After thirteen years, ancient texts such as the “Shangshu”, “Shi”, and “Li” [1] emerged, and scholars across the world yearned for that lost history more and more.
In the fifteenth year, the Emperor became seriously ill. In a desperate attempt to renew his life, he sent more than 100,000 troops to excavate ancient tombs and look for traces of the elixir of immortality.
Although some ministers gave many criticisms, the court did not submit a large-scale petition against it.
Unfortunately, the elixir remained elusive. Even though hundreds of tombs were excavated, no trace of it could be found.
At the end of the year, the emperor died with regret. Before he died, he passed on his throne to the Prince of Langya.
At this point, Li Fan finally regained control of the world.
Under the influence of Li Fan, the trend of exploring ancient tombs continued to grow.
After seventeen years, a mountain hunter stumbled upon an ancient tomb, pleasing the Imperial Advisor and receiving a noble title as a reward. Since then, the people of the world have become even more enthusiastic and obsessed with exploring ancient tombs. No matter how remote the mountains and forests were, one could see groups of tomb explorers.
Time flowed, and we arrived at the twenty-third year.
Li Fan stood in the Imperial Advisor’s mansion, reviewing the summary of clues obtained from official and private tomb explorers over the past few years.
Before this, there were only three thousand years of historical records in this world, totaling twenty-three dynasties.
With the excavation of ancient tombs, the previously lost history was also gradually filled in.
Before these twenty-three dynasties, there were sixteen more dynasties, dating back to about six or seven thousand years ago.
The earliest one that could be found was named the Qi Dynasty.
“Six or seven thousand years, it almost matches the Great Migration Era,” Li Fan thought to himself.
With that, he ordered his men to focus on excavating the ancient tombs of the Qi Dynasty.
He even offered a reward to the world, claiming that anyone who could find the ancient tombs of the Qi Dynasty would be granted a noble title.
As soon as the news came out, people all over the world rushed to share the news.
Countless young people embarked on the road of tomb exploration.
No matter how obscure history was, it couldn’t withstand such enthusiastic excavation by people from all over the world.
After twenty-five years, the tomb of the first emperor of the Qi Dynasty, Yi Xing, was finally found.
Upon hearing the news, Li Fan led his trusted advisors to the scene in person and blocked off the perimeter.
In the past ten years or so, the techniques for excavating ancient tombs in the Grand Xuan Kingdom had developed by leaps and bounds, leading to a set of extremely effective plans for opening tombs.
Even though the tomb of the first emperor of this realm was huge in scale and had countless mechanisms, with the efforts of all the people from the Tomb Exploration Battalion, a passageway leading to the main chamber was chiseled through in just over a month.
After all obstacles were removed, Li Fan entered the interior of the tomb while surrounded by a crowd.
The main tomb passage stretched for hundreds of meters, and the walls on both sides were filled with lifelike murals. Although thousands of years had passed, they were still clearly visible.
Li Fan paced slowly, glancing over the murals along the way.
The murals were divided into several parts.
In the first part, the main character in the painting, the first emperor of the Qi Dynasty, Yi Xing, was sitting on top of a mountain. Above the wispy white clouds, several immortal trails were leading to him.
In the second part, a dark calamity descended. The red color of blood spilled over the earth. Led by Yi Xing, the people who survived flew through the vast sea of clouds into one large ship-like construct, and after encountering countless ferocious dangers, they arrived at a vast plain. Since then, the people have settled down here.
In the third part, Yi Xing, with the support of the people, declared himself Emperor and established the Qi Dynasty.
In the fourth part, there were all the trivial things that happened during Yi Xing’s reign.
…
After examining the murals, Li Fan came to the main tomb chamber.
The tomb space was forty to fifty meters high and thousands of meters in length and width. The top of the tomb seemed to be modeled after a starry sky, inlaid with thousands of night pearls.
Inside the tomb chamber, the layout resembled a mountain gate, with peaks rising amidst a sea of clouds.
