Shen Qingfeng's eyes were bloodshot. He stared at the character "Lu" on the stone platform. For a moment, his mind went blank. Then, a chill ran from his toes to the top of his head.
That character "Lu" ... Shen Qingfeng recognized it. The badge with the "Lu" character in the slender gold style. He had seen it not long ago, on Lu Yan's shoulder.
He had once thought it was some unjust case, or that someone had committed a crime and the whole family had been executed. But Shen Qingfeng never thought that these people were actually related to the Lu family! They were the Lu family's army!
Yu Shuang came over. After seeing the character, she also stood still on the spot.
Shen Qingfeng felt that it was becoming difficult to breathe. He took a deep breath. His lips trembled for a while before he suddenly shouted sharply, "Yu Shuang!"
Yu Shuang was startled and quickly replied, "Yes! Young master."
The veins on Shen Qingfeng's forehead stood out. He turned around and said sternly to Yu Shuang, "Go and break open a few more coffins! Right now! Just go and take them down for me!"
He didn't have time to think about whether this move was appropriate or not. All he wanted now was the truth ... the truth about this tomb!
Watching Yu Shuang's back as she turned and ran over, a bad premonition suddenly rose in Shen Qingfeng's heart, making his whole body tremble uncontrollably. It was a speculation he had never thought of before, running through all the clues of this tomb and making him shiver with cold sweat.
Shen Qingfeng bit his lower lip. He looked at the character "Lu" on the ground, and his heart was filled with mixed feelings.
If ... if the truth was really as he had guessed, how on earth was he going to tell Lu Yan about this?
Shen Qingfeng hugged his head with both hands. The chill penetrated his whole body. He could only hug his shoulders tightly, trying to suppress the trembling of his body in this way.
The sound of Yu Shuang breaking open the coffin with a knife came from behind. The sound echoed in the stone chamber of this huge mountain. Along with the quiet and thick darkness around, it made Shen Qingfeng's heart beat wildly. He suddenly lost his strength and slumped down on the stone platform.
He looked up at the dark dome. At that moment, he actually wanted to laugh.
What was he going to laugh at? Was it his own naivety? Or was it that he had lived his previous life in vain? Or was it that even though he had been reborn, he was still in the game without knowing it?
Yes, wasn't it the year when Lu Jiang died fifteen years ago?
That year, Lu Yan, who was studying in the Bian Palace, was suddenly recalled to the Northern Kingdom and inherited the title of the Marquis of Dingbei in the Northern Kingdom at a young age. At that time, Lu Yan was only eleven years old, and he himself was only five.
That year was also the end of the five - year war between the Donghu and the Lixia.
Lu Jiang, the former Marquis of Dingbei, once led 300,000 troops under the order of King Xia Jie to recover most of the Lixia territory annexed by the Donghu. At that time, the Donghu was strong and its cavalry pointed directly at the capital of Lixia, Liange City. Although the Lu family's army was not mediocre, compared with the cavalry of the nomadic people, the Lu family's army was still at a disadvantage.
At the same time, the Marquis of Yushan was distracted from Lixia and refused to send troops. The Marquis of the Southwest was located in a remote area and also adopted a wait - and - see attitude. The other vassal lords were either in danger themselves or unable to send troops. Therefore, the only one with the ability and willingness to confront the Donghu head - on was the Marquis of Dingbei in the Northern Kingdom.
The war was extremely fierce.
Yuwen Yue wanted to enter the Central Plains by any means. As the last line of defense in front of Liange City, Lu Jiang also fought to the death.
Both sides showed a posture of not stopping until they died in battle. In the end, Lu Jiang's 300,000 troops were reduced to less than 50,000. As the last troops of Lixia except for the 100,000 imperial guards protecting the capital in Liange, Lu Jiang had to take a desperate measure. He led a small team of a thousand people out of the city at night. With the determination to die, he went to assassinate Yuwen Yue. It was said that the team led by Lu Jiang successfully sneaked into the Donghu army and killed Yuwen Yue on the spot. But because they had penetrated deep into the enemy's camp and had few soldiers with them, Lu Jiang was chased by the Donghu army all the way after leading his troops to break through. Finally, rather than being captured, he was forced to commit suicide by cutting his throat on the bank of the Yu River. All the soldiers in his team were killed and none of them survived.
