This was the second time the doctor had seen the Boss coughing up blood. The sight this time was even more horrifying – the Boss was literally speaking while bright red blood flowed from his lips, even maintaining a perfect smile on his face. The horror level could rival any late-night terror movie.

The doctor was filled with regret. When they left the Master’s villa, he should have dragged the Boss to the hospital. Instead, he had taken a nap and forgotten all about it – how irresponsible of him! Though in truth, this couldn’t entirely be blamed on him. The Boss, staying in this sunless Mute House year-round, had always been pale as a patient, completely bloodless. There had been no prior warning signs, not even a hint of weakness or illness, making it easy to overlook his condition.

“Come on, let’s go to the hospital for a checkup! There’s one right nearby.” The doctor had no time to find excuses for his oversight. His heart racing, he grabbed the Boss and headed toward the door.

But the Boss didn’t move. Instead, he withdrew his hand, took out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his lips, and said flatly, “I can’t go to the hospital.”

“Why not?” The doctor was stunned by this response. When he turned back, he caught the bitter smile in the Boss’s eyes. The doctor cursed himself for being dense. After a long moment, he finally found his voice: “You… how have you lived so long? This coughing up blood – will it affect your body?” The doctor asked somewhat hesitantly. Although he had seen many strange and mysterious things in the Mute House – like candles supposedly unextinguished for hundreds of years, the Classic of Mountains and Seas that sealed divine beasts, and that white snake spirit he’d just encountered – he absolutely refused to believe the person standing before him, whom he’d known for several years, was some kind of monster.

The doctor recalled the few times he’d had physical contact with the Boss – his body temperature had always been unnaturally low, unlike a living person’s.

A cold draft blew through the poorly fitting door crack, causing the wick in the Changxin Palace Lamp to flicker, and the shadows of antique furniture on the walls swayed accordingly. Looking at the Boss’s unpredictable expression, the doctor felt no fear whatsoever. He didn’t retreat; instead, he took a step toward him.

Seeing the genuine concern in the doctor’s eyes, the Boss’s face showed uncontrollable surprise. Even the Master’s family, who had maintained ties with him for three generations, kept a respectful distance due to his unchanging appearance over the centuries. Yet the doctor, who had only known him for two or three years, showed even greater concern after learning he might be a two-thousand-year-old spirit.

Seeing that the Boss didn’t answer, the doctor began to grow anxious: “If it’s inconvenient to say, that’s fine. But I am a doctor – I might be able to help…”

Perhaps because he had poured out all his secrets today, the Boss, who had always carried these secrets as a heavy burden, felt much lighter and thought it wouldn’t matter to tell the doctor everything.

After all, he would soon be truly leaving.

The Boss placed the already half-cold teapot back on the red clay stove to reheat. “My master was originally an alchemist,” the Boss said quietly. The water in the pot soon began steaming, ethereal vapor rising from the spout before quickly dispersing in the cold air.

The doctor, being naturally talkative and not a particularly good listener, couldn’t help interrupting: “When Emperor Qin Shihuang burned books and buried scholars – no, buried alchemists – was your master implicated?”

The Boss shook his head. “My master was a very famous alchemist who disdained associating with those charlatans in the palace. After a year in the palace, he departed on a spiritual journey.”

Seeing the Boss’s face take on a reminiscent expression, the doctor knew he was thinking of his master and suppressed his urge to interrupt, waiting quietly.

Soon, the kettle on the stove began boiling. Only then did the Boss come back to his senses, pouring out the cold tea and brewing a fresh pot. The tea’s fragrance immediately filled the Mute House, invigorating the spirit.

“After the incident with the medicine-testing servant’s sudden death, Emperor Qin Shihuang didn’t abandon his pursuit of immortality. However, thereafter, when elixirs were presented, instead of using testing servants, the alchemists themselves had to test them first.” The Boss held his teacup without drinking, simply playing with it in his hands. “Before my master departed on his spiritual journey, he left behind two pills. Since he was nowhere to be found, as his disciple, I was the one who had to test them.”

The doctor froze, his hand holding the teacup stopping in mid-air. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You mean… you ate immortality pills? That’s impossible! How could there be immortality pills in this world?” The doctor was so excited he forgot he was holding a full teacup. Scalding tea splashed out, burning his hand, but he didn’t notice the pain as he continued waving his hand excitedly.

The Boss remained calm, reaching over to take the teacup from the doctor’s hand and set it down safely, preventing this precious Song Dynasty white glazed porcelain from being carelessly smashed to pieces.

