Grave Robbers

On the way home that evening, Jiang Ran had actually wondered...

Since it was named Abyssal Void, could it really contain those bizarre and grotesque entities recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas?

Now, it seemed his guess was very likely to come true.

Although it was unclear exactly what those monsters from just a moment ago were.

If one were to assume they were monsters from the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

It meant that this city, or rather this world, had seen its danger level rise exponentially.

It was very possible he could die in the next second.

Without even knowing why.

After all, at the lower end of the spectrum...

Some of the spirits and monsters in the records could perhaps be beaten to death by an ordinary person with a stick.

But at the higher end...

There were entities capable of moving mountains, filling seas, and altering the heavens and earth.

Jiang Ran slowly let go of the curtain and retreated to the center of the living room.

He needed to formulate a plan.

To survive for these 24 hours.

The first plan was the simplest: hide in the room without making a sound and survive for 24 hours.

While this method was feasible, the risk was actually quite high.

The climbing ability that monster displayed just now showed that the exterior walls of buildings were no obstacle for them.

Once those monsters discovered there was a person in this room, being besieged would be a dead end.

Besides, who knew if those monsters had other ways of sensing humans.

Or, going out to explore.

This was actually the line of thought Jiang Ran was more inclined toward.

All fear stems from the unknown and a lack of firepower.

And to understand the unknown, going out to explore was inevitable.

But where to explore became the problem.

The streets were clearly not safe.

The fate of that man just now was proof.

However...

Jiang Ran suddenly froze.

Since this world was a one-to-one replica of reality.

Did that mean the firearms from reality also existed in this world?

This thought made Jiang Ran's breathing quicken slightly.

Although Jiang Ran's combat power in close quarters far exceeded that of an ordinary person.

Dealing with a monster of that size in hand-to-hand combat was not impossible.

But the risk was too high.

The monster's claws and teeth, potential toxins or pathogens it might carry, unknown attack patterns...

Any minor mishap could lead to serious injury or even death.

And firearms were definitely a safer, more lethal choice.

Moreover, judging by the prompt from that voice, the possibility of entering again in the future was high.

Firearms were undoubtedly the most realistic way to increase his combat power at this stage.

Thinking of this, Jiang Ran immediately took action.

He walked to the desk and picked up his phone.

The screen was still lit, remaining on the page where he had previously searched for Abyssal Void.

Jiang Ran switched to the map app.

The internet worked.

Even the signal had not been affected.

The reason that man couldn't get through on his phone earlier was likely because... the person he was calling hadn't entered this world.

Jiang Ran quickly searched for police stations and shooting clubs.

He ultimately set his target on the nearest police station.

It was located at the intersection of Zhongshan Road and Jiefang Road, just two kilometers away.

This distance was relatively manageable.

Jiang Ran tapped on the detailed location of the police station to view the street-view images.

It was a small three-story building, a typical grassroots police station, with the blue and white police light emblem at the entrance.

The entire journey would take about twenty-five minutes on foot.

But that was the speed during peacetime.

Now... it might take much longer.

There was no time to lose.

Jiang Ran stood up, sheathed his tactical knife back into the holster on his leg, double-checked his gear, and walked to the door.

However, when his hand touched the handle, he suddenly paused.

He turned back to the bedroom, rummaged through the bottom of the wardrobe to find a solid black hooded sweatshirt, and grabbed a black face mask.

He put on the sweatshirt, zipped it up, pulled up the hood, and then adjusted the mask to cover the bridge of his nose.

Jiang Ran walked over to the full-length mirror.

The figure in the mirror had his face obscured by the mask and the brim of the hood, with only his eyes exposed.

Very good.

Jiang Ran took one last look around the room to ensure no important items were left behind, then turned the doorknob.

The hallway was terrifyingly quiet.

He gripped the handle of his knife tightly, blade pointing downward; this was the ready stance for indoor close-quarters combat.

It prevented accidental self-injury while allowing for quick upward slashes or thrusts.

The door to the stairwell was left slightly ajar.

Jiang Ran pressed his body against the door gap and listened for over ten seconds.

There was no sound at all.

He pushed the door open gently and slipped sideways into the stairwell.

His footsteps were deliberately kept to a minimum, landing on the balls of his feet first before slowly lowering his heels.

One floor, two floors.

There was nothing unusual in the stairwell, only the sound of his own breathing.

But the more it stayed this way, the higher Jiang Ran's vigilance became.

His combat intuition not giving a warning didn't mean it was absolutely safe; it only meant there were no immediate threats within his current line of sight.

Five minutes later, Jiang Ran reached the ground floor.

The unit door was made of glass, and beyond it lay the internal roads of the residential complex.

He crouched behind the door and observed carefully for at least three minutes.

There were no moving shadows and no abnormal sounds.

Jiang Ran gently pushed the unit door open, slipped out, immediately hugged the wall, and quickly crossed the ten-meter open area, disappearing into the shadows of another building.

The back gate of the complex was just fifty meters ahead.

Jiang Ran crouched at the base of the wall and waited patiently.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Aside from the sound of the wind, there was no movement.

Only then did he stand up, quickly pass through the iron gate, and enter Wutong Lane.

The journey that followed was longer than expected.

The trip that should have taken forty minutes had already reached 01:53 on his phone by the time he saw the blue and white sign of the police station.

An hour and six minutes had passed since he left home.

The lights inside were on, and the surroundings were deathly silent.

