N-A-A Chapter 991 This imperial tomb isn't so easy to enter!
Chapter 991 This imperial tomb isn't so easy to enter!
“Keep a close eye on him,” the mysterious Yi Xiaochuan finally spoke again, his voice icy and devoid of any emotion. “Find out exactly what he’s doing at Mount Li. Also, strengthen surveillance of our internal operations, especially the routes with the Xiongnu. Gao Yao is a cunning man, and we must be on guard.”
"Yes!" the subordinates responded in unison, their figures disappearing back into the darkness as silently as they had come.
If given the slightest choice, the enigmatic Yi Xiaochuan would never have wanted to set foot in Xianyang at this moment. This place was no longer the turbulent, heroic capital of his memories; it had been transformed into a den of dragons and tigers, a territory teeming with spies and deadly intent, crafted by Gao Yao himself. The air was no longer filled with mere dust and smoke; instead, it carried a chilling aura of ruthless intrigue and conspiracy.
The mysterious Yi Xiaochuan was no fool; he understood Gao Yao's terrifying nature better than anyone. Through countless reincarnations, he had witnessed, or rather, personally experienced, Gao Yao's almost instinctive talent for seizing power and building his own network of influence. His concrete intelligence indicated that Gao Yao was cultivating an organization called the "Blue Robe Society."
The name may sound somewhat refined, but in essence, it is a vast, sophisticated, and all-pervasive intelligence machine. They might disguise themselves as peddlers in the streets and alleys, obsequious clerks in government offices, or even trusted advisors and retainers in a noble mansion... No one knows their true identities; all that is known is that they are like ghosts attached to the bloodline of the empire, silently collecting all information that might be of value to Gao Yao, whether it be court affairs, secrets of the martial arts world, or even... old acquaintances like him who shouldn't be here.
Gathering intelligence, especially conducting reconnaissance in Gaoyao's core territory, is inherently a dance on a knife's edge. The risk of exposure is like a Damocles' sword hanging over one's head, ready to fall at any moment. The enigmatic Yi Xiaochuan was astute enough to know that if the Qingyi Society detected even the slightest anomaly in his movements, thereby attracting Gaoyao's attention, then his dream of leaving Xianyang unscathed would be nothing short of delusional.
Gao Yao's longing for his old friend probably far exceeds what ordinary people can imagine; it will be a thunderous siege, mobilizing the entire city's resources and even the imperial army. At that time, he will face a truly inescapable net.
However, despite his reluctance and the immense risks, he still came. There was one reason, heavier than a thousand pounds, that he couldn't avoid and had to risk his life.
That is—Tianxing!
That extraterrestrial meteorite, containing incredible power and closely connected to his and Gao Yao's journey through time and this long and painful cycle of fate, now lies quietly deep within the underground palace of the most magnificent, mysterious, and dangerous mausoleum in the world—the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum.
Each time he travels through time, each time he struggles in the torrent of time, the mysterious Yi Xiaochuan feels new emotions about this tomb. It is not just the resting place of an emperor, but more like a huge mystery that stretches across history, an ultimate creation that embodies the ultimate wisdom and effort of ancient craftsmen, a forbidden place that even he, a time traveler who has witnessed countless rises and falls, feels awe for.
His gaze seemed to pierce through the layers of buildings in Xianyang City, looking towards the distant northern foothills of Mount Li, where the first emperor of a thousand years lay dormant.
The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is nestled against the vast, dark green Lishan Mountain to the south and bordered by the winding Wei River to the north. Lishan Mountain, an important branch of the northern foothills of the Qinling Mountains, stretches 25 kilometers from east to west and is about 7 kilometers wide from north to south. Rising abruptly from the ground by the mighty Himalayan orogeny, the mountain range is characterized by its fault-block horst formations, with an elevation of 1,000 meters, towering peaks, and deep ravines.
The valleys running north to south resemble wrinkles on the earth, with rivers flowing through them nourishing the land. The final resting place of the First Emperor was carefully chosen on the northern foothills of Mount Li, on a vast alluvial fan formed by the erosion and deposition of rivers over millions of years, occupying a "lucky land" considered excellent in feng shui.
In later generations, the Terracotta Army pits, which are known as wonders of the world, and the bronze chariots, horses, and acrobatic figurines that have been unearthed... In the eyes of the mysterious Yi Xiaochuan, they were merely the tip of the iceberg of this huge iceberg, just the outermost burial pits of the mausoleum, used to confuse and intimidate.
The true core, the hidden underground palace, has never been truly touched by any archaeological methods of later generations. Thousands of years of wind, rain, snow, geological changes, and human destruction have reduced the height of the surface mound. The depth of later excavations is pitifully shallow compared to the size of the tomb itself, even less than one percent of the original structure.
But in this era, the scale of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum project was absolutely unprecedented and enough to amaze even ghosts and gods! It was not just a simple matter of digging a deep pit. It involved mobilizing the entire nation's resources and with an almost fanatical obsession to carve out and construct a magnificent underground palace complex deep in the earth, modeled after the layout of the Xianyang Palace!
Imagine reaching depths of hundreds of meters! This was done in an era without modern machinery, relying on the flesh and blood of countless laborers, shovel by shovel, pickaxe by pickaxe, basket by basket, carrying loads, spending countless lives and time digging and exploring downwards!
Construction on the mausoleum began when Ying Zheng ascended the throne and continued for two more years until its completion during the reign of Qin Er Shi (Hu Hai). Even in a world where Gao Yao's intervention altered the course of history, ultimately leading to Prince Fusu's ascension, the construction of Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum seems to have been completed with a kind of fateful inertia.
Over the course of more than a decade, the number of conscripted laborers peaked at over 720,000! This was an engineering force comparable in size to an imperial army, working day and night at the foot of Mount Li, quarrying rocks, transporting earth and compacting foundations, draining water and preventing corrosion, setting up mechanisms... The financial and material resources it consumed, the complexity and precision of its engineering, and the ambition and wisdom it contained all reached an unprecedented peak that is unlikely to be surpassed in the future.
The celestial star, that crucial extraterrestrial object, is placed at the deepest part of this vast underground labyrinth. Its energy radiation may have already permeated every corner of the tomb, silently influencing everything. For the mysterious Yi Xiaochuan, who is eager to break the cycle of reincarnation and unravel all the mysteries, its importance is self-evident; it is something he is determined to obtain.
In contrast, Gao Yao, despite his current immense power, is relatively "unfamiliar" with the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum hidden deep underground, especially its core secrets. This unfamiliarity does not mean he is unaware of the mausoleum's existence or approximate location, but rather that he lacks understanding of the extremely complex and treacherous structure within, and is even less aware of Tianxing's exact location and state within it.