Chapter 2

The middle-aged man spoke little, turned, and walked towards the main hall, with everyone else following behind.

Pushing open the door, in the center of the main hall, against the wall on an eight-legged black table, stood a four-legged black square ding, about a foot tall.

A ding of this size, among the bronze artifacts unearthed domestically, would be considered miniature. On the body of the ding, a slender and lifelike black dragon coiled around, with its four claws serving as the four legs of the ding. The dragon's head and tail were raised high, forming the two handles of the square ding, which could be held.

The room was abnormally dim, with no light source illuminating the table, yet Chen Hai, standing at the door, could see the intricate details of the black square ding clearly.

Not only were the green scales of the dragon on the body of the ding clearly visible, but even the tiny ancient inscriptions on the body, as small as fly heads, were also clearly visible to Chen Hai.

The body of the ding showed no signs of rust. The green scales and red head of the dragon were still very vivid, not at all like something freshly excavated from an ancient tomb, yet it exuded an ancient and simple aura.

What was even stranger was that the dragon cast on the body of the ding seemed to be a living creature, and Chen Hai inexplicably felt a mental pressure as if he were being stared at.

"It doesn't seem like paint..." Someone walked up to the table, staring at the small square ding in confusion, but did not suspect it was fake. They cautiously reached out to touch the dragon's head handle, took a breath, and said in surprise, "It's so hot..."

After being sealed underground for a thousand years, what kind of paint could remain unfaded and still look as new as ever?

If the other party really wanted to set up a fake, they would have put in a lot of effort and would not have made such obvious mistakes.

Seeing that the middle-aged man did not stop him, Chen Hai also approached and reached out to touch the body of the ding. The part of the body was as cold as ice, while the coiled dragon on the body felt like burning charcoal, hot enough to make Chen Hai almost cry out, but when he quickly pulled his hand back, he felt no burn.

It was really bizarre.

Chen Hai examined the green scales and red head of the cast dragon, which were very vivid, but they were not painted. They seemed to be cast directly from some radioactive metal.

Thinking of this, Chen Hai was startled and instinctively stepped back: Radioactive metals were not something to play with!

"We tested it with metal flaw detection instruments at our construction site; it has no radioactivity..."

Chen Hai's instinctive reaction caught the middle-aged man's attention. He clearly recognized Chen Hai's meticulousness and caution. Perhaps out of mutual respect, the usually taciturn man came over to explain a bit to Chen Hai.

Seeing the others' confusion, Chen Hai smiled awkwardly, realizing that no one else had thought of this. He then carefully examined the black ding again. He could not identify the metal used to cast the coiled dragon, but it was seamlessly integrated with the body of the ding, showing no signs of joining. The craftsmanship alone was breathtaking.

Chen Hai moved to the front of the black ding and again felt as if the dragon's eyes were staring at him, making him very uncomfortable, as if the dragon were a living creature. It was really bizarre.

Although Chen Hai did not know if the others felt the same way, from their focused expressions, he could tell that they had dispelled their doubts and no longer thought the ding was a fake set up by the other party.

Otherwise, seeing a newly excavated ding that was shiny and new with no signs of rust, they would have walked out long ago.

Among the dozen or so people present, although none of them had formally studied archaeology like Chen Hai, they were all semi-experts in this field. Even if the other party wanted to set up a fake, they would have put in a lot of effort to make it look old. Chen Hai was more inclined to believe that the ding was like this when it was first excavated.

What kind of bronze artifact could remain rust-free after being sealed underground for thousands of years?

"Can you tell what period this ding is from?" Gu Fatso asked Chen Hai in a low voice.

The usually cautious and slippery Gu Fatso did not doubt the authenticity of the ding.

Chen Hai shook his head, unable to say anything.

Chen Hai had studied history as an undergraduate and entered the archaeology program at Northeastern University for his master's degree, focusing on bronze artifacts from the pre-Qin period and being very familiar with inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

In fact, bronze artifacts from different periods of the Shang and Zhou dynasties had distinct differences in inscriptions and styles, and later generations mainly used these differences to determine the age of the artifacts.

Chen Hai could be considered an expert in this field; otherwise, with his wealth being several orders of magnitude less than Gu Fatso's, he would not have been invited to participate in this secret transaction.

This black square ding, whether in terms of its shape with the dragon's head and tail as handles and the dragon's claws as legs, or the ancient inscriptions cast on it, was unfamiliar to Chen Hai. In his memory, none of the Shang and Zhou bronze artifacts unearthed domestically resembled this one.

Moreover, the thousands of ancient inscriptions on the body of the ding, which were as small as fly heads, were completely unrecognizable to him, yet each one was vivid and seemed to contain some mysterious power.

The middle-aged man then took out a jade ring, which was more like a jade bracelet in size, as no one's finger would be as thick as a wrist.

