mildly. "These are all medical treatises. Medical practice notes are a private belonging, meant to be carried on one's person; they should be kept together with Zhang Liju's other personal effects. If I'm not mistaken, they'll be in the last stone chamber."

"Oh? Then we'll go and look in the last stone chamber first!" Elder Yu hesitated, decided there was some sense in Wei Zhao's words, and nodded.

The others had no interest in these old books either. These great medical works, though precious - many of them no longer to be found anywhere in the world - Wei Zhao did not deign to look at. The library at home, old man Wei's, was bigger than this one and held more books; whatever was here, the old man had essentially all of it.

Wei Zhao was the first out of the library, and so the first to reach the next stone door. This was the last stone door in the corridor - at least, the last one within these hundred meters. Further on, along either side of the passage walls, there was nothing. Only the flashlight beam had its limits, so the situation ahead could not yet be made out clearly.

Even so, Wei Zhao did not rashly put out a hand to open the stone door, for before this last door the jade pendant at his chest gave off a faint, barely perceptible warning; and as he reached toward the door, that warning grew stronger by the moment.

So Wei Zhao simply did not touch it. He stood at the threshold and waited for Elder Yu to come up.

"Why aren't you going in?" Elder Yu was taken aback.

"Waiting for you - to spare that petty mind of yours the trouble of suspecting me of keeping something for myself." Wei Zhao said flatly.

"Hmph. You want to copy the medical practice notes, so you curry favor with me on purpose, is that it?" Elder Yu snorted, and said it proudly; then he reached out, pushed at the stone door, and strode inside.

But no sooner had Elder Yu gone in than a scream followed: "My eyes! My eyes - no, there's poison in that chamber!"

Old Hei, standing at the doorway and meaning to follow him in, shuddered from head to foot. This tomb was truly danger upon danger. There had been no danger before, and he had thought the worst was behind them - yet now danger had struck, and even Elder Yu was wounded?

"Thief, you little wretch, you meant to trap me, sending me in first to be the cannon fodder!" With a roar Elder Yu came charging out of the stone chamber. His eyes were wide open, but the left one was dull and lightless, clearly damaged; only the right still seemed normal.

At the doorway, the corner of Wei Zhao's mouth curved into a cold smile. You're the one I meant to trap. What he found slightly regrettable was that Elder Yu had probably lost only one eye, not both - a bit of a waste, that. Painful for Elder Yu, to be sure, but it would make little difference to the man's strength in a fight.

"I trapped you? Is there some mistake? You went in yourself - how is it I trapped you? Did I build this tomb, by any chance?" Wei Zhao gave a cold snort. "I warned everyone beforehand that there might still be danger inside. If you weren't careful, whose fault is that?"

"That..." Elder Yu choked on his anger. Yes - if he had not been careful, whose fault was it? Wei Zhao had indeed said earlier that there might still be danger in the main burial chamber; only, the previous collection rooms had held no danger at all, and that had dulled Elder Yu's caution.

"Elder Yu, your eyes... in there..." Old Hei asked with concern.

"There's a poisonous mist in there. If I hadn't reacted fast, I'd have lost both eyes!" Elder Yu shouted, frantic with rage.

"You asked for it. Every time, you have to be first into a stone chamber, as though you fear someone will snatch something ahead of you." Wei Zhao said mockingly. "Well? Are you going in or not?"

That said, Wei Zhao paid him no further mind, walked past him, and went straight into the stone chamber. That wisp of poisonous mist had formed only in the instant the door opened, and had dispersed afterward - for the jade pendant on Wei Zhao's chest was no longer giving off any warning signal at all.

For the fastest updates, read without pop-up windows at.