Chapter 251: A Significant Gain

The octagonal dome, though small, was perfectly regular. Lin Sicheng arranged for four technicians to scrape the surface and also brought in an excavator to uncover the tomb passage.

This time it was even faster; in just half an hour, the excavator unearthed the tomb beam. After digging another seven or eight buckets, a stone gate with a simulated wooden structure appeared before them.

It was about ten feet high, and was sealed with bricks and stones, then covered with lime, making it as flat as a table.

On both sides are stone pillars, with a horizontal beam in the middle, and then brackets are erected on top, and tiles are covered on the brackets.

You could say this is exactly what the gates of ancient landlords looked like. It's just a stone imitation, lacking the vibrant colors of other gates, and mostly just gray.

After taking photos, drawing diagrams, and setting off a string of firecrackers, Lin Sicheng pried off the first brick. Then he handed it over to the technician.

Four people worked in an orderly fashion, one holding a shovel and the other a spade. The photographer filmed simultaneously, and the data clerk recorded the details in a timely manner.

Upon opening the tomb door, a long passageway, approximately twenty meters long, appeared, followed by another arched doorway.

The previously discovered tunnel was suddenly right above them, but Lin Sicheng still arranged for the inspection team to analyze the air composition.

There were basically no problems. After a little ventilation was provided, the technicians quickly set up the support structure, and several people entered the tunnel.

After looking around with his flashlight, Wang Qizhi's face was full of disappointment: the hole above his head was only as thick as a person's waist, but half of the archway had been completely torn off. Not to mention tomb raiders, even an elephant could be stuffed in there.

So, how many things are left in the tomb?

Lin Sicheng remained calm. After arranging for the technicians to dismantle the vaulted door and install protective measures, he picked up a flashlight and shone it onto the tomb wall.

The brick was made of bluish-gray material with molded and painted designs, but due to sudden ventilation and oxidation, the painted designs have completely peeled off, leaving only the molded patterns on the brick.

There are many styles, and they are printed very neatly. There are deer, turtles, cranes, lotus flowers, and peonies.

Lin Sicheng read through the rows one by one until he reached the very bottom. Suddenly, he squatted down.

Wang Qizhi and Sun Jiamu, not understanding what was going on, also squatted down. Upon closer inspection, they saw what appeared to be writing on the row of bricks below.

It appeared to have been soaked in water and become alkali-covered, making the inscription blurry and the characters incomplete. Lin Sicheng examined it while tracing the characters with his finger, piecing them together piece by piece, and it took him several attempts to decipher the general meaning: Buried in the third year of Chunhua.

"Buried in the third year of Chunhua... Chunhua was the fourth reign title of Emperor Taizong of Song, Zhao Guangyi. The first year of Chunhua was 900, and the third year was 902, meaning this tomb is now 1,106 years old..."

Halfway through his sentence, Wang Qizhi sighed: "It is indeed quite early. Although the tomb is not large, judging from the structure of the tomb door and the tomb chamber, the deceased was at least a wealthy landlord. The burial goods must have been plentiful, perhaps even more than Lin Sicheng had estimated."

The problem is, since it's already been robbed, no matter how many items were buried, how many will still be left?

After a moment's thought, the technician dismantled the vaulted door. Shining a light on it, sure enough, it was exactly as Lin Sicheng had described: the tomb chamber was square, about three meters long and wide, exactly nine square meters.

After looking closely for a while, Wang Qizhi's eyes widened: apart from a few bricks, there was nothing in the tomb chamber at all?

There was no coffin, no burial goods, not even bones. There were only a few blue bricks that the tomb robbers had broken down when they broke in.

But that's not right.

Even if the wooden coffin has been there for so long that it has turned to ash, surely not all the bones would have turned to ash; there should at least be a skull fragment remaining.

Even if someone were robbed, it's impossible for them to steal even the bones.

But there really isn't one; it's such a big place, there's no way you couldn't see it.

He stared at it for a while, even poking it with the probe, but as soon as it touched the ground, it made a "clang" sound.

