“This Secret History Archive has quite a backstory.”
“These historians are truly worthy of respect.”
“From the Great Yin dynasty onward, there have been more than a dozen kingdoms and dynasties. The recent ones lasted at least three or four thousand years, and the older ones are rumored to have lasted a million years, with emperors sitting on the throne for tens of thousands of years at a stretch.”
“So many dynasties, so many emperors, so many major and minor events—whether clear or confusing—all were recorded by the historians’ pen, painstakingly preserved to this day. That is how the Secret History Archive came to be.”
Inside the Imperial City, between the palace walls of the inner court, Lu Sun followed an elderly eunuch clad in purple robes and jade belt, strolling slowly along the narrow path.
Earlier, at the grand assembly held in the Fuyao Hall, Lu Sun had made a modest personal request to Yin Yuan—he wanted to visit the Secret History Archive to find a few usable martial arts manuals, intending to cultivate his own household’s personal guard units.
It was a reasonable request, and Yin Yuan agreed immediately, with even the civil officials showing little objection.
Martial arts manuals—martial arts… had withered away so much.
Now, with the revival of civil education, that is truly the foundation of the court!
The palace walls were heavily guarded by the Forbidden Army.
Along the path, every few hundred paces stood a thick city gate.
Passing nine such gates in succession, a vast open plaza finally appeared before Lu Sun.
At the center stood an enormous stone hall.
The plaza stretched over three li in length and width, paved entirely with water-polished blue stones—no flowers, no grass, not a single tree or shrub in sight.
The stone hall at the center was perfectly square, looking like a giant brick resting on the ground.
Constructed entirely of huge stones, it lacked beauty but was solid and heavy.
Through the long passage of time, the hall—about two li wide and long, and towering over ten zhang high—was covered in a thick layer of dark blue-black patina.
Beneath this weathered surface, Lu Sun noticed magnificent patterns embossed on the stone walls, like glorious dragons twisting and curling, densely covering the entire hall like ivy creeping up a mountain cliff.
Staring at these intricate designs, Lu Sun’s spiritual power flickered sharply, even the image of the Three-Eyed Divine Seer in his mind suddenly brightened for no reason.
“These patterns?” Lu Sun asked the elderly eunuch.
The eunuch stood with his hands behind his back, furrowing his brow as he looked at the majestic stone hall. “No one truly knows what these patterns mean. But some scholars who serve in the palace say these patterns might be legendary, possessing extraordinary, divine power.”
“But after so many years, except for the occasional lightning storm, during deep nights when those patterns sometimes flicker with a flash of light, nothing else happens here.”
The eunuch sighed deeply. “I’ve served in the Secret History Archive for ninety years straight. Scholars speak grandly about talismans, seals, transcending the mortal into the divine—tsk. Me? I’ve never seen the like.”
Lu Sun gazed long at the patterns that seemed to grow naturally from the massive stones of the hall’s outer walls, resembling naturally formed veins and textures, then smiled. “Don’t say that. We’ve even encountered female ghosts. Who knows what fortune the future might hold?”
The eunuch clicked his tongue a few times and nodded thoughtfully. “True, true, you’ve seen female ghosts. What if... Heh heh, Lord Tianyang, please, please—last night’s events, the court has ordered, no extensive discussion in the palace.”
The eunuch gave Lu Sun a reminder.
Consort Qi, Green Sparrow, and other sinister presences had already been swept away by Lu Sun, but this still weighed heavily on the Empress Dowager’s mind.
Discussing female ghosts openly in the palace—aren’t you just rubbing salt in the wound?
Lu Sun smiled and nodded.
Following the older eunuch step by step, he entered the stone hall, entering the Secret History Archive.
“This Secret History Archive is only this big on the surface. The stone hall here has nine floors. It stores all kinds of ordinary and common records from the Nine Provinces of Great Yin. For example, the original manuscripts of the ‘Geographical Records of the Nine Provinces’ from all past dynasties are kept here,” the eunuch explained.
Inside the hall was a long corridor.
The eunuch pushed open thick stone archways, and Lu Sun saw huge spaces filled with rows of dense, gloomy wooden bookshelves, neatly arranged and piled with various kinds of archive scrolls and rare texts.
These documents were inscribed on stone tablets, wooden plates, clay tablets, animal skins, even beast bones and turtle shells—various strange materials.
Paper and such were only a tiny fraction.
When the stone archways opened, an earthy fragrant scent drifted out.
The eunuch asked Lu Sun to carefully observe.
After a while, he waved his hand to have several young eunuchs close the stone archways. “The scent inside here is deliberate. It comes from a formula left by the oldest known royal dynasty of the Sacred Divine Dynasty from eighteen generations ago.”
“The formula is simple: dozens of common fragrant herbs and medicinal materials blended together to create the ‘Ultimate Moth-Repelling Incense.’ Placing it in a study room can extend the lifespan of fragile paper and bamboo slips hundreds of times over.”
