“I sort of understand,” on the way to The General Ridge, Zhao Yu told Miao Ying about his opinion: “On the Buddhist scripture, there should be clues about the Golden Buddha statues! The grave robbers are trying to look for it! For instance, the exact location where the Golden Buddha statues were hidden, or the correct way to open the door, or even how to solve the traps in the place, and so on!”
“Oh please! You watch too many movies. Do you think this is National Treasure?” Miao Ying refuted. “Besides, implying the location, there shouldn’t be any other funny things! Look, there isn’t even a pathway in this mountain, and the prefect brought twelve Golden Buddha statues, how would they have the energy to build a treasure house with traps?”
“He was only a prefect, not a general or minister, so he didn’t have that kind of capability!” Miao Ying said. “And he had to be worried about whether or not the secret of the Golden Buddha statues would be exposed, so he wouldn’t bring along too many people! From what I see, they only looked for a hidden place and buried the Golden Buddha statues rashly!”
“It does make sense, but there is no definitive answer!” Zhao gave a different suggestion: “Just when the world was in a chaos, the prefect that had soldiers and power, even his power might not be any weaker than any princes. It is possible that he built the secret room to hide the Golden Buddha statues earlier, and… Kill the people… Kacha kacha, TV dramas show this chapter all the time?!”
“Like I said, you’ve watched too many TV dramas!” Miao Ying said again. “According to the map, the entire General Ridge is eight kilometres long! There is a mountain valley on each side of the north and south. We don’t know if the treasure was on the mountain or at the bottom of the mountain, the range is too wide!”
“Don’t worry, you will cross that bridge when you get to it!” Zhao Yu said optimistically. “When we arrive, we might be able to find new clues! If we were to find a piece of stone table, or a place name, we might be able to decrease our search area!”
“Oh…” Miao Ying seemed to realise something. “The General Ridge” only appeared in part of the scripture, and the grave robbers went through so many scriptures. That also meant that there were other new clues that were on other scriptures! According to the clues in the scriptures, they could find the Golden Buddha statues in the end… But…”
“Yes!” Zhao Yu spoke in a worrisome tone, “This is what I was worried about, the grave robbers were there five days earlier, and they had more detailed clues, so… The possibility of the Golden Buddha statues being taken away is quite high!”
“Definitely!” Miao Ying agreed, but she still wouldn’t admit defeat. “But no matter how the ending was, we have to investigate! Just like you said earlier, even if we only found traces of grave robbers, that would be considered as reward, too!”
“Yes!” Zhao Yu patted Miao Ying’s shoulder, and the two of them got a confidence boost as they continued to walk into the depths of the woods.
After a few hours, when they were getting close to The General Ridge, it finally rained. Luckily, the two of them brought raincoats and so they were not worried about getting wet, only that the temperature of the woods might suddenly drop, making them feel a bit cold.
At that moment, Miao Ying’s phone got a message from Zhang Yaohui. She never thought that the message was sent two hours earlier, as she only received it then. Zhao Yaohui’s message said that he tried to call Miao Ying and Zhao Yu, but their phones couldn’t be reached, so he sent a message instead.
Zhang Yaohui told Miao Ying that, through secret investigation, they found clues of the CAAC helicopter, and even got the detail coordinations. As it turned out, the only plane that was allowed into the mountain was really hired by Fu Jianxing and his team.
Fu Jianxing and another four police detectives from the Moyang branch took the helicopter into the mountains. At that moment, the helicopter had returned, while Fu Jianxing and his group had stayed in the mountain. Obviously, if they decided to stay in the mountain, it meant that they were there for the grave robbers and the Golden Buddha statues.
Miao Ying checked the coordinates that Zhang Yaohui sent over, finding that the coordinates were around the area of The General Ridge. But they got in through the west, while Zhao Yu and Miao Ying got in through the east.
Zhang Yaohui sent over the coordinates of the helicopter’s first landing zone. Fu Jianxing and his team came earlier than the two of them, and they already went towards an unknown direction then!
Xi li li…
Remote mountains, virgin forest, rain… Such scenery was just like the emotions of Zhao Yu and Miao Ying. They didn’t know if there would be any discovery in the rest of their General Ridge trip.
Because a “Qian” hexagram was given at an unsuitable time, Zhao Yu had another layer of worries, not knowing if the rain in the mountain would cause a natural disaster. Luckily, although the rain was falling, it wasn’t heavy. It was just that the murky clouds obscured the sun and made it difficult to go forward.
