DLERB -Chapter 114 I Know This Stuff Well!

The fires in the royal court burned through the entire night.

By dawn, the air was filled with the scorched aroma of roasted meat and the sickly sweetness of blood.

“We’re rich! We’re rich!”

Wang Li kicked open a chest filled with gold artifacts, sending gold ingots scattering across the ground.

He grabbed a handful and stuffed them into the arms of a Qin soldier.

“Take them! They’re all yours!”

“Glory to the General!”

“Glory to the Ninth Young Master!”

The soldiers erupted into thunderous cheers.

A figure was dragged over by two soldiers and thrown before Ying Ziye’s horse.

It was Tuman.

The once-mighty ruler of the steppe was now bound tightly with ropes like a wriggling maggot, covered in mud and blood.

Wang Li walked over and kicked him hard in the chest.

“Old bastard, wake up!”

Tuman let out a painful groan and slowly opened his eyes.

Wang Li crouched down, picked up a golden wine cup from the ground, and waved it before him.

“Recognize this?”

“You Xiongnu stole our Central Plains treasures. Now they’re finally being returned to their rightful owners!”

Tuman’s lips trembled as he looked around at the excited Qin soldiers and the mountain-like piles of treasure.

Suddenly, he crawled toward Ying Ziye on hands and knees.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

He slammed his forehead against the ground desperately.

“Heavenly God… Heavenly God, spare me!”

“I… I am only a mortal! I failed to recognize Mount Tai and offended the Heavenly God!”

“Gold, women, cattle, sheep… all of it is yours! I only beg the Heavenly God to spare my life!”

Fusu stood nearby, silently watching the scene.

One hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

His face remained expressionless.

Ying Ziye sat atop his horse without even lowering his head to look at Tuman.

His gaze passed over the crowd toward the ruined altar in the center of the royal court.

“Let’s go.”

He lightly tugged the reins.

“Let’s take a look over there.”

Wang Li froze briefly.

“Ninth Young Master, what about all this treasure…”

“Reward it.”

Ying Ziye dropped those two words and rode off immediately.

Wang Li looked at his departing figure, then at the gold and silver scattered everywhere, before bursting into loud laughter.

“You hear that?! The Ninth Young Master says it all belongs to the brothers!”

“Anything we can’t carry, bury it on the spot! We’ll come back for it later!”

With a wave of his hand, he shouted:

“Follow the Ninth Young Master!”

…

The altar had already become a field of ruins.

Massive stones and charred wooden beams lay scattered in disorder.

Several soldiers dragged a trembling old man out from beneath a collapsed felt tent.

The old man wore robes completely different from the other Xiongnu, embroidered with strange wolf-head patterns.

“He’s their Great Shaman!” a surrendered Xiongnu shouted.

Wang Li grabbed the Great Shaman and dragged him before Ying Ziye.

“Old thing, what treasures are hidden here? Talk!”

The Great Shaman shook like a leaf in the autumn wind.

He raised his head and glanced at Ying Ziye.

That childish face looked more terrifying to him than the fiercest demon of the steppe.

With a thud, he dropped to his knees.

Stretching out a withered finger, he pointed toward a massive crack in the center of the altar.

“Devil… devil’s blood…”

His voice was hoarse and filled with terror.

“You must not touch it!”

“That is the source of the Wolf God’s wrath! The origin of Heaven’s punishment!”

“If anyone touches it, a curse will descend upon the grasslands! Everyone will die!”

The surrounding Qin soldiers exchanged uneasy glances.

A few timid ones instinctively took two steps backward.

Wang Li kicked the Great Shaman in the back.

“Bullshit! Spread any more demonic nonsense and I’ll chop your head off right now!”

But Ying Ziye had already dismounted.

He walked to the crack.

Below it was a pitch-black opening.

A strange, slightly pungent smell drifted out from within.

“Ninth Young Master, be careful! It could be a trap!” Wang Li warned.

Ying Ziye said nothing.

He took a torch from one of the soldiers.

Then, alone, he walked toward the dark opening.

Every soldier stared at him.

Watched that tiny figure disappear into the darkness without the slightest hesitation.

Wang Li felt his face burning with shame.

“Damn it!”

He cursed, snatching up a torch as well.

“Everyone, follow me! Protect the Ninth Young Master!”

Fusu silently drew his sword and followed closely behind Ying Ziye.

The underground cellar was not large.

But it was deep.

Water seeped from the walls, and the air was cold and damp.

At the end of the cellar, there were no mountains of gold or silver treasures as they had imagined.

Only a dozen black ceramic jars, each about half a man’s height, neatly arranged upon a stone platform.

“That’s it?”

Wang Li stepped forward and kicked one of the jars.

“What kind of useless junk is this?”

With disgust, he yanked the wooden stopper from one jar.

“Urgh!”

A thick, pungent stench instantly filled the entire cellar.

“What the hell is this?! It smells worse than a horse stable left uncleaned for ten years!”

Covering his nose, Wang Li staggered backward repeatedly.

Several soldiers also began gagging.

But Ying Ziye walked forward instead.

He took the ceramic jar from Wang Li’s hands.

Holding it beneath his nose, he sniffed lightly.

Then he ordered a soldier to fetch a bowl of water from outside.

Tilting the jar, he poured out some black, sticky liquid onto a stone slab on the floor.

Ying Ziye crouched down.

Using the edge of the torch, he lightly touched the puddle of black liquid.

Whoosh—!

A mass of orange-yellow flames suddenly erupted upward.

The fire shot more than a meter high, billowing thick black smoke.

The entire cellar was instantly illuminated.

And swept by a scorching wave of heat.

“Water! Quick, pour water on it!”

Wang Li shouted in alarm.

The soldier holding the bowl panicked and splashed the water onto the flames.

Then something bizarre happened.

The water not only failed to extinguish the fire—

the flames exploded even larger with a boom.

The fire seemed alive, flowing and burning across the stone slab.

“Ahhh!”

The soldiers’ faces turned deathly pale as they screamed and stumbled backward.

“H-Heavenly fire!”

Wang Li stared at the flames that refused to die no matter how much water touched them, his voice trembling.

“This is heavenly fire!”

At the cave entrance, the Great Shaman who had been dragged inside happened to witness the scene as well.

His terrified eyes widened like bronze bells.

He pointed shakily at the flames, mouth opening and closing as though trying to speak.

But not a single word came out.

The next second—

his eyes rolled back.

With a shrill scream, he collapsed stiffly onto the ground, frightened unconscious on the spot.

Ying Ziye stood before the blazing “heavenly fire.”

He stretched out a hand, feeling the scorching heat.

Petroleum.

This is my damn fierce-fire oil!

While everyone else was terrified out of their minds by this “divine miracle,”

Ying Ziye’s attention was drawn to something in the corner of the cellar.

It was a long cylindrical tube wrapped in cowhide, carefully stored inside a dry stone niche.

He walked over and picked up the leather tube.

Opened it.

And pulled out a yellowed roll of sheepskin.

Slowly, he unfolded it.

It was a map.

The drawing style was crude, but the coastline, mountains, and rivers of Great Qin could still be clearly recognized.

Wang Li leaned over as well, looking utterly confused.

“Ninth Young Master, what kind of nonsense drawing is this?”

Ying Ziye did not answer.

His finger traced across the familiar territories on the map.

Then continued westward.

Far to the west, beyond the sea—

there was another vast landmass he had never seen before.

On it were symbols and writing he could not understand.

But the outline of one peninsula looked incomparably familiar to him.

It was shaped like a boot.

The hand gripping the sheepskin scroll suddenly tightened.