A Busy Vacation

Ning Qing's little motorcycle handled beautifully.

Chen Shu rode along the lakeside road, leaned into a perfect curve, then quickly straightened the bike as he came out of it.

The evening wind rushed under his helmet and into his clothes. Summer had arrived in full, hot and stifling, making this kind of exhilaration all the rarer.

The wind cooled Chen Shu's head considerably. After all the comfort he had gotten from Secretary Ning today, he had also set aside those messy thoughts from earlier, at least for now.

After thinking it over, he figured the Crystal was the cause.

The Cube had detected the Crystal and reacted. He had never spent so long inside the Cube while carrying it before, nor had he spent a night outside the Cube with it.

That meant the Cube's functions were still lacking.

It could not even identify who was carrying the Crystal. Otherwise, it would not have made everyone nearby dream.

The technology of that era still had its limits.

The astonishing part was how the Sacred Ancestor had set up this mechanism without anyone discovering it.

After all, so many Cubes had been unearthed, and Yi Nation had studied them thoroughly. It had even shown off many parts of their Runes—look at that, our ancestors were this badass five thousand years ago! This Rune Array was exquisite, wasn't it? Meanwhile, your ancestors were still eating shit.

But however you looked at it, runic techniques from five thousand years ago were far behind those of the present. If a related rune array had been inscribed inside the Cube, it should have been found and its function worked out long ago.

His fellow countryman really had a few tricks up his sleeve.

The theory still needed testing.

So Chen Shu had left the Crystal at home today and worn an identical imitation instead.

He parked the little motorcycle at the foot of Beauty Mountain, where a checkpoint had already been set up, and showed the staff on duty his work credentials.

"You may pass."

He left the motorcycle there and walked to the archaeological camp.

Professor Chen was eating dinner. When he saw him, he raised an eyebrow slightly. "Why are you back?"

"I thought about it. At home, I'd have to cook for your wife. I might as well come here and get a free dinner. There's free breakfast tomorrow morning, too."

"Mm."

"You haven't even asked about my grades."

"How did you do?"

"Now I don't want to tell you."

"Mm."

Professor Chen lowered his head and went back to eating.

Professor Shi, on the other hand, was quite concerned. "You can get into Jade Capital, right? Have you submitted your preferences? What major did you choose?"

"Principles of Magic."

"Oh..."

Professor Shi looked heartbroken. "I've seen plenty of young people like you. Clearly gifted in other areas, yet you insist on applying for a major like that..."

Chen Shu nodded along repeatedly.

Still better than that shitty history major. Talk someone into studying history, and may heaven strike you with lightning.

Early the next morning.

For once, Chen Shu woke before Professor Chen. Seeing him fast asleep in the bed beside his, he chose without hesitation to disturb him.

"Professor Chen?

"Professor Chen?

"Professor Chen, time to get up for work!"

"Professor Chen, that stock you sold at a loss last week just hit the daily limit three days in a row!"

"!!"

Professor Chen's whole body jerked, and he sat bolt upright.

Once he came to his senses, Professor Chen wiped his face with a hand, gave Chen Shu a helpless look, and let out a long sigh.

"What time is it?"

"Seven."

"Breakfast isn't until eight..."

"Did you dream last night? Why didn't I?"

"Neither did I."

"Oh..." Chen Shu nodded, then urged him, "Hurry up and get out of bed. Wash up, then go find out what happened. I'm dying to know."

"..."

Professor Chen threw back the covers and got out of bed.

According to Professor Chen, no one had dreamed again last night, and there was nothing unusual about the Secret Realm Space Stone.

That was hardly surprising—

The mechanism had been set up five thousand years ago. The fact that it could still activate was already the greatest proof of how well made it was.

You could not expect it to keep running normally.

Breaking down after a few days was perfectly normal. Even if it inexplicably started working again in another couple of days, that would be no surprise either.

What everyone wanted to know was where the mechanism was, how it worked, and what it was for.

The team of experts from Jade Capital had been scratching their heads raw over it.

The military, meanwhile, had successfully cracked the secret realm. They had informed the historians early on to enter after breakfast and inventory the cultural relics inside.

Everyone seemed eager to get started.

They entered the secret realm.

The space inside was neither large nor regular in shape. At its longest, it was a little over four hundred meters; at its narrowest, a little over three hundred. Its highest point was about five hundred meters, and its shape matched the Space Stone's exterior. Chen Shu had heard those figures from the experts. To his eyes, there was only darkness stretching beyond sight, no different from the depths of space.

It was called a secret realm simply because people could enter it. It was nothing like the secret realms of mountains and rivers Chen Shu had imagined.

The mask's dim light and night-vision function were enough to let them see.

Then the inventory began.

The secret realm held a great many things, all jumbled together:

Ancient Spell Artifacts;

The most powerful ancient Spell Artifacts were formidable, not necessarily weaker than modern equipment. Modern equipment had the advantages of lower cost and spiritual-energy consumption, greater functionality, mass production, and so on.

Books of every kind;

These were the most precious treasures. Cubes unearthed in the past had rarely contained books, and the quantity in this one sent everyone into raptures.

Clothing and various handicrafts;

These were valuable too.

Roots, fruit, stamens, and other parts of certain spiritual plants;

The Sacred Ancestor's preservation methods were incredible. Five thousand years later, they still retained their spiritual essence, as though he had deliberately saved them for his descendants. Some were now cultivated according to standardized practices. The others had not lost value over time, and a few that had gone extinct in recorded history were especially precious.

In any case, they all had considerable historical value. At the very least, they showed that their ancestors had already been making use of them five thousand years ago.

