Stealing Heavenly Secrets from Cover the Heavens Section 16

In fact, there was no need for Ye Fan to explain it to him at all.

From the soil that had been deliberately spread thin and dumped in the field outside, it was clear that large-scale earthmoving was underway inside the vegetable greenhouse.

Those people thought their methods were flawless, but in the eyes of a professional like Li Zhi, they were riddled with holes.

And from the soil they had dug up, it was obvious they hadn't yet reached the main tomb chamber.

Li Zhi had far more experience than Ye Fan in dealing with grave-robbing gangs of this caliber.

Then, Li Zhi said, "Let's go. We'll buy some things in the neighboring county."

Two hours later, Ye Fan stared blankly at Li Zhi as he looked at the trunk stuffed with medical protective suits, work gloves, hammers, dim flashlights, thin steel cables, shovels, pickaxes, and even a few bags of vegetable seeds and mushroom seeds.

"Curious why I bought all this?" Li Zhi said with a smile.

Ye Fan nodded. "I can understand the protective suits, work gloves, shovels, and flashlights. But why the thin steel cables, hammers, and vegetable seeds?"

Li Zhi replied, "Naturally, to clean up any trouble."

Li Zhi said it very casually, but Ye Fan could hear the boundless killing intent in his words.

Seeing the complex look in Ye Fan's eyes, Li Zhi suddenly turned serious. "Ye Fan, remember this: when dealing with lawless men, don't expect to do honest business with them. It's a blessing if they don't turn on you. Sometimes, when special situations arise, we have to leave certain potential dangers buried underground forever."

The hammer and thin steel cable were obviously for silencing people.

A knife was never an efficient killing weapon, whether long or short.

But a hammer was different. No matter who you were, one heavy blow and you'd lose all combat ability instantly.

"Hammer you to death" wasn't just a joke.

It was a method that could truly settle things with one strike.

The thin steel cable was the best weapon for suffocating someone in a tight space.

After hearing Li Zhi's explanation, Ye Fan still couldn't help asking, with some reluctance, "Do we really have to kill people?"

Li Zhi suddenly laughed. "If they don't want to kill us, then we don't need to kill them. After all, killing is a troublesome thing."

At this point, Ye Fan was still too young, with a trace of college-student innocence left in his heart.

He wasn't yet the decisive, ruthless Ye Hei of the future.

Perhaps after this incident, the future Ye Fan—decisive, ruthless, and merciless—would emerge.

Of course, whether that kindness in his heart would be worn away, Li Zhi didn't know.

Thanks to the book friend Cool Run Back to Town for the tip, here's a four-thousand-word chapter.

While Li Zhi and Ye Fan were buying supplies, that group of grave robbers was also making their final push.

After three years of archaeological-style digging, they had thoroughly mapped out the great tomb.

Only the main outer coffin chamber, sealed by the Huangchang Ticou, remained unopened.

The treasures in the outer coffin storage room had already been looted clean.

If they continued with the same archaeological-style excavation, they couldn't break into the main outer coffin chamber.

Because those massive, heavy cypress logs required large machinery to move.

So, after clearing the outer areas, they planned to use a chainsaw to cut a hole directly through the cypress wall of the Huangchang Ticou into the main outer coffin chamber.

To minimize damage to the treasures inside the main outer coffin chamber, they made the most meticulous preparations.

When Ye Fan and Li Zhi returned from buying supplies in the county, they suddenly found the small road leading to the vegetable greenhouse blocked by a large truck parked sideways across it.

The vehicle couldn't pass at all.

And one of the truck's front wheels had been removed.

It seemed to have stopped there due to a flat tire, but they didn't see the owner at the scene—he had apparently taken the tire to get it repaired.

Seeing this, Li Zhi said to Ye Fan, "Looks like we can't go today."

Ye Fan was sharp and immediately connected the dots. "This truck was probably deliberately placed here to block the road. Are they making a big move today?"

Li Zhi nodded. "Given the situation, those people are likely up to something big."

Ye Fan asked, "So, are we still going?"

