Chapter 170: Treasure Mountain
Although she had come to the foot of Treasure Mountain once before, that time she had relied entirely on the purple jadeite for entry and exit, so finding the same path again on her own could only depend on her excellent memory to retrace it as best as possible.
Wiping the sweat beads from her face, Su Ning gazed toward the mountain peak of Treasure Mountain in front of her.
The mountaintop had some snow-white patches just as Maternal Uncle Yan had said, and the thick white mist at the mountainside seemed to linger year-round without dispersing.
Thick fallen leaves covered the ground, crunching softly with crisp sounds underfoot.
“Wait a minute.”
Yan Xi, who was leading the way at the front, raised his hand and stopped, then carefully examined the feces on the ground and scrutinized the few relatively fresh footprints before immediately leading them in a different direction.
Knowing he had spotted another big creature, Su Ning and Fu Jiaming didn’t ask questions but followed closely behind him, hurrying along in silence to stay away from that dangerous spot.
Only after they had gone a long way around did the sense of urgency return to normal as he slowed down again.
Su Ning gripped the purple jade pendant tightly in her palm; blindly directing the way like this was undoubtedly adding too many unpredictable dangers for them.
Gritting her teeth, she decided to take it out anyway—even a momentary boost of luck would do.
Unexpectedly, the purple jade had just been taken out from Peach Blossom Spring and wasn’t even warm in her hand yet.
Walking at the rear, she suddenly stepped into empty air, and her whole body tumbled into an incredibly deep pit.
“Su Ning!” “Ning Ning!”
Hearing the wrong note in the voices behind her, Fu Jiaming and Yan Xi immediately turned back and saw a sight that chilled them to the bone.
They quickly returned to the spot where she had fallen and shouted her name loudly downward.
The pit looked very narrow from above, about the size of an ancient well opening.
Fu Jiaming was both anxious and panicked, unavoidably asking repeatedly, “I clearly passed through here before and didn’t notice this pit?!”
Yan Xi, who had been scouting ahead and hadn’t noticed anything unusual here either, subconsciously nodded. “This must have been left by someone long, long ago, with a clever mechanism on top.”
So neither of them had noticed it, while Su Ning had been too lucky.
“Su Ning, Su Ning, respond! Are you okay? Are you still conscious?”
“I… I’m fine!”
Just a bit dazed.
Yes, somewhat dazed from the fall.
The echo in their shouts revealed just how deep the pit bottom was, and even stranger, the pit wasn’t vertical but sloped.
Otherwise, she would have either died or been knocked out cold from the fall.
Patting the ash and soil off her body and head, she found that due to the angle, the light from the pit opening provided no illumination below.
After adapting to the darkness, Su Ning stood up and took out a flashlight from Peach Blossom Spring.
As soon as the light shone, it made her eyes widen involuntarily.
She saw that the pit was directly facing a thick stone wall—no, more accurately, a stone door.
Thinking of the Treasure Mountain legend that Xi You had once told her, the corners of her mouth twitched subconsciously: This time they might have really hit the jackpot!
Picking up the fallen purple jade pendant from the ground, Su Ning steadied her mind before circulating energy and shouting up the slope, “Jiaming, Maternal Uncle Yan, come down!”
They had just found a large tree and tied the rope securely to throw it down when they heard her words.
Fu Jiaming looked blankly at Yan Xi. “Uncle, did I hear that right? Su Ning is telling us to come down? Not to pull her up?”
“You heard right. Ning Ning must have found something below. In that case, let’s go down and see!”
“Throw the rope down first.”
“Okay.”
Scratching his head, Fu Jiaming obediently threw the rope in hand down the pit. “Huh? Something’s off—it’s not vertical down there!”
Though the bottom was pitch black and unclear, the appearance of the upper section of rope made the anomaly very obvious.
The two exchanged a glance, hesitated no longer, and jumped in one after the other, sliding down the slope.
Upon smoothly reaching the bottom, they had no time to wonder why Su Ning had thought to bring a flashlight before being stunned by the scene before them.
“Air is flowing—this cave must have been specially treated with different ventilation openings.”
“I just want to know how this huge stone was moved in!”
“Couldn’t it have been carved out?”
What a unique focus.
