As the sun set in the west, battle cries filled the sky. Qing Xia sat in the prison cart, cautiously observing in all directions, but couldn’t make out any clues or traces.
The battle lasted about half an hour. After leaving behind more than eighty corpses, His Highness Hui fled with his remaining subordinates. Luke didn’t pursue, only ordering his men to take Qing Xia’s prison cart and proceed south.
Only then did Qing Xia finally realize that these people’s target might not be His Highness Hui, but herself. But was it really Xuda Lie behind them?
Traveling day and night, three days later, they finally returned to the outskirts of Yanmen Pass once more. A group of silent men dressed as Xiongnu took over Qing Xia’s cart and parted ways with Luke’s bandits. After traveling for nearly half a day, the group suddenly stopped. In a patch of grass, they took out prepared clothing – all Han Chinese attire.
Hope immediately rose in Qing Xia’s heart. She called out loudly to one of the men, “You, are you subordinates of the Chu Emperor?”
Just then, a seductive voice suddenly laughed charmingly, “Green mountains cannot block it, the great river flows east. Grand Metropolitan Commander Xia, we meet again.”
Qing Xia’s gaze immediately turned cold. Looking back, she saw a black-clothed woman with a face like peaches and plums, eyes like bright stars, vermillion lips and ink-black hair, standing in a snowy field and smiling at her. Qing Xia hadn’t expected that despite all her calculations and efforts, she would fall into this demon woman’s hands again.
The moment she saw Ousi Lanya, she suddenly understood why Chu Li had attacked the Xiongnu camp. When she was rescued by Longge A’shu that day, Ousi Lanya must have investigated Longge’s identity afterward. Unable to confront Xuda Lie herself, she spread the news, cleverly letting Chu Li know. She wanted to fish in troubled waters during the war between the Xiongnu and Southern Chu, but hadn’t expected Qing Xia to escape beforehand, wasting all her arrangements. Who would have thought that despite all calculations, she would encounter Longge Hui, who was persecuted and wandering outside due to disputes with Guli A’shu over the throne. After all that trouble, she was back at the starting point, fallen into her treacherous scheme.
Everyone changed into Han clothing and rode in carts, passing through the gates without obstruction.
Contrary to Qing Xia’s expectations, Ousi Lanya didn’t torture her for revenge, but instead traveled day and night without stopping. They ate and slept in the cart, never staying at inns. Ten days later, they arrived at a place most familiar to Qing Xia – the West Black Grasslands.
At this point, Qing Xia still didn’t know what Ousi Lanya’s ultimate purpose was. She had gone to such great lengths to capture her, but instead of threatening Chu Li, she came here. What was she really after?
On the West Black Grasslands, they abandoned the carts and rode horses. Three days later, one evening, Qing Xia saw Lie Yun Ji, whose consciousness had cleared. After Ousi Lanya and her subordinates regrouped, they finally arrived at their ultimate destination – Dragon Ridge Mountain, the Qin Imperial Mausoleum!
“Commander Xia, this is the Qin imperial mausoleum. Except for the First Emperor of Qin, all rulers of Great Qin are buried here. Prince Xuan disappeared six years ago – perhaps he’s also inside.”
On the West Black Grasslands covered in white snow, Qing Xia still wore the great fur coat Longge had given her. Her complexion was pale, but her gaze was extremely sharp as she stared coldly at Ousi Lanya, saying in a deep voice, “What exactly is your purpose?”
“I’m just a weak woman – what purpose could I have?” Ousi Lanya suddenly laughed sweetly, but in an instant her expression turned serious. Her gaze shifted to a blue wooden box over a person’s length, and she said coldly, “I just want to retrieve some things that should belong to me. Those old turtles have been hiding for too long – it’s time for them to come out and do something.”
“Move!”
Ousi Lanya shouted sharply. A group of men lifted the box from the ground, escorted Qing Xia and Lie Yun Ji, and followed behind. Although Lie Yun Ji was conscious, her injuries remained. When pushed by someone, she suddenly stumbled and nearly fell. Qing Xia quickly stepped forward, steadying her hand, and rapidly wrote on the back of her hand: Follow me.
Lie Yun Ji understood, her expression unchanged, only turning back to glare fiercely at the man who had pushed her.
The tunnel was pitch black. Two men walked at the front with torches, proceeding cautiously. After walking for nearly an hour, Qing Xia felt the oxygen in the air had become very thin. Lie Yun Ji, seriously injured, began breathing more rapidly. Just when everyone felt suffocated to death, a point of light suddenly appeared ahead. Several men quickened their pace, leading everyone out of the cave. They saw a vast expanse of land where the massive Qin Imperial Mausoleum crouched like a sleeping lion in the wilderness, majestic and imposing with an awe-inspiring presence.
The last time Qing Xia entered the Qin Mausoleum was at midnight due to mountain tremors and avalanches, so she had no idea there was such a hidden realm here. Before the Qin Mausoleum, several elderly men stood there, seemingly studying something. Hearing the commotion, they cautiously stood up, only relaxing when they saw Ousi Lanya.
Ousi Lanya approached and said, “Master Quan, how is it?”