“How is this possible? How is this possible?” The doctor unconsciously repeated this phrase. He had thought the Boss’s longevity might be due to some supernatural nature, but the reality was even harder to accept.

Just by taking some medicine? What medicine could grant immortality? The doctor absolutely could not admit that ancient alchemy was more advanced than modern medicine!

The Boss knew this was hard to believe, but he had indeed lived for over two thousand years. The Boss caressed the smooth, delicate glaze of the Song porcelain in his hands, thinking he probably counted as one of the antiques in the Mute House – and quite an aged one at that.

The doctor gradually recovered from his loss of control and began to realize this might be an invaluable opportunity to glimpse human secrets. The doctor suppressed his excitement, drained the remaining half cup of tea in one gulp, calmed his mind, and asked: “Boss, could you tell me in detail?”

Why not? The Boss felt the warmth of the hot tea in his palm and let his thoughts drift far away.

“After Fu Su was killed, General Meng Tian was unwilling to accept it and planned to lead troops back to Xianyang to demand an explanation from Hu Hai. I don’t know what happened to him after that – the history books say he took poison and committed suicide, but he was probably assassinated too.”

“What about you?” The doctor couldn’t help asking. The Boss was Fu Su’s closest study companion – Hu Hai certainly wouldn’t have spared him.

“Me?” A cold smile appeared on the Boss’s thin lips. “Though my father held no noble title, as part of Qin’s most ancient family, he could still detect the subtle signs in the imperial city. Before Hu Hai’s messenger reached the frontier, he sent someone with a family letter claiming he was critically ill. I hurried back to Xianyang, and as soon as I entered the house, my father locked me in a secret room. He only released me when Emperor Qin Shihuang’s funeral was held. That’s when I learned that Fu Su had already committed suicide.”

The doctor remained silent. Though the Boss’s narration was calm and steady, listening carefully, one could still detect the regret in his words. Had he returned to Xianyang a few days later, he might have been able to prevent Fu Su’s death, perhaps even changing subsequent history.

The teacup in the Boss’s hands had grown cold. He raised it to his lips for a sip, and the stale-tasting cold tea spread through his mouth, matching his complex emotions.

No one knew how shocked and enraged he had been when he saw the person sitting on the imperial throne.

He had countless times envisioned that crown representing imperial dignity adorning Fu Su’s head, had countless times imagined standing constantly by his side, witnessing the birth of a great emperor, together building an ideal, powerful nation – a Great Qin lasting ten thousand generations!

The Boss’s hands suddenly tightened around the teacup, causing the tea inside to ripple in circles before quickly settling again.

But all of this had become mere passing clouds. That crown, that jade seal – he had carefully hidden them in the depths of the Mute House, but sadly, no suitable master had appeared for them since.

The Mute House flowed with silence deep enough to drown in. After a long while, the Boss finally broke the quiet: “On the day of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s funeral, all the important court ministers went to Mount Li, but not many returned. I didn’t go back either.”

“Burial sacrifice? Using this to eliminate troublesome people? Hu Hai was truly cunning…” Seeing the Boss unconsciously touch his neck, the doctor finally understood the origin of that hideous scar.

The Boss nodded. “When I next awakened, I was in Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb. The wound on my neck had healed and stopped bleeding, but looking around, corpses were everywhere – like being in hell itself. Most of the bodies were people who had opposed Hu Hai, including my father… My father had endured humiliation his entire life and never would have imagined dying here so mysteriously. I carried my father’s body out of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb and buried him in our family cemetery. I thought that even in death, he wouldn’t want any connection with the Ying surname family.”

After finishing this account, the Boss paused again, pouring himself a cup of warm tea before continuing. After burying his father, he went to find Fu Su’s grave. How could Zhao Gao’s people have given him a proper burial? He traveled incognito all the way, finally finding a desolate grave mound near the frontier. He wouldn’t let Fu Su lie alone there – he dug him up and brought him back to Mount Li.

Emperor Qin Shihuang wasn’t actually buried in the magnificent mausoleum he had built during his lifetime – his remains were nowhere to be found. This was because his son Hu Hai wanted that grand mausoleum for himself.

During his lifetime, Emperor Qin Shihuang had most favored this youngest son, wanting to give him the very best of everything. But whether Emperor Qin Shihuang ever imagined that the Great Qin Empire he had built with his own hands would be crushed in his youngest son’s palm… Even the eternal resting place he had built for himself, Hu Hai had taken so matter-of-factly, without a moment’s hesitation.