There was a layer of mud left on the ground after it dried, but it was only a few centimeters deep, not enough to hold anything down.

So, this is an empty tomb?

"Where is the coffin?"

Lin Sicheng kicked the ground: "It's long since rotted to ashes!"

"What about the remains?"

"The tomb was repeatedly flooded, causing bacteria to multiply several times faster than normal. The bones had long since decomposed into ash. Even if anything remained, there would probably only be a few teeth!"

It got wet?

Wang Qizhi looked around and felt that something was wrong.

How could a tomb chamber that had been repeatedly flooded be so clean?

Thinking it over, the three continued walking inside. Further ahead was an archway leading to a smaller annex. Shining their flashlights through it, they saw tables, desks, and even statues—quite a few things, it seemed.

Wang Qizhi's spirits lifted: "Let's go in and take a look!"

Lin Sicheng nodded and followed Wang Qizhi with Sun Jiamu. Afraid of damaging the remains inside the tomb, the three of them entered the side chamber, keeping close to the tomb wall.

The three of them stood still, and when they shone their flashlights on each other again, Wang Qi's face fell once more.

There were quite a few items: a tomb guardian beast, a stone guardian, a stone incense burner, half a pottery jar, and several pieces of broken pottery.

But to be honest, Lin Sicheng came looking for the egg white jade porcelain, so what would he do with so many stone artifacts?

They must be utterly disappointed, right?

While he was pondering this, Lin Sicheng picked up a half-broken pottery jar and examined it inside and out repeatedly for several minutes.

Suddenly, he laughed again.

Sun Jiamu and Wang Qizhi were completely bewildered, so they went over to investigate.

"Was this fired in the Hejin Kiln?"

Lin Sicheng shook his head: "No, this should be a pottery piece from Xipo Town, which means that purple clay pottery was already being made there during the Song Dynasty!"

Wang Qizhi looked puzzled: "Then what are you laughing at?"

"I'm laughing at these tomb raiders: there should be two pairs of these pottery jars, and now only half a piece remains, which means the remaining three and a half pieces were all taken away. The saying goes, 'A thief never leaves empty-handed,' but it doesn't mean they'd take everything. This group of thieves didn't even leave behind the broken pottery jars? This style is comparable to Yang San (Yang Bin) from Shaanxi..."

What else?

Even if it's just a pottery jar, it's still a pottery jar from the Northern Song Dynasty.

Thinking it over, Wang Qizhi shone his flashlight on the object and asked, "Can you determine when it was stolen?"

"Yes!" Lin Sicheng pointed to the tomb robber's hole above the tomb passage: "Three years ago, within the last five years!"

Wang Qizhi and Sun Jiamu both sighed and remained silent.

Lin Sicheng could roughly guess what they were sighing about, and smiled again: "Although it's an empty tomb, the gains were actually quite significant!"

What did we gain?

The two looked at each other and then glanced around.

Is it the two stone figures, the tomb guardian beast, or the tomb bricks and walls, or this half-rotten pottery jar?

Just as he was wondering, Lin Sicheng looked at the wall and said, "Teacher, Director Sun, look!"

What's there to see? All you see are blue bricks, and more blue bricks.

Look here!

As he spoke, Lin Sicheng picked up the shovel and thrust it downwards. With a "whoosh," the shovel head sank diagonally into the brick wall.

Upon closer inspection, it had penetrated at least thirty or forty centimeters. Surely the wall couldn't be made of tofu.

Wang Qizhi looked suspicious, then a thought flashed through his mind, and he remembered what Lin Sicheng had just said: "This tomb has been flooded repeatedly..."

"The tomb chamber was flooded, and the stone walls were already brittle from the water?"

Lin Sicheng nodded: "Yes!"

"But where did the water come from? A flash flood?" Wang Qizhi squinted. "It doesn't look like it."

If it were a flash flood, the silt would have filled the tomb chamber long ago after years of accumulation.

"It wasn't a flash flood, it was river water!" Lin Sicheng pointed to the top of the tomb. "There used to be an ancient riverbed above the tomb!"

Wang Qizhi was stunned for a moment: What the heck?