Compared to the black ding, the dusty and somewhat damaged jade ring seemed ordinary, more like an old item sealed underground for thousands of years.

"Since we can't visit the tomb, do you have more photos of the site?" Su Qian asked.

Everyone had seen some photos before, but only one was a site photo, taken from a poor angle, showing a collapsed mud pit that revealed nothing.

At this moment, Su Qian wanted to see more site photos, and the others also had this idea, all staring at the middle-aged man.

"I have them..."

The middle-aged man took out a domestic smartphone and flipped through a dozen site photos, which could be pieced together to form a panoramic view of the site, showing them to everyone in turn.

Chen Hai stood next to Su Qian and, as she took the phone, he stepped back slightly, seemingly confirming the time and location of the photos from other photos, but Chen Hai was quickly drawn to the photos on the phone.

It was not a typical tomb of a noble from the Shang and Zhou periods. The scene in the photos more resembled a grand hall, or a corner of a grand hall, with two black, right-angled walls buried deep in the ground of a mountain.

These two walls seemed to have been cut by some sharp tool, reflecting a metallic sheen under the phone's flashlight. The entire wall was made of some black metal, and from the excavator in the photo, each wall was at least 17 to 18 meters high.

From the large-scale relief fragments on the walls, it could be inferred that these two walls were only a small part of the entire grand hall, making it hard to imagine how grand the complete hall would be.

The walls looked unremarkable, and a small corner of the relief was hard to discern, but the cut surfaces were incredibly smooth, with extremely strange but clearly patterned lines, resembling countless ancient inscriptions joined together.

How could a metal block cast as a whole have such neat, ancient-inscription-like patterns on its cut surface?

If these two walls had been buried underground for thousands of years, what kind of tool from the Shang and Zhou periods or even earlier could have cut a metal wall several meters long so neatly?

Even in modern times, the Earth did not have the capability to cast such large metal components as a whole!

Once this place was revealed to the world, it would undoubtedly be a groundbreaking archaeological discovery, but as an antique dealer, Chen Hai did not care about that.

Chen Hai believed that everyone had their own questions. The middle-aged man then asked everyone to hand over their phones, and no one refused. They followed him out the back door of the yard, through a narrow alley, where a bus was waiting at the end of the alley.

The middle-aged man arranged for everyone to sit in the back half of the bus, where the windows were covered with a light-blocking film, blocking their view and preventing them from seeing where the bus was going.

It was clear that the other party had considered this transaction in great detail, more like a professional tomb-raiding gang than a construction team that accidentally discovered a Shang and Zhou tomb, as they claimed.

Of course, everyone only cared if the other party had genuine goods and did not care whether they were tomb raiders or a construction team.

The black square ding was also moved onto the bus. The ding, which looked only a foot tall and not very thick, was surprisingly heavy. The middle-aged man and three muscular young companions were drenched in sweat by the time they placed the ding down.

Chen Hai sat in the middle of the back row, facing the black ding, with the fierce dragon's head handle also facing him. He could not shake the strange feeling of being stared at by the cast dragon, as if the dragon had a soul.

As the bus left the city, the road became bumpy. Suddenly, the bus braked sharply, and Chen Hai, who had been staring at the black ding, was thrown from his seat and crashed into the ding.

It was not very painful, and Chen Hai, feeling the black ding, awkwardly got up. Through the front window, he saw a teenager who had been scared stiff, almost hit by the bus, and the driver was cursing.

Su Qian handed him a tissue, and Chen Hai realized that a warm stream was flowing from his nose, and a pool of blood had dripped onto the black ding.

Everyone's attention was drawn to the near-accident, and Chen Hai, taking the tissue to cover his nose, leaned forward to look inside the black ding, intending to wipe away the blood with another tissue.

At this moment, a strange scene occurred. The pool of blood he had dripped into the black ding slowly seeped into the wall, and a faint light emanated from the wall, forming a small three-dimensional image in the center of the black ding, resembling a landscape painting with mountains, rivers, and clouds. The cast dragon seemed to come to life, forming a shadow that fiercely soared through the clouds.

Chen Hai was startled, thinking he had seen things. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the black ding was empty, and the blood he had dripped in had completely disappeared.

It was really bizarre; the black ding could absorb blood, and Chen Hai's hair stood on end!

Chen Hai unfolded the tissue he had used to cover his nose, which was now red with blood, confirming that what had just happened was not an illusion. But what was the strange image formed by the faint light inside the black ding?

Su Qian, puzzled, leaned over, but seeing nothing inside the black ding, she looked at Chen Hai with confusion, not understanding why he looked as if he had seen a ghost.

The others only noticed Chen Hai's bloody nose at this moment, and seeing him fall awkwardly, they all laughed.