The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 387 - 306: Amber Man
I can’t really say about this matter with Qinghan, because we were immune when Lilith and the others were affected by hallucinations last time.
Now Mike says he’s having hallucinations, and we can’t say we didn’t have them too. What if we really did but were just immune again?
Just as I thought of this, Mike asked, "Did you see anything?"
Qinghan shook his head, but I instinctively lied, "Ah, I just saw a gold ingot run into the corridor."
Mike froze for a moment and asked, in an odd tone, "This thing, uh, gold ingot, did it hurt you?"
"It left me, isn’t that the biggest harm?" I said bitterly.
Qinghan immediately explained, "She’s greedy; losing gold is quite terrifying for her. That’s her great inner fear."
Mike nodded, still looking a bit puzzled. As far as he knows, other people’s hallucinations have elements of horror, and he hasn’t heard of someone’s hallucination being about losing money.
Since there’s nothing more to investigate in the hall, the three of us continued deeper into the newly discovered corridor.
I talked to them about two skeletons and the horizontal bar on the door. This thing defends against inside but not outside. If someone comes from outside, they can take it off and go in, so it can only be to prevent people inside from coming out.
The living thing inside is Little Red, plus the ’Invisible Man’ who hasn’t shown up after coming in.
Mike just pulled out a little notebook and wrote a few lines inside. I guess it’s his ’record’ he mentioned. In case something happens to him, those who come in afterward can learn about the internal situation from his records.
His little notebook has a waterproof bag outside, so even if he dies in the water, there’s no need to worry about the notebook being damaged.
This time I first looked at the ground. At the moment, the corridor we’re walking has no extra footprints, meaning the living corpses haven’t been here.
Maybe they can’t open the door sealed from the outside. After walking for about five minutes, Mike suddenly shivered and raised his gun to aim.
The corridor space isn’t roomy, and if he fires here, it’s too easy for someone to get hurt by accident.
"What’s wrong?" I immediately asked.
"She... ran past," Mike’s face looked increasingly grim, "I heard her laugh, running from behind and onto the front."
Mike truthfully described his ’hallucination,’ but his tone did not sound willing.
He must be torn, on one hand, to truthfully say everything he sensed, on the other hand, he himself does not believe it’s real.
"Hey, maybe it’s not your hallucination, she does exist." I suddenly thought of a possibility, "Remember the invisible person who pulled me in the stone chamber? If she can control who sees her, like a feature in social software, she can make only you see her while still staying invisible to us."
"Hmm, it’s possible." Qinghan agreed.
"Really?" Mike still seemed a little disbelieving.
"Let’s assume that for now."
Mike didn’t object. He’s an experienced adventurer and knows the importance of mental preparation. If the mental defense collapses first, the chance of survival becomes much smaller.
He thinks the girl is a hallucination because there are only our three footprints on the ground. If not a hallucinatory person ran past him, there should be tracks left.
I told him maybe not; there are many incomprehensible things in the world. What if the girl has a pair of invisible wings?
He didn’t understand the joke, just nodded and continued forward.
After entering this space, I listened carefully. No other creature’s ’sound’ was present, but I now suspect the phantom activity around us is not other creatures, but humans.
It’s the person who ran out of the amber.
Qinghan told me he examined every corpse and found most had signs of disease.
Some had poisonous sores, some were so thin that only skin and bones remained, and some had legs decayed and blackened. He speculates the ones bound in amber are all severely ill patients.
And not a single corpse showed livor mortis or signs of decay. Hence he has a bold hypothesis that these people weren’t sealed in amber after dying from illness, they were sealed while alive, in a sleep state.
"Oh, I see what you mean. You’re saying they are preserved critical patients!" I’ve read news about some wealthy celebrities who, upon diagnosis with terminal illness, spend huge sums to buy freezing chambers, get themselves cryopreserved, hoping to thaw and treat the disease when cures are available in the future.
This is indeed a bold hypothesis, but the problem is, during that era, there was no such cryopreservation technology. Would sealing in amber truly allow revival?
