Chương 44: Chaper 42

Lianhua holds the teacup in her hands, the warm steam rising in lazy spirals while her face remains as serene as ever.

"So... did you go into the tunnel?" I ask, despite the obvious answer. Lianhua nods slowly and deliberately.

"Yes", she replies in her calm voice.

"After defeating the spirit beetles, I examined the opening they had created. The tunnel descended straight down beneath the surface, narrow at first, but widening after the first half zhang. And then I saw it." She leans forward slightly, the smoke from her teacup suspended in the air, as if her mind is no longer in this room, but in the sands of the desert, among the echoes of the ancient stones of that tunnel.

"My theory was confirmed", Lianhua continues.

"And what I found was part of the wall of the strange building. And in it there was an opening, between what appeared to be the remains of a stone door. I guess it was destroyed long ago, perhaps by a collapse, perhaps by brute force."

"And did you go in?" asks Xia, completely fascinated by the story.

"Yes. But not right away", she pauses, sips her tea, and frowns slightly.

"The interior was very dark as no light reached it. Even with my heightened senses, I couldn't see anything."

"So I took out the lamp that Zhāohuán Wen had put in the backpack," she says, and for a moment her gaze meets mine as my smile at that moment could rival that of a cat.

"With the lamp, I could see inside," she continues.

"The tunnel led to a wide stone hallway with dust-covered walls and cracks, which I followed cautiously. It wasn't a single corridor, as the interior of the building was a network of hallways and chambers, with ceilings so high that the light from the lamp couldn't reach them." She pauses to take another drink, this time more slowly. As she does so, I glance over at Xia, who is completely absorbed, her eyes shining as if she were listening to an ancient legend told by a professional storyteller.

And for a moment, I can't help but admire Lianhua. Not her strength or her martial talent. But her gift, hitherto hidden, for storytelling, for telling a story with such clarity and precision that one can see the places she describes and feel the atmosphere she evokes, as she dramatizes each scene with the naturalness of someone breathing. And the best part is that she doesn't realize what she's doing.

She already showed promise when she was recounting her journey through the desert, but now that she's picked up the pace, her talent is proving to be terrifying. When she puts the cup back on the table and clears her throat softly, my eyes return to her and she continues her story.

"Most of the chambers and corridors had already been searched and looted long ago", she tells us.

"Everything that remained was broken, either by those who searched the site or by the spirit beasts later on." The excitement that had been overwhelming me dissolves a little, replaced by a pang of disappointment at the thought that, evidently, as with the other ruins, we arrived too late. Although I am surprised by the difference between the interior of this pyramid and those in my previous world. This pyramid is clearly not a tomb and is more utilitarian, but that leaves me wondering what it would be used for.

But at least it keeps us away from the vengeful mummies. But while I am lost in my thoughts, Lianhua continues her story and I listen to her in the background "And I found some more beetles, but there weren't as many as outside, so I eliminated them without difficulty."

Despite my attempts to maintain my composure, it seems that Lianhua knows me too well and has noticed my disappointment when she said that everything was broken, so she adds "But Zhāohuán Wen, when I finished searching everything, I began to apply what you have taught me. To look with different eyes. To look for gaps, cavities, or hidden compartments. I didn't find any, or so I thought."

I straightened up a little as I listen to her, my hopes revived, and suddenly I remember that she said earlier that she had found more things, and I curse myself for interrupting her story. It was more than obvious that she found something.

"What did you find?" I ask her.

"In one of the rooms at the back, I noticed something strange on the floor. Symmetrical marks, arranged in a regular pattern, and at first I didn't realize what they were." She pauses, as if measuring her words carefully or adding drama to her story.

"I thought about the height of the ceiling and the total height of the structure I had seen from the outside. And I realized that something was missing and that what I had explored couldn't be everything." Suddenly I realized what she meant, but I let her continue with her story.

"So I piled up pieces of furniture in the room", Lianhua continues.

"And I climbed on top of them. I raised the lamp as high as I could, and there it was, just as I suspected." I notice Xia's breath catch for a second at the drama of Lianhua's story.

"An opening", she tells us.

"Hidden by the darkness and the height. As I suspected, the marks on the floor were the remains of a staircase, one that someone, at some point, decided to destroy precisely so that no one else could find the entrance to the second floor."

"Since I had already finished searching the entire first floor", she continues.

"I decided to go up immediately. There was no point in waiting, as there seemed to be no immediate danger." Xia leans forward slightly, caught up in her words.

"But there was a problem", she tells us with a slight sigh.