The Boss found it ironic, a cold smile appearing at his lips. “So I buried Fu Su at Mount Li. Since he couldn’t be emperor of the Great Qin Empire in life, I wanted him to claim those hundred thousand terracotta warriors in death.”

These words rang with conviction, causing the doctor to look up at the Boss anew. He had always felt the vicissitudes in the Boss’s eyes didn’t match his youthful appearance, but now, hearing such passionate words burst forth, they brought some vitality to his features. One could imagine what kind of influential figure he must have been in the river of history.

The doctor had observed all of the Boss’s expressions and could naturally see his reverence for Emperor Qin Shihuang, so it wasn’t hard to understand his determination to achieve great things alongside Fu Su and see the Great Qin Empire rise.

Throughout history, the wise have been lonely. For someone with grand ambitions and exceptional talent to meet an appreciative ruler at the right time and place in their era is extremely difficult. Two thousand years ago, Gan Luo’s meeting with Fu Su was very fortunate. Fu Su was naturally gentle and benevolent yet intelligent – with proper cultivation, he would certainly have been a worthy ruler. With the extraordinarily gifted Gan Luo as his advisor, they surely could have achieved great things together.

But Hu Hai had easily destroyed it all.

The doctor could imagine the obsession with which the Boss began searching for Fu Su’s reincarnations after Fu Su’s death, hoping to reclaim the past and once again reach political heights with Fu Su, leading historical progress. But when he discovered that Fu Su’s reincarnations always died young, the search gradually became a responsibility, trapping him in an inescapable cycle for over two thousand years.

The Boss calmed his emotions, unwilling to say another word about Fu Su. Knowing the doctor was most curious about the immortality pill, he slowly said: “It was several years later that I noticed something was wrong with my body – not only did my appearance remain unchanged, but injuries would heal very quickly. After a very long time, I confirmed that eating my master’s immortality pill was probably what made me this way.”

The doctor perked up, leaning forward eagerly: “Are there usually any abnormal symptoms? Do you lose hair? Are there differences in other bodily functions? If only you’d let me examine your body – I guarantee I wouldn’t leak any information!”

The Boss smiled slightly. “I know you wouldn’t leak anything, but I haven’t stopped studying myself all these years. Perhaps without machine testing, I already know the reason.”

“Tell me quickly!” The doctor was nearly driven mad by suspense, sweating profusely with anxiety.

The Boss quite enjoyed this feeling of keeping someone in suspense, though it wasn’t intentional – the vocabulary in his mind needed organizing before he could speak clearly. After pondering for a moment, the Boss asked: “What causes human aging?”

“Aging cells.” The doctor immediately answered, hesitating whether to explain what cells were when the Boss had already continued. “A human is like a single cell – cells divide, then new cells grow. When the cell division rate slows below the rate of cellular aging, the human body enters old age. Is this explanation correct?” The Boss carefully chose his words.

“Correct.” The doctor nodded, feeling an indescribable sense of incongruity. Hearing modern medical terminology from the Boss felt as absurd as seeing the latest Apple computers sold in the Mute House.

“However, there are exceptions to such cells. Infinitely proliferating cells become immortal cells that never die.” The Boss narrowed his phoenix eyes.

“You mean… cancer cells!” The doctor’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you saying the immortality pill you took caused cancer? But shouldn’t that accelerate your death?” Normal cells have a maximum number of divisions – human cells can only divide fifty to sixty times in a lifetime. But cancer cells lose this maximum division limit and can divide almost infinitely, though human organs absolutely cannot withstand this.

“So the function of this red dragon robe is to suppress the cancer cells’ division rate, maintaining a delicate balance in the body’s cells so that organs neither age nor cease functioning.” The Boss touched the clothing that had accompanied him for two thousand years. “Since ancient times, it’s said that ‘gold and jade generate cold,’ preserving corpses from decay. This fabric is made from black gold and black jade threads passed down from ancient times, originally prepared for Emperor Qin Shihuang’s burial. During Emperor Qin Shihuang’s reign, some artifacts from the mythological age were collected, but in later dynasties, such divine artifacts became extremely rare – most were imitations. For example, the golden threaded jade burial suits in Han tombs were actually crude imitations.”

