Since their work was suspended for nearly a month or so, and since nothing major had happened around Ninghua Village, the police station, which had been at an impasse with the archeological team, decided to loosen up the blockade on the tomb. On one hand, the police station couldnât keep wasting the police force into guarding a tomb since there are still many cases waiting for them to deal with at Xiâan. On the other hand, after consulting with the archeological team, the archeologists decided to no longer go to tomb NÂș 1, they will only clean up the surrounding area of the burial pits close to the main tomb.
At least, that was good news for the archeological team, since they canât leave this half-cleaned Mausoleum unattended. However, after everything that happened, they donât dare to approach tomb NÂș1 for the time being.
After a month of delayed work, itâs a good thing that thereâs not much rain in Xiâan and that the air is dry. Moreover, the half-dug burial pits were at the northwest of the main tomb, and fortunately, they werenât destroyed by the rain that fell a week ago.
Before the blockade happened, the archeological team had already excavated pottery figurines, and there were also burial pits for carriages and horses, these burial pits were large and abundant, and the pit at the northwest of the main tomb was bigger than the previous ones, twice as big as the carriage pit.
Six months ago, when they excavated a bronze horse armor, Li Guoxian concluded that this must be an armory.
The previous excavations were carried out by Zhao Shangzhi, who was responsible for the burial pits. However, Zhao Shangzhi had to temporarily stop working because he had to go abroad. At that time, Li Guoxian was chosen to lead the team. After that, the work continued without much problem.
However, these burial pits have more than ten holes made by grave robbers from different eras, this situation could be described as the burial pits having scars. Thus, the archeological team didnât dare to be sloppy with the excavation, so they cleaned the area layer by layer.
Before, when Zhao Shangzhi led the archeological team, they did a lot of cleaning, but this time around, it took them about ten days to clean up a layer of cultural relics.
Sure enough, as Li Guoxian said, this pit hid a large number of weapons. The red spears of the ceramic cavalry and the wooden objects had already rotted due to the passage of time. With the help of some accessories and some traces left behind, they were able to see that the stirrups were already available in that period of time.
At the same time, there were also infantry soldiers equipped with: Crossbows, bows, daggers, ring-headed swords, shields, basalt armor; there was even a bronze scaled-down version of a chariot equipped with soldiers armed with spears and pikes and close combat soldiers with ring-headed swords <sup>1</sup> .
All of these figures were carved very life-like.
âThe tombâs owner shouldâve been a great warrior when he was alive. The armory is so full that it should be near the buried precious objects of the tombâs owner, which were his favorites while he was still aliveâŠâ
Li Guoxian said this while he handed the copper spear to Qin Cheng. While he stood up, he walked to a high place to look at the general shape of the burial pit, finding out that it was a rectangular burial pit which extended towards the southeast. Originally, they thought that this burial pit was just relatively long, but after more careful digging, they found that the other end of the burial pit pointed directly at the main tombâs chamber.
It was obvious that these burial pits were another tomb passage of the accompanying graves <sup>2</sup> . One passage was blocked by stone, and the other tomb passage was connected to the burial pit of terracotta soldiers and weapons, which was âheavily guarded by the soldiersâ.
âWhat are you thinking about? Why do you look so happy?â When he saw Qin Cheng smiling and shaking his head, obviously not hearing a single word that he said, Li Guoxiao teased him.
â Cough , I wasnât thinking about anything.â
Recently, Qin Cheng began to work during the day, while at night, he had to do overtime work organizing the information they recollected. In other words, he didnât have the time to enter the tomb for four whole daysâŠ
â Todayâs Friday, so tomorrow is my day off; by then, I should be able to sneak in. â
After he thought of this, Qin Cheng hurriedly picked up his tools to quickly finish organizing todayâs information and then take a good bath, after all, he has stayed in the mud for two or three days and didnât have the time to take a proper shower.
At five in the afternoon, the entire archeological team was ready to leave Ninghua Village, only Qin Cheng was left behind. He had excused himself saying that he had forgotten something, and that he would ride the motorcycle back to the campus.
At six, the midsummer weather was very hot and dry, while the skyâs sunset had not yet completely sunk into the western mountains. The sky around the sun was covered in a beautiful layer of gold, while the sky at the east was gradually becoming dark blue.
Obviously, at this time the village shouldâve been very lively, with the smell of food flying in the air. However, this was Ninghua Village, which was so quiet that only the sound of the birds chirping in the mountains could be heard.
Qin Cheng climbed up the mountain, and when he reached the tunnel, he took out of his way the warning cord close to it. There were only a few wooden piles blocking the entrance and, at the same time, exit of the tunnel.
Qin Cheng then started to walk forward with a charged flashlight in hand.
