Hearing Chen Fei's account, Ye Fan's brows furrowed. He hadn't expected a palace to exist within Fushan, and this news was truly astonishing.
"Since you've been here for so many years, haven't you found any trace of that palace? If it's a palace, it certainly wouldn't be small. Finding it shouldn't be difficult, should it?"
It wasn't that Ye Fan was overly suspicious, but it was a matter of common sense. If Chen Fei truly knew such detailed information, finding a palace within Fushan should not have been a difficult task.
Upon hearing Ye Fan's question, Chen Fei shook his head with a wry smile.
"Brother Ye, do you think I haven't considered this? To be frank, after discovering this handwritten journal, I had the exact same thought as you. Finding a treasure hiding spot is difficult, but finding a palace is supposed to be easy. Even if I dug everywhere on Fushan, I would eventually unearth the palace."
Ye Fan nodded. This was a natural line of reasoning, the first solution that came to mind.
"However, to my surprise, after digging all over Fushan for months, examining almost every spot, I found no trace of the palace. Moreover, the ground beneath Fushan is mostly granite, making excavation extremely difficult. I couldn't dig too deep, so after all this time, I've still found nothing."
Looking at Chen Fei's dejected expression, Ye Fan also sighed. In that case, when the palace was built, it likely wasn't excavated from the mountain downwards. But if not by digging downwards, perhaps by excavating from the cliff face? For a moment, even Ye Fan felt a headache coming on.
Silence fell between the two. After a moment, Ye Fan spoke, "Regardless, now that we know the treasure is on the cliff face, we'll go there first thing tomorrow morning to search."
He hadn't personally inspected the area, so Ye Fan was unaware of the conditions there and couldn't offer precise advice. Hearing Ye Fan's words, Chen Fei nodded.
"I hope Brother Ye can find some clues."
At this point, he had placed all his hopes on Ye Fan.
...
The next morning, when Ye Fan and Chen Fei arrived downstairs, Zheng Zhiyuan and Mr. Sun were already waiting.
"Ye Fan, who is this?" President Zheng asked, frowning as he saw Chen Fei walking alongside Ye Fan.
"He's the guide I found. He's familiar with the surroundings and has lived in the mountains for years, so he can handle any unexpected situations," Ye Fan offered as an excuse. This was something he and Chen Fei had discussed the previous night, as deceiving President Zheng and Mr. Sun was not an easy task.
Hearing Ye Fan's explanation, President Zheng cast a suspicious glance at Chen Fei. Seeing nothing amiss, he relaxed. Mr. Sun, on the other hand, kept his gaze fixed on Chen Fei, seemingly unconvinced of his identity. However, out of consideration for Ye Fan's presence, he didn't say much.
Shen Bao was already waiting outside. Upon seeing Ye Fan and the others emerge, he immediately started the car, and they headed straight for the Tianwang River. Shen Bao had already inspected the situation there. From the mountain down, there was no way to climb, so they could only search from below. As this area was adjacent to the Tianwang River, they could only cross by boat. Shen Bao, being resourceful, had already prepared a boat. They boarded and traveled along the Tianwang River, observing from below.
Fushan was like it had been cleaved by a knife, with sheer cliffs on one side, resembling a standing wall. Climbing from here would be extremely difficult, as there were no footholds. Fortunately, near the center, the river had formed a shallow beach, and Ye Fan and the others disembarked their boat again. The shallow beach spanned over a hundred square meters and was covered in sand. Due to years of erosion by the river, the sand here was hardened.
"Let's set up camp here," Ye Fan said calmly after surveying their surroundings. Everyone nodded, then took out their tents and set them up, eating some dry rations.
"With such sheer cliffs, I'm truly puzzled how those people managed to ascend all those years ago, let alone hide treasures here," Shen Bao asked, frowning, his confusion evident. Among them, he was the least knowledgeable in this area, so his lack of understanding was normal.
Ye Fan glanced upwards and then said with a frown, "The water level here should have been much higher hundreds of years ago. Back then, they could have sailed their boats directly to higher ground and worked from the boats to excavate stone caves and enter them. Therefore, I dare to assert that there must be an entrance on the cliff face, and this entrance connects to a passage."
Upon hearing Ye Fan's words, the others frowned. President Zheng, even more perplexed, asked Ye Fan, "How do you know the water level was so high back then?" He understood appraisal but not the intricacies of mountains and rivers.
Ye Fan smiled slightly and pointed to the stone wall before them. "Look at the stone wall, from top to bottom, the color becomes progressively darker. This indicates that the water level was once very high. This is because the river water contained a large amount of minerals, which reacted with the rock, causing the rock's color to deepen. Later, the river water gradually receded, exposing the rocks to sunlight. After being baked by the sun, the moisture evaporated, and the color of the stones gradually faded." A tomb keeper must not only understand antiques but also possess other knowledge to be a qualified one. Ye Fan was precisely such a person, having dabbled in various fields.
Hearing Ye Fan's explanation, President Zheng nodded and followed Ye Fan's pointing finger upwards. He saw a protrusion that served as a boundary. Below it, the area was very dark, while the upper part had a largely uniform color.
"So, does that mean the water level once reached that protrusion?"
Ye Fan shook his head.
"Is that not correct?" President Zheng asked, frowning.
"That only indicates the highest water level reached there. But no one knows what the water level was during the treasure hiding. We can only search bit by bit." Such information likely had no precise records even locally, let alone for outsiders like them. President Zheng sighed, his face filled with disappointment. To think that it would end up like this.
"Don't be discouraged. Since we've found this place, we must find the treasure no matter what. Otherwise, wouldn't our efforts be in vain?" Mr. Sun offered words of encouragement from the side. Chen Fei, however, looked at the cliff face with a bitter expression.
"This cliff is at least a hundred meters high, meaning Fushan extends a hundred meters downwards. It's so deep that digging from the top is impossible. No wonder you couldn't find the palace," he whispered into Chen Fei's ear. Chen Fei also wore a bitter expression. If he had known it was this deep, he wouldn't have wasted his time for anything.
"It was my oversight that caused this delay," he sighed, then asked Ye Fan, "How should we search? If we look inch by inch, we might not finish searching even by next year. Moreover, it's so high, and we have no way to get up there." Chen Fei's brows were tightly furrowed.