“May I… may I touch it?” The doctor swallowed hard. After the Boss nodded, he eagerly reached out. The fabric felt somewhat soft yet somewhat hard, with an ice-cold, bone-piercing temperature. The doctor guessed this fabric must contain some rare metal, producing weak radioactive substances that preserved flesh from decay. Previously, the doctor would never have believed the Boss’s words, but the mythological age was indeed a mysterious period that existed before feudal times. The Classic of Mountains and Seas could seal divine beasts and alternate dimensions – he had seen this with his own eyes. If a bamboo slip could cast spells, then fabric that could prevent decay wasn’t too far-fetched.

Unable to understand the principle, and knowing the Boss would know even less about such scientific questions and wouldn’t cut off a piece for him to analyze, the doctor could only feel around while asking: “So you haven’t taken off this garment for over two thousand years?” The doctor seemed enthusiastic – to him, the Boss was simply his dream research subject. He really wanted to strip off this clothing to study its material and examine the Boss’s body. If possible, he’d even like to personally touch that heart that had been beating for over two thousand years…

“Stop looking at me like that.” The Boss was certain that if the doctor had a scalpel in hand right now, he would unhesitatingly dissect him. “Taking it off for short periods is fine – at least sleeping without it doesn’t matter. This garment only needs to be nearby to function.” The Boss found the doctor’s questions amusing and bent his lips in good humor. In these two thousand years, he had rarely maintained such close contact with anyone. The doctor’s warm fingers seemed to penetrate the thin fabric to his skin, making his uncomfortable body feel somewhat better.

“This garment is styled like a zhongshan suit – two thousand years ago wasn’t this fashionable, right?” The doctor looked at the Boss’s standing collar and asked with a smile.

“During the Republic era, I saved the Master’s grandmother. The Master’s grandfather was a famous antique restorer at the time who helped me tailor the garment into this style. Unexpectedly, this style went out of fashion within a few years.” The Boss smiled self-deprecatingly. “Fortunately, wearing it now isn’t too strange – it’s better than wearing ancient costumes.”

“This dragon actually moves, doesn’t it?” The doctor’s hand hesitated near the red dragon’s body. The red dragon was embroidered so lifelike that even touching it made him nervous.

“During the Song Dynasty, this garment tore once. I asked people from the Imperial Embroidery Academy to help mend it. Every thread in this fabric has a specific arrangement. The Imperial Embroidery Academy people ultimately embroidered this red dragon over the tear. The thread used wasn’t ordinary thread either – it was soaked in my blood, which is why the dragon is deep red.” The Boss caressed the red dragon’s head resting on his shoulder with great nostalgia. “The tear ultimately wasn’t perfectly mended. Previously, it would only move position every few years, but recently it’s been moving once a day. I think it hasn’t drunk enough of my blood and is getting impatient.”

Blood still remained on the Boss’s fingertips from his recent coughing. The doctor watched helplessly as that drop of blood seeped into the fabric, the dragon’s head swam slightly, and its body seemed to expand a little. Only then did the doctor realize what was happening, looking down toward the Boss’s chest and abdomen.

The tear on the garment was quite large, with messy stitching on top – the Master’s handiwork from not long ago. Thinking of the Boss’s earlier blood-coughing, the doctor couldn’t help gasping: “Can’t this garment be damaged? Otherwise, even disrupting the thread arrangement would affect its function, right?”

Simply put, this red dragon robe was like an extremely precise circuit board – disrupting just a few wires would cause complete short-circuiting. Otherwise, the Boss wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to embroider this strange dragon when the tear first appeared. And since he said the garment could be removed briefly without problems, the only explanation for the Boss coughing blood so quickly was this.

The Boss smiled bitterly – he hadn’t planned to reveal this point. “After I die, if my body doesn’t decay quickly, you can handle it as you wish.”

The doctor stood stunned. Though he had fantasized about dissecting the Boss, that was just mental daydreaming. He hadn’t expected such a thing might actually happen. The doctor remained frozen for a long while before finding his voice: “Couldn’t… couldn’t you find someone else to do the embroidery?”

The Boss played with the empty teacup in his hands, smiling faintly: “The Song Dynasty was the peak of Su embroidery development – the court even had a dedicated Imperial Embroidery Academy. This red dragon on me required thirty-seven embroiderers from the entire Imperial Embroidery Academy, taking a full two years to complete. Do you think the current era could find so many skilled embroiderers?”

Indeed, they couldn’t be found.

The doctor stood up in agitation, pacing back and forth in the Mute House. “There must be some way… wouldn’t machine weaving work?”

“It doesn’t matter – don’t worry about it. I’ve lived too long already. Fu Su’s matter is finally resolved, and it’s time for me to rest.” The Boss smiled slightly with a sense of relief.

