With the silver dangling in front of him, the boy was so eager to offer up his entire family's wealth that he wanted to divulge it all. During the Western Han Dynasty, silver was incredibly precious, and even a small piece of silver could support his family's expenses for three to five years.
Therefore, the boy readily admitted that he had come down with the villagers. The entrance was the hole that had been struck by lightning.
"How many of you came down?" Sun Gui asked.
The boy scratched his head somewhat uncertainly. "Almost all the men in the village have come down, probably over a hundred. I was assigned to keep watch here, so I didn't go down with them."
"How long have you been down there?"
"It's been two days."
The Sun brothers exchanged a glance. If no one came out after two days, their chances of survival were slim. But they wouldn't say that, since the young man hadn't asked, had he?
“Brother,” Yan Qing suddenly interrupted, “I wonder what tools your villagers used when they went down there? Did they tell you anything?” She didn’t believe this man would just stay here foolishly for two days.
Sure enough, the boy's expression changed instantly; he smoothly switched to a worried look.
"It's strange, but I've tried to go down and investigate several times, but no matter what I do, I can't get into that king's tomb."
What does this mean? Why not just keep walking straight ahead?
The boy noticed her curiosity, but offered no explanation.
"You'll find out as you keep going."
The group looked deeper into the tomb passage again, but it was still pitch black and bottomless. Only the bamboo paintings that could be seen everywhere on the nearby walls proved that this was indeed the tomb of the King of Yelang.
After all, bamboo was the totem of the Yelang Kingdom, and golden bamboo was the unique symbol of the Yelang King. The fact that there is a painting made of golden bamboo here proves that this is indeed the tomb of the Yelang King.
But the boy's words added a touch of eeriness to the place.
The Sun family members stood there discussing for a while before Sun Qiang made the final decision.
"In that case, let's continue on." But just to be on the safe side, he instructed Yue Qi to take the boy with him.
The boy was naturally unwilling to be held hostage by the nameless man. However, he was outnumbered and outmatched, so he could only silently endure it.
As Yan Qing walked along the tomb passage, she kept a close eye on the murals on both sides. They depicted the great battles between the Yelang Kingdom and various enemies since its founding. Of course, without exception, the Yelang Kingdom emerged victorious in every single one of them.
She noticed that, besides bamboo, the most common motif on all the murals was a man wearing a red brocade robe with bamboo patterns and a bronze mask.
This person's appearance is quite peculiar. She looks as if she has two long horns on her head, and her hair is all tied up high. She looks a bit like a grandmother she saw in the movie "A Chinese Ghost Story" when she was a child.
This person not only appears in many war scenes, but also in many sacrificial and ritual scenes, he is always the one who is high above, the standard center of the crowd.
If she wasn't mistaken, this person must be the tomb owner, King Jinzhu Yelang.
Halfway through the mural's creation, it suddenly switched to another mode. Yan Qing could see that the King of Yelang, Jinzhu, seemed to have gradually faded from all public sacrificial occasions, becoming merely an accessory to certain people.
The murals here blur the faces of all those particular "certain people," making it impossible to identify them.
Then the mural suddenly stopped, and when it was put back together, it showed King Jinzhu Yelang, wearing a mask, being tied alive to a huge bronze door by a group of young men from the Wolf Fang gang.
He had a hole the size of a wrist in each of his four limbs, through which huge bronze chains ran, firmly gripping his body.
In the mural, below the bronze door, there is a cluster of flames burning fiercely; strangely, the flames are purple in color.
The flames reached the bronze door, which remained intact, but the King of Jinzhu Yelang, bound to it, seemed to be struggling in extreme pain. She could see that pain even through the mural.
What followed was much simpler. King Jinzhu Yelang, whose entire body was wreathed in purple flames, was carried, door and all, to a secluded valley and thrown directly into a huge bronze coffin that had been prepared beforehand.
Here, led by a high priest wearing an animal-head mask, several thousand people secretly conducted an unknown sacrificial ceremony. After the ceremony, the bronze coffin was covered with various talismans and then placed inside an even larger bronze coffin.
At the bottom of this enormous bronze coffin, there was an imposing azure dragon, its head and tail swaying, carrying the coffin as it flew deeper into the earth, eventually disappearing completely into nothingness.
Behind the dragon carrying the coffin, the high priest and thousands of people participating in the sacrifice all collapsed.
Further down, at the end of the mural, there is a completely pure black area, which is not surprising.
Strangely, at the edge of the black border, there was a ring of thick, almost impenetrable blood that blended seamlessly with the black color. It was almost invisible unless you looked closely.
The wall behind it had returned to its normal earthy yellow color and was polished very smooth, but there was nothing on it.
They walked another ten meters or so when suddenly the line in front of them stopped.
Sun Qiang looked at the tomb passage that had come to an end, and he was indeed quite puzzled.
Logically, the deeds of the tomb's occupant should usually be recorded in the rear chamber where the coffin is buried. This was the first time he had ever seen such items placed directly on either side of the tomb passage. Especially in the tomb of a king, it seemed quite eerie.
"Azure Dragon Carrying the Coffin—is this what Azure Dragon Carrying the Coffin is?" Wen Jiajia saw it too and couldn't help but mutter to herself. She wanted to ask the system in her mind, but the system was acting strangely this time, and didn't know anything at all.
Not just her, everyone present had their eyes on the last few murals.
Could the secret of the Azure Dragon carrying the coffin lie in this mural? But why would a mural appear here?
The tomb passage had come to an end, and ahead stood a high wall with obvious signs of human intervention; from any angle, it did not appear to be a way out.
The six members of the Sun family gathered together once again. Seemingly discussing something, Sun Qiang took out a small, exquisite mirror from his pocket and handed it to Sun Gui.
Sun Gui looked much more serious. The mirror in his hand looked very broken, with mottled and unclear surfaces.
In the next scene, all six members of the Sun family bit their fingers, and the blood dripped onto the mirror.
Yan Qing was somewhat surprised to find that the mirror had actually come to life.
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