Chapter Eight: The Valley

  Liu Qi led the team to follow Kechi's rope and walked into the mountain crevice. The inside of the mountain crevice was rugged and winding, with wider areas being easier to pass through, but narrower areas only allowing one person to squeeze through sideways. Occasionally, weathered rocks would fall from above.

  Not far away, I saw the body of an Italian soldier lying on the road, with a large boulder that had obviously fallen from the top of the mountain quietly lying beside him. The steel helmet and head were severely deformed, poor guy.

  Liu Qi stopped in his tracks and tore off the soldier's tag from this soldier's chest. Then he said to the person next to him, "Take down this soldier's name, so that his mother can know the news of his sacrifice. Remember to tell his mother that he didn't feel any pain when he died."

  Yes, who doesn't have a mother. Who wouldn't want their mother to know about them. A child travels thousands of miles and the mother worries. Especially on this battlefield where guns and cannons are blind. The Italian soldier next to me couldn't help but get teary-eyed when he saw this.

  Liu Qi continued on his way, following the rope left behind by Keji. At this time, the light from the crack above also gradually disappeared, and the front became a complete cave. Except for the torches still lit in the team, everything else was pitch black. And Liu Qi's figure with firm footsteps slowly rose high in the eyes of the soldiers. The originally low morale of the team seemed to have been injected with a stimulant, as if it had suddenly burst out with spirit.

  Liu Qi felt that the white dots that were originally mixed in the team had basically all disappeared, leaving only a black and gray light band. Liu Qi knew that the current troops were truly listening to his command. He couldn't help but feel secretly excited. Even the darkness's oppression and disturbance of Liu Qi had lessened a lot.

  No one spoke, and Liu Qi was also walking forward with a high and low pace while feeling the infantry radar in his mind. He didn't know how long he had walked when he felt that the vanguard at the very front had stopped.

  Kaiqi came to Liu Qi's front with a torch. "Colonel, the ground ahead is all quicksand and can't be crossed at all. The two soldiers in the very front just stepped on it and sank in. Fortunately, the ropes on their bodies saved them."

  "Huh? I'll go take a look up front." Liu Qi said, and then followed Keqi to the very front of the group.

  The surface of the flat sandy ground didn't show any signs of danger at all. Liu Qi picked up a fist-sized stone and threw it onto the sand in front of him. The sand seemed to come alive, slowly swallowing the stone bit by bit until it was completely gone, leaving no trace behind, and the sand returned to its original flat state.

  Liu Qi felt a bit dizzy at this point. However, Liu Qi was after all an engineering college graduate and had mixed with the construction team for more than half a year. Solving this problem was not a big deal. Liu Qi asked the soldiers to use steel nails to form a zigzag pattern on both sides of the rock and then connect them with ropes, finally laying wooden planks on top. People walking on the plank swaying back and forth made Liu Qi think of the small suspension bridges he used to walk on in the park when he was young.

  The marching speed in the dark was not fast to begin with, and it became even slower while building bridges. Liu Qi's heart was anxious but his face didn't show a hint of it. Fortunately, the quicksand area was only a few hundred meters long. The bridge-building soldiers ahead were also exhausted and panting heavily.

  "Rest for an hour on the spot. Eat something and then move on." Liu Qi saw that if they continued to march, the soldiers' physical strength would not be able to keep up, so he gave the order.

  As soon as Liu Qi finished speaking, regardless of whether it was the German soldiers or the SS soldiers, they all sat down on the ground with a whoosh. They took out their rations and clear water and started eating hastily. You think about it, from gathering at night and marching on foot until morning, being both tired and hungry is not an exaggeration at all.

  At this time, the party guard next to Liu Qi also took out food for Liu Qi. Liu Qi took a look and it was just some bread and dried meat. So Liu Qi's first meal after crossing over was held in this mountain cave of death valley.

  After having breakfast, Liu Qi took a short rest. Then he led his men to start their new march. This time there was no quicksand terrain, but Liu Qi felt that the terrain was getting lower and lower as they walked, with the rocks on both sides clearly showing the continuous change of fault rock layers. The road on the ground also changed from sandy land to muddy land, but the soil on the ground was very muddy. It seems that there is an underground river near here.

  It took six hours to walk, and the dark cave didn't feel like it was far away. In fact, Liu Qi only walked a few kilometers in the mountain cave, but there were no road signs, and the oppressive atmosphere made it impossible to distinguish the change of time and the length of the journey.

  "Commander, I see light ahead, they might have escaped quickly." a scout soldier shouted.

  Liu Qi's spirit lifted as he finally prepared to leave this haunted place. If they continued on, some people's spirits would likely collapse. Liu thought to himself as he quickened his pace.

  In the distance, the sound of rushing water grew louder and clearer. As Liu Qi approached the bright area, the sound of the water also became louder. Liu Qi thought to himself, "The map didn't show any rivers around here, how can I hear such a loud river?" Liu Qi arrived at the entrance of the cave and saw Keqi and a group of soldiers staring blankly outside, their eyes wide with wonder.

