Chapter 46: A Peerless Treasure (Part I)

The space beneath the passage was extremely narrow. When I was the last one to climb down, I found there was nowhere to stand. My hand accidentally brushed against something to the side, feeling greasy. Bringing it up to my nose to sniff, I recognized it as whale oil.

The mountain here had no light-transmitting shafts carved into it; it was pitch black and unfathomably deep. The beam of the flashlight shot out, projecting all the way onto the opposite rock wall, and the distance looked immense.

I fished out a lighter and ignited the whale oil nearby. The burning flame gradually extended forward, writhing its body like a waking fire dragon, and then multiplied into two, three, five...

By the end, I could no longer count how many burning troughs of fire were down below. I only knew that the more places the firelight illuminated, the wider everyone's jaws dropped.

This place was by no means small!

We were merely standing on the entrance platform, yet as I cast my gaze across the expanse, I racked my brain without being able to find a suitable word to describe everything before my very eyes.

Piled mountain-high!

If one simply had to choose an apt adjective, these four words used here were not the least bit exaggerated.

Zhu Yuanzhang had actually hollowed out the entire mountain. Looking out from where we stood, even though this place had lain dormant for hundreds of years, the thick layer of dust still could not obscure that dazzling golden brilliance. If there truly existed a Golden Mountain in this world, this must undoubtedly be the place.

The legendary Ming Fourteen Tombs slumbered quietly below, awaiting the next monarch to awaken her.

The entire treasure trove was neatly and systematically distributed and stacked. Almost everyone's reactions had turned sluggish by now; probably very few normal people could remain calm upon witnessing these mountains of gold and jewelry.

Everyone walked in a daze down the white marble steps. The boxes neatly stacked before Xiao Lianshan reached a height of fully five stories. Casually opening the nearest box in front of him, Xiao Lianshan instantly felt his eyes blinded by the glare, causing him to instinctively raise a hand to shield them. Through the gaps between his fingers, massive gold bars filled the entire chest.

And this was merely one of them. Xiao Lianshan slowly raised his head. His reactions were inherently slow, and in his mind, he tried to calculate how many gold bricks were hidden within these five-story-high crates. By the time he reached the end of the calculation, he suddenly realized that a single piece alone would ensure he never had to worry about food or clothing for the rest of his life, even if his hands and feet were broken.

The boxes on the other side had been opened by Gu Anqi. Enormous gemstones, various precious pearls, and countless other beads whose very names were unknown to us, round and plump, filled a chest to the brim. Back in Hong Kong, she had visited the world-renowned Tsarist golden crown, which was adorned with fully eight hundred diamonds and seventy-two rubies, and was hailed as the king of crowns.

Yet in these casually piled crates, any randomly picked gem was immeasurably larger than those on the crown.

Many wooden chests had rotted away due to their great age, scattering various precious pearls across the ground. Gazing out, it looked like a shimmering cobblestone path, though this was surely the most expensive road ever built in the world. Yet Gu Anqi stepped upon them without the slightest sensation, as if her feet were treading on ordinary pebbles, simply because boxes like these were so numerous she could not possibly count them.

As for the massive gold horses, gold dragons, and other jaw-dropping golden ornaments, they were crafted entirely to true proportions. Not only was the workmanship exquisite, but striking them with a hand produced no echo whatsoever—these were entirely solid gold artifacts, and owing to their sheer bulk, they were piled haphazardly in the corners.

The Ming Fourteen Tombs had concentrated the entire nation's resources of the Great Ming, continuously expanding and growing over the course of two hundred and seventy years. Zhu Yuanzhang had truly accomplished it. Just as he had envisioned when constructing the Ming Fourteen Tombs, this truly was the lifeblood of the Great Ming's state. If Chongzhen had opened this treasury back then, perhaps the subsequent history of later generations would have been altered.

Probably Zhu Yuanzhang never dreamed in his wildest nightmares that, despite the vicissitudes of fortune, the empire he had built with his own hands would fall to ruin in the hands of Chongzhen, and that the primary cause of the nation's demise would be an empty national treasury. An emperor seated upon this peerless treasure trove ultimately lost to money—this was perhaps the greatest joke history ever played on Chongzhen.

Standing within the Ming Fourteen Tombs, I suddenly found myself feeling utterly insignificant, easily capable of being swallowed up by these mountains of gold and silver treasures. Lowering the gold brick in my hand, I suddenly realized there was not a single person left by my side.

"Yanhui! Yanhui!" Yue Qianling's trembling voice echoed from afar. "Come over to me, quickly!"

I wandered for a long time through the maze-like Ming Fourteen Tombs before finally finding Yue Qianling, whose expression was somewhat dazed. She was sitting on a platform forged of pure gold, pointing to something behind her and saying with uncertainty.

"Help me see what's behind me. My mind isn't very clear right now."

The platform where Yue Qianling sat was specially designed, featuring a pure gold base stacked tier upon tier like steps, with its perimeter inlaid with night-shining pearls the size of fists. When the firelight illuminated the interior of the mountain, these luminous pearls absorbed the light and reflected it, illuminating the entire platform as bright as day.

I stepped onto the platform, where nine large bronze tripods were neatly arranged in a single row.

These nine large bronze tripods varied in shape and size, engraved with famous rivers and towering mountains, strategic strongholds, and rare birds and beasts. I examined each of the nine bronze tripods one by one, and muttered in shock.

"Under the vast heaven, there is no land that is not the king's; within the borders of the land, there are no subjects who are not the king's..."