However, before he could walk a few steps inside, he heard a personâs alarming scream coming from the entrance of the tunnel.
âHoly shit! Qin Cheng, do you want to fucking die?!â
âŠ
Zhang Jun was ready to take the bus back to the campus, however, before he could get on the bus, his girlfriend called saying that she had made an appointment with her best friend, Xia Tong, so she told Zhang Jun that he must bring Qin Cheng to eat dinner with them tonight.
Right at that time, Zhang Jun remembered that some time ago his girlfriend had told him that Xia Tong liked Qin Cheng, and that she wanted Zhang Jun to act as their matchmaker.
When he saw that Qin Cheng wasnât on the bus, Zhang Jun asked Wu Hai if he knew where Qin was, only to hear that Qin Cheng had said that he would be back later because he had to go back to find something.
âOkay then, you guys donât have to wait for me, I will go back to campus together with Qin Cheng.â
After Zhang Jun said this, he got out of the bus and went to the bathroom, however, before he could get there, he saw Qin Cheng, who was carrying his backpack; and just as he was about to call for him, he saw that Qin Cheng wasnât going towards where the motorcycle was parked, but at the opposite way.
â Where is he going? â
After thinking about what had happened recently, Zhang Jun was worried about him, so he followed Qin Cheng silently, trying to not alarm him, wanting to know where he was heading to. However, in the end, he couldnât believe that Qin Cheng was actually walking towards that deadly tomb!
âŠ
When he heard Zhang Junâs voice, Qin Cheng closed his eyes. â How didnât I notice that there was someone following me? It seems that itâs impossible to enter the tomb tonightâŠ. â After thinking this, Qin Cheng turned around and walked back.
âWhy did you follow me?â
âIs this really what you want to say?!â Zhang Jun pulled Qin Cheng and asked: âWhy did you come here? You know very well that this place is dangerous! Dangerous!â
Qin Cheng, who had thought of a good excuse, held the bridge of his nose and fixed his glasses: âSince I left work early today, and since itâs not dark outside, I thought of taking advantage of this brief time to take a look at the tomb. But I was found out.â
âFound out? Hey, Qin Cheng, you really areâŠâ While pointing his finger at Qin Cheng, Zhang Jun couldnât think of any adjectives to say to him. He could only shake his head feeling extremely helpless: âYou clearly know how dangerous this place is, right? Shouldnât you know it better than I do, or anyone else, since you can see ghosts?â
Instead of answering that, Qin Cheng just shook his head not wanting to explain any further. âWhy did you come looking for me? Why didnât you take the bus?â
âMy girlfriend, ah⊠no.â Zhang Jun touched his head remembering his girlfriendâs instructions of not mentioning Xia Tong: âI was ready to leave, but then I remembered that we havenât gone out in a while, so I thought of asking you if you wanted to go have some drinks since tomorrow is our day-off. So, I came back looking for you. But in the end I found you here? So I hurriedly called you?â
âDrinking? Professor Li asked me to-âŠâ
âLetâs go!â Zhang Jun, who was shorter than Qin Cheng, put his arm around Qin Chengâs shoulders and half-dragged him down the mountain. âYou donât know how to enjoy life. How old are you again? How many years have you devoted yourself to your career? Youâre so old-fashioned! Iâll ask my girlfriend to⊠to bring a friend over tonight to introduce her to you! You canât give up a good life for this tombâŠâ
As Zhang Jun rambled on and on, Qin Cheng didnât have another choice but to follow him down the mountain.
âŠ
At this moment, the tomb was as quiet and lonely as ever, and in addition to the ghostly atmosphere, there was no longer the breath of a living being inside.
The ghosts and demons have one thing in common, they can perceive the breath of living beings, which is the sweet dew that the ghosts and demons yearn for.
And even if heâs different from those fierce ghosts, itâs impossible to deny the fact that Su Jingmo is also a ghost.
So, when Qin Cheng approached the tomb just a few seconds ago, Su Jingmo knew who it was even if he didnât see him, â But⊠it seems that thereâs someone following him? â
At this thought, and for some unknown reasons, Su Jingmo actually went towards the tunnel, and just before he reached the long tunnel, Su Jingmo heard the sound of two voices talking to each other.
â Girls? Drinking? â After hearing this, Su Jingmo was stunned for a moment and then laughed. â Ah yes, how can a man of his age not go to a brothel? Him being so engrossed with his work in this place, to the point of not enjoying life, is really hard to imagine. â
Oh? ? is SJM⊠Jealous?
Also, was he waiting for QC those 4 days he didnât show up? When he walked towards the tunnel the second he âsensedâ that QC was near was so asdfkldhsksjaj