What was somewhat touching was that The Queen didn’t hesitate at all and followed right behind him, entering the secret chamber passage together. You have to understand, this was The Emperor’s treasure vault. How could there not be dangerous traps or the like? Perhaps every The Emperor throughout the ages knew the way to walk through, but for William Carter, he knew nothing about this place.

　　He felt along the walls, carefully examining every part of the passage, especially underfoot. He paused after every step, ready to react at the slightest sign of trouble. After walking just about ten meters, they reached the end of the passage smoothly and safely. There stood a large round bronze door, exquisitely and ingeniously crafted, with a ring of fierce bronze beast heads around the edge that looked truly intimidating.

　　At some point, William Carter’s hand had tightly grasped The Queen’s small hand. Soft and slightly cool, it felt extremely comfortable to hold. But this was not the time to think about such things. He carefully observed the bronze door, pondering and coming up with two possible ideas about the original designer’s intentions. According to what The Queen had said, the founding The Emperor wanted each generation of The Emperor to accumulate treasures for their descendants. So, when designing it, bloodline must have been taken into account. Of course, how exactly such a high-tech feat was achieved back then is unknown. In many ways, ancient people actually conducted deep research. However, the Han people had the bad habit of keeping good things to themselves. When they invented something useful, they liked to hide it, afraid others would find out. As a result, knowledge often wasn’t passed down or further developed.

　　There were two possible design approaches. One was to set it up so that all descendants could enter correctly, but if they made a mistake, the consequences would be dire. This method was very safe, but had a fatal flaw: no one can fully predict or control the future. If some The Emperor died suddenly before telling his descendants the secret, wouldn’t that cut off access to the treasure vault?

　　The second approach was to only consider whether a bloodline heir could enter. As long as the person had the right bloodline, they could come and go freely. But this was also unsafe, since a The Emperor usually had more than one bloodline heir. So, there must be a special item required as well. With the special item and the right bloodline, a descendant could enter. This guess was clearly the most reasonable.

　　After careful observation, he saw something in the center of the door that looked like a key cover. William Carter began to sweat on his forehead. If the design followed the second guess, fiddling with it might not be dangerous. But if he was wrong, and there were deadly traps like in those old movies...

　　Gritting his teeth, William Carter pried open the key cover, nervously looking around. But nothing happened. He breathed a sigh of relief and examined what was under the key cover. There was a strange, several-inch-deep indentation, likely meant for inserting a token. William Carter searched himself and found the piece hanging around his neck, something that looked like jade but wasn’t, extremely hard—let’s just call it a jade pendant. Its shape was very similar to the keyhole.

　　Seeing that he had the token, William Carter grew a bit bolder. He casually unfastened the jade pendant and turned to The Queen, saying, “Grace, you go out first. Opening the door is just too dangerous.”

　　“No, His Majesty.” The Queen looked at me deeply, took out a handkerchief, and wiped the sweat from my forehead. She said softly, “As The Queen, how could I let you, His Majesty, take such a risk alone at a time like this? If you’re uneasy, we can leave together.” Although she was also extremely nervous, she was handling it much better than William Carter; at least, her face was definitely not paler than mine.

　　“Let’s do it.” William Carter gritted his teeth, partly because he trusted his own deduction, and partly because being able to time travel and become The Emperor was already an incredible stroke of luck. He slowly placed the jade pendant deep into the slot.

　　Clack, clack, clack... A sound of metal scraping rang out, and the beast heads on the outer ring of the door began to slowly rotate.

　　……

Chapter 9: Tiger Fang Army

　　……

　　As the bronze beast heads rotated, the indentation in the center gradually rose. An exquisitely crafted, majestic dragon head slowly emerged, its mouth slightly open. A line of ancient bronze script appeared on the bronze door. After reading books on and off these past days, William Carter could now barely recognize most traditional characters. He saw that it read: “Those who enter without being of the Zhao royal bloodline shall die.”

　　There was another line of instructions: “Those of the Zhao royal bloodline, place your hand into the dragon’s mouth.”

　　Almost at the same time, at the entrance to the bedroom, a similar door appeared, closing off the passage.

　　William Carter felt both excited and nervous. Excited because his deduction seemed to be correct; nervous because if something went wrong during the process... or if this body’s bloodline wasn’t pure enough—who knew, after so many generations, what standard the founding ancestor used to judge?

　　But things had reached this point, and the way back was already blocked. There was no room for regret. Following the instructions, William Carter, feeling a bit uneasy, slowly raised his hand into the dragon’s mouth. Suddenly, his finger was pricked by something like a needle, and he instinctively pulled his hand back. Squeezing his finger, he saw the blood was bright red, and he felt a bit relieved.