"The opening was too high to reach with a jump. And the platform I had improvised with the remains of some furniture to illuminate the ceiling was too unstable to serve as a support. It could collapse just by trying to push off from it." She pauses briefly, as if remembering that moment with a mixture of irritation and resignation.

"So I used the hook and rope you had put in my backpack, Zhāohuán Wen", she says without looking directly at me.

"I managed to hook it onto a ledge on the edge of the second floor after a couple of tries. And with that, I was able to climb up without any problems." I can't help but interrupt her. I'm so overwhelmed with satisfaction that I can hardly contain my smile.

"See?! I told you so!" I exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"I told you it would come in handy, even with your complaints that it only added unnecessary weight to the backpack." Lianhua keeps her face impassive, but I can see a tiny tremor in the corner of her left eye. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Xia, who has been listening with fierce concentration, lets out an exaggerated sigh.

"Wen! Don't interrupt!" she protests, frowning with an almost childish expression.

"Let her continue! She was just getting to the best part." I raise my hands in surrender.

"You're right, you're right", I say, laughing softly.

"I'm sorry, Lianhua. Please continue." Lianhua nods slightly, showing no sign of annoyance, although her tone has become a little drier.

"When I reached the second floor", she resumes without missing a beat.

"I discovered a layout similar to the first. Hallways and chambers with high ceilings, though lower than on the first floor. But unlike the first level, this one was in better condition. The walls were less eroded and the floor less damaged." She pauses briefly, her eyes narrowed as if she were walking through those dark corridors again.

"But even so, everything was empty. The rooms had already been ransacked, and just like downstairs, there wasn't a single piece of furniture in good condition or any fragments worth taking."

"But then I found something. Something that I believe is the reason why they destroyed the staircase", she tells us calmly, but then she stops talking and leans forward and, with complete tranquility, pours herself another cup of tea, as if she had just mentioned that she had broken a sandal and not as if she had just announced that she had found the hidden motive behind the deliberate destruction of a thousand-year-old structure. Xia stands up, her eyes wide.

"What?! You can't stop there!" she exclaims in desperation.

"That's cheating! Tell me what it was! You can't stop just when you're about to say something so important!" Her expression makes me laugh, first with a couple of soft chuckles and then with a more open and sincere laugh that I can't stop.

"Lianhua", I say between laughs.

"Stop torturing poor Xia and tell us what you found. I'm curious too." Lianhua finishes sipping her tea with all the deliberation in the world. Then, with a slight nod, she replies.

"As you say, Zhāohuán Wen." She sets the cup on the table and settles herself slightly on the cushion before continuing.

"The entire center of the second floor was a single chamber", she tells us as Xia sits back down, muttering under her breath.

"A vast room, surrounded by columns, with no furniture, no decorations on the walls. Just bare, empty stone." Her words float in the air like tea smoke.

"But upon closer inspection, I noticed something. The floor wasn't smooth. It was covered with lines, grooves, and runes carved into patterns that crisscrossed throughout the entire chamber", she continues. I'm no expert on formations, but I'm sure that entire room was a formation. A huge formation. And it reminded me of Qi gathering formations." The silence that follows her statement is absolute. No one needs to say anything. We all understand what that means.

"So you think someone found the formation", I finally ask, my voice a little lower, as if I don't want to break the spell of the moment.

"And destroyed the staircase to try to keep anyone else from finding it? And then, every time the Celestial Fragment opened, they just went to the building and used the formation exclusively, all the time?" Lianhua nods without hesitation and says "That's what I think happened. But at some point, that person must have died without telling anyone. Then the entrance ended up covered by sand, and over the years, the secret was lost."

I stared into the void for a moment, as if I could see that anonymous figure who once entered through that opening, perhaps smiling at the knowledge that no one else could follow. A figure who vanished into time without a trace of their feat, or their selfishness.

"Did you try to activate it?" I finally ask, unable to hold back my curiosity.

"The formation, I mean. Did you try to make it work?" Lianhua shook her head before answering, her tone as calm as ever.

"No", she replies calmly.

"Formations like that usually require Qi stones, and I didn't have any. Without a source of energy, it would have been a futile effort." I sit back slowly, though I can't help but feel a twinge of disappointment. For a moment, I had imagined the scene as if it were a movie or a video game cutscene.

A Qi-gathering formation activating after centuries of dormancy, absorbing energy from the environment, revealing secrets sealed within as it begins to glow, and the protagonist, in the center, looking around, fascinated by the awakening taking place around her as the camera pans and the soundtrack blare from the speakers. But of course, without something to activate it, it was nothing more than a design carved in stone.

