Free Web Novel"Name?"
Lu Yibei looked expressionlessly at the Officer sitting across from him, his mood complex.
"Lu Yibei..."
"Age?"
"Nineteen."
The Officer lowered his head to record, then looked at Lu Yibei and said sternly, "Tell me what happened?"
"Uh..." Lu Yibei opened his mouth, then suddenly remembered something. He hesitated for a moment and asked weakly, "Comrade, this situation won't be filed, will it?"
"That depends on your performance and the severity of the circumstances."
"Oh, oh, I'll definitely perform well, confess honestly, and turn over a new leaf."
This kid probably isn't a first-time offender, is he? Being cuffed there, he looks as comfortable as if he's home... the Officer grumbled inwardly, then said seriously, "Speak!"
"Yes, yes." Lu Yibei said repeatedly, "At 2:30 AM on the day of the incident, suspect Lu, which is me, came to Lion Mountain Cemetery with the crime tool, a large hammer, preparing to smash open Lu Yibei's grave and take out the contents..."
"Wait a minute!" The Officer waved his hand to interrupt, "You just said, whose grave were you preparing to smash open?"
"Lu Yibei's."
"What's your name?"
"Lu, Lu Yibei?"
The Officer looked at Lu Yibei in surprise and frowned, "So, you were preparing to rob your own grave?"
Lu Yibei thought for a moment and said seriously, "Generally speaking, yes."
"Bang!"
The Officer slammed the table, his voice raising a few octaves, "Nonsense! How could someone dig their own grave? Besides, how could a living person have a grave?"
Living people shouldn't build that kind of thing!
As soon as the Officer finished speaking, as if hearing the commotion inside the room, there was a knock on the door. Then another Officer poked half his body in and called the Officer inside out.
The room fell silent. Faint voices of conversation came from outside the door. Hearing this, Lu Yibei's eyes darted around slyly, and he pricked up his ears to listen carefully.
"Lao Zhang, we just confirmed with the people at the cemetery. The grave that kid smashed, the tombstone indeed says 'Grave of Lu Yibei', and the birth and death years match his information..."
"You mean, he's really digging his own grave?" The Officer called Lao Zhang asked in surprise, "Then is he a living person, or...?"
"He looks like a living person, but you can't be sure about this, especially with so many urban legend incidents happening now..." The other Officer whispered.
"If you ask me, why don't we just let him go? I always feel like he's extremely eerie, sending shivers down my spine. Look, I'm even bundled up in my cotton coat."
"Just let him go like that?" Lao Zhang asked back.
"The key is, it's hard to charge him with anything!"
"..." Lao Zhang was speechless for a moment.
Lu Yibei's situation was indeed difficult to define legally. Robbing the grave of a modern person is generally judged as theft and desecration of a corpse.
But he smashed his own grave, and the things inside, by rights, belong to him. While this action is theoretically debatable, it doesn't constitute a crime in practice.
Desecration of a corpse is even more out of the question. Not to mention there was no corpse in that grave, even if there was, handling his own body, hitting it hard would be self-harm, hitting it lightly would at most be self-touching.
After a long time, Lao Zhang sighed silently, "That's the only way. Later, I'll go in and tell him to pay a fine and call his family to come and pick him up quickly."
Hearing this, Lu Yibei frowned slightly, his mind racing as he quickly thought about who he should ask to pick him up.
Jiang Li is definitely out. If she found out about this, she'd laugh at me for the rest of my life.
Shui Ge is also out. If he came, I couldn't explain why I have a grave.
Du Sixian is also out. She's always mixed up with those urban legend now. If word got out, it would damage my glorious and mighty image in the Hua City urban legend community.
Then it can only be...
"Creak!"
The door to the room was pushed open, and Lao Zhang walked in, looking at Lu Yibei with a serious expression, "Kid, we've clarified your situation. You can go pay the fine yourself later, then call your family to come and sign, and you can leave."
"There's no one else in my family besides me. Can I ask my Teacher?" Lu Yibei said.
Lao Zhang nodded, "A Teacher from school? That's fine."
He paused, then leaned closer to Lu Yibei and asked in a low voice, "Speaking of which, why do you have a grave?"
Lu Yibei pondered for two seconds, sighed, and said helplessly, "Officer, to be honest, it's all my ex-girlfriend's fault!"
