Chapter 15: A Professor Is Stunned, and the Internet Erupts!

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, the sun blazed over a major archaeological excavation site, where yellow dust filled the air.

During their lunch break, several archaeology students crouched together in a freshly cleared trench, watching Jiang Chen’s livestream on a phone. They were top students from the archaeology department of one of the country’s leading universities, accustomed to working on national-level excavations.

Watching Jiang Chen and his teammates mess around with a Luoyang shovel in the dark hole, they laughed until they could barely contain themselves.

A young man in a baseball cap sneered. “Reality shows have no shame these days. They’re even using a tomb-robbing script to attract attention.”

A young woman nodded. “Exactly. Look at those three: an unemployed guy, a geography teacher, and a fortune-teller. You think they’d find a real tomb? They’re supposedly raiding a major burial, but they look more like they’re dumping trash in a basement.”

Another student pointed at the bronze bottle in Jiang Chen’s hand and doubled over laughing. “Look at that bottle. It’s so fake. The green patina was obviously aged in a hurry with chemicals. A defective modern factory piece. You could buy three for two hundred yuan at a Panjiayuan street stall. It might fool viewers who don’t know any better. And then they have Tingquan join the call and say it’s authentic? What an over-the-top script.”

The students took turns tearing into the trio. As they laughed, a stern voice sounded behind them.

“What are you doing? Have you finished clearing the pottery fragments from the trench? And you’re already slacking off?”

They jumped and hid the phone behind their backs. Turning, they saw their supervisor: Professor Liu Jianguo, a towering figure in Chinese archaeology.

Professor Liu approached with his hands behind his back and a severe expression. “What are you hiding? Bring it out! Let me see what nonsense is distracting you from your work!”

The young man in the cap reluctantly handed over the phone. “Professor Liu, it’s nothing. We’re watching a comedy variety show. The crew made up a tomb-robbing script and is fooling viewers with a fake bottle.”

Professor Liu frowned and took the phone. He particularly disliked entertainment programs that made light of serious history and archaeology. He glanced at the screen contemptuously and was about to scold the students for neglecting their studies.

Three seconds later, his open mouth froze. His gaze locked on the muddy bronze bottle. He raised a hand sharply.

“Wait! Hold on! Don’t say another word!”

His voice rose, trembling noticeably. He brought the phone close, then took off his reading glasses because he still couldn’t see clearly. With his face almost against the screen, he examined the vessel’s shape, markings, and corrosion inch by inch.

After staring for half a minute, he sucked in a breath and covered his mouth. “Good heavens!”

The students exchanged looks, baffled. “What’s wrong, Professor? Is the fake so realistic it hurts your eyes?”

Professor Liu looked up, his face flushed, and pointed at them. “Fake? You fools haven’t learned enough to know what you’re looking at! How is that fake? It’s real!”

His words struck like thunder. The students stared, mouths open.

“R-real? Professor, you must be joking. It’s a reality-show livestream!”

Shaking with anger, Professor Liu pointed at the screen. “Look carefully at the shape! That’s a classic early Western Han bronze *fang* vessel with gold-and-silver inlaid cloud patterns! The irregular soil staining, red patches, and green corrosion formed naturally in complex acidic and alkaline conditions underground over more than two thousand years. No modern chemical process could reproduce that naturally integrated depth!”

The students, thoroughly scolded, kept looking at the bottle in disbelief.

Professor Liu paced in excitement, both hands trembling. “It’s more than merely real! Look at the vessel’s scale and exquisite workmanship. It couldn’t have been a burial object for an ordinary noble. Combined with the terrain in the western hills of Jiangzhou mentioned in the stream, this may well be the hidden main tomb of Huo Changfeng, the great Han General Who Pacified the North, renowned for his military exploits and missing from the historical record!

“It’s an age-old mystery archaeologists have searched for in vain for half a century!”

The students’ jaws nearly dropped into the trench. “Good god! Those guys really found the genuine article? They were digging blindly!”

Professor Liu thrust the phone back into the student’s hand, sweat covering his forehead. “What are you waiting for? Pack our things! Book tickets!”

The student fumbled with a ticketing app. “I’ll book the next high-speed train to Jiangzhou!”

“To hell with the train!” Professor Liu knocked the tablet out of his hands. “A plane! The earliest direct flight to Jiangzhou! If the whole site is excavated, it will be a marvel of Chinese civilization! Hurry!”

The students scrambled toward camp. Professor Liu caught the young man in the cap by his collar. “You! Call the Jiangzhou police immediately! Have them send SWAT to surround the mountain and protect the site! Tell them if those boys knock one flake of dirt off that bottle, I’ll fight them myself! If it is damaged, the loss to human civilization will be irreparable!”

The young man turned pale, nodded repeatedly, and dialed the police.

Back in Jiangzhou, the municipal SWAT squad captain had just finished a morning of training. He was about to eat a few bites of his boxed lunch when the red direct-line phone on his desk rang furiously.

He set down his chopsticks and answered. “Jiangzhou municipal SWAT squad.”

An anxious dispatcher spoke. “Captain, emergency! Professor Liu Jianguo of the National Cultural Heritage Administration has just filed a report under his own name. The main tomb of a Han general has been found in the barren western hills of Jiangzhou. Someone is destructively looting it!”

The captain frowned. “Tomb robbing? That’s for criminal investigators. Why call SWAT?”

The dispatcher swallowed. “Because… the person leading them is Jiang Chen. The one who made the bomb yesterday.”

The captain sprayed the mouthful of rice he’d just taken straight into his deputy’s face.

“Who? Jiang Chen?!” He sprang out of his chair, eyes wide. “That menace blew up half a village yesterday, and today he’s digging up a great general’s ancestral grave?!”