Chapter 130: Chapter 127 Silk Road

The gloomy darkness of the cave, countless people stared in horror at the white skeleton, while Bi Fang squatted in front of the bones, carefully examining the clothes on the body.

From top to bottom, from left to right, from the style to the color, and then combining the characteristics of each era and the unique climatic attire, Bi Fang propped up his chin, deep in thought.

He understood.

There are limits to the human brain.

The clothes on the skeleton were a dark mess – he could discern nothing from them.

The underground cave was too damp, and a thick layer of calcification had formed on the skeleton’s clothing, almost solidifying into a mass akin to stone. Even the skull, looking further back, seemed to have merged with the ground. “Normally, a human body will become a skeleton within one to two months after death, and the bones will start to become brittle after a few decades,”

Bi Fang picked up a piece of crushed bone and gave it a twist.

Crack.

The already small bone fragment broke into pieces the size of fingernails, and with a press of the fingers, it crumbled even further, like cookie crumbs.

“But for the bones to become this brittle, it would take at least a hundred years!”

A hundred years!

That long?

The span of time was so great that many audience members felt they must have heard wrongly.

[Whoa! Is this an ancient person?]

[Did people enter this cave hundreds of years ago?]

[How did they die? Starved to death here?]

[This is a major archaeological site!]

Bi Fang stood up again and took out a torch from his bag, lighting it and continuing deeper into the riverbed, probably less than a hundred meters.

An even more astonishing scene presented itself.

Yet another skeleton!

More than one person died here?

Bi Fang pointed the torch downwards, and this skeleton was basically similar to the previous one, except that the limbs had already separated from the torso, with the hand bones lying three meters away, and the leg bones had vanished completely!

“They were probably eaten,” Bi Fang said with a grave expression.

After these people died, they were likely eaten by Tiktaalik that crawled ashore; otherwise, there was no explaining why the bones were scattered so fragmentarily.

Of course, there might be even more sinister endings, but this place was not insurmountable. With so many fish in the river, such an event was unlikely to happen.

As soon as the second skeleton appeared, Shuiyou in the live broadcast felt even more the chilling horror of this place.

A chill to the bone.

Why did these people die here, what drove them into this cave? Did they leave any clues behind?

“Could you… not squeeze so tightly? I can… hardly breathe,” on the couch, Ning Zhiyun had Bao Xuan’s neck in a tight grasp, choking her until her eyes rolled back.

Even the king of mixed martial arts didn’t have a chokehold as perfect as hers! “Ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ning Zhiyun quickly let go, apologizing repeatedly, “I didn’t mean to, it was just too scary!”

Bao Xuan empathized as she had also been startled by the sudden appearance of the skeleton, nodding and saying, “This guy is pretty amazing. He dares to go into places like this, and without a sound, too. I was wondering where his money came from before. I never expected that he was live streaming!” “I wonder if he can escape this time,” Ning Zhiyun said, full of concern. She had a good impression of Bi Fang.

The big bag of cat food Bi Fang brought last time hadn’t even been finished yet; they were all very expensive brands that made their three cats picky, not even looking twice at their previous food.

The result was embarking on such a dangerous task, it was literally risking their lives for money.

If the police hadn’t told them, Ning Zhiyun felt she would still be in the dark. She had never expected that the two shifty-looking guys would actually turn out not to be bad guys; it was a relief they didn’t come back to settle scores with them, otherwise Bao Xuan would have had to apologize.

inside the dormitory building, Wu Gang and Gu Qingyuan were also very puzzled at this moment.

“Teacher, why are there so many bodies here?”

Gu Qingyuan shook his head, this touched upon his areas of ignorance; as a biologist, how could he know about this sort of thing?

He waved his hand and picked up the phone beside him, scrolling through the contacts on his mobile phone: “Hold on, I’ll give Professor Song a call.”

“The one who teaches history, Professor Song?” Wu Gang was startled. While waiting for the call to connect, Gu Qingyuan nodded to Wu Gang, “Yes, he should know a bit more after seeing this video.”

Watching Gu Qingyuan make the call, Wu Gang couldn’t stop clicking his tongue in wonder, “That’s odd, even Professor Song is called in.” Professor Song from the history department and Professor Gu from the biology department, they were both considered hidden dragons and crouching phoenixes—cough cough, two pearls of their school.

When senior leaders came to inspect, they would respectfully address them as Professor Gu and Professor Song. He never expected that today both would be alarmed by a single live broadcast!

Soon, an audience member named Song Tingning entered the live stream, but unfortunately, with so many people in the stream, no one noticed.

After a while, Song Yanning on the other end of the phone shook his head; he too was powerless, “There are too few clues. Without clothing or written characters, I can’t determine who these people are.”

The clothing in the cave had all congealed into a mass of rock; it was impossible to discern any style or features, and there were no written records.

Just as Gu Qingyuan was extremely disappointed, Song Yanning suddenly changed his tone, “However, I think it is very likely that this was a commercial caravan from the Song dynasty.”

“Oh? How so?” With a plot twist in sight, Gu Qingyuan asked curiously.

“The Qaidam Basin is a lowland surrounded by mountains and is located in the middle of the western region; its location is very clever.”

Song Yanning paused, then began to organize his thoughts in his mind and, drawing on his years of historical expertise, made a plausible guess.

“Before the two Song dynasties, Qaidam was merely ordinary territory under the rule of the Central Plains dynasties or a stage for various other minority nations, such as the Qiang, to take turns ruling. But this place is only vast deserts and salt marshes, not good pastures, so it’s always been sparsely populated since ancient times.”

“However, this changed during the confrontations between the Northern Song dynasty and Western Xia. During the standoff with Western Xia, they nearly occupied the entire Hexi Corridor. The Northern Song launched five wars to try to regain the old Hexi lands but were not successful.”

“The Hexi region has always been a hub connecting the Central Plains to the western regions. Unable to recapture it despite several expeditions, the Northern Song couldn’t pass through the territory to connect with the kingdoms of the western regions, something Western Xia also wouldn’t allow.” “This became a thorn in the side of the Great Song Empire, forcing the Song to seek other routes to the western regions.”

“Speak plainly, stop beating around the bush and just say the conclusion. I don’t understand, nor do I care, do you think I’m one of your students?” Gu Qingyuan grew impatient, all this stuff about two Songs, Western Xia, five wars —it was giving him a headache just listening.

Song Yanning:

He suppressed the surge of frustration in his forehead and sped up his speech. “This place has always been sparsely populated; people simply can’t survive here. Apart from warfare, the only ones who would pass through here are the caravans, and these people are obviously only wearing ordinary clothes, without armor or swords, so they couldn’t be military. And it was only during the Song dynasty that caravans passed through here, as this was part of the Silk Road.”

“Then why not the Yuan Dynasty or the Ming Dynasty?” Gu Qingyuan was quite confused.

“The Yuan and Ming dynasties had much larger territories than the Song, and when they travelled to the western regions, they would take the Hexi Corridor. So, probability and timing-wise, the Song people have the greatest likelihood!” Gu Qingyuan nodded, acknowledging the information. If it had been put this way earlier, he would have understood without all the beating around the bush with not a bit of useful information.

“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

“Hey, hey, wait, don’t hang up yet!” Song Yanning immediately grew anxious when he heard that.

So after I’ve helped out, there’s not even a token of appreciation?

One should not be too ‘Gu Qingyuan’!