Liang En had some vague guesses about the sudden visit from these two police officers, but he remained very calm and answered their questions according to the plan he had previously formulated.
It was clear that these two officers were merely following orders from their superiors, so after hearing Liang En's standard responses, they simply made a brief note and then left the room.
Before leaving, the officers routinely informed Liang En not to leave the premises before 10 AM the next day. They mentioned that if no further notice was given, the investigation would be considered closed, and then they departed.
"It seems we are being watched, though there aren’t many members of the Thule Society in this area." Liang En quickly typed these words on his phone and handed it to Jeanne, who had been pretending to sleep.
"The other party has enough influence to mobilize some local official forces, but it’s limited to minor, marginal effects. So, it doesn’t pose much of a threat to us."
"Obviously, those people are likely aware of the attack, so they are probably deploying personnel to confirm whether the Golden Dawn members they know participated in it."
"But this means the other side's influence here is greater than we previously thought, so we need to reconsider our next steps," Jeanne said, sitting up in bed.
"I have a feeling that the exposure of these people might also be part of the Thule Society's plan," Liang En said after frowning and thinking for a while.
"Although the Thule Society is a secretive organization, they can still assemble several elite squads, especially in a place where they have close ties."
"If they truly wanted to act secretly, they could easily move people quickly after the operation to the hands of the real elites, instead of letting their peripheral members handle everything."
"So, I think this is likely a trap set for the Golden Dawn, and the previous actions were probably just the outer layer of a cover and misdirection. Everything else might still be running as usual on their side."
"Your guess is plausible, but we have no evidence," Jeanne said, shaking her head with some frustration. "However, even without evidence, we should still make some preparations in this regard."
"Of course, it would be best if we could contact other members of our organization who have come here tomorrow. If we can confirm their situation, I think our next steps will be much simpler."
Early the next morning, Liang En and his team reached out to the Golden Dawn members they knew had already entered the country, and they found out that the other side's search was mainly focused on those who were in the southern regions at the time.
Moreover, the other party’s search was precise—every member of the Golden Dawn within their target range had been visited, though the reasons varied and were never the same.
"It seems the problem lies with customs," Liang En quickly deduced after making a round of calls. "We all used our real identities, so if someone at customs had an agenda, it would be easy for them to discover our presence."
This deduction was also supported by the fact that a certain Golden Dawn member’s temporarily hired security team was the only group within that range that hadn’t been discovered.
"So, what should we do now?" Jeanne asked, looking at Liang En. "Although we have ways to avoid surveillance, we still need to appear in front of the monitoring personnel most of the time, and in that case, many of our actions—"
"You don’t need to worry about that, because we won’t need to operate in secret anymore," Liang En said, pointing to the small package they had brought back the previous day. "I believe these artifacts can help us."
Undoubtedly, there was a high probability that these artifacts were part of a trap set by the Thule Society, but for Liang En, this trap could also be turned into an advantage.
So, after returning the day before, he had reached out to his contacts to seek permission, and perhaps due to his strong connections, they had received a relatively positive response privately today.
In fact, because of Liang En's world-renowned reputation in the field of archaeology, they were even willing to collaborate with him directly before confirming the situation and to undertake this joint excavation with Peshawar University.
Of course, the Pakistani side was also aware of their own shortcomings in this area, so they allowed Liang En to suggest a few partners to expedite the excavation work.
Clearly, Liang En’s previous achievements had filled the Pakistani authorities with confidence, which is why they were so eager to collaborate on a large scale with him.
Liang En naturally agreed to their request because it was impossible for him and Jeanne to handle a large-scale excavation on their own, so it was best to have official support.
As for the collaborators, they came from China. Due to Liang En's good relations with domestic institutions in China and the friendly relations between the two countries, an archaeological team from several Chinese universities arrived in Larkana, where Liang En and his team were located, four days later.
However, by this time, Liang En and his team were not staying in a hotel or guesthouse; they chose to stay in a military camp near the city. This was mainly because there were some dangerous terrorist activities in the area.
Although terrorist attacks were rare, no one wanted a top-tier archaeologist like Liang En to be in danger in such a place, so for safety reasons, they had been staying in the military camp for nearly a week.
However, this didn’t mean their life in the camp was boring, as Peshawar University had already sent people over the next day, and the two sides began discussing the excavation.
For the discussion, Liang En brought out some broken pottery shards with almost no patterns, taken from the small pouch they had retrieved earlier, as he was concerned that the seals might attract the attention of the Thule Society.
Even so, these pottery shards still caught the scholars’ eyes, as they quickly recognized them as relics from the Harappan culture.
But the problem was that all the known Harappan sites were in the north, so when they heard that Liang En had found these shards nearby, they immediately took it seriously.
Though firing pottery is a relatively simple task, and even small villages can produce it, these shards were clearly mass-produced using a pottery wheel.
In ancient times, only large settlements had the capacity to produce such vessels, and only in ancient cities could so many shards be found.
"—So I believe the area we will excavate next is here." As the Chinese archaeological team entered the room, they saw Liang En standing in front of a map, beginning to organize the upcoming activities.
"This is a small mound on the banks of the Indus River. From the perspective of ancient people, it’s an ideal location for defense and access to water. Most importantly, this area has the highest concentration of pottery shards." After speaking, Liang En pointed to a small spot on the map.
"So if I’m not mistaken, the core of that ancient site lies on this mound, which is why I’ve chosen this spot as our excavation site."
The place Liang En pointed to was a small village, and next to the dot representing the village was its name—Mohenjo-daro.
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