“This formula has been passed down unbroken from generation to generation since the Sacred Divine Dynasty. Many things have been lost, but the ‘Ultimate Moth-Repelling Incense’ remains unique, surviving all these years.”
The eunuch led Lu Sun onward. “Lord Tianyang, after your visit, copy down the incense formula. Your family is bound to prosper and spread branches in the future. A great clan must own its own book collection, its own library pavilion, and archival buildings. To properly preserve books, you must have the ‘Ultimate Moth-Repelling Incense.’ Don’t you agree?”
Lu Sun smiled and cupped his hands respectfully. “You speak wisely. I’ll certainly copy a set for the family archives. Hm, if there is ready-made incense, you can sell me a few baskets.”
The eunuch’s eyes crinkled with laughter. “Fair enough, fair enough. We’re all family here. I’ll sell it at cost.”
Walking further down the corridor, passing through three heavy gates, they came to a downward winding staircase.
The real core of the Secret History Archive—the truly precious texts and secret files that ordinary people are forbidden to see—resided underground.
The spiral stone stairs led them downward step by step.
Every ten zhang or so, there was a small round platform guarded by armored warriors and eunuchs.
On the platforms were three to five tightly shut stone doors, behind which no one knew what lay.
“This underground part of the Secret History Archive is immense,” the eunuch explained as they descended. “Since the founding of Great Yin, it has never been expanded or renovated—it is simply too large.”
“Layer upon layer of archive halls. The deeper floors, I won’t say much about. But just the upper nine underground floors total twice the size of the royal city above.”
“Tsk, no one knows how the craftsmen back then built such an enormous underground complex. It must have taken countless generations of repairs and additions to reach this scale.”
Lu Sun followed the eunuch downward all the way.
There were no torches below, but along the walls, bronze candle holders shaped like mountains were spaced at intervals, each holding a palm-sized luminous pearl emitting a blue-white light that illuminated the surroundings.
Somewhere there must be air ducts, for as Lu Sun descended deeper by dozens of zhang, no stuffiness or suffocating air was felt, only a cool breeze brushing his face.
After a while, the eunuch led Lu Sun to a round platform.
On this platform were three stone doors.
Two of them were open.
In the glow of the luminous pearls, Lu Sun could see spacious underground halls filled with rows upon rows of bookshelves.
Many men wearing green robes and small hats, some elderly, some young, busily moved among the densely packed shelves.
Occasionally, voices sounded—some raspy and weathered, some clear and shrill—exclaiming in argument.
“Ridiculous! Tales of strange powers and monsters appear all throughout ancient texts. We thought they were nonsense… but turns out, they’re true?”
“Oh dear, you want us to find remedies for exterminating ghosts and evil spirits from these piles of dusty old papers? We are learned scholars, starving for wisdom, not powerful sorcerers who banish demons!”
“Everyone, everyone, don’t you find this fascinating? Our joy as scholars is to seek all things unknown in this world. Demons, ghosts, fox spirits, huhu, this old man’s already fired up!”
“Fired up,” indeed!
Lu Sun stood on tiptoe to see who this eccentric old gentleman was, but there were too many shelves, tall and dense—he couldn’t tell who was speaking.
The eunuch lowered his voice and chuckled softly. “Ah, ever since that incident in the palace, one always leads to another. When people have no far-sighted plans, they soon have immediate troubles. So, the Empress Dowager issued an edict. The officials of the Imperial Secretariat and the palace scholars have come to the Secret History Archive to search the secret records, looking for a good countermeasure.”
Lu Sun nodded.
That was a wise response indeed.
The Empress Dowager and the emperor would never be foolish enough to think that once Consort Qi and Green Sparrow were eliminated, all would be peaceful in the realm.
The eunuch smiled and waved his hand.
Some young eunuchs pushed open the third stone door, still tightly shut.
“The secret pavilions in those two chambers hold records of the supernatural and bizarre. This pavilion here holds various martial arts manuals. Lord Tianyang, the martial arts manuals in this pavilion can be practiced, but some manuals in the deeper pavilions cannot be cultivated at all.”
Lu Sun glanced at the eunuch and said solemnly, “Thank you for your guidance. I have the clan’s signature martial arts from Jingyang Lu family. I don’t need others; I just need some external martial arts styles to train my personal guards.”
Pausing, he smiled, “But those manuals you said can’t be practiced—can you bring me a few of those to study as reference?”
The eunuch smiled kindly. “Family matters—there’s nothing impossible. Since you want to study, I’ll bring you samples from the near ancient, middle ancient, and far ancient archives.”
“I’ve served in the Secret History Archive all my life. When bored, I like to flip through these as well.”
“The near ancient manuals are one thing, but among the middle and far ancient techniques, there are some that say you must ‘condense the thunder of the nine heavens, transform lightning into divine liquid,’ ‘bathe your sinews and bones in this thunder liquid’ to forge a ‘Sacred Thunder Body.’”
“How… incredible.” The eunuch shook his head in amazement, leading Lu Sun into the secret pavilion they had just opened.
(End of Chapter)