Ning stood in front of a giant row of white, marble pillars leading into a giant door. This was the place that the resident showed him when he asked for the tomb.
“So… this is the tomb?” he wondered.
He was currently in a place known as the Grime Oasis. He didn’t know why it was named that, nor did he care about it.
The only thing he cared about was this one tomb.
Ning looked at the opening to the tomb and was both confused and surprised. These new emotions of his had nothing to do with the tomb itself, however.
It had everything to do with the people that were entering and exiting the tomb.
“It’s a tourist spot now?” Ning thought. He didn’t remember Keng talking about this when he spoke about the ShadowGod Buttery.
“He found a ShadowGod Butterfly here, so there must be something unique about this place,” Ning thought. “But it’s nearly 2 millennia since Keng was here, and now it’s turned to a tourist spot.”
“Is there really a way that the uniqueness of this place from that time was still preserved?” Ning wondered. Still, he decided to go in.
He looked around the perfectly built walls, the drawings upon them. Every single thing he saw around here looked… new.
“Did someone draw these all after the fact when someone realized they could get rich from turning this into a tourist spot?” Ning wondered.
He walked around the tomb looking for something, but he couldn’t find anything special about it.
He visited the room that was at the center of the tomb and looked around. He saw some broken pieces of stones that seemed to have been kept there after the fact.
Ning then noticed the sunlight entering the room. He look up and saw that there was a circular glass on top with a weirdly patterned metal cage around it.
“That’s strange,” he thought.
“Hello, sir. Have you seen around the tomb? Do you need any help?” A black-skinned woman walked up to him and asked.
“Hm, sure. Can you tell me why that is there?” Ning asked, pointing at the metal bar up above.
“Oh, It’s always been there, sir. Same as these walls, and these floors,” the woman said, showing the weird-looking patterns on the ground as well.
“Is there any meaning to this?” Ning asked.
“I’m afraid not, sir. It’s just decoration,” the lady said.
“Hm, tell me more about this tomb, who is it for? How long had it been here? Since when was the tomb available for public viewing?” Ning asked.
“Oh, we believe the tomb to belong to a rich merchant who wanted to create a place for his dying wife to remain here eternally. At least, that is what the story on those walls says. We can only interpret as much as the coffin where the body was buried in was long stolen away.”
“All we have left is this empty room with a broken coffin where the corpse should have been,” the woman said. Ning looked around and could clearly tell how bullshit the story was.
“Since when was this tomb available to the public?” Ning asked.
“This tomb was secretly visited by many before, but it was truly public when our chief decided to make the tomb into a tourist attraction 300 years ago.”
“We don’t have much to show in the Grime Oasis, aside from this. Given that our oasis is quite dirty, we have to use this,” the woman said.
“Oh, so it wasn’t visited by people before that, huh?” Ning said.
“Yes,” the woman replied.
“By the way, I have another question. Have you heard of any news of anyone finding butterflies around here?” Ning asked.
“Butterflies? No, I don’t think so. There has been news of people finding weird beasts in the area that should not be in the desert, but no butterfly,” The lady said.
Ning fell into contemplation. “Sir, if you don’t need me, I will attend to the other guests,” the woman said.
“Yes, yes, please go,” Ning said.
“The woman smiled brightly through the sunlight that fell on her through the ceiling and left.
Just as the woman left, the sunlight fell down on the floor once more. However, it had slightly shifted away from him this time.
“Hmm?” Ning suddenly got curious. He looked up to see the pattern of the metal rail on the ceiling, and then the floor.
Things started clicking in his mind. “Could it be?” he thought.
“Everyone, leave,” Ning shouted out loud without prior notice. The people were surprised to see someone shout in the tomb for no reason but quickly ignored him.
Ning looked at the sunlight and realized that he was running out of time for today.
“I said everyone get out,” Ning shouted once more.
“Oi, who the fuck do you think you are to shou—”
Ning released his entire cultivation base suffocating all the people inside the room Not a single one of them had ever before felt this strong of an aura.
“LEAVE!” Ning said calmly this time and took back his aura. Without a single moment wasted, the people ran out in droves in fear of the madman.
Once everyone was gone, Ning picked up the fake coffin and threw it out of the room. Now, the room really, truly didn’t have anything.
Ning just stayed where he was and looked at the shape of the light and the shape of the ground started being the same.
Ning took out a single gold coin from his storage and tossed it. The coin flew through the air and landed on the center of the room where all the patterns converged, which was previously hidden by the fake coffin.
When the sun reached the zenith and the shapes finally properly overlapped each other, blue light started shining out from the shadows.
“So devious,” Ning thought when he saw it all. “Just what could the tomb’s owner be hiding by making the only key to the riches be a formation made using the shadows and patterns on a marble.”