The doctor stopped pacing, understanding where the problem lay.

The Boss surely had ways to keep himself alive, but he had lost the will to live. No matter how anxious others became, there was nothing they could do.

He often saw this at the hospital – conditions with a fifty percent chance of recovery that deteriorated to the worst outcome because the patients themselves weren’t actively cooperating with treatment.

The doctor walked before the Boss, grasping his shoulders and looking directly into his eyes as he asked seriously: “Were you and Fu Su friends?”

“Yes.” The Boss thought, if they weren’t friends, he couldn’t have endured over two thousand years in this world just to see if Fu Su’s reincarnations could live normal lives.

“Then what about with me?” The doctor’s hands on the Boss’s shoulders pressed with greater force.

The Boss looked at him in bewilderment.

He knew he wasn’t Fu Su – he could distinguish them clearly. There were great differences between them; they were two independent people. Different living environments, different upbringings, different beliefs – they didn’t share even the slightest similarity. Unlike the reincarnations of Huo Qubing or Xiang Yu, because Fu Su’s reincarnation lacked one soul and one spirit, no matter how strong the obsession, it couldn’t influence the doctor’s life – not at all.

The Fu Su in his heart was still dead.

The Boss had to admit that when he saw the doctor’s unwavering expression in Fu Su’s memories, his heart had turned to ash.

Enough. He had finally succeeded. Even though Fu Su could never be reborn, his reincarnation would no longer be burdened by that tragedy from two thousand years ago.

This was sufficient.

If it had been Fu Su, he probably would have wandered the world for such long years for his sake too.

But he was truly tired. Having witnessed countless cycles of life and death, knowing that he was defying heaven’s will by lingering in this world, his fate probably wouldn’t be any better than that white snake spirit’s.

“Aren’t we friends?” Not receiving an answer from the Boss, the doctor grew somewhat irritable. “If we’re not friends, why did you risk everything to save me? If you hadn’t come to save me, the red dragon robe wouldn’t have been damaged, and you wouldn’t be dying… I was just being presumptuous – you only came to save me because I’m Fu Su’s reincarnation…”

“We are friends.” The Boss interrupted the doctor’s self-pity. He looked up, watching the candlelight flicker in the doctor’s glasses, unable to see what emotions lay behind those lenses.

During these few years of getting along with the doctor, though he was noisy, talkative, and liked to bring food to force him to eat together… they had indeed become friends. The Boss’s lips curved in a genuine smile as he said softly, “When I saved you, I was saving only you, no one else. You’re a good doctor – if you live, you’ll save many more people.”

The doctor blinked, feeling the candlelight in the room somewhat glaring, making his eyes start to ache. “Then you must live too. There are so many antiques in the Mute House – can you really bear to abandon them?”

The doctor knew how much the Boss cherished the antiques in the Mute House, making him feel even more guilty. If the red dragon robe hadn’t been damaged, even after fulfilling his wish, the Boss would have continued guarding the Mute House as its antique shop owner.

The Boss felt the doctor’s palm on his shoulder burning almost unbearably. He broke free from this restraint under the pretense of getting up to refill the teapot, smiling with apparent ease: “There’s the curator – he’ll certainly take good care of them.”

Yes, that uncle would definitely have a heart attack from excitement if he knew all the antiques in the Mute House were left to him.

While complaining internally, the doctor racked his brains for something that could give the Boss a reason to live. Hearing the sound of water pouring, the doctor suddenly had a flash of inspiration: “Boss, you said there were originally two immortality pills – you ate one, but what about the other? Did Emperor Qin Shihuang eat it? No, that’s not right – if he had eaten it, he shouldn’t have died!”

The sound of pouring water stopped abruptly. The doctor stole a glance and noticed the Boss’s expression had darkened, realizing he had stumbled upon something important. He quickly added: “Don’t hide anything from me anymore – we’re friends now!”

“Isn’t being able to dissect my corpse enough? You want that pill for research too?” The Boss shot the doctor an annoyed look. This guy was truly pushing his luck. The doctor chuckled without defending himself, feeling that this mutual teasing was what real friendship was like.

After refilling the teapot, the Boss sat back down and filled both their teacups. “Do you remember when I was away for a few days?”

“I remember. The day after you left, I ran into the curator, who said he’d traded something called a Warring States alchemy cauldron with you. Warring States? You know this alchemy cauldron?” The doctor had always prided himself on his deductive abilities, and seeing the Boss raise an eyebrow, he was even more certain he’d guessed correctly.

