"Maybe it was because it was at a high place, or because the cave roof was dry," Professor Tian Dongmin recalled. "The ancient person's corpse was completely preserved. His hair and some of his clothes could still be identified. We are all archaeologists. From the remains, we could tell that he was from the Ming Dynasty! "
"It was a man. He was middle-aged when he died, but the cause of death was unknown."
"The weirdest thing was that we found a piece of cowhide in his hands. The cowhide was probably soaked in tung oil and treated specially. After so many years, there was no sign of decay."
"We carefully took down the cowhide. When we unfolded it, we were shocked to find that there were words written on it."
"Dong Peizhuo was very accomplished in writing. He could decipher the words on the cowhide on the spot!"
"Now that I think about it, it was like writing a movie script," Tian Dongmin said bitterly. "The things written on the cowhide were a will! But in the will, there was a shocking secret recorded! Really, at that time, the few of us felt like we were dreaming. We couldn't believe it! "
"Is it about the Gold Buddha statues?" Zhao Yu guessed, feeling a little disappointed.
"Yes! The will was written by Luya prefect Qiu Cheng himself, "Tian Dongmin answered with certainty." That ancient corpse should be the descendant of Luya prefect Qiu Cheng. If it wasn't his son, then it was his grandson. Since it could get the will, it should be his direct relative! "
"The general content of the will was that when Qiu Cheng was alive, he hid a large amount of treasures, including the Twelve Gold Buddha statues, in a safe and secret place in Qinshan, in case of emergency."
"In order to remember the location of the treasures, he secretly made two treasure maps!"
"Then, Qiu Cheng suddenly fell ill and was bedridden. Before he died, he couldn't move the treasures, so he passed the two treasure maps to his family and brought the other to his grave!"
Hearing this, Zhao Yu and Miao Ying didn't answer their questions. Instead, they had more questions. It seemed that the ancient corpse and the will were the key to the whole case. This was very different from what they had thought before.
"The will also revealed another detail," Wang Taiming continued to explain as he struggled to move forward. "Qiu Cheng, who was extremely cautious, carved the treasure map on two pieces of ancient jade in order to hide it from the public! In other words, the will that we found was not the treasure map, but the ancient jade! "
"But, we searched every corner of the place where the corpse was found, but we didn't find the ancient jade! We didn't know if the will and the ancient jade were separated, or if the ancient jade was accidentally lost by Qiu Cheng's descendant! "
"We checked the information later," Tian Dongmin said. "Actually, Qiu Cheng only had one son. Qiu Cheng only had one son. But, not long after, there was a peasant uprising! Not long after that, there were no more records!
"Therefore, we believe that the ancient remains are most likely Qiu Cheng's son!
"We saw a lot of ancient soldier equipment at the scene. I suspect that after the fall of Luya City, Qiu Cheng's son fled to that cave with his family and some soldiers. He lived there in seclusion for several years.
"But later, maybe a disease broke out, and they all died! As for Qiu Cheng's son, because he died at a higher place, his remains were left behind!
"So, we thought, could it be that the Golden Buddha statues and the treasure are still hidden in Qinshan, and have never been discovered? If we can find that lost piece of ancient jade, will we be able to find them!? "
"But …" Miao Ying frowned and asked, "Since the ancient jade with the treasure map was lost, does that mean that the treasure has already been found?"
"Yeah!" Zhao Yu agreed with Miao Ying. "It's so far away, but it's full of possibilities! The person who died might have been a criminal who had already killed Qiu Cheng's descendants and taken away the treasure. Also, the possibility of betrayal from relatives and friends is also very high. After all, it's a large amount of valuable treasures! "
"No!" Tian Dongmin shook his head and said, "According to our later research, the possibility of the Twelve Golden Buddhas being found is less than 5%!"
"No way! How can you be so sure? "Zhao Yu still couldn't believe it.
"Believe me, we have been dealing with cultural relics for our entire lives!" Wang Taiming said. "No one knows the value of the Twelve Golden Buddhas better than us! Using the Twelve Celestial Masters as the prototype, the whole body was made of pure gold. Its significance, specifications, and level of attainment definitely reached the level of a national rare cultural relic! "
"If it had appeared in history, it's impossible that it wasn't recorded!
