Tomb raiding: Today is another day I don't want to go home.

Chapter 186 The Clan Chief Bears Full Responsibility

Yan Huai affectionately and comfortingly rubbed Zhang Qiling's cheek with his fingertips, then removed the equipment bag from his back and subtly bumped it against the Black Gold Ancient Sword. The next second, the equipment bag disappeared...

Zhang Qiling was taken aback, assuming Yan Huai had put the backpack into the Buddhist bead space, so he didn't ask any further questions. Only his eyes kept glancing at Yan Huai's loose hair—there were indeed a few strands of gray hair within them; the white hair he saw before Yan Huai knocked him unconscious wasn't an illusion...

The drawstring of his hoodie is still intact.

Thinking of this, Zhang Qiling yanked off the drawstring of his hood and handed it over in a serious manner.

Yan Huai was still busy tidying up Zhang Qiling's diving equipment when he saw this, paused, and then chuckled.

"What if we lose it again? Then it'll all be gone."

"You be careful."

"..." Yan Huai felt that this didn't seem like a reminder.

After everything was ready (hair tied up, diving gear put on, and he had given instructions to Yan Li and Yan Yang), Yan Huai followed Zhang Qiling to the diving position that the other party had chosen.

Two near-simultaneous splashes echoed as only Yan Li and Yan Yang remained on the riverbank. Though they were together, a strange, forlorn air lingered around them...

"Do you think our clan leader can refrain from using his bloodline power when his wife is in danger?" The question came from Yan Yang.

"What do you think?" Yan Li rolled her eyes at the person beside her, then focused her gaze and said, "Do you remember the clan leader's reaction when he learned that there were parasitic jellyfish in the water burial tomb?"

Yan Yang stroked his chin and recalled, "He seemed to have said something like, 'It's quite a coincidence that the task we need to complete is related to this jellyfish'?"

“That’s right, he had never mentioned it before.”

"...I don't understand."

Yan Li paused for a moment, then calmly reminded him, "The clan leader brought this up after he was pulled into the illusion space, reached a new agreement with the world consciousness, and sealed his bloodline power."

"Ow..."

Yan Yang raised his chin with clear eyes while brainstorming, but it took him almost two minutes to catch up with Yan Li's pace: "So you suspect that this parasitic jellyfish is related to the world consciousness, and it's possible that the world consciousness sent the clan leader to find it to test whether the clan leader can endure it?"

“This is just one possibility,” Yanli said, his intuition telling him it couldn’t be that simple, but he hoped it was just his imagination. “If the clan leader knew about the parasitic jellyfish before all this happened, why didn’t he choose to deal with it immediately, but instead waited until now?”

"What?"

"Either the clan leader was influenced, or someone knew that the clan leader was influenced and took advantage of it."

Yan Li's words eventually disappeared into the stagnant atmosphere, but Yan Yang still couldn't understand.

"So, according to you, all this going around in circles is just to test whether the clan leader can hold back!"

“That’s right!” Yan Li said matter-of-factly, but then suddenly changed the subject, a strange, wicked smile creeping onto his lips. “But how do you know the clan leader didn’t notice?”

Yan Yang: "......" What's wrong with this guy all of a sudden!

As for the answer to the question, it may have appeared at some point, but it was so logical that it aroused no suspicion. The only crucial point now is whether Yan Huai truly sensed it... (Hint: When Mission Thirteen was released, Qi Yu urged Yan Huai to complete the mission after he regained all his memories, but it had the opposite effect.)

The river water is like a gradient of colors in silk, and although the boundaries between deep and shallow are not clearly defined, it always gives people a visual lie.

Yan Huai and Zhang Qiling had stopped diving. The river was much deeper here than the spot where Wu Xie had encountered the taimen, about seventeen meters deep.

The aquatic plants on the riverbed grew wildly, stirring up turbidity with every movement. Even a powerful searchlight could only project a blurry beam within a three-meter radius—it seemed the layer of tarnish on the surface blocked not only outside vision but also most of the light. Otherwise, the riverbed wouldn't be so dark in broad daylight.

As they exchanged glances, Yan Huai and Zhang Qiling both thought simultaneously: This is a naturally secluded place...

The water burial tomb they were looking for took half a year to build at the time, and even if it was not large in scale, it must have had some special features.

Zhang Qiling was able to act based on his existing knowledge of water burial customs and his long-term experience as an underground worker. But Yan Huai was completely ruined by his half-sealed tomb-finding skills...

Practice makes perfect. This applies to him as well: only through firsthand experience can one know how much of his skill, which only retains 50%, is inaccurate—he can sense the direction and range of the magnetic field of a large tomb, but why, when searching for a small tomb, can he only determine whether the tomb owner is fierce or not?

Take this water burial tomb for example. Before entering the water, Yan Huai could console himself—just think of it as a weakening of his skill! It's normal not to be able to sense it~

But now that he's in the water, he's discovered that his skill—seems to have been removed...

Now, the only thing he could be certain of was that the person buried in the water burial tomb passed away peacefully and calmly, without hatred or resentment, so much so that the tomb's magnetic field remained completely undisturbed. As for the rest...

Just guess! One guess and they all stay silent.

Even so, while surveying the surroundings, Yan Huai did not let Zhang Qiling out of his sight, always keeping a distance of one body length from him.

Zhang Qiling's initial mixed feelings about this have now turned into acceptance and adaptation—he couldn't help it; shortly after entering the water, he tried to signal Yan Huai that he wanted to explore the way forward, but before he could even finish the gesture, Yan Huai swatted him away with a paw...

Yan Huai refused.