A piece of Japanese incense

The path was long and steep, going up along the edge of the sea of flowers. After passing through a sparse and tall ancient forest, they walked out of the platform surrounded by the mountains and came to a more open valley.

Here, the sun is abundant, the air is warm and dry, a stark contrast to the chilly, poisonous miasma-filled valley below. The valley is lush with vegetation, birdsong, and fragrant flowers, brimming with life.

Yu Nian took a few steps and began to realize something was wrong. What he was stepping on was not ordinary soil or gravel, but gleaming, metallic golden soil.

The mountain walls on both sides of the valley reflect a dazzling golden light, which is not the reflection of sunlight, but the golden color contained in the mountain rocks themselves.

Yu Nian put down Zhi Yihe and squatted down to casually pull up an ordinary weed with thick leaves. When he pinched the stem, what emerged from the broken end was not green juice, but... densely woven, pure golden threads, like blood vessels.

Seeing this, Zhi Yihe looked around and casually pulled up a plant with small lavender flowers. Similarly! Breaking off the flower stem, golden threads were clearly visible inside!

"This..." Yu Nian was in disbelief and stunned.

When the branches and fingertips touched the broken part, the touch was not the softness of the plant, but the granular texture of metal.

Yu Nian put down the grass, picked up a fist-sized stone scattered on the ground, and smashed it hard at a larger rock next to it.

"Clang!" A crisp sound.

The stone that was hit shattered with a sound, and what was revealed on the broken cross-section was not the gray stone core, but... the same densely packed golden veins that were distributed like a spider web!

They were both completely stunned. Yu Nian supported Zhi Yihe and sat him down against a rock. Then, he pulled away the vines and thin soil covering the surface of the mountain wall, picked up a sharp stone, and smashed it against the exposed rock:

"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

Debris flew.

What was exposed on the mountain wall was not an ordinary rock section, but a piece of pure and dazzling gold.

Yu Nian stopped moving, looked at the huge gap he had created, and then looked around the entire valley:

"Ahe...we...we are not in the same valley...

We...are in a...mountain of gold!?"

Zhi Yihe nodded in agreement and sighed, "All the grass, flowers, stones, and mountains here... are all... gold?!"

Yu Nian nodded woodenly.

"Brother Nian, you said that the treasure that Xiqi Nation has accumulated for hundreds of years and that is coveted by emperors all over the world, could it be that it is not an artifact, but... this mountain?!

So that's it... an inexhaustible mountain of gold! No wonder the King of Xiqi was able to suppress the three great families and control them for a century. How could this be just a treasure? This is clearly enough to overturn the world's wealth structure, enough to buy everything!

"Are we done?" Yu Nian squatted down and held Zhi Yihe's hand. Although Jinshan was shocked, Zhi Yihe's physical condition was what worried him the most.

Zhi Yihe shook her head: "Not yet." She raised her hand and pointed to a path covered with vegetation, winding upwards.

Yu Nian looked at Zhi Yihe's determined eyes and shook his head helplessly: "Okay~ Let's go~"

He lifted Zhi Yihe up again and let her lie on his back. Her body was even lighter than when she was lying on the ground, so he adjusted his posture to make sure she was lying comfortably.

The path spiraled upwards, the slope steeper than before. The ground beneath my feet was still soft golden soil, making a rustling sound when I stepped on it.

The mountain walls on both sides are made entirely of huge exposed gold blocks, which reflect thousands of golden rays in the afternoon sun.

"Could this be... the Golden Spring?!" Zhi Yihe pointed ahead in disbelief.

Yu Nian stopped beside a relatively flat golden rock and saw a small depression. It wasn't filled with water, but rather... a pool of viscous golden liquid, like molten gold, slowly flowing.

The two of them were shocked as they walked along, the air gradually becoming thinner and drier. Golden light was everywhere, tinting everything with a luxurious hue.

Finally, they reached the top of the path, pushing aside the heavy golden vines. A chill wind blew in from the depths of the passage. The passage was not long, and soon they arrived at a huge natural pit completely surrounded by a circular golden mountain wall.

The scene before them left them dumbfounded. In the huge pit, there were not the rare treasures they had expected, but piles of bones.