Jiang Ran did not rush to enter immediately; instead, he stood at the entrance of the alley to observe.

In such extreme circumstances, if others had entered this world, it was highly likely that some would have the same idea as him once they calmed down.

Nearly two hours had passed since they arrived in this world.

In terms of time, the possibility of people being inside the police station was not small.

However, after waiting for a short while, there was still no movement inside, and no shadows flickered past the windows.

Seeing this, Jiang Ran stood up and circled to the side of the police station.

There was a small window on the back wall.

Jiang Ran braced one hand against the windowsill and vaulted inside without a sound.

He drew his tactical knife and tilted his head to listen.

Only after confirming there was no movement did he push the door open.

Outside was a hallway; Jiang Ran hugged the wall and moved toward the stairs.

But just as he reached the corner of the staircase, a sense of crisis triggered by his combat intuition pierced the back of his head like a needle.

Left!

Jiang Ran abruptly dropped his body.

A gun barrel emerged from the shadows above the stairs at almost the exact same moment, aiming at where his head had been a split second before.

Simultaneously, Jiang Ran instinctively reached out with his left hand, grabbed the opponent's wrist, and shoved it upward with a violent jerk.

"BANG!!!"

The deafening gunshot exploded in the narrow stairwell; the bullet grazed the top of Jiang Ran's head and slammed into the ceiling.

The massive sound made his eardrums ache.

The opponent clearly hadn't expected this guaranteed kill to miss and froze for a split second.

But Jiang Ran didn't give him the chance to fire a second shot.

The moment the gun went off, his body had already used the momentum of his crouch to slam into the opponent's chest, his right fist driving upward from below to land a solid blow against the man's right ribs.

"Urgh..."

The sound of the impact was accompanied by a muffled groan.

The man's body arched like a shrimp, the pistol slipped from his hand to the floor, and he collapsed, limp.

Young people really do sleep well; they just drop and drift off.

However, Jiang Ran had still made a mistake just now, instinctively avoiding the opponent's chin and temples.

In a life-or-death struggle, the liver just wasn't reliable enough.

He really needed to train himself to break that habit.

Jiang Ran shook his head and picked up the pistol.

It was a police-issue Type 92, and the magazine was full.

On the ground lay a man in his thirties, wearing a filthy jacket with stubble on his face.

Jiang Ran used the paracord he carried to bind the man securely, then fished a pair of handcuffs from the man's waist and cuffed his hands behind his back.

He then grabbed him and dragged him all the way to the first-floor surveillance room.

A few screens in the room were still lit, displaying footage from several fixed cameras inside and outside the police station.

Jiang Ran tied the man to a chair, drew a cup of cold water from the dispenser, and splashed it onto his face.

"Cough... cough cough..."

The man choked awake, his eyes unfocused at first before snapping onto Jiang Ran, specifically the Type 92 in his hand.

"Brother, it's a misunderstanding, purely a misunderstanding!" The man immediately squeezed out a fawning smile. "I thought those monsters had snuck in, that's why... You're a living person too, right? Let's talk this out, please don't shoot!"

Jiang Ran didn't speak; he pulled over a chair and sat down.

He rested the pistol on his lap, watching the man with calm eyes.

Liu San's eyes darted around, his speech rapid. "Brother, your skills are amazing, you must have trained, right? How about we team up? This place is cursed; there's strength in numbers..."

Jiang Ran suddenly spoke: "Name, and what do you do?"

"My name is Liu San, I'm just an ordinary person. I woke up here, I was terrified, I swear..." Liu San answered hurriedly.

Jiang Ran watched him quietly.

A lie, and not a very clever one at that.

"Oh."

Jiang Ran replied, then suddenly raised the pistol, clicked off the safety, and aimed the barrel at Liu San's forehead.

Liu San's smile froze on his face.

"W-what are you doing?! Everything I said is true! It's true!"

Jiang Ran's finger rested on the trigger guard, his voice devoid of fluctuation: "You have one last chance."

The silence lasted for five seconds.

Sweat rolled down Liu San's forehead.

He looked into Jiang Ran's eyes, and there was no emotion in them at all.

This wasn't a bluff... this man would really pull the trigger.

"I... I'll talk!" Liu San broke down. "I'm a grave robber! I hit a Song Dynasty tomb in the northern suburbs the day before yesterday, but I was nabbed by the stakeout team as soon as I crawled out and locked in the holding room next door.

I was too exhausted last night and fell asleep... When I woke up, the door to the holding room was open, there wasn't a soul outside, so I just ran out..."

Grave robbing.

A thought stirred in Jiang Ran's mind.

He had been able to enter because of the clod of dirt from the museum; though he didn't know what was inside it, it was certainly some kind of artifact.

"Did anything special come out of the tomb?" Jiang Ran asked.

"Yes, there was a jade cong, and a few pottery figurines, one of which had a cracked head..." Liu San rambled incoherently. "The police confiscated them and put them in the precinct evidence room. I caught a glimpse of them before I fell asleep..."

"Which one did you touch?"

"The jade cong. I tried to hide it in my shirt, but they searched me and found it. My hand brushed against it when they took it, and then I heard a voice in my head..."

The clues connected.

Contact an artifact, gain the qualification, and then be pulled into the Abyssal Void at this specific time.

Just as Jiang Ran was about to ask for more details...

A shadow suddenly flashed across the edge of a surveillance monitor nearby.

Something was coming.