"However", Lianhua continues, with that tone she uses just before revealing something important.

"Upon re-examining the chamber, I realized that the proportions didn't match."

"How did they not match?" Xia asks quickly, leaning forward, visibly excited.

"The size of the interior space didn't match the proportions of the rest of the floor", she explains.

"And not only that. The ceiling, although lower than the one on the first floor, still didn't reach the full height of the building as seen from the outside. So I started checking the entire floor again, especially the walls of the corridors where the measurements didn't add up."

"And did you find anything?" I ask, although I can guess the answer.

"Yes", she nods.

"After much searching, I found a space that seemed hollow, as the wall did not respond like the others and did not have the same echo. Both Xia and I straighten up at the same time, our eyes shining in unison.

"A secret passageway!" Xia exclaims, almost in a reverent whisper, after which she asks eagerly "And how did you open it? Was there a mechanism? A hidden panel?" Lianhua looks at her with a neutral expression before answering.

"I didn't have time to figure out how to open it", she says bluntly.

"Nor did I have the resources to activate a possible opening formation. So I found a heavy object and knocked the wall down." Hearing Lianhua's response to Xia, I feel my archaeologist's soul tremble to its core. The horror of the desecration runs through me like a chill, but I say nothing. I understand perfectly well the race against time she was in, and I know that without the right knowledge or tools, it was her only option.

Lianhua continues talking as if her decision had been the most natural thing in the world.

"It took me a while", she says.

"The wall was sturdy. But in the end, I managed to make a hole big enough to get through. And although it was difficult, I managed to do it without too much trouble, after which I came to a hallway with a staircase." My eyes widen, and this time I'm the one asking the questions.

"A staircase? And I suppose it led to the third floor?"

"Yes", she says simply.

"One that, hopefully, had never been explored." I look back at Lianhua. This is the good part.

"I climbed the stairs carefully", she continues.

"The structure was in good condition, with no signs of collapse."

"I finally reached the top of the building", she says, lowering her voice slightly.

"It was a single room. Not too big, triangular in shape. The ceiling followed the shape of the outside and ended in a point, so I figured I had finally reached the top of the building."

"And what was there?" Xia asks, her eyes shining.

"At first, disappointment", Lianhua says, without drama.

"Everything was destroyed. I thought that, once again, I had arrived too late." My heart sinks a little, even though I know there had to be something.

"But then I looked closer", she adds.

"The walls had marks on them, and there were no signs of looting. What I saw wasn't destruction by human hands. It was different."

"How was it different?" I ask her.

"It was as if something had exploded from the center of the room", she explains.

"The fragments were scattered toward the walls, not away from them. There was no order, no intention, just chaos. And I thought, if it was an explosion, maybe there was something that caused it. Something that left traces, and even something that survived." I feel like I can't breathe as I listen. Lianhua pauses briefly, as if holding back the moment just before a revelation.

"So I started to clear away the debris", she continues.

"There was stone everywhere. Pieces of columns, fragments of slabs. The room must have been full of pillars. But I also found other things, like pieces of furniture, shreds of fabric, even fragments of bones." Xia puts her hand to her mouth and lets out a soft "Oh."

"Since the room wasn't very big, and I still had some time left, I persisted and patiently dug through the debris", she finishes, looking up at me.

"And finally, I found something." I let out a sigh and stare at her.

"At last", I say, somewhere between amused and exasperated.

"You kept us waiting. What did you find?" Lianhua doesn't smile. Her tone remains neutral, almost respectful.

"The skeleton of a person", she tells me.

"I think it was a former inhabitant of the Celestial Fragment. He was dressed in the remains of some strange clothes. I guess his body was protected from the worst by a fragment of a column. That's what killed him, crushing him. But it also kept him intact." The room is completely silent.

"I examined him", she continues.

"He didn't seem to have anything in his hands, but when I moved him... just behind him, protected by his body and the fragment of his spine, I found this." With the utmost naturalness, she lifts an object that she had kept by her side throughout the story and from which she had taken the papers she had given me earlier. A leather pouch, dark and with no apparent distinguishing mark, which would not have attracted attention anywhere.

She holds it in her hand, suspended in the air, and shows it to me with an expression I can't quite decipher. Next to me, I hear Xia sigh with emotion, and when I look at her, I see that she has brought her hands to her mouth, and I can almost see her eyes filling with stars from the excitement of what she is seeing. My gaze returns to the pouch, and no matter how hard I look, all I see is a simple leather pouch being held by Lianhua. And so I am left with only one question.

Why on earth do both Lianhua and Xia attach so much importance to a simple leather bag?