"Don't they say online now that if you break up, you should treat your ex-boyfriend as dead? But I didn't expect her to do something like this, and even secretly bury my most beloved figurine. Isn't that infuriating?"
"So, after I heard about this, I couldn't sleep at night. I rushed over overnight just to smash that grave."
These young Misses nowadays really know how to play... Lao Zhang grumbled inwardly, then patted Lu Yibei's shoulder sympathetically, "Young man, don't take this matter too hard. Breaking up early with a Miss with such a strange temper might be a good thing."
"By the way, smoke?"
"No, no." Lu Yibei waved his hand, then put a spicy strip into his mouth, "I'll just eat this."
Lao Zhang, "???"
Where did he pull that out from?
"By the way, Officer, after I leave, can I still smash that grave?"
Lao Zhang rolled his eyes at Lu Yibei, "What do you think?"
Lu Yibei, "..." It seems I can't.
----
5:47 AM, Huacheng Institute of Technology family housing complex.
At this time, there was no sign of the sky getting lighter. The entire complex was pitch black, with only one room in Building 6, Unit 702, still lit.
That was Professor Ma's home, and the lit room was his study. As the departure time approached, looking at the constant stream of messages from Tang City, he couldn't sleep.
In the study, Professor Ma sat in front of the computer, holding a cup of strong tea in one hand and continuously scrolling through the images sent by the project team with the other, his expression solemn.
The images showed various artifacts: a black pottery ding, a bronze zhi, a bone-carved jade book... there were over twenty dazzling artifacts. If someone who didn't know the truth saw them, they might think Professor Ma was browsing the collection display page of a museum.
However, these items had all been discovered recently in various antique trading places around Tang City. Each piece had high historical and cultural research value.
Normally, finding even one such artifact is a rare occurrence. The sudden appearance ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ of a large number of them raises suspicion that there might be something else going on behind this.
Some even speculated that this situation was likely due to the illegal excavation of an ancient East Yi cultural tomb complex in the vicinity of Tang City.
It was precisely because the relevant authorities discovered that a large number of artifacts had entered the market that the project team was forced to launch the research project early.
Unlike before, this time the project team, while conducting research, also undertook the mission of assisting the relevant authorities in recovering the artifacts.
"Sinful, truly sinful!"
Professor Ma looked at the images, sighing with deep distress. Suddenly, an image flashed before his eyes. His body trembled slightly, his finger left the mouse wheel, and he looked at the image on the screen, frowning.
The image was of a bronze artifact, shaped like a flying bird. Its eyes protruded forward, its head was raised, its wings were slightly spread, its feathers were full, its long tail was gilded, and it sat on a square base decorated with Hollow auspicious cloud patterns on all sides. Its shape bore some resemblance to a Western Han gilded phoenix-bird shaped ornament excavated in the past.
That Western Han artifact, excavated over ten years ago, is usually considered a continuation of the worship of the East Yi ancestors after the Qin unification.
However, this bronze artifact in the image, which is clearly much older, is not in the common phoenix-bird form, but rather resembles...
A Magpie?
Professor Ma frowned. The totem worshipped in East Yi culture was indeed a flying bird, but almost all previously excavated artifacts were mainly phoenix-birds. There seemed to have been no culture that worshipped Magpies.
"This thing..."
It's very special. If he could observe it up close, it might provide a new direction for the study of East Yi culture. Professor Ma thought, scrolled the mouse wheel, saw the text below the image, and sighed silently.
【Western Zhou Bronze Magpie Bird Shaped Ornament: Stolen.
Last seen: Three days ago, at an underground antique trading place in Tang City.】
Professor Ma looked at the bronze artifact in the image, his expression bewildered and disappointed, and murmured, "What a shame, what a great shame..."
As he spoke, he scrolled the mouse wheel and found the image again.
Just as he was about to examine it more closely, he suddenly noticed a few small, special characters on the side of the bronze artifact, hidden beneath the dirt.
Noticing those small characters, Professor Ma was startled for a moment. He quickly enlarged the image and began to carefully identify them using his years of experience in studying special characters.
Friendly reminder: The Website is about to be revised, which may cause the loss of reading progress. Please save your 'book shelf' and 'reading record' promptly (screenshot saving is recommended). We apologize for any inconvenience caused!
"Ju what, what Bao? Oh dear, why are all these characters scratched off? Tsk! Those damn grave robbers, so clumsy when doing things, it's infuriating!"