“Yes, this alchemy cauldron was left by my master. There’s a hidden compartment at the bottom where the other immortality pill was originally stored, waiting for Emperor Qin Shihuang to take it after his eastern tour, once it was confirmed that I was unharmed from taking the pill. But ironically, Emperor Qin Shihuang died during that eastern tour.” The Boss’s lips curved in a mocking smile.

“Originally? You mean the other immortality pill is gone?” The doctor could imagine why the Boss had disappeared for those few days – he must have gone to investigate where the alchemy cauldron was excavated.

The Boss nodded and sighed: “The cauldron’s compartment was already covered with verdigris. It’s certain that no one had opened it for at least two thousand years. That means the other pill was taken over two thousand years ago.”

The doctor and Boss exchanged glances, both seeing shock in the other’s eyes. If someone else had also taken that immortality pill, it meant there might be another person who, like the Boss, had lived in this world for over two thousand years…

“Who else would know how to open the cauldron’s compartment?” the doctor asked with difficulty.

“The servants in charge of the pills would know, but they wouldn’t dare use the pills meant for the emperor…” The Boss felt his throat growing dry as he struggled to swallow the blood rising in his throat.

“Then after Emperor Qin Shihuang’s death, only one person could rightfully consume that pill…” The doctor swallowed hard.

“Hu Hai…” The Boss sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the Mute House’s dark ceiling.

The doctor said nothing more. He knew that however much longing the Boss had for Fu Su, he harbored equal hatred for Hu Hai.

Though the chance of Hu Hai still being alive was less than one percent, even the slightest possibility would never let the Boss rest easy.

He thought he needn’t worry about the Boss losing the will to live in the short term.

The two sat in the darkness without speaking until the eastern sky began to lighten and the bustle of the morning market could be heard in the distance.

“Thank you.” As the first ray of sunlight entered through the crack in the Mute House door, the Boss’s voice rang out.

The doctor had been awake all night, and hearing those two words from the Boss made him incredibly excited, his mouth nearly stretching to his ears. He knew what the Boss meant by thanking him. “Thank me for what? You saved me, and I haven’t even said thank you! Real friends don’t need to say ‘thank you.'”

The Boss straightened up, looking at the doctor’s sunshine-bright smile, and couldn’t help being infected by his good mood. “Oh? Then what are real friends like?”

“Real friends share joy and sorrow together, solve problems and crises together. They slap you awake when you’re confused and firmly support you when you’ve truly decided on something.” The doctor pushed up his glasses, his expression suddenly becoming very serious as he asked: “Now, tell me your decision.”

The Boss seemed stunned by the doctor’s words. After a long while, he finally sighed deeply: “I… probably need to make a trip to Mount Li…”

The doctor stood up with a whoosh, patting the Boss’s shoulder: “I’ll go request leave right now to accompany you! Don’t refuse – I might not have time later, but this time I must go with you.”

Just as the Boss was about to stop him, the doctor had already stridden to push open the Mute House’s door and headed outside.

The Boss only managed to see the doctor’s retreating figure, watching the warm sunlight fall on him, outlining a golden halo so sacred it was almost impossible to look at directly. The words of refusal stuck in his throat and could no longer be spoken. The Boss smiled with relief and closed his eyes.

Friends… was it?

“Luoyang shovel, tomb-robbing talisman, hill-exploring seal, black donkey hooves… where did you buy all these things?” The Boss looked at what the doctor was pulling from his backpack, his expression growing darker with each item. Which tomb-robbing novel had misled him?

“Taobao! Delivered directly to our hotel – very convenient.” The doctor said proudly while continuing to pull tomb-robbing essentials from his bag. He had researched extensively before departure. They were staying at a hot spring hotel on Mount Li, and after ordering online, items were delivered directly there. Otherwise, he seriously doubted he could get through airport security with these things.

However, he was incredibly surprised that the Boss could produce an ID card to buy plane tickets. The doctor really wanted to see if the birth date on the Boss’s ID was BCE, but lacked the courage.

The Boss looked sideways as the doctor continued producing ground-penetrating radar, metal detectors, gas analyzers, and other advanced equipment. “These were also bought online?” He must have spent quite a fortune.

“No, no, I borrowed these from the curator uncle.” The doctor wiped sweat from his face and said with a grin. “I just called him without going into details. When he heard I was going with you, he immediately sent them by express delivery. Actually, I think if he wasn’t at a conference in Beijing, he’d definitely want to package himself for delivery too.”

