The forest was unnervingly silent—so quiet that even the insects sounded muffled, as if someone had pressed a heavy hand over the whole mountain.

  I stared at the headless corpse on the ground, just about to drag Lian and Hua somewhere safer to regroup, when suddenly—

  rustle, rustle, rustle—footsteps approached from afar, steady and practiced, like men accustomed to mountain trails.

  My heart shot straight into my throat.

  “No way… no way no way no way… I told you we should’ve left early, but nooo—”

  I was in the middle of grumbling when the footsteps reached us.

  Torchlight spilled over a few figures in grey headwraps. Broad-shouldered, sure-footed, solid as iron. They looked like ordinary mountain folk—but their eyes were sharp as blades.

  One of them caught sight of the corpse in an instant.

  “Brother Zhang—!”

  Pain—urgent, furious pain—twisted through his voice, enough to make me flinch back half a step.

  Another man spun toward us, barking,

  “Was it you?!”

  I waved my hands so fast I nearly took off.

  “Hey hey hey! Don’t pin random crimes on us! It wasn’t us! Really! He was… uh… bitten by a tiger!”

  “Tiger?” the man in grey sneered.

  “We’ve tracked every beast in this mountain. A tiger that bites off a head clean but doesn’t eat the meat? You think we’ll buy this nonsense?”

  My jaw hung open.

  …These people know well about the tiger’s recipe? Seriously?

  Another man roared,

  “Enough! It’s them! Drag them to see the boss!”

  The air snapped tight.

  Lian and Hua said nothing, but their aura sank, gathering like a storm about to break.

  My heart hammered:

  Great. Great. A fight now means a major plot advance, and major plot advance = story rails, and story rails—according to the system—lead straight into tomb-raiding, don’t they?!

  Tension clamped down over the woods.

  I stared at their half-covered faces—

  If they were regular hunters or woodcutters, the first thing they'd fear is the tiger that killed their friend.

  Instead, they immediately accused us.

  My gaze flicked downward—

  And froze.

  All of them had red cords tied around their wrists.

  The exact same cord as the one on the corpse.

  My heart dropped with a heavy thud.

  These men were not simple villagers.

  My mind spun frantically.

  Perfect. Just perfect. We’ve stumbled right into a bunch of troublemakers.

  No way I’m going with them—next thing you know, I’ll fall straight into some “hidden quest.”

  So I gritted my teeth, slapped my thigh, and shouted before Lian or Hua could say a word:

  “Fine! Sure! Let’s go! We’ll go straight to the magistrate! Once we see the officials, they’ll judge everything clearly! Now—where are you people from? Come on, lead the way!”

  They all blinked.

  Apparently, they hadn’t expected me to drag the government into this.

  Inside, I was chanting:

  I don’t care who you are—better to see the magistrate than your mysterious ‘boss’!

  But then—

  The leader let out a low, sinister laugh.

  “See the magistrate? If you really dared do that, you wouldn’t be killing people in the mountains at midnight. Drop the act. Move!”

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  My stomach lurched.

  But beneath it all… a spark of triumph.

  Ha! They don’t dare face officials.

  Excellent. Now I could—

  “Since these gentlemen insist,” Lian abruptly said, voice cold as winter steel, “then let us go with them.”

  Me: “...?”

  Before I could shout are you insane?!, the leader had already nodded sharply.

  “Smart.”

  With a jerk of his hand, he began marching us deeper into the forest.

  I stumbled along, pushed from behind, panic boiling hotter than wildfire.

  How—how did this plotline swerve straight into a tomb-raiding route?

  I haven’t even decided whether I WANT that route!

  Hand over my mouth, I whispered to my system,

  “Hey—don’t tell me the place ahead is… a burial site?”

  The system didn’t answer.

  My temper flared.

  “Oh great, breaking down now? Are you updating or are you a bootleg version?!”

  After a long moment, the system finally murmured,

  “Warning: detected heavy malign aura ahead. Continuing forward is not recommended. Proceed with caution—”

  I nearly exploded.

  “Oh that helps! Couldn’t you say so sooner?! And can you stop giving me ‘proceed with caution’ every time? Give me an ACTUAL GUIDE for once!”

