The entirety of a nation’s wealth amounting to a pile of shells and shell currency was enough to emotionally devastate everyone present. People are like that — there’s a difference between never having anything and believing you have something, and then finding you don’t. The emotional blow is a different thing entirely.

“What’s this?”

Someone discovered something different in one of the troughs. When they lifted it out, it turned out to be a coral tree, its form almost perfectly preserved. Yu Jiuling blew at it, scattering a great deal of dust, and the tree’s true color emerged: blood-red throughout, standing at least two feet tall, approaching three.

Whatever its monetary value, it was certainly worth more than Songming’s calligraphy and paintings. A blood-red coral tree of good quality at even a foot tall was already a rare piece.

“Is it valuable?”

Yu Jiuling asked.

Tang Pidi nodded. “Extremely valuable.”

Then he shook his head. “And yet not valuable at all, because no one will buy it right now. In times like these, fine antiquities, curiosities, rare treasures — none of it is worth as much as actual silver and gold. You could say this thing is worth a hundred thousand taels of silver, but you could take it out and not get enough to buy a fraction of that amount in grain.”

Li Chi said, “If you tried to barter this at a grain merchant’s for a thousand taels’ worth of grain, they’d refuse you. But if you named a price for it, they’d say anything under a hundred thousand means you don’t know its worth.”

Yu Jiuling immediately lost all interest.

“Worthless then.”

He passed it off to someone else without a second glance.

“Placer gold!”

Someone called out from a corner. They were trying to peel back a thick grass curtain that had long since rotted, now nearly indistinguishable from ash — it crumbled at the touch. Underneath, they found a heap of placer gold. The purity was hard to judge, and even if it were genuine, the grade could vary — but the sheer quantity was right there before them.

“Oh, my—”

Yu Jiuling’s eyes lit up.

“This—”

Tang Pidi’s eyes lit up too. He scooped up a handful and examined it carefully, then said, “The Youshan kingdom was a state established in the Central Plains by steppe nomads. They existed for several centuries, but retained many of the old grassland customs — such as their preference for placer gold.”

He looked at Li Chi as he spoke. “The people of the steppe today are the same. They’re not as attached to silver as Central Plains people, but they consider placer gold precious. If all of this is genuine, there’s enough to buy several thousand fine warhorses from the steppe.”

He kept watching Li Chi as he said it, and saw Li Chi’s expression shift — a slight upward curve at the corners of his mouth, growing until it was nearly stretched from ear to ear. The moment Tang Pidi said “at least several thousand good horses,” he noticed Li Chi’s ears seemed to be getting smaller and smaller — the smile was so wide the earlobes were nearly migrating backward.

Tang Pidi weighed it in his hands a moment more and said, “By the feel of it, this is genuine. Tell the men to get it up to the surface as quickly as possible. If the ground collapses again, it’s equivalent to burying several thousand horses alive.”

Li Chi said, “Yes, yes, yes — get it up quickly.”

“And those—”

Yu Jiuling looked toward the shells. “They’re very old shells after all — they’d count as antiques, wouldn’t they?”

Tang Pidi glanced at him. “You’d be better off going to get a basket for the placer gold right now.”

Li Chi and the others went to the seven standing statues and began dismantling the armor from each of them. What the material was, no one could say — cold to the touch, like jade, or like metal. Impossible to tell.

Whatever it was, it was clearly something of quality. They packed everything up and had it carried to the surface.

Li Chi walked to the seated statue, bowed toward it, and said, “I don’t know who you are, but I’m rather sorry. We’ve taken your treasury, and truth be told, helping you restore your kingdom isn’t something we’re planning to do. Perhaps I should kowtow by way of apology.”

He pulled back his robe, knelt, and kowtowed several times to the statue.

Yu Jiuling thought this completely unnecessary — they’d taken the wealth and that was that. Why bow and kowtow to someone who might not even have a name?

At the moment Li Chi pressed his forehead to the floor, both of his knees suddenly sank. The point where his forehead was pressed also sank. Li Chi was startled and tried to rise, but in that posture he found himself momentarily unable.

Forehead and both knees — three points on the ground. Which resulted in him being rather stuck in a rather undignified position.

The seated stone figure slowly slid backward. Something began to rise from below.

A stone platform ascended from beneath. On the platform sat a long box, already beginning to rot. In the torchlight, something inside the box gave off a faint, soft gleam.

Yu Jiuling ran over and helped Li Chi up, then looked at the retreating statue. “He moved away from you? He didn’t want the kowtow?”

Li Chi sighed. “Your mind truly is a brilliant one.”

Yu Jiuling said, “I know.”

They approached. Carefully, they opened the box. The wrapping inside had already deteriorated, and when it was peeled away, every eye in the room brightened at once.

Inside the box was an iron spear.

The shaft was not smooth — it was coated with something like a layer of oil or resin. When wiped away, fine striations appeared on the surface, shaped like fish scales in close formation. The head was long, nearly the length of a cavalry lance, but differently shaped from a standard lance point.

Li Chi reached in and lifted the iron spear, feeling its weight — and the heft of it exceeded all expectation.

Yu Jiuling said, “Let me try.”

He held out both hands and took the spear from Li Chi — the moment he did, both arms dropped sharply downward. The spear was nearly at the floor before Tang Pidi shot out a hand and caught it.

The weight of it startled even Tang Pidi. On impulse, he gave the spear a single sharp toss and flick. The tip quivered and emitted a soft, resonant hum — something almost like a dragon’s call.

“A fine weapon!”

Tang Pidi breathed with admiration.

He held the spear in both hands and offered it to Li Chi. “Here.”

