A large-scale brawl once occurred in the Bloodline Withering Tomb...
Cheng Sizhou brushed off the dust on his hands, his expression suddenly darkening. "I have a bad guess. When Destan and his men arrived here, they must have encountered strong resistance from the Wu Clan. They came well prepared, and the Wu Clan might..."
"Is there no possibility of any cooperation? My mother told me that Chief Wu Heng is somewhat wavering. Her original intention was to use modern technology to protect the things left by her ancestors."
"There's a possibility of cooperation, but it's definitely not with Destan." Cheng Sizhou spread out his palm, holding the heart-shaped jade pendant. "The jade is the key. Whoever has the jade, Wu Heng wants to cooperate with them."
Wen Zichuan took the jade and sighed silently.
Wu Heng gave the jade pendant to Lin Hanzhen, but was wary of Wen Duo and did not tell him directly that it was the key to the ancient tomb.
As the clan leader, she hopes that one day, Lin Hanzhen will have completed his studies and return to the Wu clan, using the most advanced archaeological technology to conduct reasonable excavations and protect their ancestral heritage.
But who could have expected that nothing would develop as Wu Heng had predicted.
Wen Duo went to a foreign country, Lin Hanzhen resigned and returned home, and the jade pendant was broken into two pieces, becoming the only connection between her and her two children.
Wen Zichuan held the jade tightly, feeling that his coming here seemed forced, but in fact it was destined.
Not long after, there was a noise from the tomb passage. Cheng Sizhou pulled him up and followed the direction of the sound.
At the end of the mural gallery, there are two depressions on the left and right, which look like the natural shape of the mountain wall and are even more inconspicuous in dim light.
Cheng Sizhou squatted down and felt that the sound came from underground.
"Is it Officer Zhou and the others?" Wen Zichuan asked in a low voice.
"It should be." Cheng Sizhou protected him behind him.
The groping and knocking sounds stopped after a while, as if the knocker was also hesitating.
"Give me the jade." Cheng Sizhou stretched out his hand.
Wen Zichuan handed over the jade and watched him press his left middle finger on a depression in the ground. Then he held up the jade pendant and carefully pressed it in.
The familiar "click" sound rang out again, the mechanism moved, and a palm-sized floor tile popped out.
What is surprising is that this hole actually uses a mortise and tenon structure. After taking out one piece, the other pieces of different shapes can also be taken out one by one. Fortunately, Brother Zhou discovered the mechanism, otherwise it would be almost complete and there would be no clue.
"Officer Zhou--" Wen Zichuan shouted into the cave.
"Teacher Wen! Teacher Cheng!" Zhou Han held up his flashlight and waved upwards. "It's over two meters high, and it's not easy to climb. Why don't you jump down and we'll catch you!"
Cheng Sizhou stopped Wen Zichuan who was about to jump down. Although Zhou Han said that he must have made sufficient preparations, he was still worried about Zichuan's safety.
"I'll go down first." He sat at the edge of the cave and jumped down.
"Brother Zhou?" The cave entrance was focused with light, and Wen Zichuan, who had been in the darkness for too long, was suddenly dazzled.
"Come down, I'll catch you." Cheng Sizhou landed with the support of Zhou Han and Han Zhao, then turned around and raised his hands high.
Wen Zichuan's vision was blurred, but he calmed himself down and jumped down in one go.
Perhaps because the impact was too forceful, their noses bumped against each other, and since the nose bones are soft, their lips and teeth just touched.
This was purely an accident and nothing serious.
But after Wen Zichuan came down, he found that the Liu brothers had prepared two super bright mining lamps, one on the left and one on the right, shining towards them. He and Brother Zhou kissed in front of the audience as if they were on stage.
Han Zhao's eyes widened. He knew it was an accident, but if Wen Zichuan hadn't shyly shrank into Cheng Sizhou's arms, he would have always believed that they were just very close friends.
