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

Jin Suanpan looked around, a puzzled expression on his face, and asked, "Miss Yi, where is Chief Huang?"

Yi Xiao shook her head, indicating that she didn't know either.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a military officer appeared in the distance.

The officer was around thirty years old, with a small mustache, riding a tall horse, and wearing shiny military boots.

He sat on horseback and replied with a smile, "Mr. Jin, General Manager Huang has gone to Tiger Cave ahead of time, leaving instructions for the two of you to meet up there."

Upon hearing this, Jin Suanpan then introduced Su Chen to everyone.

Then he said, "Young man, this is Battalion Commander Chen Changqing. He brought an engineering battalion with him this time to protect our safety."

Su Chen nodded, his gaze sweeping over the troops behind Chen Changqing, especially their equipment.

After observing for a while, Su Chen had a better understanding.

The equipment of this unit is not even as good as the weapons in his storage space.

Most of them are old-fashioned Hanyang rifles that have been phased out.

Moreover, the quality of the troops is not high, and many of them are old, weak, sick and disabled.

Clearly, Commander Zhang in the city did not think that excavating the tomb of Emperor Taizu of Liao was dangerous, and he did not care much about it.

They probably sent this unit just to try their luck, even if it wasn't a sure thing.

Furthermore, by this point, Su Chen also understood the purpose of this tomb-descending team.

Besides him and Jin Suanpan, there was also a battalion of soldiers under Commander Zhang, the Yi family girl from the Three Rivers Water Demons, and the Northern School Unloading Ridge Chief, who is elusive and has never been seen before.

After the group reunited, they immediately set off for Tiger Cave Mountain outside the city.

The journey was smooth, and by the afternoon, they had reached Tiger Cave Mountain, a hundred miles away.

The mountain is not very big, less than twenty miles in circumference.

However, Tiger Cave is extremely famous in Shenyang!

Because inside the mountain, there is an extremely deep cave.

For hundreds of years, people have seen tigers near the cave from time to time, which is why the mountain is called Tiger Cave.

Whether there were tigers inside the cave or how deep it was remains a mystery to this day.

It is said that during the years when tigers were most rampant, the government organized hunting teams to enter the caves and hunt tigers.

However, after wandering around for dozens of miles, they still couldn't find the tiger, nor could they discover where the cave's exit was.

Locals say that not only tigers live in Tiger Cave, but also dragons.

Every few decades, the roar of a dragon can be heard outside the Tiger Cave.

of course……

These are all folk tales, and the truth remains a mystery.

Jin Suanpan had nothing to do on the way, so he sat in the carriage and told Su Chen and the others, as well as Battalion Commander Chen, about their destination.

“I saw a proverb about the Liao Taizu Emperor’s Mausoleum at the Shelong Temple site. It has twelve characters in total: ‘Not underground, not in the sky, not in the water.’”

Upon hearing this, everyone exchanged bewildered glances.

Chen Changqing, in particular, was stunned for a moment before subconsciously replying, "It's not on the ground, not in the sky, and not in the water. Does it mean it's outside the Three Realms and outside the Five Elements?"

Su Renxiu asked curiously, "Mr. Jin, what's the significance of these twelve characters?"

Jin Suanpan smiled and explained.

"I discussed this with Mr. Huang before. These twelve characters represent earth burial, sky burial, and water burial respectively. Since none of them are the case, there is actually another type of burial that does not fall into these three categories."

"Another burial method?"

The most common burial method seen by ordinary people is earth burial. Even sky burial and water burial are rare, let alone other burial methods.

"That's right, this kind of burial is called cave burial. But it's not simply about putting a coffin into a cave. Throughout history, only the royal tombs of ethnic minorities have used special burial methods. For example, there used to be a demon kingdom where the rulers were all women, known as ghost mothers. After they died, they were buried in caves, and a nine-story demon tower would be built inside the cave to bury the remains of the ghost mothers."

