Movie variety show soul travels between two worlds to become a rich man

Chapter 246 The Beginning of the Story

As the stone door opened, Gao Dongxu shone a high-intensity flashlight into the tomb. However, the tomb was filled with smoke, and even with a high-intensity flashlight, visibility was very low.

In this deep and dark Ming Dynasty tomb, the air seems to have frozen time, and every breath is so heavy that it can pull at the curtain of history.

In this boundless darkness and silence, the beam of light from the powerful flashlight seemed to pierce through a thousand years of silence. Gao Dongxu slowly moved forward with the flashlight, but after only two steps, he heard a creepy sound.

Gao Dongxu hurriedly shone his flashlight upwards and saw a large group of bats flying towards him.

Without any hesitation, Gao Dongxu pulled up the hood of his jacket, crawled directly to the ground, hugged his head, and waited until the large group of bats flew away. Then he got up and used a strong flashlight to illuminate the road ahead.

Gao Dongxu remembered very clearly that there was a deep ditch ahead. Sure enough, a deep ditch that was seven or eight meters wide blocked the way forward.

Fortunately, there are many stone pillars in the deep ditch, and people can pass through by stepping on the stone pillars. Of course, the owner of the tomb is not so kind, and these stone pillars are a mechanism.

There are real and fake stone pillars. If you step on a real one, you can continue to move forward, but if you step on a fake one, it will collapse instantly and fall into a deep ditch.

Since he had known about this mechanism for a long time, Gao Dongxu had naturally made preparations and took out the imitation Liquan gun from the space.

He held a high-intensity flashlight in one hand and swung the Liquan gun in the other, controlling the strength and starting to hit the stone pillar.

Unfortunately, the first stone pillar he hit was a fake one. It was like sand and immediately collapsed with a loud crash.

Then he hit another stone pillar, which was intact. After remembering the location, he began to try the next stone pillar.

In this way, after testing out four real stone pillars, Gao Dongxu did not hesitate. He stepped on the correct stone pillar as light as a swallow and easily jumped to the other side of the deep ditch.

As he raised the flashlight, the light penetrated deeper, and a heart-pounding yet curious scene appeared before his eyes - in front of the tomb passage, stood a skeleton dressed in the uniform of a Ming Dynasty Jinyiwei official.

Gao Dongxu, who had a God's perspective, naturally knew the identity of this skeleton wearing the Jinyiwei official uniform.

The Xu family's ancestor in the Ming Dynasty, Xu Xin, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, was the one who snatched the jade Buddha head from the foot basin.

Gao Dongxu walked up to the skeleton and shone a strong flashlight on it. The skeleton seemed to still maintain some posture it had in life, with a flying fish robe on its shoulders and a jade belt around its waist. Although the bones and flesh had decayed, the intricate patterns and golden threads on the clothes still shone with past glory and majesty under the strong light.

Its head drooped slightly, and its empty eye sockets seemed to be staring at the endless darkness below, as well as telling an unknown past.

The cold air all around and the musty and damp smell unique to the ancient tomb intertwined together, making people involuntarily feel an indescribable sadness and awe.

The skeleton of this Jinyiwei is like a watchman of time, quietly guarding the ancient tomb, witnessing the change of dynasties and the vicissitudes of life, until he himself turned into the dust of history. Only the official uniform still stubbornly tells a story about loyalty and sacrifice.

The jade Buddha head in the Mingtang is the starting point of all stories.

That year, Wu Zetian was determined to become emperor and began to build public opinion in preparation for her ascension. She claimed that she was the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha, sent to the world to save the people, so she vigorously worshipped Buddhism and ordered her male favorite Xue Huaiyi to build the Mingtang and Tiantang on the basis of the Qianyuan Hall, and enshrined Buddha statues inside.

Among these Buddha statues, two are extremely precious. One is a large, extremely tall, papier-mâché Maitreya Buddha statue, enshrined in heaven, representing Wu Zetian herself.

The other is a Vairocana Buddha, made of the finest jade imported from the Western Regions and carved in the image of Empress Wu Zetian, making it a truly rare treasure.

