Chapter Thirty-Six: Old Man Zhao

  The ancient tomb is not large, the coffin in the middle has already rotted away, inside there is a pile of withered bones, and on the outside of the coffin are scattered several broken pieces of bone.

  A fairly large pit had already been dug around the coffin, and before that Li Yang had carefully asked Fang Shuqin. The copper coins excavated from the ancient tomb yesterday were not a few, but very scattered, only looked like many, really counted, probably only a few thousand pieces, if it was a Qianlong period copper coin worth one yuan per piece, those who rushed to grab them would not be cost-effective.

  Dozens of people scrambled for thousands of worthless copper coins, and in the end, each person could sell at most a few hundred yuan, which was not even as much as their labor cost.

  There are a few small silver ingots that might be worth some money, but the quantity is really too small. Even if they can be sold for some money, it won't be much. Generally, people won't accept them, and they can only be sold through underground channels or melted down into silver and then sold. Either way, these silver ingots are unlikely to fetch a good price.

  Li Yang didn't understand the ancient tomb at all, he just felt a sense of melancholy, it was this thing that triggered many people's greed, and as a result, his brother Li Cheng got hurt. In Li Yang's heart, there wasn't any good feeling towards the ancient tomb.

  Wu Xiaoli was carefully observing the tombstones and fragments on the ground, things that Li Yang couldn't see anything special about.

  "Mr. Zhao, you've arrived!"

  Li Yang and Wu Xiaoli were watching, when Deng Ming suddenly shouted loudly outside. The dozen or so people who had been standing around the ancient tomb all ran to the gate, including the two who had been digging in the tomb and searching for something, they put down what they were holding and crawled out to follow them.

  Li Yang and Wu Xiaoli both stood up, with Wu Xiaoli still standing on a mound of earth inside looking out.

  At the gate, an old man with white hair was surrounded by more than a dozen people, wearing glasses and looking very kind. Before long, he walked to the front of the ancient tomb, just in time to see Li Yang and Wu Xiaoli who were still inside the ancient tomb.

  "Them?"

  The old man looked surprised, Li Yang and Wu Xiaoli both looked too young, even the youngest employee here looked much older than them, in front of these people, the two were like children.

  "It's like this, Old Zhao..."

  Deng Ming hastily stepped forward and explained Li Yang's identity, especially emphasizing some of the things that Li Cheng had been injured protecting the ancient tomb yesterday. Old Zhao listened attentively, nodding his head with a relieved smile on his face.

  "Not bad, now there are few people who understand how to protect national property, we feel at ease with you people running schools!"

  "Grandfather Zhao, I'm Xiaoli, do you still remember me?" Wu Xiaoli, who was standing on the mound of earth, suddenly called out. Zhao Lao was visibly startled and stretched his head forward to take a closer look at Wu Xiaoli.

  "Xiao Li, is that you? You've grown so big! How's your grandfather doing now?"

  Zhao Lao obviously recognized Wu Xiaoli and smiled happily, even Li Yang didn't expect that Wu Xiaoli's connections were so extensive, and there were people in Licheng who knew her too.

  "She's in good health and was just mentioning you recently, asking if your coronary heart disease has improved!"

  Wu Xiaoli now climbed out of the ancient tomb like a little servant girl, holding onto Zhao Lao's arm. Zhao Lao's laughter was heard continuously, obviously very happy to see his familiar junior here.

  "It's no use, since I had the bridge surgery a few years ago, I haven't gone out again. This time if it wasn't for the discovery of the ancient tomb in Licheng, I wouldn't have been able to come over!" Zhao Lao chuckled and shook his head, then smiled at several people beside him: "This is Liu Xuesong's granddaughter, a very clever child, she has learned at least 30% of Old Liu's skills!"

  "It turned out to be Old Liu's granddaughter, no wonder!" Deng Ming said with a moved expression.

  Liu Xuesong is a renowned scholar and professor in Mingyang, also a master in the field of collecting. Before his retirement, he was the chief expert at the City Museum, and after retiring, he was hired as a consultant. In this field, Liu Xuesong can be said to be the most authoritative person, and only a few people can be mentioned alongside him, one of whom is Old Zhao from Licheng.