Rare minerals, objects from beyond the heavens, and the like;

Some minerals had since been mined out. Supplies of objects from beyond the heavens also dwindled with every use, and some were of strategic value.

Precious metals, gemstones, and the like;

Junk.

Objects made from Otherworldly Beasts' bones, horns, teeth, hides, and even certain organs;

The earliest Otherworldly Beast products ever unearthed.

To be honest, some of the things did not look as though they had been left for Chen Shu. Presumably, the Sacred Ancestor had also considered that the Cube might be unearthed not by a fellow countryman, but by other descendants.

The items had been treated five thousand years ago, leaving most with no obvious signs of damage even now. Only a few books had suffered. Still, once the team took them in hand, they had to preserve them again with specialized equipment, coating them in a layer of special spiritual energy before taking them out.

Ideally, they would also give each item a simple label during the process, classifying it and noting its importance to make storage and transport easier ahead of further research.

So they often discussed the items as they inventoried them.

"Oh!"

A cry from Professor Liu made everyone turn.

Professor Liu was carefully holding an open book. He had turned to one page and looked back at the others. "This is remarkable! This Classic of Strange Beasts may accurately record the period when Otherworldly Beasts appeared on our planet. It's extremely valuable!"

"Professor Liu, don't turn any more pages!"

"I know, I know..."

Two interested scholars went over, while the rest carried on with their work.

Before long, Chen Shu heard a female scholar beside him ask in puzzlement, "This hairpin looks so ordinary. Why was it put here?"

She was holding a wooden hairpin.

Chen Shu turned for a closer look, thought for a moment, and said, "That reminds me of an old account."

"Please, tell me."

"It's a minor incident recorded in the Gazetteer of Closed Cloud County. During the Yu Dynasty, there was a famous miscarriage of justice in Closed Cloud County. The case reached the imperial court, but the emperor didn't much want to deal with it, so one of his trusted ministers invoked a story about the Sacred Emperor of the previous dynasty to persuade him. Back in the Sacred Emperor's time, a woman caught in a similar injustice had nowhere left to turn. When the Sacred Emperor went on an inspection tour, she knelt and begged him for justice. He investigated, uncovered the truth, and cleared her name. She gave him a hairpin in gratitude. All under heaven praised the Sacred Emperor's benevolent heart," Chen Shu said. "You could look it up."

"Did you come across that account while researching the Sacred Ancestor?"

"More or less. I'm not very interested in the Yu Dynasty, but the Xia Dynasty was so long ago that too little from it remains. Later dynasties recorded quite a lot about it, though."

"No wonder Professor Chen insisted on bringing you here."

"I just happened to know that one."

"You're being modest."

The scholar put the hairpin away, then wrote "Hairpin Given to the Sacred Ancestor by a Common Woman (To Be Verified)" on the box's label.

Later, someone found a dragon-embroidered robe, probably something the Sacred Emperor wore after court. Its style looked much like the everyday robes worn by emperors in certain costume dramas Chen Shu had seen before. Each subsequent dynasty had altered the design, though, until its modern form was almost unrecognizable.

Chen Shu also found something very familiar: the kind of ceramic bowl used to hold lard in the rural areas of his previous life.

But he could not think of any relevant record and had no solid evidence, so he could not simply point at it and declare it a lard bowl. He could only write "Peony-Patterned Porcelain Bowl."

"This skull cup is strange. I don't recall the Sacred Ancestor often doing things that flaunted cruelty, do you?"

"Could it be Zhang Chi's?" a scholar suggested instinctively.

"I don't think so," Professor Shi countered. "Why would the Sacred Ancestor put a cup made from the skull of his beloved general here? Shouldn't he have given him an honorable burial?"

"I think it might be Xu Li's," Chen Shu said after a moment's thought. "Zhang Chi died in the Yue Lands, and Xu Li, who presided over their rites, made his skull into a cup. But after the Sacred Ancestor personally went to the Yue Lands in a fury and killed Xu Li, he gave Zhang Chi an honorable burial. It's unlikely he would have stored Zhang Chi's skull here. And look at this cup—it's been polished shiny from handling. It seems more likely the Sacred Ancestor made a cup from Xu Li's skull in revenge."

Chen Shu grinned. "That's only my guess. If Zhang Chi's tomb is ever found, opening it should tell us whether this is his skull."

"You make a good point."

"It's just a guess. The cup could have another origin."

"Archaeology calls for some imagination. We can speculate freely—there's no need to hold back. Until we put it in a book and announce it to the world, we're free to imagine whatever we like."

"Right."

"Once we finish inventorying these things, I expect only a small portion will stay in Yuanzhou. Most will be sent to Jade Capital for research," Professor Shi told Chen Shu. "If you have time then, come help me. I'll give you course credit and pay you a wage."

"Sure."

Chen Shu could not have asked for better, but he still said, "The credits don't matter. Just pay me more."

Professor Shi burst out laughing.

A few days later.

The excavation of the Cube and the inventory of its relics were largely complete. As Professor Shi had predicted, most of the items were sent to Jade Capital, while a small portion went to the Yuanzhou Museum. They could only be displayed after scholars had examined and studied them, however.

The secret realm belonged to the military.

Apparently, those in charge did not intend to turn the Cube into a museum. They planned to leave it on Beauty Mountain for tourists to photograph.

Chen Shu would still have to do some paid support work at the Yuanzhou Museum. In the evenings, he would go home and continue analyzing Bodyguard Divine Light.

He still had to cultivate.

And chat with Qingqing.

And watch pretty girls dancing online.

He was run ragged.

Did you notice that Jasmine changed the cover again?

No harm in telling you: Jasmine splashed out a fortune and had five covers made!!!