Chapter 2

Jiang Bo died. He died inside the tunnel he had dug that led straight to the main crypt.

Jiang Bo’s body was found by Lin Hongxing, his roommate, and Qin Cheng, who lived in a neighboring house.

That day, Lin Hongxing woke up earlier than usual, and when he saw that the bed at the opposite side of the room was neat as usual, he realized that Jiang Bo hadn’t come back last night.

Lin Hongxing wasn’t surprised, because he already knew that Jiang Bo had been sneaking behind Li Guoxian’s back this whole time. He was digging at night a passage that led directly towards the main crypt chamber of the tomb Nº1 in Ninghua Village.

Yes, he acted sneakily because this excavation wasn’t allowed by Li Guoxian.

Li Guoxian is the head of their field archeology team, and he’s also a person who is very strict with ancient artifacts and tombs. Before they can even begin to excavate the main crypt, they must first find out how this Mausoleum was buried. Unlike the pre-Qin ¹ period that used soil to cover up the Imperial Mausoleums, the tomb Nº1 in Ninghua Village takes the mountain as the Mausoleum itself, by burying it inside it. This Mausoleum was built by hollowing out the Qiongshan Mountain. Therefore, it looked like a regular Mountain.

This Qiongshan Mountain, where the tomb Nº1 was buried, was twice as big as the Jinshan, where nearly a thousand people were buried.

After the exploration, it was found that the mausoleum had two inner and outer walls and four gates, with an estimated total area of 1.4million square meters. Just like a huge Imperial City. However, almost all the gates of this city were annihilated because of the passing of time, leaving only a little trace behind.

Most importantly, at the end of last year, while excavating, the archeological team discovered that this vast Mausoleum actually had a tomb door!

At that time, when the location of the entrance of the tomb had been found, based on the protection of ancient Mausoleums, entering from the tomb door could ensure the integrity of the tomb. Therefore, Li Guoxian’s team held a meeting to discuss it, deciding in the end that it wasn’t necessary to dig a tunnel from the top of the tomb to enter the coffin chamber.

It was better to protect the tomb by entering the coffin chamber through the tomb door. However, this method took more time and cost more money.

The passage of the tomb Nº1 was blocked by huge stone blocks with a length of 5 meters and a height of 1 meter. It became a big problem to remove each blocking stone and it also took a lot of time to do so.

It was a process that should be done a step at a time. Just like that, step by step, too many precious cultural relics were found too. The tombs that weren’t excavated before held too many hidden treasures inside.

And yet, none of these treasures could identify the tomb’s owner.

That became a huge problem….

Because the funds for the archeological teams weren’t enough.

If the identity of the tomb’s owner couldn’t be found out, then the existence of this Mausoleum could hardly be announced to the world. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to make it public, it was more related to the fact that Li Guoxian disagreed.

He’s an expert in this field, but at the same time, he also has his own intents. He suggested that such a large Mausoleum as this one, which could shock the whole country, will also attract too many people to visit it before they could be able to find out the origin of the tomb and the identity of the tomb owner. This will not only cause a disturbance to their archeological work, but it will also bring unnecessary trouble. Even attract grave robbers too.

To put it bluntly, the decision they ended up taking failed to bring the economic benefits they needed. In Xi’an, which is full of antiquities, if a Mausoleum doesn’t bring much economic benefit for more than ten years, naturally, its funds will begin to get gradually reduced.

Without enough funds, the excavation work was more difficult, and Jiang Bo had long proposed to Li Guoxian that they could open direct access to the main coffin chamber by digging a tunnel.

“If we get into the main crypt, we’ll definitely be able to know the identity of the tomb’s owner! After the funding gets resolved, we can make an announcement. That way, our work will be taken seriously, and we won’t need to struggle as much as we do now!”

Li Guoxian, who disagreed with this idea, reprimanded Jiang Bo. However, this also prompted the already impatient Jiang Bo to make up his mind, and he began to secretly dig a passage.

Jiang Bo’s actions were discovered by Lin Hongxing by accident, and yet, he didn’t tell Li Guoxian. Since he agreed with Jiang Bo at that time, he also agreed to maintain his secret. Lin Hongxing felt that although Li Guoxian was an expert, in some aspects, he was also obstinate. With such a regular research and development method, without enough financial support, the research cannot be followed up. Lin Hongxing wasn’t willing to keep on living like this.