  Just now, some people from the Municipal Cultural Bureau were still dissatisfied with Deng Ming for letting outsiders in, but as soon as they heard that Wu Xiaoli was Liu Lao's granddaughter, their dissatisfaction immediately disappeared, which shows how great Liu Lao's prestige is.

  "Grandpa Zhao, let's catch up later, you should take a look at this ancient tomb first!"

  Wu Xiaoli smiled and helped Zhao Lao climb the ladder, it was indeed a bit inconvenient for someone of his age to climb up and down.

  "Be careful, Old Zhao!"

  Li Yang hastily supported Zhao Lao from below, although he was the master of this place, but these people in front of him obviously all had a common language, and he instead seemed like an outsider.

  "Alright, thank you young man, this old bone is still fine!" Zhao Lao descended from the ladder with great agility, and judging from his movements alone, it was hard to believe he was a man over 70 years old.

  "What a pity! This should be a Han family tomb from the late Qianlong period. The owner of the tomb is not a local person!"

  Old Zhao carefully observed the ancient tomb, then nodded and said. Wu Xiaoli immediately went up to him, still holding onto Old Zhao's arm, saying: "Grandfather Zhao, how did you figure out that the owner of this tomb isn't a local?"

  Mr. Zhao smiled and shook his head: "At first, I asked you to learn some knowledge about tombs with me, but you said it was too dirty and scary, lazy and didn't learn, only studying those antiques. Now do you regret it?" Mr. Zhao laughed and continued: "The ancient people of Licheng would not scatter ancient coins outside the coffin, but rather place clothes and daily necessities, money and valuables would be placed inside the coffin. From this point, we can see that the tomb owner is not a local person, and the tomb owner is not some official or noble, maybe just an ordinary merchant!"

  "That's not right either, ancient times didn't have the saying 'falling leaves return to their roots', if this tomb burial can bring so many copper coins and silver with him underground, then his family should have the ability to bring him back home!" Wu Xiaoli tilted her head and raised another question.

  "In the past, people didn't necessarily bury their dead in their hometowns; they might have asked a geomancer to choose a place with better feng shui for burial elsewhere. A few years ago, a tomb of a Qing dynasty second-grade official was discovered in Pearl River, but that official wasn't from Pearl River!"

  Old Zhao smiled and said, just as he was about to say something, he suddenly squatted down and picked up something.

  "Something's not right?" Zhao Lao muttered to himself, his eyebrows slowly furrowing together. The others all went down into the ancient tomb and gathered around Zhao Lao, while Li Yang was squeezed out to the very outside.

  "What is this?"

  The innermost Wu Xiaoli transmitted a questioning voice, and the surrounding heads all gathered together. Li Yang only vaguely saw Zhao Lao holding something like a small stone to examine it, but couldn't see clearly what it was, as the people in front blocked his line of sight.

  "Do you think blocking me will make me unable to see?"

  Li Yang chuckled and rubbed his palms together unnaturally, he was less than two meters away from Old Zhao, his special ability allowed him to see clearly what Old Zhao was looking at on his hand, Li Yang also wanted to know what had caused the old scholar's suspicion.

  The three-dimensional screen reappeared, and everything around it appeared in Li Yang's mind. Behind Li Yang was the coffin, with the skeleton inside also clearly displayed.

  "This is really inauspicious! Don't blame me, don't blame me!"

  Li Yang's body shuddered with a chill, and the 3D image made the dry bones look even more terrifying. Li Yang could only run to the other side of the ancient tomb, far away from those skeletons.

  Li Yang finally saw clearly what Zhao Lao was holding in his hand, it was a small piece of stone, normally Li wouldn't even bother to take a glance at such a stone.

  Li Yang shook his head and leaned back, feeling very uncomfortable being squeezed by the person in front of him.

  "Huh?"

  Li Yang suddenly stood there, he took a step back, and the 3D screen naturally moved backward with him. At the bottom edge of the screen, a neat brick suddenly appeared.

  Li Yang subconsciously walked to the side and squatted down, and the bricks became bigger and more numerous. Finally, what appeared in Li Yang's mind was a stone wall composed of green bricks, and there were even oil lamps hanging on the wall, but these oil lamps had no oil inside, coldly hanging on the wall.

  ……………

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