It was precisely because Lu Jiang killed Yuwen Yue that the Donghu army was leaderless. Only then did the various vassal lords begin to show their loyalty to the court and lead their troops to fight against the Donghu together. The war continued for another year before all the cities occupied by the Donghu were recovered, bringing nearly fifteen years of peace to the border. But that was a later story.
Regarding Lu Jiang's death, it was said that before his suicide, Yuwen Nanwang had proposed an incentive method of "exchanging Lu Jiang's body for fiefdom and title". Therefore, Lu Jiang's body was finally cut into several pieces by the Donghu people and taken to Yuwen Nanwang to claim credit. In the end, he died without a whole body. Even the one - thousand soldiers who went with Lu Jiang were brutally killed by the Donghu people and thrown into the Yu River for the fish and shrimp to eat.
It was said that in Lu Yan's family, Lu Jiang's tomb was still just a tomb of clothes and caps because not even a single limb or wreckage of his could be found.
And now, here, in Liange City thousands of miles away from the Northern Kingdom, in this unnamed and hidden tomb chamber, there were more than nine hundred people with the badges of the Lu family's army buried.
Shen Qingfeng slowly stood up and walked step by step to Yu Shuang's side. He looked at the five coffins that Yu Shuang had removed from the wall and neatly placed on the ground. Each coffin had been opened by Yu Shuang. Inside each coffin was a complete human skeleton. On the head of each body, there was also a badge of the Lu family.
Shen Qingfeng forced himself to suppress the trembling of his body. He slowly squatted down. Then, suddenly, like a madman, he suddenly reached out his hand, grabbed the hand of one of the skeletons, and like grasping the last glimmer of hope, he raised the torch to check.
It was seen that on the palms of the skeleton, the joints of the index finger and the thumb were thick - boned - this was the result of holding a knife or a gun for a long time.
He was not reconciled and turned to look at the second one.
It was the same.
He went to look at the third one ...
Shen Qingfeng seemed to be in a daze. He checked the palms of each person. Then, as if he had accepted something, he began to laugh wildly, "Hahaha ... Hahahaha!"
Yu Shuang had never seen Shen Qingfeng like this. She was stunned on the spot and called out, "Young master ..."
Shen Qingfeng suddenly turned his head to look at Yu Shuang. There was sadness, self - blame in his eyes, but more of it was a deep hatred, "Yu Shuang, I know what kind of tomb this is."
"Do you remember the direction we came in?" Shen Qingfeng stretched out his hand and pointed in a certain direction, "Over there, it's the Golden Summit Temple on the Three Saints Mountain. If I'm not wrong, the other exit here is connected to the stone wall behind the statue of Xingtian. The reason why I didn't find it when I went to the Golden Summit Temple before was that Xia Yonglin burned the statue of Xingtian, which caused an avalanche. So that passage was blocked, and only a slight wind could blow in."
Yu Shuang widened her eyes, as if suddenly understanding something.
Shen Qingfeng gave a sad smile and said, " ... Why are Xingtian and the dragon carved on the tomb - sealing door ... Hahaha ... Because these soldiers of the Lu family's army are the sacrifices that King Xia Jie gave to Xingtian!"
Shen Qingfeng laughed wildly. Then he talked to himself again, "But they died unjustly, so their resentment and evil qi are heavy. How could Xingtian want them? So, the water pool at the door is to attract evil qi and suppress evil with evil. The pit of a hundred beasts, the copper bells, and Xiangcheng are all things to suppress evil. The purpose is to suppress the resentment of these soldiers so that they can be used to ask Xingtian to bless Lixia!"
In the huge stone chamber, Shen Qingfeng's voice was almost breaking. He covered his face, and the hatred on his face became more and more intense.
"King Jie! This scumbag!" Shen Qingfeng's face was ferocious, and he cursed loudly, "What being thrown into the Yu River to feed the fish! What being dismembered to claim credit ... The whole Lu family was loyal. Lu Jiang died to protect Lixia, but he was used by King Jie as a sacrifice to worship Xingtian!"
Speaking of this, Shen Qingfeng suddenly thought of something. He grabbed Yu Shuang and said as he walked, "Find Lu Jiang! He is a general. His coffin is different."
