The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 134 "Deception"

The middle-aged man pressed the button and changed the slide to a collection of pictures of various unearthed fox masks.

"These people were wearing masks like this, and there were sporadic discoveries in some ancient tombs in Shandong. At that time, foxes were animals known to live in graveyards. Society was in disarray by this point, and grave robberies were rampant. Foxes liked to live in grave robbers' tunnels, which led many grave robbers to associate them with that activity."

He pressed the button again, and a relief pattern appeared on the slide.

The relief was very complicated, and carved on a black stone slab in a very complex moire [1] pattern that was frighteningly detailed.

"This is a relief stone slab that was stolen from Emperor Mu's tomb. It didn't have any actual content, and we thought it was just a decorative stone slab. Later, we found out that there was something strange about it." The middle-aged man took out a notebook and handed it to Li Cu: "This is within the scope of the exam. You'd better take some notes."

Li Cu took the offered pen as well. He no longer had the strength to argue as he eagerly opened the notebook, and waited for the middle-aged man to continue.

The middle-aged man pushed his glasses up and said, "We found that the moire pattern on it had been carved later. Another relief sculpture was originally carved on this stone slab, but was later smashed and polished so that it could be engraved with the current pattern. We couldn't restore the whole picture, but we managed to restore one of the corners using modern technology."

He continued on to the next slide, and it was clear to see that the recovered pattern really was very small. It only looked to be the size of a palm, and the lines on it couldn't be interpreted at all. It was located to the left of the stone slab's center.

Li Cu didn't say anything. He knew the middle-aged man was talking about it for a reason, and was sure they had found something.

The man didn't continue explaining, and just moved on to the next slide. The restored pattern from the previous slide reappeared and was compared with a satellite image.

The lines basically overlapped.

"This is the direction of the Kunlun Mountains. The stone slab was carved with a map of the Queen of the West's ancient kingdom, but King Mu had it destroyed. Strangely enough, he left the stone slate engraved with the map in his tomb. Why?" The middle-aged man looked at Li Cu.

"He had feelings for this thing, but was afraid that the information on it would be discovered?" Li Cu answered uncertainly.

The middle-aged man shook his head, went back a slide, and returned to the complicated picture with the fine moiré pattern. He pulled out the slide and put it into another one. In the picture, numerous red lines appeared on the moire pattern, and another figure was formed among these patterns. It was obviously a map. "We poured a kind of liquid on the stone slab, which began flowing along some of the lines until finally, the whole map appeared. He didn't destroy the information, but encrypted it."

The middle-aged man turned off the slide show, rubbed his face, and said to Li Cu, "Now, think about what we've just covered in this class. Among the things I've just said, there's a very important piece of information hidden. Please recall it, point it out, and tell me your conclusion."

Li Cu took a deep breath. He had been listening with the mentality of listening to a story, so he didn't remember everything very carefully, and was embarrassed to be asked such a thing.

He thought it over, but felt that he couldn't answer at all. When he recalled the story, he suddenly found that he couldn't even figure out the relationship between the characters.

Just as he was about to shake his head and give up, someone outside the window suddenly replied, "King Mu wasn't dead. He still took the immortality elixir; otherwise King Shang wouldn't have received the imperial edict in his handwriting."

The middle-aged man and Li Cu both looked back. The voice had come from outside the window. The middle-aged man went to open the curtain, and saw a girl standing outside. She was the same one who had snuck a glance at Li Cu a few days ago.

The girl gave Li Cu a playful look, the expression on her face clearly saying: "Your IQ is really low". The middle-aged man lowered his face and instructed the girl to leave with his chin. When she turned around and skipped towards the playground, the middle-aged man closed the window and made an apologetic expression, "Spoiler, she's right."

"Who is she? Is she the same as me?" Li Cu asked.

The middle-aged man sighed and muttered to himself, "During puberty, the classroom atmosphere I spent so long building was destroyed by you in a second." He said to Li Cu, "It's none of your business. She's not in the scope of your exam. Let's continue—"

As Li Cu looked at him resentfully, the middle-aged man remained silent and turned on the projector again, quickly switching to a picture: "I'll tell you something exciting to suppress your restless hormones."

It was a slide featuring a photo of a young man taken with a birds-eye lens from quite a distance away. Li Cu recognized Wu Xie.

But the Wu Xie in the photo was much weaker than the one he had met, and his skin was a little whiter. He seemed a little excited as he was heading for a Jinbei car [2].

Li Cu saw the smile on his face and thought he looked really happy. It was a kind of pure, silly happiness that showed his mind was empty, light, and carefree.

"This man's name is Wu Xie. I believe you're very familiar with him." The middle-aged man continued: "King Mu swallowed the immortality elixir. He didn't resist his fear of aging and death, and lived a long life, as shown by the announcement of his death when he was a hundred and five years old. No one knew where he went afterwards, but the truth of immortality isn't so simple. No one has ever been able to obtain such a complete benefit, and we believe he soon began experiencing the side effects of immortality. At this time, he had two choices: one was to go to the Queen of the West's country and seek her help; the other is unknown. We know that he chose the latter, but we just don't know what it is."

The slide jumped again, and a photo of an ancient silk book appeared: "He wrote some information about the choice he made in this silk book, which is called Lu Huang Silk [3]. What he wrote was a plan." The middle-aged man continued: "King Mu thought up a very strange plot at this time, and the target of the plot— or the beginning of the trap— wasn't in his time, but nearly three thousand years later. The person who fell into this trap happened to be the man named Wu Xie, who fell into a hole that had been dug three thousand years ago."

The middle-aged man looked at Li Cu. "All he's trying to do now is fill in this hole." 

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Notes:

[1] An interference pattern produced by overlaying similar but slightly offset templates.

[2] It kind of looks like a kidnapper van rather than a minivan. They're also called "Gold Cup" cars.

[3] FYI, this is not "The Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers" mentioned back in Vol. 1 "Cavern of Blood Zombies". This is probably the silk book Gold Tooth (aka Jin Wantang) brought to Wu Xie's shop that dragged him into the whole mess.