"After him!"

Kawai Matsutake said through gritted teeth, and then two of the men and one woman shot out, leaping after Xia Liang.

"There really is a mechanism!"

By now Xia Liang had already entered the leftmost passage. After stepping over a patch of scattered rocks, he twisted a candle lamp on the wall, and the wall in front of him instantly opened!

Seeing the wall in front of him swing open, a smile appeared on Xia Liang’s face.

Just now he’d noticed that when those rocks fell, nothing else moved, only this wall trembled slightly. He’d guessed then that there might be a mechanism here, and the most conspicuous thing here was this candlestick. Now it seemed he’d been right.

"Those bastards should be chasing up soon, too."

Thinking this, Xia Liang went straight in, and as soon as he entered, the wall returned to its original appearance.

At the same time Xia Liang also heard a faint cracking sound. He knew that meant the mechanism of this wall was already damaged; the people outside could no longer open it via the candlestick.

Things indeed went just as Xia Liang expected. As soon as he entered the secret room, those three Islanders had already caught up and saw with their own eyes that he’d come in here.

But when they reached the spot, they discovered that no matter what they tried, they couldn’t get the wall to open again.

"Damn it, what do we do now? If we don’t bring this guy back, we’ll be punished too."

"Let’s go back first and wait for Mr. Kawai’s decision. And bring the power drill later. Even if he hides inside, it’ll be useless."

"I’ll stay here and keep watch, so he doesn’t slip out while we’re gone."

The three discussed it, leaving a man to guard in front of the wall while the other two went back the way they came to regroup with Kawai Matsutake and the others.

"My luck’s not bad—at least it broke after I used it once."

Xia Liang was certain there were plenty of mechanisms in this tomb, but some of them had definitely broken over time.

"But with those guys holding a power drill, this wall won’t last long either. I still need to get out of here."

"Come to think of it, Zhuge Liang really was a ruthless one, setting up so many mechanisms. If this turns out to be an empty tomb, that’d be too outrageous."

Though it wasn’t impossible. After all, his old opponent Cao Cao built a dozen or so fake tombs; Zhuge Liang pulling the same trick once would be perfectly normal.

"But if even the fake tombs are built on this grand a scale, that’s a bit excessive."

Thinking this, Xia Liang finally looked around the secret room he was in. The whole chamber wasn’t large, about fifty square meters or so, with some furniture in it and a bookshelf.

But after so many years, these things had long since rotted to the point of ruin. As soon as Xia Liang touched them, they crumbled into powder.

"Interesting—there’s actually something like a bed here. Could someone really have slept in this place?"

Xia Liang narrowed his eyes. Since there was furniture and even a bookshelf, that meant someone had once lived in this room.

But who could live inside Zhuge Liang’s tomb?

A tomb keeper?

No way. Tomb keepers always guarded outside. He’d never heard of any family’s tomb keeper stealing living space from the tomb’s owner.

"Could it be Zhuge Liang himself?"

Xia Liang’s eyes lit up. That actually wasn’t impossible. After all, this was Zhuge Liang’s own tomb—him living here would be normal enough.

"Looks like those historical records saying Zhuge Liang died at Wuzhang Plains might not be true. It’s very possible he faked his death. Even Emperor Liu Shan himself probably didn’t know about it. Zhuge Liang must have calculated everyone, calculated that Emperor Liu Shan would obey his ’last wish’ and secretly have him buried.

Or maybe Zhuge Liang was controlling everything from the shadows back then, his goal being to make everyone know he was ’dead,’ but not where he was buried. That way, he could go on living.

And this room was probably the place where Zhuge Liang lived in the Qinling after faking his death."

Xia Liang pondered. There were still plenty of holes in this theory, but thinking it through carefully, it wasn’t impossible.

"But how did he hide it from the whole world and build such a huge tomb complex here in the Qinling?"

That was what puzzled Xia Liang most. Right now they should still be in the outer area of the tomb, and just the outer passage alone was several hundred meters long.

Bear in mind the Three Kingdoms period was over a thousand years ago, close to two thousand. To carve a tunnel several hundred meters long through a mountain peak back then would have required an enormous amount of manpower and resources.

Not to mention all these mechanisms installed here—the manpower and resources needed would only be greater.

In that era, no matter how limited information was, a project this big in the Qinling couldn’t possibly have gone completely unnoticed.

"Well, it’s not that no one knew—those bastards do have a map in their hands, don’t they."

But if someone knew, then why didn’t word of it leak out over all these years?

Countless questions rose in Xia Liang’s heart, but he quickly shook his head. Rather than thinking about things that should be left to archaeologists, he groped around the secret room. Before long he found another door. This one didn’t have any mechanisms; it was made of wood, and after over a thousand years, it had already rotted away.

Stepping out of the secret room, Xia Liang’s field of vision suddenly opened up. A larger chamber appeared before him, and along its four sides there were eight passages.

Looking at these eight passages, Xia Liang frowned. Another damned multiple-choice question, and this time it was eight options. You could also say that behind each door was who knew how many hidden dangers.

"How am I supposed to choose?"

Xia Liang walked up to the eight passages and carefully examined them, but found that each passage was almost identical, with nothing distinctive about them. Just as he was about to try a little divination, the beam of his flashlight swept across the wall, and an image appeared before his eyes.

"This is..."

Xia Liang stared for a second, then hurriedly wiped the dust off the wall. Very soon three large characters appeared in front of him: Eight Trigrams Formation!

"It’s actually the Eight Trigrams Formation? Which means these eight passages in front of me very likely correspond to the life, harm, rest, block, scenery, death, fright, and open gates?"

The Eight Trigrams Formation was said to have been used by Zhuge Liang to repel enemies, a stone formation made from piled rocks. Its changes were myriad, and it could withstand an army of a hundred thousand.

If Zhuge Liang had really laid an Eight Trigrams Formation here, then if he didn’t find the life gate, going in was basically a death sentence.

Staring at the eight passages before him, Xia Liang sank into thought. He certainly knew about Qimen Dunjia.

He’d even read the Diagram of the Wind’s Eight Formations before, and the Eight Trigrams Formation that Zhuge Liang created was similar to it in many ways.

"The life gate belongs to earth and sits in the northeast Gen palace, but right now I can’t determine direction from here. How am I supposed to locate the life gate? Am I really going to have to do a divination?"