Chapter 1: Guangwu's Secret Treasure
Finally passed the last level, opening the stone gate in front of him, he should be able to see the treasure left by Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty over 2000 years ago. Ao Lie muttered excitedly.
As a 21st-century practitioner of ancient martial arts and history enthusiast, Ao Lie had already experienced the thrill of uncovering hidden treasures left behind by ancient masters more than once. However, he still couldn't suppress the excitement in his heart. Don't get him wrong, Ao Lie wasn't a grave robber who made a living by digging up tombs; he was simply extremely interested in all things ancient. Before this, he had explored many ancient treasures but never took anything, only to savor the aura of those distant eras. Describing him as entering a treasure mountain and returning empty-handed was indeed apt.
Rumble, rumble... Along with the last stone gate being pushed open by Ao Lie, a huge stone chamber appeared before his eyes. For an instant, Ao Lie felt his eyes were dazzled and couldn't be opened. After a while, he finally got used to it. It turned out that inside the stone chamber, countless gold, silver, and jewels were piled up, with various colors of light interwoven into a dazzling screen, colorful and resplendent. However, when Ao Lie faced these gold, silver, and jewels emitting enticing lights, he looked at them as if they were scrap iron, without even a hint of joy in his eyes. "Can't believe it's just these worthless things, too disappointing." Ao Lie muttered to himself while throwing the various treasures that blocked his view into some unknown corner like trash.
As a practitioner of ancient martial arts and an enthusiast of ancient history, he didn't like those gold and silver treasures. The only things he liked were the ancient relics left behind with historical value and commemorative significance. In order to search for ancient treasures, Ao Lie specially became a secular disciple in Wudang Mountain for several years, practicing extraordinary martial arts. Over the past few years, dozens of ancient treasures with sufficient significance have been added to the National Museum of History, all anonymously donated by Ao Lie.
"That's a weapon!" Finally, Ao Lie found something that piqued his interest. He quickly walked a few steps and bent down to examine the over 2,000-year-old weapon carefully. After observing it for a while, Ao Lie's interest grew even stronger: "The blade is four feet long, the handle is three feet long, the edge is narrow and slightly curved, and the handle has the words 'Ji Du' engraved on it. It's longer than a short sword but shorter than a large knife... Could this be a Ji Du horse-slaying saber?" Ao Lie, who was well-versed in history, knew that Emperor Liu Xiu of the Eastern Han dynasty had once participated in the Green Forest Army uprising in Nanyang Commandery before he became emperor. Later, during the process of establishing his regime, he swept across the land with a cavalry and an infantry unit, and the infantry unit used horse-slaying sabers at that time. After Liu Xiu became emperor, he put away the two units that had relied on to shake the world, and from then on, no one ever used horse-slaying sabers again. Ao Lie picked up the horse-slaying saber lying on the ground, feeling a slight weight in his hand, probably around 20 kilograms. He then stretched out his fingers and lightly plucked the blade, producing a clear, ringing sound.
This further confirmed Ao Lie's speculation. After being buried for over 2,000 years, it was still such a sharp and lethal weapon. Except for the slashing horse knife used by the elite troops under Han Emperor Liu Xiu, there couldn't be any other sharper weapons than this one. Ao Lie held the slashing horse knife and walked forward slowly, discovering that both sides were filled with identical sharp blades scattered on the ground. Estimating roughly, there were probably no less than 3,000 of them. After walking nearly a hundred steps further, Ao Lie found that the weapons here began to become chaotic, including not only slashing horse knives but also a type of long-handled weapon with an unusual shape. These long-handled weapons had an unusual shape because they looked like large axes, and at the connection between the axe handle, there was a sharp protrusion similar to a spearhead. If you called them axe-guns, it wouldn't be accurate either, as their shape didn't resemble those from Europe during that era. What's more, there were two-faced axe-guns with two axe faces, resembling the legendary phoenix spreading its wings?
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck Ao Lie's mind. He looked down at the horse-slaying knife in his hand and his gaze fell on the two characters "Ji Du" on the hilt. He muttered to himself: "The counterpart of Ji Du should be Luo Hou. Could it be that these strange-shaped long weapons are the famous Luo Hou Dragon Head Axes, which were wielded by one of the two elite cavalry units under Emperor Guangwu of Han?" Ao Lie bent down and picked up a long weapon with an unusual design. His eyes scanned the handle and indeed found the two characters "Luo Hou" engraved in the center.
It seems that it's true, this is the Luoyi Longjiao Axe, which is as famous as the Jidou Jianma Dao. Ao Lie put down the Jidou Jianma Dao and the Luoyi Longjiao Axe, feeling his blood boiling with excitement. He didn't expect to see the two mighty weapons that Han Guangwu Emperor used to conquer the world on this treasure hunt. What other surprises awaited him? With a strong sense of curiosity, Ao Lie walked deeper into the stone chamber. After passing through the area where the weapons were placed, Ao Lie found that the next stone chamber was filled with many suits of armor, which were made with fine craftsmanship and were rare in the Eastern Han dynasty. These iron armors were called "fish scale armors", which were made from refined iron and crafted into layers like fish scales. The defensive power of these armors was unmatched, not only in the Eastern Han but also in the Tang Dynasty hundreds of years later. If these armors were used together with the Jidou Jianma Dao and Luoyi Longjiao Axe, they could form an army that could dominate the Eastern Han. No wonder Emperor Guangwu of Han wanted to seal them away - if someone had obtained these equipment and expanded their production on a large scale, Liu Xiu's throne would have been unstable.