Professor Ma cursed fiercely. The phone on the table suddenly vibrated. He picked it up, glanced at it, answered the call, and then heard a vigorous voice from the other end.
"Hello, may I ask if you are Ma Zhen, Professor Ma?"
"Yes, I am. And you are?" Professor Ma inquired.
"I am an Officer from the Lion Mountain Police Station. May I ask if you know someone named Lu Yibei?"
That stinky girl, how did she get caught again? Professor Ma muttered inwardly, saying repeatedly, "Yes, I do, I do. She's my granddaughter."
"Granddaughter!?" the Officer on the other end exclaimed, glancing at Lu Yibei nearby, who was chewing on a spicy strip and staring blankly at the ceiling, falling into deep thought.
"Uh..." Professor Ma was taken aback for a moment, then tentatively asked, "Is that... a student?"
The Officer, "..."
Seeing that the Officer didn't interrupt, Professor Ma cleared his throat and said seriously, "Uh, Officer, the situation is like this. We have an age-gap friendship, so she is both my student and my granddaughter."
"You, are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure." Professor Ma said confidently.
"..." The Officer was silent for a moment, his mood complicated, then said lightly, "I think it would be best if you came over quickly?"
After a pause, the Officer added, "Mm, it's best to bring identification that can prove your identity."
After speaking, he turned to look at Lu Yibei nearby, his expression as dramatic as a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law drama.
Suddenly, I somewhat hoped he was lying and hadn't coordinated his story with accomplices. What was going on?
If everything he said was true, male granddaughter or whatever... ƒгeewebnovёl.com
Ugh—! It's too confusing, too messy, making one not dare to think further!
"Oh right, Officer, could I ask what Lu Yibei did?"
"She..." The Officer pondered for a moment, his tone becoming strange, "Uh, she dug her own grave."
Professor Ma, "???"
----
Over an hour later, at the Lion Mountain Police Station.
Professor Ma sat on the bench opposite the police station entrance, smoking a cigarette for the first time in twenty years.
He didn't know what sin he had committed to get on Lu Yibei's pirate ship, causing a reputable people's teacher like himself to suffer social death.
I spent decades painstakingly building up a positive image, and it's almost completely ruined by this stinky boy, right? Professor Ma thought heavily.
Thinking back to the strange expressions of the surrounding Officers whose faces were twitching as they tried to suppress their laughter when he met Lu Yibei in the police station just now, he couldn't help but take another deep drag of his cigarette.
Before long, footsteps sounded.
Professor Ma looked up and saw Lu Yibei walking out of the police station, his face sinking. He fiercely threw the cigarette butt onto the ground, rolled up his sleeves, walked towards her, and firmly slapped her on the back of the head.
"Stinky boy, my old face has been completely disgraced by you today! Didn't you tell me before that your black night disease usually acts up at night?"
"Hiss—!" Lu Yibei rubbed the back of her head and grumbled, "Isn't today a special circumstance? And it's not your fault, always thinking of granddaughter, granddaughter, without even asking for the situation clearly. You don't know, when I was inside just now, those Officers saw me and looked like they were having a stroke, their mouths twitching."
"..." Professor Ma was speechless for a moment. In this regard, he indeed bore some responsibility.
"Alright, let's not talk about this for now. We're leaving tomorrow. Why are you running here in the middle of the night instead of staying home and familiarizing yourself with the materials I gave you?"
Digging your own grave? Perhaps only you could do such a thing... Professor Ma muttered inwardly.
"Look, wasn't I thinking that since we're going 'dǎo dòu', we should first get familiar with the specific process?" Lu Yibei said something nonsensical.
Professor Ma was stunned for a moment upon hearing this and said in surprise, "You already know?"
Lu Yibei, "???" freeωebnovēl.c૦m
What do I know!?
Professor, can you please stop secretly increasing the difficulty of things when I don't know about it?
Muttering inwardly, Lu Yibei tentatively asked in a low voice, "So, Professor, are we really going 'dǎo dòu'? I just said that offhand, don't take it seriously!"
Professor Ma shook his head, "Of course not."
"That's good, that's good." Lu Yibei secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
These days, among undiscovered ancient tombs, seven or eight out of ten hide urban legend. If she were really to go 'dǎo dòu', in her current state with maxed-out debuffs, encountering a Strange Tale would just be giving away experience.
