The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 375 - 302: Evading the Scorching Heat (3)

I hurriedly reached out to grab her, but grabbing her clothes didn’t seem to work. The force in the water was even greater. Although Doctor Du’s other hand was already bracing against the rock, trying to resist this force, she didn’t succeed.

Seeing she was about to plunge headfirst, I took a step forward and wrapped my arms around her waist. Then, using my hands, legs, waist, and back simultaneously, I used a move called "uprooting a scallion" to pull Doctor Du out of the spring, tossing her behind me. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Anyone with a bad back, please don’t attempt this; you’re likely to hurt yourself.

Doctor Du fell to the ground, rolled a couple of times, and quickly scrambled up. She’s a doctor and also knows Kung Fu, so she knows how to protect herself, which is why she didn’t sustain serious injuries.

"You’re... amazing." Doctor Du groped for words and managed to utter one.

"What happened? What grabbed you?" I was more concerned about that question.

"It was... a person." Doctor Du extended the arm that had been grabbed. On her forearm were several clear finger marks; if they weren’t human hands, they were humanoid creature hands.

"Did you see it clearly?"

"Yes, it was a person, a woman, a foreigner."

"Could it be someone missing from Kangaroo Country?"

"Probably, she had a nameplate around her neck."

However, Doctor Du couldn’t make out the words on the plate. The incident had happened so suddenly, she didn’t have time to see the details.

"If she’s able to survive here, it means there’s space on the other side of the spring," I thought of those places I had visited before, where water sources could be channels, natural barriers connecting two spaces.

But Doctor Du’s next words negated my guess. She said it was a corpse.

She is a doctor; identifying the living and the dead is her expertise. She said the person had no body temperature, dilated pupils, and the skin had exhibited livor mortis. If that person were alive, they’d need another blow to be killed.

"Ah... Then the water..." Can you drink water that has soaked a corpse?

"Little Leng, you mentioned the scorpions missing; do you think it might be related to the female corpse?" Doctor Du was in her early thirties this year. She didn’t hide her age and had no qualms about mentioning it. When we joined the group together, she already said she was several years older than me, and I could call her Du.

Calling someone a few thousand years younger than me ’Sis’ was something I found hard to do, so I chose to call her Doctor Du.

"Were those scorpions scared away by the female corpse?"

"Do you think that’s possible?"

"Not really." As far as I know, scorpions can coexist peacefully with living corpses.

"Anyway, let’s bring them in first. It’s too hot outside."

After Qinghan and the others came in, Doctor Du recounted everything that had just happened.

Wang Le was getting water by the spring when he heard Doctor Du mention there was a female corpse in the water. His enthusiasm for the water was immediately doused, and he backed away from the spring.

"Can you describe what she looked like?" Mike asked after listening.

"Brown hair, cut to the ears, with a red birthmark on her neck." Doctor Du pointed to her neck.

"Was it her?" Mike seemed incredulous.

After a brief silence, he said, "She... was one of the three people who barbequed scorpions."

According to the one who escaped, the other two had already fallen prey to the scorpions, seen with their own eyes.

"Not necessarily seen firsthand," Qinghan said. "She might have just died, and then her body was brought back into the cave by scorpions."

Scorpions aren’t like army ants; they won’t chew a person to the bone. What Qinghan said sounds strange, but I find it quite plausible.

Although I myself am immune to all poisons and have a Vajra Body, I don’t believe there are many people like me. The woman in the spring must have been a normal person; being bitten by a swarm of scorpions could kill her.

After death, her body could be taken back to the cave by scorpions and thrown into the spring.

The question now is: Why would the scorpions do this?

Just as I was pondering this, Doctor Du voiced the question for me.

What do the scorpions want with the corpse? What purpose does throwing it into a spring serve?

Could it be that they know the spring is a ’corpse breeding’ ground that can hatch living corpses?

What benefit would living corpses bring to them?

"They don’t benefit from it, but maybe others do. Scorpions are low-level but can be used as soldiers." Wang Le spoke up.

Huang Zaijiang had already checked the nooks and crannies of the cave, saying he found no other exits, not even a crevice through which scorpions could crawl.

The only exit to the surface from this cave is the entrance we came through. As for the spring, no one knows where it leads.

Based on the time the female corpse died, she’s been here for several months already. A normal corpse would have severely decayed by now. Moreover, if a corpse remains submerged in water, wouldn’t it become waterlogged like a soggy steamed bun?

"So, is there something strange about this water?" Huang Zaijiang asked, now inquisitive after checking the cave and hearing our discussion about the water and corpse.