The Autobiography of a Tomb Raider

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“Corpse Horn Immortal,” I had never heard of such a thing, and I grew even more frightened.

“Granny, can you cure me? I can give you money. I don’t want to die,” I said fearfully.

Granny Liu shook her head. “Tell me the truth, what do you do for a living? If you won’t say, then you can leave.”

“I...”

My heart was in turmoil. If I revealed my identity, it wouldn’t just be me who’d be in trouble. The boss and the Sun brothers would also be implicated.

When I had jumped off the bridge, it was the boss who stopped me. He was willing to take in a young kid like me, to train me and give me a chance to make a living. Though I never said it out loud, I was deeply grateful to him.

I couldn’t bring myself to betray them.

Not only that, but if word got out, Li Jing would find out about my identity. If she knew I was a criminal, she definitely wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore.

After weighing my options, I took a deep breath and said, “Granny, although I want to be cured, there are some things I can’t say.”

Granny Liu looked at me for a long time, clearly surprised. After a while, she shook her head and said, “Alright, I understand. Come with me.”

“Granny, what are we doing?” I asked.

“Of course, to cure you. What, you want to die?”

“But you just said...”

Granny Liu tucked the blanket around her husband on the bed, then turned to me with a smile. “In the world of the jianghu, some qualities are rare and precious.”

That night, Granny Liu led me to the east room. The floor was covered with large black jars, the kind used for pickling vegetables.

Granny Liu told me to turn around and not look.

I only heard the sound of a jar lid being opened behind me, followed by the rhythmic pounding of herbs.

Later, Granny Liu brought out some gauze and smeared a black medicinal paste on my swollen fingers. The paste had a strong, fishy smell.

To be honest, even now, I don’t know what was in those black jars. I’ve wondered if it might have been scorpions, geckos, or something similar.

After applying the medicine Granny Liu had prepared, the pain in my fingers disappeared that very night. I stayed at Li Jing’s house that night, and by the next morning, when I removed the gauze, the swelling had gone down. It was truly miraculous.

Granny Liu had saved my life, and so had Li Jing. I wanted to repay them for their kindness.

I secretly called Li Jing aside and said, “Thank you, Li Jing. I, Xiang Yunfeng, will help you. I’ll help you and your mother pay off that fifty thousand yuan. With my own money.”

Li Jing burst out laughing.

“Xiang Yunfeng, are you talking nonsense? Fifty thousand yuan? Your own money? You’d need ten years to earn that much.”

I didn’t blame her for not believing me. I quietly made a mental note of this matter. Later, I asked her about her father’s situation, what kind of business he had been in, and how he had lost so much money.

When I brought this up, Li Jing’s expression immediately darkened. After much prodding, she finally told me the truth.

Li Jing’s father, Li Mingquan, had been the director of a brick factory in Shunde. Over the past two years, the local government had launched a project to build public toilets and garbage transfer stations along the city’s moat to prevent people from littering and urinating in the river.

Li Mingquan, being sharp-minded, saw an opportunity. Through bribery, he became the supplier of raw materials for this project.

Don’t underestimate a public toilet. If handled properly, the profits could rival those of hollow pipe projects, especially when it came to multiple toilets and garbage stations.

Through this project, Li Mingquan made a fortune, earning roughly a hundred thousand yuan.

For the Li family, this should have been a good thing. But Li Mingquan had a hobby: he loved buying antiques. The problem was, he was a complete amateur who pretended to be an expert.

At the time, the antique market in China was booming, with prices rising year after year.

Li Mingquan’s success in the construction business had become well-known, and so had his love for antiques. Three people conspired to scam him.

How did they plan to swindle Li Mingquan out of a large sum?

Two words: set up a trap.

These three were small-time vendors from a nearby antique market. First, they hired people to dig a large pit on Gou Mountain to the north. Then, they dug a tomb passage themselves and filled it with fake antiques they had bought from the market. These included gold artifacts, jade pieces, porcelain, stone carvings, wood carvings, and more.

Of course, the gold was actually copper, the jade was made from stone powder pressed by machines, and the porcelain and stone carvings were all new—complete fakes.

To make the tomb look more authentic, every time it rained, they would dig trenches on the mountain to channel rainwater into the fake tomb.

The water soaked the tomb, turning it into a muddy mess, with all the fake antiques buried in the muck.

After months of careful planning, they felt the time was right and approached Li Mingquan.

Li Mingquan had no real expertise, but he knew one thing: good antiques could be worth a fortune.

The three took Li Mingquan to the fake tomb. When he saw the gold artifacts glinting in the mud, his eyes lit up.

The scammers boldly set the price. “Boss Li, if you want all the items in this tomb, the price is two hundred thousand yuan!”

After some haggling, Li Mingquan settled on a price of one hundred and sixty thousand yuan.

To afford these items, he used up the family’s savings and even borrowed tens of thousands of yuan.

Later, when he tried to sell a few pieces, the truth came out: no one wanted his “antiques.”

Nearly a hundred burial items from the tomb were all fakes, worth no more than a thousand yuan in total.

With no way to sell the items, he had no money to repay his debts. The loans came with interest, and within half a year, the principal plus interest had ballooned to fifty thousand yuan.

Debt collectors came knocking every day. Unable to cope, Li Mingquan eventually abandoned Li Jing and her mother and ran away. No one knows where he is now.

With him gone, the debt collectors turned their attention to Li Jing and her mother. After all, you can run, but you can’t hide.

That’s why I had witnessed the debt collectors harassing them the other day.

After finishing her story, Li Jing lowered her head and said, “Xiang Yunfeng, I’ve decided not to go to college after high school. I’m going to work in an electronics factory. I know a sister who says you can earn six hundred yuan a month there.”

I returned to the inn, my mind heavy with thoughts of Li Jing and how I could help her repay the debt quickly.

The boss and Sun Laosan were in the inn. Sun Laoer and Yikezhi were nowhere to be seen; I didn’t know where they had gone.

I noticed the boss looked upset, so I asked him what was wrong. Had they found the main burial chamber?

Both the boss and Sun Laosan were smoking, their faces dark and intimidating.

Sun Laosan threw down his cigarette and clenched his fist.

“Laoer is missing. He disappeared in the pit last night.”

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