It was evening.
The sun was sinking in the west.
Cao Jinxing sat beside the table, studying the diagram.
From the fragments he had heard from those people earlier, it was easy to deduce that this thing had been found in the ruins of Longxiang Palace.
Longxiang Palace had been Emperor Lizong of Song Zhao Yun's residence before he ascended the throne. Back then, it was still called the Prince of Yi's Residence, a magnificent place of carved beams and painted rafters.
Then rebellion broke out, and Fang La occupied it, giving it to his son Fang Tianding as the crown prince's palace and Hangzhou's garrison headquarters.
After Fang Tianding was defeated, he burned Longxiang Palace before leaving, unwilling to let anyone take that splendid palace back.
From then on, Longxiang Palace became a stretch of ruins, with only broken walls remaining. Over time, weeds overran it, turning it into an abandoned garden.
Over the years, plenty of opportunists had dreamed of finding Fang La's treasure, but faced with the rubble strewn across Longxiang Palace, they could only sigh helplessly.
"If the treasure was left for his son, there shouldn't have been any need for riddles. He could have just told him. But if he hid the treasure first as a fallback, he would have needed some kind of lock to keep others from discovering it..."
Cao Jinxing's mind raced. "The destination on this diagram was probably somewhere he kept the 'key'... Of course, I could be overthinking it. Maybe Fang La gave him the key separately, and this was just a map."
But why hadn't he taken it with him?
Why had he hidden it in Longxiang Palace instead?
Had he known there was no hope of escape and wanted to keep the Song generals from finding it? Or