Chapter 459: Excavating Treasures
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
Honestly, Zhang Tie didn't think that he could find anything valuable in that debris; however, after disguising himself as a pioneer for so long, Zhang Tie indeed wanted to find something valuable here out of curiosity.
It's good if he could find something; if not, it's acceptable. Actually, the course of excavating treasures was more stimulative to Zhang Tie.
Zhang Tie remembered that Donder always sold items in terms of piles. He usually put one or two valuable goods inside the pile of items. By doing this, he could always obtain an unexpectedly better marketing result. Donder said this indicated the pleasure of excavating treasures.
You might not be interested in it if an item was directly put in front of you; however, if you found it in a hidden place or get it by chance, that kind of happiness might leave you with a very deep impression.
The profession of pioneer was thrilling. That was also why so many people would like to join in this action. They could experience the sense of stimulation brought by excavating treasures in the ruins. In the course, you might only find something that was a little valuable or you might become rich over night. Because of such an uncertainty, it became so attractive.
Someone had also considered to explore that ruins these days. However, it would take one person at least 1 month to clean it up while most people's personal supplies could not stand that long. If too many people joined, it would be not economical as that was only a small building between two skyscrapers. They were not sure whether they could find something inside it or not. Although some wanted to have a try but the others didn't want to risk too much. Therefore, there were different opinions between the pioneers.
What's more was that they could discover many valuable items without having to spend so much efforts. Additionally, as the bank vaults of this city had not been discovered yet, it was too silly for them to spend so much efforts in excavating a short building being buried in the ruins without knowing the potential benefits. Based on the pioneers' experience, bank vaults would never be in such a short building.
Later on, if they really could not gain any benefits from other places, some pioneers might work together to try this place. However, at this moment, nobody else would like to try here except for Zhang Tie.
Watching Zhang Tie excavating over there, Sam and Gerri stood still. They also wanted to give Zhang Tie a hand; however, it was completely out of their ability to move the huge blocks.
Additionally, Zhang Tie moved too fast. If they stood their, they would even slow Zhang Tie's working efficiency.
"Peh...peh...peh..." Zhang Tie spat out the dust while a lump of dust fell on his head. Meanwhile, he constantly patted off the dust from his hair, waiting for the cave to recover tranquility.
Dozens of seconds later, it finally recovered tranquility.
The wall with a hole was on the 2nd floor of the ruined building. All the floors above floor 2 had collapsed and turned into ruins. As a result, the building remains was completely buried by the debris of the floors above other wastes. Although floor 1 and floor 2 were also partially destroyed but almost half of its rooms were not completely covered. The items inside the rooms were well preserved.
Watching Zhang Tie opening the hole on one wall of this building in such a rude and barbarous pattern, all the surrounding pioneers were drawn one step forward by the great indescribable allure inside it.
"What? Do you want to pick off peaches at this moment?" Zhang Tie sneered at those pioneers as he inserted that 500-600 kg flange beam into the ruins in front of him like inserting a wood pile.
As a result, the 3-m long flange beam instantly entered the ground for about 1 m, causing a sound of "Puff".
Realizing the terrifying strength of Zhang Tie, all the pioneers were shocked as they stopped their footsteps.
Zhang Tie glanced at those pioneers' faces with a casual look. Many of the pioneers had stayed here for a long time. Therefore, they didn't know about Zhang Tie. Zhang Tie knew these pioneers clearly. In front of powerful person, they would be docile; while in front of weak ones, they might be as fierce as jackals and wolves.
"Sam and Gerri, come here. Let's take a look inside!" after frightening the others, Zhang Tie waved his hands towards Sam and Gerri.
Sam and Gerri then walked towards him with widely opened eyes. Although they had heard about Zhang Tie's amazing performance on the day when the allied forces occupied the relics canyon, they had not witnessed it themselves. Therefore, they were dubious about that more or less. On the way here, as they had not encountered anything special, they didn't have a chance to witness Zhang Tie's performance until now.
In their opinions, an enormous project which could not be completed in 4-5 hours was completed by Zhang Tie right in front of them. The moment they recalled Zhang Tie's amazing tyrannosaur-like strength, Gerri and Sam felt like dreaming, "Is this Peter? Is he the guy who lived in the sam hatch with me on Polar Light? But I didn't know that he had such a terrifying strength at that moment. Was he always hiding his real fighting strength..."
"What...what's your level on earth?"
When Gerri finally opened his mouth, Zhang Tie rolled his eyes. Zhang Tie had not imagined that his performance stimulated the "innocent souls" of Sam and Gerri so much.
"Is that important?" Zhang Tie glanced at those onlookers as he didn't want to be too outstanding here. Actually even in the allied forces, very less people knew his real level. Previously, O'Laura and Setton thought he was LV 9; however, since the death game, they were not sure about Zhang Tie's real level either. Many people considered Zhang Tie as a 5-star strong fighter. Some even thought Zhang Tie was a fighting master.
Zhang Tie's reply caused Sam and Gerri to exchange glances with each other before waving heads.
"We'll talk about it later. Now let's take a look inside!" Zhang Tie revealed a smile.
"According to the regulations of the pioneers, as you have opened it yourself, Gerri and I are not entitled to enter this place until you finish your discovery inside!" Sam replied honestly.
"What motherf*cking regulation? We're here together. Therefore I allow you to go in together with me. Nothing to worry about!"
"Fine, we will take a look inside in case you leave something!" Gerri was cleverer than Sam.