Li Chi shook his head slowly. “I don’t know how to use a spear. You do. It belongs with you.”

Tang Pidi was taken aback. “This spear is an absolute treasure.”

Li Chi said, “Obviously. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worthy of you.”

Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi. Li Chi looked back at him. Tang Pidi seemed to want to say something but couldn’t find the words — he started and stopped. Li Chi waited a moment, then took a step back, looking alarmed.

“I feel like you want to kiss me.”

Tang Pidi: “Pfft—”

Li Chi laughed. “As long as you don’t. A fine weapon in the hands of someone who can use it — that’s as it should be. I can’t use a spear. Among all of us, only you have the best skill on horseback, and you’re the most accomplished with long weapons. It’s yours.”

Yu Jiuling smirked. “My skill on horseback is pretty good too.”

That was a very particular kind of smirk.

Everyone looked at Yu Jiuling. Yu Jiuling turned and walked away. “I’m going to get a basket—”

A few steps on, laughter broke out from behind him. Yu Jiuling and everyone else turned in confusion to look at who was laughing — and it was Zhuang Wudi.

Noticing everyone staring at him, Zhuang Wudi’s stern face actually went the slightest shade of red. He turned away. “Basket.”

Tang Pidi asked, “What made you laugh just now?”

Li Chi thought about it and ventured, “Maybe he just now realized what Little Nine meant when he said his horsemanship was pretty good.”

Tang Pidi: “…”

Zhuang Wudi walked ahead. Yu Jiuling fell in beside him, then asked curiously, “Zhuang Big Brother — what were you just laughing at?”

Zhuang Wudi thought about it, then looked at Yu Jiuling and said, “You — have no horse.”

Yu Jiuling gave a dismissive sound. “Who do you think you’re looking down on?”

Zhuang Wudi, ignoring him, continued: “You — the hands work.”

Yu Jiuling: “…”

He stared at Zhuang Wudi as the man walked out to get a basket. He harrumphed quietly to himself and muttered, “If I weren’t worried about the money, I’d have been riding wild at Twin Star Tower or Three-Moon River House long ago!”

Zhuang Wudi turned and looked at him. After a brief silence: “Go quickly.”

Yu Jiuling said, “See, you really do look down on me.”

Zhuang Wudi’s flat, utterly solemn expression made everything he said sound like a statement of fact, not a joke. Not even Yu Jiuling had expected there would be a follow-up.

Zhuang Wudi said “go quickly,” paused, then added: “Come back in time to help carry the next load of baskets.”

Yu Jiuling’s eyes went round. “Right — let’s fight!”

Through nearly the entire night, the workers combed through the underground chamber with thorough care. It had to be said — it was a remarkable treasury. From one end to the other: not a single copper coin. Not a single tael of silver. A pile of placer gold, seven suits of disintegrated armor, and a few rare artifacts.

In the second half of the night, everyone gathered materials and began repairing the seven suits of armor. Their style was unlike anything made today — ancient and distinct. The plates were not large, and none were perfectly regular in shape; each one had four small holes, their edges worn smooth, as though drilled out painstakingly by hand, over and over. The original lacings had all crumbled to nothing.

The armor of the current Dachu dynasty came in distinct sections — shoulder guards, chest plate, skirt guards, sleeve armor. These seven ancient suits would need lacings re-threaded through each plate to reconstruct those sections.

“This won’t be done in a day.”

Li Chi looked at the pile of plates and felt a headache coming on. He regretted pulling everything out all at once without sorting the pieces by suit first — the jumbled mess made it far more difficult to make sense of.

Just then, a worker came running in from outside, carrying something in both hands. He entered and said, “Found something else — looks like a map. Some kind of hide. Not entirely destroyed.”

Li Chi took the case from him immediately. The map had not fully rotted, but it had split into several fragments. He carefully pieced them together and found it was the layout of a city.

“Could this be the ancient city plan of Baocheng?”

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi.

Tang Pidi leaned in and studied it. He shook his head. “Jizhou today is at least ten times the size of what it was then. From this map there’s not much to recognize. But—”

He stopped, and pointed at one section of the map. “What does this mean?”

The area he was pointing to appeared to depict a palace complex, but the drawing had something off about it. Li Chi studied it more carefully for a while, and then he understood.

“This is the palace layout of ancient Baocheng. The part that looks strange at the bottom — that’s an underground chamber. Meaning below the Youshan kingdom’s palace, there was also a subterranean chamber.”

He looked at Xiahou Zuo beside him. Xiahou Zuo shook his head. “Jizhou City today bears no resemblance to what it was then. The ancient Baocheng palace probably ceased to exist hundreds of years ago.”

Li Chi said, “If it’s still there, where would the site of the Youshan kingdom’s old palace be?”

Xiahou Zuo shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

Li Chi asked, “Then who would know?”

Xiahou Zuo considered, then said, “If there’s anyone still in Jizhou who might know, it would have to be Headmaster Gao. He is broadly learned and greatly accomplished — he has mentioned Youshan kingdom matters when giving lectures at the Academy. If you want to know, you’ll likely need to ask the Headmaster.”

Li Chi’s expression became somewhat unnatural.

Xiahou Zuo smiled at once and patted Li Chi on the shoulder. “It’s understandable. It’s generally a nerve-wracking thing to visit one’s father-in-law. What makes your situation all the more extraordinary is that you’d be visiting your father-in-law’s father-in-law.”

Li Chi: “…”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Never mind — I’ll go ask on your behalf. But why are you so interested in this underground chamber?”

Li Chi said, “Because I’m greedy — what if there are more treasures?”

Xiahou Zuo nodded. “Fair enough.”

—