It was unknown how this sea of clouds was created, nor how it remained fixed in the tomb over thousands of years without dissipating.
There were invisible paths connecting the various mountaintops, and the people all marveled as they journeyed along.
“It really is an immortal’s means.” Li Fan said in his heart.
At the highest peak was a simple grass hut, surrounded by abandoned farmland.
It was only after the crowd walked in that they realized that the thatched grass of the grass hut was actually made with endless amounts of fine golden thread.
Obviously, this cottage was Yi Xing’s coffin.
At Li Fan’s signal, the crowd opened the door of the thatched cottage.
To everyone’s surprise, there were actually no remains of Yi Xing inside the house.
There was only a wooden tablet that stood quietly inside.
Written on the tablet were a few golden characters, “Tomb of Yi Xing, Outer Disciple of the Tai Yan Sect.”
Other than that, there was nothing else.
“It seems that although this person joined this sect called the Tai Yan Sect, he was just an outer disciple who failed to embark on the immortal path. In the end, he was banished to this place by other cultivators.”
“Before he died, he still couldn’t forget about his sect, and instead of his position as emperor, he referred to himself as an outer disciple of the Tai Yan Sect.”
“It’s just that according to Kou Hong’s previous statement, the world’s sects should have been dispersed in the calamity before the Great Migration Era. Now, it seems that there may be hidden secrets.”
Li Fan kept pondering in his mind.
“This Yi Xing should have been entrusted by the cultivators of the Tai Yan Sect to take charge of the Great Migration to this realm. I wonder if I can find the flying boat that was used for the migration.”
The search in the main chamber was fruitless, so Li Fan ordered the Tomb Exploring Battalion to excavate the perimeter, trying to find clues from the surrounding accompanying tombs.
A few days later, a piece of bad news came that made Li Fan both furious and helpless.
It turned out that the people of the Tomb Explorer Battalion had found a record of the “flying boat” in the list of burial items in one of the surrounding burial chambers. Unfortunately, this burial chamber was actually stolen from earlier.
And based on the traces of destruction, the theft was also a thousand years ago.
“It’s like this again and again! Every time I see hope, it ends up escaping my grasp!”
Li Fan seethed with fury.
The people around him remained silent.
It was only after a long time that Li Fan calmed down his mind.
He still ordered the Tomb Explorer Battalion to excavate ancient tombs and look for traces of the immortal boat, but he returned to Xuanjing City, lacking much hope.
After another ten years, the time came to the thirty-fifth year, but things took a turn for the better.
This day, Li Fan received an urgent report.
“Discovered a tomb of the immortals?” Li Fan was a bit stunned, then rejoiced and inquired carefully.
It turned out that over the years, although Li Fan was a bit disillusioned, the people’s enthusiasm for exploring ancient tombs had not declined at all. Countless ancient tombs were dug over the Grand Xuan Kingdom.
And as those large ancient tombs were dug up, people turned their attention to those small ancient tombs that were previously ignored.
A few days ago, a group of young men were digging an inconspicuous tomb when they were suddenly injured by an inexplicable force, resulting in heavy casualties.
Those who survived immediately reported the matter to the officials.
It should be known that in the decades that Grand Xuan had been exploring ancient tombs, although there had been casualties, most of them were caused by traps. It was the first time that someone had encountered such a mysterious incident before they even opened the tomb.
The Tomb Exploring Battalion didn’t dare to slack off and sent people to investigate immediately.
Although many experienced veterans and heavily armed soldiers joined hands, they could not break into this small tomb.
Shocked, the people hurriedly reported the matter to Li Fan.
Li Fan rushed to the scene after hearing the news, and after utilizing the Immortal-Mortal Miasma, he finally destroyed the unknown power surrounding the tomb.
Upon entering the tomb, amongst the array of burial objects, a small wooden boat was found.
*****
[1] More famous Chinese literature.