Despite the fact that the guide that was bringing them around was apparently very familiar with the area, it was already the night of the second day when they reached their destination.
When they saw the cave ahead that was even darker than the darkness of the night, everyone swallowed.
“This, this is the site? Where you came across something?” Zhao Jing Lei asked Yi Fei outside the cave.
Yi Fei nodded definitively: “That’s right, this was the image that we received.”
“Why can’t we go in during the day?”
“It’s the same when you go in anyway, why does the time of the day matter?”
Xuan Mo sent some of her mental feelers in, but was quickly stopped by Ai Er Ge. The latter glared at her: “What are you doing!?”
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Do you know how large the galaxy door is? You can play with the stone however you want, but if you accidentally touch the galaxy door, how would you know if you have enough mental powers to activate that thing?! What if it sucks all of your mental power out of you!”
“…” Xuan Mo was silent, and said, “thanks.”
“Will you die if you say thank you?”
Xuan Mo squinted her eyes. Ai Er Ge immediately shrank: “You’re welcome you’re welcome.”
The team of fifteen stopped before the cave to prep. The two researchers among them took the opportunity to rest up. Ling Yun on the other hand was already too exhausted. He’d tagged along with Xuan Mo and Ai Er Ge from before because he wanted their protection. It was only after Zhao Jing Lei conducted a background check on him and ensured that his background and family was clean as paper did he finally agree to let him join the team. But after all this trouble, look at what they ended up doing? Enter a cave?
“Xuan Mo, didn’t you say we’re here to search for some relics?”
“Yes.”
“Then shouldn’t there be an entrance to a grave or something… unless we’re robbing a cave?” Ling Yun’s eyes lit up, he seemed to have started braincannoning something in his head.
Xuan Mo recalled the information she read, and replied honestly: “No.”
“We’re not? Then what’s all this?”
To be honest, the document was very vague; it had only indicated that after arriving, they would need to search the underground cave. The document didn’t indicate what they would encounter, neither did it include if there were any dangers they had to take note of. It looked like a normal search mission, with some dim pictures attached. The original search team had no idea how the golden stone looked like, so all those that were gathered here were those that had seen and touched the golden stone before, and that had only totalled to about fifteen people.
And so, in reply to Ling Yun’s question, Xuan Mo wasn’t sure how to reply either, so she answered honestly: “I don’t know.”
“C’mon!” Ling Yun was angry, “why don’t you know anything, you…” He suddenly lowered his voice, “even if you’re not afraid of dying, at least respect the other blue planet beings here and the fragility of our lives; from the looks of it, I think this is gonna be a grave-robbery mission, don’t you guys need to make some preparations? For example, prepare the trotter of a black donkey and the blood of a black dog or something…”
“Hah?” Xuan Mo was mortified. They needed trotters and blood for things like these? Why exactly?
Ai Er Ge had not had the chance to encounter or hear of such strange practises on the blue planet yet, so he was shocked at what he heard too. This mission didn’t seem like it needed anything like that, or at least from his perspective. Why would they need a trotter for? To eat? And why of all things a trotter? They wanna chip their teeth or something… and blood, black dog blood… was this kind of blood more nutritious or more delicious or?
The dumbfounded expression of the two aliens had Ling Yun in anger and amusement. Walking in the dark had already been very taxing on his nerves, but with this little hiccup, he changed his mind and decided to follow them all the way till the end; he wanted to figure out what this trip was all about. With that, he stopped talking and sat down to rest.
After a while, Zhao Jing Lei gathered everyone and they headed in. Only one of them was left stationed at the entrance, the other fourteen went in.
Ling Yun had never seen the golden stone before, so he was a useless member among the team. Zhao Jing Lei watched as he he follow tightly after Xuan Mo, and decided to just let things be. Their headlights helped to light their way as they trudged forward. The cave had a downwards slope. The dry entrance of the cave was not a single bit affected by the dampness of the underground interior. It was incredibly chilly at night. Everyone had packed lightly but brought enough supplies. They had food and medicine; you might even be able to find a bullet or two if you searched hard enough… they brought everything except clothes.
“Achoo!” Yi Fei continued sneezing, the shrill, echoing sound reverberated in the entire cave, making it out as though a terrifying cry. The sound floated around everyone’s ears, sending chills down people’s back.
After a while, Zhao Jian Hua’s low voice sounded: “It’s a long walk ahead, everyone be careful…”
It was really too eerie…
“Captain, is there any more description to this mission, how are we gonna search this cave? There’s really nothing much around here.” One of the members asked.
Great, someone finally started a normal conversation topic.
“This cave has been around for very long, either in the hundreds or thousands of years old; but not a lot of people know about this place.” Zhao Jing Lei spoke slowly, “the earliest report of this place was in 1967, it appeared in the limelight due to the cultural revolution. If it weren’t for the meticulous work from a few dedicated historians from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period times, this place might not even be discovered; it took them many years before they found this place.”
“What exactly is this place?”
“…this is a relic from an ancient war.”
Ling Yun suddenly exclaimed in shock in a low voice: “Is this where the Battle of Changping took place?! Where four hundred thousand people of Zhao were buried?!”
Zhao Jing Lei shook his head; the lights he had attached on his head shook with his action: “Not sure, but the years are not too far apart. The corpses didn’t have any identifiable information, so no one knows who they were. So many people died, it couldn’t just be one single Battle of Changping here back then, there may be more than one battle.”
“How anti-climatic.” Ling Yun mumbled. “This mission seemed really insane, but we’re not here to rob any grave, unravel any mysterious history or background nor check the fengshui and whatnot…”
Yi Fei couldn’t help but laugh: “Brother, you read too many Grave Robbers’ Chronicles and the other similar novels.”
“I don’t just read, I write too!” Ling Yun was almost a little gleeful.
“Oh? What do you write?”
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