Chapter 11

“What the hell happened? How can he have spots of livor mortis on his skin if he’s not dead yet?”

The livor mortis appears once the heart stops circulating blood after death, leaving the skin with a purplish red color at the lower part of the corpse when it’s lying down. Zhang Jun said that Lin Hongxing was still alive, but how is it possible for his blood to stop circulating and form the livor mortis on his body if he’s not dead yet?

It’s unbelievable!

“I don’t know, I don’t know the specific situation.” Zhang Jun was supposed to be in charge of cleaning up unearthed objects with Li Guoxian and a few fellow post-graduate colleagues at the campus today. However, half an hour after Li Guoxian arrived at 7:30 in the research lab, he received a phone call. As soon as the call ended, Li Guoxian hurried to ask Zhang Jun to buy him a ticket to Beijing.

“Professor Li, before going to Beijing, said that he wasn’t very clear about what had happened, but it was something about Lin Hongxing. He said that all of a sudden, Lin Hongxing woke up from the coma one night. The injury in his head had reopened, and he would act weird, scaring people to death, behaving like a madman! However, since yesterday….” After a pause, Zhang Jun continued: “Lin Hongxing suddenly fell into a coma again, and the livor mortis spots appeared on his body at a very fast speed, from his arms to his chest. The area that the spots covered on the skin gradually spread, while the skin where the spots appeared also began to show signs of necrosis ¹ ….”

“Necrosis? Is there no way to control it? If things go on like this, it’s only a matter of time before Lin Hongxing….”

All the archeologists who had slowly gathered were invariably puzzled.

“Wasn’t it said that he was stable?”

“Yeah, I heard that his life was not in danger anymore. What happened all of a sudden?”

“It’s impossible for the livor mortis to appear when someone’s not dead!”

The progressively heated discussion between the archeologists made the supposedly quiet, early morning on the Mountain become very noisy.

Qin Cheng didn’t say anything else. Sadly, he was the one whose mood was the most complicated.

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Jiang Bo died, and now something strange has happened to Lin Hongxing. All these sudden changes were something that he, a young 25-year-old man, couldn’t explain. He felt as if he was lost in the deep mist of the mountain, feeling too afraid to decide if he should go ahead or stay in his place.

Why did this have to happen? Qin Cheng knew that the answer to all these mysteries was hidden deep inside the tomb: Who was buried underneath the mountain Mausoleum? How many secrets were buried there?

But most importantly, everything they’ve suspected and want to know is….

“Hey, look over here! I’ve found a golden cup!!!”

Before Qin Cheng could think about the problem of the tomb further, the shout of Luo Siyuan, who had been working in the deep part of the tunnel, caused everyone to run towards the tunnel entrance.

Luo Siyuan bowed his back and carefully held the golden cup, wiping away the dirt with his fingers to reveal the intricate and exquisite embossed dragon pattern on the body of the cup. As he hurriedly walked towards the entrance of the tunnel, he said: “Look! This is the golden cup! It has dragon patterns! This tomb really is the Mausoleum of an Emperor!”

This news was undoubtedly exciting for the archeologists who have been here for many years. Even though they were basically sure that this was the Mausoleum of an Emperor, there wasn’t any evidence to prove it. Only the Emperor can drink from a golden cup with a dragon pattern, which means that this really is an Imperial Mausoleum!

Qin Cheng quickly ran over to Luo Siyuan and took the golden cup from his hands. The golden cup was about a palm wide, and although it was covered in dust, it still couldn’t hide its dazzling brilliance, shining brightly in the morning light, despite being thousands of years old. After carefully cleaning the dirt from the cup, the narrow lines of the dragon were revealed. It had red gemstones embedded in the eyes of the dragon, which stood with its head raised as its large mouth roared towards the Heavens as if it was provoking them. As if it wanted to be the enemy of the Heavens, but also as if it was playing a funny game with the Heavens. It looked so realistic….so amazing.

Qin Cheng looked over at the bottom, inside, and outside of the cup. His initial joy gradually disappeared, replaced by a tight frown: “This cup has no inscription, it should be an item commonly used by the owner of the tomb.”

After saying this, Qin Cheng looked over to where Luo Siyuan had just taken out the golden cup: “Before we could even reach the coffin chamber, we found burial objects from the tomb owner scattered everywhere.” Qin Cheng also thought about the jade pendant that he had picked up that night, and given this situation, Qin Cheng was even more certain of his initial guess.