The Boss closed his eyes helplessly. Though the doctor hadn’t explained details to the curator, having all this equipment delivered to Mount Li – any idiot would know which tomb they planned to target. Was there any need to ask?

“What do you think we’ll need? When do we move?” the doctor asked enthusiastically. He and the Boss had argued fiercely before coming, and he had finally won a great victory – the Boss agreed to take him to Emperor Qin Shihuang’s underground palace.

That was Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum! Seventy-eight times the size of Beijing’s Forbidden City, and the world-famous Terracotta Army was merely guarding the tomb’s perimeter. If the Egyptian pyramids were the world’s largest above-ground royal tombs, then China’s Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum was the world’s largest underground imperial tomb – practically the unexcavated ninth wonder of the world! Though Xiang Yu, Huang Chao, and others had tried to rob Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb, Xiang Yu had only burned the buildings above and dug two “Overlord ditches” – they never found the underground palace entrance. To this day, no one had truly entered Emperor Qin Shihuang’s underground palace…

Actually, there was one person, standing right before him.

The Boss looked at the doctor’s sparkling eyes and sighed helplessly: “Tonight’s clear – rest first. It’s not time yet. We’ll depart when it gets dark.”

Looking at the instruments and tomb-robbing supplies covering the floor, the doctor scratched his head in difficulty: “Do we need to bring all this stuff? I don’t think I can carry it all…”

“If we could enter the First Emperor’s tomb with just these things, the underground palace would have been robbed long ago,” the Boss said flatly.

The doctor was quite deflated, but thinking about it, these things would certainly work for ordinary tombs, but the world-famous Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum naturally couldn’t be approached with ordinary methods. The doctor obediently packed these items away, then glanced at the Boss’s backpack in the corner, thinking the Boss must have brought all the necessities. Could he bring a digital camera or something? Hehe…

Night soon fell. The Boss picked up his travel bag while the doctor also carried a backpack. Though the Boss said none of his prepared items were needed, he still needed to bring some things for peace of mind – like flashlights, water, and compressed biscuits. After all, while the Boss could go long periods without eating or drinking, he couldn’t.

Mount Li had been famous for hot springs since ancient times – the renowned Huaqing Pool was located there, so there were many hot spring sanatoriums. They stayed at a private hot spring hotel where no one would notice them going out at night. The doctor followed the Boss deep into the mountains. At first, he didn’t think much of it, but as they walked, the distant lights disappeared, leaving only the moon and stars for company. The doctor had worried the Boss might not know the way after two thousand years away, but seeing him constantly adjust direction according to the stars above, he relaxed. Though two thousand years could turn seas into farmland, the stars above were much harder to change.

Afraid flashlight beams would be too conspicuous in the mountain forest, the doctor didn’t turn his on. Initially, he watched his footing, but later simply stopped looking, following the Boss as they stumbled through the mountain forest. After walking arduously for over three hours, the Boss finally stopped under the doctor’s expectant gaze.

Though it was the depths of winter, the doctor was already sweating profusely. He drank some water and looked around, finding this place no different from the mountain forests they’d passed through. The only notable features were several piles of barren rocks scattered around without pattern.

“We’ve arrived, but we need to wait until midnight to find the entrance,” the Boss said. Though he’d walked the same distance, his face showed no sweat and had grown even paler.

“Alright.” The doctor found a rock to sit on and asked restlessly: “Will we enter through the underground palace entrance later? Isn’t Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb supposed to have many traps? Will it be dangerous?” The doctor decided to tighten his shoelaces a bit more.

“The main entrance’s sealing stones were lowered long ago – Hu Hai naturally wanted to create the impression that Emperor Qin Shihuang was already buried. Actually, the underground palace has several hidden entrances. I knew he would enter the palace later, so after burying Fu Su inside, I sealed all the other entrances too.”

The Boss stood with hands behind his back, gazing at Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum in the distance. The tomb’s earthen mound formed a huge arc, looking like a flattened hill. The Boss knew that though this place now appeared utterly desolate, over two thousand years ago it had magnificent palace halls and breathtakingly gorgeous buildings – all burned to nothing by Xiang Yu’s fire.

As if in a blink, he could still see those magnificent palaces burning in towering flames; as if taking a breath, he could still smell that acrid, burning odor; as if listening carefully, he could still hear those pitiful cries…

The doctor looked up at the Boss’s lonely silhouette.

