Chapter Ch179.1 - Funeral Boat

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

The stone room was instantly illuminated by flashlight beams!

Four beams of light hit Raphael’s face, and the Azure People’s Entertainment trainee’s shoulders stiffened. He held up his crossbow and looked towards the entrance.

Jingyi, impossible.

Wu Jin…

Before they entered the pyramid, Zuo Botang had said that someone had already entered before them. At this time, the resistance that they’d felt behind the stone door, the footprints in front of the Queen’s sarcophagus, and the unknown enemy at the entrance were all linked together.

Raphael looked straight at Wu Jin––

The small round face was filled with innocence.

Raphael’s gaze hesitated, and then he turned to a more likely culprit. Wei Shi was expressionless and indifferent as the blame landed on his head.

Next to Raphael, his teammate was already on guard as he stood facing the entrance. He exclaimed, “It was you guys who first opened the coffin!”

Wu Jin looked over at Ming Yao immediately and cleverly diverted the figurative muzzle of the gun, “Jingyi opened the coffin first??”

Zuo Botang seemed suspicious, and it seemed that he could sense that something was off, but Ming Yao had already started to act aggrieved and was proclaiming loudly, “It’s them! What are you looking at me for? Didn’t we all arrive together? Are you stupid!”

As he chattered away, Ming Yao pulled out his bow and aimed it at Raphael, “If we’d gotten the quest item, wouldn’t we have run off a long time ago? Why would we come back! If you want to take things and run, then it depends on your ability––”

The arrow string was pulled back, and the bow curved into a crescent moon!

Raphael’s eyes flashed, and his throat moved, but he didn’t have time to make a sound. The teammate next to him usually had a lot to say, but at this time, his reaction speed was a little slow.

In an instant, the copper arrow had been released towards Raphael.

Raphael’s pupils contracted!

Things had already come to this point. Zuo Botang, who was beside Ming Yao, couldn’t say anything contradictory and could only take a step forward. He had no choice, his own little guy had shot the first arrow––

Jingyi’s Double C instantly stood in formation. Zuo Botang used a bow instead of a gun to protect Ming Yao, and Ming Yao, who was originally in front, took a step back. His eyes were burning as he looked at his captain, and two arrows shot out at Raphael who was just preparing to fight back.

While Zuo Botang was sniping, Ming Yao had already drawn another arrow and was on guard against Wu Jin and Wei Shi.

This situation was great!

Wu Jin pulled out his longbow, and Wei Shi stepped forward to shield in front of him. There was no time for the three teams to communicate, and Raphael and Zuo Botang were all fully focused on defeating each other.

Raphael’s arms were tensed, his muscles gathering power. He came from an era two thousand years after the development of the bow and arrow, and his shooting was powerful and fierce. Zuo Botang was precise and skillful. Jingyi was famous for its five shots, and in terms of arrow control, there was nobody in the entire Crosson Show who could perform better. Ming Yao could stand shoulder to shoulder with his captain, and his strength also couldn’t be underestimated. Amongst all this were Wu Jin’s feeble arrows––

Ming Yao couldn’t bear it anymore, “Little Witch, do you know how to shoot?!”

Wu Jin retreated towards the door and refuted reasonably, “Whether or not I can is one thing, but shooting or not is my own choice!”

Another arrow brushed past Wu Jin and caught him by surprise.

Wu Jin quietly held the big boss’s elbow, “Retreat, retreat, retreat… this can’t be the only funeral chamber in the pyramid.”

Wu Jin spoke a lot and was very direct in admitting that they were backing off as he pulled the big boss with him to leave. Before disappearing, he even dared to provoke Jingyi, “Just wait––”

Ming Yao was proud, “We scared them off!”

Without Scarf’s arrow suppression, Raphael finally couldn’t bear it and spoke up, “They-they’re the ones who opened the coffin!”

Outside the door, Wu Jin pushed the big boss ahead and ran wildly, “Quickly, quickly, quickly, we won’t be able to hide from Captain Zuo for long. We first have to find the entrance for the Brave Rapids&#k2013;&#k2013;wait, can you hear something?”

Plink.

After a brief pause, there was another plink, plink.

It sounded like water dripping out of a container. The pyramids were made of brick and soil, and there were no stalactite structures, so the water flow could only be man-made. Wu Jin slowly closed his eyes, and his sensitive hearing soon extended across the entire pyramid. For a moment, he could even picture the most primitive form of the water clock from Ancient Egypt in his mind, with the water level dropping slowly with the passage of time––

Wu Jin suddenly lifted his head.