Wu Zetian liked this jade Buddha very much and placed it in a niche in the Mingtang to be used as a counter-offer to the Vairocana Buddha in the Longmen Grottoes.

At that time, there was a Japanese envoy to the Tang Dynasty in Luoyang, named Hanoi. This little devil was an avid fan of Tang culture and was obsessed with everything.

After the Mingtang was completed, it was opened to Luoyang officials for several days. A young man from Hanoi, relying on his connections as an envoy to the Tang Dynasty, also went to see it. When he saw the jade Buddha, he immediately fell deeply in love with it.

He tried to approach and touch the face of the jade Buddha. It happened that Xu family's ancestor Lian Heng was on duty that day. Seeing the man behaving improperly, he drew his sword and almost killed him.

After the Hanoi devils left, they were deeply homesick and wished to see the Jade Buddha again. Unfortunately, the Mingtang was rarely open to the public, and there were guards, making it almost impossible to get close.

However, eight years later, the Hanoi devils' admiration for the Jade Buddha not only did not diminish, but increased day by day, to the point where they could not eat or drink and could not sleep at night.

He was almost crazy and had an extremely absurd idea to take the Jade Buddha for himself. To do this, he managed to get in touch with Xue Huaiyi, Wu Zetian's male favorite.

At the time, Wu Zetian had already found a new favorite, and Xue Huaiyi, fearing his position would be jeopardized, was racking his brains to find a way to please the empress. The Hanoi devils offered two plans: one was to bury a Buddha statue underground and slowly pull it up with an iron chain to create an auspicious image.

Another plan was to use the blood of a hundred cows to paint a two-hundred-foot-tall pagoda. Xue Huaiyi was delighted to hear this and followed through, but Wu Zetian's reaction was unexpectedly cold, leaving him greatly disappointed.

Xue Huaiyi was feeling depressed, and the Japanese soldiers in Hanoi took this opportunity to get him drunk, and then set fire to the Mingtang.

The fire was extremely large. It was extinguished by the next morning. The Mingtang and Tiantang were reduced to ashes. The papier-mâché Maitreya Buddha statue was burned to ashes, but the jade Buddha was nowhere to be found. The guard leader Lian Heng also disappeared.

After Xue Huaiyi sobered up, believing he had caused the fire, he tied himself up and pleaded guilty. Wu Zetian, mindful of their past friendship, pardoned him, but she remained vexed by the disappearance of the Jade Buddha. According to Deputy Commander Yu Chaofeng, Lian Heng had stolen the Jade Buddha during the chaos. Consequently, warrants were issued throughout the country for Lian Heng's capture.

But in reality, the Hanoi devils had taken advantage of the fire to steal the Jade Buddha and fled eastward. Lian Heng had no time to inform his colleagues and pursued them alone.

Lian Heng eventually caught up with the Hanoi devils near Yangzhou. The two engaged in a battle of wits and courage, but neither could defeat the other. During the struggle, the Jade Buddha was broken in two. The Hanoi devils snatched the head, which they fled back to their foot basin, but the body fell into Lian Heng's hands.

Lian Heng returned to Luoyang, stunned to discover he had become a criminal, implicated along with his entire family. He possessed only the headless Jade Buddha, which he dared neither return to the court nor keep with him. He buried it amidst the Qishan Mountains and built a Guandi Temple on top. He changed his surname to Xu and lived in seclusion near Qishan, silently guarding the site.

Xu Heng has always been resentful about the Japanese invaders in Hanoi, and hopes that one day he can find the Buddha's head, return it to the court, and restore his family's reputation.

To this end, he worked hard to study the methods of identifying gold, stone and jade, gradually became famous in the local area, married and had children, and settled down in Qishan.

After his son grew up, Xu Heng passed on the family business and antique appraisal skills to him, left a suicide note to his family, and resolutely left Qishan.

In his suicide note, Xu Heng first recounted the origins of the jade Buddha, then said that he had not much time left and hoped to go to the foot basin before he died and give it a try without hesitation, so as to live up to his oath.