As Su Chen listened to Jin Suanpan's explanation, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

The Ghost Mother is the ruler of the Demon Kingdom. She first came into contact with the Bottomless Ghost Cave during the ancient Shang and Zhou dynasties and obtained the Muchen Pearl.

Later, the Demon Kingdom was destroyed, and its descendants went into exile and established the Reincarnation Sect.

During this period, another tribe mistakenly entered the Bottomless Ghost Cave, but because they lacked the Muchen Pearl, they gained no power and were instead cursed. This tribe was the Zaglama clan, the ancestors of the Mountain Moving Taoists. The Zaglama clan discovered that the closer they were to the Bottomless Ghost Cave, the stronger the curse became. Therefore, they had no choice but to migrate to the Central Plains.

Next came the descendants of the Demon Kingdom, who had always wanted to rebuild the Demon Kingdom. After a thousand years, they finally returned to the Bottomless Ghost Cave and the Ghost Mother was reborn.

This demon mother is none other than the Queen of Jingjue.

In other words, those who can communicate with the Serpent God and even borrow its power have always been the Demon Kingdom or its descendants.

Partridge Whistle's ancestors who moved mountains were simply unlucky, having been cursed unintentionally.

The thought flashed through Su Chen's mind. He thought for a moment and asked, "Senior Jin, do you mean that the Liao Taizu Emperor's Mausoleum is inside Tiger Cave?"

"It's just a guess. We'll only know for sure once we go inside."

As they were talking, the main force finally arrived at the foot of Tiger Cave Mountain.

At the foot of the mountain, a campsite had already been set up by a lake.

Twenty or thirty people were busy preparing dinner at the camp.

but……

To Su Chen and his companions' surprise, each of these people had a weasel perched on their shoulder.

Moreover, they were extremely skilled at ordering the weasels around.

"This……"

Seeing the surprise on Su Chen's face, Jin Suanpan smiled and said, "Don't be surprised, this is the Huang family's specialty."

"Is this what the senior mentioned, the Northern School of Unloading Ridge?"

"That's right! In the early Ming Dynasty, because Guanshan Taibao suppressed other sects, Xieling split into two factions, the North and the South. The South faction was the Chen family, who mostly followed the path of bandits and had a large number of people. The North faction was the Huang family, which had a small number of people, only about a hundred at its peak."

Upon hearing this, Su Chen roughly understood what Jin Suanpan meant.

The Huang family of the Northern School of Unloading Ridge is similar to the Nine Gates family structure.

Usually, family members excavate ancient tombs together, unlike Chen Yulou's tens of thousands of bandits who would blast mountains and destroy tombs in an instant.

No sooner had Jin Suanpan finished speaking than a hearty laugh echoed through the camp.

"Brother Jin, you're late! Come on, let's go grab a drink!"

"Don't rush, let me introduce you to this person next to me..."

Su Chen heard the voice, but could not see the person!

Looking around, he realized that the speaker was a middle-aged dwarf.

This person is less than one meter tall!

Especially since he was wearing a brown mink coat, at first glance you might mistake him for a large yellow fur coat.

"Young man, this is the chief leader of the Northern School of Unloading Ridge, the current head of the Huang family, Huang Zhankui!"

"General Manager Huang, please lead the way!"

Su Chen cupped his hands in a respectful gesture.

Huang Zhankui was quite amiable, nodding amicably to Su Chen and Yi Xiao.

However, his attitude towards Chen Changqing was not very good. He ignored Chen Changqing's greeting and made Chen Changqing feel a little embarrassed.

Once inside the camp, Jin Suanpan quietly told Su Chen that the Huang family was a local powerful clan that had been rooted in Shenyang for over three hundred years.

Let alone a battalion commander like Chen Changqing, even Marshal Zhang would have to give him some face.

However, Huang Zhankui did not value power and influence; instead, he admired those with real ability.

That's why he was polite to Su Chen but didn't take Chen Changqing seriously.