The helicopter flew from the Cromwell Supply Station across the Taklamakan Desert, and the cabin was filled with silence. The sun beat down on the fuselage, making it scorching hot.

Lainey said discontentedly, “I think the most important task now is to return to the underground city.”

Zheng Rong impatiently interrupted, “You can just parachute out right here; it’s less than ten thousand kilometers to get back, Miss Lainey.”

In the scorching sun, Lance raised his head and reached for a button on the cabin roof, which let out a cool breeze, much to the relief of everyone. The helicopter lowered its altitude, and Li Ying turned his head to observe the ground through the thick observation window.

The cracked, yellow soil of the land below was scarred, winding with gray-black rivers. In his deep, magnetic voice, Li Ying spoke softly, “Zheng Rong, care to jump out with me? Let’s go home together.”

Zheng Rong replied coldly, “Attention, team members, we are currently flying over China's Gansu Province and will arrive at our destination in about two hours. Please be prepared.”

Hugo said, “Dusty weather,” as he glanced at the geographical coordinates. “The outdoor temperature is 33 degrees Celsius, so you’d better wear light clothing.”

Li Ying’s eyes were glued to the ground. Zheng Rong said, “Don’t bother looking; there are no memories left.”

Li Ying smiled faintly, “Dear, I’ve never brought you back to my home.”

The atmosphere in the cabin suddenly became ambiguous following Li Ying’s words. Lance raised his hand, seemingly intending to hit him, but eventually abandoned the thought.

“Your home is in Liangzhou?” Xiang Yu asked.

Li Ying nodded.

Hugo looked sympathetically out of the cabin, “There are no signs of human activity here anymore; it’s all barren land.”

On the ground, a few mechanical spiders crawled along the highway. The helicopter rose higher, its deafening engine noise carrying it eastward.

----------------------------------------

At the foot of Mount Li...

“Continental climate, hilly terrain.”

Hugo unfolded the map in his hand, glanced at it, and then rolled it back up. The team disembarked from the helicopter one after another, and Hugo said, “Oh, Dr. Zheng Rong, I suggest you bring the helicopter a bit closer.”

Zheng Rong responded, “Isn’t this a nice sightseeing trip?”

Hugo protested, “But if we walk from here, it will take at least half a day...”

Zheng Rong replied, “You can have Xiang Yu carry you. Not liking to walk is a bad habit for a geographer.”

The team members all laughed. Lance asked, “What’s the intention behind this?”

Zheng Rong shrugged, taking off his jacket to reveal a white shirt and suspenders. “The aim is to travel light. We start from here and follow Hugo. Hugo, navigate using the map.”

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Half a day later, Hugo led the way, still passionately explaining, “It's said that nearly half of ancient China’s historical sites are concentrated here...”

“It’s not just said,” Zheng Rong corrected. “It’s a fact. You’re standing on the site where King You of Zhou set the beacon fires to fool the feudal lords.”

The team stood on a massive platform, the walls stretching endlessly in both directions. Distant mountains rose and fell; from this vantage point, the plains unfolded in all their expanse. Lance set down the nuclear magnetic cannon, and the military helicopter became a mere black dot on the ground.

“The beacon tower,” Xiang Yu murmured, touching the wall, as if recalling something.

“Yes, the beacon tower and the Huaqing Palace were built here,” Zheng Rong explained. “Emperor Xuanzong of Tang even used leftover materials from building the Huaqing Palace to construct the Shi Weng Temple.”

Zheng Rong led the way, explaining further, “There’s also the Li Mountain Mother Temple commemorating the ancient legend of Nüwa repairing the heavens. If that temple hadn’t been destroyed, we might have had a chance to bathe in the Huaqing Pool...”

“Zheng Rong makes a better tour guide than Hugo,” Joseph laughed.

Lance nodded with a smile, and Xiang Yu asked, “Is the Huaqing Pool the one built by Emperor Xuanzong for his concubine?”

Zheng Rong replied, “More or less. Your history lessons are decent. Wait, what’s that?”

Zheng Rong climbed to a higher point and looked northwest, furrowing his brows.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asked, alarmed.

Lance and Xiang Yu quickly jumped onto the brick wall of the beacon tower. Lance exclaimed, “Hide quickly!”

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“No, they haven’t noticed us yet,” Zheng Rong stopped them.

Several mechanical insects were buzzing as they transported equipment to the edge of a mausoleum. Squinting, Xiang Yu said, “It's different from when I came here years ago.”

“It’s been renovated in later generations,” Zheng Rong said.

As they conversed, a giant mechanical centipede with over a thousand segments crawled forth, and hundreds of mechanical spiders scavengers hauled out broken stone fragments. The mechanical centipede propped up its forelimbs, iron pincers aiming at the entrance, and with a thunderous boom, fired a shot that echoed across the plain.

“Calling the captain! Calling the captain!” the pilot’s voice came over the communicator, “We heard an explosion.”

Lance pressed the communication button, “We heard it too. We’ve spotted the machines of the Mayan aliens. Don’t...”

“No,” Zheng Rong interrupted, “They’ve gone inside. Don’t let the helicopter come over. Stay put.”

Lance relayed the message verbatim and turned to Zheng Rong, “It’s too dangerous; there are at least a hundred of them.”

Zheng Rong glanced at Xiang Yu, “Do you know any other entrances?”

Xiang Yu understood and replied, “Back then, I led soldiers inside seeking Ying Zheng’s coffin, and there’s more than one entrance.”

Zheng Rong said, “Then lead us in. Start the action now.”

Xiang Yu leaped off the brick wall of the beacon tower, pulling Zheng Rong along with one arm. With a sideways step, he slid down the slope, followed closely by Lance and the others. Xiang Yu led the team around the outskirts of the Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum, finally finding a spot where a giant horseman sculpture stood. He observed it for a moment, then shouldered it and gave it a strong push.