He raised his head and looked deeper into the stone room, and Ao Lie's heart became even more passionate. According to his past experience in treasure hunting, the best things were always at the deepest part. This stone room had already given him enough surprises, what would be next? Ao Lie couldn't wait to move forward. Next, Ao Lie discovered a small amount of purple copper and hundred-refined steel, as well as a large number of bows and crossbows, all sorts of strong bows, forceful crossbows, and hand-held crossbows kept emerging one after another, making Ao Lie's eyes dazzle. Just the ones he recognized were the famous Da Huang Force Crossbow, Xi Zi Lian Crossbow, and Shen Bi Bow from history. Without time to appreciate them, Ao Lie walked past these divine weapons and moved towards the last stone room.
As he opened the stone gate of the last stone room, Ao Lie suddenly felt suffocated. His long-term practice of ancient martial arts had given him a premonition of danger. In an instant after entering the stone room, Ao Lie felt a chill run down his spine and a killing aura that made him hastily retreat two steps, assuming the defensive stance of his most skilled Tai Chi fist. However, there was no real danger attacking Ao Lie, it was just a kind of almost tangible atmosphere.
It was because Ao Lie had clearly seen the items placed in the stone room. There were nearly thirty different weapon racks in the stone room, each with a single weapon on it, and those killing auras were emitted by these weapons. In the center of the stone room was a suit of armor rack, hanging a beautiful and unparalleled suit of armor. As Ao Lie admired the weapons on the racks one by one, he was shocked to discover that this place actually had almost all the divine weapons from before Emperor Guangwu of Eastern Han, which were collected from who-knows-where. There was General Wei Qing's Hunyuan Kaitian Knife, General Huo Qubing's Haolong Suandan Gun, General Li Guang's Shenbi Bow, and General Peng Yue's Canshuang Xueqie Knife... Ao Lie was more and more shocked as he looked around, until he walked to the center of the stone room and saw the two weapons placed beside that beautiful suit of armor. He was directly speechless, with a feeling like a country bumpkin seeing a mountain-sized piece of gold.
This is simply a fairy tale, not even the 1001 Nights stories have such tales. What do you think Ao Lie saw? On the left side of the weapon rack, there was a majestic and unparalleled large gun inserted, with a length of 12 feet 9 inches, and a golden light hidden at the tip of the gun, shaped like a dragon's tongue. The gun handle, as thick as a child's arm, was clearly engraved with two seal characters: Hegemon! Isn't this the Broken Array Hegemon Gun of Xiang Yu, the Overlord of Chu? Who else would dare to be called Hegemon besides Xiang Yu? The weapon on the right side of the rack made Ao Lie want to bang his head against the ground to see if he was dreaming. It was a sword, a typical Western Han dynasty broadsword with a frosty blade that gave off a chilling aura. The hilt was decorated with seven-colored precious pearls, and the body of the sword was a deep red color, as if it had drunk its fill of human blood. Moreover, two characters were engraved on the nine-hua jade: Chi Xuan! What kind of joke is this? Is this really the legendary Red Awe-inspiring Sword that Liu Bang, the High Ancestor of Han, used to slay the White Snake and laugh at the nine provinces?
In Ao Lie's memory, this sword is the first divine sword of China that can be verified by history, except for the Xuan Yuan Sword of the legendary Yellow Emperor. Heaven and earth, am I dreaming? After Ao Lie slapped himself, he came to a conclusion: it hurts, so he wasn't dreaming.
Okay, Ao Lie painfully and happily accepted the reality in front of him, then shifted his gaze to the exquisite armor in the center of the stone room. This was a full-body armor, also made using the same technique as fish-scale armor, but its grade was obviously much higher than that of fish-scale armor. The golden light flashing from the armor leaves was enough to explain the problem. Ao Lie used all his thoughts and still couldn't count how many armor leaves this armor was made of, only roughly estimating that it must be at least 2,500 armor leaves or more, which was three times that of fish-scale armor, and even that was a high-quality one equipped for generals. On the back of this golden armor hung a snow-white cloak, which had remained spotless after over 2,000 years, making Ao Lie very curious. In addition, this golden armor had two other unique features: one was the shoulder guards on both shoulders, with the left shoulder guard shaped like a dragon head and the right shoulder guard shaped like a dragon tail, matching the fish-scale-like armor leaves in a way that made it seem like a golden dragon coiled around the armor; another notable feature was the face mask covering the helmet, only exposing the eyes, wrapping the entire face under the mask, which could be said to be defensive to the teeth. The face mask also had an ingenious design, with the entire mask shaped like a curled dragon's head, and the two dragon eyes were exactly where human eyes would be, making it seem like when wearing this mask, one would see things through these dragon eyes.
Ao Lie, driven by curiosity, gently lifted the covering mask, at which point a genuine smell of death rushed forth. Ao Lie instinctively dodged to the side, and a short arrow shot out from within the mask, accurately striking the position of Ao Lie's heart, instantly piercing his body and flying out from his back, bringing with it a trail of blood.
The fresh blood brought out by the short arrow fell on the golden armor, the Breaking Array King Gun and the Red Sky God Sword in front of the refining surface. The three strange treasures suddenly trembled spontaneously, slowly forming a stream of air, as if it were a black hole, then emitting a strong suction force, swallowing the injured Ao Lie inside. Afterwards, it gradually calmed down. The entire stone room returned to its silent state, as if no one had ever been here before. In the space, only a faint whisper remained: "It's over, we've lost Jingzhou..."
