Tomb raiding: Intercepting Yin Xinyue and building a family of immortals

Su Xiaoquan showed a struggle, on one hand the Su family's centuries-old reputation, and on the other hand the disaster of the family's downfall...

After a long while, he finally made a decision, looking as if he had aged ten years, and spoke weakly and listlessly!

"Very well, since the position of clan leader is now in your hands, you shall be in charge from now on. However, I require you to kneel before our ancestors and swear that you will never lead the clan to its doom!"

Su Chen readily complied and knelt down directly before the ancestral tablets.

"With our ancestors above, Su Yichen hereby swears that our family will prosper and our descendants will flourish..."

Seeing Su Chen make such a solemn vow, Su Xiaoquan slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alright, I'm tired. From now on, the heavy burden of the family will fall on your shoulders!"

Su Chen chuckled, stepped forward to help the old clan chief, and comforted him, "Just you wait and see, I guarantee everyone will have enough to eat."

After the discussion, the group left the ancestral hall.

But then they saw a large pot set up in the open space in the center of the village.

Soon, the aroma of food filled the air.

Despite having twenty jin of grain, the elderly women in charge of cooking dared not waste any. In fact, they only cooked a small portion, just a pot of plain porridge.

Even plain porridge was something the surrounding tribesmen longed for.

Especially the few little ones who were not yet eight years old, they refused to leave the big pot, as if the aroma of the white porridge could fill their stomachs.

Su Chen stepped forward and took a look, finding that the white porridge in the pot was quite thick, meeting the standard that chopsticks could stand upright without tipping over.

Under the shade of a jujube tree not far away, Su Renxiu carried an old bow on his back, surrounded by a group of men who listened to him boast about what had happened that afternoon.

"Hehe, you guys don't know, there are over a thousand refugees surrounding Changsha City, and they're robbing anyone they see! Luckily, Xiao Chen is smart; he knew that if he only brought food, it would probably be stolen, so he went to buy weapons first..."

"When we left the city, good heavens, a huge crowd of disaster victims surrounded us."

"Fortunately, Xiao Chen knows a set of sword techniques, which are so powerful that even thirty or fifty people cannot get close to him."

"Then I drew my bow and shot an arrow from two hundred paces away, hitting a willow leaf. The group of disaster victims were so frightened that they wet their pants on the spot!"

A burst of laughter erupted from the crowd, and someone couldn't help but ask, "Uncle Liu, how did you know he wet his pants?"

"Of course, I can smell the urine."

Behind his sixth uncle, Su Renxiu, Su Yitian, who had gone to the city with them to buy grain, blushed with embarrassment!

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, he quickly stepped back a few paces.

Because the one who wet his pants wasn't a disaster victim, but him!

Fortunately, the situation was chaotic at the time, and no one noticed except for himself.

Just then, a large hand suddenly patted Su Yitian's shoulder, almost scaring him so badly he wet himself again.

Su Yitian turned around in a panic and saw that it was Su Chen.

He breathed a sigh of relief and quickly said, "Brother Chen, you scared me to death!"

"What wrong have you done that you're so afraid?"

"No, I haven't done anything wrong!"

Su Yitian quickly shook his head!

"Weird and weird..."

Su Chen made a comment but didn't pay much attention to it. He simply instructed, "After we finish eating, invite Ling'er and Xiao Hu up to my house. I have something to announce."

After saying this, Aunt Si announced that dinner was served.

Everyone hurried home to get bowls and lined up to drink the porridge.

One bowl per person, no more.

And it's just plain, tasteless porridge!

Even so, the whole village still drank it all.

Even the bottom of the pot was scraped clean, so there was no need to wash it.

After finishing his porridge, Su Yitian had a look of lingering satisfaction on his face.

He had almost forgotten when was the last time he had porridge.

On the road to escape famine, the most common food was tree bark. Occasionally, when they were extremely hungry, they would even go back and grab a handful of clay.