The two of them went forward in the rain. The muddy ground made it extremely tough to walk on. Finally, after going over another mountain, they arrived at the entrance of the General Ridge. The General Ridge was about a hundred meters in height. Among the mist, it was like a sleeping dragon, winding and long.
Zhao Yu and Miao Ying got readjusted in the cave, which could shelter them from the rain, then walked toward the mountain valley to the south of General Ridge. The mountain valley was still a branch of the Qin River. Due to the rain, the murmur of stream water was then a rapid current.
Miao Ying reconfirmed that they had already entered the same region where the old experts had encountered the flash flood. As the mountain torrents rushed down, the old experts did not remember the exact location, but had only roughly pointed out a region.
What Zhao Yu and Miao Ying had to do was to search along the upper reaches of the Qin River, to see if they could find anything. Of course, in order to prevent the occurrence of another flood, the two of them went forward at the route that was further from the water current, walking with extreme care.
Then…
They walked until it was five in the evening, without finding anything. No footsteps nor human shadow, there weren’t even any animals. It was as though they were back in time, to the primitive world.
After walking for such a long time, the two of them were extremely exhausted. They found a safe leeward corner and set up their tent. At first, they should have set off to find some place with rocks to start a fire. But, due to safety reasons, the two of them did not do that.
As it was still raining outside, after the tent was set up, Miao Ying did not kick Zhao Yu out of the tent, but allowed him to be in the same space as her. But, what made Miao Ying surprised was that, Zhao Yu pondered at the door for a very long time, and he didn’t get in, but rather, found a dry spot next to the rock to lay his sleeping bag down.
“Captain Miao, I think I will stand guard and have sentry duty! You sleep first, and rest well…”
Although Zhao Yu said this sincerely, Miao Ying thought Zhao Yu was sulking, so she didn’t bother. Who knows. Regardless, she slept till the middle of the night, and even then, found Zhao Yu still sitting outside!
The rain was still pouring, and Zhao Yu covered his body with the sleeping bag, while he looked into the woods in the rain, as though he was worried about some sort of accident happening.
But, there was only darkness in the woods, and there was nothing to be seen or heard except rain droplets dropping onto leaves.
Tsk tsk…
It doesn’t make sense.
Zhao Yu couldn’t stand it anymore. What is going on with the system? It’s another midnight, and there was no ending notification and no new miracle. What… What is going on?
Does Qian hexagram represent that nothing is going to happen?
Is it possible?
Although he was highly doubtful, his guards were at their peak. Through the experiences back then, he understood that miracles would occur at the most unexpected times, suddenly!
Although it seemed to be calm as usual, Zhao Yu had a bad feeling, as he believed that a big event was always preceded by some kind of omen!
“Zhao Yu, are you crazy?” Miao Ying lit up her torchlight and shouted from the tent, “It’s the middle of the night. Are you trying to freeze to death? Hurry up and get in!”
Hearing Miao Ying’s call, Zhao Yu couldn’t help but shiver in the cold. He suddenly realised that his face was exposed to the cold air, and was frozen so badly that he almost couldn’t speak.
No way!
Zhao Yu then realised that, if he continued to stay out, his body wouldn’t be able to take it. So, he quickly grabbed his sleeping bag and got into the tent.
“Aiyo…”
Zhao Yu was shivering, as he quickly adjusted his sleeping bag next to Miao Ying and got in.
“Tell me, what is good about you?” Miao Ying did not understand the situation and was still complaining about Zhao Yu. “You are keen about up keeping your face and would rather be suffering in living hell! When I don’t let you in, you would die to come in, and when I do let you in, you refuse to come in… Hey…”
Zhao Yu had yet to let Miao Ying finish talking, before he brought Miao Ying into his embrace, along with her sleeping bag. His teeth were gritting together as he shivered and mumbled, “I’m freezing, I’m freezing….”
Although Zhao Yu was hugging her, he did not make any weird moves, so Miao Ying did not bother. Zhao Yu got warm, and now they were sleepy. In the end, he hugged Miao Ying to sleep.
Then, not knowing how long the two of them had slept for, they were suddenly woken up by an ear deafening explosion!
Hong…
The loud explosion shook the world, even the tent quivered alongside the noise.
Huh?!
Zhao Yu got a shock, and was now suddenly awaken!
Miao Ying, still in his embrace, jumped up too. She immediately opened the tent and got out with Zhao Yu…