Granpa Shu gave a gasp and said, "The ancient King of Dian crowned the twelve families of these ranis, royal brothers, and fellow courtiers as the Twelve Treasure-guardian Families accoding to the twelve zodiac signs. My family stands for the Mouse, and, Xiaolongnv, your family is the Dragon Family."

Long Xi curiously asked, "And the Twelve Treasure-guardian Families refer to the families of Mouse, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. Is that right?"

"Princess" said, "Exactly. I guess you find it strange that I dress up in this way, right? But I have to. My late great grandfather, my grandfather's grandfather, was the last prince of the Ming Dynasty. He left a behest that all his progeny should never forget their own country and should always dress in the costumes of Ming Dynasty. That is why I am always wearing them except when on the way of escape."

Quick-tempered Niu Xi found her off the point again and said rushedly, "In Z Country, the earliest record of the Kingdom of Dian was found in Records of the Historian- Collected Biographies of the Southwest Tribes. From the late period of the Warring States to the early period of the Western Han Dynasty, the ancient Kingdom of Dina reached its peak. During the middle period of the Western Han Dynasty, it began to decline. Due to the continuous decline of its national power, the ancient Kingdom of Dian was replaced by the county system of the Central Plains Dynasty during the time from the late period of Western Han Dynasty to the early period of Eastern Han Dynasty, coming to an end of its life eventually."

Long Xi said, "I once watched a doc.u.mentary called 'the Lost Ancient King of Dian' so I know that some archaeologists excavated the Imperial Seal of Dian and a great deal of exquisite bronzeware in the late twentieth century, which thus attracted more attention poured to the ancient Kingdom of Dian that was once extremely brilliant."

Granpa Shu nodded and said, "I have heard about it before. In 109 BC, the second year of Yuanfeng in Western Han Dynasty, Martial Emperor of Han sent troops to attack Dian. The King of Dian could not resist the invasion and then surrendered and asked the Martial Emperor of Han to send officials to govern in Dian. Martial Emperor of Han bestowed upon the King of Dian with the Imperial Seal of Dian which was made completely out of gold and let him continue to reign over his country. Later on, the King of Dian made some artisans to model another one after the seal with pure gold. But one of the characters was changed. What my family guard is the one that had been changed. There is a clue of the treasure on it. Let me show it to you."

Long Xi could not help to feel a little excited— she could see the Imperial Seal of Dian so closely!

Niu Xi led them to the stone wall in the east of the third cave in cave. Behind a prominent stone on the wall, there was a hidden golden recession which seemingly shaped in a half of the tiger tally as what Long Xi once saw in TV.

Niu Xi took a silver necklace off himself.

Long Xi caught sight of the golden pendant going with the silver necklace. It was in the shape of a tiger. She asked curiously, "Is this a half of the golden tiger tally?"

Niu Xi said with a smile, "You are indeed the descendant of Long Futian who was reputed as 'the mastermind of the ancient Kingdom of Dian'. Very well spotted! This is the last tiger tally that was used by the ancient King of Dian. The left half is in my hand and the right is on the wall. It was bestowed on my ancestor by the king because my ancestor was a local keeper, deploying forces and establis.h.i.+ng himself in the war."

Long Xi said, "There seems to be inscriptions on it."

Niu Xi handed the golden tiger tally to her and said with a smile, "You can see it yourselves. Most of the inscriptions are in small seal script."

Long Xi took it over and viewed it closely. It was about 5 cm high, 10 cm long and 7 mm thick with a groove on the back and a small hole on the neck. The image of the tiger was a strong one leaping with its mouth widely open. The golden-inlaid inscriptions ran nine lines with 40 characters in total, mostly written in small seal script.

Long Xi said with a smile, "The tiger tallies I have seen are commonly in shape of tiger lying or standing. The leaping ones are quite rare!"

She scrutinized it for a while and barely recognized the few characters in the beginning. It seemingly read, "Tally of the forces, the right with King, the left with Niu."

Niu Xi said, "My grandfather told me that it meant the right half of the tiger tally was in the hand of the King of Dian and that the left half was in the hand of the General Niu Song. Only when the half of the king and the half of Niu were combined together, could a troop with above 50 soldier be mobilized. But in case of emergency, Niu could kindle the war fire and did not need to find the match. General Niu Song was my ancestor."

As he put the the half in his hand onto the wall, making it combined with the other half, the stone wall rised smoothly. It turned out that it was a stone door and there was another room hidden in the cave in cave.

Zhu Junyao said to Long Xi, "The operating mechanism of the stone wall was made and modified by Feng Zihao according to Lu Ban Ancient Ma.n.u.scripts. If someone doesn't have the tally and pull down the wall forcibly, it will trigger off a poisonous-water-spraying reaction. We are not blowing our own trumpet, but Hao is quite clever!"

Since Feng Zihao entered the cave, he had never spoken to anyone, walking alone, and seemingly kept himself away from the others. But as he heard Zhu Junyao's words, his ears turned faintly red. He glanced at Long Xi and turned around.

