Chapter 5: Arrival and Easy conquest ( Part -1)

Alexander woke up to the feeling of being trapped in a very fit box. He could not feel any sort of power in his body. His body felt like a dried husk then it came to him that he was inhabiting the body of a mummy so he literally was a dried husk. He hoped that the Chinese emperor body would be revived soon as he would go mad if he remained like this for a long time. Even his sick hospitalised body in previous life was better than this. He strained his ears to listen outside to guess where he was but then felt like fool he was a mummy he cannot talk or see or listen. Alexander thought, " It seems that inhabiting a mummy is lowering my IQ, if I remain like this I will soon become brain dead." Alexander tried to meditate in order to retain his mental faculties, surprisingly being devoid of senses made it easier to meditate. Alexander thought about his invasion plan and started thinking about how will he deal with the protaganist of the story, the O'Connells and that immortal witch and her daughter.

While Alexander was rubbing his brain cells together to find a suitable conquest plan, he felt something seep through his body. His body absorbed the liquid and started to recover at a rapid pace. He was rebuilt from inside out to be more powerful and with the recovery of the body, he gained some of the martial prowess of the Chinese Emperor as even after his death his body remembered it's fighting instincts and the recovered brain give him some memories of the emperor related to fighting. Alexander theorised that all the memories of a person are within the soul but these memories leave some sort of imprint on the body due to repetitive actions. In this case, the emperor was fighting all his life so an imprint of his fighting style was left on his body which was gained by Alexander. Due to his king's bloodline, Alexander quickly learned it and adapted to it.

As Alexander was doing this, his body was recovering at a rapid pace. Soon, he felt that he would be able to break the statue, he was trapped in. As he broke free, he thought, " At last I broke out, I would have gone mad if I was trapped in there any longer." As Alexander observed his surroundings, a Chinese man

in military uniform came next to him and bowed and said in ancient Chinese, " I am your general, my emperor." Alexander simply noded and gestured him to hop on the chariot. While he was talking to the General Wang, a beautiful chinese girl sneaked up to him and tried to attack him with a large dagger, Alexander who had absorbed the fighting style of the emperor quickly stopped the attack and quickly snatched it away from the girl, only then he threw the girl away. Alexander remembered that in original plot the Chinese emperor did not took away the dagger and simply threw the girl away. He was not going to make the same mistake.

Alexander commanded the horses to move and as he was starting to leave, the old man who betrayed the O'Connells tried to board the chariot. Alexander thought that the old man could be of some use and let him come aboard. General Wang was puzzled by his actions. Alexander seeing his puzzlement said, " I see you are puzzled General Wang. We will talk about this after we lose these people."

Alexander led the chase play out as it played out in the original plot but with the addition of the old english man coming with them. Alexander did not let the gunfight happen on the chariot and simply detached the back part as soon as he got on the road. But still that girl and the son of O'Connells continued to chase him by taking lift with the older O'Connells duo. Alexander thought, " Now, I understand the pain of villains, the protagnists of the story are more relentless than leeches. " Alexander then ordered the general to take care of them and simply concentrated on controlling the horses. The good general was very eager to prove himself and tried to kill them but was unsuccessful. By luck one of the bullets shot by him, hit the tire of the vehicle making their relentless chase stop. Alexander let out a silent sigh of relief and thanked the heavens for small mercies.

General Wang bought him and the betraying old man as deemed by Alexander in his mind to his military camp. The soldiers were surprised to see a living terracotta statue but quickly composed themselves. Alexander marvelled at the discipline shown by the soldiers. General Wang bought Alexander to the command center and offered him a seat and stood at attention in front of him.

Alexander asked, " What is your name, general?"

General Wang replied, " Wang, my emperor."

Alexander simply nodded and thought as I am playing the role of the Chinese emperor, I should act like him and according to his life history. Alexander spoke to Wang, " I already had a general who betrayed me. You will have to prove your loyalty to me, only then will you become my general."

General Wang bowed and said, " I will prove my loyalty to you, my emperor."

Alexander, " Tell me about those people who were attacking me, general?"