  Hua, fanning himself, gave me an amused look.

  “Easy, little Gong. You’ll scare the birds and beasts.”

  Birds and beasts? More like ghosts, you smug peacock!

  Just as I grumbled internally, we turned down several winding mountain paths—and the scenery changed abruptly.

  Before us stood a towering spirit-way stone pillar.

  Moss crawled up its sides, the carved beast face worn nearly smooth.

  At first glance, it looked like a crooked old rock stuck in the earth.

  But I’d read enough storybooks to know better.

  This thing is a gigantic signpost.

  Whenever nobles, generals, or the wealthy were buried, spirit pillars were placed before their tombs to ward off spirits and proclaim to the living:

  “Below here lies someone far above common folk. Mind your reverence.”

  Which meant—

  Anywhere you saw such a pillar, there was almost certainly a major tomb nearby.

  A king. A warlord.

  A centuries-old burial site.

  In any case—

  Definitely not farmland.

  I stared at the stone pillar, a chill creeping all the way up my spine.

  The system was probably covering its face and laughing at this point: “Congratulations, Host. Plot auto-navigation activated. Tomb-raiding scenario forcibly initiated.”

  But beneath the pillar, a few bodies lay sprawled in all directions.

  I rubbed my eyes on instinct, and my breath nearly stopped—every single one of them was bleeding from all seven orifices, eyes rolled white, as if scared to death on the spot, their bodies stiff as boards.

  The air froze instantly.

  “Son of—” my throat tightened, and my voice cracked, “Is this supposed to be… the ‘grand welcome ceremony’ for us?!”

  Lian’s gaze turned razor-sharp, sleeves stirring with a faint surge of internal force—clearly already on guard.

  Hua fanned himself lazily, the same idle smile on his face, but he drifted closer to me all the same, as if afraid I might topple over and join the corpses at any moment.

  As for me, my knees wouldn’t stop shaking, and all I wanted was to grab the system by its interface and scream:

  —Who triggered the tomb-raider side quest? Who?!

  I still hadn’t recovered from the “blood-from-seven-orifices-and-white-eyes” horror when a few grey-clad men nearby spoke up casually, as though sights like this were their daily routine.

  The one leading them strode forward, bowed toward the shadow under the pillar, and reported, “Boss, Zhang’s dead! I brought back the killer.”

  My heart clenched hard—

  Who the hell decided I was the killer?!

  I looked toward where he’d addressed as “Boss,” and sure enough, the man was seated on a stone dais behind the pillar. A couple of tallow torches flickered around him, their wavering light throwing his face half into shadow.

  One glance, and I nearly choked on my own breath.

  —What a monstrous face!

  His cheeks were covered in jagged knife scars, like they’d once been torn open by a tiger’s claws and sewn back together crookedly. His left eye was wrapped in a black patch. His right eye glowed faintly green like a starving wolf’s. Add in that grin full of sharp, bone-white teeth—he looked like a demon that had crawled straight out of a tomb.

  He scanned the three of us, gaze sharp as nails, then fixed on me and curled his lips. “Huh? This little pretty-boy? He killed Zhang?”

  My heart leapt with perverse relief—look at that, at least he had some sense of aesthetic judgment.

  But I quickly raised both hands and blurted out, “Boss, let me say one fair thing! It really wasn’t us. Your Zhang—this wasn’t a human killing at all, this was straight-up tiger business! I saw it with my own eyes. That beast bit his head clean off! If you don’t believe me, we can go find the head—”

  Halfway through, I suddenly remembered: the tiger had run off with the head. Where exactly was I planning to “go find” it?

  So my voice trailed off weakly: “…Uh… anyway, the point is—we’re not taking the blame for this!”

  The “Boss” narrowed his one eye, coldly sizing me up as if stripping me bare. The iron rod in his hand—blackened with pitch—tapped the stone dais with a heavy thunk… thunk… each strike rattling my molars.

  Inside, I cursed wildly: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Instead of clearing my name with the authorities, I’ve fallen straight into a den of tomb-raiders.

  Still, I forced myself to keep talking, even as panic clawed at my ribs. “If we really had the ability to bite a man’s head off, shouldn’t you at least check whether our teeth are tough enough first?!”