Li Zhi thought for a moment, then said firmly, "Yes, of course we're going. And we can't let them beat us to it. In ancient tombs, the most valuable things for us aren't the buried gold and silver, but the easily decayed bamboo slips and silk fabrics. Once those things hit the air, they'll instantly weather away."

Ye Fan nodded in agreement.

Then he asked, "So how do we get there?"

Li Zhi smiled slightly. "We'll ride bicycles."

Walking was out of the question—it would be too obvious and easily alert the enemy.

So Li Zhi and Ye Fan drove to a nearby town.

At a store selling children's bicycles, they bought two off-road bikes.

Then, Li Zhi and Ye Fan each slung a backpack over their shoulders, hopped on bicycles like they were heading out for a picnic, and rode off to that place again.

Meanwhile, inside Greenhouse No. 4 at the Vegetable Greenhouse base, six men in protective suits and gas masks were hauling gear down into a tunnel.

There were electric drills, electric saws, shovels, chisels, ropes, winches—everything you'd need for digging.

The tunnel entrance was a vertical shaft a meter in diameter.

From the outside, it looked no different from an ordinary well.

About ten meters down from the opening, you hit the bottom of the shaft, where there was also a layer of standing water over two feet deep.

From the surface, it seemed like nothing more than a shallow water well.

But right now, a meter above the water at the shaft's bottom, scaffolding had been set up.

Next to the scaffolding, on the shaft wall, a horizontal sloping tunnel a meter wide and two meters tall had been carved out.

And that downward-sloping tunnel had been reinforced with timber supports, the workmanship quite professional.

The bracing method was almost identical to what you'd see in a small coal mine's underground tunnels.

Inside the sloping tunnel, there was even a ventilation pipe a hundred millimeters in diameter, constantly pumping in fresh air.

If Li Zhi had seen the grave tunnel they'd dug, he'd have exclaimed that it wasn't a grave tunnel at all—it was clearly a professional mining tunnel.

Among that gang of grave robbers, there had to be someone who'd worked as a coal miner.

Since they were all wearing gas masks, their faces were impossible to make out.

"Everyone, pick up the pace. Let's try to break into the main outer coffin chamber tonight, before anything else goes wrong. Once this job is done, we can call it quits."

"Brother Qiang, save your breath. We're even more anxious than you. Three years of hard work, and we're finally about to see the true appearance of this big tomb's master."

"Scholar, once the main outer coffin chamber is breached, you'll still be the one in charge of the excavation."

"Don't worry, Brother Qiang. This tomb is exceptionally well-preserved, and there's no water inside the tomb chamber. The main outer coffin chamber should be free of silt. The good stuff will be sitting there in crates and crates. As long as we're careful, we can haul it all out."

"You're a top graduate from the archaeology department—we'll follow your lead," Brother Qiang said.

Among this crew, there was actually a professional involved in the grave robbing.

That was something Ye Fan hadn't managed to find out before.

"Scholar, I heard that Han dynasty nobles and royalty liked to store horseshoe gold in their tombs. Does this big tomb have any horseshoe gold?"

"It should. But not too much. After all, the master of this tomb isn't an emperor—just a general," the Scholar replied.

Then he added, "Once we open the main outer coffin chamber, nobody move. Let me take photos first, and only then can you start moving things out."

"Relax, Scholar. We'll leave all those bamboo slips and jade tablets for you. Anything with writing on it, we won't touch until you give the go-ahead," Brother Qiang said.

From their conversation, it wasn't hard to tell.

The Scholar and Brother Qiang didn't seem to be from the same crew—more like they were cooperating.

The tools were quickly moved in.

Then Brother Qiang started assigning tasks to everyone.

The sloping tunnel went straight down thirty meters underground.

Around the sloping tunnel, there were abandoned side tunnels, likely left over from their earlier excavation of burial pits.

That sloping tunnel took two turns underground before finally stopping at a wall built from stacked timber.

It was the cypress wall that made up the Huangchang Ticou.

After drilling core samples, they'd already determined that the cypress wall was two meters thick.

Excavation work began immediately.

They kept at it nonstop, swapping out people but never the machines.

Two hours later, they'd carved a hole in the cypress wall that was 1.8 meters high, 1.7 meters deep, and 1.2 meters wide.