Two days later, Jerusalem.
A Jeep Wrangler drove out from downtown Jerusalem towards the east. Xia Lei’s passengers consisted of four people. Yelena, Anjum Khan, Sa’im and Tsukino Kyoko. The four Chinese Zodiac Team members sat in the back while Xia Lei drove at a steady pace down the freeway.
They were all able to drive but left it to Xia Lei as the man in question was extremely tight-lipped about their destination. Forget about an exact coordinate, the man hadn’t even let them learn their general direction. Under such circumstances, Xia Lei had no choice but to take the wheel.
His destination was the tomb where the AE capsules were first found. Unfortunately, he himself had no clue where it was. The only thing he could refer to was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
“Boss, where exactly are we heading to?” asked Sa’im.
“I have no idea either.” Xia Lei answered with a sigh. He glanced at the rear mirror, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre already far behind.
“Is there a name for the place?” Sa’im asked again.
Xia Lei shook his head.
Tsukino Kyoko chided, “Sa’im, quit asking. The boss will eventually get us to… Where?”
“Hahaha!” Anjum Khan burst into laughter.
“Quit laughing, you damned monkey. Your laughter hurts my ears,” hissed Tsukino Kyoko as she sent him a sharp glare.
Everyone in the car had donned an intricate human face mask. The guise was necessary in order to hide their trails from the Israeli Mossad and the informants planted around by the CIA.
The vehicle continued to venture forward until it arrived at the front of a barren hilltop. The road that winded around the curves of the terrain was cut off. There was a warning sign erected on the side of the road. The warning was printed in Hebrew and English, Disaster site ahead, please turn around.
“Ah, a dead end.” Sa’im suggested, “Boss, we should take another path.”
Xia Lei parked the vehicle and lifted a chin to study the hill through the window deep in thought. His mind pulled out snippets of the video. In that video, the archaeologist named George had stood on the top of a hill and looked back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the distance.
“Boss?” Sa’im interrupted.
It was only then that Xia Lei snapped back into reality. He abruptly manoeuvred the Jeep away from the asphalt road and made his way to the foot of the hill. The rocks along the way made its course bumpy, to which poor Yelena had a knock to her head against the window. Thankfully, the journey down only took them several minutes.
Xia Lei pushed the door open and instructed, “Come down, we need to get to the other side of the hill.”
The four members left the vehicle and retrieved their backpacks from the boot.
“Boss, where exactly are we heading to?” Tsukino Kyoko’s patience had finally worn thin.
Xia Lei turned around to study the direction of the church, then pointed at the hill body before him. “There is a pyramid within it. I’m trying to get there.”
“Woah!” Anjum Khan exclaimed exaggeratedly. “A pyramid? Within a hill? Boss, I’ve always believed your words to the letter. But even this has got me questioning you.”
Yelena and Sa’im weren’t convinced either. A pyramid hiding within a mountain was just too weird to the ears. Anyone with a normal mind wouldn’t believe it.
“Let’s go. You’ll find out when the time comes.” Xia Lei did not provide further explanation, reaching over for his gear and began his hike.
The four members trailed behind him along the hike, occasionally chatting as they went.
“What is the boss trying to achieve?” Sa’im hummed. “China is holding a funeral for him and yet he’s here at such a desolate place in search of some pyramid. I don’t understand what’s on his mind.”
“Yeah, this is too weird,” agreed Anjum Khan.
“There’s no need for assumptions.” Tsukino Kyoko reprimanded, “I’m sure the boss has his own reasons for doing this.”
“Kyoko… Do you like the boss?” Anjum Khan shot a hushed question.
Clang! A katana was unsheathed.
“Fine, let’s forget that even happened.” Anjum Khan shrugged coolly.
Xia Lei had heard them well but his mind had no capacity to be spared on trivial things like that. The man’s brain continued to feed him images of the video’s content. Other than comparing the terrain and angles, Xia Lei was also preoccupied with other thoughts.
The first destination Xia Changhe had appeared at after leaving Jingdu was Jerusalem. Had his father come to the same place? Another question lied in the form of the mysterious man with the cobra tattoo. Who the hell was he? The tattooed man was clearly the person who brought away the amber that contained the AE material. So why had it ended up in the AE Research Centre instead?
Xia Lei was eager for answers. He had his own analysis but things didn’t seem to match up.
