Hai Lan stared at Qin Ge closely; she understood the meaning of what he just said.
As there is a need for the doctor’s profound knowledge of history into breaking into the tomb, the old bandits are motivated to kill the others present. But now, they are hesitating to let them live as they can provide a shield for the tomb because they are concerned that there may be vicious and powerful mechanisms and traps inside. As Qin Ge said, excluding the treasures, no one knows what other terrible things are in the tomb! Qin Ge is the best at mind tricks, and these remarks have made the old bandits temporarily put away their killing intent.
She has always heard that Qin Ge is very skilled in fighting and has a marksmanship like a god but she doesn’t know if he is carrying a gun right now. If it was just Qin Ge and Xiao Xia, they would be able to retreat back into the narrow passage back into the 18th tomb with the help of the terrain. They may not even need to fight against thegrave robbers. It’s a pity that there are too many people on their side who does not have the ability to resist. Once the fight with the grave robbers breaks out, they will all die!
She knew that Qin Ge must be thinking of a way to get everyone out. How can she be of help? At the critical moment of life and death, how can their enmity compare? If she can also help, she hopes to save everyone. If not, she prays for him, the doctor, and Qin Fei to be the ones to survive.
Several students were close to the tomb with the doctor. The older bandit walked up to the doctor and forced him to open the tomb door. But the doctor refused, muttering, “This is for the country. You cannot do this.”
The younger bandit sneered and fired his gun upwards with shot. Everyone was frightened and the doctor fell to the ground. The young man grabbed a random student and forced him to open the door. The boy shook like a sieve, saying that the door was organically enclosed, and only the doctor could open it.
The old man stared at the doctor fiercely, “If you keep being stubborn[1], the next bullet will be fed into your mouth.”
Hai Lan did not think much and ran to help the doctor up. She then stood in front of him.
The doctor clasped her hand tightly and while trembling, he looked at the tomb door. The grave robbers followed his sight. They saw that the door was made of a huge jade engraved with funeral inscriptions[2] that looked like seal scripts[3]. The center of the inscription was inlaid with a huge copper compass carved with Heavenly stems and Earthly branches [4].
Unlike ordinary compasses, there are is not just one pointer in the disk, but three. And the notches on the heavenly stems and earthly branches are grooved, that is when a pointer is moved, it will be embedded in the groove. At the moment, all the hands of the compass are overlapped in the six o’clock position.
The grave robbers were ecstatic that they are already this close to the emperor’s treasures. Some of them even fired their guns on the air randomly. A scream was heard, and a girl from the archeological team was hit by a stray bullet in the shoulder.
Everyone was shocked, but the older leader ignored the commotion and stroked at the compass. He said sharply, “I have robbed countless grave in my life and I will never be mistaken. This compass is the lock, and the right combination of the pointers is the key. The ancients have used this method to record the time. These three pointers indicate the three units of their time; year, month, and day. The pointers must fall in the correct groove and the door will be opened.
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Notes:
[1] 口硬 (kou ying) , literally hard mouth
[2] 祭文 (ji wen) the elegaic addresses used to honor and define the tomb especially of gods and the royal blood
[3] 篆体 (zhuan ti) general term for ancient script
[4] 天干地支 (tiangan dizhi) I learned this as the sexagenary cycle in school. It’s a Chinese Calendar. It is a traditional counting system for recording days, where there are 10 Heavenly stems and 12 Earthly branches giving a total of 60 combinations. Transposed in English, it can be understood as your zodiac animal + the element (i.e. Metal Ox). All these combinations only completes in more or less 60 years hence sexagenary, so the next generation with the same zodiac and element as you will only be after 60 years.
T/N: I think novelupdate bot is picking up all the numbers wrong. So don’t mind the chapter tags and just enjoy haha.
Kaye's Ugly Translations 