Chapter 56: The Mausoleum of Chu State's Duke Zheng

  I didn't expect that I and Lao Da stayed on the mountain slope for so long, by the time we returned to the campsite, it was already dark. Cao Ke Rui wiped his hands and ran towards me.

  "I'm back, dinner is ready and waiting for you"

  I looked at Lao Da, and Lao Da nodded solemnly with a tragic expression.

  I had a crying face 'Hmm, I'm also hungry'

  The three of us held disposable bowls and chopsticks, staring at the stuff in the pot, hesitant to make a move.

  Lu Huan held his chopsticks and stared straight at the pot, using his knee to push me. "It's okay, you come, I've eaten, won't die."

  I hesitated and picked up a pair of chopsticks, blew it cool, then put it in my mouth. I had only chewed twice when I stopped moving. It was too salty, like eating a piece of salt.

  Cao Ke Rui looked at me with an expectant face 'How is it?'

  I swallowed the food in my mouth and said 'it's okay, just a bit salty'

  Cao Ke Rui immediately smiled and said 'I told you it's not that hard to eat, I was previously cooking and being teased by Lu Huan and Lao Da, but you're good' after finishing, he wrapped his hands around my arm.

  I was startled and quickly pulled out my arm with embarrassment, while Lao Da and Lu Huan were holding back their laughter on the side.

  Cao Ke Rui continued to put food into my bowl, muttering "Luckily I didn't cook instant noodles, I was afraid you wouldn't like it"

  "Do you have instant noodles?" I seem to be a demon who hasn't finished practicing and heard that Tang Monk is passing by.

  Cao Ke Rui was taken aback 'Yes, yes'

  I threw down my chopsticks 'I want to eat instant noodles'

  Didn't you just say this dish is fine?

  "It's not good, it's unpalatable." Under the temptation of instant noodles, I can only tell the truth. If it were normal times, I would try to maintain my gentlemanly demeanor, but now that I haven't had a proper meal in a day, politeness can no longer sustain me.

  Cao Ke Rui was stunned for a moment, also threw down his chopsticks, hummed and went to get instant noodles with a huff.

  Lu Huan and Lao Da, thanks to me, finally had a full meal.

  As expected, this is what humans eat. We wolfed down the food and drank all the instant noodle soup. After dinner, we sat together chatting. Lu Huan asked me how my family was doing. Before I could answer, Cao Ke Rui gave him a hard hit.

  "Which pot doesn't boil, lift which pot."

  I smiled and said, "As Lao Da would say, it's been twenty years since I last saw my grandfather, there's no need to be so sad that I still can't recover after all this time."

  Lu Huan nodded 'That's great'

  "Huh?"

  Lu Huan realized he had misspoken and quickly waved his hand, "I didn't mean that, I meant to say it's great that you've recovered from your emotions now. Not your grandfather."

  I looked at Lu Huan's awkward appearance and couldn't help but laugh. Lu Huan touched his head in embarrassment, ending the topic.

  The four of us sat in a circle, with a bonfire in the middle, chatting and laughing for a long time. I wanted to speak up several times about what happened in Northeast China, but each time I swallowed my words back down.

  Constantly fanning the fire with branches, thinking and rethinking in his head, he still decided to wait for an opportunity to speak again.

  "What's the plan for tomorrow?" I asked.

  The boss threw the branch in his hand into the fire heap and patted his hands: "Tomorrow, Kui will watch the house, and the three of us will go up the mountain."

  After chatting for a while, we started yawning involuntarily. To nourish our spirits and store up energy, we went back to the tent early to sleep.

  I lay in the tent, tossing and turning for a while, I don't know what I was thinking about, anyway my mind was very messy. Looking at my phone, there were still no reminders from electricity. Instead, my mom sent me two text messages, asking how my body recovered.

  I quickly replied with a few lines and then turned off the phone to sleep.

  The next morning, the three of us packed our gear and headed up the mountain.

  Sounds very professional, but in fact our equipment is nothing more than a shovel probe, also known as the Luoyang shovel. There are also metal detectors, direction compasses and quadrant compasses, etc.