A cold night wind blew, making the Boss’s clothes flutter. Originally, the red dragon robe fit his figure perfectly, but the Boss had rapidly lost weight in recent days, appearing increasingly gaunt. The red dragon on his zhongshan suit had grown larger over these days, occupying more than half the fabric. The dragon’s scales reflected the rippling moonlight, its claws sharp beyond compare, lifelike as it constantly shifted in the night wind, as if it could tear through the fabric at any moment and completely devour the Boss.

It seemed the person before him might vanish from sight at any second.

Unease welled up in the doctor’s heart. He stood and walked to the Boss’s side, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, clearing his throat before asking: “All the underground palace entrances are sealed? Then how do we get in?”

The Boss had been lost in thought in the night wind for a long time before coming to his senses, saying indifferently: “After Emperor Qin Shihuang’s death, the mausoleum was still under construction, all under Hu Hai’s direction. When Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled, they truly couldn’t bear Hu Hai’s oppression. The craftsmen knew they would eventually be buried alive, so they secretly dug an escape tunnel for emergencies. Unfortunately, the final burial wasn’t live burial – this tunnel was prepared for nothing.”

The doctor felt his hair stand on end, knowing this land had seen countless deaths. If corpses reanimated… The doctor couldn’t help looking down at his feet, afraid a skeletal hand might emerge from the earth to grab his ankle.

The Boss glanced at him and said flatly: “Watching too many horror movies isn’t good.”

A bead of cold sweat appeared on the doctor’s forehead – he still wasn’t used to the Boss making jokes with such a serious expression.

The Boss looked at the moon’s position, walked toward the nearby rock pile, and pulled out an irregularly shaped glass bead the size of a ping-pong ball from his chest, inserting it into a rock crevice. The doctor watched as that inconspicuous crevice and the glass bead fit together perfectly, as if naturally made. The doctor walked around to the other side of the rock in disbelief and found a finger-sized hole behind it.

“What is this?” The doctor returned, looking at the glass bead embedded in the rock, which sparkled magnificently in the moonlight – clearly no ordinary item.

“The Huainanzi says: ‘The pearl of the Marquis of Sui and the jade of Bian He – those who obtain them become rich, those who lose them become poor.’ Bian He’s jade is the He Shi Bi, while the Pearl of the Marquis of Sui, alongside the He Shi Bi, was one of the two treasures of the Spring and Autumn period – known together as ‘the pearl of Sui and the jade disc.'” The Boss covered the brilliant glass with his palm to prevent the light from being too conspicuous in the darkness.

“The Pearl of the Marquis of Sui? Actually a treasure ranked before the He Shi Bi? But I’ve hardly heard of it.” The doctor’s eyes still retained the magnificent glimpse of the pearl, blinking several times to adjust.

“That’s because the He Shi Bi was given the significance of the imperial jade seal, circulating in the river of history for a long time. The Pearl of the Marquis of Sui only appears in official history until Emperor Qin Shihuang’s time, then completely disappeared.” The Boss looked up at the sky and said calmly: “It’s about time.”

As he spoke, he opened his palm. At this moment, moonlight fell precisely on this rock crevice, and through the hole behind, moonlight refracted repeatedly within the pearl’s crystal structure. The Pearl of the Marquis of Sui grew visibly brighter before projecting a straight beam of light.

This beam was actually very faint, but with no other light sources here, it stood out prominently in the darkness.

The doctor immediately understood why the Boss had waited for clear weather and why the Pearl of the Marquis of Sui had vanished after Emperor Qin Shihuang’s era – it was actually a miraculous treasure created specifically for the First Emperor’s mausoleum.

“That’s the underground palace’s emergency entrance. Walking fifty-three steps west, then thirty-nine steps north, you can find a secret passage entrance – the escape route the craftsmen prepared for themselves.” The Boss memorized the direction of the pearl’s light beam, then pried out the pearl and carefully stored it. Previously, he hadn’t needed the pearl for positioning, but after two thousand years with everything changed, he needed confirmation. Otherwise, Mount Li was so vast – where would he find such a small entrance?

The Boss frowned in the darkness, remembering the call he’d made to the curator before departure, confirming that the Warring States black gold alchemy cauldron had been traded by a young man who specifically requested the curator exchange it at the Mute House.

Was it Hu Hai? Had he deliberately tried to draw out the Boss? Hadn’t he given up on entering this imperial underground palace?

“Boss?” The doctor turned his head questioningly.

The Boss suppressed his thoughts and said flatly: “Let’s go.”

Shortly after they left, a dark shadow emerged from behind the rock pile and silently followed.