"Good, if there's something inside, each of you can select one. If there's nothing inside, we will just take it as a free travel!" Zhang Tie answered.
Hearing Zhang Tie's words, Sam and Gerri both nodded.
After glancing at those excited onlookers, Zhang Tie didn't say anything; instead, he just walked inside the hole with his fluorite lamp.
As that hole was about 1 m in height, they had to lower their bodies to access to it.
Under the green light of fluorite lamps, everything inside was coated with a weird green color. It was very disordered inside the room, being covered with dust all over. With the help of his dark vision, Zhang Tie could see everything inside the room. Besides some chairs and a broken desk, he saw nothing else. A small part of the big sharp block penetrated through the solid load-bearing floor, exposing some steel bars.
From the building material, Zhang Tie could imagine what happened here when the Catastrophe arrived. Thankfully, the quality of this building was not bad. Although the upper floors collapsed, the bottom two floors still remained complete.
With a sound of "Kacha", Zhang Tie lowered his head and found he broke the hands of a skeleton who was lying on the floor, facing the sky under the thick dust.
If he was timid, he might have been crying in fear. However, finding that skeleton was almost like an animal fossil, Zhang Tie looked as calm as before.
"Wait a second..." the moment Zhang Tie wanted to leave, he found Gerri walking towards him. Gerri started to fumble on the ground carefully.
After fumbling over the two hands of the skeleton for a short while, Gerri revealed a big smile as he took up a ring. He then cleaned the ring adroitly on his clothes and weighed it in his hand in front of his eyes.
"Platinum ring, with diamonds, ha...ha...good luck!" after saying this, Gerri passed the ring to Zhang Tie.
Before the Catastrophe, such jewelry was neither average nor precious. The same jewelry is worth 3 times in this age. Diamond was the most expensive jewelry before the Catastrophe; however, in this age, as humans intensify their exploration and development of the underground world, they discover a lot of diamonds, causing the sharp decline of diamond value. As a result, diamond was only an average jewelry in this age.
"Take it first!" Zhang Tie smiled. He felt very happy although this ring was only worth about 100 gold coins.
After searching over this room carefully, they did not find anything valuable; therefore, they came to another room.
Only a metal framework was left on the door which connected the two rooms, leaving glass fragments over the floor.
Being similar to the last room, this room was also very concise in arrangement. With fewer furniture, it looked more like a senior business reception center or a conference room. Some paintings were hanging over the wall. However, they were already heavily degenerated like the sofas. Some ornaments and art works were scattering over the floor, most of them had been destroyed, except for some special metal art works.
"Peter, come over here..." Sam exclaimed with a remarkable sense of excitement.
Zhang Tie walked over there and found Sam was holding a 33 cm high pitch-black vase and was wiping it with his sleeves. As he accelerated his wiping speed, Sam became more thrilled.
"It seems...like a eastern good..." Sam forcefully swallowed his saliva before passing it to Gerri, "Take a look..."
"This pattern might be from the Eastern Continent. But I've not encountered such a precious eastern good before. Therefore..." Gerri revealed a solemn look, "Additionally, this vase is made of brass. The colors of the decorative patterns looked weird. They were not drawn on it; instead, they were inlaid on it. But why it's so plain? It seems like a special manufacturing process".
"Let me see..." Zhang Tie took the vase and started to wipe it with his sleeves forcefully like Sam. Gradually, the purple body became clearer. They saw a very vivid flower, above which was a Chinese character "福" which was coated with silver.
"This is indeed an art work from Eastern Continent..." Zhang Tie confirmed.
"How do you know that?"
"This is a Chinese character, which means luck, wealth and success. It's a propitious Chinese symbol!"
Hearing Zhang Tie's explanation, Gerri and Sam both became thrilled.
"What?"
"We're rich!"
"This is just an art work. It should not be more valuable than that art work that you took out last time!" Zhang Tie said with a doubtful look.
"Don't you know that all the artworks from Eastern Chinese before the Catastrophe are very valuable. If it is a genuine one, many rich Chinese people would like to buy them at high prices. This is a best-seller in cultural relics market and auction houses for sure." Gerri told Zhang Tie while taking a deep breath.
"Let's search carefully, if we can search more items like this, each of you can take one..."
There were 6 more rooms on the 2nd floor. After searching over all the rooms, they only got 3 brass vases like that one in total. They found them in the same room. The 3 vases had same patterns. The only difference was the 3 Chinese characters, "福" which means luck, "禄" which meant wealth and "寿" which meant longevity. They should come from the whole set...
Zhang Tie was already very happy with the discovery of Chinese cultural relics before the Catastrophe here, even though they didn't know the value of these items. This was the pleasure through excavating treasures.
After searching over the 2nd floor, the 3 people came downstairs to the 1st floor. It looked like a lobby on the 1st floor. It was much better that upstairs. Besides some dust, they saw few wastes. Rows of counters were placed in the four directions of the lobby. After about 900 years, those counters still remained unchanged and tightly closed.
Those counters reminded Zhang Tie of Donder's grocery. To be honest, after thousands of years, the counters and showcases which were used to display commodities in human stores had not experienced any change essentially.
Zhang Tie walked to the nearest counter and wiped off the thick dust over the counter. The moment he caught sight of those items inside the counter, Zhang Tie widely opened his mouth...
When he caught sight of the 3 vases above stairs which were featured by Chinese cultures, Zhang Tie had already realized that the boss might be a Chinese or Chinese items seller.
Actually, Zhang Tie was right...