Dreaming for 10,000 years

Chapter 270 Digging

Under the dark night sky, an old man and a young boy, wearing gray coats, bent over, like two cautious mice, carefully digging clods of earth in the desolate land.

They worked quickly, with one person digging and the other carrying the soil, and soon they had dug a large hole several meters down.

Suddenly, the older man stopped and the younger one whispered, "Dad...what's wrong?"

"Something's not right!" said the older man.

He was about sixty years old, not tall, with gray hair and a shrewd face. His name was Zhou Tian, and everyone in his group called him Old Zhou.

A little behind him is his son. He is about 30 years old and a little taller than Old Zhou. His name is Weekend. Everyone in the same industry calls him Little Zhou.

"Dad? What's wrong?" Xiao Zhou said, "It's impossible that we have dug up another subway in this remote place, right?"

That was a year ago. They were digging an ancient tomb. They dug deeper and deeper and ended up running into a subway construction site just across the wall.

The father and son even pretended to have a "cross-server chat" with the subway construction workers, but were eventually discovered. Fortunately, the ancient tomb was quite large, and they escaped along the tunnel dug by their predecessors, but forgot to notify the "star watcher" who was watching on the ground.

It should be noted that the person who stays on the ground to keep watch in the cemetery must be someone who knows the ins and outs of the place. In their "Xingshu School", such a person must face the Southern Dipper and guard the entrance to the tomb, so he is called a "star keeper".

Without the "Star Guardian", the three of them became a father-son duo.

They ran around and hid for a year, avoiding the limelight. It happened that Lao Zhou was nearby, observing the stars at night, and found a tomb. He hadn't worked for a year, and his hands were itching, so he brought his son to do this business.

It's in the wilderness, there's no one around, and no star guards, but we can still do it!
"It shouldn't be that big! The tomb shouldn't be that big!" Lao Zhou took a high-lumen flashlight and illuminated the hole in front of him. As he dug, he suddenly found a big hole, followed by a dark hole.

When the flashlight swept across the cave, you could see the brick and stone walls at the entrance and layers of steps, like an underground palace.

Laymen think that tomb robbers only rob large tombs, all of which are underground palaces. But where in ancient times was there such high productivity?

Even if there was an underground palace, it would have collapsed after hundreds or thousands of years, and would have been tightly compressed like a biscuit. Only high-standard imperial tombs could withstand the pressure of thousands of years.

All the tombs that Lao Zhou had robbed before were all pressed together. Tomb robbing meant digging a hole next to the coffin and touching anything valuable. Therefore, some schools of thought were also called tomb-robbing lieutenants.

"Hiss..." Xiao Zhou took a deep breath when he saw the underground palace of the tomb. He also said, "Dad! According to the Xingyuan positioning technique, this should just be the 'Merchant's Tomb'!"

Their school, named "Xingshu School", originated from the disciples of Zhang Heng, the Grand Historian of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It was a secluded school that once surveyed tombs for the royal family.

After the Yongjia Rebellion, he fled to the deep mountains of Bashu and engraved the "Diagram of the Division of Stars in the Sky" which corresponded to the earth's veins of the twenty-eight constellations on a bronze armillary sphere. From then on, he formed a unique method of "observing the sky at night and measuring the earth's veins during the day".

Afterwards, in order to survive, the method of tomb robbing has been passed down. After all, where in the Central Plains is there no cemetery?
The astrological positioning technique was originally used to survey the tombs of the royal family, but later became a means of tomb robbing. The book divides the tomb areas into levels according to Ziweiyuan, Taiweiyuan, and Tianshiyuan.

The emperor's tomb must be hidden in the star position of Ziweiyuan, the princes' tombs are hidden in the division of Taiweiyuan, and the merchants' tombs are located in the jurisdiction of Tianshiyuan. The disciples also need to memorize the "Three Enclosures and Seventy-two Evils Rhymes" and calculate the depth of the underground palace according to the deviation of the star position, so that they can find the ancient tomb.

Especially when looking for the tombs built by our predecessors for emperors and generals, it is really easy to find them.

Those who plant trees will enjoy the shade. Those who plant trees will enjoy the shade. Those who are so great will be unfilial!

Old Zhou had discovered a "merchant" tomb before, so he brought his son here to dig. Now it seems that this tomb is not ordinary. The tomb in front of him is of the imperial level!

"Could it be... I calculated it wrong!" Lao Zhou was a little doubtful about his own professionalism, but he had been in this line of work for decades, and the last time he made a mistake was when he dug the subway.

But that was because the subway was a city's most important facility, affecting the lives of countless people. It was like an artificial dragon vein, and it affected his stargazing and surveying results.

Where is the subway in this remote place now?
"Dad, then let's..." Xiao Zhou looked at the dark tomb and felt that it was like a huge abyss, as if it contained some danger. He swallowed and said, "Shall we go?"

"Of course... I'm going!" Lao Zhou waited for a while, until fresh air entered the tomb, and then stepped into the cave calmly.

If people in their line of work come across a big tomb and don’t dare to enter it, wouldn’t they be laughed at to death?

"Hmm..." Old Zhou looked at the dust under the tomb and said in surprise, "Son, we are rich now. No one in the same profession has been here before!"

If you are not in that line of work, how many peers do you have?
Moreover, the colleagues of tomb robbers are sometimes not only contemporary colleagues, but also colleagues from history. It is not uncommon for a large tomb to be discovered only to be beaten to it by colleagues who lived hundreds of years ago.

You can observe the stars and diagnose the pulse, and so can others! Who knows, it may be your ancestor who lived many generations ago!
"Really?" Xiao Zhou was also surprised.

How many treasures would there be in an imperial tomb that has never been robbed?

"That's right! That's right!" Old Zhou said happily, "With good fortune comes misfortune, and with misfortune comes good fortune. If we hadn't encountered the subway a year ago, we would have been running around for a year and might not have come across this imperial tomb."

"If we can do this deal well, maybe we won't have to worry about food and drink for the next few lifetimes!"

Xiao Zhou frowned and said, "Dad, according to history, there is no government in this wilderness. It's so strange!"

"Not surprising!" Old Zhou shook his head and said, "Many imperial tombs are located far away from the capital, and there are no detailed records in history books."

"Yes!" Xiao Zhou followed his father and walked forward. The tomb passage inside the imperial mausoleum was surprisingly spacious.

Holding a flashlight in one hand and a compass in the other, Old Zhou muttered to himself, "The extension line of the tomb passage coincides with the axis of the Big Dipper. So..."

He pointed and said, "This is the chariot pit."

He pointed to the other side and said, "This is the sacrificial pit."

"The Spring and Autumn Tomb!" Old Zhou said with a sigh.

As we all know, the tombs of the Spring and Autumn Period are full of bronze and jade artifacts. Bronze artifacts are the most difficult to sell on the black market. That's why he sighed.

"Then..." He pointed at the tomb in front with a flashlight and said, "This is the main tomb!"

"Whether you want wealth for a lifetime or three lifetimes depends on this time!" He took his son into the main tomb chamber.

(End of this chapter)