Shaking her head, Su Ning shone the flashlight beam on the area above the stone door. “Look!”
“What’s this? A door-opening switch?”
There were three holes of different shapes above; their sizes didn’t seem like those for regular keys.
“Where are we supposed to find the thing to open it?”
“Here!”
“Are you sure you mean this stone?”
“Just compare it and see.”
How to compare? How could they pry off the things embedded in the stone door?
Fu Jiaming pondered as he stepped forward and tried, nearly flipping his nails but failing to dislodge the items: Forget it, pointless!
“I think this stone door looks a bit like…”
“Like a painting.”
Yan Xi finished her unfinished sentence. He hadn’t spoken earlier because he’d been studying the stone door; the patterns on it plus the three protrusions looked just like…
Like the painting on the wall in that ancient village ancestral hall of unknown family origin, with no plaques, just those scribbled symbols.
But…
Frowning at those protruding points, Yan Xi racked his brain but still felt he hadn’t remembered wrong.
When he was young, he had heard the village old man tell Treasure Mountain legends, and he had really been tempted to hunt for treasure, even sneaking into that abandoned ancestral hall to make tools.
So the painting wasn’t unforgettable, but it was definitely familiar with a clear impression.
“I remember this protrusion should be here.”
Yan Xi subconsciously pressed his index finger on that protruding point and tried to move it to the position in his memory—amazingly, he actually pushed it!
“This…”
“Quick, look above!”
The second hole had automatically risen from below with a stone carving that perfectly filled and sealed it.
“Uncle!”
“Don’t fuss, let me think, think.”
Yan Xi scratched his head and looked at the other two protrusions. After a long time, seemingly completely sure, he continued pushing them along the correct orientations.
“Click clack~”
“Whoa~ Damn! It opened, it opened, it really opened!”
Yan Xi and Su Ning both grabbed the silly guy and yanked him back several steps.
Only after nothing shot out from the widely opened door did they breathe a sigh of relief.
“I’ll test it first!”
He bent down to pick up a smallish stone, weighed it in his hand, and tossed it inside the door.
“Sizzle~ thump thump~”
It scraped along the wall and landed, with no danger appearing.
“Can we go in now?”
“Let’s go.”
Su Ning walked to the front of the stone door and shone the flashlight inside; the three slowly entered.
Inside was like a naturally formed cave, dry and well-ventilated, with only the scent of earth and no other obvious smells.
After walking about twenty meters, the narrow cave suddenly opened up, revealing a wondrous hidden space ahead.
“A natural fissure—this scenery is so magical!”
“? Don’t look up and marvel at that—Su Ning, look down at what’s below!”
Shouldn’t the first thing a normal person notice be those neatly stacked sunken wood crates?!
“You sure?”
“What else could it be? Those crates are definitely full of treasure—no need to think about it, way better than that canyon wall… Hiss, damn!”
“That! What’s that?!”
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s red ganoderma.”
“Su Ning, what kind of ridiculous… cough, heaven-defying luck is this?!”
Falling into a pit to find a treasure cave, smoothly entering to find crates and even spotting red ganoderma.
She must be the real darling of the heavens, right?
Unobtrusively stowing the purple jade in her other hand into space, Su Ning, whose heart was also pounding wildly, pretended to be calm as she looked away.
“Let’s go, check what’s in the crates first. We can figure out how to harvest that lingzhi mushroom later after retrieving the rope.”
“Fine! You’re the darling, we’ll do as you say!”
“What?” Thing?
“Cough cough, nothing, nothing, heh heh heh!”
Yan Xi, who had already climbed onto the top crate, turned back to call them. “Ning Ning, Jiaming, look!”
He took out a gold ingot and a large pearl from the opened crate.
Nervously swallowing hard: Half his life gone, and his childhood wish suddenly fulfilled!
How was this so unreal?
If his hands were free, he would slap his own face to check if it hurt and if he was dreaming.
“Wow! Uncle, toss it to me!”
“Catch!”
Catching the large gold ingot he threw down with both hands, it was chubby like a big meat dumpling—adorable and delightful however you looked at it.
Fu Jiaming eyeballed the number of crates; there were at least over a hundred piled here?!
No way, he felt dizzy, legs a bit weak!