It’s just that he couldn’t bring these complaints to Li Guoxian. After all, he wasn’t Li Guoxian’s student, and it was even more unlikely that an old and stubborn man like Li Guoxian would pay attention to him. However, Jiang Bo was different. He was once Li Guoxian’s favorite student, and although he already graduated, he also worked with Li Guoxian. Therefore, when Lin Hongxing found out that Jiang Bo was secretly digging a tunnel, Lin Hongxing just turned a blind eye to it.

Jiang Bo would take his tools to the tomb late at night, then he would come back early in the morning and work with everyone else. In the afternoon, he would go back to his place to rest.

However, something felt wrong today. By the time the sun went down, Jiang Bo hadn’t come back yet.

Lin Hongxing felt that something wasn’t right, thinking that it was easy for something to happen in the wilderness of the mountain. Not to mention that Jiang Bo had gone there late at night….alone….

Lin Hongxing thought more about it and then called Jiang Bo’s phone, but the call was unable to get through. When he didn’t come back by seven or eight o’clock in the evening, Lin Hongxing panicked, got up hurriedly, and knocked on the neighbor’s door.

The location of Ninghua Village was still too remote, and all the villagers had to move away, leaving only the wooden houses with green tiles for the archeologists to live in. The uninhabited village remained untouched and underdeveloped, however, without the livestock and the childrens playing around, the quiet village seemed more desolate on this particularly rainy night.

Tomorrow will be Saturday, and after a week of hard work, the archaeologists would naturally want to take a rest. Except for a few young students, almost everyone else in the archeological team had settled in Xi’an. On Friday, the first day off work, they would pack their backpacks and leave Ninghua Village as early as possible.

Except for a few students who were too lazy to run around, and decided to remain on duty, hardly anyone wanted to stay in this place.

What’s there to stay here for? There’s no internet, no TV, and no news. Not to mention that in the early years of excavation, thousands of burial pits were discovered, and these burial pits weren’t that far away from these old wooden houses. Sleeping at night in this place felt creepy sometimes.

Qin Cheng’s family wasn’t from Xi’an, and he was single at the moment. Since he didn’t want to go back to the University dormitories, because he was too lazy to travel between these two places, he just signed up for duty.

After boiling two pots of hot water, he briefly washed his hair, and then cleaned up his body. While he was drying his hair with a dry towel, he heard that the door was knocked.

As he took his glasses from the table and put them on, Qin Cheng asked while walking to the door: “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Lin Hongxing!”

When he heard the anxiety in Lin Hongxing’s voice, Qin Cheng frowned and rushed forward to open the door: “What’s wrong?”

Seeing Lin Hongxing’s nervous face, Qin Cheng asked: “Why are you so scared?”

“Jiang Bo, it’s Jiang Bo, he didn’t come back!”

‘ Didn’t come back? ’ This made Qin Cheng a little confused: “That’s it? Why are you so scared of him not being back yet? Maybe he went on a ride to the city to have a good time.”

“No, he hasn’t come back ever since last night!”

“Last night?” Qin Cheng was stunned. These past two days he, alongside a few colleagues, had been cleaning up the bronze vessels taken out of the Mausoleum, while Jiang Bo was responsible for the excavation. Since they were in different areas, it was natural that Qin Cheng hadn’t noticed whether Jiang Bo was present today or not.

However, Lin Hongxing said that Jiang Bo didn’t come back last night…..

“What’s going on?” Qin Cheng threw his towel in his hand at one side of the table and asked: “What happened to him, did you try to call him?”

“Yes, I’ve called him several times! But he never answered the phone!” Lin Hongxing entered Qin Cheng’s house, looking extremely anxious: “Is your roommate Zhang Jun here too?”

“He’s not here.” Looking at Lin Hongxing’s flustered face, Qin Cheng thought about something and seemed to grasp a vague idea. Because of this, he frowned and asked him once again: “What’s the matter with you? Quickly tell me what’s going on!”