The water clock was hanging somewhere above their heads!

“Go.” The big boss had also caught the direction of the sounds and ran with Wu Jin through the dark corridors, climbing up along the tracks for the boat.

The 16 year old Wei Shi had quickly become familiar with the rhythm of the game. The big boss’s eyes were bright, and they made Wu Jin pause. Little Wei Shi didn’t reject the idea of a survival reality show and was even a little enthusiastic about it.

On the other hand, Big Wei Shi was the same.

The entrance the two of them used was the boat retrieval entrance in the pyramid, so the mechanical track went upwards. Wu Jin guessed that the entrance for the Brave Rapids was probably at the top of the pyramid.

They had to climb up a full 30 floors.

Didn’t the program producer say that they’d reduce the burden on the contestants?

It was a trek that spiralled upwards at close to a 70 degree angle. Wu Jin and Wei Shi’s flashlights groped around in the dark, and by now, Wu Jin was already practically using both hands and feet to continue upwards. The light occasionally swept over the ancient murals on the wall.

“Tomb corridor.” At a buffer platform, Wu Jin took down the flashlight, gasping as he spoke in a low voice, “An upward spiral, which is the same structure as the Great Pyramid of Giza. We’ve both climbed through the passage that slaves used. According to this design, the top of the pyramid should hold an empty room that is large enough to accommodate a large passenger plane…”

Wei Shi spent a moment to think about what an ‘antique plane’ was, then nodded, “It’s enough.”

It was enough to hold a full set of equipment and boats for the Brave Rapids.

The entrance for the ride was at the top of the pyramid.

Wu Jin launched himself at the big boss’s back with a swish and opened up his backpack. He found the <Book of the Dead> that was considered able to assist with communication between both the dead and the living, and travelling through time.

The youth’s movements were very light, making a rustling sound that wasn’t loud at all. Wei Shi tilted his head slightly.

It was like he had a rabbit in his backpack that was slowly chewing on grass.

“Alright––” Wu Jin was very excited as he spoke, “Let’s look at what the program group has given us––”

The two of them bowed their heads to look, then paused simultaneously.

At the bottom of the pyramid, the Queen’s tomb.

Raphael’s crossbow finally fell into a disadvantage due to Jingyi’s seamless cooperation. However, based on Raphael’s A-level strength, he might be able to take Ming Yao with him before he was eliminated.

At this time, they could already hear the sound of footsteps from a fourth team at the door. Raphael’s face was dark and unhappy, “The quest item is in Wu Jin’s hands.”

Ming Yao was menacing, “Impossible! The footprints near the door can’t be faked!”

Raphael set aside his crossbow and was very unconvinced. He gestured, “Open the door.”

Zuo Botang seemed to realize something, and his expression sank slightly as he opened the stone door.

In the direction where Scarf had originally appeared, there were two sets of footprints that came over from near to far. They faced the Queen’s funeral chamber.

Even Raphael stilled for a moment as though he didn’t dare to believe his own eyes.

Ming Yao expressed, “Look, look! If they had run off before coming back, there should be at least four pairs of footprints––”

Zuo Botang raised his bow and arrow and interrupted him directly, “Wu Jin’s team opened the coffin. The two pairs of footprints are the same size and belong to the same person. They belong to someone about 190cm in height. It’s Wei Shi.”

Ming Yao was shocked, “Don’t they have two people…”

Zuo Botang: “Wu Jin’s shoes weren’t stained with mud, so they left no footprints. Wei Shi’s were stained with mud. When he went out, he ran backwards, then came straight back, creating two lines of footprints.”

There was silence.

Ming Yao exclaimed indignantly, “What a cheat! Trickster Witch!”

Jingyi’s captain sighed emotionally, then turned around and bopped Ming Yao on the head, “You figured it out?” His fingers wrapped around the bronze bow’s grip, and Zuo Botang walked out first in a gust of strong wind and dense water mist. His eyes were solemn and awe-inspiring, “Chase after him.”

The Crosson Show’s live stream room.

The scrolling comments were filled with “6666, cunning Little Witch”, “Treacherous Little Witch”, ”Tricky Little Witch”. The camera had just switched back from the roller coaster to check in on the progress at the Brave Rapids pyramid.

Wu Jin and Wei Shi had just finished 1/3 of the journey and were now shuttling through the floor with the Pharaoh’s funeral chamber. At the bottom of the channel, Jingyi quickly chased after Scarf and began to climb; Caesar and Red had arrived late to the entrance to the pyramid; Raphael, who’d lost to Jingyi, chose another road to follow outside the Queen’s funeral chamber, and found another entrance to the main channel.