“The tomb has probably been excavated before by grave robbers.” The words that Qin Cheng had said had also been thought of by the staff present. Since such precious items were scattered outside the coffin chamber, there were only two possibilities. One possibility was that the ancients had accidentally left some items on the road while sending the owner of the tomb inside it. However, even if some objects were left behind, this wasn’t the correct location. The objects should have been left on the other side of the grave. Excluding this possibility, surely this golden cup had been accidentally dropped when grave robbers were escaping after taking too many grave goods.

Judging from past archeological history, generally, the tombs that have been excavated by grave robbers were left with few treasures behind, only the heavy bronze objects and ceramics remained. Unfortunately, there won’t be much left behind if this tomb was actually robbed….

At the thought of this, Qin Cheng, who became irritated, asked Zhang Jun, who was preparing to go down the Mountain, to take Mr. Jiang back with him. Meanwhile, Qin Cheng stayed behind to discuss the next countermeasures with Wu Hai, Luo Siyuan, and a few other senior professors, who had just arrived.

Sitting on the floor, Professor Liu took a lighter and lit a cigarette, but then he forgot to smoke. He analyzed the situation and then said: “The tomb was certainly dug by grave robbers, if we go forwards a little further, we might even find the hole the grave robbers used in the first place.”

“Ah… it’s a shame, they must have taken so many treasures. I don’t know if I can say for sure that when we excavate this tomb, we only find it empty.” Luo Siyuan sighed and said with a smile: “Will this be a waste of effort?”

“It will only be a waste of effort not to dig down!” Wu Hai spitted the words. “At least we must find out which Emperor is buried here.”

“Yes, we need to find out who the owner of the tomb is. Qin Cheng, what do you think?”

Taking off his glasses, Qin Cheng’s fingers pinched the bridge of his somewhat sore nose. “Dig it down, we don’t even know who the owner of the tomb is. How can we not do it?”

“Go on then, pay attention while excavating later. If you find the hole where the grave robbers got in, there might still be some treasures left behind.” Professor Liu smiled. He raised his hand to take a smoke of his cigarette but found that the cigarette had already burned out. This little incident caused the people around to burst into laughter.

The excavation work continued like usual, however, this time the archeologists took the lead, with the helping workers busying themselves with carrying soil and stones on their backs.

Soon, the tunnel used by the grave robbers was found. Because it had been so long since it had been excavated, a lot of soil had collapsed, covering the tunnel completely. It would have been very difficult to find it if they had not paid enough attention.

Following the direction of the tunnel used by the grave robbers, Qin Cheng carefully searched for the items that might have been left behind. Thus, almost half a day of hard work had almost come to an end. The hot sun was setting on the horizon, and Qin Cheng hadn’t been able to find any treasure. Instead, he found two dead bodies in the tunnel. These two corpses were almost completely decomposed, so the archaeologists were able to estimate that these bodies were at most a few hundred years old.

People who were ready to leave after finishing their work rushed over to see the bodies. Professor Liu smiled at such a situation: “This must be the result of the tomb robbers fighting in the tunnel. Imagine this situation, these people teamed up to rob a tomb, but the first one to leave had the idea to monopolize the treasure, so killing the rest inside the tunnel was a piece of cake. What do you think?”

“Money and profit, I guess the thought of dividing it equally was something that these people would be hesitant about.” Wu Hai agreed.

“No.” Qin Cheng, with a flashlight shining on his helmet, was busy using a towel to wipe off a patch of soil that he had just accidentally glimpsed. Soon, dozens of gold and jade artifacts were revealed!

“The group of grave robbers, I guess….” Looking at the treasures in front of him, and then at the corpses beside him, Qin Cheng suddenly felt his scalp become numb. “I guess the whole group died…”

Not a single grave robber could take anything away from this Mausoleum….

Ahhhhhhh so exciting!! One thing I really love about this novel is the last paragraphs of the chapters~ they’re such good cliffhangers! When I was reading it for the first time, the way the chapters ended made me feel “aaahhh I need to know, another chapter and then I’ll go to sleep for real”… And this is why I finish it in 3 days _(:3 」∠)_

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(ू•ᴗ•ू❁)

Footnotes

<ol><b>坏死</b> <b>huài sǐ</b> ; which Is a form of cell injury which results in the premature death of the cells in an organ or tissue due to disease, injury, or failure of the blood supply.</ol>