General Wang, " The foreigners were the ambassadors who had come to our country with the purpose of returning the eye of Shangri-la to the museum of Hong Kong. There are called the O'Connells, my emperor. The other one was native girl but I do not understand why she wanted to kill you, my emperor."

Alexander brought forward the dagger taken from Lin, the witch's daughter and showed it to General Wang, " General Wang, you see this dagger. It is the dagger that I gifted to my dear friend and general, who was called Ming. But Ming betrayed me for a woman and I had him killed. I was very sad at his death as he was my trusted friend but traitors should always be killed. I think that that girl was a descendent of General Wing who wanted to take revenge. Bring me some hot coal so that I could have this dagger melted and become free from my bonds of friendship with General Ming."

General Wang was visibly moved by Alexander's made up sad tale and quickly ordered his men to bring hot coal and had the dagger melted in front of Alexander.

Alexander who was standing far away from

the melting dagger, was inwardly dancing with glee as the only weapon capable of killing him in this world was being destroyed right in front of him. Alexander was worried that the dagger was magical in nature and would not be easily destroyed but seeing the melting dagger, he found himself at ease and thought that may be the dagger was lethal only for the emperor and was quite ordinary in normal circumstances as it was easily broken during the final fight between the O'Connells and the emperor.

Alexander gestured for General Wang to come towards him and ordered him to bring the old man to him. When the old man was brought forward in front of him, he said, " General Wang, this old man does not understand our language. Can you talk with him? If you cannot do so then find someone else as I want to ask him some questions." Alexander inwardly thought about the irony of the moment as a 2000 years old mummy was calling a 70 years old human as an old man.

General Wang, " I can easily talk with him, my emperor."

Alexander nodded and said, " Ask him of what use can he be for us?"

General Wang turned towards the old man and said in English, " His majesty wants to know of what use you can be to him. "

The old man became angry and said, " I have helped you in reviving him and now that he has revived you are questioning my use. Don't forget that if I had not fooled Alex O'Connell in

discovering his tomb, this emperor of you would not be sitting here."

General Wang became angry and pointed his gun at the old man, " You old bastard! Address his majesty with respect. Sure, you were useful in bringing our emperor back to life but you were paid for this. You did not this for free and now that you are no longer of any further visible use, it is quite ordinary to question your usefulness. I am not the one who is asking about you, it is his majesty who is questioning your usefulness as you had done nothing noteworthy since his revival."

Alexander gestured for General Wang to stop and asked him what the old man was saying. While Alexander could fully understand the dialogue between them, he was testing General Wang's trustworthiness. General Wang truthfully told about the words said by them. Alexander was happy that at least General Wang was worthy of his trust and told him, " Tell him General Wang that I am grateful for his assistance but as he was paid for doing this, he had a duty to fulfill which he did. But I did not like the disrespect he had towards me in his voice. Tell him that if he cannot prove his usefulness in one hour to me then, he will die."

General Wang told the old man about Alexander's decision. The old man panicked, " You want to go to Shangri-la. I can take you there. I do not know the exact location of Shangri-la but I know that there is a golden stupa in Himalayas that can show the way to it."

General Wang replied, " I know about the stupa and can myself take his majesty to it. Moreover, the stupa only shows the way when a key entered in it and I have that key."

The old man, " Do you know the exact location of the stupa? How many hours will you waste in searching through the ancient texts? And according to what I know about the O'Connells they have already left or preparing to leave for that place."

General Wang quickly translated the words said by the old man. Alexander, " Do you know where these O'Connells could be? If you know then quickly send your soldiers to capture or delay them? Also take this man away and tell him that he has only one hour to fulfill his words."

General Wang, " Your majesty, they are staying with their relative in Hong Kong. I will go with my best soldiers to capture or delay them." General Wang bowed and left the room with the old man.