Amongst them, only Wu Jin had the <Book of the Dead> that could speed up their progress for the instance.

Ying Xiangxiang smiled like a fox and said emotionally, “Little Witch has changed! Back in those days when he first came to the program, he was such a cute little child! He was silly, and anyone could bully him. Whenever he smelled a wrap, he would run out of the dorm room and look around wildly… how time flies…”

The scrolling comments were howling.

“Son has blackened, but he’s still cute! However, mama doesn’t want you to grow up so fast!”

“Oh, oh, seeing how Little Witch is still so handsome, Little Witch still belongs to mama, okay!”

In the bottom corner of the screen, Wu Jin was sweating profusely and finally simply lifted up his bangs. His facial features beneath the bangs were the same as ever, but they seemed to be slowly losing that layer of baby fat, and were more heroic and adult than they’d been nine months ago.

The camera finally focused on them. Wu Jin’s arms were firm and powerful as he held onto the tracks to climb up, his muscles slender and smooth. Wei Shi, who was beside him, breathed steadily, and his movements on the 70 degree slope were as if he was walking on flat ground. It was just that he would glance at Wu Jin from time to time.

Wu Jin turned his head, and Wei Shi immediately proudly retrieved his gaze.

“I can’t watch on anymore.”

“I can’t watch on anymore +1. If you tell me right now that these two have already obtained a wedding certificate, I would believe it… it’s an earth shattering, moving brotherhood!”

“As long as there is brotherhood, the mechanism filled tomb becomes like a flower filled garden. As long as there’s brotherhood, the road to opening the coffin will be filled with a spring breeze.”

Crosson Show, sixth elimination match.

Inside the pyramid.

More than 40 meters up, Wu Jin finally heard the sounds of Jingyi in the channel.

However, their gaze had always been firmly locked on the tomb chamber in front of them.

Wu Jin breathed out slowly.

Due to the limitations of the architectural mechanics, the great pyramid that was built with an inner spiral structure held a huge, open chamber at the top, and the entire chamber was surrounded by a ‘river’. At the end of the waterway, countless lit candles flickered quietly, and the three boats for the Brave Rapids floated there in silence.

Light and shadow scattered over the water, reflecting and scattering like a gentle halo of stars.

There were brilliant gold coins on the hull.

The boats were all decorated in the shape of a human coffin, with no exceptions, and the imitation 24k gold paint reflected the waves.

Behind the boats was the candlelight that symbolized life, and in front was the dark unknown.

Death in Ancient Egypt was one of the gentlest forms of ‘death’.

“It’s just like,” Wu Jin groped for an example, “Drifting across the River Styx by boat.”

Wei Shi nodded.

The dead slept in the coffin, and the funeral priests prayed for them. They carried the visions of the living and floated across the river of death to arrive at the land of the gods. From then on, they were free from the troubles of human beings and lived on in death.

This was the starting point for the drifting.

It was also the starting point for the Brave Rapids.

The ticket vending machine was just by the bank of the river, and correspondingly, the sound of the ticking water clock was growing louder and louder.

Wu Jin suddenly lifted his head.

His line of sight passed through numerous murals associated with ‘death’. The ‘water clock’ that was closely linked to Ancient Egyptian heritage and civilization hung at the top of the chamber. The ancient container slowly dripped water, and a shaft was inserted into the opening of the container, like a buoy. Dense scale lines were drawn on the inverted cone, and as time went by, the water level would drop. The shaft would then mark the corresponding moment.

Wu Jin’s eyes brightened.

Wei Shi snorted, disparaging Wu Jin’s appearance of not having seen much of the world.

In fact, he hadn’t seen it before either. R-Code Base only held weapons, and there were no toys, let alone such exquisite antique items. So, the 16 year old couldn’t help himself and looked at it a few more times before pulling out his bow and arrows, and saying simply, “You go ahead, I’ll keep guard here.”

Based on the sound of footsteps in the channel, there were three teams of players who were on their way up.

Wu Jin nodded without another word.

The walls of the chamber had simple and crude protruding handles that allowed the contestant to climb up to the water clock. Wu Jin first pulled out the <Book of the Dead>.

The <Book of the Dead> would become an important tool for contestants who wanted to pass through the pyramid––

On the first page, there were six whole ‘Brave Rapids ticket exchange vouchers’ arranged neatly together.

xiin: all this history/science is real, guys~