"Also, the treasure map was carved on the ancient jade. Qiu Cheng's son must have memorized the treasure map, so there was no need for him to keep the jade. Break it! It's safer to memorize the treasure map! "
"Then explain to me," Zhao Yu asked. "If Qiu Cheng's son memorized the treasure map, why didn't he take it out? Why did he die … Oh … "
Before Zhao Yu could finish his sentence, he gave the answer himself, "Yes, the world was in chaos. Even if he took out the treasure, it was useless!"
"Yes!" Wang Taiming said. "No matter who it was, it was useless to take out the treasure! At that time, the most important thing was to stay alive! Unfortunately, Qiu Cheng's descendants didn't even manage to keep their lives! "
"Oh …" Zhao Yu understood. "So, the few of you have been thinking about the Gold Buddha statues and the treasure since then! You wanted to find the treasure map and find the Gold Buddha statues! Plus, you chose to keep it a secret, so that you could make a fortune yourself? "
"That's not it!" Tian Dongmin sighed. "We have been doing cultural relic work for our entire lives. We are not obsessed with the treasure! But … Sigh! Maybe … Section Chief Fan's death made us develop some kind of obsession? We actually made such a choice back then! "
"Then … how did Chief Fan Peng die?" Miao Ying asked.
Miao Ying quickly asked. "Sigh!" Tian Dongmin answered. "We … At that time, we didn't think too much about it. We thought that finding the clue to the Gold Buddha statues would be a huge archaeological discovery. When we went back, we naturally wrote a report and applied for a treasure hunt.
"But we didn't expect that when we were on our way back with the samples, we would encounter a flash flood that was not seen in Qinshan for hundreds of years!
"It was too scary! The flood surged towards us from all directions. The place that we could walk on just now suddenly became a rolling black river … "
"We ran and hid in a panic, but in the end, we were still swept into the water by the flood.
"Luckily, there were many vines by the shore. Lao Wang and I climbed up to the shore, leaving only Dong Peizhuo and Section Chief Fan," Tian Dongmin recalled painfully, "Section Chief Fan could have climbed up to the shore directly, but he saw that Dong Peizhuo was about to be washed away by the flood, so he went back to save him.
"But, when Dong Peizhuo came ashore, a big log suddenly rushed over and hit Section Chief Fan. It knocked him into the middle of the flood!"
"The few of us were terrified. We wanted to go down to save him, but the flood was so big that we couldn't go down!"
"Then, we saw Section Chief Fan struggling in the water for a while. He even shouted at us very loudly. He shouted, 'Gold Buddha statues! You must find the Gold Buddha statues … Gold Buddha statues … '
"He only shouted one or two sentences, then he couldn't be found anymore!"
Then, Zhao Yu and Miao Ying could clearly see that Tian Dongmin's eyes were wet. He was so emotional that he couldn't continue.
"After he came back, you can imagine Elder Dong's state of mind! He didn't eat or drink, and he was in a daze. He was like a wandering ghost every day. No one could persuade him! " Wang Taiming continued to narrate on behalf of Tian Dongmin. "Then, the two of us couldn't stand it anymore, so we looked for him and told him that Section Chief Fan's last wish was for us to help him find the Gold Buddha statues! So … Why don't we use our own actions to find the Gold Buddha statues for him? Isn't using the Gold Buddha statues to comfort Section Chief Fan's spirit in heaven better than living a meaningless life? "
"After hearing that, Elder Dong finally regained his spirit and found the meaning of life again! He swore that he would use his entire life to find the Gold Buddha statues! "
"But …" Wang Taiming suddenly changed the topic. "But, if we want to find the Gold Buddha statues, there's a problem in front of us. Because, if we were to report the Gold Buddha statues truthfully, the higher-ups would definitely report it to the National Cultural Relics Bureau. Then, the task of finding the Gold Buddha statues wouldn't fall on us! "
"By then, if we were to search for the Gold Buddha statues painstakingly, there would be a lot of constraints and concerns. Not only would we lose our jobs, we might even implicate our families and friends!"
"So, after much consideration, we decided to hide the matter. We decided to use our own abilities to find the whereabouts of the Gold Buddha statues, to repay Section Chief Fan Peng!
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