Just as Lu Yibei was secretly feeling relieved, Professor Ma suddenly grabbed her shoulders, straightened his back, and said solemnly, "Lu Yibei, this time, besides conducting the research project, we also need to assist the relevant departments in recovering cultural relics that have flowed into the market..."
Hearing halfway, Lu Yibei was taken aback and interrupted, "Wait a minute! Professor, what did you just say? Recovering cultural relics?"
Professor Ma nodded, "That's right. Do you know why our joint research project has to start early? It's because someone discovered that a large number of cultural relics have recently flowed into the market, suspected to have been stolen from a large tomb complex."
"Professor..." Lu Yibei said with a pained expression, "Is it still not too late for me to withdraw now? I advise you not to go either."
The urban legend in the unknown tomb complex are already scary enough. Tomb robbers who can bring out a large number of cultural relics alive from the tomb complex must have Spiritual Energy fluctuations starting at B+ grade, right?
Moreover, there's definitely more than one; it's absolutely a group.
Thinking of this, the retreat drums in Lu Yibei's mind were pounding like thunder.
"This..." Professor Ma seemed to realize something and lowered his voice, "Does this also involve things related to the occult?"
"Mm, mm." Lu Yibei nodded.
"Is there danger?" Professor Ma asked.
Lu Yibei put on a delicate, deadpan face and said seriously, "Extremely dangerous."
"..."
Then shouldn't you go even more?
Professor Ma was silent, pondering for a moment. A flicker of determination flashed in his eyes, and he straightened his back, saying, "Then we still have to go!"
As he spoke, he looked at Lu Yibei and said seriously, "Lu Yibei, if there is really danger, I won't force you to go if you don't want to."
"But I want to say, those things are our country's cultural treasures. If we don't recover them now, it will be difficult to get them back once they flow overseas. Do you understand?"
"I understand the reasoning, but Professor..." Lu Yibei nodded, and as she spoke, she grabbed Professor Ma's hand, shook it a few times, and said coyly, "But, I'm scared!"
"Go away! Get away from me, I'm scared of you like this!" Professor Ma shook off Lu Yibei's hand, dodged to the side, then thought for a moment and decided to change his strategy.
Since appealing to righteousness couldn't move her for the moment, why not try empathy?
Professor Ma thought, looking at Lu Yibei, and asked casually, "Lu Yibei, when you were inside just now, that Officer said you dug your own grave to retrieve a figurine that your ex-girlfriend buried in the cemetery?"
"Mm... Huh? What's wrong, Professor?"
What trick is this Old man trying to pull now? Lu Yibei muttered inwardly.
"I see!" Professor Ma nodded, "Speaking of which, I once heard an interesting saying that those cultural relics are equivalent to the figurines of our ancestors, and tomb robbers are a bunch of naughty kids."
"Think about it, if a group of naughty kids rushed into your house, smashed the cabinet where you keep your figurines, secretly took the things inside, sold them off cheaply, and couldn't even figure out the details, sticking the label of 【001·Camellia】 on 【White Little Flower·Rose】, what would you do?"
"Something like that exists?" Lu Yibei said fiercely, involuntarily clenching her fists.
The sense of immersion was too strong, she had already started getting angry.
"Alright, now there's an opportunity to deal with the naughty kids right in front of you. What do you want to do?" Professor Ma raised his eyebrows.
"Of course I'll go beat the hell out of them, go tonight! Naughty kids shouldn't wait overnight to be beaten!" Lu Yibei said through clenched teeth.
Professor Ma nodded in satisfaction, "No need to be that rushed. We'll still depart the morning after tomorrow."
Lu Yibei, "???"
"Wait, Professor, did you trick me?"
"..." Professor Ma turned around, seemingly not hearing Lu Yibei's words, and said faintly, "Ah, those cultural relics... it pains my heart!"
"..." Lu Yibei was speechless for a moment watching Professor Ma's back. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she said in surprise, "That's not right, Professor, you even know about 【White Little Flower·Rose】 and 【001·Camellia】?"
Those are widely recognized as the two figurines with the most difficult-to-distinguish designs; only some body details are different. How would the Professor know?
"Could it be that you are also a fan of White Little Flower?"
"Cough cough cough!"
A fit of violent coughing came from afar. Professor Ma's figure stumbled, and after steadying himself, he quickened his pace and walked towards the car parked by the roadside.
