129: Three hundred years of imperial reign, filling the room.

The stone door swung wide open!

Without a second thought, Wang Dalong raised his tactical flashlight. A blinding beam of light instantly tore through the darkness behind the door.

The moment the light swept across, both men's breathing abruptly stopped.

What the hell kind of passageway was this?!

Behind the door was a massive cavern, several times larger than the stone chamber outside that housed Su Xian's solitary grave!

The floor was paved with smooth stone slabs. The walls showed signs of manual excavation, but the ceiling retained the natural stalactites of a karst cave, hanging down in all sorts of strange and wonderful shapes.

The entire cavern had clearly been forcibly remodeled from a huge natural cave!

And within this space comparable to a football field, stretching from their feet to the limit of their vision, were neat, dense piles upon piles of... small mountains.

Mountains formed from countless wooden crates!

The large crates were taller than a person, and even the small ones were a cubic meter in size, all crafted from the thickest hardwood. The crates were wrapped in iron sheets and coated with black tung oil. Even after seven hundred years, these crates were remarkably well-preserved, though the strange, dry, musty smell mixed with the scents of wood, gold, silver, and silk was thick enough to choke a person.

"I... holy shit..."

A groan, uglier than a sob, was forced from Wang Dalong's throat.

He felt his CPU had completely fried, his mind a total blank.

The hand holding the flashlight shook like it had Parkinson's, the light beam dancing wildly over the mountainous piles of wooden crates.

"These... all of these... are?"

His voice trembled uncontrollably, even taking on a sob.

Shocked?

No, that word was utterly inadequate to describe the scene before them.

This was the Southern Song Dynasty! The entire accumulated wealth of a dynasty that lasted three hundred and nineteen years, an empire at the peak of its economic and cultural prosperity!

It was the treasures hoarded away by generations of emperors in the depths of the Lin'an Imperial Palace!

It was the mountains of gold and seas of silver from the national treasury, enough to fund a decades-long war of restoration!

It was the unique, priceless manuscripts and classics from the Wenyuan Pavilion, the life's work of countless scholars!

Now, this three-century national fortune, the final dignity and hope of a dynasty, was displayed before them, these two intruders from seven hundred years later, in the most crude, most direct manner, piled high and filling the entire cavern.

Lin Feng also fell silent.

He stepped over the threshold and walked in.

The stone slabs beneath his feet were cold and hard, each step feeling like treading on the heavy heartbeat of history.

His gaze swept over those silent wooden crates one by one.

He could imagine, over seven hundred years ago, on that night of national collapse and family ruin, countless loyal soldiers, their eyes red, how they must have carried these crates—each one bearing the last hope of a nation—one by one from the ships to this place, hiding them deep underground where sunlight would never reach.

"We're rich... we're rich... Old Lin! We... no, the country! The country is rich!"

Finally breaking free from his soul-shaking shock, Wang Dalong went completely mad. Like a gambler who'd just won fifty billion, he let out a howl, threw the flashlight to the ground, and scrambled on all fours to the nearest wooden crate.

The copper lock on the crate was long rusted beyond recognition. He didn't need much effort; with a violent wrench of his hand, a *crack* sounded as the lock snapped.

Gasping for breath, he grabbed the edges of the lid with both hands and, mustering all his strength, violently heaved it upwards!

*Thud!*

The heavy lid crashed to the ground with a loud noise.

But Wang Dalong's movements froze completely the moment he opened the lid.

Inside the crate, there was none of the dazzling, eye-blinding golden radiance he had imagined.

Instead, there were scroll after scroll, tightly wrapped in oilcloth and sealed with wax.

He was stunned for a moment, then carefully picked up one of the scrolls, unwrapped the outer oilcloth, and slowly unrolled it.

In the dim, yellowish light from the flashlight on the ground, a majestic, powerfully inked landscape painting unfolded before his eyes.

In the corner of the scroll, a bright red seal and two elegantly written signatures were perfectly clear.

"Yan Wengui..." Wang Dalong's voice trembled, barely louder than a mosquito's hum, "Yan Wengui, master of the Northern Song Imperial Painting Academy, 'Autumn Mountains and Lonely Temple'! My god... this is the genuine work, only mentioned by name in art history, lost for nearly a thousand years!"

If this thing were taken out, museums all over the world would go crazy trying to get it!

He frantically rerolled the scroll, placed it aside like a precious treasure, then, as if pumped with adrenaline, lunged at another crate.

*Riiip—!*

The lid was once again roughly torn open.

This time, a soft, warm, bluish glow instantly spilled from the crate, illuminating his face, twisted with excitement.

The crate was packed with thick straw. Nestled securely in each carefully bound straw bed was a piece of porcelain.

Celadon Ru ware plates, the glaze the color of 'the sky after rain clearing and clouds breaking,' so beautiful it could intoxicate the heart.

Translucent Yingqing porcelain bowls, thin as a cicada's wing, as if light could be seen through the walls.

And thickly glazed, dignified Guan ware vases... each piece was flawless!

Each piece was a national treasure!

*Gulp.*

Wang Dalong swallowed hard, his whole body seeming to lose its bones as he slid down the crate to sit slumped on the ground.

He didn't dare open any more.

He truly didn't dare.

He was afraid if he opened more, he'd die on the spot right here from overexcitement, his heart giving out.

He turned his head, wanting to call Lin Feng over to see, but found that Lin Feng wasn't lunging at these mountains of gold and silver like he had.

Lin Feng was standing at the very center of the entire cavern.

He stood motionless, quietly looking at one thing.

A thing... completely different from all the surrounding wooden crates.

It wasn't a crate.

It was a pedestal carved from a single, massive piece of white marble.

On the pedestal rested a rectangular brocade box.

A brocade box crafted from the legendary emperor's wood, golden-thread nanmu.

This brocade box was placed at the very center, the most prominent position among all the treasures, enjoying the supreme honor of this space alone.

It was the true master of this place.

Lin Feng's steps were heavy as he walked, step by step, to the white marble pedestal.

Money, treasures, antiques, paintings... these things were certainly valuable, but what Su Xian and his three thousand soldiers had risked their lives and the fate of their descendants to protect could not be merely these things.

This brocade box was not locked.

Lin Feng reached out. The moment his fingertips touched the lid, he could clearly feel the unique, jade-like warmth of golden-thread nanmu.

Thump, thump, thump.

His heart beat heavily in his chest, once, then again, like a drum.

He knew.

What lay inside this box was the most core, the most fundamental thing of the entire 'Imperial Song Treasure Ship' plan.

It was the final testament left to future generations by that great and tragic era.

Lin Feng held his breath.

Slowly, he opened the brocade box.