Lin Hongxing licked his lips and bowed his head, not daring to look at Qin Cheng: “Jiang Bo, these past couple of days, has secretly been going to tomb Nº1 late at night. He’s digging a tunnel leading to the main coffin chamber….”

Qin Cheng was dumbfounded, for a brief moment, he didn’t realize what this meant.

When Lin Hongxing repeated it again, Qin Cheng knew the matter was serious and angrily said: “Why didn’t you guys discuss this with everyone!”

“It wasn’t my idea! Jiang Bo has been working on this on his own!”

How could Qin Cheng not know what kind of person Lin Hongxing was? This man was stubborn and had been extremely dissatisfied with Professor Li’s approach for a long time. Furthermore, even if he knew that Jiang Bo was acting recklessly, he just let him do whatever he wanted.

Not bothering to keep on listening to Lin Hongxing’s excuses, Qin Cheng ran into his room to put on his rain boots, took a flashlight, and finally said to Lin Hongxing: “There’s no one else here apart from us, let’s go and find him first. If we can’t find him, we’ll call the police.” When Lin Hongxing didn’t respond, Qin Cheng yelled: “What are you standing here for? Hurry up and lead the way!”

Lin Hongxing also understood the seriousness of the matter and quickly nodded: “Yes, fine, follow me.” After saying that they didn’t take anything else with them and went straight to Qionshang.

Qionshang was two kilometers from where they were staying. After a quick motorcycle ride, they had to walk the rest of the way on foot, following the path they took as usual.

It has been raining for a good part of the day, and the soil has been moistened and muddy for a long time. In some places, there were small ponds that had accumulated water, if they were to take a careless step, their legs would sink and the mud would reach their knees.

At night, Nighua Village was so quiet that one could only hear the occasional birds singing in the mountain. It was so dark that you weren’t able to see anything on the muddy road, only the bright light of two flashlights shaking from side to side.

With the help of their flashlights, they searched along the trail. However, nothing abnormal was found.

On the left side of the mountain, just a few years ago, several burial pits were excavated. At night, with the wind blowing in the rain, a faint sound of “hoo~~hoo~~” could be heard. When they breathed through their noses, they felt that the air was inexplicably and particularly cold.

The sound their footsteps made on the muddy ground was like ‘ba-da, ba-da’, immersing Qin Cheng into a trance. At one point, Qin Cheng began to feel that apart from himself and Lin Hongxing, there were two people following them behind.

“Ha, haha, it’s the first time I’ve come here in the middle of the night. Jiang Bo is really bold.” Lin Hongxing seemed to want to ease the somewhat cold atmosphere, but Qin Cheng didn’t pay any attention to him.

It could be said that Qin Cheng and Jiang Bo shared a good friendship, after all, they were Li Guoxian’s students. After so many years, they had been getting along pretty well, so he was hoping that nothing had happened to him.

However, when they reached the foot of Qionshan mountain, they still hadn’t found a single trace of Jiang Bo.

“Do you know where Jiang Bo was digging the tunnel?” Qin Cheng, who was walking in front of Lin Hongxing, turned around and asked him: “Let’s go over there and take a look.”

“I remember, one time I saw him walking alone to the northeast corner of Qionshan, I guess it should be somewhere there.”

“Hmm.” Qin Cheng nodded his head: “Let’s go and find out what’s going on.”

In fact, even without asking Lin Hongxing, Qin Cheng could probably guess which part of the tomb Jiang Bo would be in. The northeast area was about 200 meters away from the foot of the mountain, which was the easiest place to get into the main coffin chamber.

Sure enough, when the two of them arrived at that location, a passageway that only allowed one person to walk in at a time, inclined downward at an angle of 25 degrees, appeared in front of them.

With the help of the flashlight, they entered the tunnel, and lying less than ten meters away from the entrance, Jiang Bo appeared in front of both of them…..

His eyes were rounded and wide open, as if he was looking at them with a death stare….

They took a cold breath, and the blood in their bodies seemed to freeze in just an instant.

(๑ˊ͈ ॢꇴ ˋ͈)〜♡ ॰ॱ

Footnotes

<ol><b>先秦</b> <b>xiān qín</b> ; pre-Qin, Chinese history up to the foundation of the Qin Imperial Dynasty in 221 BC.</ol>