It all happened too quickly for her.
Chloe instinctively reached down and grabbed a handful of soft hair to steady herself, much like holding onto a horse’s mane.
“Hey! Don’t pull my hair!” Leo yelped from below.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Chloe quickly let go and carefully steadied herself against the wall.
Now closer to the trapezoidal crack, she could see the bricks more clearly. They were indeed slightly different in color from the surrounding stones, as if they had been added later.
Could this be the true path to the underground palace?
“Catch.” Domingo handed up the Duckbill Hoe from below.
Chloe took it and asked worriedly, “Can you hold on?”
“No problem, just keep digging.”
The stability under her feet remained unchanged; Leo stood firm as a rock, which reassured Chloe.
She hadn’t expected his seemingly frail body to be so sturdy!
With these thoughts swirling in her mind, Chloe began carefully chipping away at the bricks with the Duckbill Hoe.
After dozens of strikes, beads of sweat appeared on Chloe’s forehead.
This laborious task would have been challenging enough on flat ground. Now, standing on someone, unable to move freely, and having to avoid dropping debris on Leo below made it even harder.
Finally, she managed to create a small gap the size of a finger. Chloe inserted her fingers and tried to pull, but her strength wasn’t enough. She had to use the Duckbill Hoe as a lever.
This method proved effective; debris fell like rain onto Leo, turning his black hair white.
Leo coughed a few times but heard Chloe’s excited voice, “I got one loose!”
Chloe braced herself against the wall and carefully removed the brick with both hands.
The brick was much larger than she had anticipated. Despite her experience with heavy labor at archaeological sites, she still found it difficult to hold.
“Domingo, can you help me with this?” Chloe asked.
But Domingo, being petite, could barely reach the large brick even on tiptoe.
Given its weight, if Chloe let go, it could seriously injure Domingo.
“No way.” Chloe saw that Domingo couldn’t manage and pulled back.
Leo suggested, “Can’t you just drop it?”
“No way! Every brick here is a national artifact and could hold important clues. We can’t just throw it away.”
Chloe treated the brick like a treasure, unwilling to drop it carelessly.
The three of them were at an impasse.
Finally, Domingo came up with an idea. “Chloe, turn the brick upright and place it on Leo’s head. Then he can hand it down to me.”
“Good idea.” Chloe turned the brick upright and placed it on Leo’s head like a temporary platform.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Leo protested.
Before he could say more, he felt the weight on his head. To spare his much-abused hair further suffering, Leo quickly grabbed the brick with his free hand.
Domingo took the brick from him and set it aside with effort.
With this process in place, the three of them managed to remove all the bricks from the crack.
However, Leo’s hair was now flattened in the middle, like a trampled lawn.
At first, Leo felt pain in his scalp, but after handling more than ten heavy bricks, he became numb to it.
The trapezoidal crack was now mostly exposed, but instead of a dark void inside, there was another wall.
Leo couldn’t see what was above him, but Domingo and Chloe could.
They were both disappointed. Had the wall been built in multiple layers?
No ordinary underground palace would have such tight security measures.
Chloe described what she saw to Leo.
Leo was puzzled too. The wall’s thickness far exceeded what was typical for a Western Xia Treasury. It seemed more like an imperial tomb for Emperor Lee.
Realizing this, Leo understood why the Western Xia Treasury was so complex, with inner and outer vaults and false chambers.
Leo shared his thoughts with Chloe and Domingo, who nodded in agreement.
Only this explanation made sense for the treasury’s structure.
Domingo excitedly said, “Do you think this could be Emperor Lee’s tomb? That would mean…”
Domingo was too excited to finish her sentence, but Leo and Chloe understood her implication.
An imperial tomb and a treasury were entirely different concepts in archaeology.
When Emperor’s Rest at Thirteen Tombs was excavated, it shocked the global archaeological community and was a major event of that year.
If this Western Xia Treasury turned out to be Emperor Lee’s tomb, the artifacts inside would be worth far more than the estimated billions of dollars for the treasury alone.
“Even if it’s an imperial tomb, there’s nothing we can do now. The crack only reveals another wall. Let’s head back and bring more people tomorrow,” Chloe said as she removed the last brick. Discovering this trapezoidal crack was already a pleasant surprise; perhaps they could find a way around the Iron Gate from here.
Such examples were common in burial chambers that required secondary access for future burials. Since the primary occupant often passed away first while their consorts were still alive, the chamber needed to be reopened later.
To save effort, craftsmen would leave a hidden passage that was hard to find unless you knew where to look.
If not for Leo noticing something odd outside the Iron Gate, Chloe and her team might still be struggling there.
“Let’s finish what we started and remove that last brick,” Leo said. He was torn between feeling sorry for his hair and frustrated that all his suffering had yielded nothing so far.
Chloe felt the same way. She pried out the last brick and held it in her arms.
Unexpectedly heavy, Chloe almost lost her balance and fell off Leo’s shoulders.
Fortunately, Leo sensed something was wrong and stepped back from the wall to give her more space.
Chloe leaned forward, pressing herself against the wall while holding onto the heavy brick. The two of them looked like a ladder propped against the wall.
Domingo asked worriedly from below, “Chloe, are you okay?”