One hour later, the five of them made it on top of the hill. Looking down from the top, all they could see was a barren hill that was mainly rocks and sand. Not a single patch of shrubbery was in sight. All around the hill were smaller valleys that had tough vegetation that could survive through droughts.
Xia Lei turned around once again and eyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This time he was certain that this was the hilltop the archaeologist, George, had captured in his video. The mysterious pyramid was just beneath his foot.
“Anjum Khan, stay here and set up a snipping point. Contact us immediately if anything arises,” said Xia Lei.
“Alright, no problem.” Anjum Khan set to work. The man had the urge to follow them in but this was Xia Lei’s orders.
Following that, Xia Lei pointed in another direction. “Yelena, you’ll guard that point. Contact us if anything happens.”
“Alright, leave that to me.” Yelena lugged her gear over to the designated spot that oversaw the valley.
“Kyoko, Sa’im, come with me,” instructed Xia Lei.
The two mentioned members nodded and followed Xia Lei downhill.
Letting a sniper and an alerted Yelena as security while having an assassin and intelligence officer with him in the hill body was a smart choice.
They spent about an hour to reach the peak but only used less than twenty minutes to get to the foot of the hill.
It didn’t take long for Xia Lei to pinpoint the position of the entrance. From George’s video, the entrance was about three metres in height and width. It had enough space to allow an off-road vehicle in. However, it was now sealed with a gigantic boulder.
At the very end of the video, the man with the cobra tattoo had barked out instructions to blast the entrance. His team had definitely kept their end of the promise, judging from the rocks scattered around the entrance. Their placement of explosives had been generous when they retreated. The aftermath had nearly torn half of the hill apart. If anyone had wished to get inside, they would probably require a heavy-duty construction machine. It would take them several days to achieve too.
Xia Lei activated his X-ray vision and peered inside. Sadly, his left eye had no way around the obstructing boulder placed at the entrance. The issue pulling his brows into a frown. He had severely underestimated the problem and he was certainly too impatient.
“Boss, is this it?” As expected, Sa’im was quick to read his expression.
Xia Lei nodded. “Yes, but we have no way to get inside.”
Sa’im hummed. “We’ll need some machines for this but this place is not too far from Jerusalem. Mossad probably has eyes planted in the area. If we do this at a larger scale, there’s a high chance that they’ll notice us.”
Tsukino Kyoko offered, “How about we wait till dark to execute it? Wouldn’t it be faster to blast it open?”
Sa’im shook his head. “No, the noise might travel to Jerusalem. The tremors would be picked up by the Earthquake Prevention Department too. It’s not feasible.”
Tsukino Kyoko threw hands. “This does not work, that does not work. What are we supposed to do then?”
As Tsukino Kyoko and Sa’im continued their debate, Xia Lei’s gaze fell on a boulder. Sharp lines were carved into the stone. Its patterns were erratic. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be Han characters hidden between the lines.
Xia Lei’s left eye ‘captured’ the messy lines and reorganized its patterns. It separated it, filtered through it, and pieced it together like a puzzle. It didn’t take long for his mind to register a pattern. Some of the lines were carved by stronger exertion and some of them were gentle grazes. There were stark pressure differences between those lines. Following that, he eliminated the stronger lines while retaining the faint lines. Two Han characters manifested in his mind. Left, Hundred.
Those words felt weirdly familiar to him.
“Left, hundred?” Xia Lei was perplexed. “What does that mean?”
Combined, it sounded like a typical Chinese name. However, judging it by the surface, it was a description of a direction and its distance. The wonders of the language had made it difficult to determine its message.
“Wait…” Something clicked in Xia Lei’s mind. “That’s father’s writing! No wonder… No wonder it felt so familiar!”
It was left behind by Xia Changhe. It definitely was not a name. It was a direction! The older man had been here prior and left a hint. To go left by one hundred metres!
Scribbling on the walls with a hard object was something almost everyone had an experience with during childhood. The doodles were rubbed away but the traces would remain. It had always been there but concealed.
“What will there be to the left by a hundred metres?” Xia Lei turned to his left. There was a sharp turning at about a hundred metres distance that had obstructed further viewing.
“Boss, looks like we gotta come up with another approach?” Sa’im said.
“Come with me.” Without warning, Xia Lei began walking to his left.
Sa’im turned to look at Tsukino Kyoko, then shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
Tsukino Kyoko returned him a dramatic eye roll. She had never spared her Iraqi suitor any face.