Yu Shuang was also scared out of a cold sweat. He nodded hurriedly and quickly followed Shen Qingfeng to carefully check in front of the stone wall. Soon, they found a square grid different from the others. That grid was not made of a wooden and stone structure, but mainly supported by nanmu wrapped in a layer of gold thread. Yu Shuang inserted the short knife into the gap suddenly and then smashed the glutinous rice artificially embedded around for adhesion. Then the two of them worked together to lift out the coffin.
This was a high - quality coffin made of gold - threaded nanmu. But different from the others, when the two of them were lifting it, they found that this coffin was very light. Shen Qingfeng's expression sank. The moment he put the coffin on the ground, he lifted the coffin lid. As expected, it was empty.
"An empty coffin." Yu Shuang squatted down, groped inside the coffin for a while, and took out a badge of the Lu family's army and a jade - inlaid short knife only the size of a palm, "It seems ... there are only these two things."
Shen Qingfeng's face was as cold as frost. He took the knife and looked at it carefully. He saw that the knife was exquisitely shaped. Although it had been buried in the tomb for many years, the jade inlaid on it still glowed with light in the light of the torch. On the scabbard of the knife, there were two small characters engraved: "Minghong".
He stared at the knife intently for a long time. Then, he stretched out his hand, tore a piece of cloth from his white clothes, carefully wrapped the knife and the badge with the cloth, and solemnly put them into his bosom. Then he took three steps back, knelt down with a "plop", and kowtowed three times hard towards those coffins.
Yu Shuang stood aside and watched quietly. She didn't know what Shen Qingfeng was silently chanting, nor did she know what Shen Qingfeng was thinking now.
She only knew that different from the previous anger or fear, Shen Qingfeng did all these actions extremely calmly, like an emotionless puppet, mechanically doing these things.
Mechanically as if ... he had secretly planned everything.
For Yu Shuang, this feeling about Shen Qingfeng was not the first time. When she first saw Shen Qingfeng, she had found this feeling on Shen Qingfeng, like a chess - setter outside the chess game, with everything under his control.
"Take Xiangcheng and let's go back the same way." Shen Qingfeng said in a deep voice.
Yu Shuang didn't ask any more questions. She knew that Shen Qingfeng had already made his own decision or plan. As a servant, all she needed to do now was to obey the order.
She carried Xiangcheng on her back and followed behind Shen Qingfeng. Just as Shen Qingfeng had said, the strange things in the pit of a hundred beasts just now were caused by Xiangcheng's pulling of the iron chain. Now that Xiangcheng had been knocked out, when the two of them stepped into the pit of a hundred beasts again with the dim light of the torch, they didn't encounter any more obstacles.
They successfully climbed up the cliff and then walked back along the potholed tomb passage they had come from.
Along the way, Shen Qingfeng walked ahead by himself, holding the torch and saying nothing. When they walked out smoothly, it was already dawn outside. The sun was just rising, and the dim light of the rising sun shone on the snow that had not completely melted, reflecting some flickering and fragmented lights from the flying snow slag.
Shen Qingfeng was not in the mood to appreciate it. The first thing he did after coming out was to ask Yu Shuang to place Xiangcheng aside first. Then he handed the white cloth bag to Yu Shuang and said, "There is gunpowder in it. Go and blow up the entrance."
Yu Shuang was stunned and asked doubtfully, "Young master, isn't this the only way in?"
"Precisely because it is the only entrance, that's why we have to blow it up." Seeing Yu Shuang hesitating, Shen Qingfeng himself opened the cloth bag, took out a full can of gunpowder from it, and poured it all around the tomb - sealing door. He also took out a fuse and connected it to the pile of gunpowder.
"But young master ..."
"Yu Shuang!" Shen Qingfeng suddenly raised his voice and looked up at Yu Shuang with wide eyes.
Yu Shuang was startled and quickly lowered her head and saluted, "This subordinate overstepped. This subordinate obeys the order."
" - What are you going to blow up?"
Suddenly, a deep male voice came from the side. Shen Qingfeng trembled all over, as if he had suddenly been hit on the head with a stick.
That voice was all too familiar to Shen Qingfeng. He suddenly looked up in the direction of the sound. He saw that on the other side of the mountain stream, Lu Yan was standing there with a gloomy face, looking directly into his eyes.