Chapter 77: Priceless Grave Goods, All Claimed By Su Mo
As the coffin lid opened, a foul stench instantly hit them in the face.
When the Old Shopkeeper was found, he had already been dead for several days, his corpse stinking up the whole street. It was sealed in the coffin solely by the lid containing the odor. Now that the lid was opened, that foul stench seemed capable of lifting off the top of a person’s skull.
Even though Su Mo’s physique far surpassed that of ordinary people, he could only hold his breath to avoid inhaling the stench, then quickly reached his right hand into the coffin.
He needed to confirm whether this guy was really from the Wang Family, and to find some clues about the Wang Family.
The Old Shopkeeper had died very suddenly, most likely from some acute illness, so he hadn’t had time to see a doctor or notify the organization. He must still be carrying some things with hidden clues.
The corpse was already decomposing. Although Su Mo was wearing gloves, it still felt very unpleasant to the touch.
He quickly searched the Old Shopkeeper’s body and soon felt a very small badge at the corpse’s waist.
Su Mo quickly closed the coffin lid, then retreated a few steps to the side before daring to breathe.
Looking down at the item in his hand, it was a small badge entirely black and forged from wrought iron. One side had a relief carving of several clouds, and faintly emerging among the clouds was a palace, seemingly the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace.
The other side was engraved with two words:
Wang Li!
It seemed this badge was the Wang Family’s token. The Cloud Top Heavenly Palace pattern carved on that side was the Wang Family’s spiritual totem, and also the tomb that Wang Canghai had finally built for the Wan Nu King.
The two words “Wang Li” carved on this side seemed to be the Old Shopkeeper’s real name in the Wang Family!
Chen Xia Zi walked out from the shadows and said in a low voice:
“Did you find anything?”
Su Mo handed the iron badge to Chen Xia Zi. He felt it and sneered:
“He really is a Wang! Interesting!”
Su Mo said in a low voice:
“Watch carefully, I’m going down first!”
Chen Xia Zi nodded:
“Be careful with everything!”
Su Mo immediately turned and jumped into the cave, quickly entering the first layer cave along the slope below, and soon arrived inside that stone house.
This stone house seemed to be where the Old Shopkeeper temporarily rested and consumed the Razorfin Viperfish. The militia had previously found a stone box here containing six jade beasts. These things should also be from the Ancient Dian Kingdom, brought here by the Old Shopkeeper, but unfortunately they had been taken away by Professor Sun.
There was nothing valuable left here, so Su Mo didn’t linger in the stone house. He turned and went down through the passage in the middle of the stone house to the space below, soon arriving at that pool.
Su Mo had already checked this pool during the day; there was no treasure light inside. It should be the place where the Old Shopkeeper used living people to feed the Razorfin Viperfish.
The Wang Family had used delivering the coffin to transport grave goods and treasures, so they must have been fully aware of the Old Shopkeeper feeding the Razorfin Viperfish with human flesh, yet they didn’t interfere. It seemed these Wang Family members were quite wicked!
Su Mo didn’t stop and continued forward along the slope on one side of the pool.
The slope was very gentle, but the passage gradually became twisting and narrow, with many places allowing only one person to pass. After walking forward more than ten meters, a lot of gravel appeared ahead.
There was a drop of over two meters between this cave and the previous space. The ground also had seepage water. Professor Sun and another archaeological team member had been surveying the stone tablet here when they suddenly encountered a collapse, getting trapped. It took them half a day to dig out the fallen stones. They happened to hear the militia gunfire and knew someone had come looking for them, so they ran out.
After entering this space, Su Mo saw the cave full of stone tablets and couldn’t help but frown.
The environment here was clearly not suitable for storing grave goods. Ordinary antiques placed here would definitely decay severely.
There must be other spaces!
He focused and used the Great Yin Meditation Technique, Ji Guan Trap Formation Secret Technique, and Yin Yang Liu Ren spells to carefully observe the situation in the cave. Sure enough, he found that several stone tablets concealed Ji Guan formations and the principles of Yin Yang Liu Ren, arranged precisely according to the Eight Trigrams formation.
He immediately went to one of the stone tablets and forcefully moved it.
A series of clicking sounds came from below the stone tablet.
It could indeed be moved!
Su Mo then exerted force and, according to the principles of the Eight Trigrams formation, moved several stone tablets and rearranged them to form a Life Gate.
As the stone tablets moved and rearranged, a light sound suddenly came from the stone wall in one corner of the cave. Immediately after, a stone on the stone wall recessed inward by several inches.
Su Mo was delighted and went over there, pressing his hand on the stone and applying force. The stone indeed retreated backward.
Behind it was indeed a secret passage; behind the stone door was a passageway sloping upward.
Su Mo couldn’t help but be delighted.
This made sense. The place where the Old Shopkeeper stored grave goods must be far from the dark and damp space below to avoid the grave goods being corroded and damaged by moisture!
The secret passage sloped upward in a spiral at a forty-five-degree angle. Su Mo walked up more than ten meters along the secret passage, and it suddenly opened up, revealing a sealed space in front of him.
This was a cave almost the same size as the one below. It was filled with many grave goods from nearly every dynasty. The most recent were some Republic-era silver dollars, all packed in jars. A rough estimate put them at least at several hundred thousand pieces, worth at least tens of millions by current value—just these silver dollars alone.
And those grave goods were from various dynasties, not only gold, silver, and copper vessels, but also some ancient paintings, all preserved perfectly.
The Stone Tablet Shop was very remote, so the Wang Family used it as a storage place for these grave goods. Many of the grave goods transported here over the years had been left here without being transferred yet. The Old Shopkeeper’s sudden death meant the other Wang Family members hadn’t gotten the news yet, so Su Mo had quietly picked up a bargain.
Su Mo knew these grave goods were ill-gotten gains the Wang Family had obtained from various places. Once in their hands, they would definitely be used as funds for the entire organization—not taking them would be a waste!
Thinking of this, Su Mo reached out toward a box of ancient paintings in front.
With a thought, the box of ancient paintings was instantly sucked into the System Space.
Su Mo’s System Space was not only extremely large in area but also constantly temperature-controlled and dry, making it the best place to store these grave goods.
In no time, he had collected all the grave goods in the cave into the System Space.
Although Su Mo had obtained some grave goods from the Lu Wang Palace before and gained considerable wealth in the Capital City because of it, compared to the value of the grave goods here, it was like a drop in the bucket.
It was laughable that the Wang Family had gathered so many grave goods and treasures from everywhere, only for Su Mo to reap the fruits in the end!
Besides the grave goods, there was nothing else in the cave. It seemed the coffin shop’s Old Shopkeeper was just a warehouse guard and not responsible for the Wang Family’s main affairs—only an account book recording the inflow and outflow of grave goods, and a badge proving his identity.
Seeing that there was nothing left in the cave, Su Mo turned and quickly walked out of the cave, swiftly returning to the ground along the original path.