Mo Kun frowned. "Why does the 'princess' always throw in a good word for Feng Zihao in front of Long Xi? And, Feng Zihao, he behaves so unnaturally!" He thought.

He made eye contact with Xiaolu. Xiaolu shrugged his shoulders, blinking, and whispered to Mo Kun, "I have a sense of foreboding."

Mo Kun nodded to show that he felt the same.

As they walked in, they found a stone table with jade pots and cups on it, a few stone chairs and two stone beds in this room.

A large iron locker was pushed against the stone wall. It looked like a wooden cabinet in a Chinese Medicine Clinic with visually at least 200 drawers. It would take a long time to find through them one by one.

All the drawers were locked and each drawer had a clingling iron tag, labelled the name of a kind of Chinese medicine.

Zhu Junyao took out another silver key and opened the drawer with the name "Atractylodes". She took a boxy iron box and a rectangular iron box out of the drawer.

These two iron boxes were locked again. Granpa Shu fished out a bunch of keys from his pocket and groped for the two keys with his fingers quickly, handing the two keys to Niu Xi.

Niu Xi used one of them to open the boxy one. He put on white gloves and then held out the golden seal with his hands carefully to let them have a look.

Zhu Junyao explained to them as Niu Xi held it, "The iron boxes were designed by Hao, too. Without the proper key, if being opened forcibly by some other means, poisonous needles will be shot out from the base."

Long Xi awed in amazement.

There was a golden squared seal with a snake-shaped ring on it. There were four characters engraved as the seal script— Seal of King Dian.

Granpa Shu said, "The seal weighs 90 grams, the area of the print is 2.4 square centimeters and the general height of the seal is 2 cm. The snake on the seal raises its head with popped eyes and its scaled back is displayed in blood."

Niu Xi opened the other box in the same way. He took a scroll out of it and unfolded it on the table.

Zhu Junyao said with a smile, "Take a look at the character 'King', or, '王' in Chinese. The seal on this scroll is the real Imperial Seal of Dian— it has the proper '王' with three rightward strokes and one downward stroke. The second right stroke should be closer to the upper one, as how the ancient character was written. If you get the second one right in the middle, it will have a different p.r.o.nounciation as '玉' rather than the real '王'."

Niu Xi couldn't help but say, "My pricess, you are off the point again. We are not focusing on the problem about '玉' or '王', okay? Little Xi, take a look at the character '王' of the seal in Granpa Shu's hand. This is the one changed according to the will of the King of Dian. These three rightdown strokes wind their way like the river, right? Don't you think they look quite like the three strokes on your lock of longevity? And the downward stroke seems to connect the three rivers together. This is one of the clues!"

Long Xi said, "Yes, they look quite similar. Then the clues should be hidden in the river. But Z Country has such vast territory and various things. We have many rivers and streams. Which one is it on earth?"

Xiaolu suddenly clapped his hands and said with surprise, "I get it! It should be the three paralled rivers! I once travelled to Yunnan with my friends and viewed the three paralleled rivers myself. The three rivers run paralled by do not join into one. It is really unique natural geographical scenery!"

Granpa Shu smiled and nodded, saying, "It is true that our country has some geniuses in each generation and the junior ones are even more outstanding! My father has been delving into it for a lifelong time. He also believes that what the golden seal suggested referred to the three paralleled rivers area in Yunnan. Apart from these, he told me to keep the golden seal carefully because it should be the key to the door of treasure, as the tiger tally could function as a key to open the stone door."

Mo Kun, knowing little about the history and geographical knowledge of Z Country, stood beside Long Xi and could not get the point clearly at all. He felt that he could not help them at all and that he seemed so useless!

Huh? He suddenly remembered that he had copied a geography textbook of Z Country into his own high intelligent chip. He used his search engines and found it immediately.

Therefore, he said methodically, "Oh, I remember that. The three paralleled rivers is Jinsha River, Lancang River and Nu River. They originate in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and run paralleled together in Yunnan for more than 170 kilometers, covering 1.7 million hectares in total. It is also difficult to find something in such an area!"

Zhu Junyao said with a smile, "It seems that our handsome and graceful youth, Mr. Mo, also has a wide range of knowledge! Come and have a look at the clue I guard, then. Granpa Shu is the descendant of the Mouse Family and I am from— do not laugh — the Boar Family. What I guard is a silk painting."

She conjured up another key and opened the drawer labelled "Angelica".

There was another small rectangular iron box in the drawer.

Granpa Shu grabbed a key again and handed it to Niu Xi.

Niu Xi opened the box with the key and there was another scroll in it. He put on gloves again and unfolded it on the table. It was a long colored silk painting.

Long Xi also knew something about Chinese painting. She scrutinized it and found there were eight parts making up the whole silk painting.

The first part was a man dressed in ancient costumes, holding a seed. There was a cave already digged in front of him. The second part was the man filling the cave. The third part was a young seedling sprouting out from the dirt.