  As I looked up, a bucket-shaped valley appeared in front of me. Less than 200 meters away from the entrance, there was another entrance, but what flowed out of that entrance was all water, forming a waterfall that plunged straight down into the bottom of the cliff. At the bottom, there was a deep and bottomless cave. All the water flowed into this cave without stopping. Liu Qi and his group were now at the middle of the cliff, or more precisely, the waist of the cliff. Just below where Liu Qi stopped, there was a small path carved out of rock that wound its way down along the bucket-shaped stone wall.

  It seems that humans have been here before. The stone wall on the side is extremely smooth due to long-term erosion by water vapor.

  "Let's go, we're going down." Liu Qi said, and the group carefully made their way down along the small path. Everyone knew that if they fell from here, it would be a fatal disaster. After walking for an unknown amount of time, they finally reached the bottom. The opening in the sky had transformed into a bright, bowl-sized light. At the foot of the valley, near the stone wall, stood a stone house. The stone house was built with giant stones about one meter high, and the surface of the stones were carved with intricate patterns and texts.

  Liu Qi couldn't help but feel a little disappointed, originally thinking he was going to find a road that passed through here. Unexpectedly, he discovered an ancient stone house instead. Liu Qi asked Kechi "Do you know what the patterns and words on top mean?"

  "Middle school, I'm not sure," Kaito replied. "But I know someone who knows what it means. Right here in our team."

  "Oh! There's such talent, hurry up and bring them forward!"

  Kai Qi brought three Italian soldiers after a while. He said to Liu Qi, "Colonel, there are just three of them. Two of them are the Rosi brothers, and the other is Professor Curtis Lachey's disciple Philip Lonan from the Roman Museum. As for these two brothers..." Kai Qi whispered a few words into Liu Qi's ear.

  After listening to Kaito's words, Liu Qi couldn't help but sigh. The glorious profession of grave robbers really is everywhere in the world.

  Mussolini had always been dreaming of a great Roman Empire in the Mediterranean, extremely expanding his military. As a result, although the number of troops was extremely large, their quality was not commendable. The Roman Museum also wanted to take advantage of the occupation of other countries to plunder and steal cultural relics from other countries.

  Several teams consisting of archaeologists, history professors and professional tomb raiders were then assigned to the armies of all Italian-occupied countries in the Mediterranean. They were called Special Object Handling Teams, actually meaning tomb raiding.

  But the Italian army was indeed a rotten mud that couldn't be supported. When Germany invaded France and France lost, the Italian command wanted to take advantage of the situation and sent hundreds of thousands of troops to invade the rear of France. As a result, they were stopped by three French border regiments. The Italian North African battlefield also saw hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers being defeated by 30,000 British troops, almost to the point of being crushed.

  In the face of Mussolini's pitiful plea on the phone, "For the sake of the party and country, pull your brother out of this," Hitler felt a bit embarrassed and didn't want his old fascist and Axis ally to be cut down too much. So he dispatched Rommel with German troops to join the North African battlefield, which temporarily resolved Mussolini's crisis.

  Mussolini's great Roman Empire dream also dissipated with the Italian army's poor performance. He honestly picked up Hitler's rough retirement, reporting everything to Hitler morning and night. Hitler had both face and substance, and was naturally very satisfied. And Rommel, one of Hitler's early World War II dog generals, became the fastest-promoted military leader in World War II, also getting a big piece of cake. In just two years, he rose to Field Marshal, becoming a military god in the German army.

  Rommel, however, looked down on the Italian army from the bottom of his heart. During battles, he used the Italian army as cannon fodder, and when not fighting, he used the Italian army as laborers. So although Rommel was the commander of the North African Corps, in charge of the German-Italian allied forces, in the eyes of the Italian soldiers, Rommel was a person who did not receive their affection.

  Rommel was a hard-line preservationist and fundamentally disagreed with the Italian army's excavation of Egypt's pyramids. He even caught and arrested several members of special task forces. However, for older professors, Rommel let them off and did not detain them.

  Liu Qi looked at the three people who had already rushed to the stone house and were studying the text on the wall. He sighed, "It's really 'do one thing, love one thing'. These tomb robbers are so professional that they've even reached the level of archaeology."

  Looking at Liu Qi's teasing eyes, Kechi whispered again, "The Rosy brothers' family is renowned in the entire archaeological community. Their ancestors have found countless hidden secrets. In the 18th century, they participated in excavations of Egypt's pyramids, India's Taj Mahal, China's Dunhuang culture, and secret cities deep in South America's jungles. They possess countless treasures from ancient civilizations."

  "How did you know?" Liu Qi looked at Kechi with a puzzled gaze.

  "Hehe, they're all my younger brothers that I took under my wing in prison. If it weren't for me taking care of them, their days in prison would be very difficult." Kaito replied.

  Liu Qi was speechless.

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