Nicky hurried to the airport to meet her three friends, Violet, Lauren and Ira, who are all her classmates in the Archaeology class in the Stanford University. They were heading to Xi’an of China to visit the Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum and the Terracotta Warriors.274Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNtYshYPY8e
Violet grumbled, “Why is the Emperor Qin being remembered for over two thousand years for his tyrannic reign? Why do we need to go to visit his Terracotta Warriors?”
“There must be a reason for this field trip as required by our professor. Maybe we will have unexpected findings there. Cheer up, Violet!” comforted Nicky.
After arriving at Xi’an, the girls spent two whole days visiting the Terracotta Warriors, during which Violet and Lauren kept on asking, “Why could this ruler spend the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor male villagers to construct the Terracotta Warriors just to guard his tomb? And all those poor families who have lost their husbands and fathers! So ridiculous!”
In the next early morning, they met an old and weak lady sitting on a wooden bench outside the mausoleum. The old lady whispered mysteriously to them, “Nice to meet you, girls. I am Qin Ping Yui. You are the only ones who are worthy of this map.” Before they had a chance to respond, the old lady handed them a yellow scroll tied with a red silk ribbon, and then limped out of sight quickly. She had left their mouths open in bewilderment.
“Look!” Lauren said as she unrolled the map. “It seems to be an ancient map showing a hidden treasure! The X marks the spot on the map, which is inside that weird forest behind the Terracotta Warriors.” The girls ran to the forest, which was very quiet and seemed to have no sign of life. As they walked around, they noticed that on one old tree, there was a marking same as the one on the back of the map. Nicky touched the tree. “It does not feel like wood. It is made of terracotta! Look! There is a small opening carved in the fake tree.” The girls crouched down and crawled through the small opening. Before they realized what was happening, they all fell into an extremely small and dark stone cave. Panicking, the girls bumped against the stone walls and screamed frantically. Suddenly, Ira said as she bumped into a wall, “This wall seems like a wooden door!” She pushed against the wall, and it slid open. They were finally free! Once they got out of the cave, they saw a faint gleam at the end of a tunnel dug out from stone. They all got very excited and shouted, “We must be getting closer to the treasure!” When they reached the end of the tunnel, they were so surprised to see a room with a huge chest inside. The girls gathered all their strengths and lifted the lid of the chest. They saw all kinds of different riches, including golden coins, jewelry, diamonds and jade…Next to the chest was a big closet. They opened the closet and found a mysterious stairway leading downwards, seemingly to the depths of the earth. Violet said, “Let’s go down! There should be something even more precious than all the riches we saw just now!” They continued to walk down the stairway until they saw a gigantic room exploded with happy colours and with all sorts of different patterns adorning the walls. There were many terracotta statues with nice colour coating. To their amazement, they were neither soldiers nor officials, but lovely children smiling and giggling. They were playing happily with old fashioned toys scattered everywhere. Nicky immediately recognized that amongst the statues, there was one of the Emperor Qin. Next to the Emperor was a statue of the kindest woman that they had ever seen, whom they reckoned to be the Queen. They could hardly imagine such a moment of the Qin family overwhelmed with love and happiness. They were all fascinated and enchanted.
“We had never read anything about the family life of the Emperor Qin in the history textbooks!” Lauren said.
“Why did the Emperor keep this part of his tomb hidden in such a mysterious place at a distance from the Terracotta Warriors that no one had ever discovered it?” Violet asked. “Why do the colours not flake and fade as those on other terracotta figures after exposing to air?”
Nicky said confidently, “It is because the Emperor cherished his family even more than all his riches, his army and his kingdom. He kept the terracotta statues of his family in the most secret place so that no one could ever find it and destroy it.”
Nodding her head, Ira said, “This colour coating will not fade as the Emperor Qin would like such happy moments to last eternally.”
When the girls were still fascinated with what they saw, they noticed a pedigree of the Emperor engraved on the stone wall, with the last name being “Qin Ping Yui (the last descendent of the Qin clan)”.
“Oh, it was the woman who passed us the treasure map! She said we are worthy of such priceless treasure – the great secret of the Emperor Qin!”, realized Lauren.274Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡew3is4rvPQ
“Yes, the secret is even the cruelest person in the world has love for his family!” Nicky echoed.
“The Terracotta Warriors are not to protect the Emperor Qin in his afterlife, but his happy moments with his family which he would like his descendants to know about! This is the unexpected finding of our field trip!” Violet smiled.
The girls remained silent and glanced at each other with a knowing smile. “We will keep this map a secret until we would find the next worthy people!”274Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNPxHnWVLzP
