In the desolate wilderness, Lu Chen vaguely heard the sound of a car driving.
It was distant and faint, easily masked by the rustling trees outside the window. But as his strength gradually returned, so too did his heightened senses. Listening carefully, he could even make out the sound of tires crunching over gravel on a dirt road.
Exchanging a glance with the equally alert Ei, Lu Chen looked at the others.
"If I'm not mistaken, a vehicle just stopped about a kilometer away. That's very close."
"Who would be driving out here in the middle of the night?" Miko stood up, suspicious, and followed Lu Chen's gaze.
The view outside was pitch-black. Yae Miko pricked up her fox ears, her brows slowly furrowing.
Something felt off. Whether it was the unusual noise deep underground that Zhongli had mentioned or this unidentified vehicle, it all pointed to one thing in Lu Chen's mind—
Something was about to happen.
"I'm going out to check."
Lu Chen threw on an extra layer, pushed the door open, and stepped out.
"I'll go with you," Zhongli said.
Lu Chen glanced back. Zhongli's gaze was deep and contemplative—he had seemed lost in thought for a while now. Lu Chen nodded.
"I'm going too."
"I'm coming with you!"
Ei and Yae Miko spoke almost in unison, as if they had coordinated it.
After speaking, both women glanced at each other in quiet resignation.
"You want to come too, Miko?" Ei asked softly.
Miko, feeling the others' gazes—especially Ei's—looked away, flustered.
"I… I just think it's stuffy in here. I wanted to get some fresh air... Maybe we'll run into something interesting."
Venti, who had just finished putting away the playing cards, piped up casually, "It's pitch black out there and full of mosquitoes. What could be interesting?"
Miko shot him a glare.
Venti froze for a moment, glanced at the exasperated Lu Chen, then at Ei and Miko, and finally realized—
Something was off with the mood inside the RV...
"Ahaha..." Venti chuckled awkwardly and quickly changed his tune. "I mean... it's actually kind of nice outside. Even the mosquitoes by the river are kinda cute..."
Lu Chen was speechless. What kind of nonsense is this? He cut in directly, "Zhongli and I will go. The rest of you stay here and hold down the fort."
With someone like Old Man Zhongli by his side, that was more than enough. Bringing more people would only complicate things.
Once he spoke, Ei hesitated, then nodded. Miko folded her arms and stayed silent.
Lu Chen and Zhongli stepped out of the RV. As Lu Chen tried to pinpoint the direction of the sound, he saw Zhongli walking straight ahead.
"This way."
Zhongli's perception was sharper. Lu Chen followed him, and before long, they had strayed from the dirt road.
Normally, cars couldn't go off-road like this. But Zhongli led him to a dense patch of forest along the mountainside.
Only after entering did they see the truth: a group of people was hiding there, their flashlights flickering faintly through the trees.
Clearly suspicious, these people had taken up position just outside their camp. The car they'd heard earlier must've been theirs. To avoid being discovered, they'd parked it farther out and slipped into hiding.
Shrouded in moonlight, Lu Chen and Zhongli concealed themselves behind the trees and crept closer.
A voice spoke suddenly:
"That RV is parked down by the river. Let's move."
"What's the rush?" another voice replied, hushed but irritated. "There are six people in that RV. We need to be ready. It's not like the car can just drive off. Why the hurry?"
Flashlight beams darted between the trees. Lu Chen could see, by their glow, that there were around ten people, all dressed in dark, low-profile clothing. They were preparing knives, ropes, and other equipment.
So they were bandits—and they even knew the exact number of people in the RV. Clearly, they'd been watching for a while.
Possibly longer than that. Lu Chen squinted in the dark, trying to make out their faces—some of them looked familiar.
He had an excellent memory. He'd seen a few of them earlier that day at the temple fair.
Lu Chen glanced at Zhongli and immediately understood.
They'd collected quite a few antiques earlier. These guys had marked them.
As the saying goes: don't flaunt your wealth—especially when traveling. But Lu Chen and his group weren't exactly cautious types. He hadn't even thought of this kind of risk.
He nearly laughed. These fools had traveled all this way to rob them, only to end up picking a fight with the wrong people.
The bandits kept talking. Lu Chen held his breath and listened.
A nervous voice muttered, "Boss Wulfric told us not to stir up trouble. Is it really okay to take on another job like this...?"
"Boss Wulfric's your boss, not mine!" another man, with a rough voice, complained. "We've been busting our asses digging, staking out, making deliveries—barely making a cut while those gravediggers rake in the cash. And what do we get?"
"But still—"
"Enough with the 'buts.' Just treat this like a side gig. It's the middle of nowhere—someone dies out here, no one's finding them. Those idiots actually had the nerve to camp here. I'd feel guilty if we didn't do something."
As Lu Chen listened, things started to make sense. These guys were outer members of a tomb raiding gang.
He must've run into them earlier because they were out fencing grave goods.
After the rough-voiced man spoke, someone tried to argue.
"You can't say that. The stuff Boss Wulfric and his crew do—it's inhuman. That place is cursed, you know that. Haunted. Would you dare go?"
"Tch, whatever." The rough voice grew impatient. "They borrow from the dead, we borrow from the living. Same difference."
There was a brief silence.
Then he said, "Stick with me, and you'll be fine. Look at today—we caught a bunch of fat sheep. That RV is full of money—and babes."
Laughter erupted, low and lewd. The forest filled with filthy talk.
"Heh heh, I saw them—three absolute knockouts. Better looking than movie stars."
"Enough talk. I can't wait. When we get there, I'm going first."
As their vulgar chatter continued, they didn't notice that just beyond their sight, behind the trees, a bone-chilling aura had begun to spread.
Zhongli turned his head.
Beside him, the young man's face was blank. In the pale moonlight, his eyes no longer carried their usual laid-back indifference—only raw, unrestrained killing intent.
Lu Chen had once spoken of his past by the seaside.
Bathed in a sea of corpses, stained with countless lives, his long blade had soaked in so much blood it gave off a nauseating reek.
Gentleness was one part of him. So was a carefree attitude. But beneath that mask lay something colder—merciless and cruel.
And tonight, Zhongli got to see it for himself.
"Die."
A cold, sharp voice pierced the silence from the shadows behind the trees.
"Who's there?!"
The bandits panicked, spinning toward the voice.
But what came next was a choking, agonized scream.
Their loud-mouthed leader—just moments ago full of bravado—had been impaled through the throat by a longsword. The force was so great, it pinned his entire body to a tree.
As the clouds thinned, moonlight spilled into the forest, illuminating the corpse that now hung there, swaying slightly.
His expression was frozen in the final moment before death—
A face twisted in sheer, soul-crushing terror.