Countless corpses lay scattered at the bottom of the pit, emitting an eerie, platinum-gold hue. Layer upon layer, the bones lay in various postures: some curled up, some stretched out, some with shattered skulls, some with twisted limbs...

Time had long since stripped away their flesh and clothing, leaving only their most primitive skeletons. There were no coffins, no tombstones, no burial objects, not even the most basic burial. These corpses were exposed nakedly and in disarray between heaven and earth.

"Ah... this... couldn't this be the mausoleum of all the successive emperors of Xiqi... right?!" Zhi Yihe leaned over Yu Nian's back. This was completely different from the imperial mausoleum she'd imagined! Shouldn't an emperor's tomb be solemn and majestic, buried deep underground, and filled with traps? But theirs was so messy? So exposed? So... sloppy!?

Sadness and awe surged in his heart, and Yu Nian sighed: "No matter how prominent a person was in his lifetime, he will eventually be nothing more than a pile of dry bones." He carried Zhi Yihe on his back, walked down the slope beside the pit, and came to the edge of the pile of bones.

The two men bowed deeply in silence to this strange "mausoleum", expressing the most basic respect for the deceased.

Just as he was about to stand up, Yu Nian squatted down as if possessed by a ghost, said "Huh", and stretched out his finger to touch the pelvic area of the corpse closest to him.

"Oh...you..." Zhi Yihe wanted to stop him.

"Ah He, this bone..."

"what happened?"

Yu Nian quickly checked the skeletons nearby: "The pelvis is very wide, and the subpubic angle is very large. This is a woman's skeleton!"

"Ah?" Zhi Yihe immediately squatted down to examine the skeletons under his feet.

"This one is also a female. And this one... this one..." He checked seven or eight bodies in a row, and there was no exception.

"Could it be that all the rulers of Xiqi Kingdom in history were women?" Zhi Yihe murmured to himself.

Yu Nian waved his hand. "How is that possible? There's never been such a record. Xiqi is clearly a country that inherits power through male monarchs. Or is this not a monarch's mausoleum at all?"

Just when the two of them were puzzled——

A dense "buzzing" sound came from the entrance of the passage they came from, from far away to near!

The two looked up.

At the entrance of the passage, like a flowing moonlight galaxy, countless butterflies emitting moon-white halos and with purple halos flowing around the edges flew into the giant pit.

There were so many of them, tens of thousands, that they instantly lit up the eerie pit of bones. As if summoned, they fell one after another onto the scattered bones.

Some of them rested on the skull, some crawled between the intertwined ribs, and some landed on the ends of the tiny finger bones. Bits of moonlight dust fell from their flapping wings, covering these skeletons that had been silent for who knows how many years with a layer of holy and sad veil.

"Are these all-powerful butterflies? How come there are... so many?!"

How long had it been since the queen emerged from her cocoon? How could such a large flock of butterflies be bred in such a short time?!

At this moment, a slightly larger Wanling butterfly broke away from the group of butterflies and flew straight towards Zhi Yihe.

It circled around Zhi Yihe twice, as if confirming something. The purple color on the edge of its wings was deeper than that of other butterflies. Zhi Yihe felt an extremely familiar aura, a breath from her own bloodline.

The butterfly landed on Zhi Yihe's wrist.

"It's you!" Zhi Yihe used his other hand to gently stroke the butterfly that landed on his wrist.

It flew away lightly, but instead of flying back to the flock of butterflies covering the bones, it circled twice in the air and then flew towards the corner of the edge of the huge pit.

The rest of the butterflies seemed to have received instructions, flying up from the piles of bones and following them towards that corner.

"Where are they going?" Zhi Yihe asked in surprise.

Yu Nian met Zhi Yihe's eyes, bowed and patted his shoulder: "Come on!"

Zhi Yihe climbed onto his back, and Yu Nian followed the light, stepping deep and shallow through the scattered white bones and golden sand.

Beneath the golden rock that stood like a folding screen, there lay a narrow crack barely wide enough for one person to pass through! The entrance to the crack was completely covered by dense vines, and it would have been impossible to discover if it weren't for the flock of butterflies leading the way.