"Ahem." Zhou Han deliberately interrupted, "You two should eat something first to recover your strength, and then we can share our respective discoveries."
Liu Yufu handed over a few plastic bowls, which turned out to be filled with stewed canned vegetables and white rice. After several days of eating dry food, anyone who smelled this aroma would make the glutton in their stomach growl loudly.
Wen Zichuan had just swallowed when he saw someone lying at Liu Yufeng's feet.
Xiao Liang was tied up like a dumpling with a safety rope, leaning against the stone wall, his black and white eyes staring straight at him.
To be precise, he was staring at his own bowl.
"Brother Liu, how about you give him some too?" he said.
"Give what?" Han Zhao was so angry that he blew his beard and glared. "This kid was playing tricks on us and almost broke my leg! How can he eat? He's starving to death!"
Xiao Liang seemed to understand, turned his head away, and quietly ground his back teeth.
"Time is running out. I'll tell you while you eat." Zhou Han remained calm and composed. "Yesterday, after we passed through the fog, we saw a river. Not far from the river was a village, or rather, the remains of a village."
When they found themselves separated from Cheng and Wen, they left Zhou Han and Liu Yufu to make a fire and cook, while Han Zhao and Liu Yufeng returned to look for them.
Han Zhao brought a special whistle, which was loud and far-reaching, and used it as a means of communication between the two.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he returned to the dense forest, he found movement in the bushes not far away. He blew the whistle to confirm that it was not Liu Yufeng, but if it was Cheng or Wen, they would definitely make a sound.
In terms of criminal investigation, Han Zhao and Zhou Han were both engaged in trace analysis. Based on his experience, he judged that this kind of mysterious trick was almost the same as what they did in Maoeryan.
Although he couldn't determine whether there were other people in the mountains besides Xiao Liang, the other party's purpose should be to prevent them from entering the village.
Han Zhao picked up a few stones and threw them at the shaking bushes.
Sure enough, a row of crude animal traps immediately sprang up from the ground and caught the flying stones!
It is obvious that this is a man-made mechanism, but in terms of sophistication and precision, it is very similar to the hunting methods of primitive people, and is completely not on the same level as today's industrialized mechanical tools.
Since there is a mechanism ahead, there is no need to move forward.
Han Zhao wanted to retreat, but at the critical moment, he noticed that a loose rope on the tree suddenly tightened!
So there is more than one mechanism!
The other party predicted his prediction, the next trap is behind him!
Han Zhao picked up his hiking stick and smashed whatever appeared first.
He looked up and judged by the tightness of the rope. In fact, what was spinning out was a row of small arrows made of sharpened bamboo.
Fortunately, there was a slanting branch nearby. He hooked the branch with his trekking pole and used the force to jump up!
Most of the arrows were dodged, but one was not able to dodge and it scratched a hole in his pants.
When it was hanging in the air, he understood why the arrow was only at knee-to-thigh height, because it was not meant to be used against people.
This also explains why they didn't encounter any large wild beasts along the way.
Liu Yufeng and Han Zhao were walking in different directions and also heard some movement in the forest. He had dealings with the villagers and knew that there were ferocious beasts lurking in the depths of Longji Mountain, so he prepared a tranquilizer gun in advance.
Xiao Liang was busy operating the mechanism to deal with Han Zhao, and Liu Yufeng quietly got around him from behind and hit him with one shot.
Veterinary anesthetics have significant toxic side effects on humans, but Xiao Liang took action first, so he had no choice but to resort to this last resort.
The two men met up, tied up Xiao Liang, and returned to the river to meet the other two.
They speculated that Xiao Liang appeared twice, first pretending to be a ghost, and then using traps to attack. Those methods were extremely primitive and crude, mostly to make them give up.
Cheng Sizhou and Wen Zichuan were determined to get to the bottom of what happened back then, and they would not back down even if it was difficult.