Yue Qianling hastily turned her head, looking at me with extreme tension, and stammered.

"This... Is this really... the Nine Tripods?"

I no longer knew what to say and silently nodded. Yue Qianling was so excited she could not help crying out, throwing all caution to the wind and hugging me tightly, dancing about like a child.

Hearing shouts from this direction and fearing something had happened, Xiao Lianshan hurried over following the sound. He saw Yue Qianling hugging me, while the gold blocks in her embrace tumbled all over the floor.

"What... what's the situation here?"

With a wry smile, I spread my hands and said lightly.

"Qianling has found a treasure."

Xiao Lianshan tilted his head to look behind me, pointed at the nine bronze tripods, and asked in bewilderment.

"I thought it was some rare novelty. Look at the two of you getting so excited. If you casually took just about anything in this mountain and sold it, I could have dozens of these cast for you."

Gu Anqi was hugging a large pile of various gemstones, the smallest of which was the size of a pigeon's egg, and was still intensely searching for larger ones to replace those in her arms. Just as she walked up to Xiao Lianshan and before she could speak, her gaze fell upon the nine bronze tripods. Then she froze, the gemstones in her arms all spilling onto the ground, and she slowly raised her hand, staring blankly as she spoke.

"Could this... could this be the Nine Tripods of Yu?!"

I nodded. Seeing Xiao Lianshan looking so shocked by these nine inconspicuous bronze tripods, Gu Anqi went up, touched them, and asked curiously.

"What background do these things have?"

"After King Yu of Xia established the Xia Dynasty, he used the bronze contributed by the nine provinces of the world to cast nine tripods, symbolizing the Nine Provinces," I pointed at the bronze tripods and said. "There are five yang tripods and four yin tripods. The five correspond to the laws of yang, and the four correspond to the numbers of yin. This was used to demonstrate that King Yu of Xia had become the lord of the Nine Provinces, that the world was unified from then on, and to manifest the destination of the Mandate of Heaven. The Nine Tripods subsequently became the embodiment of the Mandate of Heaven, symbolizing supreme royal power and national unification and prosperity. From then on, the Nine Tripods became the most important ritual vessels of the state."

"Huaxia is also known as the Nine Provinces, and the value of these Nine Tripods has already surpassed the realm of what money can measure," Gu Anqi told Xiao Lianshan with a dumbfounded expression. "Even if all the gold in these mountains were piled together, it might not equal the weight and value of these nine bronze tripods."

Yue Qianling cautiously touched the largest Yanzhou Tripod in the center, her voice trembling as she spoke.

"In the second year after Qin destroyed Zhou, it moved the royal Zhou family's Nine Tripods westward to Xianyang. Yet by the time Qin Shi Huang destroyed the six states and unified the world, the whereabouts of the Nine Tripods were already unknown. Counting five thousand years of Huaxia civilization, many peerless treasures have been handed down, yet in terms of historical value, not a single one compares to the Nine Tripods of the Xia Dynasty."

I smiled faintly, sighed, and said meaningfully.

"Reckoned this way, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't live a repressed life as an emperor either. Although he failed to find the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, having these Nine Tripods is far more precious than the Heirloom Seal. No wonder he sat upon the throne with a clear conscience; by acquiring these Nine Tripods of the realm, he could indeed be considered the rightful destination of the Mandate of Heaven!"

Hearing that these Nine Tripods were so precious they could rival this entire mountain of gold, Xiao Lianshan rushed forward to embrace them without a second thought. Yet despite mustering all his strength, he found that the bronze tripod did not budge an inch.

Yue Qianling rolled her eyes at him and asked with a bitter smile.

"Are you still plotting to carry these Nine Tripods out by yourself?"

"Nonsense, a single one of these tripods is worth more than a mountain of gold. If I could carry all nine tripods home..." Xiao Lianshan said with a grinning, winacing smile, "I wouldn't even know how to spend the money."

"Back when the tripods were cast, moving them from Mount Jing to the capital Xiayi was no easy feat. It took hundreds of thousands of laborers a full three or four months to relocate them," Yue Qianling laughed, sitting nearby and speaking unconcernedly. "What, does Big Brother Lianshan plan to put on a display of mighty strength to lift the mountains and shake the world for us today?"

"Lianshan, if you take gold out, you can still sell it, but if you take these Nine Tripods out, would you dare to sell them, and would anyone dare to buy them?" I also asked cheerfully. "Besides, who could afford these nine tripods? The essence of five thousand years of Huaxia civilization is all concentrated within these nine tripods."

Xiao Lianshan offered an honest, naive smile, kept his mouth shut as he walked down the platform, picked up the gold block he had just dropped, and said.

"Talking is equal to saying nothing. No matter how precious they are, they can't be eaten as food. Gold is still better. Had I known earlier, I would have brought a few more backpacks."

I smiled faintly. Yue Qianling stayed before the Nine Tripods, refusing to leave no matter what. As a milestone at the entrance of the era of Huaxia civilization, they had been lost for over two thousand years, and now that they appeared before her, it was an emotional weight no archaeological scholar could let go of.

Bypassing the bronze tripods on the pure gold platform, I realized that after walking for so long, I had only traversed less than one-fifth of the maze-like treasury that was the Ming Fourteen Tombs.

I was not particularly curious about what lay ahead. At present, the only thing that excited me was that the resonance emitted by the Eight Dragons Holding a Pearl on my chest was growing clearer and clearer.

I was well aware that I had taken one step closer to the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Decisive Art.