  Luoyang shovel was originally used by grave robbers. In the 1920s, an archaeologist with the surname Wei saw a grave robber using a Luoyang shovel and thought to himself, "Hey, this thing is pretty good." It wasn't until then that the archaeological community began using Luoyang shovels.

  It's not surprising that ordinary people are skeptical of us. The tombs we're excavating now are all leftovers from tomb robbers. Even the things we use are leftovers from others. Not to mention these tools, but even our control over the tomb sites is far behind others. Of the ten tombs we've excavated, nine are empty, and most have been looted clean. The truly valuable items have either been sold or destroyed. It's not surprising that treasures can't get good protection - it's just that we're always one step behind others.

  After walking for half a day, we finally reached the top of the mountain. The boss pointed down and said "Take a look, isn't it missing a source of water?" I'm not an expert in Feng Shui, but someone in this line of work can't be completely clueless. As I looked around, this mountain was indeed a place where the dragon was missing its source of water.

  Dragon, cave, sand, and direction are all very good feng shui, but the water is not even a little bit involved.

  The identity of the tomb owner we previously determined is a Gongzheng of the Chu State. What is a Gongzheng? Simply put, it refers to someone who builds houses for the emperor.

  At first, when using a metal detector to survey, the data showed amazing results. Whether it was the scale of the tomb, Feng Shui, or the number of metals in the tomb, everything indicated that this was a large tomb. At that time, everyone was very excited.

  Our first trench was dug in the wrong place, and Elder didn't go far before he realized something was off. He hastily ordered a second trench to be dug. In the second trench, we found a broken tombstone with the brief inscription "Chu Guo Gong Zheng, buried here". Elder's heart sank halfway.

  Fairness is not a big official, generally speaking, there shouldn't be anything worth studying or any treasure below.

  The words on this tablet mean 'there is nothing below, don't bother' in our eyes.

  A team of people's hopes were dashed. We all fantasized about being able to unearth a large tomb like the Mawangdui. In bigger terms, making a historic contribution to national archaeology. In smaller terms, with this discovery, one's own name can also be left in the archaeological world.

  But the reality poured a bucket of cold water on us, although it's not empty-handed, but almost.

  But if this is indeed a dragon's lair, then the situation would be entirely different.

  To know, Long Que is not a place where just anyone can be buried. To be buried in Long Que, one must first have an extraordinary fate that matches the feng shui of Long Que. Secondly, this person must have a certain amount of material wealth and financial resources. Because finding Long Que is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task, the tomb owner needs to have the financial resources to find a top-notch feng shui master to help them find a burial site.

  No matter which sect, it is not a small condition for justice to possess. So I guess, there must be another grave on this mountain. We were all misled by the grave of that justice, and after discovering it, we didn't continue to explore, but instead focused on digging up this grave.

  The best way to hide something is not to smear it, but to cover it. When people's spirits are highly concentrated, their attention also drops to the lowest point. According to the same principle, when our attention is all focused on that small public grave, naturally there is no attention left to discover whether there are any other secrets on this mountain.

  We walked slowly down from the top of the mountain, missing no details along the way. Including the types of plants, changes in soil, not letting go of any information.

  Most of the plants on the mountain are cedars. The tallest ones have more than 20 meters, blocking out the sky and sun.

  Cedar wood is a very common timber in the current building materials market, shipbuilding, furniture, and generally use cedar. The texture of this wood is straight and relatively easy to process, plus it's not expensive, so it's more popular.

  Forestry is also one of the many industries in Zhangjiajie apart from tourism industry.

  I looked at this dense cedar and couldn't help but reach out and touch it. The trunk was straight as a pen. "This wood has grown really well."

  "This place is like this, with outstanding people and a wonderful land, everything grows well"

  The three of us walked in the lush forest, and the mountain forest was shrouded in a thick fog in the morning, as if it had covered the entire forest. Mysterious and gloomy, how many secrets were hidden in this forest? The guesses that Lao Da said, were they finally verified to be true, or were they just guesses after all? At this moment, I didn't know either.

  I didn't expect to be connected to Maoer Mountain, and this banquet was just an appetizer for me. It wasn't until later that I began to take the word "fate" seriously. It turned out that I was destined to be drawn into this story, sooner or later, with no change in probability.