An old man with graying hair and beard, holding a shovel in one hand and pinching soil to sniff at his nose with the other, said in a hoarse voice, “The underground palace and main dome have been sealed shut. The main entrance and side palace were blocked with granite by Prince Xuan of Qin eight years ago. We can only work from the outer sacrificial platform. We’ve been digging here for over a month, going down more than two hundred feet before finding the palace roof. Ousi Saint, this isn’t what we expected beforehand. We need to double the price again, or it’s not worth the risk. Whether we’ll have lives to come out is one thing, and even if we do, we’ll have to flee overseas for several years. Digging up Great Qin’s ancestral graves isn’t child’s play.”
Ousi Lanya smiled coldly, took a bundle from her subordinates, and threw it over with a swish, saying, “Get to work.”
Master Quan and the others opened the bundle to see it filled with gleaming gold bars, at least seventy or eighty of them. Their eyes twitched slightly before they began digging the tomb shaft. Qing Xia looked down to see a large expanse of wall cleared about fifty meters below – apparently the roof of the outer sacrificial platform.
She had once heard Qin Zhiyan describe the Qin Mausoleum’s specifications. This imperial tomb had thirty-six ear chambers, eighteen disk chambers, outer four circles, and seventy-two connecting passages, guarded by inner four circles connecting four offering halls, and finally the main hall at the center. The four offering halls were divided into Northern Cold Ice, Southern Fierce Fire, Western Yellow Earth, and Eastern Green Wood, forming white, red, yellow, and green energies that protected the four divine beasts of the main hall: Northern Sea Black Serpent, Southern Sky Vermillion Bird, Western Marsh Mirage Monster, and Eastern Sky Dragon, all guarding the Imperial Universe of the main hall and protecting the Emperor’s spirit. Qing Xia had walked through the four offering halls before and was very familiar with the terrain. Ousi Lanya and the others didn’t know she had been in the Qin Mausoleum – this was her advantage. Once inside the four offering halls, she would have a chance to escape these people and flee with Lie Yun Ji.
Several tomb robbers worked there with hammering and tapping while everyone waited cautiously behind them. Time passed bit by bit, the sky gradually darkened, everyone lit torches, and after another two hours, the tomb robbers still hadn’t made significant progress. Suddenly one man lost patience and shouted, “How much longer do we wait? Just one hammer blow should do it – why waste all this effort?”
Ousi Lanya’s eyes turned cold, but before she could speak, Master Quan pointed to the exposed crimson-colored dome and sneered, “See that? These are all heated chemicals made when the First Emperor refined elixirs. Once broken, these chemicals will immediately spray on us, burning you until not even skin remains. Do you believe it or not?”
His voice was low and his words terrifying. The man grunted twice, looking unconvinced but not daring to actually strike with a hammer. Qing Xia guessed what they described should be high-concentration sulfuric acid. She said nothing but pulled Lie Yun Ji back two steps.
After another hour, the tomb robbers finally opened a shaft over ten meters long. Master Quan professionally threw down a candle, and seeing it didn’t extinguish for a long time, he gestured to everyone, “We can go in now.”
Everyone filed in with Qing Xia and Lie Yun Ji in the middle. Ousi Lanya had many people and had drugged them both, so she didn’t bind them. Four men behind carried the wooden box and followed down.
As soon as their feet touched the ground, the sound of crushing bones suddenly rang out. Qing Xia was startled and looked down by torchlight to see she had stepped on a dried human head – not a skeleton, but still covered with a layer of gray-white skin. Qing Xia felt nauseated, moved her foot away, and remembering Master Quan’s earlier mention of this being a sacrificial platform, it wasn’t surprising. Using humans as sacrificial offerings was common in this era. When any emperor died, his concubines without children would be buried with him. This being the outer sacrificial platform, those buried here were probably low-ranking palace maids and eunuchs.
Great Qin favored black, so the entire stone hall was built with black giant stones covered in ancient characters arranged in Eight Trigrams positions with an antique style. Qing Xia looked carefully twice, found she couldn’t read them, and stopped looking. The tomb passage here was sloped, composed of countless steps, with large tripods and eternal lamps on both sides. Everyone ignored the items on the sacrificial platform and followed Master Quan downward.
The underground palace was extremely long. Qing Xia walked until her feet ached. Calculating the time silently, it should be about three hours – already deep night. The steps continued downward endlessly. Air visibility was very low, and even with everyone carrying torches, the illuminated area remained limited. She felt the path ahead stretched endlessly, only going down, as if leading to the netherworld.
Just when everyone’s spirits were unsettled, black ruins suddenly appeared in the light. The two men walking ahead cheered, and Master Quan sighed with relief, saying, “We’ve reached the tomb chamber.”
People always like to lump mausoleums together, but this isn’t correct. Actually, mausoleums are two different things – the mausoleum refers to the above-ground structures used for sacrifices and burial ceremonies, while the tomb refers to the underground palace. In her early years, Qing Xia had dealt with tomb robbers who stole cultural artifacts and knew some tomb-robbing techniques. The ghosts, zombies, and supernatural beings described in movies and television didn’t exist. So-called corpse transformations, ghost lights, and such were merely products of imagination. However, due to the unique environment of burial sites and the large numbers of human and animal sacrificial burials in major mausoleums, they were more likely to breed bacteria, microorganisms, mutated species, and large fierce beasts beyond human cognition. These things, along with the poor air quality in mausoleums, were the greatest nightmares for tomb robbers. The so-called mechanical traps and dangerous situations were less fearsome.