Chapter 25: Sword Locking Flood Dragon

"Jian Ge'er, this tomb won't have anything strange, right?"

Inside the tomb chamber, the huge princely tomb was built extremely luxuriously, with countless huge pillars supporting the ceiling walls.

This place is not like an ancient tomb; rather, it resembles a villa built underground.

The tomb was built so luxuriously that it shows the power and influence this prince had in life.

At this moment, gusts of yin wind blew from the passageway ahead of the main chamber, and Zhang Kui's face looked somewhat unnatural.

The stalwart warriors behind him also gripped their swords and knives tighter, as if only then could they find a sense of security.

Although there is some yin energy, there should be no other ghosts!

Zhang Jian gave a slight smile.

Although the tomb chamber looks free of sinister spirits and killing intent, there are still mechanism traps and poison gas traps; Zhang Kui and the others therefore remained vigilant to avoid unnecessary harm.

And Zhang Jian, Zhang Kui quickly found their group's main objective.

In a side chamber beside the main tomb, wooden boxes cast as ingots were filled with gold and silver, visible from afar amounting to at least several hundred thousand taels.

Besides that, there were also pearls, jadeite, fine white jade artifacts, and antiquities preserved by special means.

Only this much?

However, after seeing it, Zhang Jian and Zhang Kui both felt somewhat surprised.

It's not that there's too much, but that there's too little.

Prince Mian is a proper regional king, literally the lord of his fief; this amount of gold and silver looks considerable, but in fact it's not much.

Like today's prominent wealthy families, none of them are not great in scale and possess many ways to generate wealth.

Without saying white jade serves as gold's horse, pearls as soil and gold as iron, it still wouldn't be far off.

Several hundred thousand taels of gold and silver are only a bit more than what some great clans possess.

This does not match the rumors about Prince Mian.

After thinking, Zhang Jian nodded and said: "Not bad; with this sum of gold and silver, we can quickly relieve our urgent need and fill the gap caused by the Zhang family's rapid expansion and financial shortage."

"Fourth Uncle, please help me pick out some valuable jadeware and antiquities from here, send people to escort them to the prefectural city; my maternal grandfather should be very "happy"!"

Zhang Kui's eyes showed a hint of oddness.

He then nodded slightly.

Just looking at the pile of gold and silver filling the side chamber still thrilled him greatly.

If the Zhang family wishes to stand firm and make a difference in turbulent times, or to advance further, they cannot lack financial resources.

But upon discovering the second side chamber, Zhang Jian instantly understood why the famous ancient prince Mian was so 'poor'!

That is a huge alchemy furnace.

Anything related to burning lead and refining mercury is essentially burning money.

It can be said to be burning money to cultivate!

"This great cauldron looks not bad either; we'll transport it back later!"

Zhang Jian could see that the great cauldron had an antiquated flavor; perhaps it's a good thing, following the idea of 'better to kill mistakenly than to let go,' he had them remember to lift it back together.

Zhang Kui watched this scene, his mouth twitching slightly; moving such a great cauldron weighing thousands of jin back is not easy, requiring great effort, yet he still nodded slightly.

In a side chamber beside the main hall, the group discovered their second objective for this expedition.

"This has completely rotted away!"

At a glance, Zhang Kui's pockmarked face showed a look of regret.

The side chamber was filled with many bookshelves.

But after a thousand years, many books have turned to dust, and even the bamboo slips recorded on bamboo strips have been gnawed apart by insects.

Zhang Kui is a martial practitioner who follows the path of body tempering; having heard of locating Prince Mian's tomb, he harbored great expectations for this expedition.

Prince Mian, in his youth, was fond of martial arts and also an accomplished cultivator; it is said that under his command were many extraordinary talents, and he also raised a vast army.

However, many precious classics on the bookshelves before them have already been weathered.

"Fourth Uncle, don't be disappointed; there should still be some that slipped through the net!"

Zhang Jian pointed to the test stone wall above.

Although the stone wall shows some weathering, there is indeed a portion of the secret canon that remains relatively intact.

Moreover, on the central high platform, there are two jade tablets engraved with classics, and three giant iron scrolls formed from black iron.

