Creak—
Thump.
As the ironwood door shut with a dull thud, the lights, attached to the wall with a sitting in the shape of small flood dragons, lighted up one by one, revealing the long straight tunnel leading to the mausoleum's inner sanctum.
The whole structure was built completely from stone brick, neat and orderly—a magnificent work of stone masonry. The tunnel stretched across more or less 100 meters in length, a gross estimation by Qin Yu after calculating the distance between the entrance and the first arche with a simple method: counting how many steps it took till she reached the bottom of the arche. 66 steps, and there are five of them, thus she concluded.
While at it, she also counted the numbers of the hanging lamps on the wall, which totaled 38 delicately-made ornaments—nineteen on each side, a pair for every meter.
Qin Yu meticulously appraised the quality of the craftsmanship and stood agape when she realized that each of them could be considered a contemporary masterpiece. If she could scrap just one of them and put it on an online auction, it might net her a sum of money enough to buy a new standard apartment in K City. How outrageous was it?
This once again refreshed Qin Yu's understanding of the extent of her family's wealth and also sparked an unsettling feeling deep within her heart.
"If my family is so rich, why did I sell my house back then?"
She was the only remaining member of the Qin family, and thus all of her family's assets and fortune would naturally be passed down to her. With that kind of wealth in her possession, it was extremely bizarre and unimaginable that she had decided to sell off her family's inheritance for just.... She didn't even remember how much she got after selling them.
"It didn't make any sense."
She tried to recall the details of the transaction: with whom she had made the deal, when and how. But no matter how hard she tried, her memories remained blurry, as if they were covered by a thick fog.
Suddenly, a splitting pain assaulted her brain, causing her a severe headache.
Qin Yu rubbed her temple to ease the pain and tried to take a deep breath to recollect herself, but the damp and stagnant air inside choked her instead.
Shaking her head, she decided to stop pondering and not delve further into this matter. After all, this wasn't a suitable place for thinking deeply about such matters. She preferred to do it accompanied by a cup of hot tea and on a comfortable and fluffy couch.
Her attention was now transferred to the three-meter-high stone arch in front of her. On the top part, she could see a carving of two flood dragons facing each other head-on as though they were about to engage in earth-shattering battle.
These two carvings were sculptured in such detail that they exuded a profound and majestic air, as if she was in the presence of real mythical dragons. The girl couldn't help staring at it in awe.
Speaking of dragons, they might be a common sighting in modern times, and everybody could freely use them. You could find it in 5-star hotels, in a supermarket, as a symbol for a university, or even as a theme for lingerie.
However, it was an entirely different case in ancient times. The only person who could use the figure of a dragon as a symbol was the emperor himself. It represented the dignity and sovereignty of the dynasty. Even in the present time, when the descendant of the previous dynasty used the dragon symbol, it carried different kinds of weight and gave indescribable impressions—the one in front of her eyes, for example.
But this fact made Qin Yu more and more perplexed.
Recalling the words of her grandfather, a thought flashed in her mind: Did the Qin Family have a connection with the ancient royal family?
The only dynasty that carried the surname Qin was the Qin Dynasty, which overthrew the everlasting Zhou Dynasty and created the foundation of the prosperous H-Country at the present time. Although the reign lasted only a little more than a decade, many groundbreaking works, such as the precursor to The Great Wall, the first nation-scale road network, and so on and so forth, were established during the brief period of glory.
This dynasty was also famous for its excellent technological and political achievements, befitting its status as the first empire that could unify the vast region of Huaxia.
One example of their prowess was the magnificent city-sized Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, which was guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army, which numbered nearly 8,000 terracotta warriors.
But it was also known in history that almost all of the Qin Royal Family were eliminated during the bloody power struggle after the First Qin Emperor passed away. Even if there might be survivors in this calamity, all of them should've changed their surname to another—mostly Ying and Zhao. So, there was only a little to zero probability that her Qin family was connected to the long-lost Qin Royal Family's genealogy.
Moreover, the letter Qin used in her family name had a different meaning, which was "Little Hill", spoken in the Hakka dialect. Pretty suitable for Qin Family who was established in the Blessed Hill. Qin Yu didn't whether it was merely a coincidence or made up deliberately.
She vaguely remembered that her friends and acquaintances often misspelt her name as Cen Yu, which was the common pronunciation of the letter in standard Mandarin.
This made Qin Yu speculate that their family's true roots were in the southern plain, but she didn't have the means to confirm her guess right now. Qin Yu's eyes turned distant as her mind wandered off habitually.
After a while, she finally snapped back to her senses and continued walking down the grey tunnel.
After not more than five minutes of walking at a leisurely pace, the girl's steps finally stopped. A two-meter-high stone split door greeted her at the end of the road.
Ordinary people most likely believed that in order to open the door, they needed to push it, as shown in many Wuxia dramas on television.
Tsk tsk.
But here was where they were wrong, Qin Yu thought while clicking her tongue.
They just didn't know how eccentric her grandfather could be.
She quickly stretched her hand, pushing a particular part of the stone door gently, and suddenly that particular part raised, revealing a hollow palm-sized square space. Inside it there was a fingerprint and retina scanner, which really looked out of place compared to the surrounding.
This was where her grandfather's ingenuity stood up.
"There is nothing more romantic than a melting pot of sci-fi and ancient culture, that's your grandfather's favourite phrase."
What her mother once told her when she was reminiscing about Grandpa Qin's adorable quirk.
Qin Yu immediately placed her finger and peered through the retina scanner, and not long after that, the stone door rotated inwardly and presented her with a grand hall.