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

Chapter 3 Reserve Grain Yan Huai

Wu Sansheng glared at Wu Xie, then helplessly looked away and said to the old man driving the ox, "Old man, once you're all ready, let the boatman set sail!"

"Alright!" the old man replied, walking towards the boatman smoking his pipe not far away. "Hey, when are we going to set sail?"

The boatman glanced furtively at the five men not far away and whispered to the old man, "That dead man is gone. I haven't eaten for days, I don't know if I have enough corpse energy!"

"How could it be gone?! You said yesterday that it just died, how could a dead person run away!"

"I don't know either. I thought we had some fresh meat, so I gave all the rotten meat to the donkey's testicles!"

"You!" The old man grimaced in anger, but then, remembering that there were still people watching, he quickly composed himself. "What should we do then? That cave is very strange. Maybe we should just call it quits!"

"No way! How can we give back money we've already got! We don't want their stuff this time, just go back to that spot and don't go any further!" The boatman resolutely refused, glanced at the five people on the ferry, and raised his voice, "I just checked, the current inside the cave is against the current. They have more people and more stuff, so we have to pay extra!"

The people on the ferry boat exchanged glances and tacitly agreed.

Once on the boat, the hoodie-wearing guy sat at the front, Wu Xie at the second, Wu Sansheng in the middle, the scarred man, also known as Da Pan, and Da Kui at the back. The boatman leaned against the engine at the stern, and a bamboo raft was being pulled behind the boat, with the old man herding cattle on it protecting the group's large bags and luggage.

As the boat approached the cave that pierced the mountain, the temperature plummeted, and Wu Xie shivered: "Why did it suddenly get so cold here?"

"That's normal. The water here is getting more yin energy. It'll be fine once we get out of the cave," the boatman remarked.

Da Pan tilted his head and glanced at the low cave ahead, then exchanged a look with Wu Sansheng: "Why is this cave so small! We won't be able to move around properly if we want to do anything!"

Upon hearing this, Wu Sansheng glanced at the boatman and the old man, noticing a hint of unease in their expressions.

"The cave is small. I heard from people who came here before that it's a water robber's cave. The beginning is very low, but it gets bigger as you walk through it!"

Upon hearing this, Wu Sanxing knew that the boatman was an experienced sailor, so he asked with a smile, "Brother boatman, you know quite a lot! It seems you've traveled this route many times. Do you know what else is in here?"

“It’s all dark inside. Most of the time you have to rely on your ears. You can see a little by shining a light, but I advise you not to shine the light anywhere else, especially in the water.”

"What's in the water?" Da Kui, who was closest to the boatman, couldn't help but ask.

"I don't know the specifics, but if you're curious, you can try it. If you're lucky, it'll just be a dark shadow; if you're unlucky, it might scare you to death."

In this gloomy environment, coupled with the boatman's expressionless, ashen face and his dialect, it was truly eerie. Wu Xie shrugged, and Da Kui was so frightened that he dared not speak anymore.

Upon reaching the cave entrance, everyone tilted their heads or bent over. The irregular arched cave walls were only ten centimeters away from the sides of the boat. Even with the lights on, it was impossible to tell where the space would be larger.

The group awkwardly slid forward for five minutes, and when they saw that the space ahead had become more spacious and they could sit up straight, they all breathed a sigh of relief. However, the next second, the hoodie guy suddenly said, "There's a sound!"

The clear, cool voice reached everyone's ears, making them listen carefully. The boatman also turned off the engine, and the boat came to a stop stuck against the cave wall. For a moment, even the sound of breathing in the cave decreased significantly.

There was a rubbing sound in my ear, with a sticky feel, but we're in a cave! Maybe it's some kind of creature, which is normal. The loudest sound I could hear was the dripping of water in the cave. Other than that, there was nothing else.

"what--"

Just as everyone was about to lower their guard, a shrill scream suddenly came from behind and above, followed by a large black shadow crashing down, landing on the bamboo raft with large bags of luggage behind them. The raft tilted slightly, and some lake water from the cave bubbled up.

"Ghost! Ghost!"

The people on the boat became alert. Wu Xie and Da Kui were startled. The latter even screamed and retreated towards Wu Sansheng, only to be kicked hard in the buttocks by Wu Sansheng.

Da Pan calmed down and hurriedly reached for his lower back. He pulled out his pistol and then shone his flashlight on it.

On the bamboo raft behind, the ashen-faced boatman was being held down by a young man as tall as Da Kui, who was pinning him to his large bag of luggage. The young man raised his right fist and brought it down, and everyone watched in disbelief as he punched the boatman's face so hard it caved in...

People say that every punch lands on the flesh, but this young man's punches went straight to the bone!

But that wasn't the end of it. The young man threw a few more punches after the first one, until the boatman finally breathed his last.

Not to mention Wu Xie, this scene almost stunned the veterans on the boat ahead. Even the hoodie guy's unchanging expression showed a hint of surprise. After all, this guy suddenly appeared and started punching people without warning. It was truly one of a kind.

When everyone came to their senses, the young man on the bamboo raft straightened up, grabbed the dead boatman by the collar, and coldly looked at the five people in front of him with his still fierce eyes. His voice was slightly hoarse, but surprisingly pleasant: "Corpse aura."

As soon as he finished speaking, he threw the boatman's body onto the boat in front of him, and put one of the body's legs on the engine. The young man, however, acted as if nothing had happened, and simply sat down on the bamboo raft and closed his eyes.

Wu Sansheng raised an eyebrow, a glint of shrewdness flashing in his eyes. He had Da Pan drag the boatman's body to the front to clear a path for the group, while he himself sat at the stern, using the action of pulling the engine to probe and inquire about the background of this suddenly appearing young man.

"Hey! Young man, where did you come from? Do you have a grudge against that boatman?"

Yan Huai had just received the message that he had completed 50% of the first task issued by the system and was about to ask about the location of another old man when he heard a voice that sounded like an old fox setting a trap. He opened his eyes and saw that the speaker was a middle-aged man who looked to be in his early forties.

"Who is he?" Yan Huai asked in his mind.

"Wu Sansheng, the third son of the Wu family of the Ping Sanmen of the Old Nine Gates, and the third uncle of Wu Xie, one of the main characters in the book."

Yan Huai lowered his eyes slightly and pointed to the ceiling: "There's a cave that can hide people."

He then pointed to the boatman's corpse: "He killed people, I will take his life."

Wu Sansheng shone his flashlight overhead, and Wu Xie and Da Pan also scanned the area. Inside the irregular tunnel, they saw that some places had indeed formed caves due to the loosening of the mountain and the erosion of water. The smaller ones were as big as a finger, while the larger ones could easily hide a person.

Wu Sansheng withdrew his gaze: "Did someone hire you to kill this boatman?"

"No." Yan Huai's gaze fell on the lake, his reply containing a subtle emotion that was hard to discern. "This boatman eats human flesh; I am his food reserve."

Yan Huai's answer surprised everyone. They did know that the boatman had been eating human flesh to accumulate corpse energy, but as for the reserve grain... recalling the ruthlessness Yan Huai displayed when killing people, no one could reconcile him with the reserve grain.