Awakening the Divine Spark

Even in the dream, watching his own memories, Lee felt like slapping himself. How stupid was he to not recognize the classic yin-yang symbol? So what if it was formed by a multitude of other smaller signs? It was the prime example of not seeing forest for the trees. Nevertheless, he quickly finished the copy. Then he copied a couple of pages with rows of more unique symbols, and they both departed. Smirnoff let very few people see his great-grandfather's documents and this was an opportunity Lee wasn't ready to let slip by. Meanwhile, Lisa had figured out their destination and it was pivotal to get there tonight.

The couple departed the moment Lee was done.

It was around midnight when Chen dropped them off in the mountains, less than five kilometers east of the Mogao caves. According to the notes they found on the table in the hotel, Smirnoff's men managed to discover another temple, and the entrance was hidden in one of the rocky ravines.

Contrary to Mogao caves which had the temple system with over seven hundred caves, filled with ancient Buddhist heritage from over one and a half thousand years ago, the new-found place supposedly had only one entrance.

It was odd, but that potentially indicated it was built during a different time period, and no matter if it was older or not, if it hid unique artifacts, they were surely priceless.

Neither Lee nor Lisa cared about the archaeological value of old crap or old, pretty artworks. It was only the price of those things that mattered. There were many rich snobs around the world who would love to pay enormous amounts of money to lay their fingers on unique findings, and the couple was happy to provide them with such.

The starry night was cold and the waxing moon barely threw enough light for them to not stumble on every other step. The rocky mountainous terrain was hardly suited for strolls at night, but they had no choice.

It was clear that in the morning Smirnoff's group was about to explore the place, and at that time they had to be out of there, hopefully with a few new items in their backpacks.