The statue wobbled and then toppled over with a loud crash, leaving the surroundings in silence.

“Ultrasound test the passage,” Zheng Rong ordered. “Quickly.”

Xiang Yu said, “I vaguely remember. Let’s go down first.”

Lance went first, Xiang Yu held the rear, and Jin Pu’ai inserted a probe into the entrance of the tomb. Xiang Yu reached out from the tunnel, gripping the bottom of the toppled statue. With a shout of effort, he heaved it back up, restoring the entrance as it was.

----------------------------------------

The tunnel was pitch black. The glow from the laptop screen reflected off Jin Pu’ai’s face as the sound of the sonar probe beeped continuously. A linear map of the labyrinth slowly unfolded on the screen.

Lance shone his flashlight into the depths, dust swirling with every step they took.

“Can you explain what we’re doing now?” Lance asked. “Why are those mechanical warriors here as well? What’s the connection between what you’re looking for and the Mayan aliens?”

Zheng Rong replied, “I’m just a historian and mystic, not a detective. For that kind of question, you should ask Conan.”

Lance handed Xiang Yu a set of grenades and a strangely shaped short gun, explaining, “This is an electromagnetic gun. It emits a magnetic field that can temporarily paralyze the mechanical attackers. It’s suitable for close combat in the tunnels.”

A large map of the tomb appeared on Jin Pu’ai’s computer, with multiple dense dots indicating the locations of alien machines, which were slowly converging toward the central chamber.

Zheng Rong glanced at it and pointed to the central chamber, “We need to go here.”

“No, we should go here,” Xiang Yu countered, pointing to the farthest right corner of the tomb.

Zheng Rong frowned. Xiang Yu asked, “Are you seeking Ying Zheng’s coffin?”

After some thought, Zheng Rong replied, “Not to open the coffin—just to find the burial artifacts.”

Xiang Yu replied, “Then it must be here. The central chamber is just a false tomb.”

“When I led my soldiers to explore, we opened the Emperor’s coffin in the central hall and triggered a trap, resulting in nearly 400 casualties,” Xiang Yu said somberly. “Only later did we realize that the real location was elsewhere.”

Zheng Rong no longer hesitated, “We’ll listen to Xiang Yu. Let’s move. Everyone, stay alert.”

----------------------------------------

The tunnel was enveloped in darkness, with only the dim blue light from Jin Pu’ai’s laptop illuminating their path. The sonar mapping continued to unfold.

“This is just a small section,” Jin Pu’ai murmured. “Look, behind the central chamber, there’s even more space. But why can’t we detect it? Could it be that people thousands of years ago had mastered cloaking technology?”

Xiang Yu frowned at the screen for a moment, then shook his head.

“Just get the initial passage mapped out,” Zheng Rong said. “We’ll bypass the central chamber and avoid the mechanical killers by heading to the side chamber.” He pointed to a Y-shaped path on the map.

The tangled stairways and corridors were complex. Jin Pu’ai tapped a few keys and outlined a red path that skillfully bypassed the flashing dots, leading to a side room on the right of the tomb. A large block sat at the center of the path.

Lainey muttered, “I feel like it was a mistake to come in here so rashly.”

Zheng Rong replied, “Yes, the mistake was that you wore a miniskirt.”

Ignoring him, Lainey asked, “Dr. Hugo, how long will it take to walk through here? Shouldn’t someone explain?”

“The Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin has a total area of 56 million square meters, equivalent to four times the size of your Chinese Forbidden City,” Hugo said. “It is the world’s largest underground tomb, divided into the imperial tomb's outer area, inner area, and the underground palace, which alone covers 180,000 square meters...”

“Hugo,” Zheng Rong said, “keep your voice down. You’ll disturb...”

Joseph laughed, “Oh no, sound won’t alert the mechanical scavengers—they use infrared to detect.”

Zheng Rong said coldly, “...the dead within the tomb.”

Lainey screamed in fright.

Xiang Yu turned slightly and whispered, “Something is coming.”

At the end of the long, dark tunnel, Lance reached back to hold down Jin Pu’ai’s laptop screen, slowly closing it, and gently pressed the power button to turn it off.

“Shut down all electronic devices,” Lance said, “I hear it too.”

“Everyone, get behind me,” Lance commanded.

In the darkness, the sound of metal scraping against the walls reverberated; it seemed something was burrowing through the tunnel walls. Lance activated the infrared heat shielding device on his right wrist. A blue web of light spread like rippling water, blocking the tunnel wall like a barrier.

Zheng Rong remarked coldly, “So you stole this thing too. No wonder you didn’t protest for half a day when I decided to come down.”

A secure smile formed on Lance’s lips.

With a loud boom, part of the stone wall collapsed, and a mechanical mantis burrowed into the tunnel, extending a metal probe that emitted red light, scanning back and forth in the passage.

The scanning light paused at the blue barrier, then swung around a few times before moving on.

“It didn’t discover us?” Lainey asked.

Joseph said, “According to military research reports, they don’t have sound detectors, so no need to be so afraid.” Then he loudly sang toward the mechanical mantis, “Mary had a little lamb...”

“Shut up!” Zheng Rong said in displeasure. “Joseph, you’re off-key!”

The mechanical mantis, which had just withdrawn, began to crawl slowly forward into the tunnel again.

Its sensor pointed at the team, the red light stopping on Joseph’s forehead. A bright dot appeared on his forehead, and he looked quizzically at the mechanical killer.

The mechanical insect opened its steel pincers, a crackling sound emanating as it extended a rapidly spinning drill.