nucmednet Chapter 76 The Tomb of the Alchemist?
Chapter 76 The Tomb of the Alchemist?
Zhou Ling walked up to the stone wall.
I shone a flashlight on the scratches along the edge of the crack and examined them for a moment.
"Bring the things over here."
She took the probe of the portable spectrometer from Lao Tan.
Carefully insert the probe into the crack.
On the instrument screen,
A series of waveform curves appear.
Bai Sheng could see what the waveform curve looked like in reality.
But I don't really understand what this thing is.
never mind,
Let the professionals handle the professional matters; just listen to their conclusions.
Zhou Ling got up, dusted off her hands, and nodded to Zhao Qiming.
Zhao Qiming made a hand gesture.
Several security personnel immediately dispersed around the crack.
Two people stood guard on either side of the stone wall.
One person climbed to the top of the rock face and stood guard with a gun, while the rest set up portable searchlights and aimed them at the entrance of the crack.
Bai Sheng: ? ? ?
No, brothers, say something!
You've got a conclusion, so why are you making it sound like a riddle?
"Ground-penetrating radar shows that there is a cavity beneath this area, which is quite large and about ten meters deep."
The top of the cavity is less than two meters below the surface; if we can find the entrance, we can get down without heavy excavation equipment!
Several technicians gathered around, one of them taking out a portable rock drill.
Zhao Qiming was quite cautious.
He gestured for the rock drill operator to stop.
Then he picked up the walkie-talkie and asked, "Any abnormalities from the outer perimeter security team?"
The voice of the outer team came through the walkie-talkie, saying that the surrounding woods were quiet and there was no movement.
Zhao Qiming then signaled to continue.
Goodness, they're all quite cautious.
It seems the Ministry of the Interior doesn't have much authority right now.
Is it because we are not paying enough attention to this rather special phenomenon?
That shouldn't be the case. Can such a makeshift team really do it?
there,
The rock drill went down about ten centimeters along the edge of the stone slab.
The soil around the stone slab began to loosen.
Several technicians used shovels to clear away the gravel and dirt.
The entire stone slab is now visible.
A technician wanted to touch the stone slab.
Old Tan grabbed his wrist, his expression changing slightly:
"Don't touch it! Last time in Cangshi County, that technician triggered the trap by touching one of these stones."
The stone slab itself might be connected to some kind of mechanism; let's use the robot to explore it first.
"Old Tan is right."
Zhou Ling had someone take a small tracked exploration robot out of the metal box.
Insert the probe along the gap at the edge of the stone slab.
The images transmitted back by the robot's camera show that
Below the stone slab is an extremely narrow passageway.
At the end of the passageway is a half-open stone door.
A faint, dark red light shone through the crack in the door.
After confirming that there were no traps, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"This is it."
Zhou Ling patted the dirt off her hands and nodded to Zhao Qiming.
Zhao Qiming instructed two technicians to carefully pry open the stone slab using crowbars.
A dark, gaping entrance was revealed underneath.
The entrance is only wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.
Old Tan then inserted the probe of the portable gas detector into the tunnel.
The instrument screen displays,
Oxygen levels are normal, and there are no toxic gases!
but,
The temperature was nearly 10 degrees lower than the ground level, but the humidity was abnormally high!
and,
You can hear a very faint sound of wind.
This also indicates that there is air circulation below, but the source of the airflow is unknown!
"Is there a tomb down there?"
Zhou Ling guessed,
"It's highly likely to be a tomb."
Old Tan zoomed in on the ground-penetrating radar scan on the tablet. "Look, look! The square space is about four meters on each side, and there's a high-density object right in the center!"
It's very likely a stone coffin, and given the numerous artificial carvings on the surrounding walls, it's probably a burial chamber.
"The question is, who is buried here?" Zhao Qiming, the head of the security department, stood to the side.
Arms crossed over chest
"Zhaoling is an imperial tomb, and there are strict functional zones around it."
Empresses and concubines were buried on the west side of the mausoleum, while the east side contained the sacrificial area and the mausoleum guard's office...
Zhou Ling murmured,
Zhao Qiming said, "I'll share my opinion for your consideration."
This matter is actually quite mysterious, so I'll just talk about the mysterious aspects.
This valley is located directly north of Zhaoling Mausoleum, and north is the Xuanwu position in Feng Shui.
According to feng shui, this is a protective position; who would be buried in the protective position directly north of an emperor's tomb?
"It certainly wasn't the emperor himself."
Zhou Ling unconsciously uttered a pointless remark.
"The main burial chamber of Zhaoling is located in the very center of the mountain, several miles away from here."
But I feel it wasn't just ordinary burial; the specific reason can only be described as intuition.
Zhao Qiming, who was in charge of security, seemed to take a liking to what excited him.
Then he began to speak fluently and at length:
"It could be a highly trusted alchemist of the emperor, or it could be someone of extremely high status within the royal family."
For example, a prince who was famous for his magical arts!
From the mid-Ming Dynasty onwards, many members of the imperial family became obsessed with alchemy and cultivating immortality.
If one of them truly achieved something remarkable, it's not impossible that after his death he might be granted permission to be buried next to Zhaoling Mausoleum to guard its feng shui.
Old Tan didn't seem to like these wildly imaginative guesses. "Of course, these are all just guesses."
To find out the answer, you have to go down and see for yourself.
"Old Tan, are you just going to let me go down like this?" Zhao Qiming said half-jokingly.
Zhou Ling didn't hesitate for long.
She had several portable oxygen masks and headlamps brought out.
Distributed to those who were preparing to go down into the cave.
They checked the safety harness buckles on everyone's waists again.
Then he nodded to Zhao Qiming.
Zhao Qiming selected two of the thinnest security guards, and the three of them squeezed into the passageway one by one.
Old Tan stayed at the cave entrance, holding a tablet to monitor real-time data.
After Zhao Qiming went downstairs, his voice came through the walkie-talkie:
"The walls are covered with murals, which resemble those sacrificial scenes."
"So it's a sacrificial scene?" Zhou Ling asked.
"Yes, it is a sacrificial ceremony, but there is one difference. The people in these paintings are wearing official robes."
Because their clothes had clearly visible insignia indicating their official rank.
"Wait a minute! There's a stone tablet on the wall behind the sarcophagus with inscriptions on it."
"What's engraved?" Zhou Ling pressed the intercom.
There was a moment of silence on the walkie-talkie, then Zhao Qiming's voice came through again:
"...the joint tomb of the late Qingxu Zhenren Chonghe Zhenren."
Below that was a line of smaller characters: "By the grace of Heaven, a loyal and capable military official, special rank, Grand Master of the Palace, Right Pillar of State, and Grand Tutor?"
Zhao Qiming paused here, unable to resist complaining, "These classical Chinese texts are so annoying! They don't even have punctuation!"
Bai Sheng wasn't surprised at all.
After all, you need to know,
The National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Chinese has a multiple-choice question specifically on punctuating classical Chinese texts!
On the other side, Zhao Qiming recovered and continued:
"This is a joint burial tomb for a husband and wife! The man was a Taoist priest, and the woman, judging from her title..."
She is the daughter of a hereditary marquis, and a first-rank imperial consort!