Many people in later generations wondered why people would still eat Guanyin clay, knowing that it could kill them if consumed in excess.

Actually, the answer to this question is quite simple: only those who have truly experienced extreme hunger know just how unbearable it is to be hungry.

Even a little bit of extra satiety would be something the disaster victims desperately want.

After pondering for a moment, Su Yitian remembered Su Chen's instructions and hurriedly informed Su Yihu and Su Ling'er.

The three of them went to Changsha City together and experienced being besieged by disaster victims, which made them feel closer to each other.

The three of them arrived at Su Chen's house side by side. Looking inside, they saw that Su Renzhao and Su Renxiu had already arrived in the courtyard.

"Fourth Uncle, Sixth Uncle..."

The three quickly greeted each other, and Su Ling'er hurriedly asked, "Fourth Uncle, where is Brother Chen?"

Su Renzhao gestured towards the house, and sure enough, a moment later, he came out of the house carrying two shovels.

"Brother Chen, what's wrong...?"

Su Chen smiled and casually explained, "Before we fled the famine, my parents buried the shovels. We just retrieved them."

Su Ling'er and the other two looked puzzled and couldn't help but ask, "Brother Xiao Chen, what are you doing with the shovel? We don't have any seeds, so we can't even plant crops."

"You'll find out later."

Su Chen handed the shovel to Su Yihu and Su Yitian, then pulled the group into the house.

Sunlight streamed through the broken window, revealing a hand-drawn map on the table.

Su Chen pointed to the map and explained, "This is a map that the blacksmith gave me when I bought the bow and arrows. It was supposedly drawn by an old local hunter. Several mountains around here are marked."

"Sixth Uncle, you used to be a hunter and have been to many mountains. I'd like to ask, do you know of any ancient tombs or legends of high-ranking officials in the mountains?"

Ancient tomb?

Upon hearing these two words, everyone except Su Renzhao, who knew Su Chen's plan, looked surprised.

Su Renxiu was stunned for a moment before answering, "I don't know about the ancient tomb, but there is a Lishan Mountain about fifty miles away from our Su Family Village. It is said that a Li King was buried in the mountain, hence the name. People have searched in the mountain before, but they have searched almost the entire Lishan Mountain and found no ancient tomb."

"In addition, fifty miles south of Lishan, there is Ningxiang Mountain, where there is an ancient tomb with the tomb entrance exposed on the ground. Some daring hunters have gone in to see it before. I heard that the burial objects inside were basically all taken by tomb raiders."

As he spoke, Su Renxiu pointed to two locations on the map.

After listening, Su Chen frowned and began to think.

The system task requires him to lead his people to excavate an ancient tomb, regardless of its size.

However, don't assume that just because there are no size or specifications, you can dig anywhere, or even find a mass grave or an ancestral tomb and call it an ancient tomb.

In fact, people in ancient times were divided into different classes, and so were tombs.

First of all, the place where ordinary people are buried after they die is not called a tomb, but should actually be called a grave!

It's basically digging a hole, burying the coffin in it, and then building a mound of earth!

This type of grave is called a mound, and it is the most common type of burial for ordinary people.

In ancient times, only officials or prominent families were qualified to have tombs.

These types usually include an underground palace, a tomb entrance, and a small number of burial objects.

Further up are the tombs of nobles, and the mausoleums of feudal lords and emperors...

In other words, the ancient tombs in the system's missions must at least have a tomb entrance, an underground palace, and a proper burial chamber.

Just like in later generations, everyone has certainly heard of ancient tombs being discovered in some place and needing to be excavated, but they have basically never heard of ancient burial mounds being discovered in some place!

Because tombs and graves are of different specifications!

Only tombs have archaeological value.

It's worth mentioning that island nations do have many ancient tombs.

Like ancient tombs in the mountains, ancient tombs of immortals...

This is because their understanding of tomb culture is inadequate, and they confuse the two.

Even the tombs of the royal family of island nations are uniformly referred to as "graves".