Zhang Jian stepped forward, took a glance, and then threw it to Zhang Kui.

Zhang Kui merely glanced at it and instantly felt as if he had obtained a treasure, overjoyed, he could not help but say:

"With this inheritance, my Zhang family excels in both literature and martial arts! We will surely achieve a leap in social standing!"

Zhang Jian saw this, smiled, and nodded.

Enabling the Zhang family to achieve a leap in social standing has been the dream of generations of Zhang descendants; since the great-grandfather, they have dreamed of transcending their station, not merely becoming a simple local magnate.

Zhang Kui was extraordinarily excited, meanwhile immersing himself in those several superior body-tempering secret arts, while Zhang Jian walked over to the most important main tomb chamber.

The main tomb chamber was even more luxurious.

Grand and vast, the tomb chamber featured tall, elegant cranes, towering coiled-dragon golden pillars, and additionally a huge gold coffin suspended in midair by iron chains.

Zhang Jian merely glanced at these luxurious items; he did not immediately go to inspect the gold coffin.

At this moment he noticed on the dragon-patterned stone wall behind the suspended coffin another very special mural.

He first saw the large characters written with iron brush and silver hook: "Sword Locking Flood Dragon Diagram"!

That is a special relief mural.

That is a diagram of the water veins outside Phoenix Yang Commandery; Zhang Jian looked at it with interest.

The momentum of those water veins is fierce like a flood dragon, yet they are restrained by four great dams, like a sharp sword piercing the heart.

Although Prince Mian became muddled in his later years, in his youth he was not lacking in wise and martial deeds, among which was building four great dams relying on the gorge to intercept the White Water River outside Phoenix Yang Commandery.

This largely prevented the Bai Shui River from flooding, while also securing irrigation for the fertile fields on both banks of the Bai Shui River.

Fengyang Commandery owes its present scale to the considerable achievements of Min Wang.

It is a pity that, hundreds of years ago, the outer land dragon overturned in Fengyang Commandery, causing the river to change course and rendering half of these four great dams useless; they have still not been successfully repaired.

Yet the magnificent sight of that surging water vein being cut off still filled Zhang Jian with awe.

Afterward, Zhang Jian turned his gaze to the golden suspended coffin; he employed the Wind Walking Technique to drift down onto the iron chain, casually opened the coffin, and saw inside only a single rotted skeleton, though it was buried with a great deal of gold, silver, and jade funerary objects. However, Zhang Jian's eyes fell on the skeleton's palm, where the white bony fingers tightly clutched a golden bead.

Zhang Jian gave the golden bead a somewhat strange glance.

He noticed that the golden bead was suffused with faint fluctuations of spiritual energy.

It appeared to be a rare magical artifact.

Zhang Jian casually picked it up and put it away; as for the other tombs, he did not move them further, leaving everything to Zhang Kui and the others to handle.

……

And almost exactly when Zhang Jian produced that golden treasure pearl, in the heart of Fengyang Commandery, a layer of invisible ripples surged in the depths of the mighty Bai Shui River; the water eyes churned, and a terrifying colossal beast began to thrash.

"Dragon Pearl, the Dragon Pearl has finally appeared! Yu Qing, you faithless and treacherous villain, I have said before—you cannot trap me!"

Beneath its white scales lay spreading frost, and the churning water eyes were unsettled.

It was a terrifying aberrant beast.

It had a slender form, horns on its head, claws beneath its belly soaring aloft, yet possessed a serpent's tail—this was a colossal white jiao!

In its struggle, the sound of metal striking metal clanged loudly.

Yet one saw countless dense golden runes appearing on the cold iron above its head; the golden runes awakened, as if thunder had revived within, trembling slightly, and instantly the white jiao's whole body went rigid from the electric shock.

The white jiao gradually grew subdued, yet its eyes flashed with the untamed, defiant color of mountains and seas.

It glared hatefully at those cold irons; this colossal beast could only crawl along.

In the distance, seeing that all the water flows had calmed, a faint shadow silently drifted over to the white jiao's side, and a clear voice rang out.

"Father!"