“Come take a look.” As soon as Li Cu finished speaking, Liang Wan squatted down and spread the floor plan out on the sand. “This is quite interesting.”

Li Cu looked over; it was a side cross-section, and upon seeing the title, he realized it was a side cross-section of the enormous room they were in. “This room is 30 meters deep, a massive space. We’re currently near the ceiling; below us, it’s over 20 meters deep, completely buried. This water tank is a high water reservoir; what we see is just the top of the tank, which is very deep, but it’s all filled with sand right now, and then—”

Liang Wan pointed to a spot. “The door is here; this door leads to a sand prevention passage, but it’s buried under more than 20 meters of sand.”

“Aren’t there any other passages? If we’re near the ceiling, there should be a ventilation system.”

“There are two ventilation systems: one above and one below, prepared for different needs, with a diameter of 30 cm. I don’t think I can fit through, and you guys have little hope either. There are no other exits. And—let me show you something even more interesting.”

Liang Wan handed him a thick stack of blueprints and said, “This is the distribution of the entire complex. It’s a massive project, divided into two parts. Look at the outer edge of this entire building complex; it’s all drawn using modern architectural drawing methods. The small section in the middle, about one square kilometer in area, is done using archaeological drawing methods.”

“What does that mean?”

“These were done by two different groups. The people in the middle were not designing but surveying, while the people outside were starting from scratch. This indicates that at the core of the entire building complex is an ancient archaeological site, around which everything else was constructed.”

“It’s a tomb.” Li Cu took a breath; he recalled what Wu Xie had told him.

Liang Wan nodded. “The structure looks very similar.” She tried to remember the details she had investigated earlier. “I believe the entire building was originally above ground. Look at the lines on its edges; they are very high sand prevention walls. Clearly, seasonal wind and sand are a significant problem here. The builders of the ancient tomb might have hoped to use these winds and sands to protect the tombs from external threats. However, they did not foresee that modern engineering would eventually have the capability to alter the natural environment. They attempted to block the wind and sand from the entire circle through massive engineering efforts. Therefore, about sixty percent of the outer circle’s construction was built to redirect the wind and sand, but we don’t know the purpose of the remaining forty percent. This unknown portion of the construction is concentrated around the tomb, and all of its designs are not modern.”

Liang Wan took a small piece of paper from the floor plan, which had a strange shape drawn on it.

Then she compared the shape to the floor plan; they were identical.

“This shape is an ancient architectural blueprint, discovered during the Warring States period. At that time, 425 pieces of blueprints were found, recorded in 25 volumes of silk books, and they now exist in the Metropolitan Museum. Look, the arrangement and design of the entire building complex are exactly the same as this blueprint.”

“This design is from 3,000 years ago. I still don’t understand why they are using modern technology to recreate ancient blueprints. It’s definitely not just to create a tourist attraction; it must have its own inherent purpose.” Liang Wan discovered this information while studying the blueprints. She was reluctant to share it with Li Zhu, but now she felt that if she didn’t share this information, it might lead to trouble.

Li Zhu asked, “How do you know so much?”

Liang Wan thought to herself that the effort she had put in was disproportionate to what she currently knew. “I haven’t finished yet. Look again. This room’s position within the entire complex.”

Their room was quite large within the whole architectural complex, located on a central axis and on the inner edge of the sand prevention wall, but it belonged to the outer edge of the buildings designed according to the blueprints from 3,000 years ago. The positioning was very precise.

“I just looked at all the blueprints. As we go further in, there are no connections; the buildings inside are completely sealed off. This means that the point Wu Xie gave us is the closest point we can enter to the ancient royal tomb ruins at the center of the entire architectural complex.”

“He wants us to go into this royal tomb?”

Liang Wan smiled and pointed in one direction. “But it doesn’t lead outside; it leads to the internal buildings of these windbreaks. There’s only one passage from this room.” She pointed at the pool. “On the terminal wall of this pool, there’s a pipe leading to that area.”

Li Zhu frowned, and Liang Wan said, “Little guy, you don’t need to worry about whether these things make sense. We are forced to enter here, and if Wu Xie wants us to go into the royal tomb, he must have already prepared that entrance for us.”

Yang Hao returned empty-handed and said, “There’s nothing here to start a fire.” Li Zhu replied, “Stack all the empty containers we can find in a circle. I’ll go get the tent and seal off the bottom with sand; that should be a bit safer.”

“There are snakes in the water.”

“I’ll be careful.”

With that, Li Zhu took off his clothes, grabbed a flashlight, jumped into the water filtration pool, and quickly swam forward.

Before long, he found the tent. He tugged at it and discovered it was very heavy, firmly stuck to the bottom. He pulled hard, and the surrounding water surged downwards for a moment. He pushed himself back with his legs to avoid being sucked in and shone his flashlight.

A hole the size of a manhole cover appeared at the bottom of the water. The water was flowing into it; the speed wasn’t fast, but he could feel the force of the water.

The lady was right.

Li Zhu collected the tent and floated above the hole, shining his flashlight down. He saw clumps of hair tangled together, filled with something resembling poisonous snakes.

A wave of goosebumps rose on Li Zhu’s skin. He turned to swim away but suddenly saw something white among the entwined black hair, something thicker than any snake.

It was a white snake, as thick as a bowl, hairless, but its scales could open and close, like countless little wings flapping.

Was this the thing he had seen in the mirror just now?

Li Cu carefully looked and couldn’t see the snake’s head; all he could see was the exposed snake body, and the shape of the scales was different from other snakes.
“Monstrous creature! My lady, you were lying here all along.” Li Cu swam back and climbed onto the shore.
Yang Hao pulled him up and asked, “What did you see?”
“Bai Suzhen,” Li Cu said as he lifted the tent and wiped the water from his hair, “and a lot of Xu Xian played by Louis Koo.”