"We need to go to Brigadier General Ding’s villa two days early to check the place and greet the brothers in charge of security, to make sure the positions are arranged properly," Mo Xixi said, as she was driving and anxiously glanced at Xia You in the passenger seat several times.
Xia You’s complexion has been poor these days, and she seems distracted at work. This morning, while drafting the guest list, she even wrote several characters incorrectly, but luckily Lieutenant Colonel Wuyue has not been in the public relations department recently, so she managed to muddle through.
Mo Xixi attributed Xia You’s series of abnormal behaviors to Ren Minghang, and to cheer Xia You up, Mo Xixi reluctantly offered to visit the city’s museum to see the Hammurabi Code.
(Little Eight, you’ve been traveling day and night on Military Road, and you have to work during the day as well. It’s been three days in a row, and if you keep this up, you won’t be able to hold on.) Little Eight was also scared by Zero’s desperate actions. For Little Eight, Klaao’s identity, although prominent, and completing her escort mission could bring a high reward, it wasn’t worth risking her life to rush to Rome City.
After entering Military Road, Zero started to travel overnight and finally arrived in Rome City at six in the morning. Luckily, no rumors of Klaao’s execution or suicide had come out of the city recently. However, it was certain that Klaao must be locked up somewhere in Rome Palace.
Zero hadn’t had time to find a local temple yet, but the good news was that as soon as she entered Rome City, she received messages from two people, one was from Xiao Nan’s 500, and the other was from Yijie who had been missing for a while.
Yijie’s letter was very simple, just reporting his safety, but he did not say where he was in Rome City, nor did he invite Zero to join him for a mission.
500’s message only included an address and time, probably to arrange a meeting with her. As it was almost dawn, Zero had to get off the Military Road.
After three days and nights of traveling, Xia You was indeed exhausted. She fell asleep on the way to the city museum, and did not wake up until they had arrived at the museum’s entrance.
The banner with "Ancient Babylon Chinese Artifacts Exhibition" was hung at the entrance of the city museum. Since it was not the weekend, there were not many people, and only a few staff members inside were reminding visitors not to take photos.
Among the famously ancient civilizations of history, Ancient Babylon might be said to be the most mysterious. As everyone knows, Ancient Babylon City was nurtured by the civilization of the Two River Valley. However, Ancient Babylon was the only one among such ancient civilizations that did not directly preserve its national site, unlike Egypt, China, and India. The traces of civilization left for future generations to examine were even scarcer. The Hammurabi Code on display was the world’s earliest recorded codified law code, and it attracted a certain number of adults and elders to come and watch.
Before entering the Military Road system, Xia You had only seen fragments of the Hammurabi Code in textbooks. She remembered it was made of basalt pillars, so she had found similar materials for Yijie to carve. That day, when she saw the news, although it was just through the TV screen, she noticed significant discrepancies from the code in her textbooks. This sparked her interest to visit the museum to check the actual artifact.
Due to the ancient nature of the artifacts, each one had to avoid direct exposure to bright light, and the humidity and temperature inside the museum had to be controlled. It was winter now, and the weather in Bazhou was dry, so the central air conditioning maintained the indoor temperature at around twenty-five degrees. The Legal Code Stone Pillar, which differed quite a bit from Xia You’s memory, was encased in a bell-shaped glass cabinet.
The black stone body, its surface smoothed by time, and chisel mark after chisel mark.
"It’s not right," Xia You’s body and face pressed against the glass cabinet, "Xixi, come have a look, this law code is different from the one we saw in our textbooks when we were kids."
"What’s wrong with it, it’s just a stone," Mo Xixi wasn’t keen to come in the first place, and faced with a room full of cold antiques, her eyelids began to droop.
Xia You wanted to call the museum staff but turned her head and coincidentally saw two familiar faces. She did not expect to bump into Ren Minghang and the long-missed Zhang Fangxiao here.
Zhang Fangxiao from Longzhi Academy also did not expect that her insistent pleading with her father to introduce her to the Ren Family would be successful. Just yesterday, she got her wish and arranged today’s meeting with Ren Minghang, though the meeting place and content were not exactly to her liking.