Alexander was berating himself for forgetting about the O'Connells and the Chinese girl called Lin but the joy of having the dagger destroyed and the subsequent conversation made him forget about them. It was due to the old man that he remembered about the issue of O'Connells. Alexander vowed to never let a momentary success from distracting him from his ultimate goals anymore. Alexander also noticed the changes to his personality after absorbing the residual memories of the emperor. He had become more calculating , cruel and ruthless. Alexander decided that these were good qualities for a king when dealing with enemies, traitors and greedy people but a king should be kind yet assertive with his subjects.

After an hour, the general returned with some minor injuries and an struggling O'Connell family and Lin the daughter of General Ming. Alexander was very surprised as by his estimates these people should have long left for the Himalayas but looks like his presence has changed the timeline. General Ming told him that he himself was surprised to find them at Jonathan's casino. Apparently Jonathan the physically weak guy that he is, lost his conciousness when their vehicle flipped and he hit the road hard. Alexander thanked his lucky stars that these people were now no longer a thorn in his side as he had thought a way to deal with them. He was not going to kill them as they were one of the most knowledgeble persons about the supernatural and mystic side of this world.

Lin was glaring daggers at Alexander and he thought what had he done to her to cause such hatred and then, he realised that he was in the body of the emperor and the emperor had her father killed and also tried to kill her mother. Lin spat out in anger, " You old fossil !! you will never succeed in your evil plans. Someone will definitely stop you."

Alexander did not reply to her ravings and ordered General Wang to knock them out. A butt of gun to their heads and all their hateful and angry gazes stopped bothering Alexander. Alexander inwardly sighed in relief as he had never been subjected to such gazes in his relatively short life. Alexander turned to General Wang, " General Wang, you have proven yourself to me. From now you are my general. Now we have to properly imprison themselves and I have just the right method to imprison them. Order your men to dig one hole at five different areas of our camp. Tie them up so securely that they cannot even move their fingers and then place them in the holes and fill them up such that only their heads are above the ground. Also, tie their mouths as I don't want to hear their voices till I return from awakening my army and make sure that they remain asleep for at least 3 days. On second thought also, cover their exposed heads with boxes with holes so that I don't have to see their faces. And appoint four soldiers to guard each of them."

General Wang, " This lowly servant asks forgiveness for questioning your order but why don't we just kill them?"

Alexander replied, " Like the old man, these people can be also of some use to us in the future. This is the reason that I am not killing them. Also, the time given to the old man has ended, bring him to me let's see what does he have for us?"

General Wang nodded his understanding and left the tent. A few minutes later, the old man along with Wang entered. The old man had an expression of relief and pointed at an old map and said, " This is the location of the golden stupa."

Alexander patted his back in appreciation as the decision of not killing the old man had given him so much positive results. Alexander told General Wang to tell the old man that he was satisfied with his efforts and he will be rewarded after his return. Hearing the words of General Wang, the old man let out a sigh mixed with happiness and relief and bowed towards Alexander.

Alexander turned towards General Wang, " Prepare your men, we are going towards the stupa as soon as possible. According to you, this old man betrayed the O'Connells for money, right?"

General Wang nodded, " Yes, your majesty. He indeed betrayed them for money."

Alexander said, " Then, give him the same treatment we have given to the rest of them. As he can betray his friends, he can betray us also." General Wang nodded his acceptance and before the old man can guess what was happening, he also joined the O'Connells in deep sleep.

After some time, Alexander and General Wang left with a small platoon of soldiers in a military helicopter for Himalayas. They landed on a military base made high up in the mountains for high altitude training and left on foot towards the stupa. All this general information was given to Alexander by General Wang who clearly wanted to impress him by showing off the militarypower of his home country. They made to the stupa after few hours of nonstop tracking and as Alexander placed the blue diamond on the top of stupa, it showed the way of reaching the Shangri-La which was situated high up in the mountains. Alexander ordered the soldiers to rest here for the night and to move out at the first day of light. The soldiers bowed in appreciation and set up the camp. Alexander allowed them to rest as they will be the ones who will fight the immortal witch tomorrow as frankly he did not want to take any chances of getting cursed again. Alexander did not care about them as they are not his subjects yet and even if he lost a few of them, he will take care of their families. Moreover, the gains outweigh the losses.

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