If he does not return to Middle-earth, it means that the mission of the Buddha head has failed. Then this mission will be passed down from generation to generation by the descendants of the Xu family until the Jade Buddha's body and head are reunited.

Later, he disguised himself as a monk and infiltrated Master Jianzhen's group, and no one heard from him again. Whether he died in a shipwreck or was killed in Japan, no one knows.

But the Xu family never forgot their ancestor's teachings, and passed down the mission entrusted by their ancestors from generation to generation. The Xu family never forgot this teaching and always protected the Buddha's body well. No one would ask to sell it even in difficult times.

Over the past few hundred years, the Xu family's art of identifying bronze and stone inscriptions has become authoritative, and has gradually attracted a group of like-minded people, forming the prototype of the Five Veins of Antiquity Appraisal.

The descendants of the Xu family never dared to forget the instructions of their ancestor Xu Heng. In every generation, there would always be someone who would go to Mount Qishan to protect the Jade Buddha.

During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, a young man named Xu Xin from the Xu family participated in the Ming Dynasty's war to aid Korea and resist Japanese pirates. While fighting on the front lines, Xu Xin stumbled upon a Japanese pirate leader named Kido Akio, who was attempting to disguise himself and sneak into the inland area, behaving suspiciously.

After receiving approval from his superiors, he pursued the Jade Buddha alone. After several encounters, Xu Xin discovered that the Kido surname was a descendant of the Hanoi clan. They had inherited the Hanoi devil's legacy and coveted the Jade Buddha's remains on the mainland. Ultimately, the two perished together near Mount Qishan.

The Xu family then realized that even after hundreds of years, the descendants of the Hanoi devils had never given up their ambition to seize the Jade Buddha. Under the patriarch's supervision, Xu Xin was buried not far from the Jade Buddha to honor his spirit.

"Click——"

Under the expanded aperture of the strong flashlight, Gao Dongxu reached out and took the Embroidered Spring Knife from Xu Xin's skeleton waist.

Looking at the Embroidered Spring Sword in his hand, Gao Dongxu's eyes lit up. There was a scabbard skirt on the scabbard and tassels at the bottom. Without any hesitation, he reached out and grasped the handle, and pulled out the long sword with a swish.

With a cold light flashing, Gao Dongxu looked at the intricate patterns carved on the knife with greed and fascination. The blade was slender and elegant, and every inch revealed the craftsman's superb skills and endless efforts.

The blade gleamed with cold light. Even after such a long period of baptism, it was still sharp and intimidating, as if a slight stroke could cut through the shackles of time and space.

The handle is inlaid with delicate patterns. Although the material is slightly mottled due to its age, the ancient beauty that has been preserved further highlights its extraordinary and noble character.

Regardless of whether he can find the 128 national treasures, Gao Dongxu feels that the trip is worthwhile just for this Embroidered Spring Sword.

You know, according to historical records, each Xiuchun Knife was made of the highest quality steel at the time, extremely sharp, and could cut through iron like mud. Holding the knife with both hands, a single chop was enough to sever an entire horse's head.

In addition to iron, the Xiuchun Knife is also mixed with other alloys. After countless times of hammering and quenching, the blade becomes harder and sharper.

At the same time, the casting process of the Xiuchun Knife is also very exquisite. Every production link is very particular. It requires multiple processes and polishing to create a perfect Xiuchun Knife.

At that time, the Feiyufu and Xiuchundao were awarded by the emperor, not everyone in the Jinyiwei could have them.

Now is not the time to play with it and appreciate it. He put the knife back into the sheath and put it directly into the space. He used his hand wearing tactical gloves to pull off the badge on the skeleton's waist.

Under the strong light, after careful identification, Gao Dongxu could confirm that it was an ivory-carved waist badge of the commander of the Jinyiwei, which was also a treasure.

Putting away the ivory badge, Gao Dongxu walked to the box on the ground in front of the skeleton, took out the imitation Liquan gun from the space, stood beside the box, and opened the lid with the tip of the gun to prevent there from being a mechanism inside the box.

"Click——"

When the box was opened and the flashlight was shone, another corpse, a foot basin armor and a Japanese sword were seen in the box.

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(End of this chapter)