The midday sun was scorching.
Gu Qichen took three bottles of water from the car and handed them to Qin He and Bian An.
Bian An drank more than half of a bottle before standing up: "Although I don't know what happened, I can try, but you two must come up safely! If a storm really comes, I won't be able to protect my life down here either, that pit is too deep."
Qin He looked at Gu Qichen, and they both nodded.
"If the wind picks up, you run up immediately."
Many of the things prepared in the car would be useful, but the most important ropes were not long enough.
Qin He had thought about driving the car closer to the pit and then using the rope to lower herself, but Bian An rejected it.
With that kind of slope, driving down would bring a lot of sand, and the roof might not be visible then.
The three of them, carrying water, descended step by step back to the bottom of the pit.
Using tools from the car and some boards, they cleared out a space on the roof. Gu Qichen wielded a crowbar and forcefully pried open a tile in the center.
The ground beneath their feet trembled.
Bian An's face turned grim: "Could the roof have cracked?"
"Anything is possible," Gu Qichen said with a serious expression, "after all, it's a ruin from many years ago."
The two of them shone their searchlights inside, and surprisingly, not much sand had entered.
"Perhaps the palace gate was closed?" Qin He ventured, looking at the mess inside the main hall.
Qin He and Gu Qichen secured the rope to the crowbar, propping it against the two ends of the opening. They quickly descended.
Their agile and efficient movements left Bian An dumbfounded.
Qin He turned on the searchlight on her forehead. As she landed on the ground, a heavy scent of dust filled the palace.
She covered her nose, and Gu Qichen, standing beside her, took her hand.
Qin He frowned, looking at the large door of the palace, her expression complex: "This is not a palace."
"It's a tomb," Gu Qichen nodded, explaining that because it was a sealed stone door, it had managed to keep out sand for so many years.
The two of them quickly searched the tomb. It was from an unknown small country before the Song Dynasty, and it had been destroyed. There were no traps or mechanisms.
Qin He only saw a few stone tablets with inscriptions. After they circled around, the tomb turned out to be just two burial chambers, a few corridors, and a room for storing items. There was nothing else.
The whereabouts of the "fierce tiger's fang" were nowhere to be seen.
Qin He and Gu Qichen returned to the opening. Qin He frowned: "If it's not here, then where else could it be? The pattern clearly points this way."
As she spoke, she prepared to climb up.
Qin He's gaze fell upon a collapsed stone tablet nearby.
She frowned: "Wait a moment."
Qin He ran over quickly. The stone of the fierce tiger—
The stone tablet recorded some of the tomb owner's life.
Qin He's eyes lit up when she reached the end: "It mentions a strange stone!"
Reading to the end, Qin He felt a bit helpless. It turned out to be like this.
Gu Qichen took out his phone and took pictures of the stone tablet.
The two began to climb up the rope. The tomb was very deep. As they climbed halfway, they heard a crackling sound again.
Qin He frowned and looked up under the searchlight, seeing deep cracks on the ceiling.
Above, Bian An called out anxiously: "Hurry up and climb! The sand around is shaking and flowing down!"
Qin He and Gu Qichen sped up. Soon, they were two meters from the opening.
After another crackling sound, there was a loud boom!
Qin He's eyes widened, and her body began to fall.
Gu Qichen, beside her, grabbed her!
Her rope had snapped. Sand from the surroundings poured into the opening through the cracks. Under the force, the cracks grew wider.
Qin He said with a trembling voice: "Gu Qichen, you can't climb up holding me, let go!"
Gu Qichen did not let go, only looked down at the sand pouring into the tomb.
The larger the cracks, the more sand poured in, and the shallower the tomb became.
If they could hold on until the surrounding sand filled the space, they would naturally be safe, as long as they didn't fall now.
Bian An was completely panicked. He turned to run.
But after a few steps, he cursed and turned back.
"You two have really killed me! I knew five million wasn't that easy to earn!"
"I didn't expect it to cost us our lives either!"
Bian An looked at the crowbar and reached out to grab it with all his might.
Gu Qichen frowned. Five minutes later, the roof collapsed with a roar.
Qin He closed her eyes, resigning herself to falling.
The expected pain did not come. She opened her eyes and looked at Gu Qichen in astonishment.
Gu Qichen smiled: "The sand has filled the tomb."
Bian An sat to the side, looking shaken: "Big brother, big sister, let's go quickly! Didn't you notice it's windy now?"
The three of them immediately got up and walked towards the edge.
Qin He looked up and saw cars parked at the edge.
It was Yu Jing and Di Shishi, who had found them.
"He'er, why did you go down into this pit? These pits in the desert are very dangerous!"
Qin He said tiredly: "It's fine, we can go back now! We'll talk about it when we get back!"
They all returned to the car and immediately drove back to Sand Town.
Bian An, with a child's nature, who had been acting as if he was going to die just moments ago, immediately perked up when he saw the houses of Sand Town in the distance.
"Mr. Gu, Miss Qin, what exactly were you looking for in that palace?"
Qin He smiled helplessly: "Looking for something that doesn't exist."
The tombstone clearly stated that such a stone did exist, but it did not possess the legendary properties.
The ruler of the small country, to stabilize his position, had made thousands of his subjects believe him by calling it a divine stone and painting it.
Later, the country was destroyed due to the lie, so the truth was written on the tombstone.
Qin He took a deep breath and turned to Gu Qichen: "What would Shen Yicong think if he knew that what they had searched for for years was something like this? I didn't expect that what the ruler used to deceive people a thousand years ago could deceive them again after a thousand years."
Qin He had seen some burial artifacts in the tomb, confirming that the small country should have existed in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, before the Song Dynasty.
It was a period of great chaos and division in China, so it was normal for such small countries to have existed briefly.
"We can only say that the ruler had a good imagination, and your knowledge base is sufficient to find things that correspond to the ruler's imagination," Gu Qichen said with a low laugh.
Qin He raised an eyebrow: "A stone worth forty trillion yuan, actually, if it truly existed, we wouldn't be able to move it."
Bian An, in the back seat,'s eyes widened: "How much? Miss Qin, did you just say forty billion or forty thousand?"
Qin He chuckled: "It doesn't exist, but if it did, it would be forty trillion."
Bian An started counting on his fingers in the back seat.
As the car drove back to Sand Town, after they had all washed up at the hotel, they planned to leave immediately.
After Qin He finished washing up, she saw Gu Qichen looking at his phone. He was sending the photos he had taken back to Qingcheng, asking them to report to the national archaeological team and assess if there was any value in excavation.
Qin He leaned over: "It would be best to have experts look at the geological conditions here as well. It's not good for people living in the surrounding towns to always fear the desert."