The two teams got separated. Instead of searching blindly in the woods, it was better for them to head towards their common destination.
Moreover, when Xiao Liang was captured, his tattered clothes were half wet, so it was very likely that he had gone into the river. But why did he go into the river? Could it be that he was chasing Cheng Sizhou and Wen Zichuan?
Zhou Han's inference was basically consistent with Han Zhao's. For safety reasons, they set up camp by the river, made a fire and released smoke. If Cheng Sizhou and Wen Zichuan did not show up, they would wait until daybreak to continue looking for them.
"The safety rope broke. Was it Xiao Liang who did it?" Wen Zichuan asked.
"I don't know, maybe the quality is simply bad." Han Zhao waited until he put down the bowl before saying, "Do you two... feel uncomfortable in your stomach?"
"You have a stomachache?"
"We've all been eating the same thing these past few days. Yesterday, the four of us had stomach upsets at the same time. We couldn't do that in front of you...right? Who would have thought we'd get separated after that?"
Cheng Sizhou recalled: "Is it Dr. Mo's fried mushrooms? I didn't eat that."
He arrived at Mutao Town early and had already eaten mushrooms for several meals. The cold oil was a bit greasy for him.
"Although I ate it, I didn't have diarrhea," said Wen Zichuan.
"Maybe your physique is different. You... have had a fever all night." Cheng Sizhou looked at him.
"Oh, okay." Thinking of last night, Wen Zichuan blushed.
"Is it food poisoning?" Han Zhao stared at Liu Yufeng. This old guy specializes in the supply and marketing of mushrooms. Couldn't he tell whether the bag given by Mo Ming was poisonous or not?
"They're all common edible fungi," Liu Yufeng said, unable to bear the blame. "Besides, mushroom poisoning isn't that simple. It can cause vomiting and diarrhea at the mildest, hallucinations, organ failure at the worst..."
Han Zhao was still arguing with Liu Yufeng about whether they were collectively poisoned or there were other reasons.
However, because of the word "hallucination", Wen Zichuan remembered the unusual and extremely real dream.
Dreams are not necessarily true, but Brother Zhou gave him a different feeling. He seemed to become particularly concerned about himself. Even during meals, he would quietly look up at him.
It was as if there was a Shi Cheng living in his body, and he looked at himself the same way Shi Cheng looked at Wu Wen.
Zhou Han pulled Cheng Sizhou aside and said, "I have a discovery. You should be mentally prepared."
Cheng Sizhou said, "Hmm," "Go ahead, I have no problem."
Zhou Han squatted down and used disposable chopsticks to draw the plan structure of the ancient tomb on the ground.
They entered the ancient tomb from the main gate, passed the front room and the middle room, and saw the side chambers. If Wen Zichuan had not been quick-witted and thrown down two mineral water bottles, they would not have thought that there was a hidden space above the middle room.
"There were quite a few scratches on the stone walls where we passed." Zhou Han opened the photo album on his phone and showed him the pictures one by one. "They were from cold weapons."
Cheng Sizhou looked at him, and they both thought that there were only scratches but no bullet holes, which meant that a large-scale fight had occurred when the ancient tomb was robbed.
The result of the fight is self-evident: Destan won, the witch tribe lost, and all the cultural relics were stolen.
Cheng Sizhou breathed rapidly and clenched his fists.
Back then, Zhang Hongliang, as the leader of the archaeological team, opened the door to thieves and exchanged the lives of the Wu clan for his academic achievements and industry status. This is simply shameless and cruel!
"Actually, it's very difficult." Han Zhao suddenly said after hearing the conversation.
"What's so difficult?" Cheng Sizhou asked with a frown.
Han Zhao had only recently begun to understand the tomb robbery case, so he paid close attention to the details. "Whether it's killing people or transporting a large number of burial objects, it's difficult. Especially since they wanted to keep a low profile, I don't think there would be too many vehicles or people."
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